NewzIntel.com

Category: Latin America

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Is a ‘nanny state’ a price worth paying to keep the NHS free? The evidence shows it could work

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University

    Nanny says no. SOK Studio/Shutterstock

    The UK government’s new ten-year-plan to transform the NHS includes a focus on preventing ill health rather than treating illness. But to what extent should people depend on the state to help them make healthy decisions?

    Some think any kind of nudge in that direction is symptomatic of a “nanny state” overstepping its boundaries. Others might argue that nanny knows best, or that governments should do whatever works best both economically and to keep people healthy.

    Either way, if a country like the UK wants to keep providing free (or at least tax-payer funded) and universal healthcare, rather than charging every patient for their specific needs, its choices are limited.

    Take obesity for example, which is estimated to cost the NHS around £12.6 billion a year – more than 5% of its total budget.

    In 2022, 28.7% of adults in the UK had obesity, compared to 10.9% in France, 14.3% in Denmark and 22% in Belgium. (In the US, it was 42.8%.)

    Government analysis claims that if everyone who is overweight reduced their calorie intake by just 216 calories a day – roughly equivalent to a single 500ml bottle of fizzy drink – obesity would be halved, and so would the associated costs. It also estimates that cutting the calorie count of a daily diet by just 50 calories would lift 340,000 children and 2 million adults out of obesity.

    But how should it persuade people to cut those calories? Happy to ignore accusations of being a nanny state, the UK government is now working with food retailers and manufacturers to encourage people to make healthier choices.

    Under the plan, products will be made with less sugar and fat. And the data that supermarkets own about your shopping habits (through online shopping and loyalty cards) will be used to nudge you towards more fruits and vegetables and fewer bags of crisps. Businesses that fail to induce changes in customer consumption will face financial penalties.

    And perhaps this is more effective than personal responsibility. Recent alternative policies which relied on individual action like following diets using the NHS weight loss app have not worked.

    The UK has also invested hundred of millions of pounds trying to encourage people to burn calories by walking and cycling more. But the country remains reluctant to reduce its car-dependence, with its cities poorly served by public transport. Walking and cycling are just not that popular.

    So perhaps state intervention is the only policy British people are willing to accept. Understandably, they want the freedom to make their own choices when it comes to exercise, eating and drinking, but they also want to keep the NHS free. Only 7% would support charging people for their use of healthcare.

    Fat tax

    Another option is to tax the consumption of fat and sugar to pay for the cost it imposes on others. In 2016, the UK was among the first countries to introduce a tax on sugary drinks. Since then, the total amount of sugar in British soft drinks has decreased by 46%, because changing the recipes means the producers pay less tax.

    Research shows that the tax also deters younger people from buying too much sugar. However, it does little to reduce consumption among those who have the most sugar-intensive diets, just like alcohol taxes do nothing to convince the most addicted alcoholics to drink less.

    There is also a valid argument that taxing sugar and fat is unfair. Unhealthy food is a much larger proportion of the budget of poorer households than it is for wealthier one, making it a regressive tax.

    Love for the NHS.
    John Gomez/Shutterstock

    Yet policies nudging people towards healthy choices often have a good track record. A study of food labelling policies which placed warning labels on high sugar and high calorie foods in Chile showed that people bought less of them.

    To stay below the threshold, firms then changed their recipes, just like with the tax. In that case, the warnings led to people consuming 11.5% less sugar and 2.8% less fat.

    While paternalistic interventions can be annoying or upsetting, pretending obesity is purely an individual choice is misleading. Obesity starts in childhood, and can destroy future choices. Children with obesity are more likely to be bullied, and don’t do as well at school.

    The state regularly bans harmful products without controversy. Even if you wanted to, you could not insulate your house with asbestos, and the UK is currently busy banning the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2009.

    With NHS waiting lists remaining at record highs, and a struggling economy, risk of the country becoming a nanny state by trying to encourage healthier food might actually be a pretty minor one.

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

    – ref. Is a ‘nanny state’ a price worth paying to keep the NHS free? The evidence shows it could work – https://theconversation.com/is-a-nanny-state-a-price-worth-paying-to-keep-the-nhs-free-the-evidence-shows-it-could-work-260539

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Second Criminal Illegal Alien with Lengthy Rap Sheet Arrested for Involvement in Ambush and Shooting CBP Officer in New York City

    Source: US Department of Homeland Security

    Both criminal illegal aliens involved in the attempted armed robbery were released into the country under the Biden Administration and NYC sanctuary politicians ignored detainer

    NEW YORK – Today, the Department of Homeland Security arrested Cristian Aybar Berroa, a criminal illegal alien, and the second suspect involved in the attempted armed robbery of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer who was off duty in New York City in Fort Washington Park under the George Washington Bridge on July 19. The first suspect, Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, also a criminal illegal alien, who shot the CBP officer, was arrested yesterday.

    A witness of the attack stated that she and the victim were sitting on the rocks by the water when two subjects on a scooter drove up to them, dismounted the scooter and approached them with a firearm drawn. The off-duty CBP officer responded by withdrawing his own firearm in self defense. The CBP officer was shot in his right arm and left cheek. Thankfully, the officer is in stable condition at the hospital.

    Cristian Aybar Berroa, a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic, illegally entered the United States on June 19, 2022, and was released into the country on interim parole pending his immigration hearing. New York City ignored his detainer.

    This criminal illegal alien’s rap sheet includes:

    • On May 10, 2023, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested Berroa for 2nd degree reckless endangerment.
    • On March 26, 2024, NYPD arrested Berroa for 4th degree felony grand larceny and petit larceny.
    • On April 5, 2024, NYPD arrested him 4th degree felony grand larceny and petit larceny. Despite an active ICE detainer, the New York City Department of Corrections released Berroa back onto NYC streets.
    • On February 20, 2025, NYPD arrested Berroa for 2nd degree reckless endangerment, reckless driving, and for driving without a license.
    • On June 12, 2025, Berroa pled guilty to petit larceny at the Bronx County Supreme Court. This plea was made in consolidation of all his previous arrests, and he was conditionally discharged and allowed to roam the streets of NYC.

    A judge ordered Berroa a final order of removal on January 3, 2023.

    The other assailant in the attack is Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic. He illegally entered the United States on April 4, 2023, and was released by the Biden Administration into the country.

    This criminal illegal alien’s rap sheet includes:

    • On October 11, 2023, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested and charged Nunez with felony grand larceny, petit larceny, and reckless driving.
    • On October 1, 2024, the NYPD arrested and charged Nunez with 2nd and 3rd degree assault.
    • On November 30, 2024, the NYPD arrested Nunez for criminal contempt. On January 13, 2025, he was again attested for criminal contempt.
    • On February 21, 2025, the Leominster Police Department in Massachusetts issued a criminal warrant for Nunez for armed robbery with a firearm.

    After failing to show up for his immigration hearing a judge issued Nunez a final order of removal on November 6, 2024.

    “These violent thugs had committed a smorgasbord of crimes and been arrested multiple times and yet New York continued to release them, ignore an ICE detainer and allow them to continue to prey on Americans and terrorize our streets. How many people have to die, how many lives have to be changed forever for Mayor Adams and his sanctuary politician ilk to end these performative politics?” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

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    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: Economic and Social Council Begins High-Level Segment

    Source: United Nations General Assembly and Security Council

    2025 Session,

    33rd & 34th Meetings (AM & PM)

    ECOSOC/7214

    The Economic and Social Council begins its annual high-level segment, including the three-day ministerial segment of the High-level Political Forum under the theme “Advancing sustainable, inclusive, science- and evidence-based solutions for the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs for leaving no one behind”. 

    This morning, Robert Rae, the 54-member body’s President; António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations; Philémon Yang, President of the seventy-ninth session of the General Assembly; and Carolina Rojas, Technology Focal Point of the Major Group for Children and Youth’s Science-Policy Interface, will open the segment, which will run through Thursday, 24 July.

    Member States will make statements during the general debate to follow in the morning and throughout the afternoon, under the theme “UN@80: Catalyzing Change for Sustainable Development”. 

    Also in the afternoon, the Council begins its voluntary national reviews, on El Salvador, Malta and Thailand, and then on Czechia, Israel and Papua New Guinea.

    For information media. Not an official record.

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Congresswoman Harriet Hageman Votes in Favor of Historic Rescissions Package

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman

    Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Harriet Hageman joined her Republican colleagues in passing a historic rescission package, sending it to President Trump’s desk. This measure removes $1.1 billion in annual federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS & NPR), and $7.9 billion from USAID foreign aid programs, totaling $9 billion in reclaimed taxpayer dollars. 

    The Congresswoman released the following statement:  

    “For too long, American families have been forced to subsidize liberal-leaning media under the guise of ‘public service.’ When NPR/PBS were started, there were few options available. There are now so many different outlets that need for government funded media has been replaced by the free market, and public media now prioritizes far-left narratives over balanced journalism. This federal funding should not support woke indoctrination in children’s programming, including, drag queen story hours, political lectures from popular characters, and anti-American messaging, when parents can choose from a vast, private media landscape,” said Congresswoman Hageman. 

    “In emergency situations like the recent Texas floods, taxpayers discovered private broadcasters stepped up with immediate alerts and lifesaving updates, while NPR affiliates lagged behind, remaining silent for hours. This proves that public safety is not uniquely tied to taxpayer-funded media. 

    This rescission marks our first major strike against federal waste, fraud, and abuse, and it is just the beginning. We will continue to scrutinize every dollar the federal government claims it needs. American families deserve a government that is lean, accountable, and focused on results, not politicized media subsidies.” 

    Examples of what we are defunding: 

    • PBS programming includes “Real Boy,” a program about a trans teen, and “Our League” about a trans woman returning to her hometown
    • $1 million for voter ID in Haiti
    • $3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street
    • $1 million for programs to strengthen the resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer global movements
    • PBS shows that indoctrinate children such as, “Drag Queen Story Hour”
    • $33,000 for “Being LGBTI in the Caribbean”
    • NPR requested and received a $1.9 million grant commitment from CPB to hire more “moderate” Editors and journalists, as they recognized their complete leftist bias
    • $130 million from other IOP programs, which includes programs like UN Women, UN Panel on Climate Change, Int’l Conservation Programs, etc. 

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Senator Marshall: America is Now the Hottest Country in the World

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Kansas Roger Marshall

    Senator Marshall Joins Newsmax to Discuss the First Six Months of President Trump’s Second Term & the Booming Economy
    Washington – On Monday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Marc Lotter and Sharla McBride on Newmax’s Wake Up America to discuss the first six months of President Trump’s second term, future spending cuts in Congress, DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s recent report, and the MAHA legislative package he is introducing.

    Click HERE or on the image above to watch Senator Marshall’s full interview.
    On the first six months of President Trump’s second term:
    “Exactly. I told my wife this morning, you know, we’re part of the Trump chain gang. Let’s get to work up here. Congress doesn’t have any idea what it’s like out in the real world, where, as a physician, I worked every weekend. I didn’t take days off for years at a time. So, I’m used to this pace. I’m used to Trump Time.
    “But I’m calling this economy the Lazarus Economy. A year ago, as President Trump said, the economy was dead, and now we’re the hottest country in the world. Trillions of dollars are being invested, jobs are growing, inflation is down, the price of gasoline is down, and the border is secure. And our military is being taken care of. We just passed the largest tax cut in American history and the largest cut in federal government spending as well. This was a bill that’s going to help middle-income Americans and small businesses. Very proud of the work we’ve done these last six months.”
    On future spending cuts from the Senate:
    “Well, we certainly need to prioritize them, and Congress needs to develop this memory. This is the first time… since President Bush, the first, we’ve actually done a rescissions package. So, this was a good start to learn. You know, the backdrop of this $37 trillion of national debt right now. We’re going to spend a trillion dollars on interest this year. This is the number one threat to my grandchildren’s future: this national debt.
    “Look, I think what your listeners need to understand is the Government Accounting Office, the Office of Inspector General, has been saying for over a decade now that there is systemic risk for fraud, waste, and abuse in USAID. And that’s why I asked Elon to burn it to the ground and start over.
    “Just give you a few more examples here… in Tanzania, Zambia … $50 million of medical equipment theft. In New Guinea, $100 million of scandals are going on. More recently, $500 million here in the United States, where people were skimming and taking bribes back; all USAID programs. Go back to an earthquake in Haiti. We gave them a billion dollars decades ago. They never did anything with it. They did not build the energy plant they were supposed to. So, we have a president standing up identifying fraud. Now Congress needs to do her job with 50 votes. We can continue this on the Senate side.”
    On DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s report about Russia misinformation:
    “Well, look, this is absolutely believable. This is new information that in the Oval Office, with the highest members of the FBI and the Intelligence Agency under Obama, they cooked up a plan to continue this ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax. You know, this is kind of the second chapter of the FISA court abuse that was done under the Obama administration as well. Those people never paid the price they should have paid as well. Judges should have been fired, and people within the FBI should have been fired over that. Maybe one person held accountable.
    “So, this is the next chapter. We need total transparency. I think that’s what, you know, the beauty of President Trump’s cabinet is, they’re going to show America the whole truth here, nothing but the truth, and let the Justice Department do its job. And by the way, you’ll see Congress probably having more hearings on this as well.”
    On the Make America Healthy Again package:
    “Well, look, what I believe is that healthy soil meets healthy food, meets healthy people. That when agriculture can focus on soil health by growing more with less, by using less pesticides, using less water, and using modern-day agriculture, precision agriculture practices, we can make the soil healthier. That’s going to make the food more nutrient-rich, and that’s going to lead to healthier people.
    “Look, 90% of the money spent on health care in this country is spent on seven chronic diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s, those types of things. So, we need to focus in on those chronic diseases, try to prevent them with healthy food, and then treat them with healthy food as well. And I’m so proud to work with Secretary Kennedy and Secretary Rollins to get this job done.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Honduran Citizen Sentenced to Prison for Illegal Reentry; Faces Deportation

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    WILLIAMSPORT -The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Elio Yoel Cardona-Torres, age 43, a citizen of Honduras, was sentenced on July 17, 2025, to time-served (five months in prison) by Chief United States District Judge Matthew W. Brann for illegally reentering the country after having previously been removed.  Cardona-Torres had pleaded guilty to the charge. 

    According to Acting United States Attorney John Gurganus, Cardona-Torres was arrested during targeted enforcement in Sayre, Pennsylvania, on February 22, 2025.  Cardona-Torres had previously been removed from the United States pursuant to court order in 2006, 2008 and 2010.  Cardona-Torres again faces deportation proceedings.

    The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Removal Operations. Assistant United States Attorney Robin Zenzinger prosecuted the case.

    This case is part of Operation Take Back America (https://www.justice.gov/dag/media/1393746/dl?inline) a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETFs) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).    

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    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: José Adolfo “Fito” Macías Villamar, Leader of Los Choneros Transnational Criminal Organization Extradited to Brooklyn Federal Court to Face International Drug and Gun Charges

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    BROOKLYN, NY – José Adolfo Macías Villamar, also known as “Fito,” a citizen of Ecuador, will be arraigned today at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn for crimes committed as the leader of Los Choneros, a transnational criminal organization based in Ecuador that is responsible for significant drug trafficking into the United States, firearms trafficking from the United States, and acts of extreme violence.  Macías Villamar will be arraigned on a seven-count superseding indictment charging him with international cocaine distribution conspiracy; international cocaine distribution; using firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking; smuggling firearms from the United States; and straw purchasing of firearms conspiracy.  Macías Villamar will be arraigned before United States Chief Magistrate Judge Vera M. Scanlon after being extradited yesterday from Ecuador to the Eastern District of New York.

    Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Robert Murphy, Acting Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); L.C. Cheeks, Jr., Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Newark Field Division (ATF); and Jonathan Carson, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Export Enforcement, New York Field Office (OEE), announced the extradition and arraignment.

    “As alleged, the defendant served for years as the principal leader of Los Choneros, a notoriously violent transnational criminal organization, and was a ruthless and infamous drug and firearms trafficker.  The defendant and his co-conspirators flooded the United States and other countries with drugs and used extreme measures of violence in their quest for power and control,” stated United States Attorney Nocella.  “This case demonstrates our Office’s commitment to identifying and targeting the leadership of such organizations, wherever they may be located, and bringing them to face justice here in the United States.”

    “José ‘Fito’ Macias thought he could traffic poison into our country, smuggle American weapons back to his killers, and further his criminal enterprise using chaos and bloodshed. He was wrong,” stated DEA Acting Administrator Robert Murphy.  “Today, the kingpin of Los Choneros faces justice on U.S. soil for his crimes.”

    “ATF remains dedicated to working with our local, state, and federal partners to disrupt the shooting cycle by focusing on those individuals and criminal organizations responsible for the gun violence that plagues our neighborhoods,” stated ATF Special Agent in Charge Cheeks.  “ATF will continue to collaborate with our law enforcement partners to address violent gang and drug-related activity that endangers the safety of our communities.  Our joint efforts are essential in bringing accountability to violent offenders, combatting threats to the public, and reducing violent crime.”

    As alleged in the indictment and other public filings, from at least 2020 to 2025, Macías Villamar was the principal leader of Los Choneros, the most violent and powerful transnational criminal organization in Ecuador.  As the principal leader of Los Choneros, Macías Villamar employed members of the organization to carry out serious acts of violence on the organization’s behalf. At Macías Villamar’s direction, Los Choneros committed violent acts toward Ecuadorean law enforcement, Ecuadorian politicians, attorneys, prosecutors, and civilians.  Los Choneros obtained many of its firearms and weapons by illegally trafficking and exporting them from the United States to Ecuador.  As alleged, the defendant specifically employed individuals who purchased firearms, firearms components, and ammunition in the United States and then illegally smuggled them to Ecuador for use by Los Choneros.

    In 2011, Macías Villamar went to prison in Ecuador on murder, robbery, weapons possession, and drug trafficking charges.  He escaped in 2013 before being recaptured months later.  During his second imprisonment in Ecuador, Macías Villamar used contraband cell phones and the internet to continue to direct the activities of Los Choneros and publish external communications and threats on Los Choneros’ behalf.  In January 2024, he escaped from Ecuadorian prison a second time—just two days ahead of his planned move to a maximum-security facility. In response to his escape, Ecuador erupted in violence—including prison riots, gang attacks, kidnappings, and bombings—and the government of Ecuador declared a state of emergency.  Ecuadorian authorities recaptured Macías Villamar on June 25, 2025, and he was extradited from Ecuador yesterday.

    Macías Villamar and members and associates of his organization used firearms in furtherance of their weapon and drug trafficking activities, including machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles, and grenades.  Macías Villamar and the Los Choneros organization have also been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

    The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and Ecuadorian authorities provided substantial assistance to secure the extradition of Macías Villamar.  This marks Ecuador’s first extradition of an Ecuadorian national since an April 2024 popular referendum amended Ecuador’s constitution to allow for the extradition of Ecuadorian nationals.

    This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.

    The charges in the superseding indictment are allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.  If convicted, the defendant faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and up to life.

    The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s International Narcotics and Money Laundering Section, and as part of the work of the Office’s Transnational Criminal Organizations Strike Force.  Assistant United States Attorneys Chand Edwards-Balfour, Lorena Michelen, and David Berman are in charge of the prosecution.

    The Defendant:

    JOSÉ ADOLFO MACÍAS VILLAMAR (also known as “Fito”)
    Age:  45
    Ecuador

    E.D.N.Y. Docket No.: 25-CR-114 (FB)

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: ICE Arrests Murderers, Pedophiles, and Rapists Over the Weekend

    Source: US Department of Homeland Security

    Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE is working around-the-clock to remove the worst of the worst from American communities

    WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the names and rap sheets of criminal illegal aliens arrested over the weekend—including murderers, pedophiles, and rapists. 

    “Over the weekend, our brave ICE agents arrested more depraved criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, and three child pedophiles. These are the types of barbaric criminals our ICE law enforcement is arresting and removing from American communities every day,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Despite an 830 percent surge in assaults against our ICE law enforcement officers, they continue to put their lives on the line to make American communities safer every day.”

    Below are some of the criminal illegal aliens arrested over the weekend:

    • ICE Dallas arrested Jose Arinaga-Ramirez, a 58-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child in San Antonio, TX. 
    • ICE Los Angeles arrested Chue Vue, a 37-year-old illegal alien from Laos, convicted of attempted murder and seven counts of assault with deadly weapon/instrument non-firearm that produced great bodily injury in Riverside, CA. 
    • ICE Philadelphia arrested Gil Salinas-Anaclo, a 35-year-old illegal alien from Peru, convicted of larceny in Northampton County, PA. 
    • ICE Houston arrested Gilmer Vertiz-Bustemante, a 37-year-old illegal alien from Mexico convicted of murder in Tarrant County, TX. 
    • ICE Buffalo arrested Andra Adams Scott, a 30-year-old illegal alien from Jamaica, convicted of attempted robbery in Queens County, NY. 
    • ICE Los Angeles arrested Henry Jose Marquez, a 55-year-old illegal alien from Venezuela, convicted of smuggling cocaine in Tampa, FL. 
    • ICE Boston arrested Jovinnel Giron Meneses, a 29-year-old illegal alien from the Philippines convicted of aggravated rape of a child, rape of a child with force, four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 in Middlesex, MA. 
    • ICE Philadelphia arrested Juan Ramirez-Velasquez, a 27-year-old illegal alien from Guatemala, convicted of rape of a victim under 12 years old in Dover, DE. 
    • ICE Atlanta arrested Emmanuel Evariste, a 39-year-old illegal alien from Haiti, convicted in the United States District Court, Boston District of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. 
    • ICE Buffalo arrested Sakir Akkan, a 22-year-old illegal alien from Turkey, convicted of rape three: anal sexual contact with a person incapable consent in Albany County, NY. 
    • ICE St. Louis arrested Nodir Negmatov, an illegal alien from Uzbekistan, who was attempting to pick up U.S. Department of State International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) controlled Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits, which convert unguided bombs into all-weather precision-guided munitions, at a Boeing plant in St. Charles, Missouri. 

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    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Prolific week for entrepreneurs

    Source: Government of South Africa

    Small Business Development Minister Stella Ndabeni has declared this a “historic week” for entrepreneurs and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

    She was addressing the Startup20 Midterm Engagement Group Meeting held in Gauteng on Monday.

    The meeting kicks off a busy week, with Global Trade Promotion Organisations holding a parallel meeting hosted by the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD), together with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.

    “They will consider how the global trade system is being reconfigured, and how MSMEs can build resilience and pivot towards new markets,” Ndabeni said.

    Later this week, the department will host the Global SME ministerial meeting with the International Trade Centre.

    “This meeting will see Ministers, Deputy Ministers and officials from more than 60 countries, as well as various multilateral organisations, converge to discuss entrepreneurship and MSME policy, and look at ways to scale global support for MSMEs, especially in underserved countries,” Ndabeni explained.

    The Global SME ministerial meeting will take aim at:

    • How to bridge the digital divide to empower MSMEs and startups with the infrastructure, skills, and tools needed to compete globally;
    • How to unlock capital access, especially for women- and youth-led businesses, through inclusive financial ecosystems;
    • How to position MSMEs as key actors in the green economy, supporting sustainable practices and circular innovation, and
    • How to foster inclusive trade policies that ensure MSMEs have a seat at the global economic table.

    “The outcome will be a Call to Action, endorsed by the 60 plus countries, which will contain practical policy measures and reforms that will be championed in the UN system and which we can integrate with our G20 MSME agenda.

    “Building on the work started in Brazil, as South Africa we want a dedicated G20 MSME and Startup Working Group, and this week’s deliberations will greatly assist us craft clear terms of reference and agenda for this working group,” Ndabeni said.

    The ministerial meeting will also allow opportunities for inputs from the Startup20 Midterm engagement.

    “Some of you… will be given space to share your thinking with the delegates at the ministerial meeting.

    “Together, we will build a more equal and sustainable future led by MSMEs and startups,” Ndabeni said. – SAnews.gov.za

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: African media are threatened by governments and big tech – book tracks the latest trends

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Hayes Mabweazara, Senior Lecturer in Sociological & Cultural Studies (Media, Culture & Society), University of Glasgow

    Media capture happens when media outlets lose their independence and fall under the influence of political or financial interests. This often leads to news content that favours power instead of public accountability.

    Media Capture in Africa and Latin America: Power and Resistance is a new book edited by news media scholars Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara and Bethia Pearson. It explores how this dynamic plays out in the global south and how journalists and citizens are resisting it. We asked them four questions.

    What is media capture and how has it reshaped itself in recent times?

    Media capture describes how media outlets are influenced, manipulated or controlled by powerful actors – often governments or large corporations – to serve their interests. It’s an idea that helps us understand how powerful groups in society can have a negative influence on news media. While this idea isn’t new, what has changed is how subtly and pervasively it now operates.

    These groups include big technology organisations that own digital media platforms – such as X, owned by xAI (Elon Musk), and Instagram and Facebook, owned by Meta. But it’s also important to consider Google as a large search engine that shapes the news content and audience of many other platforms.

    This matters because the media are important for the functioning of democratic societies. Ideally, they provide information, represent different groups and issues in society, and hold powerful actors to account.

    For example, one of the key roles of the media is to provide accurate information for citizens to be able to decide how to vote in elections. Or to decide what they think about important issues. One big concern, then, is the effect of inaccurate or biased information on democracy.

    Or it might be that accurate information is harder to access because algorithms and platforms make it easier to access inaccurate or biased information. These can be intended and unintended consequences of the technology itself, but algorithms can amplify misinformation and fake news – especially if this content has the potential to go viral.

    So, what’s particular about media capture in the global south?

    This is a really interesting question that is still being investigated, but we have some ideas.

    First of all, it’s useful to know that media capture scholarship from the global north emerged around the time of the 2008 financial crisis. The influence of financial institutions on business journalists was one of the first areas of study. Since then, research in the US has focused on the capture of government-funded media organisations like Voice of America. And on how digital platforms like Google and Facebook can lead to capture.

    In the global south, scholars have drawn attention to the importance of large media corporations in understanding media capture. For example, in Latin America, there’s a high level of what’s called “media concentration”. This is when many media outlets are owned by a few companies. These companies often own companies in other sectors, which means that critical reporting on business interests presents a conflict of interest.



    Read more:
    Public trust in the media is at a new low: a radical rethink of journalism is needed

    But to focus on Africa, scholars have drawn attention to governments as a source of pressure on journalists and editors. This can be through direct pressure or what we might call “covert” pressure. Withholding advertising that helps to fund media outlets is an example, or offering financial incentives to stop investigating certain topics.

    Researchers are also concerned about the influence of big tech in Africa. Digital platforms like Google and Facebook can shape the news and information that citizens have access to.

    Can you share some of the studies from the book?

    Our book includes many interesting studies – from Colombia, Brazil and Mexico in Latin America to Ethiopia and Morocco in Africa. We’ll share a few African cases here to give an overview of the issues.

    The book’s contribution on Ghana warns us that although more overt “old” types of media capture may have subsided, transitional democracies can feature messier, more nuanced forms of media control. This can be evident in government pressures and through capture of regulators.

    In the Morocco chapter, we see the threat to media freedom presented by digital platforms owned by global tech giants. This is known as “infrastructural capture”. It means news organisations become dependent on tech giants to set the rules of the game for democratic communication.

    Another compelling case is Nigeria, where researchers explore ties between media ownership and political patronage. The authors argue that the Nigerian press is failing in its democratic duty because of its reliance on advertising and sponsorship income from the state. Added to this are ineffective regulatory mechanisms and close relationships with some big businesses that own newspapers and printing presses.

    How can media capture be resisted in the global south?

    The studies in the book show some ways forward and we do think it’s important to be optimistic! Resistance takes many forms. Sometimes it comes through legal and policy reform aimed at increasing transparency and media diversity. In other cases, it’s driven by social movements, investigative journalists and independent media who continue to operate under pressure.

    The chapter on Uganda shows that journalist groups working with media advocacy organisations can strategically act to resist government media capture and harmful regulations. For example, to push back against one legislative change, several groups formed a temporary network called Article 29 (named after the article in the Ugandan constitution protecting free speech) and the African Centre for Media Excellence produced a report criticising the proposed changes.



    Read more:
    Western media outlets are trying to fix their racist, stereotypical coverage of Africa. Is it time African media did the same?

    One of the chapters on Ghana also shows how networks such as journalists, media associations, human rights groups and legal organisations can mobilise to push back against government influence. Organisations including the Ghana Journalists Association and Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association have played key roles in, for example, taking the media regulator to court to overturn laws that would have led to censorship. These findings are echoed in Latin America, where research on Mexico and Colombia also found professional journalism to be a strong source of resistance.

    The conversation must also include rethinking how we define capture itself. If we frame it only as total control, we risk missing the everyday ways influence operates – and the spaces where it can be resisted. We would also say it’s really important that citizens are aware and alert to the issues when they think about how they access news media and what platforms they use. This is sometimes called “media literacy” and is about people being more knowledgeable about where trustworthy news comes from.

    You can listen to a podcast about the book over here.

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

    – ref. African media are threatened by governments and big tech – book tracks the latest trends – https://theconversation.com/african-media-are-threatened-by-governments-and-big-tech-book-tracks-the-latest-trends-258017

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano Added to FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List

    Source: US FBI

    In June 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued a federal arrest warrant for Mosquera Serrano after he was charged with conspiring to provide and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, as well as conspiracy and distribution of cocaine in Colombia intended for distribution in the U.S.

    Formed in the early 2010s, TdA has recently exploded in membership and criminal activity in the U. S.

    “At first, TdA was primarily composed of former inmates and individuals from Venezuela,” said Soyez. “Over time, the gang and the organization evolved. They became a more structured and powerful criminal group involved in various activities, including drug trafficking, extortion, and human trafficking.”

    The gang’s influence has spread throughout Latin America and into the U.S., and they have established major networks for drug distribution, weapons trafficking, and human trafficking—and have even partnered with other criminal organizations.

    For law enforcement trying to protect their communities, this transnational organized crime system creates a challenge.

    “What we’ve seen over time, as we look back in our history dealing with transnational organized crime, is how quickly these criminal organizations can spread,” said Soyez. “We know the instability they can cause to our cities and our communities, and so I think from the FBI’s perspective, it’s something we want to be ahead of.”

    The FBI and law enforcement partners are focused on finding these dangerous criminals and bringing justice to victims of their crimes. Adding Mosquera Serrano to the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list provides an opportunity for law enforcement to work with the public in fighting transnational organized crime across the country.

    “With TdA, we’ve seen instances of extreme violence and intimidation, causing a terror in our communities,” said Soyez. “Naming Mosquera Serrano as a Top Ten fugitive really highlights TdA and shows our aggressiveness to go after its leadership.”

    Mosquera Serrano is 37 years old and has black hair and brown eyes. He is a Venezuelan national and speaks Spanish. Aliases include Jhovanni San Vicente, “El Viejo,” and Jhovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano.

    Investigators believe that Mosquera Serrano may be in Venezuela or Colombia and that he should be considered armed and dangerous.

    “The FBI, along with our federal partners and international partners, can seek justice in foreign countries, and so, we would encourage those with any information, whether it’s inside the U.S. or another country, to please report that information because the FBI has the ability to bring justice and arrest Mosquera Serrano, even if it’s not within the United States,” said Soyez.

    If you have any information about Mosquera Serrano, please contact your local FBI office or the nearest American embassy or consulate or call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324). You can also submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov or contact the FBI via WhatsApp at 571-379-3951. WhatsApp is neither a government-operated nor a government-controlled platform.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: Crypto Futures Made Simple: BexBack Offers No KYC, 100x Leverage and Double Deposit Bonus to All New Users

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    SINGAPORE, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — With Bitcoin’s price fluctuating above $120,000, many analysts predict a prolonged period of high volatility in the crypto market. Holding spot positions may struggle to generate short-term profits in such conditions. As a result, 100x leverage futures trading has become the preferred tool for seasoned investors looking to maximize potential gains in this volatile market. BexBack Exchange is ramping up its efforts to offer traders unmatched promotional packages. The platform now features a 100% deposit bonus, a $50 welcome bonus for new users, and 100x leverage on cryptocurrency trading, providing exceptional opportunities for investors.

    What Is 100x Leverage and How Does It Work?

    Simply put, 100x leverage allows you to open larger trading positions with less capital. For example:

    Suppose the Bitcoin price is $100,000 that day, and you open a long contract with 1 BTC. After using 100x leverage, the transaction amount is equivalent to 100 BTC.

    One day later, if the price rises to $105,000, your profit will be (105,000 – 100,000) * 100 BTC / 100,000 = 5 BTC, a yield of up to 500%.

    With BexBack’s deposit bonus

    BexBack offers a 100% deposit bonus. If the initial investment is 2 BTC, the profit will increase to 10 BTC, and the return on investment will double to 1000%.

    Note: Although leveraged trading can magnify profits, you also need to be wary of liquidation risks.

    How Does the 100% Deposit Bonus Work?
    The deposit bonus from BexBack cannot be directly withdrawn but can be used to open larger positions and increase potential profits. Additionally, during significant market fluctuations, the bonus can serve as extra margin, effectively reducing the risk of liquidation.

    About BexBack?

    BexBack is a leading cryptocurrency derivatives platform that offers 100x leverage on BTC, ETH, ADA, SOL, and XRP futures contracts. It is headquartered in Singapore with offices in Hong Kong, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Argentina. It holds a US MSB (Money Services Business) license and is trusted by more than 500,000 traders worldwide. Accepts users from the United States, Canada, and Europe. There are no deposit fees, and traders can get the most thoughtful service, including 24/7 customer support.

    Why recommend BexBack?

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    Sign up on BexBack now, claim your exclusive bonus and start accumulating more BTC today!

    Website: www.bexback.com

    Contact: business@bexback.com

    Contact:
    Amanda
    business@bexback.com

    Disclaimer: This content is provided by BexBack. The statements, views, and opinions expressed in this content are solely those of the content provider and do not necessarily reflect the views of this media platform or its publisher. We do not endorse, verify, or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information presented. We do not guarantee any claims, statements, or promises made in this article. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, or trading advice.Investing in crypto and mining-related opportunities involves significant risks, including the potential loss of capital. It is possible to lose all your capital. These products may not be suitable for everyone, and you should ensure that you understand the risks involved. Seek independent advice if necessary. Speculate only with funds that you can afford to lose. Readers are strongly encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.Neither the media platform nor the publisher shall be held responsible for any fraudulent activities, misrepresentations, or financial losses arising from the content of this press release. In the event of any legal claims or charges against this article, we accept no liability or responsibility. Globenewswire does not endorse any content on this page.

    Legal Disclaimer: This media platform provides the content of this article on an “as-is” basis, without any warranties or representations of any kind, express or implied. We assume no responsibility for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information presented herein. Any concerns, complaints, or copyright issues related to this article should be directed to the content provider mentioned above.

    Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:
    https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fd8868d2-f7a5-4351-988d-252d044fe2a0
    https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3ef8a753-ab84-465a-b950-ea7c9730c720
    https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/32de2bed-6c33-4d78-906d-7f4c6eea45c2
    https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/14409574-56e8-4a53-b58d-56959ebeae33

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: African media are threatened by governments and big tech – book tracks the latest trends

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Hayes Mabweazara, Senior Lecturer in Sociological & Cultural Studies (Media, Culture & Society), University of Glasgow

    Media capture happens when media outlets lose their independence and fall under the influence of political or financial interests. This often leads to news content that favours power instead of public accountability.

    Media Capture in Africa and Latin America: Power and Resistance is a new book edited by news media scholars Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara and Bethia Pearson. It explores how this dynamic plays out in the global south and how journalists and citizens are resisting it. We asked them four questions.

    What is media capture and how has it reshaped itself in recent times?

    Media capture describes how media outlets are influenced, manipulated or controlled by powerful actors – often governments or large corporations – to serve their interests. It’s an idea that helps us understand how powerful groups in society can have a negative influence on news media. While this idea isn’t new, what has changed is how subtly and pervasively it now operates.

    These groups include big technology organisations that own digital media platforms – such as X, owned by xAI (Elon Musk), and Instagram and Facebook, owned by Meta. But it’s also important to consider Google as a large search engine that shapes the news content and audience of many other platforms.

    Palgrave Macmillan

    This matters because the media are important for the functioning of democratic societies. Ideally, they provide information, represent different groups and issues in society, and hold powerful actors to account.

    For example, one of the key roles of the media is to provide accurate information for citizens to be able to decide how to vote in elections. Or to decide what they think about important issues. One big concern, then, is the effect of inaccurate or biased information on democracy.

    Or it might be that accurate information is harder to access because algorithms and platforms make it easier to access inaccurate or biased information. These can be intended and unintended consequences of the technology itself, but algorithms can amplify misinformation and fake news – especially if this content has the potential to go viral.

    So, what’s particular about media capture in the global south?

    This is a really interesting question that is still being investigated, but we have some ideas.

    First of all, it’s useful to know that media capture scholarship from the global north emerged around the time of the 2008 financial crisis. The influence of financial institutions on business journalists was one of the first areas of study. Since then, research in the US has focused on the capture of government-funded media organisations like Voice of America. And on how digital platforms like Google and Facebook can lead to capture.

    In the global south, scholars have drawn attention to the importance of large media corporations in understanding media capture. For example, in Latin America, there’s a high level of what’s called “media concentration”. This is when many media outlets are owned by a few companies. These companies often own companies in other sectors, which means that critical reporting on business interests presents a conflict of interest.

    Read more: Public trust in the media is at a new low: a radical rethink of journalism is needed

    But to focus on Africa, scholars have drawn attention to governments as a source of pressure on journalists and editors. This can be through direct pressure or what we might call “covert” pressure. Withholding advertising that helps to fund media outlets is an example, or offering financial incentives to stop investigating certain topics.

    Researchers are also concerned about the influence of big tech in Africa. Digital platforms like Google and Facebook can shape the news and information that citizens have access to.

    Can you share some of the studies from the book?

    Our book includes many interesting studies – from Colombia, Brazil and Mexico in Latin America to Ethiopia and Morocco in Africa. We’ll share a few African cases here to give an overview of the issues.

    The book’s contribution on Ghana warns us that although more overt “old” types of media capture may have subsided, transitional democracies can feature messier, more nuanced forms of media control. This can be evident in government pressures and through capture of regulators.

    In the Morocco chapter, we see the threat to media freedom presented by digital platforms owned by global tech giants. This is known as “infrastructural capture”. It means news organisations become dependent on tech giants to set the rules of the game for democratic communication.

    Another compelling case is Nigeria, where researchers explore ties between media ownership and political patronage. The authors argue that the Nigerian press is failing in its democratic duty because of its reliance on advertising and sponsorship income from the state. Added to this are ineffective regulatory mechanisms and close relationships with some big businesses that own newspapers and printing presses.

    How can media capture be resisted in the global south?

    The studies in the book show some ways forward and we do think it’s important to be optimistic! Resistance takes many forms. Sometimes it comes through legal and policy reform aimed at increasing transparency and media diversity. In other cases, it’s driven by social movements, investigative journalists and independent media who continue to operate under pressure.

    The chapter on Uganda shows that journalist groups working with media advocacy organisations can strategically act to resist government media capture and harmful regulations. For example, to push back against one legislative change, several groups formed a temporary network called Article 29 (named after the article in the Ugandan constitution protecting free speech) and the African Centre for Media Excellence produced a report criticising the proposed changes.

    Read more: Western media outlets are trying to fix their racist, stereotypical coverage of Africa. Is it time African media did the same?

    One of the chapters on Ghana also shows how networks such as journalists, media associations, human rights groups and legal organisations can mobilise to push back against government influence. Organisations including the Ghana Journalists Association and Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association have played key roles in, for example, taking the media regulator to court to overturn laws that would have led to censorship. These findings are echoed in Latin America, where research on Mexico and Colombia also found professional journalism to be a strong source of resistance.

    The conversation must also include rethinking how we define capture itself. If we frame it only as total control, we risk missing the everyday ways influence operates – and the spaces where it can be resisted. We would also say it’s really important that citizens are aware and alert to the issues when they think about how they access news media and what platforms they use. This is sometimes called “media literacy” and is about people being more knowledgeable about where trustworthy news comes from.

    You can listen to a podcast about the book over here.

    – African media are threatened by governments and big tech – book tracks the latest trends
    – https://theconversation.com/african-media-are-threatened-by-governments-and-big-tech-book-tracks-the-latest-trends-258017

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Security: U.S. Attorney’s Office Filed 84 Border-Related Cases This Week

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

    SAN DIEGO – Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of California filed 84 border-related cases this week, including charges of assault on a federal officer, bringing in aliens for financial gain, reentering the U.S. after deportation, and importation of controlled substances.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California is the fourth-busiest federal district, largely due to a high volume of border-related crimes. This district, encompassing San Diego and Imperial counties, shares a 140-mile border with Mexico. It includes the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the world’s busiest land border crossing, connecting San Diego (America’s eighth largest city) and Tijuana (Mexico’s second largest city).

    In addition to reactive border-related crimes, the Southern District of California also prosecutes a significant number of proactive cases related to terrorism, organized crime, drugs, white-collar fraud, violent crime, cybercrime, human trafficking and national security. Recent developments in those and other significant areas of prosecution can be found here.

    A sample of border-related arrests this week:

    • On July 11, Nicolas Duarte-Moreno, a Mexican citizen, was arrested and charged with Bringing in Aliens for Financial Gain. According to a complaint, Duarte-Moreno was arrested by Customs and Border Protection officers after he attempted to enter the U.S. in a Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder through a Sentri lane at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry with an undocumented immigrant hiding in the vehicle. Officers found the immigrant from Guatemala concealed in the cargo area where the convertible top retracts. While CBP officials dismantled the cargo area by removing bolts and speakers to find and extricate the immigrant, he complained that he could not breathe. He was immediately taken to a hospital.
    • On July 15, Luis Angel Galvez Alvarez, Julio Cesar Oros Castro and Francisco Javier Castro Acosta, all Mexican citizens, were arrested and charged with Importation of a Controlled Substance. According to a complaint, the trio attempted to enter the U.S. about the same time, each driving a Freightliner tractor through the Otay Mesa Commercial Facility. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped each vehicle; they found about 29 pounds of cocaine concealed in the walls behind the beds of each tractor. The complaint said all three drivers admitted they were employed by the same trucking company.
    • On July 16, Jorge Ismael Valencia-Julian, a Mexican citizen, was arrested and charged with Deported Alien Found in the United States. According to a complaint, Valencia-Julian was arrested by a Border Patrol agent who tracked his footprints for five hours as the defendant tried to escape in rough terrain. Valencia-Julian was previously deported in March 2024 at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

    Also recently, a number of defendants with criminal records were convicted by a jury or sentenced for border-related crimes such as illegally re-entering the U.S. after previous deportation. Here are a few of those cases:

    • On July 11, 2025, Ricardo Velez-Torres, a Mexican National who was previously convicted of Burglary in the First Degree in 2006 and Illegal Reentry in 2002, was sentenced in federal court to 21 months in custody for again entering the U.S. illegally.
    • On July 18, Julio Leyva-Solis, a Mexican national who was previously convicted of the felony facilitation of human smuggling, felony theft of property on three occasions, and felony possession of methamphetamine, was sentenced in federal court to 12 months plus one day in custody for again entering the U.S illegally.

    Pursuant to the Department’s Operation Take Back America priorities, federal law enforcement has focused immigration prosecutions on undocumented aliens who are engaged in criminal activity in the U.S., including those who commit drug and firearms crimes, who have serious criminal records, or who have active warrants for their arrest. Federal authorities have also been prioritizing investigations and prosecutions against drug, firearm, and human smugglers and those who endanger and threaten the safety of our communities and the law enforcement officers who protect the community.

    The immigration cases were referred or supported by federal law enforcement partners, including Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE ERO), Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), with the support and assistance of state and local law enforcement partners.

    Indictments and criminal complaints are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: Bitget Wallet Report Reveals Gaming and Travel Are Top Crypto Payment Interests

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Bitget Wallet, the leading non-custodial crypto wallet, has released its third Onchain Report—Crypto Payment Use Cases—providing a detailed look into how global users want to spend their digital assets. Based on a survey of 4,599 crypto wallet users conducted in early 2025, the report highlights that gaming (36%), daily purchases (35%), and travel bookings (35%) are the top categories where users express the strongest interest in paying with crypto. The results point to a demand for practical, day-to-day applications of digital assets in both online and offline environments.

    The report captures preferences across generational cohorts. Gen Z (aged 18–29) shows strong interest in social and entertainment-driven use cases, including gaming and gifting. Millennials (30–44) express more diversified use across travel, subscriptions, and digital goods. Gen X (45+) favors high-value or essential categories such as travel (40%), digital products, and real estate. This distribution reflects the need for flexible and secure crypto payment experiences tailored to different life stages and priorities.

    Regional analysis reveals varied motivations shaped by infrastructure and local behavior. Southeast Asia ranks highest for gaming (41%) and gifting, reflecting a young, mobile-first population and strong adoption of digital wallets and play-to-earn models. In East Asia, daily purchases and digital product spending both reached 41%—the highest globally—supported by robust QR payment systems and e-commerce integration. Africa stands out for education-related payments (38%), a reflection of crypto’s role in improving access to cross-border services in underbanked environments. Latin America leads in digital product purchases (38%) and online shopping (35%), pointing to crypto’s utility in inflation-prone markets. Meanwhile, the Middle East shows distinct demand for luxury and lifestyle-related purchases, with 31% interested in buying high-end goods and 29% in cars with crypto.

    “Crypto payments are no longer a fringe behavior — they’re becoming embedded in how people transact across regions and age groups,” said Jamie Elkaleh, CMO of Bitget Wallet. “What users are asking for is reliability, compatibility, and control. Whether it’s a QR code at checkout or a stablecoin-powered purchase online, the expectation is that spending crypto should feel as seamless as spending cash. The challenge for wallets is to meet that expectation without compromising the principles of self-custody.”

    Bitget Wallet is expanding its PayFi infrastructure to meet this demand, most recently with the rollout of a crypto-linked card powered by Mastercard, enabling users to spend digital assets at over 150 million merchants worldwide. The non-custodial wallet also supports QR-based payments across blockchain-native systems such as Solana Pay and national QR standards in select markets, allowing users to pay in crypto while merchants receive fiat. Through its in-app Shop section, users can directly purchase lifestyle goods, mobile top-ups, game credits, digital subscriptions and book flight tickets and hotels using stablecoins like USDT or USDC.

    To read to full report, please visit Bitget Wallet blog.

    About Bitget Wallet
    Bitget Wallet is a non-custodial crypto wallet designed to make crypto simple and secure for everyone. With over 80 million users, it brings together a full suite of crypto services, including swaps, market insights, staking, rewards, DApp exploration, and payment solutions. Supporting 130+ blockchains and millions of tokens, Bitget Wallet enables seamless multi-chain trading across hundreds of DEXs and cross-chain bridges. Backed by a $300+ million user protection fund, it ensures the highest level of security for users’ assets. Its vision is Crypto for Everyone — to make crypto simpler, safer, and part of everyday life for a billion people.

    For more information, visit: X | Telegram | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn | TikTok | Discord | Facebook

    For media inquiries, contact media.web3@bitget.com

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ad0a7007-06f3-4d01-b461-4009d622f569

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Comparing ICE to the Gestapo reveals people’s fears for the US – a Holocaust scholar explains why Nazi analogies remain common, yet risky

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel H. Magilow, Professor of German, University of Tennessee

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers gather for a briefing before an enforcement operation on Jan. 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Md. Associated Press

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz recently sparked controversy by comparing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Nazi Germany’s notorious secret police, the Gestapo.

    “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz said during a May 2025 speech at the University of Minnesota Law School’s commencement ceremony.

    “They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons, no chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared,” Walz added.

    ICE, tasked with enforcing immigration policies, has dramatically increased the number of nationwide arrests of immigrants since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. ICE’s arrests of immigrants have more than doubled in 38 states since then.

    In recent months, other Democratic politicians, including U.S Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, have also compared ICE to the Gestapo, or Adolf Hitler’s “secret police,” as Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts said in April.

    But do ICE’s tactics actually resemble those of the Gestapo?

    Because I am a scholar of modern Germany and the Holocaust, people regularly ask me if this analogy is accurate. The answer is complicated.

    The Gestapo arrests a group of Jewish men hiding in a cellar in Poland in 1939, in what was possibly a staged German propaganda photo.
    Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

    Understanding the Gestapo

    The Nazi regime established the Gestapo, short for the German phrase Geheime Staatspolizei, meaning secret state police, soon after Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Among other responsibilities, the Gestapo was tasked with investigating political crimes and monitoring opposition activity. It later enforced racial laws in Germany and across occupied Europe.

    As part of its daily work, the Gestapo identified and monitored the regime’s political enemies. It arrested, interrogated, detained and tortured suspects and sent others to concentration camps. To identify suspects, it often relied on anonymous denunciations that came not only from zealous Nazis, but also from disgruntled neighbors or business competitors who tipped off the Gestapo to Jews and other people.

    While the Gestapo was relatively small in terms of personnel, it projected an image of being, as one scholar wrote, “omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.”

    It enforced the regime’s will and suppressed dissent not through sheer manpower but by creating a pervasive sense of fear. This aura of menace and terror has long outlived the Nazi regime itself.

    ICE’s operations

    ICE, with around 21,000 officers and staff operating in a country of more than 340 million, is smaller both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis. At its height between 1943 and 1945, the Gestapo had between 40,000 and 50,000 personnel in a country of 79 million.

    ICE is set to expand its work in the next few years with an additional US$75 billion in funding that Congress appropriated in July as part of Trump’s tax and spending bill.

    And while ICE focuses on immigration, the Gestapo had a more expansive role. It was responsible for suppressing all forms of political dissent, not just violations of immigration law.

    ICE operates with vastly more advanced technologies that did not exist in the 1940s, including facial recognition and social media monitoring.

    There is technically more transparency around ICE’s work than the Gestapo’s, since ICE is a federal agency that is subject to its work and information being reviewed by politicians and the public alike. But in June 2020, the first Trump administration reclassified ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, as a “security/sensitive agency.” This designation makes it harder for people to request and receive information about ICE’s work through Freedom of Information Act records requests.

    Like the Gestapo, ICE can seem performative in its work, like when it carried out a dramatic July raid of a cannabis farm in California in which balaclava-wearing officers used tear gas against protesters.

    The Gestapo in today’s world

    Since World War II and the fall of the Nazi regime, the term Gestapo has become shorthand in the United States to describe police repression.

    Using the word Gestapo to describe the worst possible authoritarian oppression has been popularized in popular movies in everything from the 1943 film “Casablanca” and “The Black Gestapo” in 1975 to “Inglourious Basterds” in 2009 and “Jojo Rabbit” in 2019.

    Walz’s remarks in May, though provocative, were also far from isolated in politics. Politicians from both sides of the aisle, as well as political observers, regularly use Gestapo and Nazi metaphors to attack their opponents.

    In 2022, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia famously confused the term Gestapo with gazpacho soup in a gaffe that went viral. “Now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress,” she said.

    In 2024, Trump accused President Joe Biden of running a “Gestapo administration” as the Justice Department prosecuted Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

    Overall, mentions of the word Gestapo in social media increased by 184% between 2017 and 2024, according to the nonprofit group Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.

    The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is among the organizations that have condemned making comparisons to the Holocaust and the Nazis for many reasons, including their historical inaccuracy and because they are insulting to people whose families remain scarred by the Holocaust.

    A Paraguayan woman whose relative was detained by ICE agents scuffles with officers in the halls of an immigration court in New York City on July 16, 2025.
    Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    What historical comparisons really say

    Analogies can be useful for clarifying complex ideas. But especially when they stretch across decades and vastly different political contexts, they risk oversimplifying and trivializing history.

    I believe that comparing ICE to the Gestapo is less a historical judgment than a reflection of modern anxiety – a fear that the U.S. is veering toward authoritarianism reminiscent of 1930s Germany.

    If politicians and other public figures are looking for historical comparisons to modern law enforcement agencies that use severe tactics, there is, unfortunately, no shortage of options: the Soviet Union’s secret police agencies NKVD and KGB, Iran’s former secret police and intelligence agency SAVAK or East Germany’s Stasi, to name just a few.
    All of those organizations denied suspects due process and grossly violated human rights in order to protect political regimes – but they don’t necessarily easily compare to ICE, either.

    Still, politicians and political observers alike most often turn to the Gestapo and other Nazi references instead.

    Ultimately, the Gestapo, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust serve as a powerful, shared cultural reference point. The catastrophes of World War II epitomize the worst possible outcomes of evil left unchecked.

    They have become the master moral paradigm and an ethical compass for the world today. In an age of polarization, World War II and the Holocaust remain the mirror in which Americans examine their present.

    Daniel H. Magilow received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (although DOGE cancelled the grant in April 2025).

    He serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the journal of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies

    – ref. Comparing ICE to the Gestapo reveals people’s fears for the US – a Holocaust scholar explains why Nazi analogies remain common, yet risky – https://theconversation.com/comparing-ice-to-the-gestapo-reveals-peoples-fears-for-the-us-a-holocaust-scholar-explains-why-nazi-analogies-remain-common-yet-risky-260767

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: I watched a simulated oil spill in the Indian Ocean – here’s how island and coastal countries worked together to avoid disaster

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kate Sullivan de Estrada, Associate Professor in the International Relations of South Asia, University of Oxford

    Preparing to react to a maritime ’emergency’. Romuald Robert, CC BY

    The coils of black hose, drum skimmers designed to collect oil from the ocean’s surface, and orangey-red containment booms all looked out of place on the white sand of Mombasa’s touristy Nyali beach. But on July 9, dozens of emergency responders in red and orange hi-vis gear took over a portion of this beach. They were braving the wind and choppy Indian Ocean waves as they mock up the onshore response to a simulated oil spill at sea.

    I research how countries in the western Indian Ocean cooperate to make the seas around them safer, and I was there to observe a field training exercise that brought together around 200 participants from ten coastal and island states for one week in east Africa’s largest port city. Codenamed MASEPOLREX25, it put two types of emergency response to the test.

    The first was Kenya’s national-level response to marine oil pollution, guided by its national contingency plan. The second was a regional-level response that can bring in outside help from other nations. The organiser of the exercise, the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) – an intergovernmental group of Western Indian Ocean islands headquartered in Mauritius – wanted the countries of the region to rehearse a joint response to marine pollution.

    Preparations begin on Kenya’s Nyali beach for the emergency exercise.
    Romuald Robert., CC BY

    The exercise put two IOC-designed regional centres through their paces. Think of them like a pair of regional helpdesks for ocean security, each with a distinct purpose.

    How does it unfold?

    The exercise began the day before with a briefing on the marine pollution scenario. The Kenyan authorities had received a distress call from the fictional captains of two damaged vessels.

    An oil tanker with a deadweight tonnage of 50,000 had collided with a feeder ship in Tanzanian waters, just south of Kenya’s maritime zone. The captain of the tanker suspected that 3,000-to-4,000 metric tonnes of intermediate fuel oil (persistent, thick oil that won’t evaporate by itself) had spilled into the ocean.

    Such an incident is plausible. A 2023 IOC-commissioned internal study pinpointed the Kenya-Tanzania border as a hotspot for marine pollution risk. Two major ports sit in close proximity in a busy maritime transit corridor.

    Clustered around an incident board, Kenya’s incident management team mounted their national response. Nuru Mohammed, liaison officer for the Kenya Maritime Authority, explained that the assessment of the size of the spill and expectations of its behaviour had already led the team to anticipate the need for regional support. At this time of year, the sea current would carry the slick northward into Kenyan waters.

    At the back of everyone’s minds was the 2020 Wakashio incident, in which a bulk carrier owned by a Japanese shipping company but flagged to Panama ran aground to the southeast of Mauritius. An estimated 800-to-1,000 tonnes of fuel oil spilled into the sea, affecting 30km of Mauritian coastline. The cost to marine life, food security and human health were compounded by economic and connectivity challenges posed by the COVID pandemic.

    Responders prepare oil-spill equipment on the beach near Mombasa.
    Romuald Robert, CC BY-SA

    For the exercise, aerial surveillance of the mock spill triggered the first attempt at containment. A live video feed of the offshore national response showed rice husks, a substitute for the oil, afloat on the waves. Two vessels sprayed simulated oil-spill dispersants in challenging winds.

    In real life, as in this exercise, oil properties determine how the spill will behave. IOC consultant Peter Taylor warned that churning waves could mix with the oil forming emulsions that were viscous and not dispersible.

    We turned our attention to the chat feed on SeaVision, an information-sharing platform. A notification popped up. The Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre (RMIFC) in Madagascar had shared mapped and timestamped projections of the drift of the oil slick for the following 72 hours. The centre’s director, Alex Ralaiarivony, later explained how it could provide other technical support such as satellite imagery, and could calculate the proportions of oil that were likely to become submerged, evaporate, remain adrift and reach the shoreline.

    By July 9, the fictional oil spill had reached the coast. The team on Nyali beach hurried to deploy an oil containment boom, a floating barrier that can shield sensitive areas such as shorelines.

    Back at headquarters, SeaVision was busy with messages. The other centre, the Regional Coordination of Operations Centre (RCOC) in Seychelles, was urgently requesting more shoreline equipment to help with oil spills, such as booms, from regional partners. Mauritius and Madagascar both made offers to help that Kenya accepted, and the RCOC coordinated a Dornier aircraft from Seychelles for collection and delivery.

    How does the emergency response work?

    The two centres help countries in the Western Indian Ocean secure their maritime zones against threats such as piracy, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the trafficking of illicit goods – and marine pollution incidents.

    In Madagascar, the RMIFC gathers and analyses maritime data from multiple sources to detect potential threats at sea. This enables early warning of threats like oil spills, as well as suspicious ships or boats engaged in illicit maritime activities.

    The RCOC in Seychelles responds to these threats. It draws on a shared pool of aircraft and ships belonging to its members, using these to coordinate joint responses – whether through sea patrols, boarding and inspecting ships, or laying the legal groundwork to prosecute offenders.

    The two regional centres serve seven states: IOC island members Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and France — through its island territory of La Réunion — as well as East African coastal states Kenya and Djibouti.

    On July 10, the exercise ended with an evaluation. One takeaway was that the two regional centres could have been used even more – for instance, to coordinate technical assistance from different partners. But a key purpose of the exercise was to help participating countries understand what the centres offer, and get them used to a regional-level response.

    Coastal and island states thousands of kilometres apart are being brought closer by maritime threats in their shared ocean. And the two centres are building their operational capacity to support the whole region, while also creating trust among countries. This matters in a geopolitical context of strategic competition in the Indian Ocean, where islands and East African coastal states sometimes want to put their own needs first.

    At the end of the exercise, IOC officer-in-charge Raj Mohabeer reminded participants that the island and coastal states of the Western Indian Ocean have vast maritime zones and face multiple seaborne security threats to their economies, ecologies and livelihoods. “No developing country can deal with a significant marine pollution event alone.”

    Kate Sullivan de Estrada receives funding from Research England’s Policy Support Fund allocation to the University of
    Oxford via the Public Policy Challenge Fund. Her project under the Fund is titled “Balancing ‘Sovereignty Trade-offs’ in Small-State Maritime Security Co-operation: The Case of the Indian Ocean Commission.”

    – ref. I watched a simulated oil spill in the Indian Ocean – here’s how island and coastal countries worked together to avoid disaster – https://theconversation.com/i-watched-a-simulated-oil-spill-in-the-indian-ocean-heres-how-island-and-coastal-countries-worked-together-to-avoid-disaster-260895

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Three types of drought – and why there’s no such thing as a global water crisis

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Filippo Menga, Visiting Research Fellow, Professor of Geography, University of Reading

    Lithium fields in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Freedom_wanted/Shutterstock

    Hosepipe bans have been announced in parts of England this summer. Following the driest spring in over a century, the Environment Agency has issued a medium drought risk warning, and Yorkshire Water will introduce restrictions starting Friday, 11 July. It’s a familiar story: reduced rainfall, shrinking reservoirs and renewed calls for restraint: take shorter showers, avoid watering the lawn, turn off the tap while brushing your teeth.

    These appeals to personal responsibility reflect a broader way of thinking about water: that everyone, everywhere, is facing the same crisis, and that small individual actions are a meaningful response. But what if this narrative, familiar as it is, obscures more than it reveals?

    In my new book, Thirst: The global quest to solve the water crisis, I argue that the phrase “global water crisis” may do more harm than good. It simplifies a complex global reality, collapsing vastly different situations into one seemingly shared emergency. While it evokes urgency, it conceals the very things that matter: the causes, politics and power dynamics that determine who gets water and who doesn’t.

    What we call a single crisis is, in fact, many distinct ones. To see this clearly, we must move beyond the rhetoric of global scarcity and look closely at how drought plays out in different places. Consider the UK, the Horn of Africa, and Chile: three regions facing water stress in radically different ways.

    UK: a crisis of infrastructure

    Drought in the UK is rarely the result of absolute water scarcity. The country receives relatively consistent rainfall throughout the year. Even when droughts occur, the underlying issue is how water is managed, distributed and maintained.

    Roughly a fifth of treated water is lost through leaking pipes, some of them over a century old. At the same time, privatised water companies have come under growing scrutiny for failing to invest in infrastructure while paying billions in dividends to shareholders. So calls for households to use less water often strike a dissonant note.

    The UK’s droughts are not just the product of climate variability. They are also shaped by policy decisions, regulatory failures and eroding public trust. Temporary scarcity becomes a recurring crisis due to the structures meant to manage it.

    Horn of Africa: survival and structural vulnerability

    In the Horn of Africa, drought is catastrophic. Since 2020, the region has endured five consecutive failed rainy seasons – the worst in four decades. More than 30 million people across Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya face food insecurity. Livelihoods have collapsed and millions of people have been displaced.

    Climate change is a driver, but so is politics. Armed conflict, weak governance and decades of underinvestment have left communities dangerously exposed. These vulnerabilities are rooted in longer histories of colonial exploitation and, more recently, the privatisation of essential services.

    Adaptation refers to how communities try to cope with changing climate conditions using the resources they have. Local efforts to adapt to drought (such as digging new wells, planting drought-resistant crop or rationing limited supplies) are often informal or underfunded.

    When prolonged droughts strike in places already facing poverty, conflict or weak governance, these coping strategies are rarely enough. Framing climate-induced drought as just another chapter in a global water crisis erases the specific conditions that make it so deadly.

    Drought in Africa can be catastrophic.
    Dieter Telemans/Panos Pictures, CC BY-NC-ND

    Chile: extraction and exclusion

    Chile’s water crisis is often linked to drought. But the underlying issue is extraction. The country holds over half of the world’s lithium reserves, a metal critical to electric vehicles and energy storage.

    Lithium is mined through an intensely water-consuming process in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, often on Indigenous land. Communities have seen water tables drop and wetlands disappear while receiving little benefit.

    Chile’s water laws, introduced under the Pinochet regime, allow private companies to hold long-term rights regardless of environmental or social cost. Here, water scarcity is driven less by rainfall and more by law, ownership and global demand for renewable technologies. Framing Chile’s situation as just another example of a global water crisis overlooks the deeper political and economic forces that shape how water is managed – and who gets to benefit from it.

    No single crisis, no single solution

    While drought is intensifying, its causes and consequences vary. In the UK, it’s about infrastructure and governance. In the Horn of Africa, it’s about historical injustice and systemic neglect. In Chile, it’s about legal frameworks and resource extraction.

    Labelling this simply as a global water crisis oversimplifies the issue and steers attention away from the root causes. It promotes technical solutions while ignoring the political questions of who has access to water and who controls it.

    This approach often favours private companies and international organisations, sidelining local communities and institutions. Instead of holding power to account, it risks shifting responsibility without making meaningful changes to how power and resources are shared.

    In Thirst, I argue that the crisis of water is a cultural and political one. Who controls water, who profits from it, who bears the cost of its depletion: these are the defining questions of our time. And they cannot be answered with generalities. We don’t need one big solution. We need many small, just ones.

    This article features a reference to a book that has been included for editorial reasons. If you click on one of the links to bookshop.org and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

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

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

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

    – ref. Three types of drought – and why there’s no such thing as a global water crisis – https://theconversation.com/three-types-of-drought-and-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-global-water-crisis-260723

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Filipino sailors dock in Mexico … and help invent tequila?

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Stephen Acabado, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles

    Bottles of tequila now command premium prices in trendy bars. On Instagram, celebrity-backed brands of the agave-based Mexican spirit jostle for attention. And debates over cultural appropriation and agave sustainability swirl alongside booming tourism in Jalisco, the western Mexican state that serves as the world’s tequila distillation hub.

    But behind the spirit’s flash of marketing and growing popularity lies a rarely asked question: Where did the knowledge to distill agave come from in the first place?

    In recent years, scholars studying how Indigenous communities responded to colonialism and global trade networks have begun to look more closely at the Pacific world. One key focus is the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade route, which linked Asia and the Americas for 250 years, from 1565 to 1815.

    The Manila-Acapulco galleon trade route.
    Jesse Nett/Oregon Encylopedia

    After Spain colonized the Philippines in 1565, Spanish galleons – towering, multidecked sailing ships – carried Chinese silk and Mexican silver across the ocean. But far more than goods traveled aboard those ships. They moved people, ideas and technologies.

    Among them was the craft of distillation.

    This overlooked connection may help explain how distilled agave spirits such as tequila came into being. While tequila is unmistakably a Mexican creation, the techniques used to produce it may owe something to Filipino sailors, who brought with them deep knowledge of transforming coconut sap into a potent spirit known as lambanog.

    3 competing theories

    For centuries, the rise of tequila has been credited to the Spanish. After the conquest of Mexico in the 16th century, colonizers introduced alembic stills, which are based on Moorish and Arabic technology. Unlike simple boiling, distillation requires managing heat and capturing purified vapor. These stills represented a major technological leap, allowing people to transform fermented drinks into distilled spirits.

    Agave, long used to make the fermented drink pulque, soon became the base for something new: tequila and mezcal.

    Colonial records, including the “Relaciones Geográficas,” a massive data-gathering project initiated by the Spanish Crown in the late 16th century, describe local Mesoamerican communities learning distillation from Spanish settlers. This version is well documented. But it assumes that technology moved in only one direction, from Europe to the Americas.

    A second idea suggests that Mesoamerican communities already had some understanding of vapor condensation. Archaeologists have found ceramic vessels in western Mexico that may have been used to capture steam. While distillation requires additional steps, this prior knowledge may have primed Indigenous groups to more readily adopt new techniques.

    As Mexican ethnobotanists Patricia Colunga-GarcíaMarín and Daniel Zizumbo-Villarreal have argued, “The adoption of distillation was likely not simply imposed, but creatively adapted to local knowledge systems.”

    A third perspective, which other researchers and I are exploring, traces a potential Filipino influence. The galleon trade brought thousands of Filipino sailors and laborers to Mexico, particularly along the Pacific coast. In places such as Guerrero, Colima and Jalisco, Filipino migrants introduced methods for fermenting and distilling coconut sap into lambanog, the coconut-based spirit.

    The stills they used, sometimes called Mongolian stills, were built with clay and bamboo and included a condensation bowl. Historian Pablo Guzman-Rivas has noted that these stills more closely resemble the earliest Mexican agave distillation setups than European alembics. He has also documented oral traditions in some coastal Mexican communities to link local distillation practices to their Filipino ancestors.

    The still on the left in Jalisco, Mexico, has similarities to the lambanog on the right from Infanta, Quezon, Philippines.
    Photo on left courtesy of Patricia Colunga-GarcíaMarín and Daniel Zizumbo-Villarreal; photo on right courtesy of Sherry Ann Angeles and Rading Coronacion, CC BY-SA

    Beyond the bottle

    Filipino influence extends beyond the distilling pot.

    In Colima and other Pacific port towns, traces of the Manila galleon trade ripple through daily life – in kitchens, cantinas and even in architecture. The word “palapa,” used in Mexico and Central America today to describe rustic thatched roofs, is exactly the same as the term for coconut fronds that’s primarily used in the Bicol Region of the Philippines.

    Filipino migrants in Mexico also shared knowledge of boatbuilding, fermentation and food preservation. Coconut vinegar, fish sauce and palm sugar-based condiments became part of Mexican cuisine. One of the most enduring legacies is tuba, the fermented coconut sap still popular in coastal areas of the Mexican state of Guerrero, where Filipino sailors once settled. Known locally by the same name, tuba is sold in markets and along roadsides, often enjoyed as a refreshing drink or as a cooking ingredient.

    A replica of a galleon, the Spanish trading ship that traversed the world’s oceans from the 16th century to the 18th century.
    Dennis Jarvis/flickr, CC BY-SA

    Exchange moved both ways. Filipino vessels carried corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes and cacao back across the Pacific, reshaping food in the Philippines. These exchanges took place under the shadow of colonialism and forced labor, but their legacies endure in language, in taste and even in the roofs over people’s heads.

    Technical knowledge rarely travels through official channels alone. It moves with cooks in ship galleys, with carpenters below deck, with laborers who desert ships to settle in unfamiliar ports. Sometimes it was a way to build a roof or preserve a flavor. Other times, it was a method for turning a fermented plant into a spirit that could keep for long voyages. And by the early 1600s, new types of distilled agave spirits were being made in Mexico.

    Tequila is unmistakably a product of Mexico. But it is also a product of movement. Whether Filipino migrants directly introduced distillation methods or whether they emerged from a mix of Indigenous experimentation and European tools, every time you sip tequila, you’re tasting an echo of those long ocean crossings from many centuries ago.

    Stephen Acabado receives funding from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

    – ref. Filipino sailors dock in Mexico … and help invent tequila? – https://theconversation.com/filipino-sailors-dock-in-mexico-and-help-invent-tequila-258166

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: Heliostar Metals to Present at the Metals & Mining Virtual Investor Conference July 24

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Heliostar Metals (TSX.V: HSTR, OTCQX: HSTXF, FRA: RGG1) (“Heliostar” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it is participating in the Metals & Mining Virtual Investor Conference hosted by VirtualInvestorConferences.com on July 24, 2025. Vice President Investor Relations & Development Stephen Soock will present live to share how the Company’s combination of immediate cash flow, meaningful exploration upside, and high-grade resource development set the stage for it to become the next mid-tier gold producer.

    DATE: July 24
    TIME: 11:00am EDT
    LINK: REGISTER HERE
    Available for 1×1 meetings: July 24, 28 and 29

    This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company
    questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the
    conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event.

    It is recommended that online investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates.  

    Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com.

    Recent Company Highlights

    • First quarter production of 9,082 gold equivalent ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,375-$1,475/GEO
    • Strong balance sheet with US$27M in cash as of March 31
    • Successful extension mineralization at the Creston pit including 56.6m of 2.88 g/t gold
    • High grade drill results from the historic Truckshop stockpile at its operating La Colorada mine including 10.7m of 1.81 g/t gold from surface

    About Heliostar Metals Ltd.

    Heliostar is a gold mining and development company with a goal of growing to mid-tier producer status by the end of the decade. The company currently has two producing mines in Mexico – the La Colorada Mine and San Agustin Mine open pit heap leach operations. Heliostar plans to leverage the cash generated by these operations to fund development of its flagship Ana Paula underground project. Ana Paula is a rare combination of bulk tonnage and high grade, with a construction start targeted for 2H 2026 to add 100,000oz/yr to Heliostar’s production profile. The company also has a pipeline of other advanced development assets and exploration opportunities across its portfolio to continue to drive growth.

    About Virtual Investor Conferences®
    Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly traded companies to seamlessly present directly to investors.

    Providing a real-time investor engagement solution, VIC is specifically designed to offer companies more efficient investor access. Replicating the components of an on-site investor conference, VIC offers companies enhanced capabilities to connect with investors, schedule targeted one-on-one meetings and enhance their presentations with dynamic video content. Accelerating the next level of investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences delivers leading investor communications to a global network of retail and institutional investors.

    CONTACTS:

    Heliostar Metals Limited
    Rob Grey
    Investor Relations Manager
    (844) 753-0045
    rob.grey@heliostarmetals.com

    Virtual Investor Conferences
    John M. Viglotti
    SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access
    OTC Markets Group
    (212) 220-2221
    johnv@otcmarkets.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Heliostar Metals to Present at the Metals & Mining Virtual Investor Conference July 24

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Heliostar Metals (TSX.V: HSTR, OTCQX: HSTXF, FRA: RGG1) (“Heliostar” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it is participating in the Metals & Mining Virtual Investor Conference hosted by VirtualInvestorConferences.com on July 24, 2025. Vice President Investor Relations & Development Stephen Soock will present live to share how the Company’s combination of immediate cash flow, meaningful exploration upside, and high-grade resource development set the stage for it to become the next mid-tier gold producer.

    DATE: July 24
    TIME: 11:00am EDT
    LINK: REGISTER HERE
    Available for 1×1 meetings: July 24, 28 and 29

    This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company
    questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the
    conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event.

    It is recommended that online investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates.  

    Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com.

    Recent Company Highlights

    • First quarter production of 9,082 gold equivalent ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,375-$1,475/GEO
    • Strong balance sheet with US$27M in cash as of March 31
    • Successful extension mineralization at the Creston pit including 56.6m of 2.88 g/t gold
    • High grade drill results from the historic Truckshop stockpile at its operating La Colorada mine including 10.7m of 1.81 g/t gold from surface

    About Heliostar Metals Ltd.

    Heliostar is a gold mining and development company with a goal of growing to mid-tier producer status by the end of the decade. The company currently has two producing mines in Mexico – the La Colorada Mine and San Agustin Mine open pit heap leach operations. Heliostar plans to leverage the cash generated by these operations to fund development of its flagship Ana Paula underground project. Ana Paula is a rare combination of bulk tonnage and high grade, with a construction start targeted for 2H 2026 to add 100,000oz/yr to Heliostar’s production profile. The company also has a pipeline of other advanced development assets and exploration opportunities across its portfolio to continue to drive growth.

    About Virtual Investor Conferences®
    Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly traded companies to seamlessly present directly to investors.

    Providing a real-time investor engagement solution, VIC is specifically designed to offer companies more efficient investor access. Replicating the components of an on-site investor conference, VIC offers companies enhanced capabilities to connect with investors, schedule targeted one-on-one meetings and enhance their presentations with dynamic video content. Accelerating the next level of investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences delivers leading investor communications to a global network of retail and institutional investors.

    CONTACTS:

    Heliostar Metals Limited
    Rob Grey
    Investor Relations Manager
    (844) 753-0045
    rob.grey@heliostarmetals.com

    Virtual Investor Conferences
    John M. Viglotti
    SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access
    OTC Markets Group
    (212) 220-2221
    johnv@otcmarkets.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Heliostar Metals to Present at the Metals & Mining Virtual Investor Conference July 24

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Heliostar Metals (TSX.V: HSTR, OTCQX: HSTXF, FRA: RGG1) (“Heliostar” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it is participating in the Metals & Mining Virtual Investor Conference hosted by VirtualInvestorConferences.com on July 24, 2025. Vice President Investor Relations & Development Stephen Soock will present live to share how the Company’s combination of immediate cash flow, meaningful exploration upside, and high-grade resource development set the stage for it to become the next mid-tier gold producer.

    DATE: July 24
    TIME: 11:00am EDT
    LINK: REGISTER HERE
    Available for 1×1 meetings: July 24, 28 and 29

    This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company
    questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the
    conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event.

    It is recommended that online investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates.  

    Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com.

    Recent Company Highlights

    • First quarter production of 9,082 gold equivalent ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,375-$1,475/GEO
    • Strong balance sheet with US$27M in cash as of March 31
    • Successful extension mineralization at the Creston pit including 56.6m of 2.88 g/t gold
    • High grade drill results from the historic Truckshop stockpile at its operating La Colorada mine including 10.7m of 1.81 g/t gold from surface

    About Heliostar Metals Ltd.

    Heliostar is a gold mining and development company with a goal of growing to mid-tier producer status by the end of the decade. The company currently has two producing mines in Mexico – the La Colorada Mine and San Agustin Mine open pit heap leach operations. Heliostar plans to leverage the cash generated by these operations to fund development of its flagship Ana Paula underground project. Ana Paula is a rare combination of bulk tonnage and high grade, with a construction start targeted for 2H 2026 to add 100,000oz/yr to Heliostar’s production profile. The company also has a pipeline of other advanced development assets and exploration opportunities across its portfolio to continue to drive growth.

    About Virtual Investor Conferences®
    Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly traded companies to seamlessly present directly to investors.

    Providing a real-time investor engagement solution, VIC is specifically designed to offer companies more efficient investor access. Replicating the components of an on-site investor conference, VIC offers companies enhanced capabilities to connect with investors, schedule targeted one-on-one meetings and enhance their presentations with dynamic video content. Accelerating the next level of investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences delivers leading investor communications to a global network of retail and institutional investors.

    CONTACTS:

    Heliostar Metals Limited
    Rob Grey
    Investor Relations Manager
    (844) 753-0045
    rob.grey@heliostarmetals.com

    Virtual Investor Conferences
    John M. Viglotti
    SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access
    OTC Markets Group
    (212) 220-2221
    johnv@otcmarkets.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Heliostar Metals to Present at the Metals & Mining Virtual Investor Conference July 24

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Heliostar Metals (TSX.V: HSTR, OTCQX: HSTXF, FRA: RGG1) (“Heliostar” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it is participating in the Metals & Mining Virtual Investor Conference hosted by VirtualInvestorConferences.com on July 24, 2025. Vice President Investor Relations & Development Stephen Soock will present live to share how the Company’s combination of immediate cash flow, meaningful exploration upside, and high-grade resource development set the stage for it to become the next mid-tier gold producer.

    DATE: July 24
    TIME: 11:00am EDT
    LINK: REGISTER HERE
    Available for 1×1 meetings: July 24, 28 and 29

    This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company
    questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the
    conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event.

    It is recommended that online investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates.  

    Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com.

    Recent Company Highlights

    • First quarter production of 9,082 gold equivalent ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,375-$1,475/GEO
    • Strong balance sheet with US$27M in cash as of March 31
    • Successful extension mineralization at the Creston pit including 56.6m of 2.88 g/t gold
    • High grade drill results from the historic Truckshop stockpile at its operating La Colorada mine including 10.7m of 1.81 g/t gold from surface

    About Heliostar Metals Ltd.

    Heliostar is a gold mining and development company with a goal of growing to mid-tier producer status by the end of the decade. The company currently has two producing mines in Mexico – the La Colorada Mine and San Agustin Mine open pit heap leach operations. Heliostar plans to leverage the cash generated by these operations to fund development of its flagship Ana Paula underground project. Ana Paula is a rare combination of bulk tonnage and high grade, with a construction start targeted for 2H 2026 to add 100,000oz/yr to Heliostar’s production profile. The company also has a pipeline of other advanced development assets and exploration opportunities across its portfolio to continue to drive growth.

    About Virtual Investor Conferences®
    Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly traded companies to seamlessly present directly to investors.

    Providing a real-time investor engagement solution, VIC is specifically designed to offer companies more efficient investor access. Replicating the components of an on-site investor conference, VIC offers companies enhanced capabilities to connect with investors, schedule targeted one-on-one meetings and enhance their presentations with dynamic video content. Accelerating the next level of investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences delivers leading investor communications to a global network of retail and institutional investors.

    CONTACTS:

    Heliostar Metals Limited
    Rob Grey
    Investor Relations Manager
    (844) 753-0045
    rob.grey@heliostarmetals.com

    Virtual Investor Conferences
    John M. Viglotti
    SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access
    OTC Markets Group
    (212) 220-2221
    johnv@otcmarkets.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Sonangol Joins Angola Oil & Gas (AOG) 2025 as Diamond Sponsor Amid Bold Development Drive

    Source: APO

    Angola’s national oil company (NOC) Sonangol has joined the Angola Oil & Gas (AOG) conference as a Diamond Sponsor. The company’s participation comes as it implements a bold development drive in Angola, targeting new exploration opportunities, increased production and 445,000 barrels per day (bpd) in refining capacity. Sonangol’s sponsorship reflects a broader commitment to using oil and gas as a catalyst for development in Angola and is expected to unlock new pathways for global collaboration.

    Producing upwards of 200,000 bpd in oil and gas and supplying the market with 5.4 million metric tons of refined products, Sonangol is an instrumental part of Angola’s oil and gas market. The company has stakes in 35 concessions, of which nine are operated, and has positioned itself as the partner of choice for upstream players. Sonangol is in the process of transforming itself from an NOC into a competitive upstream player. The company reaffirmed its plan to launch an Initial Public Offering, with 30% of the company’s shares set to become available. The partial privatization is not only expected to generate capital to support exploration and production projects, but strengthen Sonangol’s role as a major upstream operator in Angola.

    The anticipated IPO comes as Sonangol advances a series of major oil and gas projects in collaboration with international partners. These include the Agogo Integrated West Hub Development, on track for production by late-2025 and adding 120,000 bpd to the market, as well as the Kaminho deepwater development. Kaminho achieved a final investment decision in 2024 and will start operations in 2028. With the country striving to sustain oil production above one million bpd, Sonangol is also pursuing new development opportunities in Angola, working closely with international operators to unlock new resources. Notably, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with Brazilian state-owned multinational corporation Petrobras in May 2025, covering research and development activities. The agreement follows another deal signed in March 2025 between the companies, outlining the joint study of offshore acreage in Angola. 

    Meanwhile, in pursuit of enhanced fuel security, Sonangol plans to increase refining capacity to 445,000 bpd through the development of three new facilities – set to complement the operational 65,000 bpd Luanda refinery. The first of these – the first phase of the 60,000 bpd Cabinda refinery – is coming online in 2025, while Sonangol is currently seeking $4.8 billion to address the funding shortfall for the Lobito refinery – a 200,000 bpd facility under construction. A 100,000-bpd facility is also planned in Soyo. The Cabinda facility alone is anticipated to reduce Angola’s derivative imports by 14% by 2026.

    Beyond these projects, Sonangol has committed to strengthening skills development across the Angolan oil and gas sector. The company signed two agreements with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States (US) in June 2025, aimed at supporting the development of Angola’s natural and mineral resources by leveraging US research, innovation and technology. The first agreement was signed with MIT Industrial Liaison Program, enabling Sonangol to directly interact with MIT research areas to support projects across the energy, mining, engineering, construction and infrastructure industries. The second agreement, MIT Africa, will facilitate knowledge-exchange, staff training, joint research and academic mentoring. MIT Africa features two programs – Global Classroom and Global Teaching Labs – which allow Angolan educational institutions to collaborate with MIT. 

    Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Energy Capital & Power.

    Media files

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    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Dmitry Chernyshenko: The plan for the Decade of Science and Technology is aimed at achieving technological leadership

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Government of the Russian Federation – Government of the Russian Federation –

    An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    A meeting of the Coordination Committee for the Decade of Science and Technology was held under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko. Participants discussed the interim results of the Decade’s initiatives for 2025 and preparations for the V Congress of Young Scientists.

    “The Decade of Science and Technology, announced by President Vladimir Putin, is aimed at strengthening the role of science and technology in solving key development problems of the country. Its main goal is to achieve technological leadership of Russia. To achieve this, a special plan has been developed, which provides for the popularization of modern scientific knowledge and obtaining a real socio-economic effect. One of the main annual events – the Congress of Young Scientists – has been included in the national project “Youth and Children” since this year. The event will traditionally bring together representatives of the scientific community, business leaders, as well as representatives of state and public organizations from Russia and other countries,” said Deputy Prime Minister, Co-Chairman of the Coordination Committee for the Decade of Science and Technology Dmitry Chernyshenko.

    Last year, more than 7,000 people from 85 regions of Russia and abroad took part in the Congress of Young Scientists.

    The Decade’s initiatives strengthen the human resources potential of the scientific and technological sphere.

    “Holding the Decade of Science and Technology in Russia is, of course, a very important initiative of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. It is aimed at popularizing scientific achievements and creating conditions for doing science. I believe that the organizers and all participants of the Decade of Science and Technology are, on the whole, successfully coping with these tasks,” said Gennady Krasnikov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

    Minister of Education and Science Valery Falkov noted that the Decade of Science and Technology forms the correct perception of science and the profession of a scientist. According to surveys, the proportion of parents who welcome their children’s choice of a career in the scientific field is increasing, now there are more than 60%.

    “We also see a growing interest among young people in engineering specialties, which is associated with the extensive work within the Decade of Science and Technology. Compared to 2022, admission to engineering programs in 2024 increased by 7% – from 213 thousand to 228 thousand people,” the minister emphasized.

    Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education Denis Sekirinsky reported that scientific volunteering is developing, the study of the legacy of the Soviet scientific school continues, the network of scientific playgrounds for children is expanding – today there are 55 of them in 41 cities in Russia. In the “Science and Innovation” domain, 26 services are available for the research community. In Russia, 12 new routes for popular science tourism have been launched in the regions, and in general, there are 87 of them in the country.

    “Since the beginning of 2025, more than 3,000 events of the Decade of Science and Technology have been held, reaching more than 4 million people. This reflects the scale of the work done and sets a high bar for the second half of the year. The development of existing formats continues, new areas are emerging so that more and more young people see science as an opportunity for professional growth and participation in the future of the country,” he said.

    Sofia Malyavina, Director General, spoke about the work of the operator of the Decade of Science and Technology, ANO National Priorities: “Since the beginning of the Decade of Science and Technology in 2022, we have organized more than a hundred excursions and lectures “Science is Nearby”, created dozens of thematic TV projects and podcasts, and attracted over 100 thousand schoolchildren and students to participate in competitions. Since the beginning of 2025 alone, over 24 thousand publications about science have been published – on television, radio, in the press, and online. Interest in this topic is growing, and our task is to ensure that as many people as possible learn about scientific achievements and the specialists behind them.”

    The head of Rosmolodezh Grigory Gurov noted that the scientific volunteer community consists of more than 60 thousand people, and in 2025, more than 3 thousand volunteers joined it: “Rosmolodezh, together with the “Movement of the First”, is implementing the direction “Science and Technology. “DARE AND DISCOVER”, which helps popularize science among children and young people, including through the flagship project “First in Science”. This year, we plan to launch at least 600 “First” scientific clubs in 30 pilot regions. We support young people who strive to develop in science, we create conditions so that children and young people can implement their ideas and propose innovative projects within the framework of the national project “Youth and Children”, launched on the initiative of the President of Russia.”

    Anton Kobyakov, Advisor to the President and Head of the Interdepartmental Working Group for the Preparation and Holding of the Congress of Young Scientists and Associated Events, spoke about the preparations for the anniversary V Congress of Young Scientists to be held on November 26–28, 2025.

    “Special attention in 2025 is being paid to expanding the international component of the Congress of Young Scientists – active work is underway to invite foreign scientists from friendly countries to participate in the congress. As part of the international promotion, the congress was presented at external communication platforms, including off-site events and presentation sessions of the SPIEF in Mexico, Turkey, India, and Arab countries. Also this year, the partner of the invitation campaign is Friends for Leadership – an association created following the XIX World Festival of Youth and Students, which operates in 130 countries. As a result of the work, to date, more than 1.6 thousand participants have submitted applications to participate in the congress,” said Anton Kobyakov.

    Among the innovations of the upcoming congress, the Presidential Advisor named the holding of the BRICS Social and Humanitarian Research Forum on the sidelines of the congress. In addition, exhibition clusters dedicated to industry, technological development, healthcare, ecology, and digitalization will be organized within the framework of the congress exhibition.

    The Director General of the State Corporation Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev, spoke about the events of the V Congress of Young Scientists related to the topic of the atom and the 80th anniversary of the nuclear industry.

    The Governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Dmitry Artyukhov paid attention to the regional experience of implementing the Decade’s initiatives.

    The director of the National Center “Russia” Natalia Virtuozova spoke about the activities of the National Center “Russia” to implement the tasks of the Decade. According to her, one of the strategic areas was the popularization of science fiction – through exhibition projects, international discussion platforms and educational programs. The flagship of this work was the international symposium “Creating the Future”.

    The head of the Educational Foundation “Talent and Success” Elena Shmeleva, the rector of the Lomonosov Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy, the rector of the Presidential Academy Alexey Komissarov put forward a number of proposals for holding projects and events within the framework of the Decade and the Congress of Young Scientists.

    Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    .

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: VIDEO: Criminal Illegal Alien with Lengthy Rap Sheet Ambushes and Shoots CBP Officer in New York City

    Source: US Federal Emergency Management Agency

    Headline: VIDEO: Criminal Illegal Alien with Lengthy Rap Sheet Ambushes and Shoots CBP Officer in New York City

    A witness of the attack—believed to be an attempted robbery—states that she and the victim were sitting on the rocks by the water when 2 subjects on a scooter drove up to them and the passenger got off the back and approached them with a firearm drawn

    The off-duty CBP officer responded by withdrawing his own firearm in self defense

    The CBP officer was shot in his right arm and left cheek

    Thankfully, the officer is in stable condition at the hospital

    Video of the attack is below

    Image

    One of the assailants is Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic

    He illegally entered the United States on April 4, 2023, and was released by the Biden Administration into the country

    Image

    This criminal illegal alien’s rap sheet includes:  

    On October 11, 2023, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested and charged Nunez with felony grand larceny, petit larceny, and reckless driving

    On October 01, 2024, the NYPD arrested and charged Nunez with 2nd and 3rd degree assault

    On November 30, 2024, the NYPD arrested Nunez for criminal contempt

    On January 13, 2025, he was again attested for criminal contempt

    On February 21, 2025, the Leominster Police Department in Massachusetts issued a criminal warrant for Nunez for armed robbery with a firearm

    After failing to show up for his immigration hearing a judge issued Nunez a final order of removal on November 6, 2024

    “This violent criminal illegal alien had multiple run-ins with NYPD for assault and felony grand larceny before he ambushed and shot a CBP officer

    The Biden Administration arrested this criminal illegal alien at the border and chose to release him into our country to terrorize Americans

    We are thankful that our brave law enforcement officer is in stable condition,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin

    “Sanctuary city politicians allowed this to happen

    This suffering is a direct result of lawless sanctuary city policies

    Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, DHS will flood the zone in sanctuary cities and remove these criminals one by one

    We will not be deterred: if you break America’s laws we will hunt you down, arrest you, and deport you

    ”   

    The other suspect remains at large

    Anonymous tips may be reported on this form and via the toll-free ICE tip line, (866) 347-2423

      
    # # #

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Six Months of Keeping America Safe Under President Trump and Secretary Noem

    Source: US Federal Emergency Management Agency

    Headline: Six Months of Keeping America Safe Under President Trump and Secretary Noem

    lass=”text-align-center”>DHS has accomplished more in six months than most Administrations achieve in an entire term
    WASHINGTON – In just six months, President Trump and Secretary Noem have delivered the American people a long list of victories in their mission to secure the homeland and Make America Safe Again

     
    Under their leadership, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has closed the southern border, removed violent criminal illegal aliens, restored law and order to our immigration system, supported Americans in times of crisis, revolutionized our Coast Guard to meet the challenges of the 21st Century, and kept Americans safe

     
    Secured the Southern Border 

    On day one, President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border

        
    President Trump immediately reinstated “Remain in Mexico” and ended catch-and-release

     
    Daily border encounters have plunged by 93% since President Trump took office

    Under President Trump’s leadership, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has located over 10,000 unaccompanied children

    Migrants are turning BACK before they even reach our border— migration through Panama’s Darien Gap is down 99%

    President Trump—with $46

    5 billion from the Big Beautiful Bill—is finishing the border wall

    DHS already has more than 85 miles either planned or under construction with funding from the prior year, in addition to hundreds of miles that are now planned to be funded by the bill

     President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill also includes over $5 billion for new technology and border surveillance

    With the Big Beautiful Bill, CBP will get the resources they need to keep America safe, including $4

    1 billion to hire additional personnel, including 5,000 more customs officers and 3,000 new Border Patrol agents

    In June, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had the lowest number of nationwide encounters in CBP history at 25,228

    The number of nationwide apprehensions in June was also a historic low of just 8,024

       
    Notably, on June 28, Border Patrol recorded only 136 apprehensions across the entire Southwest Border—the lowest single-day total in agency history

    And in both May and June, U

    S

    Border Patrol reported zero parole releases—reinforcing the Administration’s commitment to ending catch-and-release policies

    Removed the Worst of the Worst Illegal Aliens  

    The Trump Administration empowered our brave men and women in law enforcement to use common sense to do their jobs effectively

     
    DHS returned to using the term “illegal alien” which is the statutory language

    President Trump will not allow political correctness to hinder law enforcement

     
    The Trump administration has arrested more than 300,000 illegal aliens in 2025 alone

    70% of ICE arrests are criminal illegal aliens with criminal charges or convictions

         
    The Big Beautiful Bill will allow ICE to arrest and remove even more criminal aliens by providing $14

    4 billion for removals, 10,000 new ICE agents, 80,000 new ICE beds, and a $10,000 signing bonus for new ICE agents

    This will help ICE achieve as many as 1 million deportations per year

    As part of 287(g), DHS partnered with the State of Florida and opened Alligator Alcatraz, giving the Trump administration the capability to lock up some of the worst scumbags who entered the country illegally under the previous administration

    The new facility expands facility and bed space by the thousands

    Operation Tidal Wave, the first 287(g) enforcement operation coordinated with state and federal law enforcement partners, resulted in over 800 arrests

    President Trump and Secretary Noem are empowering state and local law enforcement to get these criminal illegal aliens off our streets

    DHS has secured more than 800 signed agreements with state and local partnerships under 287(g)

        
    At the direction of President Trump, CBP and ICE began widescale immigration enforcement operations in sanctuary city Los Angeles and southern California

    The month-long operation resulted in arresting some of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens

    In July, federal law enforcement officers executed criminal warrant operations at marijuana grow sites in Carpinteria and Camarillo

    At least 14 migrant children have been rescued from potential exploitation, forced labor and human trafficking

    Federal officers also arrested at least 361 illegal aliens from both sites in Carpinteria and Camarillo

    After weeks of delays by activist judges, the Department of Homeland Security finally deported eight barbaric, violent criminal illegal aliens to South Sudan

    Delivering Justice for Victims of Illegal Immigration  

    President Trump and Secretary Noem reopened the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office, which was shuttered by the Biden Administration

    President Trump and Secretary Noem are standing up for the victims of illegal alien crime and ensuring they have access to much needed resources and support they deserve

    Incentivizing Historic Self-Deportations 

    President Trump ended the CBP One app that allowed more than one million aliens to illegally enter the U

    S

    The Trump Administration replaced this disastrous program with the CBP Home app, which has a new self-deportation reporting feature for aliens illegally in the country

    President Trump launched Project Homecoming through a presidential EO

    The United States is also offering any illegal alien who uses the CBP Home App a stipend of $1,000 dollars, paid after their return to their home country has been confirmed through the app

    So far, tens of thousands of illegal aliens have used the app to self-deport

     
    In addition to offering CBP Home, DHS announced illegal aliens who self-deport through the app will receive forgiveness of any civil fines or penalties for failing to depart the United States

     DHS also made CBP Home more user friendly by eliminating certain steps and making it easier than ever for illegal aliens to self-deport

    DHS and DOJ are enforcing our immigration laws and fining illegal aliens who do not depart when they are supposed to

    So far, nearly 10,000 fine notices have been issued by ICE

    Restoring Common Sense to America’s Legal Immigration System 

    President Trump ended the broad abuse of humanitarian parole and returned the program to a case-by-case basis

    As part of this effort, Secretary Noem terminated the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela parole programs

    Following victory at the U

    S

    Supreme Court, DHS began sending termination notices in June, informing the illegal aliens both their parole is terminated, and their parole-based employment authorization is revoked – effective immediately

    DHS has returned the Temporary Protected Status immigration program to its original status: temporary

    No longer will this program be abused and exploited by illegal aliens

    Secretary Noem rescinded the previous administration’s extension of Venezuelan, Haitian, Nicaraguan, Honduran, and Afghan TPS

    Secretary Noem terminated Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification—meaning Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status—for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party

    It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from higher tuition to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments

    Harvard University repeatedly abused this privilege and even stonewalled DHS’s request for information

    Initiating a Golden Age in American Air Travel 

    Secretary Noem terminated the politically motivated Quiet Skies Program, which since its existence has failed to stop a single terrorist attack while costing US taxpayers $200 million a year

    The program, under the guise of “national security,” was used to target political opponents and benefit political allies

    TSA ended the “shoes-off” travel policy, allowing passengers traveling through domestic airports to keep their shoes on while passing through security screening at TSA checkpoints

    This change will drastically decrease passenger wait times at our TSA checkpoints, leading to a more pleasant and efficient passenger experience

    The Trump administration fully implemented REAL ID enforcement measures nationwide—a law signed 20 years ago

    REAL ID helps ensure that travelers are who they say they are and prevents fraud by criminals, terrorists, and illegal aliens

    Most travelers have not even noticed a difference because nearly 94% of travelers are already REAL ID compliant

    Secretary Noem ended collective bargaining for the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Transportation Security Officers, which constrained TSA’s chief mission to safeguard our transportation systems

    Fixing Disaster Relief for the 21st Century 

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency is now shifting from bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens

    The old processes are being replaced because they failed Americans in real emergencies for decades

    President Trump has established the FEMA Review Council to provide recommendations on how to best conduct disaster relief at the federal level

     
    Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, the FEMA Review Council is developing a comprehensive plan for necessary change

    DHS has empowered state and local governments to lead disaster relief efforts without interference from the federal government

    Provided Rapid and Effective Support to Flood Victims in Texas 

    Within moments of the flooding in Texas, DHS assets, including the U

    S

    Coast Guard (USCG), CBP Border Search, CBP BORSTAR, and FEMA personnel surged into unprecedented action alongside Texas first responders for search and rescue operations

    FEMA deployed 311 staffers delivering critical intelligence, aerial imagery, and shelter for 171 survivors

    Combined state and federal rescue efforts evacuated and rescued over 1,500 people

    Getting CISA Back on Mission 

    Under the Biden Administration, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) censored free speech and targeted Americans

    Under President Trump’s direction, DHS closed CISA’s politically weaponized offices and fired those responsible for abusing their power

    CISA is now back on-mission: Protecting Americans and critical infrastructure from cyberthreats

    CISA is shifting away from an all-hazards approach to a risk-informed approach, prioritizing resilience and action over mere information sharing

     
    CISA personnel are deployed across 10 regions in support of all 56 states/territories

     
    CISA is also on the front lines of defending America from cyberattacks

     
    CISA partnered with the FBI and NSA to ensure state and local governments have information and resources necessary for protection

    CISA is also providing security support for next year’s FIFA World Cup

    Secretary Noem discontinued the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) as a part of the implementation of President Trump’s Executive Order 14217, Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, and removed members of the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), which CISA oversees

    Revolutionizing the Coast Guard 

    When President Trump came back into office, the Coast Guard faced its greatest readiness crisis since World War II because the Biden Administration left it underfunded and neglected

    President Trump’s order to surge Coast Guard assets to our maritime border changed the game

    In the first few months of the Trump Administration, the Coast Guard seized more cocaine and other illegal drugs than during the entirety of 2024

    For the first time in years, the Coast Guard expects to exceed its recruiting goals

    In Fiscal Year 2025, the Coast Guard has brought in more than 4,250 recruits – 1,200 more than the same time last year

    That’s 108% over the goal

    Under Biden, the Coast Guard fell short of its recruiting goals four years straight

    Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, the Coast Guard is unleashing “Force Design 2028,” a revolutionary new blueprint that will make the Coast Guard more agile, more capable, and more responsive than ever before

    Standing up for the American taxpayer 

    The United States Coast Guard (USCG) eliminated an ineffective information technology (IT) program, saving nearly $33 million, and is now focusing resources where they’re most needed to protect our homeland

     
    USCG partially terminated a wasteful Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) contract with Eastern Shipbuilding Group (ESG), which has been slow to deliver four OPCs, harming U

    S

    defense capabilities

    The Trump Administration stopped aliens on the Terror Watchlist from receiving Medicaid benefits

         
    Secretary Noem cancelled CISA’s expensive headquarters project, saving taxpayers over half a billion dollars

    To stop policies that were magnets for illegal immigration, DHS froze all funding to non-governmental organizations that facilitate illegal immigration and announced a partnership with the U

    S

    Department of Housing and Urban Development to ensure taxpayer dollars do not go to housing illegal aliens

     
    ###  

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: In a world first, The Hague wants to arrest Taliban leaders over their treatment of women – what happens next?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yvonne Breitwieser-Faria, Lecturer in Criminal Law and International Law, Curtin University

    Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan.

    The court’s Pre-Trial Chamber II cited reasonable grounds for believing supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani were guilty of “ordering, inducing or soliciting the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.”

    The warrants – the first ever on charges of gender persecution – are being hailed as an “important vindication and acknowledgement of the rights of Afghan women and girls”.

    But will they improve the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, given the Taliban does not recognise the court or its jurisdiction?

    The signs are not good with the Taliban denying the allegations and condemning the warrants as a “clear act of hostility [and an] insult to the beliefs of Muslims around the world”.

    Erased from public life

    Strict rules and prohibitions have been imposed on the Afghan people since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

    Women and girls have been singled out for even worse treatment by reason of their gender.

    According the warrants, the Taliban has

    severely deprived, through decrees and edicts, girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion.

    Women are banned from public places and girls from attending school once they turn 12.

    Zahra Nader is the editor-in-chief of newsroom Zan Times which investigates human rights violations in Afghanistan. She says Afghan women and girls are being silenced, restricted and stripped of their basic human rights.

    It is this discriminatory system of control of woman and girls in Afghanistan that is at the core of the court’s prosecution.

    The warrants also accuse the Taliban of persecuting

    other persons who don’t conform with the Taliban’s ideological expectations of gender, gender identity or expression; and on political grounds against persons perceived as ‘allies of girls and women.

    This is the first time an international tribunal or court has confirmed crimes against humanity involving LGBTQIA+ victims. This marks an important milestone in the protection of sexual minorities under international law.

    Crimes against humanity

    International law clearly spells put the offences which constitute crimes against humanity.

    The aim is to protect civilians from serious and widespread attacks on their fundamental rights. Different definitions of crimes against humanity have been included in the statutes of a handful of international tribunals and courts.

    The definition under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the most comprehensive. It includes severe deprivation of personal liberty, murder, enslavement, rape, torture, forced deportation or apartheid.

    Specifically, the Taliban leaders are accused under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, which states:

    Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender […] or other grounds that are universally recognised as impermissible under international law.

    Physical and direct violence is not necessary for persecution on “gender […] grounds” to be established. Systemic and institutionalised forms of harm, which can be the imposition of discriminatory societal norms, are sufficient.

    Women and girls are often disproportionately affected by Taliban policies and rules. But proving gender-based crimes have occurred is not enough. Discriminatory intent must also be established.

    The Taliban has been open about its religious beliefs and interpretations, suggesting a clear intention to persecute on the grounds of gender.

    Not just symbolic

    As with other cases, the court relies on the cooperation of states to execute and surrender those accused.

    The interim government in Kabul which was formed after the US-led invasion in 2001 became a party to the Rome Statute in 2003. Afghanistan remains legally obligated to prosecute perpetrators of these crimes – it must accept the Court’s jurisdiction in the matter.

    The Purple Saturdays Movement, an Afghan women-led protest group, is warning the arrest warrants must be more than just symbolic. Any failure to prosecute would likely result in an escalation of human rights violations:

    The Taliban has historically responded to international pressure not with reform, but by intensifying such repressive policies.

    Hopeful step

    It is important to note the strict policies and widespread abuses targeting women and girls in Afghanistan are ongoing, despite the intervention by the International Criminal Court.

    The court’s Office of the Prosecutor is stressing its commitment to pursuing “effective legal pathways” to bring the Taliban leadership to account. The Afghan Women’s Movement in Exile wants an independent international judicial committee established to monitor and accelerate the legal process.

    It is not yet clear if the warrants will actually lead to arrest and prosecution in The Hague. But we know this is possible. A prime example being the the arrest earlier this year of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

    At the very least, the arrests warrants are a hopeful step towards accountability for the Taliban and justice for the women and girls of Afghanistan.

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

    – ref. In a world first, The Hague wants to arrest Taliban leaders over their treatment of women – what happens next? – https://theconversation.com/in-a-world-first-the-hague-wants-to-arrest-taliban-leaders-over-their-treatment-of-women-what-happens-next-261008

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: In a world first, The Hague wants to arrest Taliban leaders over their treatment of women – what happens next?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Yvonne Breitwieser-Faria, Lecturer in Criminal Law and International Law, Curtin University

    Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan.

    The court’s Pre-Trial Chamber II cited reasonable grounds for believing supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani were guilty of “ordering, inducing or soliciting the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.”

    The warrants – the first ever on charges of gender persecution – are being hailed as an “important vindication and acknowledgement of the rights of Afghan women and girls”.

    But will they improve the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, given the Taliban does not recognise the court or its jurisdiction?

    The signs are not good with the Taliban denying the allegations and condemning the warrants as a “clear act of hostility [and an] insult to the beliefs of Muslims around the world”.

    Erased from public life

    Strict rules and prohibitions have been imposed on the Afghan people since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

    Women and girls have been singled out for even worse treatment by reason of their gender.

    According the warrants, the Taliban has

    severely deprived, through decrees and edicts, girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion.

    Women are banned from public places and girls from attending school once they turn 12.

    Zahra Nader is the editor-in-chief of newsroom Zan Times which investigates human rights violations in Afghanistan. She says Afghan women and girls are being silenced, restricted and stripped of their basic human rights.

    It is this discriminatory system of control of woman and girls in Afghanistan that is at the core of the court’s prosecution.

    The warrants also accuse the Taliban of persecuting

    other persons who don’t conform with the Taliban’s ideological expectations of gender, gender identity or expression; and on political grounds against persons perceived as ‘allies of girls and women.

    This is the first time an international tribunal or court has confirmed crimes against humanity involving LGBTQIA+ victims. This marks an important milestone in the protection of sexual minorities under international law.

    Crimes against humanity

    International law clearly spells put the offences which constitute crimes against humanity.

    The aim is to protect civilians from serious and widespread attacks on their fundamental rights. Different definitions of crimes against humanity have been included in the statutes of a handful of international tribunals and courts.

    The definition under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the most comprehensive. It includes severe deprivation of personal liberty, murder, enslavement, rape, torture, forced deportation or apartheid.

    Specifically, the Taliban leaders are accused under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, which states:

    Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender […] or other grounds that are universally recognised as impermissible under international law.

    Physical and direct violence is not necessary for persecution on “gender […] grounds” to be established. Systemic and institutionalised forms of harm, which can be the imposition of discriminatory societal norms, are sufficient.

    Women and girls are often disproportionately affected by Taliban policies and rules. But proving gender-based crimes have occurred is not enough. Discriminatory intent must also be established.

    The Taliban has been open about its religious beliefs and interpretations, suggesting a clear intention to persecute on the grounds of gender.

    Not just symbolic

    As with other cases, the court relies on the cooperation of states to execute and surrender those accused.

    The interim government in Kabul which was formed after the US-led invasion in 2001 became a party to the Rome Statute in 2003. Afghanistan remains legally obligated to prosecute perpetrators of these crimes – it must accept the Court’s jurisdiction in the matter.

    The Purple Saturdays Movement, an Afghan women-led protest group, is warning the arrest warrants must be more than just symbolic. Any failure to prosecute would likely result in an escalation of human rights violations:

    The Taliban has historically responded to international pressure not with reform, but by intensifying such repressive policies.

    Hopeful step

    It is important to note the strict policies and widespread abuses targeting women and girls in Afghanistan are ongoing, despite the intervention by the International Criminal Court.

    The court’s Office of the Prosecutor is stressing its commitment to pursuing “effective legal pathways” to bring the Taliban leadership to account. The Afghan Women’s Movement in Exile wants an independent international judicial committee established to monitor and accelerate the legal process.

    It is not yet clear if the warrants will actually lead to arrest and prosecution in The Hague. But we know this is possible. A prime example being the the arrest earlier this year of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

    At the very least, the arrests warrants are a hopeful step towards accountability for the Taliban and justice for the women and girls of Afghanistan.

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

    – ref. In a world first, The Hague wants to arrest Taliban leaders over their treatment of women – what happens next? – https://theconversation.com/in-a-world-first-the-hague-wants-to-arrest-taliban-leaders-over-their-treatment-of-women-what-happens-next-261008

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI China: China win thriller to sink Cuba in Men’s Volleyball Nations League

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

    China staged a dramatic comeback to secure a 3-2 victory over Cuba (20-25, 25-23, 15-25, 25-22, 19-17) on the final day of the FIVB Men’s Volleyball Nations League preliminary phase in Gdansk, Poland, on Sunday.

    Outside hitter Wang Bin powered Vital Heynen’s side with 26 points, while captain Jiang Chuan added 13. Despite a dominant 31-point performance from Cuba’s Marlon Yant, including 29 kills, China held their nerve to complete the turnaround.

    Cuba came out strong, racing to a 5-1 lead and taking the first set 25-20, with Yant and Miguel Angel Lopez combining for 12 points. China responded in the second set, pulling ahead 20-17 on Wang’s ace. Although Cuba leveled at 21-21, Wang’s decisive spike and a successful challenge on the final point secured a 25-23 equalizer.

    The momentum swung back to Cuba in the third set as they cruised to a 25-15 win. But China refused to fold, erasing a 9-4 deficit in the fourth set to tie the score at 15-15. Wang Hebin’s attack capped a 25-22 win, forcing a tiebreak.

    In the final set, Rao Shuhan’s blocking and clutch attacks from Jiang Chuan pushed China ahead 4-1. Cuba fought back with Javier Concepcion’s late point, but Ji Daoshuai’s spike sealed China’s 19-17 victory.

    Despite the loss, Cuba qualified for the finals with six wins. China finished 17th in the preliminary phase with three victories.

    “China did a great job today. They fought for every point, all the time. We didn’t push enough to win the game. We need to be better at this as well, as sometimes we don’t do enough,” Cuba’s opposite spiker Jose Masso Alvarez told the official website of the Volleyball Nations League after the game.

    Elsewhere on the day, Iran beat Bulgaria in straight sets. Amin Esmaeilnezhad produced 19 points for the winners, while Amirhossein Esfandiar added 14.

    In the last game of the week in Gdansk, Poland edged past France 32-30, 20-25, 25-20, 23-25, 15-12. Wilfredo Leon earned 30 points for the winners, while Theo Faure poured in two points less for France. Both teams have booked their spot in the best eight earlier.

    The final round of the Men’s Volleyball Nations League will be played in Ningbo, China, from July 30 to August 3. 

    MIL OSI China News –