Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
MIA Sports wins Dubai contract with support from HSBC UK and UK Export Finance.
An MIA Sports studio bay at the Emirates Golf Club, Dubai
A Huddersfield-based company which specialises in indoor golf technology has entered the UAE market after it secured a finance package worth £75,000.
Financing was provided by HSBC UK, with government backing from UK Export Finance.
MIA Sports specialises in the design, supply and installation of golf simulators and teaching studios. Though founded only 10 years ago, their products have been adopted as an integral training tool at golf facilities in the UK, Europe, and East Asia.
MIA Sports has now begun exporting to the United Arab Emirates with the support of UK Export Finance (UKEF), the government export credit agency.
Faced with the opportunity of supplying its technology to Dubai, MIA Sports had to provide financial guarantees which would have restricted its cashflow – a catch-22 situation. They approached UKEF, who worked with HSBC UK to arrange a finance package for the amount of £75k. This was supported by a government guarantee provided through UKEF’s General Export Facility (GEF), a product specifically tailored to enable SMEs to scale up their exports by giving banks the confidence to lend.
The finance package, provided by HSBC UK and guaranteed by UKEF, gave MIA Sports the confidence to secure the Dubai contract. This comprised the supply and installation of 5 teaching studio bays for a new academy at the Emirates Golf Club, home to the iconic Dubai Desert Classic tournament.
Andrew Keast, Managing Director at MIA Sports, said:
Breaking into the UAE market was a major opportunity for us. Thanks to UKEF and HSBC UK’s support, we were able to access the finance required to bring our technology to a fast-rising capital in the world of golf.
Alissia Deane, Export Finance Manager for West Yorkshire, said:
This deal demonstrates how we’re helping Yorkshire businesses reach their export potential. By working closely with HSBC UK, we’ve enabled MIA Sports to bring their innovative golf technology to Dubai’s growing sports market.
Andy Booth, International Business Manager at HSBC UK, said:
Working alongside UKEF, we’re committed to helping innovative British businesses like MIA Sports expand internationally. This showcases how effective partnership between banking and government support can boost UK exports.
The story of MIA Sports shows how UKEF is working towards one of the key objectives in its Business Plan for 2024-2029: to support 1,000 SMEs a year by the end of the decade.
South African poetry, rich with history, has long been an underappreciated cornerstone of the country’s cultural landscape. But a new free-to-access digital archive is helping change that.
Focused on the poets published by a small but important press in a town called Makhanda in the Eastern Cape province, the Deep South Books and Archive initiative seeks to elevate their voices by offering an archive of background information about their work and lives as well as extensive excerpts from their books. It’s a rare window into a vital but overlooked tradition of South African literature.
Robert Berold, after spending a decade as editor for New Coin journal, set up Deep South in 1995. For decades he has had a quiet influence on the South African poetry scene. His impulse to publish emerged from a place of need and outrage that some of the talented young black poets he was publishing in New Coin couldn’t get their books published in the new, democratic South Africa.
Many of these poets had been using their words to fight for freedom, while a new generation of young poets was emerging with democracy. Ever since, Deep South has been an important arena where South African poets and their poems could speak to one another.
My work on African literary production shows the importance of small presses in creating local literary ecologies.
To publish what was considered to be innovative and risk-taking South African poetry, regardless of market limitations.
His many endeavours as a publisher, editor and teacher have been linked by the effort to rescue from oblivion, to supply context, to indicate points of continuity while insisting on the diversity of the South African experience.
After 30 years of publishing, Berold is now sharing a vast catalogue and archive that would otherwise remain unknown. Even though the African Poetry Digital Portal, hosted by the University of Nebraska in the US, was created as a resource for the study of the history of African poetry from antiquity to the present, it does not give direct reference to particular communities.
In bringing this archive to the internet, Berold is revealing the process and method of how contemporary South African poetry has been shaped into being.
Behind the poems
Much of the archive material is what Berold accumulated in dealing with the poets – correspondence, manuscripts, reviews. This is also physically deposited at the Amazwi South African Museum of Literature. He explains:
I got into correspondence with everyone who sent in poems, trying to give helpful criticism, recommending poets for them to read. There was a certain inappropriateness about this at times, and some arrogance too on my part, but mostly people appreciated the feedback.
The “difficult miracle of Black poetry”, as US poet June Jordan once remarked, is that it persists, published or not, loved or unloved. In racially segregated South Africa during apartheid, publishing spaces were few and far between.
Black poets were often censored, banned or exiled as their work confronted the injustices of a racist system. This digital archive recasts the story of South African poetry as insurgent, independent and driven to define a distinct aesthetic.
Deep South has, furthermore, made a particular impression by fostering a unique aesthetic in South African poetry through its investments in typography and design. As a small, independent press situated away from culture capitals – Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg – it has had the freedom to experiment.
Deep South Books and Archive is therefore a significant tribute to the persistence of South African poetry, despite many historical and structural inequalities. It is a catalogue and a digital archive that provides a unique entry point into modern South African poetry.
Clicking through the carousel of finely designed book covers leads one to excerpts, book reviews, interviews available as PDF files, as well as links to other multimedia resources.
Rampolokeng’s work may be iconoclastic, experimental, unclassifiable but he found a home with this press. He has publishedseveral of his groundbreaking collections with them. Defying category, they bend and shift, and culminate into a remarkable linguistic virtuoso. His interviews are an extension of his art, reflexive, autobiographical, and works in themselves.
Unrecognised poets
Then there are poets like Motadinyane and Zhuwao who died far too early, leaving behind only single collections. Luckily, even if their portraits and writings are fragmentary, we’re at least witness to the poetic geniuses that might have been. This is the superpower of this archive, to serve as a memorial for a canon (or collection of literary texts) that wasn’t even close to being fully blossomed.
Historically, canon construction is the work of the few, foremost among them academics who edit anthologies and design syllabuses. Most of these poets do not feature in scholarly journals. As a result they almost exist in the underground, unremarked. Berold, now in his 70s and approaching retirement, has decided to do something about that with a digital archive that surfaces the voices of lesser-known poets.
The lack of recognition for these poets is bothersome for him:
Why nobody in academe has registered the importance of these poets is beyond me. It really makes me wonder whether these professional literary people are able to read.
This is mostly an indictment of systems that undervalue black expression.
This project may be for preservation, but there is another lesson: African literature demands constant acts of recovery. In this case, the internet serves as a kind of rear view mirror, which allows us a backward glance at poets and their works that have been overlooked or underappreciated, forgotten or misunderstood.
Tinashe Mushakavanhu 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.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Timothy Gabrielli, Gudorf Chair in Catholic Intellectual Traditions, University of Dayton
A cardinal opens the Holy Door of the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome on Jan. 1, 2025, one of the events starting the Jubilee year.AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
Pope Francis has proclaimed a Jubilee year in the Catholic Church, which began on Dec. 24, 2024, and will continue through Jan. 6, 2026. But what is a Jubilee, and what is this year’s about?
Biblical roots
The Hebrew Bible, which Christians call the Old Testament, offers instructions about celebrating a Jubilee every 50 years. The Jubilee has roots in the Jewish practice of Sabbath rest every seven days, connected to the creation story in which God created the world in six days and rested on the next.
This rest is not merely about “taking a break,” but orienting life to what is most important. The prohibition of work on the Sabbath prompts people to look beyond productive work, helping them to see all activity in light of the eternal.
The biblical books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy outline what’s called a “sabbatical year,” extending that practice of periodic rest to every seventh year. During that sabbatical, the texts call for forgiving debts and freeing enslaved people. Even the land is supposed to get rest, since farmers are told to let their fields lie fallow – a check against unfettered, and destructive, desires for productivity.
The Jubilee extends this logic. Held every 50 years, the Holy Year follows a Sabbath of Sabbaths, “seven times seven years.” During the Jubilee, the Book of Leviticus instructs, “you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” Again, even the land must be freed. Each plot bought and sold over the previous 49 years must be returned to the tribe with which it was originally associated.
Like all the other forms of Sabbath rest, the overriding emphasis is that everyone and everything belongs to God: that the Earth is not simply for humans to do with as they please, especially if it creates injustice. People inhabit the Earth like wayfarers. Indeed, the Bible regularly reminds the Israelites that they were once enslaved in Egypt and, once freed, were wanderers.
Medieval traditions
Scholars are not quite sure if and how Jubilees were actually put into practice in the ancient world, though they are referred to in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus sums up his mission with verses about the Jubilee from the Book of Isaiah: “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Some of the practices of the church’s modern Jubilees, however, come from the late Middle Ages, a time when Christian grassroots efforts promoted pilgrimages to Rome. As much political as religious and recreational, these pilgrimages demonstrated to power-hungry monarchs that the eternal city was beyond royal control and, by implication, that pilgrims’ identity was more than subjects of a crown.
In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII endorsed these initiatives by instituting a 13th centennial celebration of Christ’s birth. Central to the celebration were pilgrimages to Roman basilicas. Boniface promised that pilgrims could receive an “indulgence”: reparation for their sins.
A fresco in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, depicting Pope Boniface VIII proclaiming the Jubilee in 1300. Sailko/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
Often misunderstood, an indulgence is distinct from forgiveness. The Catholic tradition teaches that people who sincerely repent of their sins are forgiven and reconciled to God. Ordinarily, this happens through rites such as the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which involves confession to a priest.
Once a sin is forgiven, however, reparation remains. Suppose you’ve thrown a ball through a neighbor’s window. Even if they forgive you, you’re still responsible for the window’s repair. In other words, there’s still a consequence for your action.
Catholics believe that indulgences remit the repair, removing the temporal punishment. In the analogy, you might not have fixed the window, but instead you completed another holy and satisfactory act in its place. Indulgences can be granted to Catholics for actions like completing specific prayers, making a pilgrimage or performing acts of charity.
Boniface’s decree included no reference to the biblical Jubilee. Over time, however, the link between the biblical Jubilee and these Roman celebrations was articulated and strengthened. The intervening time between Jubilees was reduced to 50 years to resonate with the ancient text. Eventually, Jubilees came to be inaugurated every 25 years to increase the opportunity for participation.
As they developed, Jubilee celebrations kept their link to pilgrimages and reparation. Both are meant to be reminders that human beings are made for the eternal, not merely the productive.
The Catholic Church’s last ordinary Jubilee celebration, which took place in 2000, was deemed a “Great Jubilee” by then-Pope John Paul II, commemorating two millennia since the birth of Christ. Famously, during a Mass that year, he sought forgiveness of the church for atrocities committed across its history, including injustice toward Jews, Indigenous peoples and women, among others.
The 2000 Jubilee continued the practice of indulgences for making a pilgrimage, emphasizing that “a pilgrimage evokes the believer’s personal journey” of faith, following in Christ’s footsteps.
Catholics in Mexico City take part in a ceremony marking the beginning of the Jubilee year at the Metropolitan Cathedral on Dec. 29, 2024. AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme
In addition to the typical emphases on pilgrimage and indulgences, Francis has identified hope as a particular focus for this Jubilee year. In Christian theology, hope is not optimism. It is an insistence to seek the good, anchored in God: to see difficulties clearly, yet to pursue action rather than despair.
Thus, Francis has called for several specific acts of hope throughout the Jubilee year. The papal bull proclaiming the Jubilee urges peacemaking, a spirit of welcome toward migrants, and openness toward having children. Francis also issues a call for affluent nations to forgive debts, and a general call for both repentance and mercy.
Jubilees ask people to reorient life toward the eternal – a theme that might seem to minimize attention to the specific social ills of our moment. In tune with the long tradition of Jubilees, however, Francis emphasizes that the more people see the world as God sees it, the more people will act against injustice.
Timothy Gabrielli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Assistant professor Frank Cackowski, left, and researcher Steven Zielske at Wayne State University in Detroit became suspicious of a paper on cancer research that was eventually retracted.Amy Sacka, CC BY-ND
Over the past decade, furtive commercial entities around the world have industrialized the production, sale and dissemination of bogus scholarly research, undermining the literature that everyone from doctors to engineers rely on to make decisions about human lives.
It is exceedingly difficult to get a handle on exactly how big the problem is. Around 55,000 scholarly papers have been retracted to date, for a variety of reasons, but scientists and companies who screen the scientific literature for telltale signs of fraud estimate that there are many more fake papers circulating – possibly as many as several hundred thousand. This fake research can confound legitimate researchers who must wade through dense equations, evidence, images and methodologies only to find that they were made up.
Even when the bogus papers are spotted – usually by amateur sleuths on their own time – academic journals are often slow to retract the papers, allowing the articles to taint what many consider sacrosanct: the vast global library of scholarly work that introduces new ideas, reviews other research and discusses findings.
These fake papers are slowing down research that has helped millions of people with lifesaving medicine and therapies from cancer to COVID-19. Analysts’ data shows that fields related to cancer and medicine are particularly hard hit, while areas like philosophy and art are less affected. Some scientists have abandoned their life’s work because they cannot keep pace given the number of fake papers they must bat down.
The problem reflects a worldwide commodification of science. Universities, and their research funders, have long used regular publication in academic journals as requirements for promotions and job security, spawning the mantra “publish or perish.”
But now, fraudsters have infiltrated the academic publishing industry to prioritize profits over scholarship. Equipped with technological prowess, agility and vast networks of corrupt researchers, they are churning out papers on everything from obscure genes to artificial intelligence in medicine.
These papers are absorbed into the worldwide library of research faster than they can be weeded out. About 119,000 scholarly journal articles and conference papers are published globally every week, or more than 6 million a year. Publishers estimate that, at most journals, about 2% of the papers submitted – but not necessarily published – are likely fake, although this number can be much higher at some publications.
While no country is immune to this practice, it is particularly pronounced in emerging economies where resources to do bona fide science are limited – and where governments, eager to compete on a global scale, push particularly strong “publish or perish” incentives.
As a result, there is a bustling online underground economy for all things scholarly publishing. Authorship, citations, even academic journal editors, are up for sale. This fraud is so prevalent that it has its own name: paper mills, a phrase that harks back to “term-paper mills”, where students cheat by getting someone else to write a class paper for them.
The impact on publishers is profound. In high-profile cases, fake articles can hurt a journal’s bottom line. Important scientific indexes – databases of academic publications that many researchers rely on to do their work – may delist journals that publish too many compromised papers. There is growing criticism that legitimate publishers could do more to track and blacklist journals and authors who regularly publish fake papers that are sometimes little more than artificial intelligence-generated phrases strung together.
To better understand the scope, ramifications and potential solutions of this metastasizing assault on science, we – a contributing editor at Retraction Watch, a website that reports on retractions of scientific papers and related topics, and two computer scientists at France’s Université Toulouse III–Paul Sabatier and Université Grenoble Alpes who specialize in detecting bogus publications – spent six months investigating paper mills.
This included, by some of us at different times, trawling websites and social media posts, interviewing publishers, editors, research-integrity experts, scientists, doctors, sociologists and scientific sleuths engaged in the Sisyphean task of cleaning up the literature. It also involved, by some of us, screening scientific articles looking for signs of fakery.
What emerged is a deep-rooted crisis that has many researchers and policymakers calling for a new way for universities and many governments to evaluate and reward academics and health professionals across the globe.
Just as highly biased websites dressed up to look like objective reporting are gnawing away at evidence-based journalism and threatening elections, fake science is grinding down the knowledge base on which modern society rests.
As part of our work detecting these bogus publications, co-author Guillaume Cabanac developed the Problematic Paper Screener, which filters 130 million new and old scholarly papers every week looking for nine types of clues that a paper might be fake or contain errors. A key clue is a tortured phrase – an awkward wording generated by software that replaces common scientific terms with synonyms to avoid direct plagiarism from a legitimate paper.
Frank Cackowski at Detroit’s Wayne State University was confused.
The oncologist was studying a sequence of chemical reactions in cells to see if they could be a target for drugs against prostate cancer. A paper from 2018 from 2018 in the American Journal of Cancer Research piqued his interest when he read that a little-known molecule called SNHG1 might interact with the chemical reactions he was exploring. He and fellow Wayne State researcher Steven Zielske began a series of experiments to learn more about the link. Surprisingly, they found there wasn’t a link.
Meanwhile, Zielske had grown suspicious of the paper. Two graphs showing results for different cell lines were identical, he noticed, which “would be like pouring water into two glasses with your eyes closed and the levels coming out exactly the same.” Another graph and a table in the article also inexplicably contained identical data.
Zielske described his misgivings in an anonymous post in 2020 at PubPeer, an online forum where many scientists report potential research misconduct, and also contacted the journal’s editor. Shortly thereafter, the journal pulled the paper, citing “falsified materials and/or data.”
“Science is hard enough as it is if people are actually being genuine and trying to do real work,” says Cackowski, who also works at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Michigan. “And it’s just really frustrating to waste your time based on somebody’s fraudulent publications.”
Wayne State scientists Frank Cackowski and Steven Zielske carried out experiments based on a paper they later found to contain false data. Amy Sacka, CC BY-ND
He worries that the bogus publications are slowing down “legitimate research that down the road is going to impact patient care and drug development.”
The two researchers eventually found that SNHG1 did appear to play a part in prostate cancer, though not in the way the suspect paper suggested. But it was a tough topic to study. Zielske combed through all the studies on SNHG1 and cancer – some 150 papers, nearly all from Chinese hospitals – and concluded that “a majority” of them looked fake. Some reported using experimental reagents known as primers that were “just gibberish,” for instance, or targeted a different gene than what the study said, according to Zielske. He contacted several of the journals, he said, but received little response. “I just stopped following up.”
The many questionable articles also made it harder to get funding, Zielske said. The first time he submitted a grant application to study SNHG1, it was rejected, with one reviewer saying “the field was crowded,” Zielske recalled. The following year, he explained in his application how most of the literature likely came from paper mills. He got the grant.
Today, Zielske said, he approaches new research differently than he used to: “You can’t just read an abstract and have any faith in it. I kind of assume everything’s wrong.”
Legitimate academic journals evaluate papers before they are published by having other researchers in the field carefully read them over. This peer review process is designed to stop flawed research from being disseminated, but is far from perfect.
Reviewers volunteer their time, typically assume research is real and so don’t look for signs of fraud. And some publishers may try to pick reviewers they deem more likely to accept papers, because rejecting a manuscript can mean losing out on thousands of dollars in publication fees.
“Even good, honest reviewers have become apathetic” because of “the volume of poor research coming through the system,” said Adam Day, who directs Clear Skies, a company in London that develops data-based methods to help spot falsified papers and academic journals. “Any editor can recount seeing reports where it’s obvious the reviewer hasn’t read the paper.”
With AI, they don’t have to: New research shows that many reviews are now written by ChatGPT and similar tools.
María de los Ángeles Oviedo-García, a professor of marketing at the University of Seville in Spain, spends her spare time hunting for suspect peer reviews from all areas of science, hundreds of which she has flagged on PubPeer. Some of these reviews are the length of a tweet, others ask authors to cite the reviewer’s work even if it has nothing to do with the science at hand, and many closely resemble other peer reviews for very different studies – evidence, in her eyes, of what she calls “review mills.”
PubPeer comment from María de los Ángeles Oviedo-García pointing out that a peer review report is very similar to two other reports. She also points out that authors and citations for all three are either anonymous or the same person – both hallmarks of fake papers. Screen capture by The Conversation, CC BY-ND
“One of the demanding fights for me is to keep faith in science,” says Oviedo-García, who tells her students to look up papers on PubPeer before relying on them too heavily. Her research has been slowed down, she adds, because she now feels compelled to look for peer review reports for studies she uses in her work. Often there aren’t any, because “very few journals publish those review reports,” Oviedo-García says.
An ‘absolutely huge’ problem
It is unclear when paper mills began to operate at scale. The earliest article retracted due to suspected involvement of such agencies was published in 2004, according to the Retraction Watch Database, which contains details about tens of thousands of retractions. (The database is operated by The Center for Scientific Integrity, the parent nonprofit of Retraction Watch.) Nor is it clear exactly how many low-quality, plagiarized or made-up articles paper mills have spawned.
But the number is likely to be significant and growing, experts say. One Russia-linked paper mill in Latvia, for instance, claims on its website to have published “more than 12,650 articles” since 2012.
An analysis of 53,000 papers submitted to six publishers – but not necessarily published – found the proportion of suspect papers ranged from 2% to 46% across journals. And the American publisher Wiley, which has retracted more than 11,300 compromised articles and closed 19 heavily affected journals in its erstwhile Hindawi division, recently said its new paper-mill detection tool flags up to 1 in 7 submissions.
Day, of Clear Skies, estimates that as many as 2% of the several million scientific works published in 2022 were milled. Some fields are more problematic than others. The number is closer to 3% in biology and medicine, and in some subfields, like cancer, it may be much larger, according to Day. Despite increased awareness today, “I do not see any significant change in the trend,” he said. With improved methods of detection, “any estimate I put out now will be higher.”
The paper-mill problem is “absolutely huge,” said Sabina Alam, director of Publishing Ethics and Integrity at Taylor & Francis, a major academic publisher. In 2019, none of the 175 ethics cases that editors escalated to her team was about paper mills, Alam said. Ethics cases include submissions and already published papers. In 2023, “we had almost 4,000 cases,” she said. “And half of those were paper mills.”
Jennifer Byrne, an Australian scientist who now heads up a research group to improve the reliability of medical research, submitted testimony for a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in July 2022. She noted that 700, or nearly 6%, of 12,000 cancer research papers screened had errors that could signal paper mill involvement. Byrne shuttered her cancer research lab in 2017 because the genes she had spent two decades researching and writing about became the target of an enormous number of fake papers. A rogue scientist fudging data is one thing, she said, but a paper mill could churn out dozens of fake studies in the time it took her team to publish a single legitimate one.
“The threat of paper mills to scientific publishing and integrity has no parallel over my 30-year scientific career …. In the field of human gene science alone, the number of potentially fraudulent articles could exceed 100,000 original papers,” she wrote to lawmakers, adding, “This estimate may seem shocking but is likely to be conservative.”
In one area of genetics research – the study of noncoding RNA in different types of cancer – “We’re talking about more than 50% of papers published are from mills,” Byrne said. “It’s like swimming in garbage.”
When retractions do happen, it is often thanks to the efforts of a small international community of amateur sleuths like Oviedo-García and those who post on PubPeer.
Jillian Goldfarb, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell University and a former editor of the Elsevier journal Fuel, laments the publisher’s handling of the threat from paper mills.
“I was assessing upwards of 50 papers every day,” she said in an email interview. While she had technology to detect plagiarism, duplicate submissions and suspicious author changes, it was not enough. “It’s unreasonable to think that an editor – for whom this is not usually their full-time job – can catch these things reading 50 papers at a time. The time crunch, plus pressure from publishers to increase submission rates and citations and decrease review time, puts editors in an impossible situation.”
In October 2023, Goldfarb resigned from her position as editor of Fuel. In a LinkedIn post about her decision, she cited the company’s failure to move on dozens of potential paper-mill articles she had flagged; its hiring of a principal editor who reportedly “engaged in paper and citation milling”; and its proposal of candidates for editorial positions “with longer PubPeer profiles and more retractions than most people have articles on their CVs, and whose names appear as authors on papers-for-sale websites.”
“This tells me, our community, and the public, that they value article quantity and profit over science,” Goldfarb wrote.
In response to questions about Goldfarb’s resignation, an Elsevier spokesperson told The Conversation that it “takes all claims about research misconduct in our journals very seriously” and is investigating Goldfarb’s claims. The spokesperson added that Fuel’s editorial team has “been working to make other changes to the journal to benefit authors and readers.”
That’s not how it works, buddy
Business proposals had been piling up for years in the inbox of João de Deus Barreto Segundo, managing editor of six journals published by the Bahia School of Medicine and Public Health in Salvador, Brazil. Several came from suspect publishers on the prowl for new journals to add to their portfolios. Others came from academics suggesting fishy deals or offering bribes to publish their paper.
In one email from February 2024, an assistant professor of economics in Poland explained that he ran a company that worked with European universities. “Would you be interested in collaboration on the publication of scientific articles by scientists who collaborate with me?” Artur Borcuch inquired. “We will then discuss possible details and financial conditions.”
A university administrator in Iraq was more candid: “As an incentive, I am prepared to offer a grant of $500 for each accepted paper submitted to your esteemed journal,” wrote Ahmed Alkhayyat, head of the Islamic University Centre for Scientific Research, in Najaf, and manager of the school’s “world ranking.”
“That’s not how it works, buddy,” Barreto Segundo shot back.
In email to The Conversation, Borcuch denied any improper intent. “My role is to mediate in the technical and procedural aspects of publishing an article,” Borcuch said, adding that, when working with multiple scientists, he would “request a discount from the editorial office on their behalf.” Informed that the Brazilian publisher had no publication fees, Borcuch said a “mistake” had occurred because an “employee” sent the email for him “to different journals.”
Academic journals have different payment models. Many are subscription-based and don’t charge authors for publishing, but have hefty fees for reading articles. Libraries and universities also pay large sums for access.
A fast-growing open-access model – where anyone can read the paper – includes expensive publication fees levied on authors to make up for the loss of revenue in selling the articles. These payments are not meant to influence whether or not a manuscript is accepted.
The Bahia School of Medicine and Public Health, among others, doesn’t charge authors or readers, but Barreto Segundo’s employer is a small player in the scholarly publishing business, which brings in close to $30 billion a year on profit margins as high as 40%. Academic publishers make money largely from subscription fees from institutions like libraries and universities, individual payments to access paywalled articles, and open-access fees paid by authors to ensure their articles are free for anyone to read.
The industry is lucrative enough that it has attracted unscrupulous actors eager to find a way to siphon off some of that revenue.
Ahmed Torad, a lecturer at Kafr El Sheikh University in Egypt and editor-in-chief of the Egyptian Journal of Physiotherapy, asked for a 30% kickback for every article he passed along to the Brazilian publisher. “This commission will be calculated based on the publication fees generated by the manuscripts I submit,” Torad wrote, noting that he specialized “in connecting researchers and authors with suitable journals for publication.”
Apparently, he failed to notice that Bahia School of Medicine and Public Health doesn’t charge author fees.
Like Borcuch, Alkhayyat denied any improper intent. He said there had been a “misunderstanding” on the editor’s part, explaining that the payment he offered was meant to cover presumed article-processing charges. “Some journals ask for money. So this is normal,” Alkhayyat said.
Torad explained that he had sent his offer to source papers in exchange for a commission to some 280 journals, but had not forced anyone to accept the manuscripts. Some had balked at his proposition, he said, despite regularly charging authors thousands of dollars to publish. He suggested that the scientific community wasn’t comfortable admitting that scholarly publishing has become a business like any other, even if it’s “obvious to many scientists.”
The unwelcome advances all targeted one of the journals Barreto Segundo managed, The Journal of Physiotherapy Research, soon after it was indexed in Scopus, a database of abstracts and citations owned by the publisher Elsevier.
Along with Clarivate’s Web of Science, Scopus has become an important quality stamp for scholarly publications globally. Articles in indexed journals are money in the bank for their authors: They help secure jobs, promotions, funding and, in some countries, even trigger cash rewards. For academics or physicians in poorer countries, they can be a ticket to the global north.
Consider Egypt, a country plaguedbydubiousclinical trials. Universities there commonly pay employees large sums for international publications, with the amount depending on the journal’s impact factor. A similar incentive structure is hardwired into national regulations: To earn the rank of full professor, for example, candidates must have at least five publications in two years, according to Egypt’s Supreme Council of Universities. Studies in journals indexed in Scopus or Web of Science not only receive extra points, but they also are exempt from further scrutiny when applicants are evaluated. The higher a publication’s impact factor, the more points the studies get.
With such a focus on metrics, it has become common for Egyptian researchers to cut corners, according to a physician in Cairo who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. Authorship is frequently gifted to colleagues who then return the favor later, or studies may be created out of whole cloth. Sometimes an existing legitimate paper is chosen from the literature, and key details such as the type of disease or surgery are then changed and the numbers slightly modified, the source explained.
It affects clinical guidelines and medical care, “so it’s a shame,” the physician said.
Ivermectin, a drug used to treat parasites in animals and humans, is a case in point. When some studies showed that it was effective against COVID-19, ivermectin was hailed as a “miracle drug” early in the pandemic. Prescriptions surged, and along with them calls to U.S. poison centers; one man spent nine days in the hospital after downing an injectable formulation of the drug that was meant for cattle, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As it turned out, nearly all of the research that showed a positive effect on COVID-19 had indications of fakery, the BBC and others reported – including a now-withdrawn Egyptian study. With no apparent benefit, patients were left with just side effects.
“There’s a huge academic incentive and profit motive,” says Lisa Bero, a professor of medicine and public health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and the senior research-integrity editor at the Cochrane Collaboration, an international nonprofit organization that produces evidence reviews about medical treatments. “I see it at every institution I’ve worked at.”
But in the global south, the publish-or-perish edict runs up against underdeveloped research infrastructures and education systems, leaving scientists in a bind. For a Ph.D., the Cairo physician who requested anonymity conducted an entire clinical trial single-handedly – from purchasing study medication to randomizing patients, collecting and analyzing data and paying article-processing fees. In wealthier nations, entire teams work on such studies, with the tab easily running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Research is quite challenging here,” the physician said. That’s why scientists “try to manipulate and find easier ways so they get the job done.”
Institutions, too, have gamed the system with an eye to international rankings. In 2011, the journal Science described how prolific researchers in the United States and Europe were offered hefty payments for listing Saudi universities as secondary affiliations on papers. And in 2023, the magazine, in collaboration with Retraction Watch, uncovered a massive self-citation ploy by a top-ranked dental school in India that forced undergraduate students to publish papers referencing faculty work.
The root – and solutions
Such unsavory schemes can be traced back to the introduction of performance-based metrics in academia, a development driven by the New Public Management movement that swept across the Western world in the 1980s, according to Canadian sociologist of science Yves Gingras of the Université du Québec à Montréal. When universities and public institutions adopted corporate management, scientific papers became “accounting units” used to evaluate and reward scientific productivity rather than “knowledge units” advancing our insight into the world around us, Gingras wrote.
This transformation led many researchers to compete on numbers instead of content, which made publication metrics poor measures of academic prowess. As Gingras has shown, the controversial French microbiologist Didier Raoult, who now has more than a dozen retractions to his name, has an h-index – a measure combining publication and citation numbers – that is twice as high as that of Albert Einstein – “proof that the index is absurd,” Gingras said.
Worse, a sort of scientific inflation, or “scientometric bubble,” has ensued, with each new publication representing an increasingly small increment in knowledge. “We publish more and more superficial papers, we publish papers that have to be corrected, and we push people to do fraud,” said Gingras.
In 2024, Landon Halloran, a geoscientist at the University of Neuchâtel, in Switzerland, received an unusual job application for an opening in his lab. A researcher with a Ph.D. from China had sent him his CV. At 31, the applicant had amassed 160 publications in Scopus-indexed journals, 62 of them in 2022 alone, the same year he obtained his doctorate. Although the applicant was not the only one “with a suspiciously high output,” according to Halloran, he stuck out. “My colleagues and I have never come across anything quite like it in the geosciences,” he said.
According to industry insiders and publishers, there is more awareness now of threats from paper mills and other bad actors. Some journals routinely check for image fraud. A bad AI-generated image showing up in a paper can either be a sign of a scientist taking an ill-advised shortcut, or a paper mill.
The Cochrane Collaboration has a policy excluding suspect studies from its analyses of medical evidence. The organization also has been developing a tool to help its reviewers spot problematic medical trials, just as publishers have begun to screen submissions and share data and technologies among themselves to combat fraud.
This image, generated by AI, is a visual gobbledygook of concepts around transporting and delivering drugs in the body. For instance, the upper left figure is a nonsensical mix of a syringe, an inhaler and pills. And the pH-sensitive carrier molecule on the lower left is huge, rivaling the size of the lungs. After scientist sleuths pointed out that the published image made no sense, the journal issued a correction. Screen capture by The Conversation, CC BY-ND This graphic is the corrected image that replaced the AI image above. In this case, according to the correction, the journal determined that the paper was legitimate but the scientists had used AI to generate the image describing it. Screen capture by The Conversation, CC BY-ND
“People are realizing like, wow, this is happening in my field, it’s happening in your field,” said the Cochrane Collaboration’s Bero”. “So we really need to get coordinated and, you know, develop a method and a plan overall for stamping these things out.”
What jolted Taylor & Francis into paying attention, according to Alam, the director of Publishing Ethics and Integrity, was a 2020 investigation of a Chinese paper mill by sleuth Elisabeth Bik and three of her peers who go by the pseudonyms Smut Clyde, Morty and Tiger BB8. With 76 compromised papers, the U.K.-based company’s Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine, and Biotechnology was the most affected journal identified in the probe.
“It opened up a minefield,” says Alam, who also co-chairs United2Act, a project launched in 2023 that brings together publishers, researchers and sleuths in the fight against paper mills. “It was the first time we realized that stock images essentially were being used to represent experiments.”
Taylor & Francis decided to audit the hundreds of articles in its portfolio that contained similar types of images. It doubled Alam’s team, which now has 14.5 positions dedicated to doing investigations, and also began monitoring submission rates. Paper mills, it seemed, weren’t picky customers.
“What they’re trying to do is find a gate, and if they get in, then they just start kind of slamming in the submissions,” Alam said. Seventy-six fake papers suddenly seemed like a drop in the ocean. At one Taylor & Francis journal, for instance, Alam’s team identified nearly 1,000 manuscripts that bore all the marks of coming from a mill, she said.
And in 2023, it rejected about 300 dodgy proposals for special issues. “We’ve blocked a hell of a lot from coming through,” Alam said.
Fraud checkers
A small industry of technology startups has sprung up to help publishers, researchers and institutions spot potential fraud. The website Argos, launched in September 2024 by Scitility, an alert service based in Sparks, Nevada, allows authors to check if new collaborators are trailed by retractions or misconduct concerns. It has flagged tens of thousands of “high-risk” papers, according to the journal Nature.
Fraud-checker tools sift through papers to point to those that should be manually checked and possibly rejected. solidcolours/iStock via Getty Images
The fraudsters have not been idle, either. In 2022, when Clear Skies released the Papermill Alarm, the first academic to inquire about the new tool was a paper miller, according to Day. The person wanted access so he could check his papers before firing them off to publishers, Day said. “Paper mills have proven to be adaptive and also quite quick off the mark.”
Given the ongoing arms race, Alam acknowledges that the fight against paper mills won’t be won as long as the booming demand for their products remains.
According to a Nature analysis, the retraction rate tripled from 2012 to 2022 to close to .02%, or around 1 in 5,000 papers. It then nearly doubled in 2023, in large part because of Wiley’s Hindawi debacle. Today’s commercial publishing is part of the problem, Byrne said. For one, cleaning up the literature is a vast and expensive undertaking with no direct financial upside. “Journals and publishers will never, at the moment, be able to correct the literature at the scale and in the timeliness that’s required to solve the paper-mill problem,” Byrne said. “Either we have to monetize corrections such that publishers are paid for their work, or forget the publishers and do it ourselves.”
But that still wouldn’t fix the fundamental bias built into for-profit publishing: Journals don’t get paid for rejecting papers. “We pay them for accepting papers,” said Bodo Stern, a former editor of the journal Cell and chief of Strategic Initiatives at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit research organization and major funder in Chevy Chase, Maryland. “I mean, what do you think journals are going to do? They’re going to accept papers.”
With more than 50,000 journals on the market, even if some are trying hard to get it right, bad papers that are shopped around long enough eventually find a home, Stern added. “That system cannot function as a quality-control mechanism,” he said. “We have so many journals that everything can get published.”
In Stern’s view, the way to go is to stop paying journals for accepting papers and begin looking at them as public utilities that serve a greater good. “We should pay for transparent and rigorous quality-control mechanisms,” he said.
Peer review, meanwhile, “should be recognized as a true scholarly product, just like the original article, because the authors of the article and the peer reviewers are using the same skills,” Stern said. By the same token, journals should make all peer-review reports publicly available, even for manuscripts they turn down. “When they do quality control, they can’t just reject the paper and then let it be published somewhere else,” Stern said. “That’s not a good service.”
Better measures
Stern isn’t the first scientist to bemoan the excessive focus on bibliometrics. “We need less research, better research, and research done for the right reasons,” wrote the late statistician Douglas G. Altman in a much-cited editorial from 1994. “Abandoning using the number of publications as a measure of ability would be a start.”
Despite the declaration, metrics remain in wide use today, and scientists say there is a new sense of urgency.
“We’re getting to the point where people really do feel they have to do something” because of the vast number of fake papers, said Richard Sever, assistant director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, in New York, and co-founder of the preprint servers bioRxiv and medRxiv.
Stern and his colleagues have tried to make improvements at their institution. Researchers who wish to renew their seven-year contract have long been required to write a short paragraph describing the importance of their major results. Since the end of 2023, they also have been asked to remove journal names from their applications.
That way, “you can never do what all reviewers do – I’ve done it – look at the bibliography and in just one second decide, ‘Oh, this person has been productive because they have published many papers and they’re published in the right journals,’” says Stern. “What matters is, did it really make a difference?”
Shifting the focus away from convenient performance metrics seems possible not just for wealthy private institutions like Howard Hughes Medical Institute, but also for large government funders. In Australia, for example, the National Health and Medical Research Council in 2022 launched the “top 10 in 10” policy, aiming, in part, to “value research quality rather than quantity of publications.”
Rather than providing their entire bibliography, the agency, which assesses thousands of grant applications every year, asked researchers to list no more than 10 publications from the past decade and explain the contribution each had made to science. According to an evaluation report from April, 2024 close to three-quarters of grant reviewers said the new policy allowed them to concentrate more on research quality than quantity. And more than half said it reduced the time they spent on each application.
Gingras, the Canadian sociologist, advocates giving scientists the time they need to produce work that matters, rather than a gushing stream of publications. He is a signatory to the Slow Science Manifesto: “Once you get slow science, I can predict that the number of corrigenda, the number of retractions, will go down,” he says.
At one point, Gingras was involved in evaluating a research organization whose mission was to improve workplace security. An employee presented his work. “He had a sentence I will never forget,” Gingras recalls. The employee began by saying, “‘You know, I’m proud of one thing: My h-index is zero.’ And it was brilliant.” The scientist had developed a technology that prevented fatal falls among construction workers. “He said, ‘That’s useful, and that’s my job.’ I said, ‘Bravo!’”
Labbé receives funding from the European Research Council.
He has also received funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR), and the U.S. Office of Research Integrity.
Labbé has been in touch with most of the major publishers and their integrity officers, offering pro-bono consulting regarding detection tools to various actors in the field including STM-Hub and Morressier.
Cabanac receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) and the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). He is the administrator of the Problematic Paper Screener, a public platform that uses metadata from Digital Science and PubPeer via no-cost agreements. Cabanac has been in touch with most of the major publishers and their integrity officers, offering pro bono consulting regarding detection tools to various actors in the field including ClearSkies, Morressier, River Valley, Signals, and STM.
Frederik Joelving does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Jan. 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) of the United Arab Emirates has awarded Kama Capital the prestigious Category 1 licence. This achievement positions Kama Capital as a key player in the trading industry, providing it with the regulatory framework to expand its presence, scale its operations, and fulfill its mission to create advanced, high-tech, AI-driven online trading solutions.
What the SCA License Means for Us This isn’t merely a licence—it’s a gateway to opportunity. Here’s how it empowers Kama Capital to advance its business to the next level level:
1. Expanded Services and Product Offering The SCA Category 1 licence allows Kama Capital to offer a broader range of financial services, including direct market access for clients and advanced trading tools. This means we can cater to institutional investors, liquidity providers, and professional traders in the region with solutions tailored to their needs — all underpinned by robust regulation oversight.
2. Enhanced Trust and Credibility Being licensed by the SCA, one of the most respected regulators in the region, reinforces Kama Capital’s commitment to transparency, security, and compliance. Clients seek assurance that their trading partner operates within strict legal frameworks, and this licence provides precisely that. For technology-driven firms like ours, this trust forms the foundation for our bold innovation.
3. A Foundation for Technological Growth Regulation isn’t a barrier for us — it’s an enabler. The SCA provides clear, tech-forward guidelines for fintech companies to innovate responsibly. With this licence, Kama Capital can scale its AI-driven trading platform while ensuring that all technology and data management practices meet regulatory expectations. The balance between innovation and oversight enables us to develop faster, smarter trading tools for our clients.
Why Dubai Is the Perfect HQ for Kama Capital Establishing our headquarters in Dubai was a deliberate choice. The city is not only an economic hub but a global centre for entrepreneurship and technology. Here’s why it matters:
1. A Fintech-Friendly Ecosystem Dubai has established itself as the region’s leader in financial technology. From its thriving startup scene to government-backed accelerators, the city actively supports innovation. This infrastructure allows Kama Capital to stay at the cutting edge of trading technology while benefiting from proximity to like-minded tech innovators.
2. Access to World-Class Talent The UAE attracts some of the brightest minds in finance and technology. By based in Dubai, we have access to a diverse talent pool with expertise in AI, machine learning, and algorithmic trading. This talent is the engine behind our next-generation trading solutions.
3. A Visionary Regulatory Environment The SCA and other UAE regulatory bodies are not just gatekeepers but partners in fostering innovation. Their frameworks enable companies like Kama Capital to operate confidently, knowing that technological advancements and client protection go hand in hand.
Quotes from Leadership
Razan Assaf, Deputy CEO of Kama Capital: “Securing the SCA Category 1 license for Kama Capital Securites Broker LLC is a major milestone for Kama Capital Group’s expansion. It allows us to broaden our presence in the UAE and across the GCC, giving traders access to a highly regulated, technology-first brokerage that prioritizes performance and security. The UAE continues to set the gold standard for financial innovation, and we are proud to be part of this ecosystem, driving forward the next generation of trading.” Mohammed Omayer, Head of Compliance at Kama Capital: “Regulatory integrity is at the core of everything we do. The SCA Category 1 license confirms that Kama Capital operates under the most rigorous financial, compliance, and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) standards. As trading technology evolves, so do the risks associated with financial crime, and we remain committed to ensuring that every aspect of our operations meets and exceeds global regulatory expectations. This license strengthens our ability to enforce strict AML policies, investor protection measures, and financial security protocols, ensuring a safe and transparent trading environment for all our clients.”
About Kama Capital
Kama Capital was founded in 2021 to lead a new breed of traders powered by cutting-edge AI and technology to redefine the future of trading. Headquartered in Dubai, the company leverages advanced machine learning, algorithmic trading, Expert Advisors, data analytics, and next-generation trading tools to provide traders with the technology, intelligence, and control needed to transform their trading practices. Kama Capital has received industry recognition for its innovative approach, earning awards such as “Fintech of the Year” from Entrepreneur Magazine, forming strategic partnerships with Tech Crunch, Finance Magnates, Acuity, and FutureTech Con, and now operates under the prestigious SCA Category 1 licence, further solidifying its position as a leader in the financial trading sector.
SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the following appointments:
Deborah Hoffman, of Sacramento, has been appointed Chief Deputy Director at the Office of Tax Appeals. Hoffman has been Special Advisor at the California Department of Veterans Affairs since 2020, where she was previously Senior Advisor for Communications from 2019 to 2020. She was Undersecretary of the California Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency from 2017 to 2019. Hoffman was Deputy Press Secretary in the Office of Governor Brown from 2015 to 2017. She was Assistant Secretary of Public and Employee Communications at the California Department of Corrections from 2012 to 2015. Hoffman was Deputy Secretary of Communications and External Affairs at the California Environmental Protection Agency from 2011 to 2012. She was Communications Director and Policy Consultant in the Office of Senator Fran Pavley from 2009 to 2011. Hoffman was a Reporter at KXTV ABC10 News Sacramento from 1995 to 2009. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from California State University, Northridge. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $187,104. Hoffman is registered without party preference.
Krista Dunzweiler, of Sacramento, has been appointed Chief Deputy General Counsel in the Office of Legal Affairs at the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where she has been Chief Deputy General Counsel since 2019. Dunzweiler held several positions at the California Department of Justice from 2014 to 2019 including Deputy Attorney General IV and Deputy Attorney General III. She was an Associate at Locke Lord LLP from 2011 to 2014, Bullivant Houser Bailey from 2008 to 2011, Diepenbrock Harrison from 2006 to 2008, and at Weinstraub Genshlea Chediak from 2004 to 2006. Dunzweiler earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, and a Master of Arts degree in Communications and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Psychology from the University of the Pacific. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $229,236. Dunzweiler is a Democrat.
Todd Gloria, of San Diego, has been appointed to the California Air Resources Board. Gloria has been the Mayor of the City of San Diego since 2020. He was an Assemblymember with the California State Assembly from 2016 to 2020. Gloria was a Councilmember, District 3 in the City of San Diego from 2008 to 2016. He was a District Director in the Office of Congresswoman Susan A. Davis from 2001 to 2008. Gloria was a San Diego Housing Commissioner on the San Diego Housing Commission from 2005 to 2008. He was Board Chair at San Diego LGBT Community Center from 2002 to 2007. Gloria earned his Bachelor of the Arts degree in Political Science and History from the University of San Diego. This position requires Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $100 per diem. Gloria is a Democrat.
Roxanne Messina Captor, of Redondo Beach, has been reappointed to the California Arts Council, where she has been serving since 2022. Captor has been Associate Faculty at Santa Monica College since 1986, an Emmy-nominated Filmmaker at Messina Captor Films Inc. since 1994, and a teacher at the New York Film Academy since 2022. She was a Faculty Member at Emerson College LA and CalArts from 2000 to 2019. Captor was Executive Director for the San Francisco International Film Festival and Society from 2001 to 2006. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Who’s Who of America, Greenlight Women, and the National Association of Television Program Executives. Captor earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing for Cinema from Columbia College of Chicago and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre Arts from Julliard School of Music. This position requires Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $100 per diem. Captor is a Democrat.
Press Releases, Recent News
Recent news
Jan 28, 2025
News What you need to know: Governor Newsom met today with leaders of the Pacific Palisades synagogue Kehillat Israel, which still stands after the fire. Los Angeles, California – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom met with clergy, staff, and board members of Kehillat…
Jan 28, 2025
News Dodgers Chairman Mark Walter, Mark Walter Family Foundation, and Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation will provide an initial commitment of up to $100 million LA Rises will support city and county efforts to help accelerate recovery LOS ANGELES — In the wake of one…
Jan 27, 2025
News LOS ANGELES — Scientists, water managers, state leaders, and experts throughout the state are calling out the federal administration’s ongoing misinformation campaign on water management in California. Here is a snapshot of what water leaders and media are saying…
What you need to know: Governor Newsom met today with leaders of the Pacific Palisades synagogue Kehillat Israel, which still stands after the fire.
Los Angeles, California – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom met with clergy, staff, and board members of Kehillat Israel, the largest synagogue in Pacific Palisades, which still stands after the Palisades Fire wiped out the neighborhood. Kehillat Israel is home to almost one thousand Jewish families, a third of whom lost their homes in the fires.
“It was an honor to see the resilience of the Kehillat Israel community. To know their place of worship still standing is nothing short of a miracle, and watching the clergy and congregants coming together to pray, learn, and support each other is inspiring. Pacific Palisades will build back stronger than ever, and KI will continue to be a leader in that recovery.”
Governor Gavin Newsom
Founded in Pacific Palisades in 1950, Kehillat Israel has been in its current building since October 26, 1997. It is a center of the community for Jews of all faiths across West Los Angeles, and includes a parenting center, Early Childhood Center (pre-school and TK), and K-12 and senior programming.
Today’s convening took place at Beth Shir Shalom, a synagogue in Santa Monica where some of Kehillat Israel’s programming is currently being held.
Support for the Palisades
Governor Newsom was on the ground in Pacific Palisades 50 minutes after the Palisades Fire first broke out in the Palisades Highlands. He has since toured the Palisades Village with first responders several times, visited the destroyed homes of Palisadians, and volunteered with Project Angel Food to assist survivors. He continues to meet with survivors, leaders, and local officials to ensure that the Palisades has all it needs to recover and rebuild.
Get help today
Californians can go to CA.gov/LAfires – a hub for information and resources from state, local and federal government.
Individuals and business owners who sustained losses from wildfires in Los Angeles County can apply for disaster assistance:
If you use a relay service, such as video relay service (VRS), captioned telephone service or others, give FEMA the number for that service.
Press Releases, Recent News
Recent news
Jan 28, 2025
News Dodgers Chairman Mark Walter, Mark Walter Family Foundation, and Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation will provide an initial commitment of up to $100 million LA Rises will support city and county efforts to help accelerate recovery LOS ANGELES — In the wake of one…
Jan 27, 2025
News LOS ANGELES — Scientists, water managers, state leaders, and experts throughout the state are calling out the federal administration’s ongoing misinformation campaign on water management in California. Here is a snapshot of what water leaders and media are saying…
Jan 25, 2025
News SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the following appointments:Bret Ladine, of Sacramento, has been appointed Director of the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal). Ladine has been General Counsel at the California State…
Jan 28, 2025
What you need to know: The passage of Proposition 1 by California voters adds rocket fuel to Governor Gavin Newsom’s transformational overhaul of the state’s behavioral health system. These reforms refocus existing funds to prioritize Californians with the most serious mental health and substance use issues, who are too often experiencing homelessness. They also fund more than 11,150 new behavioral health beds and supportive housing units and 26,700 outpatient treatment slots.
Los Angeles, California – California took a major step forward in correcting the damage from 50 years of neglect to the state’s mental health system with the passage of Proposition 1. This historic measure — a signature priority of Governor Gavin Newsom — adds rocket fuel to California’s overhaul of the state’s behavioral health systems. It provides a full range of mental health and substance abuse care, with new accountability metrics to ensure local governments deliver for their communities.
This is the biggest reform of the California mental health system in decades and will finally equip partners to deliver the results all Californians need and deserve. Treatment centers will prioritize mental health and substance use support in the community like never before. Now, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and begin implementing this critical reform – working closely with city and county leaders to ensure we see results.
Governor Gavin Newsom
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What they’re saying:
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, original author of the Mental Health Services Act: “Twenty years ago, I never could have dreamed that we would have the strong leadership we have today, committing billions and making courageous policy changes that question the conventional wisdom on mental health. Now, with the passage of Proposition 1. California is delivering on decades old promises to help people living with brain-based illnesses, to live better lives, to live independently and to live with dignity in our communities. This is a historic moment and the hard work is ahead of us.“
Senator Susan Eggman (D-Stockton), author of Senate Bill 326: “Today marks a day of hope for thousands of Californians who are struggling with mental illness – many of whom are living unhoused. I am tremendously grateful to my fellow Californian’s for passing this important measure. And I am very appreciative of this Governor’s leadership to transform our behavioral health care system!”
Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks), author of Assembly Bill 531: “This started as an audacious proposal to address the root cause of homelessness and today, Californians can be proud to know that they did the right thing by passing Proposition 1. Now, it’s time for all of us to get to work, and make sure these reforms are implemented and that we see results.”
Bigger picture: Transforming the Mental Health Services Act into the Behavioral Health Services Act and building more community mental health treatment sites and supportive housing is the last main pillar of Governor Newsom’s Mental Health Movement – pulling together significant recent reforms like 988 crisis line, CalHOPE, CARE Court, conservatorship reform, CalAIM behavioral health expansion (including mobile crisis care and telehealth), Medi-Cal expansion to all low-income Californians, Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (including expanding services in schools and on-line), Older Adult Behavioral Health Initiative, Veterans Mental Health Initiative, Behavioral Health Community Infrastructure Program, Behavioral Health Bridge Housing, Health Care Workforce for All and more.
More details on next step here
Press Releases, Recent News
Recent news
Jan 28, 2025
News Dodgers Chairman Mark Walter, Mark Walter Family Foundation, and Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation will provide an initial commitment of up to $100 million LA Rises will support city and county efforts to help accelerate recovery LOS ANGELES — In the wake of one…
Jan 27, 2025
News LOS ANGELES — Scientists, water managers, state leaders, and experts throughout the state are calling out the federal administration’s ongoing misinformation campaign on water management in California. Here is a snapshot of what water leaders and media are saying…
Jan 25, 2025
News SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the following appointments:Bret Ladine, of Sacramento, has been appointed Director of the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal). Ladine has been General Counsel at the California State…
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gabriel Silva Huland, Teaching Fellow, School of International Studies, University of Nottingham
Brics has emerged as a significant international force since 2009 when it was established at a summit in Russia. What began as a five-member group encompassing Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is now expanding with the integration of five new members and eight new partner countries. Even more countries may be joining in the next few years.
This growth raises essential questions about whether Brics will challenge the leadership of traditional powers such as the US, UK and the European Union.
But analysts are also questioning how united the bloc really is and whether a perceived lack of unity constitutes an obstacle to the bloc’s expansion. Brics is undoubtedly diverse. Iran and Saudi Arabia compete as regional powers in the Middle East, Egypt and Ethiopia have had different conflicts around the Nile’s governance, and the skirmishes between China and India are well known.
Yet, the bloc’s strength may reside in its capacity to integrate this diverse array of countries that are not fully aligned. Building loose international organisations might be the key to navigating international politics in these times of increasing polarisation.
The rise of Brics must be contextualised within the ongoing competition between the US and China. The rivalry between the world’s two largest economies is likely to intensify in the coming years, shaping the contemporary global order. China’s announcement of a record US$1 trillion (£804 billion) trade surplus for 2024 and its solid 5% economic growth have bolstered the narrative that its development model represents an alternative to the US-sponsored neoliberal policies that have dominated much of the world in the past four decades.
Political leaders and economic elites worldwide are closely observing the US-China competition – and most countries strive to maintain an equidistant approach. Countries traditionally within the US sphere of influence, including Brazil and Peru, have been cautiously moving towards China, attracted by the economic opportunities the Asian giant offers. Others previously in China’s orbit, like Vietnam, are working to maintain or expand their ties with the US.
Brics countries represent 45% of the world’s population and about 35% of global GDP. Sunflowerr/Shutterstock
China is unquestionably the driving force that holds Brics together. Without China, it wouldn’t have come into existence. All Brics countries share two key characteristics. They are global south countries that do not belong to the traditional group of hegemonic powers. And they have significant economic ties with China, especially through trade relations.
Belt and road
The official Brics narrative emphasises multilateralism, cooperation and fair global development. But in fact the group serves primarily as an instrument for China to project its power and influence. China achieves this through a combination of rhetoric and by using the bloc as a special trade platform linked to the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI).
Brics seeks to position itself as an alternative to US hegemony, promoting free trade and multilateralism. In times of political turbulence and the growth of illiberal forces, this narrative serves as a powerful legitimising tool for the group globally. But the group’s diversity also poses significant challenges to its rise as an alternative to the US-led global order. It is unlikely that Brics will evolve into a unified military alliance like Nato or a free trade area like Asean or the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA – formerly Nafta). The group’s diversity prevents it from acquiring these characteristics.
Aware of this, China strategically uses Brics to increase its business opportunities and international influence. It maintains a fine balance between a loose bloc and a more solidified military or economic alliance. Contrary to the Cold War era, when the two superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union, had well-defined spheres of influence, the current world order appears to be shaped by loose, interconnected international blocs.
Many of Brics member states are also partners with China in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Net Vector/Shutterstock
China’s prominence within Brics is clear and unlikely to change. It accounts for two-thirds of both the group’s GDP and intra-Brics trade. The country is the primary trade partner for Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran. China also holds significant investments in these nations. Russia is the largest recipient of Chinese foreign direct investment within the Brics with an accumulated stock of more than USU$10 billion.
Most Brics member states are also directly or indirectly involved in BRI. While the major BRI projects may not be located within Brics countries – they are primarily in central, south and southeast Asia – Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Iran also host BRI initiatives. Though not an official BRI member, Brazil has become a key partner due to its role as a central food supplier to China.
These figures highlight that expanding Brics is one of China’s foreign policy priorities. The country uses the group to project both economic and ideological influence. Donald Trump’s plans to impose trade tariffs on several countries, including China, is likely to prompt China to intensify this policy. It is a distinct possibility that the recent episode with Colombia, where the US president reportedly threatened to impose tariffs if Colombia continued to push back against deportation flights, could encourage more countries to seek closer trading relationships with China.
Strategic friendships
Some analysts correctly claim that Brics is divided between anti-western states and those that prefer to remain nonaligned. While the anti-western group, led by Russia, advocates for a confrontational stance towards the US, the nonaligned countries – including India and Brazil – favour a more nuanced approach.
Analysts argue that the US should try to develop closer relations with non-aligned countries to influence internal Brics debates. But this overlooks the fact that China is not only the de-facto leader of Brics but also has an unequivocal strategy of favouring a nuanced approach towards the west, based on multilateralism and free trade. So, despite what Russia may want, it’s unlikely that Brics will assume a confrontational stance towards the west.
China knows that a non-confrontational approach is the best way to attract more countries and solidify the Brics as a loose bloc that advocates for more democratic global governance.
So far, this strategy appears to be working.
Gabriel Silva Huland 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.
Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Kiren Rijiju met the YPO global delegation at his office on 28th January. The delegation was hosted by the Hero Motors Company and had members from Israel, USA, UK, Costa Rica, and India.
Shri Rijiju said that the discussions were engaging and revolved around innovation, collaboration and a shared vision for progress.
In a post on ‘X’, the Union Minister wished the YPO Global Delegation a truly purposeful and memorable visit to India. He further said that the delegation members were very impressed with India’s grand new Parliament building.
It was a pleasure to meet the YPO Global delegation at my office in Parliament today. Hosted by Hero Motors Company, the delegation brought together inspiring leaders from the UK, Costa Rica, Israel, the USA & India. Engaging discussions on innovation, collaboration & a shared… pic.twitter.com/slnJgq68kM
I wish the YPO Global Delegation’s visit to India, a truly purposeful and memorable. The delegation members were very impressed with India’s grand new Parliament building. Enjoy rest of the stay in India 🇮🇳 https://t.co/x6ppUGVA4Rpic.twitter.com/IIrtHU0pQb
European Commission Statement Brussels, 29 Jan 2025 With this partnership, the EU and Jordan are deepening what is already a long-standing relationship and strong friendship, to better meet common challenges and advance shared values of peace, democracy and human rights.
The investigation into the smuggling group started in May 2020, when three containers arrived in Belgium filled with undeclared cigarettes instead of the supposed construction material destined for Germany. The group tried to avoid suspicion by filling one of the three containers with the declared goods and presenting it correctly to customs. The building materials would then be loaded into the second and third containers to get them through customs. The smuggling did not go unnoticed as customs officers discovered that the containers were filled with undeclared cigarettes.
With the support of the European Anti-Fraud Office, Belgian and German customs launched a cross-border investigation into the criminal group. They discovered that the same method had been used to smuggle over 150 containers filled with cigarettes into the EU. During the investigation, customs authorities also learned that the group was now also unloading cigarettes at warehouses in the Netherlands. The Dutch customs authorities joined the international investigation to take down the smuggling operation.
The cigarettes were manufactured in Türkiye and Iran, then exported to ports worldwide, reloaded and brought into EU ports using forged sea freight documents. The criminal group is suspected of smuggling 150 containers into the EU. The fiscal loss of the smuggling scheme is estimated at EUR 550 million.
The four-year long investigation culminated in an action day coordinated from Eurojust’s headquarters in The Hague. Authorities executed arrest warrants in three countries, leading to two arrests in Belgium, one in the Netherlands and seven in Germany. Seventeen locations and one vehicle were searched where authorities seized multiple phones laptops and paper documents.
The following authorities carried out the operations:
Germany: Public Prosecutor’s Office Bielefeld; Customs Investigation Office Hanover
Belgium: Public Prosecution Office Namur; Public Prosecution Office Charleroi; Federal Police Namur; Federal Police Charleroi; Belgian Customs Authorities
The Netherlands: National Public Prosecutors Office for Economic and Environmental Crimes; Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service
Government of Yukon approves new regulation for psychologists jlutz
The Government of Yukon has approved a new regulation for psychologists under the Health Professions Act, improving local access to licensed, qualified psychological practitioners and supporting a transparent process for those seeking to become regulated health professionals in the territory.
As a result, Yukoners will have access to psychological care from licensed and qualified practitioners who meet established professional standards. Yukoners seeking mental wellness or psychological services from psychologists will now be eligible to benefit from federal tax deductions.
This new regulation aligns the profession with other Yukon regulated health professionals, national standards and practices for psychologists. This regulation also provides a formal process to register complaints if they are dissatisfied with the quality of services they receive.
Psychologists practising in the Yukon will now need to meet qualification standards and follow standards of practice to be registered to practice in the territory. Psychologists may contact psychologists@yukon.ca to register effective February 1, 2025.
The psychologists regulation under the Health Professions Act is a significant step forward in ensuring that Yukoners receive care from highly qualified and ethical professionals. By setting clear standards and strengthening accountability, this regulation not only improves access to registered psychologists but also fosters trust and transparency in mental health services. It creates a supportive framework for aspiring professionals while enhancing the overall quality of care available to Yukoners.
This regulation ensures that Yukoners will have better access to high quality mental health care, governed by professional standards, more accountability and better support. It’s our government’s goal to have a health care system that is both accessible and culturally safe and this is the latest step in that direction. I encourage all Yukoners to participate in the ongoing review of the Health Professions Act to ensure that your voices are heard about how we can continue this important work.
Quick facts
The regulation sets out clear processes if someone has a complaint or there needs to be disciplinary action.
To become a registered psychologist in the Yukon, prospective psychologists must contact psychologists@yukon.ca to register.
Media contact
Jordan Owens Cabinet Communications 867-332-0615 jordan.owens@yukon.ca
John Tonin Communications, Community Services 867-334-5816 john.tonin@yukon.ca
News release #:
25-026
Related information:
How to register as a psychologist
Lines 33099 and 33199 – Eligible medical expenses you can claim on your tax ret…
Statement from Premier Pillai on International Holocaust Remembrance Day jlutz
Premier Ranj Pillai has issued the following statement:
“Today, I invite Yukoners to join people around the world in solemnly remembering the six million Jewish lives lost during the Holocaust – known in Hebrew as the Shoah – along with the millions of others persecuted by the Nazi regime for their ethnicity, sexuality, disability and religious or political beliefs.
“Today we mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Vistula-Oder offensive on the Eastern Front of World War II. Today, this concentration camp serves as a reminder of the devastating consequences of hatred, bigotry and indifference.
“We mourn the victims of the Holocaust. We honour the resilience of those who survived. Their courage and determination to rebuild their lives in the face of unimaginable loss serves as a testament to the strength of the human spirit.
“We cannot reflect on the atrocities of the Holocaust without acknowledging and confronting the rise of antisemitism and other forms of hatred occurring today. We must uphold the promise of ‘never again’ by educating ourselves and our children, challenging prejudice wherever it appears and standing united against all forms of injustice and discrimination. Here in the Yukon, we are incorporating Holocaust education into the Grade 10 curriculum and working to make the territory a place where everyone is safe, valued and appreciated and where people are not afraid to stand up for what is right.
“The Jim Smith Building in Whitehorse will be illuminated to honour the victims of the Holocaust. Today, and every day, we renew our vow: never again.”
Media contact
Jordan Owens Cabinet Communications 867-332-0615 jordan.owens@yukon.ca
Statement from Minister Mostyn on Data Privacy Day jlutz
Acting Minister of Highways and Public Works Richard Mostyn has issued the following statement:
“Today, on Data Privacy Day, we join Yukoners and people around the world in emphasizing the importance of protecting personal information in an ever-evolving digital age. Here in the Yukon, safeguarding personal data remains a top priority, guided by the principles of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
“With the rise in cyber threats and data breaches, the need to protect sensitive information has never been more critical. Data Privacy Day is a valuable reminder for all of us – individuals, organizations and governments alike – to take responsibility for securing personal data and adopting best practices to keep it safe.
“The Government of Yukon is committed to upholding these principles in all our operations. Protecting personal information is central to what we do and we are continuously improving the systems and practices designed to keep it safe. I encourage Yukoners to take a few simple but effective steps to protect their privacy: review the information you share online, update your privacy settings on digital platforms and use strong security measures to protect your accounts.
“On this Data Privacy Day, let’s reaffirm our shared commitment to respecting and protecting privacy. By staying informed and vigilant, we can foster trust and create a safer digital environment for everyone.”
Media contact
Jordan Owens Cabinet Communications 867-332-0615 jordan.owens@yukon.ca
Brittany Cross Communications, Highways and Public Works 867-332-4601 brittany.cross@yukon.ca
News release #:
25-025
Related information:
Yukon privacy resources from the Yukon Information and Privacy Commissioner
Data Privacy Week information, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Governments of Canada and Yukon announce funding to support private investment in Yukon businesses
Primary image
jlutz
This is a joint news release between the Government of Canada and the Government of Yukon.
Small- and medium-sized businesses are key drivers of innovation and opportunity in their communities. Access to private investment allows them to expand, diversify and strengthen local economies, creating dynamic economic networks.
Yesterday, the Yukon’s Premier and Minister of Economic Development Ranj Pillai and Member of Parliament for the Yukon Brendan Hanley, on behalf of Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs and Minister responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency Gary Anandasangaree, announced a joint contribution of up to $558,800 over three years supporting the Yukon Venture Angels’ (YVA) Yukon Private Capital Ecosystem Development Project.
This funding will help YVA build a Yukon angel investor ecosystem to provide entrepreneurs across the territory with financial backing, mentorship, access to networks and strategic guidance. Through this project the non-profit organization will develop a strategic plan, create and deliver investor and founder training and build a fund management structure to facilitate private investments.
Supporting projects like this one aligns with CanNor’s priority to support small- and medium-sized businesses and create economic growth and innovation in northern and remote communities. This agreement also supports objectives outlined in the Government of Yukon’s innovation strategy. Enhancing investment opportunities helps create jobs, stimulate local industries and contributes to sustainable and diversified economic development in the territory.
Angel investors are vital to the growth and success of our local entrepreneurs and startups. Not only do they provide essential funding, they also create valuable mentorship opportunities and help Yukon innovators establish key partnerships in global markets. This funding agreement reflects our government’s strategic innovation goals of expanding market access for small- and medium-sized businesses while cultivating a diverse and collaborative investment ecosystem.
Entrepreneurs are a key part of our economy. By supporting the development of an angel investing ecosystem, our government is helping to ensure that they have access to the resources they need to turn innovative ideas into successful businesses. This investment will help create jobs, drive long-term economic prosperity and open new opportunities for talented Yukoners to bring their ideas to market.
The Yukon is home to a vibrant and growing community of entrepreneurs who are driving innovation and economic development in the region. With a high number of local businesses across diverse industries, the territory has become a hub for creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. We are proud to support these entrepreneurs who embody Yukon’s culture of innovation and provide them with the resources they need to succeed and grow.
Yukon Venture Angels is filling a critically important niche in Yukon’s economic ecosystem, working to unleash the private capital investment potential of Yukoners. Our mission is to establish Yukon as a competitive hub for angel investing and start-ups by facilitating investment opportunities and expanding private investment networks, while at the same time enhancing angel investor knowledge and competence. The outcome will be a more economically resilient and prosperous Yukon.
Quick facts
CanNor is contributing $286,800 towards this project through its Regional Economic Growth through Innovation (REGI) Fund, which supports the economic growth of businesses and regions through innovation.
The Government of Yukon is contributing $272,000 over three years as a core project of the Innovation, Industry and Business Development Branch, in alignment with objectives outlined in the Yukon’s innovation strategy.
Yukon Venture Angels is creating opportunities for Yukon angels to invest, provide education programs to enhance their skills and build a thriving network of local investors. This network will foster collaboration, knowledge sharing and resource pooling, driving a significant increase in private capital investment in the Yukon.
Media contact
Jordan Owens Cabinet Communications 867-332-0615 jordan.owens@yukon.ca
Jennifer Hackwell Communications, Economic Development 867-332-1795 jennifer.hackwell@yukon.ca
Kyle Allen Office of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Northern Affairs and CanNor kyle.allen@rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca
Greg Frame Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Northern Affairs and CanNor gregory.frame@rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca
Leighann Chalykoff Communications Advisor, Yukon Region, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) leighann.chalykoff@cannor.gc.ca
Alongside its regional and international partners, Italy is continuing in its efforts to stabilise the Middle East region and support its peoples. Today, helicopters from the Italian and Jordanian Armed Forces carried out a joint air mission to deliver concrete and effective assistance to the population of the Gaza Strip, transporting huge quantities of humanitarian aid.
This was in addition to the work carried out through the ‘Food for Gaza’ mechanism, which was launched by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and has already enabled more than 100 tonnes of food and medical aid to be delivered to the Strip.
Over the coming days, 15 lorries donated to the World Food Programme and another 15 tonnes of aid will be arriving to the Port of Ashdod. This initiative further builds on the work that has been carried out by the Italian Armed Forces to support the civilians of Gaza since the war first started, with medical care being provided by the ‘Vulcano’ ship in Egypt and to help Palestinian children, also with Italian doctors in hospitals in the United Arab Emirates.
The people of Coventry came together this week (27 January) to honour the annual Holocaust Memorial Day, which this year fell on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The event was held at the Belgrade Theatre, and a large audience heard from city leaders and guest speakers, as well as schoolchildren and students from the city.
Cllr Abdul Salam Khan, Deputy Leader of Coventry City Council, hosted the service, with speeches from Lord Mayor, Cllr Mal Mutton and Council Chief Executive, Julie Nugent.
The main speaker was Lesley Urbach, from Generation 2 Generation, a Holocaust education charity, who told the story of her mother Eva Urbach and aunt Ulli Adler, who escaped to Britain and Argentina in 1938 and 1939.
The talk focused on what happened to their parents left behind in Germany, who were murdered at Auschwitz.
There was also a performance by actors from Time Will Tell Theatre, who enacted first-hand accounts of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, which will also mark its 80th anniversary this year.
The audience also heard music from Coventry Music Brass Quintet and Bluecoat School Choir, readings from students from the University of Warwick, and pupils from Cardinal Newman Catholic School talked about their personal experiences of conflict and the importance of learning about the Holocaust.
A candle was lit as the city remembered the victims of the Holocaust and other genocides including Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, Afghanistan and Syria.
This year’s theme was ‘For a Better Future’, and Cllr Khan told the audience: “It is something our city works for continually, both here at home, and around the world, and it is a call for action that we can all be a part of.
“There are many things we can do to create a better future. We can speak out and stand up for others and we can challenge prejudice. We can learn from our past and from the Holocaust, genocides, and wars, and we can tell our stories and remember those we have lost to hatred and prejudice – as we do today.
“If we can all leave here with the determination to take one action or change one thing, then together, we can make a difference and help to build that better future.”
A national Palestine advocacy group has hit back at critics of its “genocide hotline” campaign against soldiers involved in Israel’s war against Gaza, saying New Zealand should be actively following international law.
“Why is concern for the sensitivities of soldiers from a genocidal Israeli campaign more important than condemning the genocide itself?,” asked PSNA national chair John Minto in a statement.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters, the Chief Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow and the New Zealand Jewish Council have made statements “protecting” Israeli soldiers who come to New Zealand on “rest and recreation” from the industrial-scale killing of 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza until a truce went into force on January 19.
“We are not surprised to see such a predictable lineup of apologists for Israel and its genocide in Gaza from lining up to attack a PSNA campaign with false smears of anti-semitism,” Minto said.
He said that over 16 months Peters had done “absolutely nothing” to put any pressure on Israel to end its genocidal behaviour.
“But he is full of bluff and bluster and outright lies to denounce those who demand Israel be held to account.”
Deny illegal settler visas Minto said that if Peters was doing his job as Foreign Minister, he would not only stop Israeli soldiers coming to Aotearoa New Zealand — as with Russian soldiers in the Ukraine war — he would also deny visas to any Israeli with an address in an illegal Israeli settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
“Our campaign has nothing to do with Israelis or Jews — it is a campaign to stop Israeli soldiers coming here for rest and recreation after a campaign of wholesale killing of Palestinians in Gaza,” Minto said.
“To imply the campaign is targeting Jews is disgusting and despicable.
“Some of the soldiers will be Druse, some Palestinian Arabs and others will be Jews.”
The five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, shot 355 times by Israeli soldiers on 29 January 2024. Image: @Onlyloren/Instagram
Israeli soldiers are facing a growing risk of being arrested abroad for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza, with around 50 criminal complaints filed so far in courts in several countries around the world.
Earlier this month, a former Israeli soldier abruptly ended his holiday in Brazil and was “smuggled” out of the country after a Federal Court ordered police to open a war crimes investigation against him. The man fled to Argentina.
A complaint lodged by the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) included more than 500 pages of court records linking the suspect to the demolition of civilian homes in Gaza.
‘Historic’ court ruling against soldier The foundation called the Brazilian court’s decision “historic”, saying it marked a significant precedent for a member country of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to enforce Rome Statute provisions domestically in the 15-month Israeli war on Gaza.
The foundation is named in honour of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab who was killed on 29 January 2024 by Israel soldiers while pleading for help in a car after her six family members were dead.
According to The New Arab, the foundation has so far tracked and sent the names of 1000 Israeli soldiers to the ICC and Interpol, and has been pursuing legal cases in a number of countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Cyprus, France, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, together with a former Hamas commander, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Minto accused the New Zealand Jewish Council of being “deeply racist” and said it regularly “makes a meal of false smears of anti-semitism”.
“It’s deeply problematic that this Jewish Council strategy takes attention away from the real anti-semitism which exists in New Zealand and around the world.
“The priority of the Jewish Council is to protect Israel from criticism and protect it from accountability for its apartheid policies, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Source: United States Senator for Nevada Cortez Masto
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NEv.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) released the following statement on their opposition to a procedural vote on the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act.
“As pro-Israel members committed to protecting and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship, and ensuring Israel has every tool to defend itself, we are deeply troubled by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) outrageous political targeting of Israel and its leaders. The Court’s false equivalence of Israel’s defense of its people with Hamas’s barbaric actions on October 7th is an affront to human conscience, deserving of both condemnation and severe consequences. We believe this judicial overreach must be countered forcefully, including through sanctions on those at the ICC directly responsible.
“Instead of directly punishing those responsible for the ICC’s reckless and irresponsible behavior, the House-passed ICC sanctions bill has overly broad language that would put our allies and U.S. private companies in the crosshairs. While we are eager to support a bill that would swiftly sanction those at the ICC responsible for its anti-Israel actions, in taking up the House bill today, Senate Republicans took a flawed, partisan approach. Despite our efforts, the bill’s sponsors did not allow us to make this bill stronger and more targeted. This is why we made the difficult decision to vote against a procedural motion on their bill, after serious consideration of the far-reaching, unintended consequences it would have. We urge our Republican colleagues to return to the negotiating table and reach a bipartisan agreement so that we can stand together in support of Israel through more targeted and effective legislation.”
Source: United States Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV)
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) released the following statement on their opposition to a procedural vote on the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act.
“As pro-Israel members committed to protecting and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship, and ensuring Israel has every tool to defend itself, we are deeply troubled by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) outrageous political targeting of Israel and its leaders. The Court’s false equivalence of Israel’s defense of its people with Hamas’s barbaric actions on October 7th is an affront to human conscience, deserving of both condemnation and severe consequences. We believe this judicial overreach must be countered forcefully, including through sanctions on those at the ICC directly responsible.
“Instead of directly punishing those responsible for the ICC’s reckless and irresponsible behavior, the House-passed ICC sanctions bill has overly broad language that would put our allies and U.S. private companies in the crosshairs. While we are eager to support a bill that would swiftly sanction those at the ICC responsible for its anti-Israel actions, in taking up the House bill today, Senate Republicans took a flawed, partisan approach. Despite our efforts, the bill’s sponsors did not allow us to make this bill stronger and more targeted. This is why we made the difficult decision to vote against a procedural motion on their bill, after serious consideration of the far-reaching, unintended consequences it would have. We urge our Republican colleagues to return to the negotiating table and reach a bipartisan agreement so that we can stand together in support of Israel through more targeted and effective legislation.”
This year, Moscow-based export-oriented companies will have more opportunities to communicate with foreign partners: the MosProm center will organize 25 international business missions and ensure participation in 5 major international exhibitions. These initiatives, which include both face-to-face and virtual meetings, will provide Moscow manufacturers with important platforms for negotiations with foreign partners, said Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Transport and Industry.
Tastes of Moscow.
On behalf of Sergei Sobyanin, the city prioritizes supporting export-oriented enterprises in expanding their presence in global markets. Our main task is to increase the volume of exports of industrial goods and agricultural products of Moscow production to friendly countries. Moscow manufacturers will present their products at international exhibitions in China, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. They will also hold direct negotiations with potential buyers and distributors from Mexico, the UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Mongolia, African countries and the CIS, said Maxim Liksutov.
MosProm was established in 2019 with the aim of increasing the recognition and presence of Moscow-made products in foreign markets. One of the most effective programs offered by MosProm is the buyer program. It allows companies to participate in specialized international exhibitions and business missions, where they can negotiate with potential customers of Moscow-made products in the business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) formats. This enables local industrial companies to expand their export scope and product range, establish new partnerships and customer relationships, and attract valuable investments.
Tastes of Moscow.
MosProm specialists provide comprehensive support to Moscow producers at all stages of their foreign economic activity. Thanks to MosProm’s assistance, Moscow non-raw materials and non-energy producers have successfully reoriented their export flows and found new partners in the markets of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the CIS, – emphasized Anatoly Garbuzov, Minister of the Moscow Government, Head of the Moscow Department of Investment and Industrial Policy.
In addition, Moscow exporters benefit significantly from national support programs. The national project “International Cooperation and Export” is a set of measures of information, financial, insurance and logistics support. The project includes the digital platform “My Export”, which offers a range of business support services. These include free expert consultations, market analytics, assistance in promoting goods on international platforms, online training programs and much more.
This year, Moscow’s export-focused companies will have enhanced opportunities to connect with international partners, with the MosProm center organizing 25 international business missions and facilitating participation in 5 major international trade shows. These initiatives, which include both in-person and virtual engagements, will provide Moscow producers with vital platforms for discussions with overseas collaborators. This was announced by Maksim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Transport and Industry.
Tastes of Moscow.
As directed by Sergey Sobyanin, the city is prioritizing support for export-oriented enterprises in expanding their presence in global markets. Our main objective is to increase the volume of exports of Moscow-produced industrial goods and agricultural products to friendly nations. Moscow manufacturers will showcase their products at international exhibitions in China, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan. They will also engage in direct negotiations with potential buyers and distributors from Mexico, the UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Mongolia, and countries across Africa and the CIS, – stated Maksim Liksutov.
MosProm was established in 2019 to increase the recognition and presence of Moscow-made products in overseas markets. One of the most effective programs offered by MosProm is its buyer program. This initiative allows companies to participate in specialized international trade shows and business missions, where they can conduct business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) negotiations with prospective clients for Moscow-produced goods. This offers local industrial companies the opportunity to expand their export reach and product offerings, establish new partnerships and client relationships, and attract valuable investment.
Tastes of Moscow.
MosProm specialists provide comprehensive support to Moscow-based manufacturers at every stage of their foreign trade activities. Thanks to MosProm’s assistance, Moscow’s non-resource, non-energy producers have successfully reoriented their export flows and found new partners in markets across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the CIS, – emphasized Anatoly Garbuzov, Minister of the Moscow Government and Head of the city’s Department of Investment and Industrial Policy.
Furthermore, Moscow exporters benefit greatly from national support programs. The International Cooperation and Export national project is a comprehensive suite of informational, financial, insurance, and logistical support measures. The project includes the My Export digital platform, which offers a range of support services for businesses. These services include free expert consultations, market analytics, assistance in marketing goods on international marketplaces, online training programs, and more.
Yokneam Illit, Israel, Jan. 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Wearable Devices Ltd. (the “Company” or “Wearable Devices”) (Nasdaq: WLDS, WLDSW), an award-winning pioneer in artificial intelligence (“AI”)-based wearable gesture control technology, today announced the pricing of its “reasonable best efforts” public offering with a single institutional investor for the purchase and sale of up 2,500,000 ordinary shares (or pre-funded warrants in lieu thereof) and warrants to purchase up to 2,500,000 ordinary shares, at a combined offering price of $1.00 per share and accompanying warrant (the “Offering”). The Company expects to receive aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $2.5 million, before deducting placement agent fees and other offering expenses and assuming no exercise of the warrants. The warrants will have an exercise price of $1.00 per share, will be exercisable immediately and will expire five years from the issuance date.
The closing of the Offering is expected to occur on or about January 30, 2025, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for working capital and general corporate purposes.
A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners is acting as the sole placement agent for the Offering.
In connection with the Offering, the Company also agreed to amend existing warrants that were previously issued to the investor participating in the Offering to purchase up to 822,000 ordinary shares of the Company, with an exercise price of $2.50 per share. Effective upon closing of the Offering, such existing warrants will be amended to reduce the exercise price to $1.00 per share and will expire five years following the closing of the Offering.
The securities described above are being offered pursuant to a registration statement on Form F-1, as amended (File No. 333-284023), previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), which was declared effective on January 28, 2025. The Offering is being made only by means of a prospectus forming part of the effective registration statement. Copies of the preliminary prospectus and, when available, copies of the final prospectus, relating to the Offering may be obtained on the SEC’s website located at http://www.sec.gov. Electronic copies of the final prospectus relating to the Offering may be obtained, when available, from A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners, 590 Madison Avenue, 28th Floor, New York, NY 10022, or by telephone at (212) 624-2060, or by email at prospectus@allianceg.com.
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in this Offering, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.
About Wearable Devices Ltd.
Wearable Devices Ltd. is a pioneering growth company revolutionizing human-computer interaction through its AI-powered neural input technology for both consumer and business markets. Leveraging proprietary sensors, software, and advanced AI algorithms, the Company’s innovative products, including the Mudra Band for iOS and Mudra Link for Android, enable seamless, touch-free interaction by transforming subtle finger and wrist movements into intuitive controls. These groundbreaking solutions enhance gaming, and the rapidly expanding AR/VR/XR landscapes. The Company offers a dual-channel business model: direct-to-consumer sales and enterprise licensing. Its flagship Mudra Band integrates functional and stylish design with cutting-edge AI to empower consumers, while its enterprise solutions provide businesses with the tools to deliver immersive and interactive experiences. By setting the input standard for the XR market, Wearable Devices is redefining user experiences and driving innovation in one of the fastest-growing tech sectors. Wearable Devices’ ordinary shares and warrants trade on the Nasdaq under the symbols “WLDS” and “WLDSW,” respectively.
Forward-Looking Statements
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The government has begun questioning Israeli soldiers about their military service in Gaza at the New Zealand border as revealed in aTimes of Israel story today which says:
“New Zealand’s government immigration authority has begun to require Israelis applying for a visa to report details of their military service as a condition for entry, and at least one person has been denied admission after doing so, The Times of Israel has learned”
However, the details of the questions asked reveals the government is simply “going through the motions” to weed out possible war criminals.
The key questions asked are:
“Have you been associated with any intelligence service or group, or law enforcement agency?”
“Have you been associated with any group or organization that has used or promoted violence or human rights abuses to further their aims?”
“Have you committed or been involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity, or human rights abuses?”
It’s obvious how every soldier will answer those questions and New Zealand is none the wiser.
What the story also reveals is that the rejection rate for visas for Israelis coming herehas not changed since the genocide began in Gaza.
An analysis ofINZ statistical dataindicates that the rejection rate for Israeli visa applications to New Zealand during the war has been approximately four percent. This is not unusually high compared to previous years or the rejection rates for citizens of other developed countries.
It’s clear the questioning of Israeli soldiers is not revealing people involved in war crimes and is a “look busy” policy. This gives more reason for the government to adopt PSNA policy and suspend all visas for anyone who has served in the IDF since 7 October 2023.
The government must also uphold the International Court of Justice Advisory opinion (19 July 2024) which calls on the government to end support for Israel’s illegal occupation. This means we should also deny entry to every Israeli wanting to visit here who has an address in an illegal Israeli settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Source: United States Senator for New York Kirsten Gillibrand
Today, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand released the following statement regarding her decision to vote against ICC sanctions:
“I strongly support legislation sanctioning the International Criminal Court, an antisemitic organization that has twisted the law to target Israel. Not only has the ICC consistently undermined its credibility and the principles of justice by unfairly targeting Israel’s leadership, but its actions have politicized its mission of holding actual war criminals accountable. Unfortunately, the bill put forth by our Republican colleagues was overly broad and could have harmed American allies and businesses. Democrats were willing to negotiate to address these concerns and strengthen the bill, but our offer was rebuffed. I believe the most effective way to hold the ICC accountable is through a bipartisan effort, and I urge our Republican colleagues to work with us on this important bill.”
Source: United States Senator for Mississippi Roger Wicker
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roger F. Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, appeared on Fox’s “One Nation with Brian Kilmeade” on Saturday to discuss his urgent priorities on defense reform and bringing back peace through strength under President-elect Trump.
In his interview, Chairman Wicker stressed the importance of acting on major reforms at the Pentagon, including through his “Freedom’s Forge” plan, to strengthen the defense industrial base under President-elect Trump. Chairman Wicker also discussed the window of opportunity that the President has early in his term to rebuild deterrence and the United States military to send a signal to China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
Following last week’s hearing, Chairman Wicker additionally noted that nominee for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is well on his way to Senate confirmation, and that Hegseth will prove a vital partner for returning peace through strength to the Pentagon. In Hegseth’s hearing, he endorsed Chairman Wicker’s Freedom’s Forge plan, saying that “those are precisely the kinds of ideas that need to be pursued.”
Read more about “Freedom’s Forge” here, “Peace Through Strength” here, and the FORGED Act here. Key excerpts of the interview are below.
On Pete Hegseth:
[Pete is] definitely on his way [to confirmation], and I’ll tell you what, we’re going to have a hearing at 5:00 on Inauguration Day, and I think he’ll be reported to the full Senate the very first day…I’d say by the first week, Pete Hegseth will be in place at the Pentagon. And we need somebody right away at the Pentagon. This the most dangerous situation the United States has faced since World War II we’re facing not only Russia and China, but North Korea, and the Ayatollahs, and Iran – they’re and they’re all in it together like they never have been before. So, we need leadership, we need a change, and we need somebody in charge, and I’m really looking forward to working with Pete Hegseth, and also, the team that he’s putting in place.
On defense reform:
Well, we need to act more like a business when it comes to buying things [at the Pentagon]. Well for one thing we need to encourage startup companies. We have been in the Pentagon too comfortable with the old way of doing things. New folks with startup ideas like Elon Musk had a couple of decades ago – we need to encourage them to come forward and make suggestions. And so the point is, we can get to 5% of our gross domestic product on defense, but we can save a lot of money by bringing efficiencies at the same time…as a matter of fact, my report came out before I ever heard of DOGE, so the fact that you’ve got two people really trying to find the same efficiencies that we’ve outlined is music to my ears. This is going to work very well with Elon Musk.
Source: United States Senator for Maine Angus King
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Angus King today argued that a lack of health care data and the current Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hiring freeze are denying veterans the benefits they rightly deserve. In a hearing of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee (SVAC), King questioned Naomi Mathis, the Assistant National Legislative Director for Disabled American Veterans (DAV), and John Eaton, the Vice President for the Complex Care Wounded Warrior Project, about the lack of health care data comparing the VA direct care and non-VA community care providers. He also made clear that hiring freezes will make it more difficult for VA staff to carry out their duties, resulting in a decrease in quality care for veterans.
“This electronic medical records problem started with a no bid contract about five years ago, six years ago, that was extended by the last administration. I still don’t understand why we don’t go out to the market. I’m sorry you mentioned Epic Senator, because Epic is a successful medical record system that I observed in my system. Well, okay, in any case, it seems to me, in order to analyze the issue of the relationship between VA direct care and community care, we need more data. We know exactly the VA wait times and all those kinds of things. We don’t have that kind of data in terms of the private sector. I know in the private sector, in Maine, it is pretty hard to get a get an appointment, and particularly with a specialist. So, I think in order to make policy here, Mr. Chairman, we need some information. We need to have cost comparisons. We need to have time comparisons, wait times. So everybody’s nodding, but that won’t show up in the record. Could somebody say yes,” asked Senator King.
“Yes. Senator, I wholeheartedly agree. There is no data coming back out of the community back into VA and there is no sort of accountability either when the records don’t show up back to VA. So, you have a provider, a primary care provider, say at VA, that may have sent a patient out to the community for specialized care and the information when the patient comes back to VA, the information is not coming back, therefore that provider is not able to provide an accurate treatment plan for that patient,” replied Mathis.
“So we don’t have a handle on cost, quality or time. Is that correct,” questioned Senator King.
“Correct, Senator,” said Mathis.
“And, by the way, when we’re talking about the time of VAs responsibility and backlogs, a staff freeze isn’t going to help that problem. If there are fewer people to answer the phone, fewer people to process claims, that’s only going to exacerbate the problem, not make it any better. And I note that the that the administration the other day appeared to walk back part of the hiring freeze with regard to direct care providers, but to deny, but to leave a hiring freeze in effect that has fewer people responding, processing claims and those kinds of things. That’s in effect, a denial of benefits itself. Is it not, Mr. Eaton,” Senator King asked again.
“Yes,” responded Eaton.
Representing one of the states with the highest rates of veterans per capita, Senator King is a staunch advocate for America’s servicemembers and veterans. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, he has been among the Senate’s most prominent voices on the need to address veterans suicide, and has repeatedly pressed for action from top Department of Defense officials on this issue. An advocate for amplifying veteran voices, Senator King held a field hearing focusing on long-term care in Maine. Additionally, last spring led a letter urging further investments in traumatic brain injury research, the signature wound of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and introduced legislation to provide safe firearm storage for veterans. In 2024, Congress passed Senator King’s bipartisan legislation to improve veterans’ access to health care and benefits.
What will happen to Australia — and New Zealand — once the superpower that has been followed into endless battles, the United States, finally unravels?
With President Donald Trump now into his second week in the White House, horrific fires have continued to rage across Los Angeles and the details of Elon Musk’s allegedly dodgy Twitter takeover began to emerge, the world sits anxiously by.
The consequences of a second Trump term will reverberate globally, not only among Western nations. But given the deeply entrenched Americanisation of much of the Western world, this is about how it will navigate the after-shocks once the United States finally unravels — for unravel it surely will.
Leading with chaos Now that the world’s biggest superpower and war machine has a deranged criminal at the helm — for a second time — none of us know the lengths to which Trump (and his puppet masters) will go as his fingers brush dangerously close to the nuclear codes. Will he be more emboldened?
The signs are certainly there.
President Donald Trump 2.0 . . . will his cruelty towards migrants and refugees escalate, matched only by his fuelling of racial division? Image: ABC News screenshot IA
So far, Trump — who had already led the insurrection of a democratically elected government — has threatened to exit the nuclear arms pact with Russia, talked up a trade war with China and declared “all hell will break out” in the Middle East if Hamas hadn’t returned the Israeli hostages.
Will his cruelty towards migrants and refugees escalate, matched only by his fuelling of racial division?
This, too, appears to be already happening.
Trump’s rants leading up to his inauguration last week had been a steady stream of crazed declarations, each one more unhinged than the last.
Denial of catastrophic climate consequences And will Trump be in even further denial over the catastrophic consequences of climate change than during his last term? Even as Los Angeles grapples with a still climbing death toll of 25 lives lost, 12,000 homes, businesses and other structures destroyed and 16,425 hectares (about the size of Washington DC) wiped out so far in the latest climactic disaster?
The fires are, of course, symptomatic of the many years of criminal negligence on global warming. But since Trump instead accused California officials of “prioritising environmental policies over public safety” while his buddy and head of government “efficiency”, Musk blamed black firefighters for the fires, it would appear so.
Will the madman, for surely he is one, also gift even greater protections to oligarchs like Musk?
“…pave the way for my Administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal agencies”.
So, this too is already happening.
All of these actions will combine to create a scenario of destruction that will see the implosion of the US as we know it, though the details are yet to emerge.
The flawed AUKUS pact sinking quickly . . . Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with outgoing President Joe Biden, will Australia have the mettle to be bigger than Trump. Image: Independent Australia
What happens Down Under? US allies — like Australia — have already been thoroughly indoctrinated by American pop culture in order to complement the many army bases they house and the defence agreements they have signed.
Though Trump hasn’t shown any interest in making it a 52nd state, Australia has been tucked up in bed with the United States since the Cold War. Our foreign policy has hinged on this alliance, which also significantly affects Australia’s trade and economy, not to mention our entire cultural identity, mired as it is in US-style fast food dependence and reality TV. Would you like Vegemite McShaker Fries with that?
So what will happen to Australia once the superpower we have followed into endless battles finally breaks down?
‘Trump has promised chaos and chaos is what he’ll deliver.’
His rise to power will embolden the rabid Far-Right in the US but will this be mirrored here? And will Australia follow the US example and this year elect our very own (admittedly scaled down) version of Trump, personified by none other than the Trump-loving Peter Dutton?
If any of his wild announcements are to be believed, between building walls and evicting even US nationals he doesn’t like, while simultaneously making Canadians US citizens, Trump will be extremely busy.
There will be little time even to consider Australia, let alone come to our rescue should we ever need the might of the US war machine — no matter whether it is an Albanese or sycophantic Dutton leadership.
It is a given, however, that we would be required to honour all defence agreements should our ally demand it.
It would be great if, as psychologists urge us to do when children act up, our leaders could simply ignore and refuse to engage with him, but it remains to be seen whether Australia will have the mettle to be bigger than Trump.
Republished from the Independent Australia with permission.
Source: German Technology & Engineering Corporation (GTEC)
Karlheinz Zuerl, Interim Manager of the Year 2024*, has set up an international business network to bridge the gap between Western industrialized nations and the BRICS countries.
Berlin, January 28 2025 – A new international network of consultants and interim managers has been launched under the name “BRICS Project Network” to support Western companies in expanding their business in BRICS countries and vice versa. “The BRICS nations account for nearly half of the global population and produce over a third of the world’s economic output, surpassing the G7 countries,” explained Karlheinz Zuerl, CEO of the German Technology & Engineering Corporation (GTEC) based in Shanghai, China, which spearheads this initiative.
Karlheinz Zuerl said: “The further development of economic relations between the Western industrialized nations and the BRICS community helps all parties involved. The new network reportedly includes China, Hong Kong, India and Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand), the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Brazil and South America, Mexico, Canada (USMCA customs union), Russia, Eastern Europe and a number of African countries in the global south, such as South Africa, Ethiopia and Egypt.
Wide Range Of Services
Acting as a “bridge-builder” between these countries and the Western industrialized world, the new network offers a wide range of services: Management Consulting, Business Development, Project Management, Interim Management, Training and Education. Karlheinz Zuerl gave specific examples: “We carry out market analyses, set up international sales networks, initiate business partnerships and takeovers, represent companies at trade fairs and other events, take care of organizational development, look after human resources, set up branches on behalf of companies, carry out relocations and company transfers, optimize finances and local production and carry out restructuring to improve earnings.”
According to the information provided, the consultants and managers in the network have many years of experience in a wide range of sectors. Examples given include: Manufacturing, automotive, mechanical and plant engineering, construction, electrical and electronics, domestic appliances, environmental technology, information technology, pharmaceuticals and communications technology. If required, interim managers can take on operational roles such as general management, commercial management, project or quality management, research and development, human resources and finance, sales and marketing or change management.
Trade Disputes And Sanctions Weigh On Relations
Trade disputes between the US and China and sanctions against Russia are putting a strain on economic relations. The economic relationship between the Western industrialized nations and the BRICS countries is under severe strain. These tensions have led the BRICS to seek alternatives to reduce their dependence on Western financial systems, for example by discussing a common currency or reducing the use of the US dollar in trade.
“We are not politicians,” said Karlheinz Zuerl, “but business consultants and interim managers who build cross-border business relationships and investments that benefit all parties. Given the geopolitical tensions, the enormous economic potential for both parties is often underestimated. With experienced professionals like those in our network, this potential can be realized.”
He points out that a number of BRICS countries play an important role in technological development, as attractive manufacturing locations and as suppliers of raw materials and energy to the Western industrial world. Without China, India, Russia and Brazil, the Western economy would be much poorer,” said Karlheinz Zuerl, underlining the importance of the BRICS countries today.
* Karlheinz Zuerl was honoured by United Interim, the leading community for interim managers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and Steinbeis Augsburg Business School.
GTEC (https://gtec.asia) helps Western industrial companies to overcome challenges in Asia. The focus is on business development, the establishment and expansion of branches and production facilities, as well as restructuring and turnaround measures to bring automotive suppliers and mechanical engineering companies in critical phases back into the profit zone. Under the direction of CEO Karlheinz Zuerl, a team of consultants, experts and interim managers is on hand to work on-site with the client if necessary. The CEO himself is available for tasks as an interim general manager and for executive consulting. GTEC’s list of references includes corporations such as BMW, Bosch, General Motors and Siemens, large medium-sized companies such as Hella, Schaeffler, Valeo and ZF, as well as smaller medium-sized companies that are less well known but are operating all the more.
The release of the latest version of the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) model DeepSeek swiftly created a media and stock market storm as it, given the official costs of development, threw into disarray the massive investments made in Western AI companies.
Finbold research uncovered that in a single week ending on Monday, January 27, Google Trends global score for DeepSeek soared fiftyfold, hitting 100 – the highest figure possible for a selected region and time frame.
Though the score was the highest in China by far, the new model also soared above ChatGPT in the U.S.
Hong Kong, likewise, saw exceptional interest and took second place, while the countries where DeepSeek was also highly searched for, in descending order, include Singapore, Tunisia, Morocco, Nepal, Algeria, Ethiopia, Jordan, and Kenya.
Specifically, the AI model’s Google Trends score stood at 100 in China, 22 in Hong Kong, 16 in Singapore, and 6 in the U.S.
DeepSeek’s popularity also emerges outside Google Trends
The surge in interest was also evident on the Play Store, where the DeepSeek app took the top spot, leading to sufficient volume – and possibly a cyberattack – to ensure access is restricted to users with a Chinese phone number.
Additionally, the emergence of a new major player in the AI industry triggered a stock market bloodbath, with the semiconductor giant Nvidia (NVDA) being hit particularly hard and losing approximately $600 billion in market capitalization – the single biggest one-company valuation drop in a single day.
Still, as Andreja Stojanovic, a co-author of the research, pointed out, there were some immediate benefits:
“The introduction of new and powerful competition has had an immediate positive effect on consumers, as OpenAI’s Sam Altman promised additional features to ChatGPT’s paying users.”
Elsewhere, the tumult triggered some calls for a ban or restrictions on Chinese technology, akin to the tariffs and other protectionist measures imposed on Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers.
