NewzIntel.com

Category: Politics

  • MIL-OSI: LocatorX Names Darrell Turner as Chief Operating Officer

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    ORLANDO, Fla., April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — LocatorX, a trusted leader in secure IoT sensors and supply chain asset visibility, today announced Darrell Turner as Chief Operating Officer. Turner brings more than 35 years of cross-industry leadership experience in healthcare, aerospace, and defense, along with deep expertise in Lean Six Sigma methodologies and strategic operational management to the executive team.

    “LocatorX is experiencing tremendous growth in terms of both the scale and the diversity of opportunities that we have the privilege of solving as we deliver transformational value for our customers. Continuing to earn our customer’s confidence requires an unrelenting focus on executing by meeting or exceeding every milestone, every day. Darrell’s proven track record of metrics-based discipline, world-class process improvement techniques, and exceptional team-building skills will position us to confidently scale and grow, unlocking real shareholder value while solving our customers’ most complex challenges,” commented Chester Kennedy, CEO of LocatorX.

    Prior to joining LocatorX, Turner served as President of the EMR-PM group at EverHealth, where he led strategy and organizational alignment across a portfolio of healthcare technology solutions, including Electronic Medical Records (EMR), Practice Management Systems (PM), Revenue Cycle Management (RCM), and Chronic Care Management platforms.

    He also served as President and COO of CollaborateMD, Inc., where he co-developed a cloud-based medical billing and practice management platform, empowering providers to streamline complex workflows and enhance patient care through real-time analytics and automation.

    In addition, Turner spent over two decades at Lockheed Martin’s Training & Simulation division, where he held various engineering and program management roles. He became a Lean Six Sigma Certified Black Belt, driving operational efficiencies across multi-million-dollar defense and aerospace projects with full P&L responsibility.

    “I am excited to join LocatorX at a time when asset tracking and visibility across the supply chain is more critical than ever for national security and operational efficiency,” said Turner. “I look forward to working with the team to help scale quickly, optimize performance, and deliver continued value to our customers and partners.”

    Added Kennedy, “Darrell’s combination of experience, which includes both starting and growing a highly successful startup and working as a major contributor in a Fortune 50 corporation, will be extremely valuable as we continue to scale this business.”

    LocatorX ensures real-time visibility of mission-critical assets and connected insights that drive efficient processes across the supply chain. The company’s patented LX Digital Fingerprint, secure TAA-compliant IoT sensors, and data intelligence platform redefines how aerospace, defense, and government sectors track and manage critical assets. To learn more about LocatorX, visit www.locatorx.com.

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/962a3efc-72a4-4d3b-9b54-b28c56aa6567

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Fortinet Expands FortiAI Across its Security Fabric Platform

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    SUNNYVALE, Calif. and BERLIN, April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Accelerate 2025

    News Summary

    Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), the global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, today announced significant FortiAI innovations embedded across the Fortinet Security Fabric platform to enhance protection against new and emerging threats, simplify and automate security and network operations, and secure employee use of AI-enabled services.

    “Fortinet’s AI advantage stems from the breadth and depth of our AI ecosystem—shaped by over a decade of AI innovation and reinforced by more patents than any other cybersecurity vendor,” said Michael Xie, Founder, President, and Chief Technology Officer at Fortinet. “By embedding FortiAI across the Fortinet Security Fabric platform, including new agentic AI capabilities, we’re empowering our customers to reduce the workload on their security and network analysts while improving the efficiency, speed, and accuracy of their security and networking operations. In parallel, we’ve added coverage across the Fabric ecosystem to enable customers to monitor and control the use of GenAI-enabled services within their organization.”

    The Need for AI-Driven Protection and Security for AI Systems

    Enterprises must leverage security solutions that use AI to defend against increasingly advanced threats—especially those that use AI to bypass defenses, automate attacks, and exploit vulnerabilities. At the same time, organizations must secure their own AI systems from data poisoning, adversarial manipulation, and unauthorized access. Without robust protection, AI can become both a target and a weapon for cybercriminals. Fortinet has you covered, with more than 500 AI patents issued and pending, and more than 15 years of AI innovation, delivering AI-driven security to stop advanced threats while ensuring AI systems remain protected and trustworthy.

    New AI Innovations from Fortinet

    FortiAI has now expanded to encompass Fortinet’s entire AI-driven approach across security and network operations, protecting environments, and securing AI models and LLMs. Integrated into the Fortinet Security Fabric platform, it delivers intelligent, autonomous capabilities to stop advanced threats, streamline operations, and support secure AI adoption.

    This expansion of FortiAI introduces new capabilities across two key areas:

    FortiAI-Assist combines GenAI, agentic AI, and AIOps to simplify and transform security and network operations with intelligent automation and analytics. New capabilities include:

    • Agentic AI Applications for Network Operations
      • Autonomous network management initiated through the GenAI assistant enables the creation of network configuration and security policy updates, validation and correction of existing configurations, and troubleshooting and remediation of network issues without human intervention.
      • Automated network optimization and troubleshooting using GenAI and AIOps enhance network operations for wired, wireless, and SD-WAN, and proactively identify and offer remediation of issues before users are impacted.
    • Agentic AI Applications for Security Operations
      • Automated alert triage prioritizes notifications based on risk, context, and historical patterns, suppresses duplicate alerts, and only flags high-confidence threats within the system or directly to the threat analyst, depending on the organization’s preferences.
      • Adaptive threat hunting scans logs, network traffic, and user behavior to search for threats without waiting for human input.
      • Root-cause tracing uses AI-driven reasoning to identify an attack’s origin, method, and impact.
      • Threat intelligence enrichment enhances security intelligence by correlating attack patterns and attributing adversary tactics, improving proactive defense.

    FortiAI-Protect enhances security with AI-driven threat detection, enabling the identification of advanced and unknown threats. It also provides contextual risk assessments to strengthen security and enforce access controls for third-party GenAI applications. These enhancements further increase the value of FortiGuard AI-powered Security Services for both new and existing customers. New capabilities include:

    • Detecting AI application usage for over 6,500 AI URLs, including GenAI applications. Security teams also gain added context around the use cases, the model used for training, and the location of where the data goes.
    • Controlling access and content to GenAI using zero-trust principles allows security teams to block shadow AI or high-risk AI application usage. Visibility into AI application lists and additional context, such as geolocation and training models, also allows admins to define organization-wide AI usage policies.
    • Enhancing threat analysis and malware protection by expanding machine learning and large-scale data analysis to detect and neutralize emerging malware threats. Continued refinement of contextual correlation with known threat indicators further reduces false positives, ensuring precise threat identification while maintaining operational efficiency.
    • Improving safeguards against sophisticated attacks by continuing to train the intrusion prevention system (IPS) machine learning models to adapt and detect new attack techniques.

    Fortinet Helps Organizations Secure their AI Models, Infrastructure, and Data

    Organizations can also securely adopt AI with FortiAI-SecureAI by leveraging capabilities that span the Fortinet Security Fabric platform to protect AI infrastructure from network-based threats, secure web applications and APIs, and defend cloud-native AI workloads across major providers. FortiAI-SecureAI ensures data integrity, prevents LLM data leakage, safeguards AI models and intellectual property, enforces zero-trust access, and enables early attack detection and response.

    FortiAI Prioritizes Data Privacy for Organizations

    FortiAI uses a multi-layered data protection approach to enforce strict privacy controls, preventing data that is shared with the Fortinet GenAI assistant from training the LLM. Queries are also processed locally, ensuring data never leaves the network, while sensitive information is blocked or masked before reaching the language model.

    With FortiAI-Assist, FortiAI-Protect, and FortiAI-SecureAI, Fortinet continues to lead in AI-driven cybersecurity to help organizations stay ahead of evolving threats.

    Additional Resources

    About Fortinet
    Fortinet (Nasdaq: FTNT) is a driving force in the evolution of cybersecurity and the convergence of networking and security. Our mission is to secure people, devices, and data everywhere, and today we deliver cybersecurity everywhere our customers need it with the largest integrated portfolio of over 50 enterprise-grade products. Well over half a million customers trust Fortinet’s solutions, which are among the most deployed, most patented, and most validated in the industry. The Fortinet Training Institute, one of the largest and broadest training programs in the industry, is dedicated to making cybersecurity training and new career opportunities available to everyone. Collaboration with esteemed organizations from both the public and private sectors, including Computer Emergency Response Teams (“CERTS”), government entities, and academia, is a fundamental aspect of Fortinet’s commitment to enhance cyber resilience globally. FortiGuard Labs, Fortinet’s elite threat intelligence and research organization, develops and utilizes leading-edge machine learning and AI technologies to provide customers with timely and consistently top-rated protection and actionable threat intelligence. Learn more at https://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, and FortiGuard Labs.

    Copyright © 2025 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. The symbols ® and ™ denote respectively federally registered trademarks and common law trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliates. Fortinet’s trademarks include, but are not limited to, the following: Fortinet, the Fortinet logo, FortiGate, FortiOS, FortiGuard, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer, FortiManager, FortiASIC, FortiClient, FortiCloud, FortiMail, FortiSandbox, FortiADC, FortiAI, FortiAIOps, FortiAgent, FortiAntenna, FortiAP, FortiAPCam, FortiAuthenticator, FortiCache, FortiCall, FortiCam, FortiCamera, FortiCarrier, FortiCASB, FortiCentral, FortiCNP, FortiConnect, FortiController, FortiConverter, FortiCSPM, FortiCWP, FortiDAST, FortiDB, FortiDDoS, FortiDeceptor, FortiDeploy, FortiDevSec, FortiDLP, FortiEdge, FortiEDR, FortiExplorer, FortiExtender, FortiFirewall, FortiFlex FortiFone, FortiGSLB, FortiGuest, FortiHypervisor, FortiInsight, FortiIsolator, FortiLAN, FortiLink, FortiMonitor, FortiNAC, FortiNDR, FortiPAM, FortiPenTest, FortiPhish, FortiPoint, FortiPolicy, FortiPortal, FortiPresence, FortiProxy, FortiRecon, FortiRecorder, FortiSASE, FortiScanner, FortiSDNConnector, FortiSIEM, FortiSMS, FortiSOAR, FortiSRA, FortiStack, FortiSwitch, FortiTester, FortiToken, FortiTrust, FortiVoice, FortiWAN, FortiWeb, FortiWiFi, FortiWLC, FortiWLM, FortiXDR and Lacework FortiCNAPP. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners. Fortinet has not independently verified statements or certifications herein attributed to third parties and Fortinet does not independently endorse such statements. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, nothing herein constitutes a warranty, guarantee, contract, binding specification or other binding commitment by Fortinet or any indication of intent related to a binding commitment, and performance and other specification information herein may be unique to certain environments.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant Relocation DCO decision announced

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant Relocation DCO decision announced

    The Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant Relocation application has today been granted development consent by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

    Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant Relocation

    The project comprises the construction and operation of an integrated waste water treatment centre and sludge treatment plant, transfer tunnels, terminal and intermediate pumping stations, vehicle access, utilities connections, renewable energy generation, ancillary buildings and landscaping. 

    The application was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for consideration by Anglian Water Services Limited on 28 April 2023 and accepted for examination on 24 May 2023.  

    Following an examination during which the public, statutory consultees and interested parties were given the opportunity to give evidence to the Examining Authority, recommendations were made to the Secretary of State on 12 July 2024.   

    This is the second waste water application out of 154 applications examined to date and was again completed by the Planning Inspectorate within the statutory timescale laid down in the Planning Act 2008.   

    Local communities continue to be given the opportunity of being involved in the examination of projects that may affect them. Local people, the local authority and other interested parties were able to participate in this six-month examination.   

    The Examining Authority listened and gave full consideration to all local views and the evidence gathered during the examination before making its recommendation to the Secretary of State.  

    The decision, the recommendation made by the Examining Authority to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the evidence considered by the Examining Authority in reaching its recommendation are publicly available on the project pages of the National Infrastructure Planning website.  

    Journalists wanting further information should contact the Planning Inspectorate Press Office, on 0303 444 5004 or 0303 444 5005 or email:   

    Press.office@planninginspectorate.gov.uk

    Updates to this page

    Published 8 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: New appeals process to provide independent assurance about Horizon redress awards

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    New appeals process to provide independent assurance about Horizon redress awards

    Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas has announced the launch of the new, independent, appeals process for eligible postmasters in the Horizon Shortfall Scheme.

    • New independent appeals process for Horizon Shortfall Scheme victims
    • New applications for postmasters who claimed under HSS to begin this month
    • Provides assurance that those who were unjustly impacted by the Horizon IT scandal will receive full, fair and swift redress

    Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas has announced in Parliament today [Tuesday 8 April] the launch of the new, independent, appeals process for eligible postmasters in the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS).

    Postmasters who feel their financial settlement did not reflect the true extent of their losses and trauma will be able to appeal their settlement ensuring they receive full, fair and swift redress.

    Eligible postmasters and their legal representatives will be written to later this month and applications for the new Appeals process will begin to be accepted by the end of April.

    Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas said:

    It is our priority that all those who were unjustly affected by the Horizon IT scandal receive full, fair and swift redress and today’s measures are the next step in providing that.

    Since taking office, the total amount of redress paid to victims has increased by more than three and a half times with £892 million having now been paid to over 6,200 claimants. There is still more to do, and I am committed to this task until every affected postmaster receives the redress they rightly deserve.

    The Government also announced that each Directly Managed Branch (DMBs) will be franchised so that Post Office services remain available to local communities. We have listened to concerns and made it clear that DMBs should not be closed as we continue to work with the Post Office as it develops its transformation plan.

    There will also be a further £276.9 million in funding for the Post Office to help support the breadth of the network. This will enable Post Office to deliver technology transformation and give them the resources to continue administering redress payments to postmasters.

    There will also be a scheme launched next month to provide redress to postmasters who faced issues with Post Office products, polices or processes.

    These updates will help rebuild trust with postmasters and ensure past failings are fully addressed.

    Notes to editors

    As of 31 March 2025, approximately £892 million has been paid to over 6,200 claimants across 4 schemes:

    • £454 million in the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS), including interim payments
    • £67 million in the Overturned Convictions (OC) scheme, including interim payments
    • £150 million in the Group Litigation Order (GLO) scheme, including interim payments
    • £221 million in the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme (HCRS), including interim payments

    Updates to this page

    Published 8 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Strategic firms establish HQ in HK

    Source: Hong Kong Information Services

    A new batch of 18 strategic enterprises, in the presence of Financial Secretary Paul Chan, committed to establishing global headquarters, regional headquarters or research and development centres in Hong Kong during a ceremony today held by the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES).

    These firms come from high-tech industries such as advanced manufacturing and new energy technology, artificial intelligence and data science, fintech, and life and health technology.

    In his speech, Mr Chan said that Hong Kong treasures not only the investments, jobs and expertise that the strategic enterprises bring to the city, but also their products and solutions that will transform people’s way of life and inspire new innovation.

    Their presence supports Hong Kong’s vision of becoming an international innovation and technology (I&T) centre, he stressed.

    “Amid rising tides of unilateralism and protectionism, Hong Kong remains steadfast in our commitment to upholding our free-port status and free trade policy; ensuring the free flow of capital, goods, information and people; maintaining our simple and low tax system; and building a dynamic and vibrant I&T ecosystem with a full range of funding support.

    “Coupled with the best connectivity and seamless access to the Mainland and Asia markets, here is the best launch pad for realising your ambition.”

    The Financial Secretary added that going forward, OASES will broaden its scope to attract cultural and creative enterprises that can fuse I&T with artistry. He also remarked that through Hong Kong’s platform, these firms can expand their businesses to various new markets.

    Together with the 66 companies previously attracted to the city, the strategic enterprises will invest about $50 billion in total in the years to come, creating over 20,000 jobs. OASES, in collaboration with government departments, provides them with comprehensive services to facilitate their business set-up and operations, thereby promoting growth in the I&T sector and contributing to Hong Kong’s economic development.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Boyle, Norcross Introduce Bills to Give Tax Breaks to Workers

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Brendan Boyle (13th District of Pennsylvania)

    WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Representatives Brendan F. Boyle (D-PA-02) and Donald Norcross (D-NJ-01) announced the introduction of their bills, the Tax Fairness for Workers Act and No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act. Representative Judy Chu (D-CA) joined the members in leading the introduction of the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act.

    The Tax Fairness for Workers Act will allow workers to deduct employment expenses such as union dues, travel, and uniform costs, restoring a deduction that was stripped by the 2017 Trump tax law. The No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act will end the ability for corporations to deduct union busting expenses from their taxes.

    “While Republicans continue to push tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations, we are focused on easing the burden on hardworking people and strengthening unions. It’s time for a tax system that works for teachers buying school supplies, workers paying for uniforms, and union members fighting for fair wages,” said Congressman Boyle. “The Tax Fairness for Workers Act and the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act are both key steps in restoring fairness and supporting those who build our economy.”

    “The No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act and Tax Fairness for Workers Act both focus on protecting America’s workers,” said Rep. Norcross. “Every worker deserves a free and fair choice to join or form a union, and it’s time that our tax code reflects that. The No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act will end corporate handouts for union-busting campaigns, make our tax code fairer, and level the playing field for workers. The Tax Fairness for Workers Act will restore fairness and put money back into the pockets of workers who bet on themselves. During a time when the Trump Administration is attacking workers’ rights, I’m honored to have Representatives Brendan Boyle and Judy Chu partner with me in the fight to put more money into the pockets of hardworking Americans.”    

    “We need policies and a tax code that support American workers and ensure wealthy corporations pay their fair share,” said Rep. Chu. “But in the last few months, this Trump-Musk administration and its corporate allies have waged an all-out assault on worker rights: paralyzing the agencies responsible for enforcing fair labor laws, revoking collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees, and advancing trillions in tax cuts for corporations – the same ones that spend heavily on anti-union campaigns against their own workers, and then write that off as a business expense. We need to pass our No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act to finally end the government subsidies for illegal union-busting, as well as the Tax Fairness for Workers Act to once again allow union employees to deduct their dues from their taxes.”

    “There’s nothing fair about a tax code that’s loaded with deductions and giveaways for corporate union busters and the super-wealthy while penalizing workers for exercising their right to have a seat at the table,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders. “At a time when high costs are squeezing working families and the freedom to form a union is under attack, AFSCME thanks Reps. Boyle and Norcross for spearheading commonsense legislation like the Tax Fairness for Workers Act and the No Tax Breaks for Union Busters Act to level the playing field for workers.”

    “It is unacceptable for Congress to support anti-worker tax provisions, especially when they’re considering more tax cuts for the wealthy while ignoring the urgent needs of working families. It’s time to give workers their fair share,” said Dan Mauer, Communications Workers of America’s Government Affairs Director. “Our tax code should prioritize workers organizing to have a voice on the job. That is why we wholeheartedly support the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act and the Tax Fairness for Workers Act. We commend Representatives Norcross, Boyle, Chu and all those championing a fairer tax system for working families.”

    “The Tax Fairness for Workers Act will restore basic fairness to the tax code by allowing hard-working middle-class families to, once again, deduct common employment expenses like safety equipment, tools or the classroom supplies teachers use every day from their federal taxes—just as they could before Trump’s 2017 tax law, and just like the wealthy do now,”said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “It’s a simple, necessary step to right a wrong. This bill would make a noticeable difference to the monthly budget of millions. If a CEO can write off business expenses, workers should be able to do the same.”

    “The IAM Union applauds Senator Tina Smith and Representatives Donald Norcross and Brendan Boyle for introducing the Tax Fairness for Workers Act,” said IAM Union International President Brian Bryant. “The GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act wrongly eliminated workers’ ability to deduct many employment related expenses, such as the cost of union dues, uniforms and tools. The IAM strongly supports the Tax Fairness for Workers Act, which rightly restores these tax deductions for working families.” 

    “The IAM Union applauds Senator Ben Ray Lujan and Representatives Donald Norcross, Brendan Boyle, and Judy Chu for introducing the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act,” said IAM Union International President Brian Bryant. “Union busting, or union avoidance campaigns, have a chilling impact on workers’ ability to exercise their right to freely form and join unions.  This legislation would end the taxpayer subsidization of these anti-union, anti-American campaigns.” 

    The Tax Fairness for Workers Act will allow workers to deduct common employment expenses such as travel, union dues, and uniform costs, restoring a deduction stripped by the 2017 Trump tax law. Workers will be able to deduct business expenses, just as employers can.

    Read the full text here.

    The No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act would end taxpayer subsidies for corporations’ anti-union behavior by classifying corporate interference in worker organization campaigns like political speech rather than an “ordinary and necessary” business expense. Additionally, this bill would require corporations to report anti-worker interventions to the IRS and grant the Department of Treasury greater enforcement authority to hold them accountable for using company money to interfere in protected worker activities.

    Read the full text here.

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: RELEASE: REP. RO KHANNA RECEIVES PUBLIUS AWARD FROM THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF THE PRESIDENCY AND CONGRESS

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Rep Ro Khanna (CA-17)

    On March 25th, Representative Ro Khanna (CA-17), alongside Senator Todd Young, received the Publius Award from the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress –– a non-partisan, non-profit dedicated to promoting bipartisan leadership. The award honors political leaders who put the public good and pragmatism over partisanship and special interests. Past recipients include Secretary Ash Carter, Senator Tim Kaine, Congressman Mike Gallagher, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. 

    “I was honored to receive the Publius Award alongside Senator Young, with whom I co-authored the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act to invest in innovation, good-paying jobs, and the revitalization of communities left behind by the offshoring of manufacturing. At a moment of deep division in Washington, we can’t lose sight of delivering for working-class people and strengthening our economy. Thank you to President Glenn Nye and the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress for this honor and for your work to promote cooperation and innovative problem solving,” said Rep. Ro Khanna. 

    “CSPC is proud to honor Rep. Ro Khanna, together with Senator Todd Young, with our Publius Award, recognizing their bipartisan leadership on American competitiveness and innovation. This kind of cooperation doesn’t usually make headlines, but it is vital for our country to honor such statesmanship,” said CSPC President and CEO Glenn Nye. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Nigeria’s Agro-Revolution: Construction of Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) begins

    Source: Africa Press Organisation – English (2) – Report:

    ABUJA, Nigeria, April 8, 2025/APO Group/ —

    Nigeria’s food and agriculture sector is set to enter a new era of industrialization, as the Nigerian government, the African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org), and the State government of Kaduna kickstart the construction of Phase 1 of the Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) program.   

    The groundbreaking ceremony starts in Kaduna on Tuesday, 8 April, where the chief guest, African Development Bank Group President Dr Akinwumi Adesina, will join Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, and the State Governor of Kaduna, Uba Sani. From Kaduna, Dr Adesina will head to Cross River State, where, together with the Federal Government and the State Governor, Bassey Edet Otu, a second groundbreaking ceremony will take place.  

    The $538 million first phase of the Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones program project includes eight states: Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Cross River, Imo, Ogun, Oyo, and the Federal Capital Territory. The program launched in 2022 with $210 million from the African Development Bank and support from the Islamic Development Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and ARISE Integrated Industrial Platforms. 

    The Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones program will boost Nigeria’s food production and reduction importation, generate jobs for youth, safeguard the country’s foreign exchange, and transform rural areas from areas of misery into zones of prosperity.  

    Last year, Nigeria spent $4.7 billion importing food.  The Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones program is designed to reverse this trend by unlocking local production potential and strengthening agro-industrial value chains nationwide.  

    This initiative will increase agricultural productivity by over 60%, reduce post-harvest losses and strengthen value chains from farm to market. The cities of Kaduna and Cross River will host the Agro-Industrial Hubs, Agricultural Transformation Centers, and Aggregation Centers in the production zones, which are the foundational building blocks of the SAPZ program.  

    The program has the potential to create more than 60,000 jobs in each of the pioneering states.  The sites were strategically selected for their agricultural potential, infrastructure readiness, and prime geographical location, ensuring they drive Nigeria’s agro-industrial growth. For Kaduna, the focus will be on maize, soybeans, ginger, and tomatoes.  Cross River will leverage its cocoa, cassava, and rice.  Additionally, for both states, the SAPZ sites are located near major universities, such as Ahmadu Bello University in Kaduna and the University of Calabar in Cross River. Proximity to universities will provide access to research, innovation, and skilled human capital, further strengthening the agro-industrial transformation. 

    Several other state governors, federal government officials, and development partners will attend the two groundbreaking ceremonies. With 37% of the African Development Bank Group’s $5.1 billion Nigeria portfolio dedicated to private sector initiatives, Nigeria presents substantial opportunities for partnership in its ongoing development.  

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Providing farmworkers with health insurance is worth it for their employers − new research

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Lowrey, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain and Health Sciences, Northeastern University

    Farmworkers at Del Bosque Farms pick and pack melons on a mobile platform in Firebaugh, Calif., in July 2021. AP Photo/Terry Chea

    Agricultural employers who provide farmworkers with health insurance earn higher profits, even after accounting for the cost of that coverage. In addition, farmworkers who get health insurance through their employers are more productive and earn more money than those who do not.

    These are the key findings from our study published in the March 2025 issue of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

    To conduct this research, we crunched over three decades of data from the Labor Department’s National Agricultural Workers Survey. We focused on California, the nation’s largest producer of fruits, nuts and other labor-intensive agricultural products in the U.S., from 1989 to 2022.

    We determined that if 20% more farmworkers got health insurance coverage, they would have earned $23,063 a year in 2022, up from $22,482 if they did not. Their employers, meanwhile, would earn $7,303 in net profits per worker annually in this same scenario, versus $6,598.

    Why it matters

    Roughly half of California’s agricultural employers are facing labor shortages at a time when the average age of U.S. farmworkers is also rising.

    Some of them, including grape producers, are responding by investing more heavily in labor-saving equipment, which helps reduce the need for seasonal manual labor. However, automated harvesting isn’t yet a viable or affordable option for labor-intensive specialty crops such as melons and strawberries.

    Despite labor shortages, agricultural employers may be reluctant to increase total compensation for farmworkers. They may also be wary of providing additional benefits such as health insurance for two main reasons.

    First, seasonal workers are, by definition, transient, meaning that the employer who provides coverage may not necessarily be the same one who benefits from a healthier worker. Second, it costs an employer money but doesn’t necessarily benefit them in the future if the worker moves on.

    Most U.S. farmworkers are immigrants from Mexico or Central America. Roughly 42% are immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal authorization, down from 55% in the early 2000s.

    As the share of farmworkers who are unauthorized immigrants has declined, the share who are U.S. citizens – including those born here – has grown and now stands at about 39%.

    The low wages farmworkers earn offer little incentive for more U.S. citizens and permanent residents to take these jobs. These jobs might become more attractive if employers offered health care coverage to protect the health of the worker and their household.

    Farmworkers who lack legal authorization to be in the U.S. are not eligible for private health insurance policies, and many can’t enroll in Medicaid, a government-run health insurance program that’s primarily for low-income Americans and people with disabilities. Regardless, some employers do take steps to help them gain access to health care services. As of 2025, a large share of farmworkers remain uninsured, including many citizens and immigrants with legal status.

    Limited access to health care is an unfortunate reality for farmworkers, whose jobs are physically demanding and dangerous. In addition, farmworkers are paid at or near the minimum wage and are constantly searching for their next employment opportunity. This uncertainty causes high levels of stress, which can contribute to chronic health issues such as hypertension.

    What still isn’t known

    It is hard to estimate the effect of employer-provided health insurance on workers and employers, since labor market outcomes are a result of highly complex interactions.

    For example, wages, productivity and how long someone keeps their job are highly interdependent variables determined by the interaction between what workers seek and what employers offer. And wages do not always reflect a worker’s skills and abilities, as some people are more willing to accept a job with low pay if their compensation includes good benefits such as health insurance.

    The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

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

    – ref. Providing farmworkers with health insurance is worth it for their employers − new research – https://theconversation.com/providing-farmworkers-with-health-insurance-is-worth-it-for-their-employers-new-research-253200

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The founder kings of Silicon Valley: Dual-class stock gives US social media company controllers nearly as much power as ByteDance has over TikTok

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Gregory H. Shill, Professor of Law & Michael and Brenda Sandler Faculty Fellow in Corporate Law, University of Iowa

    When Congress passed a law in 2024 to ban TikTok unless it came under U.S. ownership, lawmakers argued that the app’s Chinese parent company posed national security concerns. The Trump administration, which had granted the viral video app a reprieve shortly after taking office in January 2025, extended that pause again on April 4 after the Chinese government reportedly scuttled a planned deal.

    Regardless of how this all shakes out, the TikTok fight underscores deeper concerns about who controls social media in the United States.

    Given that worry, it might surprise Americans to learn that nearly every social media giant is controlled by just one or two men. For example, Mark Zuckerberg controls Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, while Larry Page and Sergey Brin control Alphabet, which owns YouTube and Google.

    What does “control” mean? These companies are publicly traded – anybody can buy or sell their shares – but a legal mechanism known as dual-class stock gives founders extra votes in shareholder decisions. The dual-class structure crowns these men “corporate royalty,” as one former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner has put it, granting them near-absolute control of corporate policy and resources without requiring them to take on commensurate financial risk.

    While TikTok is unusual in many respects, the way it vests power in one man is actually quite banal. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is privately held, but it’s reportedly controlled by a co-founder, Chinese national Zhang Yiming, via a dual-class structure.

    As a professor of corporate law, I’d urge policymakers and the public to consider the societal risks of a system that allows a single person to wield full control over a major corporation through dual-class stock.

    The dual-class effect: Meta as a case study

    In a standard single-class structure – where voting power tracks the amount of company equity a shareholder owns – someone seeking total control of a company must ordinarily spend a lot of money buying up shares, which also means assuming a lot of risk. This “skin in the game” requirement limits how much influence a single person can exert on a company.

    That safeguard is informal, not mandatory, and dual-class structures do away with it. Ascendant among Silicon Valley firms since Google’s 2004 initial public offering in the U.S. and recently legalized in the U.K., the dual-class model is fiercely debated in corporate governance circles. To date, however, its downsides have been understood only as a problem for shareholders, not society, despite broad and bipartisan concern about the influence of Big Tech.

    Let’s pick on Meta as an example. Zuckerberg reportedly owns just 13.5% of the company’s equity, but because he owns 99.7% of the supervoting shares, he controls 61% of the company’s votes.

    This setup gives him a lock on corporate policy as a controlling shareholder, even though he only owns a bit over one-eighth of Meta stock by value. He has full control of the company without placing anywhere near an equivalent amount of money at risk.

    You don’t have to be the parent of an Instagram-addicted teenager to see that Meta has generated what might be described as social costs. For example, Amnesty International has alleged that Facebook algorithms “substantially contributed to the atrocities perpetrated by the Myanmar military” in 2017. Facebook has also been criticized for promoting misinformation during past U.S. elections and for suppressing embarrassing stories about Hunter Biden.

    These examples underscore broader social concerns around content moderation, privacy and tech titans’ outsized political influence. Notably, Zuckerberg – who has been associated with progressive causes in the past – has moved to embrace President Donald Trump strongly in recent months and asked for Trump’s support for Meta in a legal battle with the European Union.

    When corporate control meets the Supreme Court

    In a 2023 law journal article, I noted that recent Supreme Court decisions expanding corporate constitutional rights stand to give company founders unprecedented power to shape society. While the rise of founder-controlled social media giants with distinct political agendas has gotten a lot of attention, the widening scope of what is deemed protected corporate speech and religious exercise hasn’t been a part of that conversation.

    I think there’s a real possibility that these two streams will converge, granting constitutional protection to “founder kings” who wish to leverage company resources for private agendas. Two recent legal developments raise the stakes.

    First, the courts – and in particular the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts – have been expanding corporate constitutional rights, which could allow dual-class founders to carve out exceptions to generally applicable laws.

    Second, recent legal changes in Delaware – which despite its tiny size is the leading corporate law jurisdiction in the U.S. – could make it easier for dual-class controlling shareholders to exercise power within their companies.

    To get a sense of the potential consequences, suppose the controlling shareholder of a dual-class company were to cause it to defy a federal mandate – for example, a requirement to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception – on the grounds that complying would violate their religious beliefs. The Supreme Court in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell recognized exactly this sort of faith-based exception for a large family-owned but privately held business.

    Would it recognize such an exception for a company like Snap? The company, best known for its app Snapchat, is publicly traded, but just two men, Robert Murphy and Evan Spiegel, control 99.5% of the voting power.

    We can’t be sure. Hobby Lobby is different from Snap in many ways. Yet what they have in common is the ability of their owners to plausibly claim a unitary speech or religious exercise interest that would not characterize a typical large business. Snap’s public owners have no say at all – zero votes – in the company’s affairs. If the controllers of Snap asserted a religious basis for exempting the company from a regulation – and to be clear, this is a purely hypothetical example – the courts might well indulge the claim.

    The judicial system’s expanding view of corporate constitutional rights – seen not just in Hobby Lobby but in Citizens United v. FEC and a number of more recent and ongoing cases in state and lower federal courts – could empower founders to leverage their businesses for private agendas. Whether or not this is likely for Snap in particular, the combination of the dual-class model and changes in the law would seem to leave the door open.

    Elon Musk vs. the dual-class model

    A fitting contrast might be none other than Twitter – renamed X after Elon Musk acquired it and who recently merged it into xAI, another Musk-led venture.

    As a privately held company, xAI is not required to file public investor reports, and much about its ownership structure remains opaque. But let’s assume the company is majority-owned by Musk in a conventional single-class structure – the type Twitter had before he bought it. Given a chance to provoke, Musk has consistently proved eager to raise his hand. Couldn’t he use his control to get X or xAI – we’ll stick with “X” for simplicity – to exercise the same vast control that Murphy and Spiegel could at Snap, or Zuckerberg at Meta?

    Yes – but with a subtle yet important difference.

    There’s a certain logic to X’s key corporate decisions being vested in Musk. Quite famously, he ponied up US$44 billion to buy the entire company. Legal prohibitions on the deployment of private resources for influence are confined to a small universe of cases – antitrust, bribery, certain types of campaign contributions. Those resources include businesses, which are a form of property, that are owned by wealthy individuals or groups. With limited exceptions, people can use their own property as they wish.

    In a dual-class company, though, controllers use other people’s property as they wish. They can get the immense legal, economic and organizational power of the corporate form without having to put much skin in the game.

    Beyond TikTok: The conversation the US should be having

    Traditionally, questions of rich-guy influence have been seen through the lens of politics, taxes or public regulation. But seeing them as questions about the exercise of private corporate control makes clear the special social challenges posed by dual-class stock.

    Wall Street has mostly accepted the bargain: ironclad insulation of Zuckerberg in exchange for rock-solid Meta returns. But this debate is not only of interest for the investment community. Everyone has a stake in its outcome.

    It’s fair for the public to question the wisdom of allowing company founders to leverage the resources and newly jumbo-sized constitutional rights of large corporations in service of a special agenda – be it for a foreign government, a political party or a religious faith – that isn’t even connected to classical purposes of the corporation or advantages of the dual-class model.

    The distinctive risks posed by TikTok are mostly unrelated to its share structure. But the debate over the ban-or-sell law offers a reminder: The powers created by dual-class stock aren’t unique to Chinese control. America’s homegrown-found kings wield them, too.

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

    – ref. The founder kings of Silicon Valley: Dual-class stock gives US social media company controllers nearly as much power as ByteDance has over TikTok – https://theconversation.com/the-founder-kings-of-silicon-valley-dual-class-stock-gives-us-social-media-company-controllers-nearly-as-much-power-as-bytedance-has-over-tiktok-253671

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Cities that want to attract business might want to focus less on financial incentives and more on making people feel safe

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kaitlyn DeGhetto, Associate Professor of Management, University of Dayton

    To attract business investment, American cities and states offer companies billions of dollars in incentives, such as tax credits. As the theory goes, when governments create a business-friendly environment, it encourages investment, leading to job creation and economic growth.

    While this theory may seem logical on its face, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Business investment follows employees, not just the other way around. In fact, our research suggests workers care less about whether a city has business-friendly policies and more about how safe they feel living in it. And interestingly, we found that politics influence people’s risk perceptions more than hard data such as crime statistics.

    Our findings have major implications for cities and businesses. If people choose where to live and work based on perceived safety rather than economic incentives, then entrepreneurs and city leaders may need to rethink how they approach growth and investment.

    The many faces of risk

    We are management professors who surveyed more than 500 employees and entrepreneurs from across the country to better understand how they rate 25 large U.S. cities on various dimensions of risk.

    We asked about three different types of risk: risk related to crime, government function and social issues. Risk related to government function includes corruption and instability, while risk related to social issues includes potential infringements on individual rights.

    We found that people’s views of risk weren’t driven primarily by objective statistics, such as FBI crime data. Instead, they were shaped by factors such as media representations, word of mouth and geographic stereotypes.

    For example, studies suggest that crime in Denver has been rising, and U.S. News and World Report recently ranked it as the 10th most dangerous city based on FBI crime reports. However, the employees and entrepreneurs we surveyed ranked Denver as the safest city in the country.

    It’s all politics

    We found that political perspectives were the main factor biasing the rankings. For example, conservative-leaning employees and entrepreneurs believed that Portland, Oregon, is dangerous, ranking it as America’s ninth-riskiest city. In contrast, those who are liberal-leaning ranked it as the second-safest city in the country.

    Both of these beliefs can’t be accurate. Instead, when basing the ranking on objective crime data from the FBI, U.S. News ranked Portland the 15th most dangerous city in the country.

    When assessing risk related to how the government functions, conservatives praised politicians in Nashville, Charlotte and Dallas, while the liberals praised those in Denver, Minneapolis and Portland. Similarly, when considering risk related to social issues, conservatives said New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco were “risky,” while the liberals said Tampa, Miami and Houston should be avoided.

    Our findings also suggest that political perspectives influence the types of risk that employers and employees care about. For example, conservatives tend to care more about crime-related risk than liberals, and liberals care more about risk related to social issues.

    Now what?

    We’re not advocating that city leaders drop financial incentives altogether, or that employers ignore them. Evidence suggests that financial incentives and other business-friendly policies may be effective at attracting businesses and strengthening local economies.

    However, our research suggests that when individuals are making important life decisions about where to live, work and invest, a city’s level of risk matters. Importantly, beliefs about risk are subjective and are biased by political perspectives.

    In our view, city leaders must recognize and address concerns about crime, governance and social issues while actively working to improve public perceptions of their cities. Likewise, businesses may want to consider investing in cities that are less politically polarized when making investment decisions.

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

    – ref. Cities that want to attract business might want to focus less on financial incentives and more on making people feel safe – https://theconversation.com/cities-that-want-to-attract-business-might-want-to-focus-less-on-financial-incentives-and-more-on-making-people-feel-safe-250247

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Peru’s ancient irrigation systems turned deserts into farms because of the culture − without it, the systems failed

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ari Caramanica, Assistant Professor of Archaeology, Vanderbilt University

    A pre-Hispanic canal funnels water from mountains to farm fields. Ari Caramanica

    Seeing the north coast of Peru for the first time, you would be hard-pressed to believe it’s one of the driest deserts in the world.

    Parts of the region receive less than an inch of rain in an entire year. Yet, water and greenery are everywhere. This is the nation’s agro-industrial heartland, and, thanks to irrigation canals, almost every inch of the floodplain is blanketed in lucrative export crops, such as sugarcane, asparagus and blueberries.

    However, the apparent success of this system masks an underlying fragility.

    Water shortages have plagued the region for centuries, and now modern climate change combined with agro-industrial practices have further intensified droughts. In response, the Peruvian government has invested billions of dollars in irrigation infrastructure in recent years designed to deliver more water from a resource more than 100 miles away: glaciers in the Andes.

    But the Andean glaciers are disappearing as global temperatures rise. Peru has lost over half its glacier surface area since 1962. At the same time, floods often connected to wet El Niño years are increasing in both frequency and intensity. These floods often destroy or obstruct critical irrigation infrastructure.

    Andean glaciers are disappearing as global temperatures rise. Peru lost over half its glacier surface area in the past half-century.
    mmphoto/DigitalVision via Getty Images

    As an archaeologist investigating societal responses to environmental and climate disaster in Peru, I’m interested in unraveling the histories of complex systems to understand how to improve similar systems today. To understand the Peruvian heartland’s vulnerabilities, it helps to look to the deep past.

    Most of the modern canal network originally dates to pre-Hispanic times, more than 1400 years ago. However, evidence suggests that while the canal systems of the past may have looked similar to those of the present, they functioned in more efficient, flexible ways. The key to adapting to our present and future climate may lie in comprehending the knowledge systems of the past – not just the equipment, technology or infrastructure, but how people used it.

    An environment of extremes

    The north coast of Peru is an environment of extremes.

    In this desert, thousands of years ago, societies encountered many of the same challenges posed by the modern climate crisis: expanding drylands, water scarcity, vulnerable food production systems, and frequent, intense natural disasters.

    Yet, people not only occupied this area for millennia, they thrived in it. Moche and Chimu societies created sophisticated, complex political and religious institutions, art and technology, and one of the largest pyramidal structures in the Americas.

    Relief of fish adorn an adobe wall in the historic Tschudi Complex archaeological site at Chan Chan, the former capital of the Chimu empire in Peru.
    FabulousFabs/Flickr, CC BY-NC

    When the Spanish arrived on the desert north coast of Peru shortly after 1532 C.E., early chroniclers remarked on the verdant, green valleys across the region.

    The Spanish immediately recognized the importance of the canal network. They had used similar canal technology in Spain for centuries. So, they set about conscripting Indigenous labor and adapting the irrigation system to their goals.

    Just a few decades later, however, historic records describe sand dunes and scrublands invading the green valleys, water shortages, and in 1578 a massive El Niño flood that nearly ended the young colony.

    So how did the Indigenous operation of this landscape succeed, where the Spanish and the modern-day agro-industrial complex have repeatedly failed?

    Culture was crucial for ancient canal systems

    Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms – what archaeologists call culture – were fundamentally integrated into technological solutions in this part of Peru in ancient times. Isolating and removing the tools from that knowledge made them less effective.

    Scientists, policymakers and stakeholders searching for models of sustainable agriculture and climate adaptations can look to the archaeological record. Successfully applying past practices to today’s challenges requires learning about the cultures that put those tools to work effectively for so long, so long ago.

    The pre-Hispanic societies of Peru developed agricultural principles around the realities of the desert, which included both dry seasons and flash floods.

    Large-scale irrigation infrastructure was combined with low-cost, easily modified canals. Aqueducts doubled as sediment traps to capture nutrients. Canal branches channeled both river water and floodwater. Even check-dams – small dams used to control high-energy floods – worked in multiple ways. Usually made of mounded cobble and gravel, they reduced the energy of flash floods, captured rich sediments and recharged the water table.

    A drone’s view of sugarcane fields shows a pre-Hispanic adobe aqueduct on the right and small feeder canals in the modern fields.
    Ari Caramanica

    The initial failures of the Spanish on the north coast exemplify the problem of trying to adopt technology without understanding the cultural insights behind it: While they may be identical in form, a Spanish canal isn’t a Moche canal.

    Spanish canals operated in a temperate climate and were managed by individual farmers who could maintain or increase their water flow. The Moche and Chimu canal was tied to a complex labor system that synchronized cleaning and maintenance and prioritized the efficient use of water. What’s more, Moche canals functioned in tandem with floodwater diversion canals, which activated during El Niño events to create niches of agricultural productivity amid disasters.

    A handmade gate on a modern canal in northern Peru doesn’t seem that different from ancient canals, but the pre-Hispanic canal systems were generally more conceptually complex and interconnected.
    Ari Caramanica

    Desert farming required flexibility and multifunctionality from its infrastructure. Achieving that often meant forgoing impermeable materials and permanent designs, which stands in stark contrast to the way modern-day water management works are constructed.

    Copying ancient practices without the culture

    Today, the Peruvian government is pushing forward with a decades-old, multibillion-dollar project to deliver water to the north coast from a glacier-fed river.

    The Chavimochic project promises a grand transformation, turning desert into productive farmland. But it may be sacrificing long-term resilience for short-term prosperity.

    The project feeds on the temporary abundance of glacial meltwater. This is creating a water boom as the ice melts, but it will inevitably be followed by a devastating water bust as the glaciers all but disappear, which scientists estimate could happen by the end of the 21st century.

    Farmers sell locally grown corn and other crops at a street market in Piura, Peru.
    Christian Ender/Getty Images

    Meanwhile, sustainable land management practices of past Indigenous inhabitants continue to support ecosystems hundreds and even thousands of years later. Studies show higher levels of biodiversity, crucial to ecosystem health, near archaeological sites.

    On the Peruvian north coast, pre-Hispanic infrastructure continues to capture floodwater during El Niño events. When their modern-day fields are flooded or destroyed by these events, farmers will sometimes move their crops to areas surrounding archaeological remains where their corn, squash and bean plants can tap into the trapped water and sediments and safely grow without the need for further irrigation.

    Critics might point out the difficulty of scaling up ancient technologies for global applications, find them rudimentary, or would prefer to appropriate the design without bothering with understanding “the cultural stuff.”

    But this framing misses the bigger point: What made these technologies effective was the cultural stuff. Not just the tools but how they were used by the societies operating them. As long as modern engineering solutions try to update ancient technologies without considering the cultures that made them function, these projects will struggle.

    Understanding the past matters

    Archaeologists have an important role to play in building a climate-resilient future, but any meaningful progress would benefit from a historical approach that considers multiple ways of understanding the environment, of operating an irrigation canal and of organizing an agriculture-based economy.

    That approach, in my view, begins with saving indigenous languages, where cultural logic is deeply embedded, as well as preserving archaeological and sacred sites, and creating partnerships built on trust with the people who have worked with the land and whose cultures have adapted their practices to the changing climate for thousands of years.

    Ari Caramanica receives funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities.

    – ref. Peru’s ancient irrigation systems turned deserts into farms because of the culture − without it, the systems failed – https://theconversation.com/perus-ancient-irrigation-systems-turned-deserts-into-farms-because-of-the-culture-without-it-the-systems-failed-251199

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The ‘courage to be’ in uncertain times − how one 20th-century philosopher defined bravery

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mordechai Gordon, Professor of Education, Quinnipiac University

    Over the past few weeks, as negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine drag on, I’ve thought back to Feb. 28, 2025: the day of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s heated visit to the Oval Office.

    Zelenskyy has called the tone of the meeting “regrettable” as he tries to salvage support for Ukraine. But in some ways, he has stood by his decision to speak up as President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated his country, calling it ungrateful for foreign assistance. “In that conversation, I was defending the dignity of Ukraine,” he told Time magazine.

    Watching Zelenskyy left me thinking about political courage. Philosophers have written about bravery for thousands of years, but what is it?

    Plato, for instance, wrote about courage as an important virtue that can assist political leaders. Plato scholar Linda Rabieh argues that courage is the ability to be steadfast in the moment of truth. Angela Hobbs, a British scholar, says that courage might be called “spiritedness”: the ability to act boldly in adverse situations.

    Some of my own recent research in philosophy of education has also focused on courage. In particular, I have been interested in Paul Tillich’s notion of the “courage to be,” as well as its implications for politics and education. Tillich was a German philosopher and theologian who left the country after the Nazis rose to power.

    Tillich Park in New Harmony, Ind., dedicated to the philosopher and theologian.
    christina rutz/Flickr, CC BY-SA

    More than a mindset

    Born in a village in eastern Germany in 1886, Tillich lived in a Europe ravaged by two world wars. As such, he experienced firsthand the fundamental anxiety that many felt during this period of prolonged violence and destruction.

    In the early 1930s, Tillich wrote “The Socialist Decision,” which can be interpreted as a challenge to right-wing populist movements. The Nazis banned the book, and he soon immigrated to the United States, where he would spend the rest of his life and write his most important philosophical and theological works.

    Tillich’s book “The Courage to Be,” published in 1952, is based on a series of lectures that he delivered at Yale University. Tillich was inspired to address courage, since he viewed this concept as one that integrates theological, sociological and philosophical problems. Moreover, Tillich suggests that this concept was useful for understanding societies’ challenges after World War II.

    Tillich moved to the U.S. in the 1930s, after the Nazis’ rise to power.
    Fritz Eschen/ullstein bild via Getty Images

    At its core, the book springs from an attempt to respond to anxiety: people’s anxious search for meaning and security, especially as many people lost faith in the religious traditions that once anchored their sense of purpose and reality. There is courage, Tillich writes, in affirming oneself despite that sense of emptiness, and despite the knowledge that our lives are short and uncertain.

    Tillich defines “the courage to be” as “the ethical act in which man affirms his own being in spite of those elements of his existence which conflict with his essential self-affirmation.” In other words, it is not simply an attitude or disposition. The courage to be is a deed – the ability to stay true to oneself.

    When it comes to ethics or politics, Tillich’s idea of courage entails the ability to sacrifice things such as pleasure, happiness and, in the most extreme cases, one’s life for some higher cause. Such acts of courage are praiseworthy because they suggest that the most ethically essential parts – the noble aspects – of our being are prevailing over the less essential.

    In spite of, a part of

    What Tillich calls “courage to be” consists of two indivisible parts or aspects.

    The first is what he refers to as “the courage to be in spite of”: courageously choosing to affirm one’s essential being, one’s core values, despite tough and even daunting forces of resistance.

    Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle for civil rights during the 1960s provides a good example of this aspect of the courage to be. Documentary evidence indicates that the FBI tried to destroy his reputation with blackmail and wiretaps, not to mention the close to 30 times he was jailed.

    Martin Luther King Jr., kneeling on left, leads marchers singing and praying during a protest against segregated housing policies in Chicago in August 1966.
    AP Photo/File

    The second aspect Tillich describes in his book is “the courage to be as a part,” to partake in something larger than oneself. Tillich writes that “the self is self only because it has a world, a structured universe, to which it belongs.” The courage to be as a part could mean participating in a political movement, a religious community, a worker strike, or any other initiative that involves people coming together for a common purpose.

    For Tillich, these types of courage should not be considered separate qualities but two interrelated aspects of the courage to be.

    At Zelenskyy’s meeting in the Oval Office, I believe we witnessed a leader embodying both senses of the courage to be. As a president, Zelenskyy stood up for the right of his country to defend itself in the face of Russia’s assault. He remained steadfast in spite of efforts by Trump and Vance to pressure him to accept an agreement that would not have provided security guarantees for Ukraine.

    Yet it seemed to me the plainspoken, animated Zelenskyy also displayed Tillich’s notion of the courage to be as a part. He acted not only as an individual, or a politician, but as a Ukrainian trying to defend his country from an invader − a cause that has inspired protests around the globe.

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

    – ref. The ‘courage to be’ in uncertain times − how one 20th-century philosopher defined bravery – https://theconversation.com/the-courage-to-be-in-uncertain-times-how-one-20th-century-philosopher-defined-bravery-250576

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Social media before bedtime wreaks havoc on our sleep − a sleep researcher explains why screens alone aren’t the main culprit

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Brian N. Chin, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Trinity College

    Social media use before bedtime can be stimulating in ways that screen time alone is not. Adam Hester/Tetra Images via Getty Images

    “Avoid screens before bed” is one of the most common pieces of sleep advice. But what if the real problem isn’t screen time − it’s the way we use social media at night?

    Sleep deprivation is one of the most widespread yet overlooked public health issues, especially among young adults and adolescents.

    Despite needing eight to 10 hours of sleep, most adolescents fall short, while nearly two-thirds of young adults regularly get less than the recommended seven to nine hours.

    Poor sleep isn’t just about feeling tired − it’s linked to worsened mental health, emotion regulation, memory, academic performance and even increased risk for chronic illness and early mortality.

    At the same time, social media is nearly universal among young adults, with 84% using at least one platform daily. While research has long focused on screen time as the culprit for poor sleep, growing evidence suggests that how often people check social media − and how emotionally engaged they are − matters even more than how long they spend online.

    As a social psychologist and sleep researcher, I study how social behaviors, including social media habits, affect sleep and well-being. Sleep isn’t just an individual behavior; it’s shaped by our social environments and relationships.

    And one of the most common yet underestimated factors shaping modern sleep? How we engage with social media before bed.

    Emotional investment in social media

    Beyond simply measuring time spent on social media, researchers have started looking at how emotionally connected people feel to their social media use.

    Some studies suggest that the way people emotionally engage with social media may have a greater impact on sleep quality than the total time they spend online.

    In a 2024 study of 830 young adults, my colleagues and I examined how different types of social media engagement predicted sleep problems. We found that frequent social media visits and emotional investment were stronger predictors of poor sleep than total screen time. Additionally, presleep cognitive arousal and social comparison played a key role in linking social media engagement to sleep disruption, suggesting that social media’s effects on sleep extend beyond simple screen exposure.

    I believe these findings suggest that cutting screen time alone may not be enough − reducing how often people check social media and how emotionally connected they feel to it may be more effective in promoting healthier sleep habits.

    How social media disrupts sleep

    If you’ve ever struggled to fall asleep after scrolling through social media, it’s not just the screen keeping you awake. While blue light can delay melatonin production, my team’s research and that of others suggests that the way people interact with social media may play an even bigger role in sleep disruption.

    Here are some of the biggest ways social media interferes with your sleep:

    • Presleep arousal: Doomscrolling and emotionally charged content on social media keeps your brain in a state of heightened alertness, making it harder to relax and fall asleep. Whether it’s political debates, distressing news or even exciting personal updates, emotionally stimulating content can trigger increased cognitive and physiological arousal that delays sleep onset.

    • Social comparison: Viewing idealized social media posts before bed can lead to upward social comparison, increasing stress and making it harder to sleep. People tend to compare themselves to highly curated versions of others’ lives − vacations, fitness progress, career milestones − which can lead to feelings of inadequacy and anxiety that disrupt sleep.

    • Habitual checking: Social media use after lights out is a strong predictor of poor sleep, as checking notifications and scrolling before bed can quickly become an automatic habit. Studies have shown that nighttime-specific social media use, especially after lights are out, is linked to shorter sleep duration, later bedtimes and lower sleep quality. This pattern reflects bedtime procrastination, where people delay sleep despite knowing it would be better for their health and well-being.

    • Fear of missing out, or FOMO: The urge to stay connected also keeps many people scrolling long past their intended bedtime, making sleep feel secondary to staying updated. Research shows that higher FOMO levels are linked to more frequent nighttime social media use and poorer sleep quality. The anticipation of new messages, posts or updates can create a sense of social pressure to stay online and reinforce the habit of delaying sleep.

    Taken together, these factors make social media more than just a passive distraction − it becomes an active barrier to restful sleep. In other words, that late-night scroll isn’t harmless − it’s quietly rewiring your sleep and well-being.

    How to use social media without sleep disruption

    You don’t need to quit social media, but restructuring how you engage with it at night could help. Research suggests that small behavioral changes to your bedtime routine can make a significant difference in sleep quality. I suggest trying these practical, evidence-backed strategies for improving your sleep:

    • Give your brain time to wind down: Avoid emotionally charged content 30 to 60 minutes before bed to help your mind relax and prepare for sleep.

    • Create separation between social media and sleep: Set your phone to “Do Not Disturb” or leave it outside the bedroom to avoid the temptation of late-night checking.

    • Reduce mindless scrolling: If you catch yourself endlessly refreshing, take a small, mindful pause and ask yourself: “Do I actually want to be on this app right now?”

    A brief moment of awareness can help break the habit loop.

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

    – ref. Social media before bedtime wreaks havoc on our sleep − a sleep researcher explains why screens alone aren’t the main culprit – https://theconversation.com/social-media-before-bedtime-wreaks-havoc-on-our-sleep-a-sleep-researcher-explains-why-screens-alone-arent-the-main-culprit-251453

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Defence medical waiting times cut as new appointments system launches

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    News story

    Defence medical waiting times cut as new appointments system launches

    New Defence appointment management approach results in a 26% reduction in waiting times for patients accessing doctor appointments in primary healthcare.

    MOD Crown Copyright

    Total Triage, introduced by Strategic Command’s Defence Medical Services, has been adopted by Defence medical centres and is designed to reduce unnecessary face-to-face appointments and enable greater and quicker access to medical care for those in need. One of the first centres to use it has seen a 90% reduction in such doctor appointments, with 70% of all enquiries handled at first point of contact and leading to greater patient and staff satisfaction.

    The new system completed its national rollout at 105 Defence Primary Healthcare medical centres across the UK earlier this year. In addition, Total Triage hubs have now been established at 35 Defence medical centres with a further 13 neighbouring centres permanently using the hubs by local agreement.

    Under the new arrangements patients submit a request through the online form, or phone the medical centre where the request is triaged and allocated to a suitable qualified clinician within the multi-disciplinary team. The patient should receive a call back within 24 working hours by a medical professional to be given medical advice or alternatively referred to either a face-to-face appointment or remote consultation with a specialist. This ensures the patient gets to see the right healthcare worker at the right time.

    Flight Sergeant Chris Workman MBE, Project Lead for Total Triage, said:

    The health and welfare of our patients is our top priority, and the introduction of Total Triage is already seeing positive results in healthcare outcomes. Patients have reported positive feedback regarding the ease of submitting their request alongside the speedy delivery of their clinical outcome with some 4 week waiting lists being reduced to zero days.

    Equally, staff are experiencing a boost as the Total Triage team have enjoyed a wider range of patient consultations, developed a distinct sense of camaraderie and a renewed pride in the delivery of joint healthcare for our patients.

    This is based the innovative system used by NHS GP practices during the COVID19 pandemic, to ensure people could still receive medical advice when in person appointments were not possible. The concept was then adapted by the Defence Medical Services for use at medical centres, reducing unnecessary travel by patients as well as improving resilience across the regions as medical centres work collaboratively to improve patient outcomes. This has resulted in a reduced amount of appointment booking calls in the morning which lowers the pressure on reception staff and enables quicker patient treatment.

    Director Defence Healthcare, Air Vice Marshal Dave McLoughlin, said:

    The implementation of Total Triage has been a game changer for Defence Primary Healthcare. It has resulted in an overall reduction in waiting times for doctor and nurse appointments by nearly a third. This ensures that the right patient sees the right healthcare worker at the right time.

    Providing safe and effective healthcare to the Armed Forces population is a priority for Defence. Witnessing the dedication of the teams delivering this initiative at scale and at pace, alongside the reports of high levels of patient and staff satisfaction is remarkable and inspiring. My sincere thanks to everyone who has worked hard to implement Total Triage.

    This is part of wider programme of primary healthcare improvements set up by the Defence Medical Services to identify and deliver better healthcare to Armed Forces personnel, including the introduction of SMS appointment reminders and combining practices to increase access to medical services and resources.

    Updates to this page

    Published 8 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Integrated Settlements 2025 to 2026 grant determination letters

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Correspondence

    Integrated Settlements 2025 to 2026 grant determination letters

    Copies of the grant determination letters for the Integrated Settlements 2025 to 2026.

    Applies to England

    Documents

    Grant determination letter: Greater Manchester Mayoral Combined Authority

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    Grant determination letter: West Midlands Mayoral Combined Authority

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    Details

    On this page we have made available copies of the grant determination letters for the Integrated Settlements 2025 to 2026 provided to Greater Manchester Mayoral Combined Authority and West Midlands Mayoral Combined Authority.

    Updates to this page

    Published 8 April 2025

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    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Update on Free Trade Agreement negotiations with South Korea

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    News story

    Update on Free Trade Agreement negotiations with South Korea

    Update following round 4 of negotiations on an upgraded Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with South Korea

    Negotiations took place in London between 10 and 21 March 2025. 

    The fourth round of negotiations to upgrade the existing Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Republic of Korea (RoK) took place in London between 10 and 21 March 2025. As with previous rounds, negotiators from both sides engaged productively across a broad range of areas in an ongoing effort to enhance and solidify the economic partnership between us. 

    Negotiations continue to centre around three key objectives: 

    1. Securing and future proofing existing arrangements: Progress was made in rules of origin discussions. Product Specific Rules were discussed for a range of important exporting sectors. Negotiators will continue to seek a chapter which accounts for both existing and future supply chains. 

    2. Capturing recent advances in Trade Policy: Negotiations on a new and comprehensive Digital Trade chapter progressed positively, with commitments on data, trade digitisation and business safeguards under discussion this round. 

    3. Supporting our strategic relationship with the Republic of Korea: During the round good progress was made towards agreeing new cooperation commitments covering areas such as the Environment, Trade and Gender Equality and Supply Chains. 

    Economic growth is the core mission of this government, and this FTA has an important role to play in supporting our £15.3 billion trade relationship with the Republic of Korea. 

    The government will only ever sign a trade agreement which aligns with the UK’s national interests, upholding high standards across a range of sectors, including protections for the National Health Service. 

    The fifth round of negotiations is currently expected to take place in Seoul in the Summer of 2025.

    Updates to this page

    Published 8 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Election Diary: The election’s first debate was disaster-free but passion-free too

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

    The election’s first debate, on Sky News on Tuesday night, was disappointingly dull. Viewers who’d been following the campaign would have learned little. There was minimal spontaneity.

    Among the 100 undecided voters in the room, 44 said Anthony Albanese won, 35 thought Peter Dutton came out ahead and 21 were undecided.

    Both camps will be satisfied, because each leader’s main aim was to avoid disaster. A bad mistake, an undisciplined moment, can sour the following day.

    The Liberals will be especially relieved. After difficult days for Dutton, with Trump wading into the campaign and the fiasco over the work-from-home policy, the opposition leader needed to perform creditably. He did that, with commentators scoring the result variously (in some cases in line with the scorer’s political leaning).

    Dutton was under added pressure – just before the two men faced off he learned his father Bruce had been taken to hospital.

    Both leaders were well prepared, and carefully polite. Questions canvassed the “Trump pandemic”, education, health, cost of living, immigration, Albanese’s tax cuts, Dutton’s fuel excise promise, and Gaza.

    When moderator Kieran Gilbert asked audience members to raise their hands if they were “doing it pretty tough” about half did so.

    Albanese seemed to have more material to work with, and made sure he homed in on Dutton’s nuclear policy and his time as health minister.

    Naturally, we saw Albanese’s well-worn Medicare card again.

    The PM dodged an awkward reference to NSW premier Chris Minns’ returning public servants to the office, pivoting to Dutton’s dumping his working from home policy. “Peter hasn’t been able to stand up for his own policy, so I don’t know how he can stand up for Australia.”

    Albanese had a good zinger countering Dutton’s spiel on gas: “The only gas policy that the Coalition have is the gaslighting of the Australia public.”

    Dutton had a cut-through point on the PM’s promise to subsidise solar batteries. “He’s asking you to provide a subsidy or to support a subsidy for people on higher incomes like me to buy a battery at a subsidised price and I don’t believe that’s fair.”

    Rather bizarrely, the Coalition used the cover of the debate to release its delayed modelling for its gas reservation policy, sending it out just as the debate started, embargoed until its finish.

    “Modelling conducted by Frontier Economics has concluded that the Coalition’s National Gas Plan will see a 23% reduction in wholesale gas prices,” the statement said. This would “progressively mean

    • 15% reduction in retail gas bills for industrial customers
    • 7% reduction in retail gas bills for residential customers
    • 8% reduction in wholesale electricity prices
    • 3% reduction in residential electricity prices.”

    And do the debates matter anyway?

    Australian election debates are punctuation points in the campaign. They don’t necessarily carry much weight, although they can affect a candidate’s immediate momentum.

    Ian McAllister, director of the ANU’s Australian Election Study, says fewer and fewer people are watching these debates. In 1993, about seven in ten voters watched; in 2022 only a third did.

    McAllister also says our debates are low grade compared to some overseas. For example, in France, the two candidates sit across from each other, with two moderators and “go for it”. In Australia, debates are “stylised” and the candidates rely heavily on prepared answers.

    Winning or losing the debates is not necessarily a guide to the election result. As the table shows John Howard performed better in elections than in debates.

    NSW Premier Minns defends a back-to-the-office policy

    Peter Dutton took a serious fall over his now-abandoned plan to force Canberra public servants back to the office. But Chris Minns already has many state bureaucrats back at their desks, and on Tuesday declared firmly he won’t be for turning.

    The Minns policy, announced last year, admittedly has had a bumpy start, including problems with the unions. But Minns’ “sell” is very different from the Coalition’s unsuccessful attempt.

    The federal opposition, which often seems obsessed with Canberra public servants, left the impression these bureaucrats working from home were ripping off the system and needed to be brought into line.

    Contrast the positive spin from Minns on Tuesday. After noting most NSW public servants can’t work from home – they’re on the front line – for the rest: “We believe it’s the only way of mentoring the next generation of people, to come through offices and ensure that they’ve got good modelled behaviour, a sense of shared mission and an idea of where they’re going collectively together.

    “In order for us to fulfil the mission of government and public service, it means that you’ve got to build a team culture. And that can really only be done in the workplace.

    “I think our policy is different to Peter Dutton’s, but I just don’t want to mince words. We’ve got to be clear and consistent and we’re not changing our policy.

    “I don’t want any ambiguity about our position. We made that call last year. It was the right decision. And in terms of the mentoring role that a senior person plays in a workplace, whether they’re a manager or not, if they’ve got years under their belt and they’ve got experience, it’s amazing the positive impact they will have on a junior recruit that we’ve just got into the public service and that doesn’t happen on zoom and it doesn’t happen on YouTube and it doesn’t happen over the phone.”

    Minns has consistently proved himself a strong communicator. He often ran rings around Anthony Albanese in responding to the antisemitism crisis.

    Jim Chalmers does the rounds on the tariff crisis

    Treasurer Jim Chalmers is making the most of incumbency in the wake of the Trump tariff upheaval, undertaking an intense round of official activity.

    Chalmers will convene a meeting on Wednesday of the Council of Financial Regulators to discuss the impact globally and locally. Those attending will include the heads of the Reserve Bank, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, Treasury and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

    He will also meet the heads of the Future Fund and the ASX. On Thursday, he will have talks with major employers.

    Chalmers has already convened and attended a Treasury briefing for the prime minister. He has talked with Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock, and been in touch with the CEOs of the major banks and superannuation funds representatives.

    Chalmers is due to debate shadow treasurer Angus Taylor on Wednesday evening.

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

    – ref. Election Diary: The election’s first debate was disaster-free but passion-free too – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-the-elections-first-debate-was-disaster-free-but-passion-free-too-183208

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: AFRICA/SENEGAL – International Colloquium on Religious Diplomacy: An impetus for peace amid global crises

    Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

    Dakar (Agenzia Fides) – Yesterday, April 7, the International Colloquium on Religious Diplomacy (CIDiR) opened at the Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Dakar and will conclude today, April 8. This international event brings together diplomats, researchers, religious authorities, and civil society representatives to discuss the role of religion in resolving today’s conflicts.The opening ceremony was attended by Msgr. Waldemar Stanisław Sommertag, Apostolic Nuncio to Senegal; André Gueye, Archbishop of Dakar; Chief Rabbi of Paris; representatives of the European Union; and leading Muslim religious figures.The CIDiR is part of an initiative led by Thierno Amadou Tidiane Ba, Caliph of Bambilor, and Professor Ahmadou Aly Mbaye, former Rector of UCAD. Together, they are working to strengthen the links between academic knowledge and religious practices to create a more inclusive diplomacy, rooted in local realities while also capable of responding to global challenges.For Thierno Amadou Tidiane Ba, religious diplomacy, long relegated to the background, is an essential response to the tensions in today’s world: “It is not just an alternative, but a necessity,” he emphasizes. “We all have a role to play in building peace. It is not about learning from states and politicians,” the Muslim representative continues.”Instead, we must participate actively, individually, and intellectually to overcome barriers. Peace begins where the will of the people is expressed, where people across borders and institutions decide to forgive one another and reach out.” Both Msgr. André Gueye and Msgr. Waldemar Stanisław Sommertag emphasized that, at a time when geopolitical crises are increasing, religious diplomacy represents an alternative and complementary lever to traditional state-based approaches. Supported by distinguished moral figures, it plays an essential role in mediation, peacemaking, and intercultural dialogue. The conference will address the following topics in plenary sessions and thematic blocks: The Senegalese model of religious coexistence; The contribution of religions to peace in Africa; and issues of immigration and globalization. The aim of the discussions is to formulate concrete ways to better integrate religious actors into decision-making processes at the local and international levels. (A.TS.W) (Agenzia Fides, 8/4/2025)
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  • MIL-OSI Europe: AFRICA/ALGERIA – Diplomatic crisis between Algeria and the three countries of the Sahel Alliance

    Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

    Algiers (Agenzia Fides) – A diplomatic crisis is unfolding between Algeria and the three member countries of the Confederation of Sahel States (better known as the Sahel Alliance, AES): Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. In a communiqué issued yesterday, April 7, the Algerian government rejects the accusations made by Mali (and supported by the other two AES countries) that Algeria is allegedly collaborating with terrorist groups operating in the Sahel region.”The junta of putschists ruling in Mali is vainly attempting to make our country a scapegoat for the setbacks and woes of which the Malian people are paying the heaviest price,” the Algerian statement reads. Tensions between the two countries escalated after the Algerian military shot down a Malian drone hunting jihadist groups on the Mali-Algeria border.According to Algerian sources, the drone was shot down on the night of March 31 and April 1 after flying over Algerian territory twice. According to Algiers, this is not the first violation of Algerian airspace by a Malian drone, but the third in just a few months. The first two violations occurred on August 27, 2024, and December 29, 2024, respectively.In response to the downing of the plane, Mali and its allies Niger and Burkina Faso announced they were recalling their respective ambassadors to Algiers. In return, Algiers decided to “apply the principle of reciprocity and recall its ambassadors to Mali and Niger for consultations and postpone the appointment of its new ambassador to Burkina Faso.” Meanwhile, the Algerian government underlined “the inability of the coup plotters” to “wage a real and effective fight against terrorism by entrusting its leadership to mercenaries, from whom Africa has suffered so much in its recent history.” A clear reference to the soldiers of the Russian private military company Wagner, who have long had a presence in Mali. At the same time, Algiers also maintains important military ties with Moscow, which may now have to try to defuse tensions between its strategic partners in this part of the world. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 8/4/2025)
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  • MIL-OSI Europe: ASIA/PHILIPPINES – Election campaign between dynasties and polarizations: Bishops’ appeal to consider “the well-being of others”

    Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

    PPCRV

    Manila (Agenzia Fides) – In an election campaign marked by events and statements that polarize voters, the Philippines is heading toward the mid-term elections scheduled for May 12, 2025, in which citizens will elect 12 senators, the entire lower house of parliament, and thousands of regional and local representatives.The election campaign, which began on February 11, is dominated by the scandal surrounding Rodrigo Duterte, the former president arrested for crimes against humanity at the instigation of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Duterte continues to run for mayor of Davao City despite his detention at the ICC. This was confirmed by the Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec), which clarified that Duterte has not withdrawn his candidacy for mayor of the city where he began his political career and served for 22 years before becoming president of the Philippines in 2016, nor has he been barred from running. During the 2022 elections, which were later won by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., organizations and observers such as the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) pointed to widespread problems such as vote buying, disinformation campaigns, and even the misuse of state resources by government officials seeking public office.The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) – a church body called upon by civil society to oversee the elections to ensure transparency – also highlighted several factors of serious concern: sexist statements by some candidates expressing violence and contempt for others; the presence of political dynasties in the Philippine landscape; and the significant influence of social media on actors involved in Philippine elections, especially in the local context. “The course of the election campaign,” said Evelyn Singson, president of the PPCRV, “reminds us that the election is sacred and that we should decide and vote based on important values,” citing “fear of God, honesty, education, diligence, helpfulness, caring, and love for the common good.” The fight against “political dynasties,” which are among the factors that lead to corruption, is the specific subject of a petition submitted to the Supreme Court by a group of citizens, including lawyers, former judges, members of social bodies, some Catholic bishops, and representatives of church organizations. Dynasties are prohibited in the 1987 Philippine Constitution, but Congress has never addressed the issue. The signatories of the petition therefore call – as they did in 2012 – for the passage of a special law defining and prohibiting political dynasties. According to non-governmental organizations, clans still dominate politics today: Currently, a quarter of the Senate is made up of just three families, while in the House of Representatives, eight out of ten district seats are held by family dynasties. In light of the upcoming elections, the Catholic bishops of the Philippines have issued a pastoral letter entitled “Be Concerned for the well-being of others,” urging voters to use their voices to protect freedom and ensure the common good. “We must improve the lives of our people, especially the poor and the vulnerable. This is the primary responsibility of a public servant,” reads the letter from the Philippine Bishops’ Conference, which was read during Sunday Masses across the country. “We need competent leaders and legislators with sincere intentions who serve the good of our parishes, cities, provinces, and the entire country,” the letter reads. (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 8/4/2025)
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  • MIL-OSI: Kaseya Joins Forces with Overwatch to Deliver on Brand Promise of Creating an Unfair Advantage for Partners Through Hyperautomation

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    BATAVIA, Ill., April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — High Wire Networks, Inc. (OTCQB: HWNI), Overwatch division announces a strategic partnership with Kaseya, the leading global provider of AI-powered cybersecurity and IT management software. Kaseya is aligned with the vision and leadership of Overwatch’s new executive team and fully supports the company’s bold commitment to its brand promise—creating an unfair advantage for partners and their customers.

    Rather than a standard vendor relationship, Kaseya is leaning in—investing directly in Overwatch’s ability to scale with speed and purpose. Their support strengthens Overwatch’s hyperautomation efforts, helping drive operational velocity and efficiency not only internally but across the partner ecosystem. These efforts simplify go-to-market activities, accelerate onboarding, and deliver faster value to partners, enabling them to serve their customers better.

    “Kaseya has agreed to strategically support our mission of creating an unfair advantage for our channel, partner ecosystem, and their customers by investing in this relationship,” said Ed Vasko, CEO of High Wire-Overwatch.

    “This strategic support empowers High Wire Overwatch to continue innovating our services and solutions while driving greater efficiencies and hyperautomation across our operating structure. By reducing costs and enabling faster, more agile responses to the needs of our partners and their customers, this partnership creates a powerful platform for ongoing innovation. It’s more than an endorsement—it’s a shared commitment to helping our partners win,” Vasko continued.

    Through this collaboration, Overwatch is expanding its cybersecurity capabilities in ways that deliver real, measurable value to its partners. The investment from Kaseya enables Overwatch to enhance its back-office operations with intelligent automation across CRM, ticketing, quoting, and payment systems, streamlining partner onboarding and enabling faster speed to market. This tight integration improves the overall partner experience while reducing the time from quote to cash, ultimately driving increased partner profitability.

    New service enhancements include augmented monitoring and management tools that support scalable vulnerability management, enabling partners to identify and mitigate risks within their own environments and their customers’ infrastructures.

    Overwatch has also launched extended threat monitoring intelligence services that include adversarial dark web monitoring by identifying compromised credentials, domains, and accounts across partner ecosystems.

    Additionally, Kaseya’s support has helped Overwatch design a cyber hygiene starter tier that focuses on the most exploited attack vectors—users, email, endpoints, and cloud productivity platforms—providing partners with a simple and effective foundation for protecting their customers.

    “At Kaseya, we’re dedicated to helping companies like High Wire Overwatch gain a competitive edge in the market,” said Joe Smolarski, President & Chief Customer Officer of Kaseya. “A complete integrated platform from Kaseya will provide unmatched operational efficiency. In addition, the cybersecurity offerings Overwatch can now offer to its customers will be integral in protecting their end-customers against the evolving threats facing small businesses today.”

    This strategic partnership and the investment behind it positions Overwatch to deliver exceptional cybersecurity solutions while creating lasting and scalable advantages for its growing network of partners and their customers.

    About Kaseya   
    Kaseya is the leading global provider of AI-powered cybersecurity and IT management software. Through its customer-centric approach and renowned support, Kaseya delivers best-in-breed technologies that empower organizations to seamlessly manage IT infrastructure, secure networks, backup critical data, manage service operations, and grow their businesses. Kaseya offers a broad array of IT management solutions from industry-leading providers: audIT, ConnectBooster, Datto, Graphus, ID Agent, IT Glue, Kaseya, RapidFire Tools, RocketCyber, SaaS Alerts, Secure Payments, Spanning Cloud Apps, TruMethods, Unitrends and Vonahi. These innovative solutions fuel Kaseya’s IT Complete platform, which addresses the challenges of multifunctional IT professionals. IT Complete empowers them to centrally command hardware, software, security, data, compliance, operations and more from within a comprehensive, integrated, intelligent (AI utilization-optimized), and affordable platform. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Kaseya is privately held with a global presence in more than a dozen countries. To learn more, visit https://www.kaseya.com/. 

    About High Wire Networks
    High Wire Networks, Inc. (OTCQB: HWNI) is a fast-growing, award-winning global provider of managed cybersecurity. Through over 200 channel partners, it delivers trusted managed services for more than 1,100 managed security customers worldwide. End-customers include Fortune 500 companies and many of the nation’s largest government agencies. Its U.S. based 24/7 Network Operations Center and Security Operations Center is located in Chicago, Illinois.

    High Wire was ranked by Frost & Sullivan as a Top 15 Managed Security Service Provider in the Americas for 2024. It was also named to CRN’s MSP 500 and Elite 150 lists of the nation’s top IT managed service providers for 2023 and 2024.

    Learn more at HighWireNetworks.com. Follow the company on X, view its extensive video series on YouTube or connect on LinkedIn.

    Forward-Looking Statements
    The above news release contains forward-looking statements. The statements contained in this document that are not statements of historical fact, including but not limited to, statements identified by the use of terms such as “anticipate,” “appear,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “hope,” “indicate,” “intend,” “likely,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “potential,” “project,” “seek,” “should,” “will,” “would,” and other variations or negative expressions of these terms, including statements related to expected market trends and the Company’s performance, are all “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on assumptions that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, and include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Company and its management. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performances and are subject to a wide range of external factors, uncertainties, business risks, and other risks identified in filings made by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in the company’s expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any statement is based except as required by applicable law and regulations.

    High Wire Networks Contact
    Mark Porter
    Chief Executive Officer
    High Wire Networks
    Tel +1 (952) 974-4000

    Media Contact
    Lori Aleman
    Director of Marketing
    High Wire Networks
    Tel 1+ (630) 635-8477

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Video: UK What is the Journal?

    Source: United Kingdom UK Parliament (video statements)

    The Journal Office holds a complete record of all decisions made in the House of Commons Chamber since 1547.

    A Journal is created for every Parliament session. Two newly printed and bound Journals have arrived to be added to the shelves.

    The Journal is created from a document called Votes and Proceedings which is produced every day by a team of clerks, including Gavin.

    Curious to find out more? You can find Votes and Proceedings by date online https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/search?SearchTerm=Votes+and+Proceedings

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEPLLWsum8Q

    MIL OSI Video –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Royal Navy aircraft carrier in final preparation to lead multinational deployment to Mediterranean and Indo-Pacific

    Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

    Press release

    Royal Navy aircraft carrier in final preparation to lead multinational deployment to Mediterranean and Indo-Pacific

    Nearly 4,000 British personnel will support the deployment, which will deliver trade events in Singapore, Japan, and India, promoting Britain’s world-leading industry

    HMS Prince of Wales

    Final preparations are underway for a multinational deployment, led by the Royal Navy flagship HMS Prince of Wales, reaffirming the UK’s commitment to the security of the Mediterranean and Indo-Pacific, while providing an opportunity to promote British trade and industry.

    Aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales is scheduled to sail from Portsmouth on 22 April, where it will proceed to join a formation of warships, supply ships, and aircraft off the coast of Cornwall, before departing for the Mediterranean where it will conduct exercises to reinforce European security.

    Around 2,500 personnel from the Royal Navy and 592 from the Royal Air Force will be involved in the eight-month deployment, which will see the group sail through the Indian Ocean to conduct exercises and port visits with partners including the US, India, Singapore, and Malaysia. They will be joined by around 900 personnel from the British Army for exercises during the deployment.

    The deployment, named Operation Highmast, provides an opportunity for the UK’s Armed Forces to conduct a major global deployment and a chance to exercise complex operations alongside partners and allies in the region, with 12 other nations supporting the deployment with ships or personnel.

    The Indo-Pacific is a critical region for UK trade, with imports and exports in the region worth billions of pounds for the UK economy, and the deployment will provide a chance for UK companies to take part in trade events during port visits.

    Trade between the UK and Indo-Pacific accounted for 17% of total trade between the UK and all trading partners in the 12 months to September 2024, with the total amount traded in goods and services between the UK and Indo-Pacific standing at £286 billion in the same period.

    As the biggest class of ship in the Royal Navy, the flight decks of HMS Prince of Wales and her sister ship are roughly the size of three football pitches and defended by advanced weapons. A maritime strike force of this size is composed of multiple types of ship, frigates, destroyers, submarines, and supply ships to support logistics.

    Defence Secretary, John Healey MP, said:

    I want to thank the thousands of our Armed Forces personnel involved in the delivery of this immensely complex operation, demonstrating the UK’s world-leading capability to deploy a major military force around the world.

    This is a unique opportunity for the UK to operate in close coordination with our partners and allies in a deployment that not only shows our commitment to security and stability, but also provides an opportunity to bolster our own economy and boost British trade and exports.

    As one of only a handful of countries in the world able to lead a deployment of this scale, the Royal Navy is once again demonstrating its formidable capability while protecting British values and sending a powerful message of deterrence to any adversary.

    Of the 12 other nations supporting the deployment, Norway will provide a warship to support the carrier strike group for the entire duration of the deployment. Canada and Spain are among the other nations providing support to the deployment.

    After its compliment of up to 24 Royal Air Force F-35B Lighting fighter jets is embarked on board HMS Prince of Wales, and the departure for the Mediterranean, the group will initially be placed under NATO command as it joins Exercise Neptune Strike – testing the Alliance’s ability to use high-end maritime strike capabilities, including multiple aircraft carrier and amphibious strike groups.

    The group will transit though the Indian Ocean, conducting exercises and port visits with partners including the US, India, Singapore and Malaysia, before joining 19 partner nations for Exercise Talisman Sabre near Australia, and then training alongside the Japanese Self Defence Forces and conducting a port visit to India.

    Minister for the Armed Forces, Luke Pollard MP, said:

    Through this deployment of our Carrier Strike Group and 4,000 Service Personnel, we will stand firm with our allies against those who challenge the international order. Reminding the world that the security of the Euro Atlantic and Indo-Pacific are fundamentally indivisible.

    This isn’t just about hard power; it’s about building influence and opening new trade opportunities both for defence and other sectors of our economy which will deliver British jobs and growth.

    This deployment follows the Prime Minister’s historic commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, demonstrating this Government’s commitment to keep the UK secure at home and strong abroad.

    Following the inaugural deployment in 2021, the Carrier Strike Group 2025 highlights the strength of the UK’s leadership in seeking to uphold stability in the Indo-Pacific. This has been bolstered by the Royal Navy’s persistent presence in the region through HMS Spey and HMS Tamar, as well as the landmark Global Combat Air Programme collaboration. 

    Keeping the country safe is the Government’s first priority and is the foundation of its Plan for Change. The strength, capability and global reach of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force, demonstrated through Operation Highmast, is critical to the security and stability of the UK, supporting the delivery of the Government’s five missions.

    Updates to this page

    Published 8 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: 8 April 2025 A journey to safer childbirth in Pakistan

    Source: World Health Organisation

    It’s time. A pregnant woman in Punjab, Pakistan, dials 1-0-3-4, toll-free. Her journey to safe childbirth has been complicated by a lack of transportation. She is connected to a call centre in Lahore that receives 5000 calls a day from pregnant women and their caregivers in need of transportation for delivery or antenatal complications. The call centre was established in 2017 and currently employs 87 call agents. Utilizing Google maps, GPS trackers and text messaging, the call centre operator dispatches a driver to collect labouring women from their homes and transfers them to a primary care centre, where they will deliver their babies with access to interventions to ensure healthy beginnings for both mother and baby. 

    Call agents in Lahore processing calls and dispatching drivers. © RAS Call Center Lahore / IRMNCHN Program

    In 2007, the maternal mortality ratio in Punjab was 227 deaths per 100 000 live births. This was a result of poor socio-economic conditions, challenges in accessing health care in rural areas, and a lack of decision-making power among young women. At the time, approximately 30% of maternal deaths in Pakistan were attributable to delays in reaching health-care facilities, with many women facing long travel distances to give birth as well as lack of access to transportation.

    Over the last two decades, the Government of Punjab has scaled up around 2500 basic health units and equipped 1800 with 24-hour basic obstetric care services. These basic units, the country’s first-level health-care facilities, play a crucial role in addressing maternal and child health issues, especially in rural areas where access to health care is limited. Based on the 2023 census, nearly two thirds of Pakistan’s population resides in rural areas.

    Under the national universal health coverage essential package of health services, the Government of Punjab has now funded a fleet of over 600 ambulances to transport pregnant women from their homes in rural areas to birth centres for delivery. The same service also transports sick children (under age 5 years) for urgent medical care. On average, the rural ambulance service transports 2800 women each day across the province, including public holidays. The cost per transfer for a typical case is approximately US$ 10–15. The service is vital for the more than 30% of pregnant women in Punjab who cannot reach health facilities for safe delivery. Without the service, they would be forced to deliver at home, without access to emergency obstetric and neonatal care.

    “We promote the rural ambulance service through a combination of community outreach and public awareness campaigns. We visit homes, hold community meetings, and distribute informational materials to ensure that every pregnant woman knows about the toll-free number 1-0-3-4 and how to access the service. During the first antenatal care visit, the staff facilitates the registration of pregnant women for the ambulance service. Their personal touch and deep knowledge of their respective communities make a significant difference in spreading the word effectively,” said Saeeda Khan, Lady Health Worker, Ali Raza Abad, Lahore.

    The government’s Integrated Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health & Nutrition Programme oversees the technical and financial aspects, while the central call centre and daily operations are managed by a telecom operator and a private car rental company, respectively. The rental company supplies fuel, drivers and maintains the ambulance, with performance tracked via a dashboard that requires the engine to start within two minutes of case assignment. 

    A pregnant women arriving at a rural health centre in Challian Wala, Punjab to safely deliver her baby. © RHC Challian Wala / M.B. Din

    The real-time dashboard shows GPS-tracked ambulance locations, allowing call centre operators to assign the nearest vehicle to waiting women and their caregivers. Once assigned, both the driver and the woman receive a call and a text message with their respective contact information. The text messages enable communication between drivers and women and allow drivers to pinpoint exact addresses, a task that is often difficult in rural areas.

    “We prioritize calls based on the urgency of the situation, with high-risk pregnancies and emergencies at the top of the list. If a connection drops or a phone battery dies, our system automatically sends text messages to both the driver and the client, ensuring they can still communicate. Additionally, Lady Health Workers and Skilled Birth Attendants are always ready to step in and provide support, ensuring that no woman is left without assistance,” said Bilal Ahmed, District Transport Officer, Outsourced Management Firm.

    Since its debut in 2017, the ambulance service has facilitated the transport of over 3 million women from their homes to health facilities, approximately three and a half million women from primary care to secondary or tertiary hospitals, and around 10 000 children for urgent referrals. It is estimated that at least half of the 500 000 emergency referrals to secondary and tertiary care hospitals have effectively prevented severe morbidity and mortality among mothers and newborns in Punjab. 

    “Without the rural ambulance service, my birth experience would have been incredibly stressful and risky. I would likely have had to deliver at home without skilled medical assistance, which could have jeopardized both my health and my baby’s. The timely support from Lady Health Workers and Skilled Birth Attendants ensured that I received quality care and safe delivery at a health facility. Their presence and the ambulance service made all the difference,” said Keenza Faisal, Beneficiary, Allama Iqbal Town, Lahore.

    Today, there are 157 maternal deaths for every 100 000 live births in Punjab, a decrease of more than 30% from 2007. This decrease has resulted from interventions related to improved access to maternal health services, in addition to addressing the underlying causes for maternal deaths – for instance, through improved access to family planning.

    Still, there is work to be done. 

    Removing barriers like discriminatory social norms, financial constraints and limited decision-making power for women is essential to advancing maternal and newborn health outcomes.

    Ellen Mpangananji Thom / Deputy WHO County Representative, Pakistan

    “Sustainable progress demands more than just service delivery: health systems must address gender inequalities, strengthen sexual and reproductive health and rights, and ensure equitable access to quality emergency obstetric and newborn care, particularly in rural and underserved areas. Removing barriers like discriminatory social norms, financial constraints and limited decision-making power for women is essential to advancing maternal and newborn health outcomes,” said Ellen Mpangananji Thom, Deputy WHO County Representative, Pakistan.

    This story was originally brought to life on the WHO-UNFPA Learning by Sharing Portal (LSP), which highlights the critical work of various stakeholders in improving access to sexual and reproductive health and rights services within the broader context of universal health coverage. The LSP seeks to create a repository of implementation stories on effective health system interventions and serves as a valuable resource for shared learning, advocacy and capacity building at global, regional and country levels.

    In follow up to World Health Day, please join the WHO-UNFPA Learning by Sharing Portal (LSP), WHO Pakistan, and the Primary & Secondary Healthcare Department, Punjab, Pakistan, on 9 April at 13:00 CET for an interactive discussion with experts and implementers involved in the roll out of the rural ambulance service in Punjab, Pakistan. Please register for the event here. If you have questions for the implementers, please submit them here.

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Sufficient uranium resources exist, however investments needed to susta in high nuclear energy growth

    Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

    Sufficient uranium resources exist to support both the continued use of nuclear power and its significant growth through 2050 and beyond.  However, timely investments in new exploration, mining operations and processing techniques will be essential to ensure that uranium becomes available to the market when needed.

    These are among the main findings of the latest edition of Uranium – Resources, Production and Demand 2024, commonly known as the “Red Book”, an essential global reference prepared jointly every two years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

    The 2024 edition of the Red Book provides the latest comprehensive review of uranium market fundamentals, based on official government data, and delivers a detailed statistical profile of the global uranium industry. Covering the calendar years 2021 and 2022, it features data on uranium exploration, resources, and production . The report also includes 62 country profiles, offering in-depth insights into mine development plans, the environmental and social dimensions of uranium mining, and national regulations and policies.

    The Red Book indicates that global identified recoverable uranium resources amounted to 7 934 500 tonnes as of 1 January 2023. These represent all reasonably assured and inferred uranium resources that could be recovered at market prices ranging from $40 to $260 USD/KgU (equivalent to $15 to $100 USD/lb U3O8). Compared to the total reported in the 2022 edition, this represents an increase of less than 0.5%. Additions to the uranium resource base could however arise from undiscovered or unconventional sources, driven by the sharp rise in uranium spot prices since mid-2021 and the commitment first announced during COP28 and now signed by 31 countries to triple their nuclear energy capacity by 2050.

    Worldwide domestic exploration and mine development expenditures have increased dramatically after a period of decline due to poor market conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic. Annual expenditures reached USD 800 million in 2022 and preliminary data for 2023 suggest a further increase to USD 840 million.

    The Red Book also provides projections for nuclear power installed capacity and uranium requirements through 2050, outlining both low-growth and high-growth scenarios, alongside an assessment of uranium supply and demand adequacy under each scenario. According to these projections, the uranium resource base is sufficient to meet the needs of a high-growth nuclear capacity through 2050 and beyond. However, this will require essential investments in new exploration, improved processing techniques and new production centres to replenish reserves.

    Production increased 4% between 2020 and 2022 and the report suggests the increase will likely continue in coming years. The establishment of new production centres is anticipated to encounter significant lead times due to today’s risk-averse investment climate, and complex and lengthy regulatory processes in many uranium mining jurisdictions. Geopolitical challenges and technical difficulties related to developing new mines and milling facilities may further compound the situation. As a result, efforts must begin immediately to ensure adequate uranium supplies are available in the medium term.

    Notes to editors

    The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) is an intergovernmental agency which operates within the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It facilitates co-operation among countries with advanced nuclear technology infrastructures to seek excellence in nuclear safety, technology, science, related environmental and economic matters and law.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the world’s central intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the nuclear field. It works for the safe, secure and peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology, contributing to international peace and security and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

    The Joint NEA/IAEA Group on Uranium (UG) contributes to the preparationof each edition of Uranium – Resources, Production and Demand. The Group also co-ordinates the preparation of periodic assessments of the world’s supply of natural uranium, examines the relationship of these supplies to demand projections and recommends actions that might be taken to ensure adequate long-term supply of uranium for nuclear power development.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Trump state visit looking more ridiculous with every passing day

    Source: Scottish Greens

    08 Apr 2025 External Affairs

    Donald Trump is no friend of Scotland. He must not be allowed to visit.

    More in External Affairs

    The UK government’s proposed state visit for Donald Trump is looking more ridiculous with every passing day, says Scottish Green Co-Leader Lorna Slater, who has urged Downing Street to cancel it.
     
    The call comes as the White House has imposed tariffs on the UK, and while Keir Starmer and other leaders have tried to cozy up to him.
     
    Ms Slater said:

    “The proposed state visit is looking more ridiculous and misguided with every passing day. There is nothing to be gained by grovelling to Donald Trump and giving him the trappings and prestige that he desires.
     
    “Time and again he has proven he cannot be trusted and has even inflicted tariffs on the UK. What kind of message does it send if we roll out the red carpet for him at the same time as he is doing that?
     
    “Donald Trump is a danger to human rights around the world and a danger to our climate. He represents the worst of politics and the decisions he’s making are having a terrible impact on migrant communities, women’s rights and on the US economy.
     
    “He is not a friend of Scotland, and is not going to change who he is because the Prime Minister asks him to.”

     
    Ms Slater added:

    “Scotland’s future can and must be with a closer Europe. That is where Keir Starmer’s priorities should be.
     
    “We can’t wait silently while Trump does even more damage. We should be looking to build our green economy and reach out to countries like Canada that have also been targeted by the White House.”

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: National security symposium held

    Source: Hong Kong Information Services

    A symposium on safeguarding national security for Hong Kong’s social welfare sector, jointly organised by the Labour & Welfare Bureau, the Social Welfare Department and Connecting Hearts, was held today.

     

    Officiated by Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki, the symposium attracted over 8,000 participants from the local social welfare sector who took part both online and offline.

     

    Secretary for Labour & Welfare Chris Sun and Director-General of the Social Work Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Liu Songlin also attended the symposium.

     

    While addressing the forum, Mr Chan highlighted that the Government has achieved fruitful results in safeguarding national security and promoting patriotic education over the past year or so.

     

    Such achievements include the completion of the legislation on Article 23 of the Basic Law that ensures the smooth implementation of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance as well as the amendments to the Social Workers Registration Ordinance which foster a better environment for social welfare professionals to leverage their expertise.

     

    Mr Chan said that the social welfare sector is charged with the important and long-term responsibilities in serving the community and caring for the public. It is also their mission and duty to safeguard national security.

     

    He urged the sector to continue collaborating with the Government to sustain efforts in safeguarding national security, thereby ensuring the healthy development of welfare services in Hong Kong and enhanced safeguards for public well-being.

     

    A sharing session was held at the symposium where Mr Sun was joined by representatives from the social welfare sector, including professors from education institutions, management of social welfare organisations and professional social workers, to explore how the sector can fulfil its responsibility of safeguarding national security and promote patriotic education.

     

    Mr Sun said that the Labour & Welfare Bureau and the Social Welfare Department have been working closely with social welfare organisations in the previous year to promote national security education within the sector through organising symposiums, seminars and visits with a view to enhancing the sector’s understanding of national affairs.

     

    He added that a dedicated fund of $500 million was rolled out last year, in which $100 million was allocated to non-governmental organisations operating subvented welfare services to arrange Mainland exchange tours and national studies programmes for their staff.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Business of I&T Week upcoming

    Source: Hong Kong Information Services

    The Business of Innovation & Technology Week (BIT Week) will make a grand return in April, the Innovation, Technology & Industry Bureau announced today.

    Mega innovation and technology (I&T) events include InnoEX, the Hong Kong World Youth Science Conference, and the World Internet Conference Asia-Pacific Summit.

    The third edition of InnoEX will take place from April 13 to 16 at the Convention & Exhibition Centre (HKCEC), bringing together I&T elites, enterprises and buyers from the Mainland and overseas to promote I&T advancements.

    It will showcase cutting-edge technology solutions across five key areas of low-altitude economy, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, cybersecurity and smart mobility.

    The event’s highlight is a Hong Kong pavilion set up by the Digital Policy Office to exhibit over 100 I&T solutions, including those developed by government departments concerning citizens’ daily lives as well as award-winning projects by local innovators and students.

    The second Hong Kong World Youth Science Conference and the Xiangjiang Nobel Forum 2025 will take place concurrently at the HKCEC, assembling top-notch I&T talent and renowned scientists including laureates of the Nobel Prize and Turing Award in the city.

    Through keynote speeches, roundtable forums and other formats, the conference participants will tap into global wisdom on cutting-edge topics in big data, AI, biotechnology, new materials and large models. 

    The World Internet Conference Asia-Pacific Summit will happen on April 14 and 15 at the HKCEC, focusing on discussions in large AI models, digital finance, and digital government and smart life.

    Secretary for Innovation, Technology & Industry Sun Dong said that BIT Week will bring together I&T elites from 29 countries and regions and over 2,800 exhibitors, adding that Hong Kong’s I&T strengths will be showcased via a series of exhibitions, forums, seminars, business networking, and talent matching.

    Other industry events during BIT Week include the Hong Kong Electronics Fair (Spring Edition), Smart Lighting Expo, and the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, the bureau said.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI: Regula Wins Gold in the Globee Awards for Cybersecurity for Its Complete Identity Verification Solution

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    RESTON, Va., April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Regula, a global developer of forensic devices and identity verification (IDV) solutions, has received Gold in the 2025 Globee Awards for Cybersecurity. This marks Regula’s second consecutive year of winning in the globally recognized Globee Awards program, this time upgrading its Silver award from 2024 to Gold in 2025.

    The Gold Award for Regula in the 2025 Globee Awards for Cybersecurity

    Organized annually for over 20 years, the Globee Awards accolade companies and products that demonstrate superior performance, innovation, and leadership in their field. Regula won the Gold Award in the Identity Proofing and Corroboration category. This recognition spotlights the company’s contribution to enhancing secure and seamless identity verification through its complete software solution comprised of Regula Document Reader SDK and Regula Face SDK.

    Regula’s technologies and forensic devices are used by over 1,000 organizations and 80 border control authorities across the globe. By combining forensic-level document analysis and advanced biometric verification, Regula helps financial institutions, government agencies, and businesses from any industry prevent identity fraud, whether online or in person.

    Regula Document Reader SDK is a robust on-premise software solution that streamlines digital customer onboarding, no matter the device, and automatically reads and authenticates data from a wide range of identity documents, including passports, ID cards, driver’s licenses, etc. Empowered by the world’s largest identity document template database, owned and maintained by Regula, the solution efficiently verifies IDs from 251 countries and territories. Its advanced document liveness verification, in-depth authenticity checks, and inherent ability to cross-validate personal data from multiple ID zones, including MRZs, RFID chips, and barcodes, help detect any inconsistencies that may indicate fraud.

    Along with document verification, Regula Face SDK delivers advanced biometric checks, including face matching and liveness detection performed in accordance with the ISO 30107-3 PAD standard. This ensures that the person presenting an ID is the rightful holder of the document and is physically present at the moment of verification. This makes it possible to detect spoofing techniques such as printed images, masks, video injections, replays, or deepfakes.

    “Winning Gold at the Globee Awards is a strong validation of our endeavor to make digital and physical identity verification secure, reliable, and fraud-proof. In a world where deepfakes and sophisticated document forgery are no longer hypothetical threats, it’s essential to equip organizations with tools that can detect even the most intricate forms of identity fraud. We’re proud that our solutions deliver exactly that,” says Ihar Kliashchou, Chief Technology Officer at Regula.

    This Gold Globee Award adds to Regula’s growing list of industry recognitions in cybersecurity and identity verification. Most recently, the company also received a second Gold award at the Merit Awards for Cybersecurity. Additionally, Gartner named Regula a representative vendor in its latest Market Guide for KYC Platforms for Banking.

    To learn more about Regula’s breakthrough technologies and achievements, visit the official website.

    About Regula

    Regula is a global developer of forensic devices and identity verification solutions. With our 30+ years of experience in forensic research and the most comprehensive library of document templates in the world, we create breakthrough technologies for document and biometric verification. Our hardware and software solutions allow over 1,000 organizations and 80 border control authorities globally to provide top-notch client service without compromising safety, security, or speed. Regula has been repeatedly named a Representative Vendor in the Gartner® Market Guide for Identity Verification.

    Learn more at www.regulaforensics.com.

    Contact:
    Kristina – ks@regulaforensics.com

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e00852c5-f2a4-42fb-a849-bd04af47002c

    The MIL Network –