Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Press release
Prime Minster meets Coalition of the Willing in Paris following UK military planning meetings
The Prime Minister will co-host the next meeting of the Coalition of the Willing alongside President Macron in Paris today (Thursday 27 March).
Prime Minister will underscore that all must back Ukraine to remain in the fight against Russia
Military planning to cover air, sea and land forces to support a lasting and durable peace and deter future Russian aggression
Prime Minister expected to say “Europe is stepping up to play its part to defend Ukraine’s future. Now Putin needs to show he’s willing to play ball”
The Prime Minister will co-host the next meeting of the Coalition of the Willing alongside President Macron in Paris today (Thursday 27 March).
At the meeting, he will present the outcomes of this week’s planning meetings in support of Ukraine, which took place at the UK military operational headquarters in Northwood over the last three days.
The intensive sessions, which convened over 200 military planners from countries across the globe, considered in detail the structure of any future force to ensure Ukraine can defend itself from future Russian aggression.
The Prime Minister will underline that all must come together to support Ukraine to remain in the fight and back US efforts to make real progress despite continued Russian obfuscation.
Planning so far has looked across the full range of European military capabilities including aircraft, tanks, troops, intelligence and logistics capabilities – and discussions have centred on how European nations can contribute their own capabilities to support any future force.
Discussions will continue around military planning of air, sea and land forces that would be required to support a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.
As the Prime Minister has repeatedly stated, a lasting peace in Ukraine can only be provided if we step up and give real and credible security assurances to deter Putin from coming back in future.
The Prime Minister will say that excellent progress has been made, and Europe is mobilising together in pursuit of peace, but now we must continue to keep up the momentum.
The Prime Minister will add that Putin has clearly shown his lack of commitment to the peace process, following ceasefire talks convened by the United States in Saudi Arabia this week.
Published readouts from both sides confirmed a naval ceasefire and prevention of use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea but Russia immediately backtracked and placed conditions on the agreements – despite good faith participation from Ukraine.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer will say:
Unlike President Zelenskyy, Putin has shown he’s not a serious player in these peace talks. Playing games with the agreed naval ceasefire in the Black Sea despite good faith participation from all sides – all while continuing to inflict devastating attacks on the Ukrainian people. His promises are hollow.
The US is playing a leading role by convening the ceasefire talks, President Zelenskyy has demonstrated his commitment repeatedly, and Europe is stepping up to play its part to defend Ukraine’s future. Now Putin needs to show he’s willing to play ball.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
While World War Two (WW2) always was a set of intersecting conflicts – with Japan fighting a war of imperialism in East Asia and the Western Pacific – the war in Europe has been cast as the ultimate battle of ‘Good’ versus ‘Evil’. Hence the narrative of the Good War. Further, it has been personalised, with Adolf Hitler becoming the personalisation of Evil and Winston Churchill the personalisation of Good.
It always was nonsense. Wars are fought over territories and hegemony, between various peoples (nationalities), empires, religions, ideologies etc.; in the vast majority of cases between Bad and Bad, albeit various shades of bad (although the Hitler’s Nazis and Joseph Stalin’s Communists were close to having been equally Bad). The Bad versus Good narrative remains compelling to the human mind, however. Once you can find a compelling Evil – without or within, over there or over here – then our brains want to tell us that whoever opposes that ‘bad’ must be ‘good’. (In the old days, the ‘good’ said: ‘God was on our side’. Typically, their opponents thought something similar.)
Winston Churchill was neither a Good leader nor a competent leader. He didn’t start WW2, though there is an argument that the United Kingdom did. Nevertheless, Churchill, as a charismatic rhetorician and narcissist, had some sway over political discourse in Britain for half a century. (His important career began in 1904, when he became a party-hopping backbencher. He resigned from his second stint as Prime Minister in 1955; he was an MP for 61 years, and PM for 9 years.) That’s why there are so many more cited quotations from him than from any other British back-bench MP in the late 1930s.
Churchill, as a war-leader, was an ultra-imperialist who fought imperialist wars under the cover of World Wars One and Two. He was responsible for numerous atrocities, including appeasements of Stalin that were more problematic than Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler in 1938. In his speeches in 1938 and 1939, Churchill may have been alluding to Eastern Europe, but he was thinking about Italy and its threat to British ‘assets’ in and around the Mediterranean Sea.
WW2: Germany versus Soviet Russia, with the United Kingdom as stoker and as kingmaker
World War Two was round two of the Germany versus Russia conflict; this time as ‘Nazi’ Germany against ‘Communist’ Russia, the Third Reich versus the Soviet Union. The centrality of the Germany versus Russia conflict – indeed a conflict between them for the territories of Ukraine and the oilfields to the southeast of Ukraine – becomes more apparent when WW1 and WW2 are seen as one. World War One clearly started as a conflict between Germany and Russia; albeit triggered as a conflict between proxies, Austria and Serbia. And World War Two ended with the defeat of Germany by Soviet Russia; and after the entry of Russia into the Pacific War (which henceforth became the Cold War between Soviet Russia and the United States of America).
Technically, WW2 became a world war (rather than a regional war) when the United Kingdom and France (and their empires) ‘declared war’ on Germany on 1 Sep 1939. The trigger issue was the possibility of Germany invading Poland. But what mischief was the United Kingdom upto with distant Poland? Why did a British ghost-war go horribly wrong? And why did open warfare between the two principal belligerents in Europe – Berlin and Moscow – not commence until June 1941?
My reading of British and French ‘diplomacy’ between March and August 1939 is that these notional allies, United Kingdom in particular, wanted there to be a major regional showdown between Berlin and Moscow; both powers would be substantially weakened as a result, thereby enhancing British and French control of the Mediterranean and the ‘Middle East’.
The British and the French ‘tried’ to do a deal with Stalin, in March 1939, with respect to protecting Poland from German aggression. (On 15 March 1939, Germany annexed the Czech part of Czechoslovakia.) They revealed their military weakness (especially Britain’s), or at least the paucity of the military contribution they were willing to make towards the security of Poland.
Britain and France subsequently went on to sign a treaty guarantee with Poland; a guarantee that both would declare war against Germany if Poland was attacked by Germany. Stalin already knew that the United Kingdom would not back-up such a declaration with any action to defend Poland.
The reason for the guarantee appears to have been to deter Poland from negotiating a peace deal with Germany. Further, Britain was maintaining diplomatic communication with Germany until August 1939. The inference would appear to be that Britain was trying to start a ‘nothing-war’ between itself and Germany, while stoking a ‘something war’ between Germany and Soviet Russia. Britain had no intention of doing anything in Poland, and was expecting that France would provide a substantial defensive barrier between Germany and Great Britain; this was all in the context that Britain and France would be helping their own security by nudging Germany into ‘pushing’ East (as was always Germany’s apparent plan) rather than ‘West’.
However, Britain and France were nonplussed by the non-aggression pact – the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – signed between Moscow and Berlin in the last week of August 1939. Further, there was a secret sub-pact. Moscow and Berlin would carve up Poland, and which effectively – and subsequently – meant the Soviet annexation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, activating that secret deal. Despite having nineteenth-century precedents for a pragmatic backing out from a signed-up deal, the United Kingdom and France – at least notionally – honoured their guarantee and declared war on Germany.
For France, this meant further shoring-up of its border with Germany, and – virtue signalling –making a small and brief incursion into Germany (the Saar Offensive). For Britain it meant further rearmament, but really to build up its navy to shore up its imperial interests, and building up its Air Force to defend itself from possible German attack. And it sent an army into France, as a show of support for France, more to be seen to be doing something than to actually be doing anything.
But the clear sense is that Britain still expected Germany to negotiate peace with Britain while consolidating its annexations of the Czech lands and Poland. The ‘phoney war’ proceeded, though it was far from phoney to the people of Poland and other Eastern European countries. The United Kingdom was launched into war proper in May 1940, with the lightning conquest of France by Germany, a conquest made possible by Germany’s temporary truce with the Soviet Union. (Though that was preceded, by a month, by Germany’s invasion of Norway; a matter for Britain’s navy rather than army.)
Adolf Hitler abandoned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in June 1941, embarking Nazi Germany on a full-scale invasion of the Soviet Union, his main plan all along. He had secured his western border in 1940; though his plans were somewhat scuppered by a need to attend to the military failings of Mussolini’s Italian forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, hence the war in Greece which involved New Zealand.
The Bloodlands and their toll of political murder: 1932-1945
The atrocities of the Nazis took place during a world war; those of Stalin were mostly during peace-time. Timothy Snyder, in his 2010 book Bloodlands, “conservatively” estimates that fourteen million civilians and prisoners-of-war were politically murdered in a set of contiguous territories – between Germany and Russia-proper – by either the Moscow-based Soviet Communist regime or the Berlin-based National Socialist regime. This includes ‘The Holocaust’, or at least most of it.
As real estate, Snyder defines the Bloodlands as the pre-WW2 territories of Ukraine and Belarus (within the Soviet Union), Poland, the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), and the part of Russia close to Leningrad (now St Petersburg). The murders included in his tally were inflicted by deliberate starvation, guns, and gas. The cases of starvation were not due to famine in the conventional sense of that term. In the Ukrainian ‘famine’ of 1932/33, the food grown on Ukrainian farms – among the most productive lands in Europe – was confiscated and exported to Russian cities and to other countries in return for foreign currency. In the Siege of Leningrad – 1941 to 1944 – the German military prevented food from entering the city.
The worst-affected areas of the Bloodlands are today in western Ukraine and western Belarus. This land was in Eastern Poland before World War Two, and therefore in the Soviet-annexed territories of pre-war Poland. These lands were annexed or occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939, Germany in 1941, and the Soviet Union again in 1944. Each annexation saw its own round of political mass murder.
The murders of citizens of Poland and the Soviet Union took place on a vastly larger scale than any comparable atrocities committed on West Europeans; including the Holocaust, for which the vast majority of victims were Jews resident in Eastern Europe (not Germany; not the West). Snyder summarises the Bloodlands murder toll as:
3.3 million deliberately starved mostly in Ukraine in the 1932/33 Holodomor
0.7 million murdered in the Great Terror of 1937/38
0.2 million murdered in occupied Poland in 1939-1941 (disproportionately highly educated people; many killed by the notorious Einsatzgruppen, Nazi loyalists with PhD degrees)
4.2 million Soviet citizens starved by German occupiers in 1941-1944
5.4 million Jews (mostly Polish or Soviet citizens) shot or gassed by Germans in 1941-1944
0.7 million citizens (mostly Belarussians or Poles) shot by Germans in reprisals in 1941-1944
To what extent would have these (or equivalent numbers of) deaths have happened anyway, regardless of how the war actually started in Poland? Stalin’s victims, mostly already dead, represented about 40 percent of these fourteen million. The majority of Stalin’s victims were killed in the Ukrainian Holodomor which peaked in 1932 and 1933; or in the Great Terror of 1937 and 1938, which targeted the ‘kulak’ class of peasants and former peasants, ethnic Poles, and Russia’s political class (including many Bolshevik allies of the paranoid Stalin; communists who had come to be seen as potential threats to him).
Before September 1939, Hitler’s attempts at political murder were puny at best, when compared to Stalin’s ‘peace-time’ terror campaigns. Stalin murdered Soviet citizens. So, to a large extent did Hitler; Hitler killed comparatively few Germans, before or during the war.
Those who died in the Bloodlands after August 1939 might have experienced different fates had the war not been started then and there. Certainly, in 1940, a group of Hitler’s scientists – led by a leading agronomist – devised the ‘Hunger Plan’, which, if implemented in full, would have led to the murder of thirty of forty million Soviet citizens, to be replaced by German Aryan settlers. (While Hitler used ‘capitalist’ and ‘communist’ Jews as convenient scapegoats, Nazi racism should be understood as pro-Aryan rather than specifically anti-Jewish.) This was probably a racist and supremacist Nazi fantasy, unlikely to be able to be realised in full, and which was not prevented by the declaration of war by the United Kingdom against Germany in 1939.
It’s hard to see that the eventual victory of the Soviet Union over Germany in 1945 made the world a better, freer or more democratic place than it otherwise would have been; with fewer deaths and sufferings after 1939 than there actually were. Would a German victory over the Soviet Union have led to a less inhumane outcome for many millions of people, in the Bloodlands and elsewhere? We’ll never know, but it’s possible. It seems unlikely that the extremes of German National Socialism could have lasted for as long as the extremes of Soviet and Maoist Communism. And we know that most oppressive regimes do come to an end eventually; just as Hitler thought the Third Reich was forever (or for 1,000 years), so did Stalin and his successors believe of the Soviet Union.
World War Two morphed into the Cold War
Mostly, the Cold War – between the United States and the Soviet Union, and their proxies and alleged proxies – was ‘fought’ between the First World and the Second World; but its many victims were mostly in the ‘Third World’, now called the ‘Global South’. The way the Pacific War morphed into the Cold War is glaringly obvious, with the nuclear attack on Japan by the United States representing the end of the one war and the beginning of the next. (And note The bombing of Hamburg foreshadowed the horrors of Hiroshima.)
The Cold War began in Europe too, when the ‘victorious’ western ‘powers’, most particularly the United States, ‘suggested’ that the Russian ‘liberators’ of Eastern Europe were planning to overrun Western Europe as well (and turn the conquered into ‘communists’). The result was a tensely divided Europe until 1990, unnecessarily so; many European lives were blighted by politico-military suppression for 45 years. Further, that east-west divide has reappeared; just look at the results of the recent general election in Germany.
Finally, the costs ain’t over yet
Just as the World War came in two episodes, so too is the Cold War now in its second episode. (In the case of the World War, the second episode was explicitly ideological; communism versus fascism. In the Cold War, it was the first episode that was explicitly ideological; communism versus liberal capitalism.) Further, with signs that the United States might be withdrawing early, the second Cold War (CW2?) is looking like becoming, at its core, the Fourth Reich (aka the European Union) versus Russia (the new Russian Empire?), and with the territories of contention once again being Ukraine and the Black Sea.
The World War could have ended in 1918 or 1919 after the Great War (later known as World War One) – understood then to be the ‘War to End All Wars’ – if the ‘great powers’ had learned the appropriate lessons. Sadly, the ‘powers-that-were’ and the ‘powers-that-would-be’ learned, if anything, the wrong lessons. World War Two was not a Good War; it was grubbier and crueller than probably all its predecessors, and all sides – including the Anglo-side – contributed to that grubbiness and cruelty.
Imperialism was very much the problem, not the solution. The ‘rules-based-world-order’, devised in 1919 by the then-victorious powers – shonky new-nation national-borders and all – proved to be just another variation of great-power imperialism. We live in a world today of powers (some more ‘super’ than others), their proxies, and nations in the Global South saddled with borders which ensure forever conflicts.
We live in a world in which the Global West sees itself as morally and culturally superior, even though manifestly it isn’t. And we live in a world in which the Global East – in its various ethnic and cultural shades – rejects the supremacist assumptions and liberal presumptions of the West. And we live in a world in which those powers gamble with global war, just as the British gambled in 1939. And we live in a world in which the militaries contribute vastly to very real climate change, partly from military emissions of greenhouse gasses, partly because the immediate (eg 2020s) security concerns of the world outweigh concerns about the climate future (eg 2040s) concerns, and partly because we behave as if the goals to prevent or adapt to global warming are unwinnable.
There is a lot happening in the world at the moment, including tensions within Europe that would lead few people to be confident that – in 2050 – the present political architecture of Europe would still exist. Germany coveted Ukraine in the first half of the twentieth century. Indeed, Germany occupied Ukraine in 1918 and in the middle years of World War Two. Will the second quarter of the twenty-first century once again see German control of Ukraine? I wouldn’t bet against it. I see a stronger belligerence today in Germany towards having influence in Ukraine than I see in any other western country.
The biggest threat to peace is war; not Russia, not China, not Germany, not the United States of America, not Iran, not the hapless United Kingdom. Wars are a problem, not a solution.
The worst things happen during wars, or as a result of wars. There is one important exception. As we have seen, the Soviet Union – a Marxian ‘scientific utopia’ – destroyed many of its own people in the 1930s, in ‘peacetime’, and while the liberal world was looking the other way. Something similar, maybe worse, happened in China in the 1960s.
The lessons to learn are: avoid war, and the drum-beating that precedes it. And avoid technocratic utopian groupthink; avoid ideologies masquerading as science. The Nazi Hunger Plan was devised by an agronomist, Herbert Backe. War leads to such ideologies; and such ideologies lead to war.
*******
Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
Every day Muscovites help participants of the special military operation (SVO) and people living in new and border territories of Russia. They transfer patronage aid, as well as humanitarian aid collected at headquarters “Moscow helps”.
Many city residents create volunteer squads and their own organizations that send everything they need to those who need support. One of them is Oksana Chelmodeeva, director of the center for assistance and development “OkVeAn” and head of humanitarian missions. She began volunteering in 2006, helping to find missing people. In 2016, she joined social projects, and three years later, she opened her own center.
Training in resource center competency development programs “Mosvolonter” helped Oksana Chelmodeeva to competently build interaction with the team. In 2020, over 80 volunteers from the center took part in the mutual aid campaign “We are together”, delivering food and medicine to Muscovites forced to stay at home.
With the start of the special military operation, Oksana Chelmodeeva and her team continued to support people, but already within the framework of the humanitarian project “Moscow Helps”. Volunteers participated in the “Let’s Get a Child Ready for School” campaign, providing children living in new territories with the necessary school supplies. In addition, the center regularly sends the collected aid to one of the headquarters in TiNAO. Since 2022, volunteers have also been working in Donetsk. They distribute humanitarian supplies coming from the capital.
In total, since March 2022, the center has organized more than 60 aid shipments to SVO participants, hospitals, orphanages, shelters, rehabilitation centers and residents of new regions. In addition, more than 500 tons of sponsorship aid for fighters, special technical equipment, machinery and humanitarian aid for residents were transferred to the new territories. In Moscow, support was provided to more than 2.5 thousand displaced families. Many of them themselves joined the center’s volunteer headquarters to help those in need.
Big team
In 2024, Oksana Chelmodeeva created a humanitarian center “OkVeAn-Donbass”. It provides regular assistance to a specialized children’s home, the M.I. Kalinin Clinical Hospital and the Psychoneurological Hospital No. 2. Humanitarian aid is also delivered to guardianship and trusteeship authorities in nine districts of Donetsk: Budyonnovsky, Voroshilovsky, Kirovsky, Kalininsky, Kievsky, Kuibyshevsky, Leninsky, Petrovsky and Proletarsky. The center provides patronage assistance to more than 25 military units.
“It is my duty to my Motherland to help the participants of the SVO and residents of the new territories. I would like to volunteer in the SVO zone, but my disability did not allow it. My whole family helps with me. I have three children, and they have been actively involved in volunteering since childhood. My son participates in loading and unloading humanitarian aid. Together, we have made more than 40 trips to the new territories. Now he lives in Donetsk and helps at the OkVeAn-Donbass center. The youngest daughter is the commander of the Young Army detachment. She participates in social and patriotic projects,” said Oksana Chelmodeeva.
The Muscovite has a large team. Searchers send requests to factories, plants, production facilities and stores to collect the required amount of resources. At the warehouse, volunteers sort and form cargo into categories. Another team is responsible for transporting aid to the regions. Also among the volunteers are those who write posts about the work done, process citizens’ requests, and lawyers and psychologists provide support to the population and military personnel.
The center not only provides social assistance, but also conducts military-patriotic work, organizes search expeditions and supports veterans of the Great Patriotic War. The military-patriotic club “Bylina” and a search squad operate on its basis. Together with the Moscow sports and leisure center “Atlant”, a youth army association was created, which was joined by 67 teenagers.
“I first met caring helpers during a serious illness. People helped me and my family for free. When I recovered, I decided to devote myself to helping people. Now I actively involve children in the world of good. Such values as patriotism, historical memory and continuity of generations are eternal. They help to cultivate a sense of pride in the Motherland and its history, to awaken in them love for their native land, language, traditions and customs,” shared Oksana Chelmodeeva.
For her active assistance to SVO participants, residents of new territories and the development of the volunteer movement in the city, the Muscovite received many awards. For example, the state medal “For assistance and mercy”, the honorary badge “For contribution to the development of the region”, the medal “Parental valor”, the honorary diploma of the People’s Council of the DPR, as well as letters of gratitude for personal contribution to patriotic education and pre-conscription training of the younger generation, for active public work and for a significant contribution to the development of the volunteer movement in the capital.
You can find out more about the volunteer movement in the capital on the resource center website “Mosvolonter”, on his social network page “VKontakte” Andtelegram channel.
Organizing volunteer activities and involving young people in city events are in line with the objectives of the national project “Youth and Children” and the federal project “We are together”.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect
Fire and Emergency New Zealand has welcomed 24 new career firefighters at their graduation ceremony at the National Training Centre (NTC) in Rotorua.
Throughout their 12-week recruit course, the new firefighters learnt skills such as fighting fires, extricating people trapped in cars, and managing hazardous substances, which they demonstrated to whānau and friends at today’s ceremony.
During the ceremony former aviation rescue firefighter for the Royal New Zealand Air Force, Tracey Barclay, was presented with the top recruit award for displaying outstanding skills, leadership and mana throughout the course.
“Being the person who shows up on someone’s worst day is something I respect all fellow firefighters for,” says Tracey, who is 35 and will be based at Seaview Station.
“I would rather help someone else than help myself.”
“I’ve always been drawn to the team aspect of firefighting. You’re never going to be alone and the crew on that truck becomes your family,” she says.
As someone with a firefighting background, Tracey’s favourite part of the course was the live firefighting block.
“Learning how to tackle structure fires, search and rescue in darkness and combining all the skills we were taught over the course was definitely a highlight and a huge learning opportunity,” she says.
Another graduate with a background as an aviation rescue firefighter is 32-year-old Lewis Jackson. He was based at Queenstown Airport and will be joining Invercargill Station.
Lewis is no stranger to Fire and Emergency, as he was also a volunteer firefighter with the Frankton Volunteer Fire Brigade.
Lewis enjoyed the more physical elements of the course, such as the urban search and rescue block.
“I encourage people to really focus on their physical fitness in the lead up to the course. It can be demanding, so the more you prepare, the easier you’ll find it,” he says.
Also among the graduates is 26-year-old Matai Wetere, who will be based at Paraparaumu Station.
For the past six years, Matai has been reclaiming te reo Māori through his studies and mahi as a Māori policy advisor. Now Matai is after the fast-paced career firefighting offers.
“I thrive in challenging environments and enjoy the adrenaline that comes with high-stake situations,” Matai says.
“The breathing apparatus and urban search and rescue blocks of the course presented the most mental and physical challenges for me, but the satisfaction and sense of achievement I had after I’d completed them far outweighed the discomfort,” he says.
Congratulations to all the graduates and nau mai ki te whānau – welcome to the family.
Applications to be a career firefighter open on 10 April. For more information, go towww.fireandemergency.nz/join.
“My advice to people considering a career in firefighting is don’t give up. If you’ve applied, failed an aspect in the recruitment process and still want it – keep applying, you’ll get there,” Tracey Barclay says.
The Hon Amanda Rishworth MP Minister for Social Services Minister for National Disability Insurance Scheme Member for Kingston
The Hon Justine Elliot MP Assistant Minister for Social Services Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence Member for Richmond
Mr Luke Gosling OAM MP Special Envoy for Defence, Veterans’ Affairs and Northern Australia Member for Solomon
The Albanese Labor Government is strengthening its commitment to ending gender-based violence by providing further support for young men and boys at risk of using violence.
Up to $4.5 million is being invested to expand The Supporting Adolescent Boys Trial to Port Augusta, South Australia, and Palmerston, Northern Territory, for young men and boys aged 12 to 18 years with childhood experiences of family and domestic violence (FDV).
It builds on the $23 million already provided to organisations for 12 trial sites across Australia.
The interventions being trialled assist boys and young men to heal and recover through strengths-based services that meet individual needs and circumstances.
Minister for Social Services, Amanda Rishworth, said investing in early intervention and prevention, as well as supporting children as victim-survivors of gender-based violence in their own right, are key goals of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032.
“The Australian Government is committed to ending gender-based violence in one generation and addressing the impacts of developmental trauma to help healing and recovery will help break future cycles of violence.”
Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, Justine Elliot, said how critical early intervention work with young men was for breaking future cycles of violence.
“Ending gender-based violence in this country requires targeted effort from all corners of Australia, and I look forward to seeing young men and boys utilise the trial to heal and recover, and to break future cycles of violence in their own relationships.”
Member for Solomon Luke Gosling said that the funding for the trial is welcomed in the Northern Territory, as it will provide individual counselling and therapeutic supports for local young men and boys to help break future cycles of violence.
“This trial will allow our young men and boys from the Northern Territory, who are victim-survivors in their own right, to address the impacts of developmental trauma and foster healing and recovery to help them avoid choosing to use family, domestic or sexual violence in their own relationships,” said Mr Gosling.
More information on the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 is available on the Department of Social Services website.
If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence, call 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT for online chat and video call services.
Available 24/7: call, text, or online chat
Mon-Fri, 9am-midnight AEST (except national public holidays): video call (no appointment needed)
In an emergency, call 000.
If you are concerned about your behaviour or use of violence, you can contact the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or visit No to Violence
Feeling worried or no good? Connect with 13YARN Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Crisis Supporters on 13 92 76, available 24/7 from any mobile or pay phone, or visit 13YARN No shame, no judgement, safe place to yarn.
Kids Helpline (1800 551 800) is a free, confidential online and phone counselling service for young people aged 5 to 25. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Source: United States Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)
Padilla Secures Commitment from EPA Nominee to Help Combat Tijuana River Pollution Crisis
WATCH: Padilla highlights importance of federal infrastructure investments to address cross-border sewage flowsWASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) secured a commitment from Jessica Kramer, nominee for Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to help address the ongoing Tijuana River transboundary pollution crisis and its harmful environmental and public health impacts.
During a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee nominations hearing, Padilla highlighted the hundreds of millions in federal funding he secured along with the late Senator Dianne Feinstein and the San Diego Congressional delegation to expand and upgrade the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant (SBIWTP) to address harmful sewage flows. Kramer echoed Senator Padilla’s characterization of these transboundary pollution flows as a “crisis” and emphasized the importance of federal infrastructure investments to combat the crisis. Padilla and Kramer agreed that collaboration and communication, with both Mexico and federal partners like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State Department, is essential to address these harmful cross-border flows.
The hearing comes after Padilla, Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Representatives Scott Peters (D-Calif.-50) and Juan Vargas (D-Calif.-52) recently invited EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to visit San Diego’s South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant (SBITWP) to see firsthand the ongoing environmental and public health consequences of the cross-border Tijuana River sewage crisis on local communities. Administrator Zeldin also recently expressed concern about the flow of sewage flowing across the border, posting about a briefing he received on the crisis and pushing Mexico to “honor its commitments to control this pollution and sewage.”
PADILLA: I want to begin by expressing my appreciation for EPA Administrator Zeldin’s interest in one of my top EPA priorities, which is finally resolving the Tijuana River sewage crisis. For decades, communities in that part of Southern California have faced persistent both environmental as well as public health impacts of untreated sewage that has flowed across the border. … We recently invited Administrator Zeldin to tour the plant to see firsthand the challenges that we face. So I’d like to just begin by asking you, Ms. Kramer, how familiar you are with this issue, with the projects because assuming you are confirmed, I’d look forward to working with you to bring this project to completion.
KRAMER: Absolutely. Thank you, Senator, for that question. During my first tenure at EPA under the first Trump Administration, this is, in fact, one of the issues that I worked on. And so EPA had been appropriated that first amount of funding that you referenced, and I was involved in the consideration of the various projects that could be funded to ensure that this transboundary flow crisis — to be completely frank, raw sewage flowing anywhere, in my mind, is a crisis — comes to an end. … I think the challenges that we’re seeing there, one, stems to ensuring that the infrastructure that is in place to ensure that these flows cease, but also two, ensuring that there is communication, robust communication that allows for partnership that is required to ensure that operation and maintenance of those infrastructure investments takes place. And it’s especially easy when it’s in the U.S., and it’s a little bit more challenging when we have infrastructure on the other side of the border that we need to be collaborating on.
PADILLA: Well, that’s music to my ears, your familiarity with it, your history with it, your commitment to it as a priority. And yes, collaboration is key, not just with partners south of the border, but even within the federal government. We’ve brought to bear U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the intricacies of the State Department involvement here. So thank you for that.
KRAMER: Absolutely.
Senator Padilla also questioned Brian Nesvik, nominee to be Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service at the Department of the Interior, highlighting the complexities of California’s water system and threats to the state’s water security and quality in the face of climate change. He urged Nesvik to roll up his sleeves on California water challenges and encouraged him to listen to career professionals at the Fish and Wildlife Service and experts within California’s state agencies to navigate complex water and wildlife issues.
Video of Padilla’s full line of questioning is available here.
Since 2018, more than 100 billion gallons of toxic sewage, trash, and unmanaged stormwater have flowed across the United States-Mexico border into the Tijuana River Valley and neighboring communities, forcing long-lasting beach closures and causing harmful impacts on public health, the environment, and water quality. U.S. military personnel, border patrol agents, and the local economy have also suffered harmful impacts from airborne and waterborne transboundary sewage flows. In 2023, sewage flowed across the border at the highest volume in a quarter century, exceeding 44 billion gallons.
Senator Padilla has prioritized addressing the Tijuana River pollution crisis since he first came to the Senate, recently working with the San Diego Congressional delegation to secure $250 million in the federal disaster relief package to clean up the Tijuana River. This marked the final tranche of funding required to complete the SBIWTP upgrade project. The SBIWTP project broke ground in October 2024, and over the coming years, the SBIWTP will double in capacity, reducing transboundary flows by 90 percent. Importantly, Mexico’s rehabilitated San Antonio de los Buenos wastewater treatment plant is expected to be fully operational by Spring 2025, further reducing flows to California communities.
In response to a request from Padilla and the San Diego Congressional delegation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently opened an investigation into the public health impacts of air pollution caused by the ongoing Tijuana River transboundary pollution crisis. Senator Padilla and the delegation also recently secured a $200 million authorization for the Tijuana River Valley Watershed and San Diego County through the Water Resources Development Act of 2024 to help address the ongoing transboundary sewage crisis through stormwater conveyance, environmental and ecosystem restoration, and water quality protection projects. They also delivered over $103 million in additional funding for the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) in the bipartisan FY 2024 appropriations package. Padilla previously successfully secured language in the FY 2023 appropriations package to allow the EPA to unlock $300 million previously secured in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to the IBWC for water infrastructure projects. Last year, Padilla and Representatives Peters and Vargas announced bicameral legislation to help combat the Tijuana River sewage pollution crisis.
More information on the hearing is available here.
Source: United States Senator for West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito
To watch Chairman Capito’s opening statement, click here or the image above.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, held ahearing on the nominations of Brian Nesvik to be Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Jessica Kramer to be Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Sean Donahue to be General Counsel of the EPA.
Below is the opening statement of Chairman Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) as delivered.
“I’m pleased to welcome everyone to today’s hearing, where we’ll consider the nominations of Brigadier General Brain Nesvik to serve as Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Jessica Kramer to serve as Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water, and Sean Donohue to serve as General Counsel at the EPA.
“General Nesvik has more than 29 years of experience with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department prior to his retirement last September…during his tenure with the department, he served in various roles, including chief Game Warden and Wildlife Division Chief, until ultimately being appointed the Director in 2019.
“Wyoming is a world-renowned destination for hunters and anglers, and General Nesvik led the state’s wildlife management programs, ensuring that the conservation of species and recreational existence can coexist for generations to come. Simultaneously to his full-time job with Wyoming Game and Fish, General Nesvik served in the Wyoming Army National Guard.
“His service included deployments to Kuwait and Iraq, and progressively more senior leadership, culminating in his final posting as the Commander of the Wyoming Army National Guard. After 35 years of service, General Nesvik retired from the National Guard in 2021 at the rank of brigadier general. Thank you, General Nesvik, for your service to our country.
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or the Service, needs greater structure and efficiency, so it will benefit to have a former general officer as its Director. As the Director of the Service, General Nesvik will be tasked with overseeing the operations of the agency to conserve and manage our nation’s wildlife and natural habitats.
“Under the Biden administration, the Endangered Species Act was leveraged to slow down, and sometimes even halt, infrastructure projects going through the federal permitting process. We must be able to efficiently permit projects while protecting wildlife and natural habitats at the same time.
“General Nesvik will also oversee many other issues, such as the management of over 570 National Wildlife Refuges and implementation of congressionally-authorized conservation programs. I trust that his background will offer him a unique perspective on how the Service can better manage wildlife programs and protect species, without hindering critical infrastructure projects. I look forward to hearing his testimony.
“This morning we will also hear from Jess Kramer, we call her Jess, President Trump’s nominee to serve as the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water. This Committee has a long tradition of working in a bipartisan manner to strengthen environmental policies, improve water infrastructure, and ensure federal regulations are effective, not unnecessarily burdensome. Clean water is not a partisan issue, it is essential to the health, safety, and economic well-being of every American.
“The Office of Water plays a critical role in ensuring access to safe and reliable water for all Americans. That means ensuring federal programs like the State Revolving Funds are effective, addressing PFAS contamination without undue burdens on ratepayers, and working with state and local governments to streamline permitting.
“Jess is well-qualified to lead the EPA’s Water Office. She has built a career crafting practical, bipartisan solutions to improve water policy and ensure communities, regardless of their size or geography. She has also worked to have access to safe and reliable drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.
“During Jess’s time working with me on the EPW Committee, she played a key role in shaping the water provisions in the IIJA, securing historic investments to modernize drinking water and wastewater systems, remove lead service lines, and address emerging contaminants.
“Beyond her experience on Capitol Hill, she has served in both state and federal roles, most recently as Deputy Secretary of Regulatory Programs at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection where she oversaw critical programs related to water quality, permitting, and enforcement. Jess understands that environmental protection and economic growth can go hand in hand, and she knows how to ensure regulations are clear, fair, and based on sound science.
“This morning, we will also hear from Sean Donahue, the nominee to serve as General Counsel at the EPA. The EPA’s Office of General Counsel serves as the chief legal advisor to the agency, providing critical guidance on implementing environmental laws like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund.
“The General Counsel plays a central role in shaping EPA’s policies, ensuring legal compliance, defending the Agency from legal challenges, and advising on matters that impact communities nationwide. The office also works closely with Congress, EPA regional offices, and enforcement teams to provide the legal foundation for strong environmental protections.
“Mr. Donahue has served for three years in the prior Trump Administration at EPA as a Special Advisor, including working in the Agency’s Office of Land and Emergency Management. After working at the Agency, Mr. Donahue joined a law firm in Buffalo, New York where he practiced environmental law. In 2024, he served as a counsel for a solar energy development company in New York State.
“In 2025, Mr. Donahue was appointed Principal Deputy General Counsel at the EPA. He currently serves as a Special Advisor in the EPA Administrator’s Office. With his experience in both private practice and at the Agency, I look forward to hearing more about Sean Donahue’s qualifications and vision for this important role.”
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers welcomed six new patrol dog teams after their graduation today at the Police Dog Training Centre at Trentham, Upper Hutt.
Alongside them also graduating were three personnel from 2nd Engineer Regiment, 2 Field Squadron Unit with three newly trained Explosive Detector Dogs (EDD).
The teams celebrated the occasion in front of whānau and friends, the Commissioner of Police with members of the police executive, and Lieutenant Colonel Joe Totoro Commanding Officer, 2nd Engineer Regiment, New Zealand Army.
Commissioner Chambers congratulated them all on their achievements.
“All our patrol dog teams play a crucial role in frontline policing, deploying to some of the most dynamic and challenging situations. We couldn’t police the way we do without them.
“That’s why I’m thrilled to see six newly trained dog teams graduate today. They will be welcomed into Eastern, Central, Waikato, Wellington, and Auckland police districts very soon.”
Graduating from the police patrol dog course is one new and five experienced handlers with their dogs.
Wellington-bound Constable Nick Press with Police Dog ‘Oskar’ says, “It feels different this time around being my second operational dog after working ‘Ink’ for the past six years. It’s exciting to get back on the street with a new young dog who is very different to ‘Ink’ and has taught me a lot and given me more skills as a handler.”
Constable Pete Smits is heading back to the Waikato. “I got Ozark at the start of November last year, and I’ve enjoyed training him and getting him as ready as possible for the reality of what police delta teams do. I’d like to acknowledge the Waikato Dog Section for helping me get to this point in my career.”
Inspector Todd Southall, National Coordinator Police Dogs, says “It’s a proud day for all teams, both experienced and new. This ceremony marks the end of a demanding few weeks training to become an operational team and well done on completing all the tests which replicate your day-to-day work.
Patrol dog work is one of the most physically demanding roles in Police – you’re at the pointy end of frontline policing and a pivotal component in our Tactical Response Model. We are grateful for all your work, and this graduation signals the next step toward frontline duties” says Todd.
ENDS
Issued by Police Media Centre
Watch out for our Ten One story coming soon with more images and stories about the police dog teams from this graduation.
Law enforcement agencies from across Australia and New Zealand have targeted the Hells Angels Outlaw Motorcycle Club (HAOMC) in a coordinated National Day of Action as part of Operation Morpheus.
The focus of the National Day of Action was to cause maximum disruption to the HAOMC through compliance and enforcement activities across Australia and New Zealand.
With a significant legacy of past national coordination and collaboration by law enforcement and partners in Australia and New Zealand, National Taskforce Operation Morpheus is a joint initiative. This includes all Australian state and territory police, New Zealand Police, Australian Federal Police, Australian Border Force, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, Australian Defence Force, AUSTRAC, Australian Taxation Office, and Services Australia collaboratively targeting the highest threat outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs) impacting Australia and New Zealand.
The National Day of Action 2025 has resulted in law enforcement agencies around the country conducting compliance checks relating to bail, parole, firearms possession and other legislation. The agencies also seized firearms, weapons, various drugs, illicit cigarettes and tobacco products and in excess of $48,000 in cash resulting in the arrest of 23 people, involving 60 charges.
By proactively targeting OMCG’s throughout Australia and New Zealand in a day of action using a combination of enforcement, compliance and disruption techniques Operation Morpheus generates significant intelligence holdings. Shared intelligence relating gang to membership and associates, locations and gang related premises and criminal activities play a crucial role in national and international law enforcement awareness of links with OMCG’s like HAOMC and organised crime.
Other focuses of law enforcement were HAMC – OMCG members involved in family violence matters and those club members and associates already incarcerated within the prison populations.
The overrepresentation of OMCG members and associates linked with family and domestic violence perpetration is a significant community issue. As is violence and contraband within the prison systems, also well documented and a focus of this operation.
Operation Morpheus sends the message to members of OMCG members, “It doesn’t matter if you are at freedom or in custody you will be targeted for criminal related activity, be that personal or club related business. Put simply it doesn’t pay to be a member of an OMCG or any criminal gang.”
Australian Border Force have also identified HAMC members and associates attempting to enter Australia recently as well as targeting members and associates who may be subject to removal from Australia.
As national organised crime continues to move into the illegal tobacco and vape industry, including OMCG involvement with other crime groups law enforcement and partners are actively focused on this activity, including the extreme violence, firearms, extortion, arson, and money laundering activities.
Leveraging shared capability and technology, National Taskforce Morpheus also targets criminal assets and unexplained wealth of key OMCG members, protects vulnerable people and develops national strategies to deter gang recruitment, reduce membership and target recidivism and enablers to organised crime.
Agency Key Results:
South Australia Police –
Small quantities of illicit substances seized, firearms prohibition order compliance checks completed with in-custody cell searches conducted by Dept Correctional Services. Significant additional contemporary criminal intelligence was gathered relating to HAOMC in SA.
Victoria Police –
9 offenders charged with 8 offences, 1 search warrant executed, small quantities of illegal prescription drugs seized, firearms prohibition order compliance checks revealing quantities of firearm ammunition, $48,000 in cash seized and subject to further investigation. Significant additional contemporary criminal intelligence gathered relating to HAOMC in Victoria.
Western Australia Police –
2 offenders charged with 5 offences, 2 search warrants executed, small quantities of illicit substances seized and contemporary criminal intelligence gathered relating to HAOMC in WA.
New Zealand Police –
3 offenders charged with 4 offences, 3 search warrants executed and 3 vehicles seized. Small quantities of both prescription and illicit substances were seized. Contemporary criminal intelligence was gathered relating to HAOMC in New Zealand.
Australian Border Force –
2 VISA cancellations / refusals at point of entry, a further 3 identified as potential VISA cancellations and a single Unlawful Non-Citizen detained linked with OMCGs in Australia.
New South Wales –
3 offenders facing 12 charges, 2 search warrants executed, small quantities of illicit substances seized, firearms prohibition order compliance checks with an additional 9 ADVO compliance checks also conducted. In-custody cell searches were also activated for OMCG members in NSW prisons.
Queensland –
5 offenders facing 30 charges, 2 firearms seized, 25 bail breaches (non-compliance) discovered with a significant number of traffic breaches identified with both fines and prosecutions commenced for drug and drink driving.
Northern Territory –
Heavy focus on traffic compliance identifying both drink (3) and drug (3) drivers apprehended.
Tasmania –
1 offender charged with an offence with bail and firearms prohibition order compliance checks conducted.
Quotes attributed to: Taskforce Morpheus Chair Detective Superintendent Jason Kelly (VICPOL)
“National Taskforce Morpheus has been an extremely successful national and international operation coordinating multiple operations that have seen Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMCGs) and their members disrupted, arrested, charged and held to account.
“Law enforcement and partner government agencies, through National Taskforce Morpheus, share the use of a variety of capabilities to proactively target OMCGs at a state, territory, national and international level. National Taskforce Morpheus will continue to be relentless in pursuing OMCGs and will not stop disrupting and holding OMCGs to account, no matter where they are located.
“OMCGs are motivated by profit and greed, they infiltrate communities, industry and businesses and have a negative impact on the communities. The social and economic impact of OMCGs in Australia and New Zealand is significant. OMCGs also have a culture of secrecy, that includes intimidation and propensity for extreme violence, often with public displays of violence that impacts the safety of the community. For these reasons Law Enforcement and partner Government agencies will continues to target OMCGs.”
Quotes attributed to: Officer in Charge Serious and Organised Crime Branch (SAPOL) Detective Superintendent Shane Addison
SAPOL recognises the risk and serious harm to the community caused by significant and violent criminal activity undertaken by and associated with Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMCG) in South Australia. SAPOL is committed to reducing this threat to community safety and will relentlessly pursue members and associates of OMCGs who seek to profit from violence and all forms of illicit criminal activities. Today’s National Day of Action activities have focused on disrupting those OMCG members who pose the greatest risk to the community.
“In collaboration with our law enforcement and supporting agency partners, SAPOL will target anyone involved with OMCGs illicit criminal and violent behaviour. This includes targeting the confiscation of their criminal assets. The results from the Operation Morpheus Day of Action in this State reflects this commitment.”
Source: United States Senator for Commonwealth of Virginia Mark R Warner
WASHINGTON – Today, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Mark R. Warner (D-VA) wrote Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel requesting he confirm that the FBI will open an investigation into the Signal group chat that senior Trump administration officials used to discuss classified information, including information revealing that the United States was preparing to conduct airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
“Department of Defense policies dictate that information concerning military plans, such as contained in the messages sent by the Secretary of Defense, is classified, and no reasonable process would allow for communication of this information over a commercial messaging application before U.S. pilots had completed and safely returned from their mission,” Sen. Warner wrote.
Director Patel, who was not part of the Signal chat, testified yesterday before Senate Intelligence Committee stating he could not provide information on this matter because he had only recently been made aware of it.
“Yesterday you testified that you could not provide information to the Committee concerning this matter because you had only recently been made aware of it,” Sen. Warner continued. “In other contexts, the FBI has acted promptly to open an investigation when information of a similar nature has been mishandled.”
Now, two days later, Sen. Warner is requesting that Director Patel clarify the actions the FBI will take to investigate this matter:
Will you commit to opening an investigation of this matter, if you have not already done so?
Will you collect the devices involved, whether government-issued or otherwise?
Will you scan those devices for malware or other indications of unauthorized access?
A copy of letter is available here and text is below.
Director Patel,
Between March 11th and 15th, the Secretary of Defense and other senior Trump Administration officials used a commercial messaging application to communicate information revealing that the United States was preparing to conduct airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. The messages were sent as U.S. pilots were preparing to fly U.S. military aircraft into enemy-controlled airspace defended by surface-to-air missiles in order to strike targets known to change their location. Messages sent by the Secretary of Defense not only revealed, in advance, that the U.S. was planning airstrikes in Yemen, but also disclosed details concerning the timing, sequencing, and weapons to be used. This information could have been used by the Houthis to shoot down U.S. aircraft, thereby endangering the lives of the U.S. pilots, as well as to relocate enemy targets or otherwise disrupt the mission.
Department of Defense policies dictate that information concerning military plans, such as contained in the messages sent by the Secretary of Defense, is classified, and no reasonable process would allow for communication of this information over a commercial messaging application before U.S. pilots had completed and safely returned from their mission.
Yesterday you testified that you could not provide information to the Committee concerning this matter because you had only recently been made aware of it.
In other contexts, the FBI has acted promptly to open an investigation when information of a similar nature has been mishandled. As you have now had two days to consider the details of this matter, can you confirm the following:
Will you commit to opening an investigation of this matter, if you have not already done so?
Will you collect the devices involved, whether government-issued or otherwise?
Will you scan those devices for malware or other indications of unauthorized access?
Source: United States Senator for Delaware Christopher Coons
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, issued the following statement calling on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign:
“The full set of Signal messages released by The Atlantic today make it clear that Secretary Hegseth and our nation’s highest ranking civilian officials exposed information about military operations that put American servicemembers in harm’s way. The nation needs an independent investigation to understand the full scope of these risks, and the intelligence community must assess the full scope of the damage to intelligence-gathering sources and methods resulting from this failure to keep sensitive information secure.
“Any servicemember who acted with such blatant disregard for our national security would be unceremoniously dismissed, at the very least. Our nation’s highest ranking defense official should not be held to a lower standard than the men and women he oversees. Secretary Hegseth has put our servicemembers in danger and our credibility as a security partner at risk. He can no longer credibly claim that he makes our country safer. For the good of our nation, he must resign.”
Australia’s defence spending is on the rise. The future defence budget has already been increased to 2.4% of GDP. There is pressure from the new Trump administration in the United States to raise this further to at least 3%.
However, it is unclear whether the money will be spent wisely. Our recent research found that current defence planning may leave the Australian Defence Force (ADF) poorly prepared for future conflicts.
To keep up, Australia must develop capabilities for contemporary “grey zone” operations (coercive statecraft activities that blur the line between peace and war, or fall short of war), as well as future 21st-century conflicts. Priority areas are cyber, information and space technologies.
Positive signs and missteps
In the past two years, we have seen a slew of announcements about the current and future capabilities of the ADF.
Defence experts have complained of “a lack of clear purpose and intent, a lack of direct connection between strategic objectives and industry policy, and a continuing project-by-project approach”.
The ADF acknowledges the need for advanced technological capabilities. However, in practice it is still too focused on platforms and hardware suited more for the conflicts of the past.
The current context and challenges
Several Defence reviews over the past 50 years have found that the ADF procurement and acquisition system lacks the agility and resources to adapt to changes in the strategic environment.
Defence spending as a share of GDP has been declining in Australia since the end of the Vietnam War. Notably, the ADF has focused on reducing costs, lowering errors in defence procurement, outsourcing to industry, and speeding up acquisition.
Despite the recent plans to increase defence budgets, critics argue the strategy is too little, too late. It delays the acquisition of most new capabilities to beyond five years from now.
On October 30 2024, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy announced a major acquisition of missiles, other guided weapons and explosive ordnance. Many of these acquisitions were simply plugging existing gaps, and would not be ready until at least 2029.
Many of the acquisitions (such as missiles, 155mm ammunition and submarines) did not quite align with the government’s Defence Innovation, Science and Technology Strategy (DISTS) launched the previous month.
The hard task of planning ahead
Making plans for defence procurement is a difficult task. The strategic environment changes quickly, and technology can move even faster. As a result, planned acquisitions may be irrelevant by the time they arrive.
However, there are ways to get better at forecasting. These include horizon scanning, to spot potentially important developments early, and systemic design for a big-picture approach. These approaches can also be combined with AI-supported analysis tools including scientometrics (which analyses the amount of research in different areas and how it is all linked) and natural language processing.
In our first project, we conducted a comprehensive horizon scan of emerging technologies, focusing on cyber, internet of things (or networked smart devices), AI, and autonomous systems.
We used scientometric research methods, which provide a bird’s-eye view of research into disruptive and converging technologies.
This was supplemented by a survey asking industry professionals and experts to evaluate emerging technologies. In particular, we asked about their potential impact, likelihood of deployment or utilisation, extensiveness of use, and novelty of use in future conflicts.
The survey data was analysed using a qualitative, machine-driven, AI-based, data analysis tool. We used it for text mining, thematic and content analyses.
We found the likelihood of deployment and utilisation of cyber technologies in conflict is very high in the near term, reflecting the growing challenges in this area. Similarly, AI technologies were also singled out for their immediate potential and urgency.
We concluded that to maintain a competitive edge, the ADF must invest significantly in these priority areas, particularly cyber, network communications, AI and smart sensors.
Designing better systems
Our second project was a systemic design study evaluating Australia’s opportunities and barriers for achieving a technological advantage in light of regional military technological advancement.
The study highlighted ten specific technologies or trends as potential force multipliers for the ADF. We found three areas with immediate potential and urgency: cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, optimisation and other algorithmic technologies, followed by space technologies.
These findings were reinforced in further research supported by the Army Research Scheme. It found the ADF’s capabilities for operating effectively in the “grey zone” will be strongly facilitated by ensuring it is maintaining its technological edge in the integration of its cyber capabilities and information operations.
A widespread challenge
The ADF is not alone in these challenges. For example, successive UK governments have also identified persistent challenges in defence acquisition. These have included issues with budgetary planning due to limited competition, significant barriers to entry for new enterprises, and the constantly evolving geopolitical landscape.
The ADF should focus on fostering emerging technologies and enabling the development of disruptive military capabilities to deliver asymmetric advantage for the ADF. As Australia’s Chief Defence Scientist notes, this will help get emerging technologies into the hands of our war fighters faster.
The authors would like to acknowledge the following people from Edith Cowan University who contributed to the research: Helen Cripps, Jalleh Sharafizad, Stephanie Meek, Summer O’Brien, David Suter and Tony Marceddo.
Pi-Shen Seet received funding from the Australian Department of Defence’s Strategic Policy Grant Program and the Australian Army Research Scheme.
Anton Klarin receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence’s Strategic Policy Grant Program and the Australian Army Research Scheme.
Janice Jones receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence’s Strategic Policy Grant Program and the Australian Army Research Scheme
Mike Johnstone receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence’s Strategic Policy Grant Program and the Australian Army Research Scheme.
Violetta Wilk receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence’s Strategic Policy Grant Program and the Australian Army Research Scheme.
Source: United States Senator for Maine Angus King
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) raised concerns over the United States’ hypersonic missile defense capabilities at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. King, the ranking member of the subcommittee, urged General Anthony J. Cotton, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command for the Air Force, and General Stephen N. Whiting, Commander of U.S. Space Command for the Air Force, to support investments in U.S. hypersonic missile technologies to keep up with Russia, China, and North Korea.
“Two things, I just wanted to follow-up on the discussion of hypersonics. I believe we have missed two critical strategic technologies and are woefully behind, hypersonics and directed energy. These are things that we should have seen coming and now we are playing catch up. I just want to emphasize not only do we need a hypersonic weapon for deterrent possibilities, but we need hypersonic defense. Those aircraft carriers in the pacific are sitting ducks for hypersonic missiles coming at them 4,000 to 5,000 miles an hour, 100 feet above the surface of the ocean. So, hypersonic defense is something I think we need to invest in, as well as the development of a hypersonic offensive capacity in order, again, to provide a deterrent. General Cotton, would you agree?” asked Senator King.
“I do agree with that statement,” replied General Cotton.
“The other thing I wanted to mention, it has, sort of, become conventional wisdom here that we are going from one near peer adversary to two. I believe we are going from one near peer adversary to three and a half because of, as I think you touched upon this, the growing cooperation between China and Russia. And then you put in Iran, which has also become a contributor to Russia’s war machine, as well as North Korea, which is also contributing to Russia’s efforts in Ukraine. I think we need to think strategically, not two near peer adversaries, but the potential of two near peer adversaries who are working together. And that creates its own strategic challenges. General Cotton, what are your thoughts on that?” Senator King asked.
“Senator, you are absolutely right and that is what we are actually doing at STRATCOM today. When we look at, and you are right, I call them third-party influencers. And what I mean by that and to your point, I would add, one, I think is a little different nuance, that is the new relationship that we are seeing that is happening between Russia and the DPRK. So, we are talking about DPRK. We’re talking about Iran, we’re talking about China, as well as the Russian Federation,” General Cotton confirmed.
“I think we have to assume that, in a time of serious conflict, it would not be just with one or the other. It could well and probably would involve all four of those powers that you’ve mentioned,” argued Senator King.
“That is why I call them the third-party influencers because what they could do is they can be a distraction from the main effort that could be launched by any one of those that we had mentioned,” replied General Cotton.
As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator King is recognized as an authoritative voice on national security and foreign policy issues. Senator King has previously spoken up about the emerging threats of Russia and China’s development of “nightmare weapon” hypersonic missiles, which he has described as “strategic game-changers.” He previously urged the Department of Defense (DoD) to take advantage of private sector technologies or risk losing access to innovative defense technologies and encouraged the (DoD) to reevaluate its acquisition process of defense technologies. Additionally, Senator King has been a steady voice on the need to address the growing nuclear capacity of our adversaries.
DENVER – Today, Governor Polis signed the bipartisan HB25-1084 – Remove Gendered Language from Title 35, sponsored by Representative Karen McCormick, and Senators Janice Marchman and Cleave Simpson. The bill replaces outdated language with gender-neutral language in line with Colorado Revised Statutes.
“Here in Colorado, we want the best person for the job, period. For far too long our talented and dedicated Commissioner of Agriculture, Kate Greenberg, and State Veterinarian Dr. Maggie Baldwin, the first women in their positions, have faced the indignity of being referred to as male due to outdated statutes. Before this legislation, state statute referred to the Commissioner as ‘he’ several times. This is unacceptable and I’m proud to sign a law during Women’s History Month to finally fix that, ensuring our laws reflect the reality that our thriving agriculture industry – and Department of Agriculture – can be led by women and men,” said Governor Polis.
The Governor also signed the following bills into law administratively:
HB25-1025 – Stockpile of Essential Materials Distribution, sponsored by Representative Lisa Feret, and Senator Lisa Cutter.
HB25-1029 – Municipal Authority over Certain Land, sponsored by Representative Andrew Boesenecker, and Senators Cathy Kipp and Larry Liston.
HB25-1035 – Collaborative Management Program Updates, sponsored by Representative Amy Paschal, and Senator Mike Weissman.
HB25-1081– Reporting Statistics on Restitution, sponsored by Representatives Matthew Martinez and Matt Soper, and Senator Mike Weissman.
HB25-1114 – Defense Review of Tangible Object for Criminal Trial, sponsored by Representatives Michael Carter and Cecilia Espenoza, and Senators Julie Gonzales and Mike Weissman.
HB25-1155 – Modify Candidate Authority Watchers General Election, sponsored by Representatives Marry Bradfield and Cecelia Espenoza, and Senators Rod Pelton and Jessie Danielson.
HB25-1181 – Colorado Rangers Law Enforcement Shared Reserve, sponsored by Representatives Chad Clifford and Rose Pugliese, and Senators Mike Weissman and Paul Lundeen.
SB25-004 – Regulating Child Care Center Fees, sponsored by Senators Faith Winter and Janice Marchman, and Representatives Jenny Willford and Lorena García.
SB25-016 – Updating Escrow Disbursement Practices, sponsored by Senator Marc Snyder, and Representatives Andrew Boesenecker and Ron Weinberg.
SB25-042 – Behavioral Health Crisis Response Recommendations, sponsored by Senators Lisa Cutter and Judy Amabile, and Representatives Mary Bradfield and Regina English.
SB25-170 – Deoxyribonucleic Acid & Sexual Assault Kit Backlog Testing & Data, sponsored by Senators Judy Amabile, and Barbara Kirkmeyer, and Representatives Shannon Bird and Emily Sirota.
SB25-028 – Public Employees’ Retirement Association Risk-Reduction Measures, sponsored by Senators Chris Kolker and Faith Winter, and Representatives Eliza Hamrick and Rick Taggart.
The year 2000 marked an inflection point for many Western countries, including Australia, in their outlook towards the world.
The focus began to shift away from the peacekeepinginterventions that had dominated the previous decade to one shaped by counter-terrorism operations and deployments to the Middle East.
The threat of terrorism hasn’t gone away. But Australia is much more preoccupied by threats of a different nature 25 years later, largely emanating from China. These include cyber attacks, economic coercion, political interference, and the harassment of Australian Defence Force (ADF) ships, aircraft and personnel.
Though our international outlook has changed a lot over the past quarter century, Australia’s alliance with the US has remained a constant throughout.
However, as our militaries have grown closer, the US-China competition has also intensified. Combined with the array of unpredictable and destabilising decisions coming from the second Trump administration, this closeness has caused some unease in Australia.
Evolving threats and challenges
In December 2000, the Howard government released its first Defence White Paper. This marked the beginning of a period of major change in Australia’s international outlook and presence.
It emphasised that “two interrelated trends seem likely to shape our strategic environment most strongly – globalisation and US strategic primacy”. It also noted that “military operations other than conventional war [were] becoming more common.”
The paper was prescient in respect to China’s rise, as well. It said:
The United States is central to the Asia-Pacific security system […] It will be in Asia that the United States is likely to face the toughest issues in shaping its future strategic role – especially in its relationship with China.
There is a small but still significant possibility of growing and sustained confrontation between the major powers in Asia, and even of outright conflict. Australia’s interests could be deeply engaged in such a conflict, especially if it involved the United States.
Yet, nine months after that document’s release, the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, followed by the Bali bombings of 2002, began to dramatically reshape the global security outlook.
A few days after the September 11 attack, Howard invoked the ANZUS Treaty for the first and only time, joinging US President George W. Bush’s “war on terror”. Australian forces then deployed to Afghanistan as part of the US-led invasion in October 2001.
By the time the 2003 Foreign Policy White Paper was released, it highlighted “terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional disorder and transnational crimes such as people smuggling” as the key features of Australia’s “more complex security environment”.
A month later, Australia joined the US-led “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein and locate and destroy stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction believed to be there. (It later emerged that evidence of the existence of these weapons was erroneous.)
Australia contributed 2,000 troops to the mission. Our soldiers remained actively engaged in training, reconstruction and rehabilitation work in Iraq until July 2009.
Both of these events tied Australia’s foreign policy interests to the US to a greater degree than any time since the Vietnam War.
Although the relationship with the US had been critical to Australian defence and foreign policy for decades, it had become less prominent in Australia’s strategic planning in the years following the end of the Cold War.
US support – and diplomatic pressure on Indonesia – had been vital in securing the post-referendum presence of Australian peacekeepers in East Timor in 1999. However, it was the “war on terror” that really re-centred the relationship as core to Australian foreign policy.
In fact, Australia was even referred to as the US’ “deputy sheriff” in the Asia-Pacific – a nickname used by Bush in 2003 that caused some unease at home and in the region.
This image has since gone on to have significant staying power, and it’s proved difficult for Australia to dislodge.
History repeating?
Though the accusations of war crimes levelled against Australian special forces in Afghanistan continue to reverberate, our foreign policy focus has shifted firmly back to our own region.
This change was driven in large part by the perceived threat posed by a rising China. While the need to focus more on China was acknowledged as early as the 2009 Defence White Paper, this emphasis became most pronounced under Scott Morrison’s leadership.
The 2024 National Defence Strategy portrayed Australia as facing “its most challenging strategic environment since the Second World War”.
It advocated for a significant change in the ADF’s strategic objectives and structure, noting the optimism of the 1990s had been “replaced by the uncertainty and tensions of entrenched and increasing strategic competition between the US and China”.
Today, the military ties between the US and Australia are arguably as close as they have ever been.
The ADF operates top-tier US platforms like the F-35 combat aircraft, P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, M1 Abrams tanks, and AH-64 Apache helicopters. Defence Minister Richard Marles has gone so far as to say the ADF should not only interoperable with the US, but interchangeable.
If all goes to plan, Australia will also build and operate its own fleet of nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS partnership in the coming decades.
At the same time, US President Donald Trump’s “America First” positioning has made the US’ closest allies nervous.
His early moves have put paid to the notion that globalisation is the goal all major states are pursuing. In fact, some argue that deglobalisation may be taking hold as the US aggressively enacts tariffs against its allies, pursues economic onshoring and withdraws from key international bodies.
These actions have led to many to question whether Australia has become too dependent on its major ally and if we need to emphasise a more self-reliant defence posture. However, this is much easier said than done.
Looking back, the year 2000 represented the beginning of a period of major change for Australian foreign policy. Such is the pace of change now, we may view 2025 in the same light in another quarter century.
Whether Australia’s alliance with the US will face long-term harm is yet to be seen. No matter how the bilateral relationship may change, the Indo-Pacific region will continue to be at the core of Australia’s foreign policy outlook, much as it was at the turn of the century.
This piece is part of a series on how Australia has changed since the year 2000. You can read other pieces in the series here.
David Andrews has not personally received funding from any relevant external bodies, but he has previously worked on projects funded by the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Home Affairs, and Defence. David is a member of the Australian Labor Party and Australian Institute of International Affairs, and previously worked for the Department of Defence.
Source: United States Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock – Georgia
Senators Reverend Warnock, Ossoff, Join Congressmembers Scott, Bishop, to Reintroduce Bipartisan, Bicameral Bill to Establish Ocmulgee Mounds as Georgia’s First National Park & Preserve
Bipartisan, bicameral bill would establish Georgia’s first U.S. National Park & Preserve
Bill introduction follows years of advocacy by Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Middle Georgia leaders
Senator Reverend Warnock toured the Ocmulgee Mounds in Macon in November 2023
Senator Reverend Warnock: “Ocmulgee Mounds is a living testament to our intertwined histories and a robust source of economic and cultural vitality, so I’m proud to continue supporting the bipartisan, bicameral efforts to establish Ocmulgee Mounds as Georgia’s first National Park and Preserve”
Above: Senator Reverend Warnock’s visit to Ocmulgee Mounds in November 2023
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA), alongside U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and U.S. Representatives Austin Scott (R-GA-08) and Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (D-GA-02) reintroduced the bipartisan Ocmulgee Mounds National Park and Preserve Establishment Act, which would establish the Ocmulgee Mounds and surrounding areas in Middle Georgia as Georgia’s first National Park and Preserve.
“Ocmulgee Mounds is a living testament to our intertwined histories and a robust source of economic and cultural vitality, so I’m proud to continue supporting the bipartisan, bicameral efforts to establish Ocmulgee Mounds as Georgia’s first National Park and Preserve,” said Senator Reverend Warnock. “I want to thank Congressmen Scott and Bishop for their yearslong efforts on this in the U.S. House, as well as Senator Ossoff for his leadership. Local leaders and everyday Georgians have been waiting for Congress to act and now is the time. Working together, we can prove what is possible when we put politics aside to serve the people of Georgia.”
“We made unprecedented progress last Congress toward creating Georgia’s first ever National Park,” Senator Ossoff said. “I look forward to working alongside Congressman Scott, Senator Reverend Warnock, Congressman Bishop, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and local leaders to successfully establish Georgia’s first national park.”
“Establishing the Ocmulgee Mounds and surrounding areas as Georgia’s first National Park and Preserve remains a top bipartisan initiative for all lawmakers and stakeholders involved,” said Rep. Austin Scott. “The Ocmulgee Mounds are of invaluable cultural, communal, and economic significance to our state, and I am committed to keeping this initiative moving forward.”
“I am proud to join my colleagues in reintroducing this bipartisan bill. By establishing the Ocmulgee Mounds as Georgia’s first National Park and Preserve, we are highlighting over 17,000 years of history and culture as well as welcoming people from across the country to enjoy Georgia’s natural beauty,” said Rep. Bishop. “Elevating the status of and expanding this site to a national park and preserve will raise awareness about it, increase public hunting and fishing grounds, encourage more visitors to our area, and boost the local economy.”
The bill is cosponsored by 11 other members of Georgia’s Congressional Delegation: Representatives Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA-01), Brian Jack (R-GA-03), Henry C. “Hank” Johnson (D-GA-04), Nikema Williams (D-GA-05), Lucy McBath (D-GA-06), Rich McCormick (R-GA-07), Mike Collins (R-GA-10), Barry Loudermilk (R-GA-11), Rick Allen (R-GA-12), David Scott (D-GA-13), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14).
The area is the ancestral home of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and has been inhabited continuously by humans for over 12,000 years. American Indians first arrived in the area during the Paleo-Indian Period hunting Ice Age mammals. Around 900 CE, the Mississippian Period began, and Muskogean people constructed mounds for meeting, living, burial, agricultural, and other purposes, many of which remain today and would be encompassed in the new U.S. National Park and Preserve.
“The Muscogee (Creek) Nation remains steadfast in our support of the Ocmulgee Mounds National Park and Preserve Bill. The opportunity to make the historic Ocmulgee Mounds a national park is so important to us because we have been included, we have been shown the respect of collaboration, and because of that we can feel confident that the living history that will be told here is authentic and has the power to elevate Georgia forever. We are thrilled to continue offering our support for this legislation every step of the way,” said David Hill, Principal Chief of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
“I cannot overstate the importance of this legislation to our region, state, and country. Tens of millions of private dollars have been leveraged to conserve the precious cultural and ecological resources of the Ocmulgee Corridor and this bipartisan legislation allows us to continue to grow the middle Georgia economy, protect our national security interests at Robin Air Force Base, expand hunting and fishing access, and authentically preserve some of the most culturally significant sites in the country,” said Seth Clark, Macon Mayor Pro Tempore and Executive Director of the Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative.“We’re grateful for the continued bipartisan dedication of the Georgia delegation. And call for the swift passage of this legislation this year so that we can continue our stewardship of this landscape and our economy.”
“Preserving the undeveloped lands within the Ocmulgee River Corridor is critical to safeguarding Robins Air Force Base from incompatible land use, ensuring we can sustain our national security missions,” said Brig. Gen. John C. Kubinec, USAF (ret), President/CEO of 21st Century Partnership. “This park and preserve will also provide our military members and their families with valuable opportunities for outdoor recreation and leisure, enhancing their quality of life while strengthening the economic vitality of Middle Georgia.”
“Establishing Georgia’s first National Park and Preserve at Ocmulgee Mounds will serve as a robust form of economic development for Middle Georgia while conserving the site’s important series of ecological and cultural assets. Representatives Austin Scott and Sanford Bishop with their bipartisan leadership and admirable partnership with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation have assembled a broad statewide coalition including chambers of commerce, hunters and anglers, and conservation organizations working to pass this legislation. The formal process of creating a National Monument out of the Ocmulgee Old Fields formally began in 1933, when the Macon Junior Chamber of Commerce purchased the sites and requested their protection. Today, through the leadership of the Greater Macon Chamber of Commerce and other local leaders, we are one step closer to making that a reality. The Georgia Chamber is proud to support Representatives Scott and Bishop’s legislation to create Georgia’s first National Park and Preserve, after almost a century of civic advocacy,” said Chris Clark, CCE, President and CEO of the Georgia Chamber.
“The Greater Macon Chamber of Commerce has long seen the national park and preserve designation as a top congressional priority. Getting this done this year is vital to the economic viability and stability of middle Georgia. Being home to Georgia’s first and only national park and preserve will create a better business climate, allow for lower taxes, and create thousands of good paying, sustainable jobs. Our members have marshaled tens of millions of dollars in preparing middle Georgia for the passage of this legislation and as we have for almost a century, we and the greater middle Georgia business community fully support and call for getting it done this year,” said Jessica Walden, President and CEO of the Greater Macon Chamber of Commerce.
The full text of the legislation can be found here.
Source: United States Senator for Rhode Island Jack Reed
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee today joined Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and top Senate Democrats on key national security committees in seeking information about members of President Trump’s cabinet using the Signal app to convene a group chat to “coordinate and share classified information about sensitive military planning operations.”
In a letter to President Trump, the U.S. Senators sounded the alarm over the public discovery that the Trump Administration has been sharing discussions of classified military operations via unsecured text chains, jeopardizing national security, and endangering the lives of American servicemembers. The letter was also cc’ed to Attorney General Pam Bondi as well as numerous Trump administration officials who were reportedly members of the Signal group chat, including: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Reed and Schumer, along with U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee; U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; U.S. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee; U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, are pressing for answers to questions after The Atlantic revealed that an unsecured text chain with at least 18 senior-level Trump administration officials was used to coordinate and share highly sensitive military planning and operations information. This reckless operational security failure made a sensitive military mission vulnerable to interception by U.S. adversaries, and was exposed after the group inexplicably included a journalist, damaging our national security and risking the lives of American servicemembers.
“We write to you with extreme alarm about the astonishingly poor judgment shown by your Cabinet and national security advisors,” the seven Senators wrote. “You have long advocated for accountability and transparency in the government, particularly as it relates to the handling of classified information, national security, and the safety of American servicemembers. As such, it is imperative that you address this breach with the seriousness and diligence that it demands.”
The Senators note the willful or negligent disclosure of classified information constitutes a criminal offense and call for Attorney General Bondi to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation.
Additionally, the Senators demanded answers to ten questions, more information about the “Houthi PC small group” chat, and if any other classified information is currently being discussed on unsecured text chains in a similar fashion by senior administration officials.
Full text of the letter follows:
Dear President Trump,
We have learned that members of your Cabinet recently convened a group chat on the commercial messaging app “Signal” to discuss active, highly classified military plans and operations, and that they mistakenly included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in this group. The group, which was titled “Houthi PC small group,” apparently encompassed at least 18 people including your Vice President; Secretaries of Defense, State, and Treasury; National Security Advisor; CIA Director; Director of National Intelligence; White House Chief of Staff; and several other senior appointees.
Over the course of several days, this group chat reportedly discussed operational plans, targets, and weapon systems for upcoming U.S. military strikes in Yemen, and provided after-action battlefield damage assessments. These messages allegedly provided detailed intelligence about the movements and future locations of specific military assets and personnel in active combat zones. The group chat also contained extremely sensitive conversations between the Vice President and Cabinet officials that could have a negative impact on our diplomatic efforts with foreign allies and partners, particularly in Europe. We are aware that the Director of National Intelligence, and possibly others, appears to have been overseas while this group chat was active, making the entire discussion more vulnerable to interception by foreign adversaries. Inexplicably, throughout the days-long chat conversation, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic remained in the group chat and his presence was never questioned.
Let us be clear, if any American military servicemember, intelligence official, or law enforcement officer committed such an egregious breach of operational security and endangered the lives of their comrades downrange, they would be investigated and likely prosecuted.
We write to you with extreme alarm about the astonishingly poor judgment shown by your Cabinet and national security advisors. You have long advocated for accountability and transparency in the government, particularly as it relates to the handling of classified information, national security, and the safety of American servicemembers. As such, it is imperative that you address this breach with the seriousness and diligence that it demands.
Our committees have serious questions about this incident, and members need a full accounting to ensure it never happens again. Moreover, given that willful or negligent disclosure of classified or sensitive national security information may constitute a criminal violation of the Espionage Act or other laws, we expect Attorney General Bondi, copied here, to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation of the conduct of the government officials involved in improperly sharing or discussing such information. We also ask that you immediately direct relevant officials to preserve records of these communications and any other discussions of government business occurring on any messaging application. Some of the messages in the Signal chat were apparently set to disappear after a certain period of time – a potential violation of both the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act.
We hereby request answers to the following:
1. Please provide a complete and unredacted transcript of the “Houthi PC small group” chat for review by our appropriate committees in a secure setting.
2. Please provide a complete list of all personnel who participated in or had access to the “Houthi PC small group” chat.
3. What dates was the “Houthi PC small group” established and when was the last message transmitted to the Signal group chat?
4. Were there any other individuals, in addition to Jeffrey Goldberg, who were erroneously included in the “Houthi PC small group” chat?
5. Did any U.S. government personnel access the “Houthi PC small group” chat using personal communication devices?
6. Were any personnel who participated in or had access to the “Houthi PC small group” chat traveling overseas while the group chat was active? If yes, on which devices did group members operate while accessing the group chat?
7. Did any individuals transfer classified information, including operational war plans, from classified systems to unclassified systems, and if so, how?
8. Has the intelligence community conducted a damage assessment of the potential leakage of classified and sensitive information via the “Houthi PC small group” chat and subsequent reporting?
9. Are any Cabinet level officials, their deputies or other designees, or White House officials using Signal or other commercial products to discuss classified or sensitive information or any communications subject to statutory recordkeeping requirements?
10. If so, how is the Administration ensuring that it meets its statutory requirements with regard to these conversations?
You and your Cabinet are responsible for the safety and security of the American people, as well as our military servicemembers and intelligence personnel in the field. We expect your Administration to address this dangerous lapse in security protocol—whether intended or not—with the utmost seriousness, and to uphold the ethic of accountability that our nation holds sacred. We must work together to ensure this does not happen again, and we look forward to reviewing the forthcoming reports.
Source: United States Senator MarkWayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma)
ICYMI: Mullin Applauds Houthi Strikes, Slams Democrat Foreign Policy Weakness on Fox News
Washington, D.C. – On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) joined Fox News’ Hannity to discuss recent Houthi strikes, successes of the Trump administration, and hypocrisy from the Left. Highlights below.
Sen. Mullin’s full interview can be found here.
On the Houthi strikes:
“It’s very rare that you see a group of powerful people like the President has around him in his cabinet, and people that are advising him, to have an open conversation. They have disagreements, but they work it out. They come up with a conclusion in a very short period of time, and they decide to literally deliver lethal strikes to the Houthis, to who which President Biden and his administration just sat on their hands. Let’s keep in mind, this is the same group that attacked our Navy 174 times since 2023 and the Biden administration couldn’t even make a decision to even aggressively go after them. And here in this conversation, you had cabinet members, you had advisors for President Trump that spoke just like they do to the American people on this chat, and delivered a blow that needed to take place.”
“So, I think it one, it’s revealing, and it’s great that they did it. It should have never happened, like you said, but what’s really the story here, Sean is they’re trying to distract themselves from the disastrous decisions that the Democrat Party is having.”
On hypocrisy from the Democrat Party:
“Keep in mind the NBC and CBS polling that you just referred to has the Democrat party’s favorabilities in the 20s. Chuck Schumer is fighting for his job here on the hill, and they’re taking this nothing story and trying to blow it out of proportion. And every time something like this happens, they call on the Republicans to resign, but yet we heard nothing on them calling on a vegetable, that was ruling the country for four years, to resign.
On the Biden Administration’s appeasement of adversaries:
“This current administration is… bringing back peace through strength. They’re going after our adversaries in an aggressive way. They’re taking the fight straight to them, where the Biden administration tried to appease them, tried to talk nice to them, and did nothing when criminals were coming across our southern border, and they knew that.”
On President Trump’s successes:
“What President Trump is trying to do is restore law and order in our streets and abroad, and he’s doing that aggressively in a faster pace than what we’ve seen. We’ve seen American citizens be released from prison with us having to give nothing to them just because they respect President Trump. Our southern border is down, and illegal crossings are down by over 90%, and we’re going aggressively after our enemies.”
On President Trump delivering on his promises:
“Keep in mind that Houthis, as I said, have been attacking us since 2023 and the Biden administration has done nothing. President Trump doesn’t just speak false words of trying to be tough. He delivers on his promises, promises made, promises kept, and he’s going to continue to deliver on those promises, regardless of what the distraction the Democrat Party wants to throw at us.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In 1985, U.S. Air Force Veteran Dennis “Denny” Krisfalusy and his wife, Lois, tragically died during an earthquake in Mexico City. While neither of their remains were found, Dennis received a memorial headstone at the Cemetery of the Alleghenies in Pennsylvania. Lois was ineligible to have her name added due to a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) date restriction. Under existing law, the VA can only provide burial markers or headstones for spouses and dependent children who died after Nov. 11, 1998, and before Oct. 1, 2025.
U.S. Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND), John Fetterman (D-PA), and Dave McCormick (R-PA) introduced their bipartisan Dennis and Lois Krisfalusy Act today to eliminate this restriction and permanently expand VA burial benefits for veterans and their families.
“Families of service members sacrifice and serve alongside their loved ones, but outdated restrictions prohibit the VA from providing a memorial headstone for military spouses and dependents if they passed away before 1998,” said Cramer. “I joined Senator Fetterman in reintroducing our bipartisan Dennis and Lois Krisfalusy Act to remove this hurdle, honoring the service of these family members to our nation.”
“We can never repay the debt we owe our veterans and their families for their sacrifices to keep our country safe. We have a responsibility to honor those sacrifices regardless of when a family member died,”said Fetterman. “Lois Krisfalusy should be honored with her husband, Dennis – but arbitrary barriers are preventing that. It’s common sense that families like theirs deserve to be laid to rest together, and I’m proud to lead a bipartisan effort to correct this injustice.”
“Our veterans put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms, and we owe them a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid,”saidMcCormick.“I’m proud to support this commonsense bill amending restrictions on military memorial headstones for families of veterans before 1998. Bureaucracy should not stand in the way of our veterans and their families being laid to rest honorably while also recognizing their service.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee held a hearing to discuss nominees to serve in the Trump administration. The hearing featured testimony from Brian Nesvik, nominee for Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Jessica Kramer, nominee for Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Water.
[embedded content]
U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) questioned Kramer on the EPA’s Waters of the United States (WOTUS) interim guidance and upcoming rulemaking, which it announced on March 12. He asked her to explain the guidance, why it complies with the U.S. Supreme Court’s prescriptive decision in Sackett v. EPA, and how the previous rule did not align with Sackett.
“It is a straightforward guidance document that essentially says that an implementation [of a WOTUS rule], EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, they’re going to follow the law,”said Kramer.
“To your point, Sackett was prescriptive. It was prescriptive in a number of ways, specifically focused around wetlands, which is what the guidance document focused on,” explained Kramer. “Sackett held that the Rapanos plurality was correct, which means that the significant nexus test that had been previously applied and implemented by both agencies no longer stands. It specifically focuses on the fact that only those wetlands that are adjacent to or abutting relatively permanent waters are jurisdictional moving forward. While Sackett was very prescriptive in certain aspects, there are some terms and phrases of ambiguity that are remaining from the courts. I’m thinking about things like the phrase ‘continuous surface connection’ [and] ‘relatively permanent waters.’ What does it mean to be connected to a relatively permanent water and then the age-old question of, is this ditch in or out?[…] Any potential rulemaking that would be taken by the agency would hope to shore up those remaining areas of ambiguity so a landowner can confidently stand on their property and know whether or not they have a WOTUS or they don’t have a WOTUS.”
Kramer also committed to visiting North Dakota during the WOTUS rulemaking process.
Cramer asked the witnesses to give a primer on their interpretations of cooperative federalism.
“What cooperative federalism means to me is that there are certainly roles that are very clearly defined, for both the federal government and the state government,”responded Nesvik.“And broadly speaking, most wildlife species are the responsibility of the individual states to manage with the exception of those who have been listed under the Endangered Species Act, and then there are a few other acts, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Horse and Burro Act. There’s some other species that certainly have a federal rule. But at the end of the day, there is an opportunity on all of those, both state-managed species and federal- managed species for the two entities to work together with their common stakeholders to find solutions. It’s a more efficient way to run government. It’s better when the states and the federal government are working together on these things. And as long as they stay within their own lane on those things that are sovereign to their particular entity, whatever that may be, whether it’s the federal government or the state.”
“We’ve talked about Waters of the United States, but I’m going to focus on the Underground Injection Control Well Program in the Safe Drinking Water Act,”responded Kramer.“This is an example of a program that can be delegated from the federal implementation […] to the state for them to actually implement the program. The great thing about that is thatthe states know their resources best. Part of this is the remaining oversight rule that EPA has to ensure that the states are continuing to implement these programs consistent with the requirements of the federal law. It also allows the states the ability to be more stringent in the restrictions that they put in place, which again, states know their resources best to the extent that there is a need for a little bit of additional protection from their perspective, that is the ability to do it. It’s that joint working together, recognizing expertise of the states while also maintaining the oversight role that is required under the federal law.”
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Midgett (WMSL 757) recently concluded its second port call in Papua New Guinea (PNG), following nine days of shiprider operations with representatives from the PNG Defence Force, PNG Customs Service, and PNG National Fisheries Authority. Midgett was invited by the Papua New Guinea government to participate in the operation. The PNG shipriders led the mission by selecting vessels of interests and conducting boardings while the U.S. Coast Guard provided ship based and shoreside support. The successful shiprider operations reinforced the importance of deepening and expanding strong bilateral relationships.
For breaking news follow us on twitter @USCGHawaiiPac
Source: United States Senator for Alaska Lisa Murkowski
03.26.25
Washington, DC – Yesterday, U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (R-GA) introduced bipartisan legislation to lower housing costs for servicemembers in Alaska and across the country. The bipartisan Basic Allowance for Housing Restoration Act will ensure servicemembers and their families receive their full housing allowance. In Fiscal Year 2015, Congress cut servicemembers’ housing allowance, decreasing Base Allowance for Housing (BAH) coverage from 100% of estimated housing costs to 95%. This cost-sharing has hurt military families, many of whom already face issues of food insecurity and other expenses. Companion legislation was also introduced in the House by Reps. Marilyn Strickland (D-WA-10) and Don Bacon (R-NE-02) earlier in the month.
“Alaska is home to many critical military installations with serious missions, but our servicemembers and their families face some of the highest costs-of-living in the country – especially when it comes to housing.” said Senator Murkowski. “No member of our military should have to pay exorbitant out-of-pocket costs to have a roof over their head while serving our nation. It’s time for Congress to address this and take care of our servicemembers by raising the Basic Allowance for Housing back to 100 percent.”
“Georgia is a military state, and with all that we ask from our servicemembers and their families, ensuring they have quality, affordable housing is the least we can do,” said Senator Reverend Warnock. “I have long been a champion for our servicemembers in Georgia and across the nation, which is why I am proud to partner with Senator Murkowski to champion the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) Restoration Act. Our bill will help ensure military families who sacrifice so much to serve our nation can access safe, dignified housing, and I look forward to introducing companion legislation in the Senate.”
The legislation is endorsed by the Military Officers Association of America, the Military Housing Association, The American Legion, the Military Family Advisory Network, and the National Military Family Association.
Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren
March 26, 2025
Warren:“Tying the hands of the academies as they compete with other top universities for talented faculty will undercut the academies and, over time, undercut the leaders the academies are teaching.”
Video of Remarks (YouTube)
Washington, D.C. – At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, delivered opening remarks highlighting how Republican attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at military academies endanger national security, worsen military recruiting challenges, and limit the growth of talented students. Senator Warren also submitted letters for the record from 24 Naval Academy and West Point alumni who shared the importance of the academies and their concerns about the direction that the Trump Administration is taking them.
Transcript: Hearing to Conduct Oversight and Receive Testimony on the Status of the Military Service Academies Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel March 26, 2025 As Delivered
Senator Elizabeth Warren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I’m also looking forward to continuing the bipartisan tradition of this subcommittee and I hope to work with you and all of our members to make sure we improve the lives of our servicemembers, their families, and our civilian workforce, so that they can stay focused on the mission of keeping Americans safe.
I want to start by extending my condolences to the four families that just lost loved ones during a training mission in Lithuania. They remind us – those who go into harms’ way and their families are always at risk and put it on the line for the people of the United States of America. We are a deeply grateful nation.
I am glad that we’re starting this year focusing on how we recruit and retain our next generation of military leaders. Our military service academies are among the top academic institutions in the nation.
West Point, the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy provide a quality education, and they recruit and train almost 20 percent of our military officers.
Currently, our military academies are very selective—almost as tough to get into as the top colleges in this country. But that knife cuts both ways. Every student admitted to the military academies has other options. Academy students are often highly recruited by other schools. The competition for talent—for tomorrow’s leaders—is already fierce. Attacks on our military academies or policies that shrink the pool of young Americans who will consider applying for military service will cause lasting damage to our military and to our nation.
The latest U.S. census found that the youngest generation of Americans is more diverse than ever. That means we need our military academies to continue developing successful leaders from all walks of life—not push away strong recruits because they feel unwelcome or undervalued.
Ham-fisted efforts to reshape the academies are bound to backfire. For example, a mix of military practitioners and civilian instructors have successfully worked together for decades to shape students at the service academies into a lethal fighting force. In the same way that competition for talent exists for academy students, the same competition is true for faculty. Well-respected professors have options, and many are aggressively recruited. When Secretary Hegseth seemed to suggest that academies should have fewer civilian professors, and when the Department of Defense imposes a ban on travel by civilian personnel, it suggests that the military doesn’t care about civilians supporting its mission and that it will make it harder to attract and keep top talent to teach tomorrow’s military leaders.
The foolishness of the travel ban was immediately apparent. Testing sites for military entrance exams were forced to close or reduce hours, so fewer young people could apply to the military. While DOD has begun to allow civilians to travel to these testing sites again, these attacks on civilian personnel who help to support our military are worrying, and civilian personnel are key to helping our academies successful as well.
Our military students deserve the best teachers, people who are experts in their field. Tying the hands of the academies as they compete with other top universities for talented faculty will undercut the academies and, over time, undercut the leaders the academies are teaching.
Students need to develop their skills both inside the classroom and outside as well. I’m sure that many of us can think of sports teams and extracurricular activities that helped shape our experiences at school, that helped build our communities, and made us better leaders. Surely as a coach, Chairman Tuberville saw students’ leadership skills develop and grow through out-of-classroom work.
The Executive Order’s attacks on clubs at academies that it considers DEI isn’t creating more effective warfighters – it’s cutting off students from opportunities to grow as leaders.
When we’re trying to maintain a military force that can deter China, we can’t afford to be shutting down engineering clubs. But under President Trump, West Point has already disbanded chapters of the National Society of Black Engineers and the National Society of Women Engineers. Both organizations have been praised repeatedly for helping recruit and retain more young engineers for military service. Closing those chapters at the military academies while those chapters remain open at more than 600 other colleges and universities does not help our military recruit top talent.
This committee held two hearings on recruiting last year, and both hearings made clear that the United States cannot meet our recruiting goals without women. The Army met its recruiting goals in 2024 primarily because of new female recruits – there was an 18 percent increase in women signing up for active duty compared to an increase of just 8 percent for men. Let me be clear: these women are not looking for a preference or a handout. They just want a chance to compete straight up.
But we won’t be able to attract the women we need if they see a new glass ceiling on their opportunity to command. By removing women like Chief of Naval Operations Vice Admiral Franchetti from leadership roles simply because they are women and confirming a Secretary of Defense who has a long record opposing women in combat, the Trump administration has already set a tone from the top that women are not welcome.
We are already hearing concerns that women are hesitant to join certain military jobs because they believe they won’t be welcome solely due to their identity, not because of their qualifications.
Black recruits face their own challenges. When a Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a man who served honorably for over 40 years and who outlined our most successful strategy to deal with foreign terrorists, is fired solely because President Trump cannot imagine that he earned the job on the merits, Black military recruits across the nation get the message: your race makes you vulnerable. And when national organizations to support Black college students who major in engineering are suddenly dropped at the military academies while those organizations remain lively at more than 600 other colleges and universities, the message that the military academies may not welcome you gets even louder.
Recruiting and retaining talent—including Black and female talent—is a critical job for the future security of our nation. Pushing away more than half our future leaders is wildly self-destructive.
Mr. Chairman, twenty-four alumni from West Point and the Naval Academy have written to me, sharing their stories about what the academies mean to them and why they are concerned about the direction this administration wants to take them. I would like to enter those into the record for their letters and their testimony.
Let me read from just one of them, who wrote that these attacks on diversity are “a direct affront to the principles upon which our military was built and a betrayal of the sacrifices made by generations of service members.” Let those words sink in. A betrayal. We owe them better than that.
I look forward to this hearing and hearing the testimony of the witnesses who are here today. I thank you for being with us.
Source: United States Department of Defense (video statements)
@marines assigned to @1stMarineDivision tackle the 81mm mortar indoor simulated marksmanship trainer that combines live training with advanced digital simulations at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
For more on the Department of Defense, visit: http://www.defense.gov
Source: United States Senator for Illinois Tammy Duckworth
March 26, 2025
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Today, combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—a member of both the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC)—issued the following statement after new reporting confirmed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent classified war plans in a Signal group chat with other Trump Administration officials, putting the lives of our men and women in uniform at greater risk and undermining the effectiveness of the mission:
“Pete Hegseth is a f*cking liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately.
“Hegseth and every other official who was included in this group chat must be subject to an independent investigation. If Republicans won’t join us in holding the Trump Administration accountable, then they are complicit in this dangerous and likely criminal breach of our national security.”
Source: United States Senator for Michigan Gary Peters
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Gary Peters (MI) has been rated the most effective U.S. Senator for the third time in a row by the nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking, which released its biannual effectiveness ratings for the 118thCongress (2023-2024). Peters was also rated the most effective Senator by the Center in the 116th (2019-2020) and 117th (2021-2022) Congresses. In the 118th Congress, Peters earned the highest effectiveness score for a U.S. Senator ever recorded in the fifty years since the Center for Effective Lawmaking began tracking this data. He also becomes the first Senator in more than four decades to be named most effective three times in a row. Peters achieved this recognition by authoring 15 standalone bills that were passed and signed into law. He also authored 10 additional bills that were passed into law as part of larger legislative packages, including bipartisan legislation that established a Northern Border Mission Center at Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Macomb County.
“My top priority in the Senate has always been working in a bipartisan way to get things done for Michiganders, from supporting Michigan manufacturing, to protecting our Great Lakes, to strengthening our national security,” said Senator Peters. “I’ve found that building relationships based on trust, respect, and compromise, with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, is the key to finding commonsense solutions to the challenges we face, and I’ll keep fighting every day to deliver results for Michiganders and Americans across our country.”
“At the top of the list—for the third congress in a row—is Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, who (as we noted previously) had the rare distinction of being the overall most effective lawmaker in the Senate in the 116th Congress, despite Democrats being the minority party in the Congress. As we noted in our analysis four years ago, Sen. Peters’s feat cannot be found anywhere else in the Center for Effective Lawmaking data,” wrote the Center for Effective Lawmaking.
The Center continued by saying, “every bill that he sponsored that became law had at least one Republican cosponsor who was also advocating for its passage. For several of his sponsored bills, we likewise see that the only cosponsors of the legislation were Republican senators. As such, Sen. Peters’s practice of coalition building and cosponsorship continues to comport with Center for Effective Lawmaking research showing that bipartisan lawmakers are much more effective than partisan lawmakers, even when in the majority party.”
“With the announced retirement of Senator Peters… it is clear that the United States Senate has lost a notable degree of lawmaking capacity, in comparison to more recent congresses, such that it is less obvious as to who will serve as the most prominent legislative leaders in future years,” the Center said.
The Center for Effective Lawmaking is a joint initiative between the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, which rates each member of Congress based on a number of factors including the bills they sponsor, how far those bills move through the lawmaking process, and how substantial their bills are. To read the full report from the Center for Effective Lawmaking, click here.
Peters has been repeatedly named one of the most effective and bipartisan senators. During the 117th Congress, Peters was the author and principal sponsor of 19 bills signed into law, the most by a U.S. Senator during a single Congress in more than 40 years, according to the Congressional Research Service and the Senate Historical Office. Peters was recognized as the 2nd-most bipartisan Senator – and the most bipartisan Democrat – in 2023, according to rankings released by the nonpartisan Lugar Center and McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. The Lugar Center also ranked Peters the 3rd-most bipartisan Senator for his work during the 117th Congress (2021-2022).
Below is a recap of the key bills Peters authored that were passed and signed into law during the 118th Congress:
Established Northern Border Mission Center at Selfridge Air National Guard Base: Peters secured his bipartisan Northern Border Coordination Actas a provision in the annual national defense bill that was signed into law last year. The provision expanded the operations and duties of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Northern Border Mission Center. Peters secured $3 million last March to establish and operate this Center at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, where it is collocated with current DHS components. The Center, which DHS is already working to set up, will coordinate with state, local, and Tribal governments, and other key stakeholders, to ensure DHS and its operational components are able to fulfill their security mission at the Northern Border.
Protecting Burial Benefits for Military Families: Peters passed bipartisan legislation into law to ensure our military families can continue to be laid to rest together in Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) national cemeteries. This law grants the VA the authority to bury the spouse or child of a service member in the tragic case that their death precedes the servicemember.
Supporting Firefighters and Emergency Responders: Peters’ Fire Grants and Safety Act was signed into law, reauthorizing key federal grant programs that help support fire departments across the country. The bill reauthorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant program, the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program, and the United States Fire Administration (USFA). These programs are used by local fire departments to address staffing needs, purchase equipment, develop fire training and education programs, and improve emergency medical services.
Reducing Confusion for Disaster Relief Applicants: Peters authored a bill that was signed into law to create one application deadline for two Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) programs that individuals use for disaster assistance. The law ensures that both the Disaster Unemployment Assistance Program (DUA) and Individuals and Households Program (IHP) has the same deadline, making it easier for applicants to apply for assistance when rebuilding their lives after a disaster.
Expanding Financial Support for Maritime Students: Peters authored and passed into law his CADETS Act, expanding the Student Incentive Payment Program eligibility for financial assistance to cadets who attend one of the six State Maritime Academies and commit to a post-graduation service obligation to include any qualified student who will meet the age requirements for enlistment in the U.S. Navy Reserve at their time of graduation. This law will encourage more cadets to continue serving our country after graduation, strengthening Michigan’s robust maritime sector and national security.
Reusing Federally Owned Property: Peters passed a bill into law to ensure federal agencies are reusing excess federal property, including office supplies, automobiles, and heavy machinery, before buying new products in order to save taxpayer dollars.
Improving Oversight of Federal Grant Programs: Peters’ bipartisan Financial Management Risk Reduction Act was signed into law, helping to safeguard taxpayer dollars by making audit data more accessible and increasing opportunities to identify potential misuse of federal grant programs.
Holding Federal Agencies Accountable for Performance Goals: Legislation authored by Peters was signed into law to ensure federal agencies are effectively carrying out their missions for the American people. The law requires the White House Office of Management and Budget to regularly conduct reviews of agency performance and ensure they are following strategic plans.
Strengthening National Safety System for Commercial Drivers: Peters’ bipartisan bill was signed into law to safeguard funding for the Commercial Driver’s License Information System (CDLIS). The CDLIS is a crucial, nationwide computer system that ensures commercial drivers have only one license and one complete driver record. State driver licensing agencies utilize the CDLIS to complete safety procedures such as sharing out-of-state convictions and withdrawals, transferring the driver record when a commercial driver license holder moves to another state, and responding to requests for driver status and history.
Bolstering Department of Homeland Security Joint Task Forces: Peters authored and passed a bill into law extending the Joint Task Forces authority, allowing DHS to establish joint operations using DHS personnel and resources to secure U.S. land and maritime borders, address homeland security threats, and establish regional operations to tackle ongoing homeland security challenges like drug smuggling and trafficking.
Supporting Victims of Human Trafficking: Peters’ bipartisan legislation to enhance the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to combat human trafficking was signed into law. The law makes permanent and expands the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Victim Assistance Program that helps provide support to individuals impacted by human trafficking. It will also help to provide additional support to the dedicated HSI personnel who are working to combat these horrific crimes.
Strengthening Federal Building Security: Bipartisan legislation authored by Peters was signed into law requiring federal agencies to adequately respond to security recommendations issued by the Federal Protective Service (FPS) within 90 days to protect visitors and employees in federal buildings from a range of security threats.
Improving Efficiency of Legislative Process: Peters passed bipartisan legislation into law to help eliminate procedural delays and improve efficiency in the legislative process. The law provides the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with timely access to the information they need to complete their analysis of the budgetary impacts of legislation, which is required prior to almost all votes in the Senate.
Recognizing the Contributions of Trailblazing Michiganders: Peters also led several bills that were signed into law to honor trailblazing Michiganders and their extraordinary contributions to our state, including:
A bill to designate the United States Postal Service office located at 2075 West Stadium Boulevard in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as the “Robert Hayden Post Office.” Robert Hayden – born in Detroit in 1913 – achieved national and international recognition for his poetry, as well as essays and other works of literature, with much of his work touching on the Black American experience as part of the greater human experience. In 1976, he became the first African American to be appointed Consultant in Poetry by the Library of Congress – a role that is now known as Poet Laureate.
A bill to designate the United States Postal Service office located at 90 McCamly Street South in Battle Creek, Michigan, as the “Sojourner Truth Post Office.” After escaping slavery in 1827, Sojourner Truth embarked on a path to preach for emancipation. Throughout her life, Truth fought bravely against racial injustices and spoke up for women’s suffrage. In 1857, Truth moved to Harmonia, a former utopian community that was later incorporated into Battle Creek, Michigan, and spent the rest of her life advocating in various spheres.
A bill to designate the United States Postal Service office located at 155 South Main Street in Mount Clemens, Michigan, as the “Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Jefferson Post Office.” Alexander Jefferson – born in Detroit – served in the military during World War II. During his time with the Tuskegee Airmen, Jefferson was shot down in France and captured by Nazi ground troops. He was a prisoner of war in German-occupied Poland before he was freed by General George Patton’s U.S. Third Army. Jefferson returned to Michigan, where he became a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier, earned a teaching certificate, and obtained a master’s degree in education from Wayne State University. In 2016, Senator Peters helped honor Jefferson at a ceremony for France’s Knight of the Legion of Honor Medal – the highest honor France bestows on people who have carried out actions of great value to their nation.
Source: United States Senator Pete Ricketts (Nebraska)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE), the second-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, discussed the importance of maintaining America’s alliances in the Indo-Pacific. Ricketts focused on how America’s key alliance with the Philippines has helped deter Communist China. During the hearing, Senator Ricketts said the following:
“Since the signing of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, the Philippines has been one of our key allies in the Indo-Pacific. However, in recent years, the alliance has grown both more important and even more key as far as our strategic alignment. Despite being outmatched militarily and economically, the Philippines has demonstrated incredible resolve in resisting Beijing’s unlawful aggression in the South China Sea,” Ricketts said. “It [the Philippines] is also able to act as an important voice within the ASEAN against Communist China’s other pressure campaigns as you all have been talking about. But most important is what the alliance provides us militarily… and the expansion of the EDCA bases and the 9 strategic sites that they’ve given us access to to enhance our ability to deter Communist China in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea and other key theaters.”
Ricketts made the comments in a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The hearing was entitled: “Shared Threats: Indo-Pacific Alliances and Burden Sharing in Today’s Geopolitical Environment.”The Committee heard testimony from Victor Cha, President of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at CSIS; Oriana Skylar Mastro, Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and Randy Shriver, Chairman of the Board of the Project 2049 Institute.
Source: United States Senator MarkWayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma)
RELEASE: Senator Mullin Welcomes Lawton-Fort Sill Community Leaders to Washington, Holds Q&A
Washington, D.C. – On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, spoke with Lawton-Fort Sill community leaders about issues facing our national defense, addressed DOGE cuts concerns, answered questions about advancing the community, and bolstered his support for Lawton’s lasting impact on the state and our national defense industrial base.
As the Senator noted in his remarks, a crucial piece to Lawton-Fort Sill’s standing as a premiere national defense hub is the Fires Innovation Science and Technology Accelerator (FISTA). It is a model private-public partnership for communities to replicate across the country to support America’s warfighters. As our nation transitions to modern warfare, our defense needs have changed, and it’s more important than ever that we adapt to the needs of today’s warfighter. Partnerships like FISTA put Lawton at the center of advanced weaponry and engineering, which attracts high-paying jobs and business from across the nation to Oklahoma’s growing defense industrial base.
“What you guys are doing with FISTA is remarkable. It shows partnership, a private-public partnership,” said Sen. Mullin “It is something that while other communities may have tried it, I would say Lawton has led it in understanding what it is actually capable of doing.”
“The Lawton Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce is grateful for the work our Oklahoma delegation is doing in Washington, D.C. and appreciates each of them taking the time to meet with the Lawton community leaders to update us on the future of our country under the current administration,” Austin Rabon, Chairman of the Lawton Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce.
Additional highlights from Sen. Mullin’s remarks are below:
“The President came in very strong on this, saying that he wants to make reforms. He doesn’t want to weaken our military, he wants to strengthen it. But we feel like there’s a lot of opportunities to strengthen it by being more efficient, being more efficient on how we spend the money, being more efficient on the programs that we do, looking at what programs we’re paying for that shouldn’t be there.”
“There’s some technology that we’re paying for that we started developing 12 years ago. I’m sorry, that technology’s out of date. There’s technology that we’re still working on, platforms we’re still working toward, that was designed to fight the war on terror, not the conventional fight that’s facing us down the road. We’re still paying those… That’s part of the cuts. We’re saying there’s no point in us still using that platform of technology that is not useful today.”
“General Brown… was very proud of what we’re doing in Oklahoma. I will tell you, that’s continued throughout the Department of Defense and you guys, by setting that standard so high for other communities to look at, is a huge bragging point for me. So, thank you for giving me something to hang on.”
“I think we have a true, once in a generation, opportunity to make real changes for the generations that come behind us.”
The Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ronald Lamola, will hold political and diplomatic consultations with his counterpart from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Thérèse Kayiwamba Wagner.
Kayiwamba serves as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Francophonie for the DRC.
According to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, the Ministers plan to review the bilateral cooperation between South Africa and the DRC, focusing on commitments made during the 12th Session of the South Africa-DRC Bi-National Commission (BNC) aimed at strengthening this cooperation.
The meeting will take place on Thursday, 27 March 2025, in Pretoria.
Political ties between the two nations date back to 1997 when former President Nelson Mandela facilitated a meeting between the late President Désiré Kabila and Mobutu Sese Seko aboard a South African Navy ship in Pointe-Noire, Congo-Brazzaville.
Formal bilateral relations between South Africa and the DRC were established in 1992.
The department stated that these relationships are mainly conducted through the BNC, which was established in 2004.
The last session of the BNC took place in Kinshasa, DRC, on 6 July 2023. South Africa is scheduled to host the 13th session of the BNC.
“Since then, South Africa and the DRC have significantly strengthened their bilateral cooperation across various sectors, culminating in the signing of 38 bilateral agreements and Memoranda of Understanding.”
These legal instruments cover a broad spectrum of areas, including agriculture, defence, trade and investment, health, policing, energy, public service and administration, cooperative governance, transport, diplomatic cooperation, and immigration. Meanwhile, the department said South Africa has significant investments in the DRC and is the second largest source of imports for the country.
“Many South African multinational companies have a large footprint in the country in several sectors, including, among others, infrastructure development, financial services, mining, construction and property development, retail, and so on,” the department added. – SAnews.gov.za
The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) on Wednesday called for an immediate end to hostilities and urgent dialogue between the country’s leaders to prevent a relapse into civil war, as violence escalates around the capital city.
“To prevent a relapse into civil war, the Parties must recommit to the Revitalized Peace Agreement by ceasing all hostilities and strictly adhering to the ceasefire, resolving grievances through dialogue, and reconvening as a truly unified government,” said Nicholas Haysom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of UNMISS.
The world’s youngest country has been mired in conflict which erupted shortly after independence from Sudan in 2011, between Government forces led by President Salva Kiir, and fighters loyal to his rival Riek Machar, who has served as First Vice President since 2020 in a broad-based governing coalition.
Clashes intensify
Fighting has escalated over the past 24 hours, with clashes reported between Government troops of the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition near Rejaf, just south of the capital Juba, and in Wunaliet, to the west.
The situation in Upper Nile, in the north of the country, also remains volatile. Earlier this month the so-called White Army – a youth militia – overran South Sudanese army barracks in Nasir. In response, Government forces launched retaliatory aerial bombardments on civilian areas, using barrel bombs that allegedly contained highly flammable accelerants.
An UNMISS helicopter – attempting to evacuate wounded SSPDF soldiers – in Nasir, region was also attacked this month, killing a crew member as well as several South Sudanese soldiers, including an injured General.
Children at extreme risk
Virginia Gamba, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, also warned that the surge in fighting is putting children at grave risk of violations, including killing, sexual violence and recruitment into armed groups.
“I am deeply concerned over the escalating violence, particularly in the Upper Nile province, and I urge all parties to silence their weapons and comply with their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law,” she said.
“The stability of the country and a lasting peace for all, including new generations, is at stake.”
Renewed fighting “would devastate not only South Sudan but the entire region, which simply cannot afford another war,” he said.
Fragile peace at stake
Civil war erupted in 2013 between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those aligned with First Vice President Machar. The war – marked by ethnic violence, mass atrocities and a widespread humanitarian crisis – lasted until a fragile peace deal was signed in 2018.
Though the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement brought a degree of stability, delays in its implementation and continued political rivalries have kept tensions simmering.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in South Sudan remains dire, with over nine million people in need of humanitarian assistance and protection, including two million internally displaced persons.
