NewzIntel.com

Category: Politics

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Hipkins needs to listen to women

    Source: ACT Party

    Chris Hipkins has criticised the Associate Health Minister’s move to raise concerns over Health NZ’s practice of avoiding the term ‘woman’ in reference to female patients.

    Responding to Hipkins’ comments, ACT MP Karen Chhour says:

    “Sometimes the first job of a politician isn’t to speak, but to listen. Chris Hipkins should listen to the women who’ve felt confused and alienated by a health system that refers to them as ‘people with a cervix’ or ‘individuals capable of childbearing’.

    “Women don’t want to be erased as a group by a public health system that has an unhealthy obsession with politically correct language. It’s left women feeling disrespected and dehumanised, and I’m glad we’ve now got a Government that is listening.”

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ER Report: A Roundup of Significant Articles on EveningReport.nz for April 15, 2025

    ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on April 15, 2025.

    Social media is the new election battleground. Is embracing influencers smart, risky or both?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Grantham, Lecturer in Communication, Griffith University From Abbie Chatfield and Hannah Ferguson to Ozzy Man, influencers have never been more central to an Australian election campaign. Much has been made of the increasingly common site of politicians on TikTok or Instagram reels. Some political groups don’t

    Trump’s tariffs rollercoaster is really about Republican unity
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lester Munson, Non-Resident Fellow, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney After announcing Liberation Day – stiff “retaliatory” tariffs on every country and penguin-inhabited island in the world – US President Donald Trump rescinded the vast majority of tariffs eight days later when stock and bond markets

    Peters emphasises growing importance of NZ’s Pacific ties with the United States
    By Grace Tinetali-Fiavaai, RNZ Pacific journalist in Hawai’i New Zealand’s Pacific connection with the United States is “more important than ever”, says Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters after rounding up the Hawai’i leg of his Pacific trip. Peters said common strategic interests of the US and New Zealand were underlined while in the state. “Our

    Israeli military reservists court Australian universities amid ‘hypocrisy’ over anti-war protests
    Hundreds of university staff and students in Melbourne and Sydney called on their vice-chancellors to cancel pro-Israel events earlier this month, write Michael West Media’s Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon. SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon While Australia’s universities continue to repress pro-Palestine peace protests, they gave the green light to pro-Israel events

    Why the Mormon church is on an expansion project, with 2 secretive new temples planned for Australia
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brenton Griffin, Casual Lecturer and Tutor in History, Indigenous Studies, and Politics, Flinders University The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced it will build 15 new temples in countries across the world, including one in Liverpool, New South Wales. This follows a similar announcement

    Winter electricity prices are rising – how do we know we’re getting value for money?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Meade, Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith University, Centre for Applied Energy Economics and Policy Research, Griffith University Shutterstock Winter is coming to New Zealand and Australia, and with it come those inevitably higher power bills from heating our homes. But even without that seasonal spike, household power

    Amid the election promises, what would actually help ‘fix’ the housing crisis? Here’s 5 ideas
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, John Curtin Distinguished Professor & ARC Future Fellow, Curtin University Shutterstock As the election campaign rolls on, housing has been, unsurprisingly, a major campaign focus. We’ve seen a series of housing policy announcements from across the political spectrum, including duelling announcements from the major

    New study finds no evidence technology causes ‘digital dementia’ in older people
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nikki-Anne Wilson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), UNSW Sydney RDNE Stock project/Pexels In the 21st century, digital technology has changed many aspects of our lives. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest newcomer, with chatbots and other AI tools changing how we learn and creating

    Amid the election promises, what would actually help ‘fix’ the housing crisis? Here are 5 ideas
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, John Curtin Distinguished Professor & ARC Future Fellow, Curtin University Shutterstock As the election campaign rolls on, housing has been, unsurprisingly, a major campaign focus. We’ve seen a series of housing policy announcements from across the political spectrum, including duelling announcements from the major

    Cutting migrant numbers won’t help housing – the real immigration problems not being tackled this election
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McDonald, Honorary Professor of Demography, Centre for Health Policy, The University of Melbourne Immigration is shaping as one of the most potent policy issues of the election campaign. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has announced a Coalition government would cut the two major migration programs – permanent

    Focusing on a child’s strengths can transform assessments – and help them thrive after an ADHD or autism diagnosis
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Guastella, Professor and Clinical Psychologist, Michael Crouch Chair in Child and Youth Mental Health, University of Sydney Jota Buyinch Photo/Shutterstock When parents are concerned about their child’s development, they often seek an assessment to address concerns and identify any conditions, such as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

    Australian honeybees are under attack by mites and beetles. Here’s how to keep your backyard hive safe
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cornelia Sattler, Research Fellow in Ecology & Videographer, Macquarie University Varroa mites on a male bee larva. Theotime Colin Australia’s honeybees are facing an exceptional crisis. The tiny but devastating foreign pest Varroa destructor is steadily spreading across the country. The mite feeds on baby bees (larvae),

    Would looser lending rules help more people buy a house – or just put them at risk?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Grant, Associate Professor in Finance, University of Sydney doublelee/Shutterstock Big promises on housing were at the centre of both major parties’ announcements at the official federal election campaign launches on the weekend. Among the highlights, Labor pledged to build 100,000 new homes and extend a government-guaranteed

    Why is it so hard for everyone to have a house in Australia?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ehsan Noroozinejad, Senior Researcher, Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University Bilalnol/Shutterstock Home ownership in Australia was once regarded as proof of success in life. However, it remains elusive for many people today. Prices have soared beyond wage growth, rents keep rising, and even some well-intentioned government

    Why the Mormon church is on an expansion project, with two secretive new temples planned for Australia
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brenton Griffin, Casual Lecturer and Tutor in History, Indigenous Studies, and Politics, Flinders University The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced it will build 15 new temples in countries across the world, including one in Liverpool, New South Wales. This follows a similar announcement

    Owners are officially no longer responsible for tourism accidents on their land – but they never really were
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Peace, Lecturer in Occupational Health and Safety, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington EyesWideOpen/Getty Images Newly announced reforms to the Health and Safety at Work Act mean landowners will no longer be responsible for tourism-related injuries on their properties. But it’s not clear this

    New Zealand’s humanity – does it include all of us, or only for some?
    COMMENTARY: By Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab “Wherever Palestinians have control is barbaric.” These were the words from New Zealand’s Chief Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow. During a meeting with Philippa Yasbek from Jewish Voices for Peace, Dr Rainbow allegedly told her that information from the NZ Security Intelligence Services (NZSIS) threat assessment asserted that Muslims were the

    Leaked ‘working paper’ on New Caledonia’s political future sparks new concerns
    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A leaked “working paper” on New Caledonia’s future political status is causing concern on the local stage and has prompted a “clarification” from the French government’s Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls. Details of the document, which was supposed to remain confidential, have been widely circulated online

    Election Diary: Will Peter Dutton help son Harry buy a house?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Political leaders’ kids are routinely put on display to share the glory or the pain of election night. Earlier, they’re often at campaign launches to “humanise” the candidates. Peter Dutton pulled out all stops with the family for his Sunday

    Big Girls Don’t Cry is a powerful, heart-wrenching, and comical celebration of Indigenous resilience and survival
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Case, Lecturer in Musicology, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney Stephen Wilson Barker/Belvoir With Big Girls Don’t Cry, Gumbaynggirr/Wiradjuri playwright Dalara Williams proves herself to be a formidable talent. Cheryl (Williams), Queenie (Megan Wilding) and Lulu (Stephanie Somerville) are three best friends who share a

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI USA: SUNDAY SHOWS: President Trump’s America First Trade Policies in Action

    US Senate News:

    Source: The White House
    This morning, the Trump Administration’s top officials took to the Sunday shows to discuss the state of President Donald J. Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, how negotiations are progressing, and the results they’ve already delivered on behalf of American workers and businesses.
    Here’s what you missed:
    Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on This Week
    On tariffs for certain electronics: “Those products are going to be part of the semiconductor sectoral tariffs, which are coming … We need to have these things made in America.”
    On the constitutionality of tariffs: “Congress has passed laws that gave the president the ability to protect our national security … If we just run gigantic trade deficits and sell our soul to the rest of the world, eventually we are going to be the worker for the rest of the world.”
    On expanding market access: “Our farmers are finally going to have access to the world’s markets. Our farmers have never had the opportunity to sell corn in India — so what’s going to happen is as they sell more and more products, prices will come down.”
    Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro on Meet the Press
    On tariffs negotiations: “This is unfolding exactly like we thought it would … We have a strategy here where the President says we’re going to charge them what they charge us … knowing full well that a lot of countries would come right to us and want to bargain.”
    On semiconductor tariffs: “The policy is no exemptions, no exclusions … What the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, is going to do — and he’s doing it as we speak — is an investigation of the chips supply chain. The goal is stability and resilience.”
    On inflation: “We had really good news on the inflation front — both the Producer Price Index, which is your wholesale prices, and Consumer Price Index had the lowest print since fall of 2023.”
    National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on State of the Union
    On China: “In the 15 years after China entered the WTO, real wages went down — so wages went down by more than prices as we thought these cheap goods were going to revolutionize America. In fact, it was the opposite.”
    U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer on Face the Nation
    On trade deal negotiations: “My goal is to get meaningful deals before 90 days — and I think we’re going to be there with several countries in the next few weeks.”
    On the response to reciprocal tariffs: “President Trump has a global program to try to reshore American manufacturing and address the trade deficit. It’s a global issue. The only reason we’re really in this position right now is because China chose to retaliate.”
    On tariffs exemptions: “For the national security tariffs, you have to do an investigation in order to impose the tariffs … That’s why they don’t have a tariff covered right now because you have to go through the investigation … We expect there will have to be some kind of tariff.”
    Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on Fox News Sunday
    On trade: “For decades, the way we have been treated in this country and especially our farmers and ranchers is absolutely stunning. We have been living under a tariff regime but it has been the regime of other countries … The President is working to fix it.”
    On ethanol production: “Ethanol is a very important part of our energy independence strategy. President Trump has been unequivocal in his support for ethanol.”
    Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Sunday Morning Futures
    On the Panama Canal: “What President Trump said in his State of the Union address is that China has too much influence over the Panama Canal and America’s going to take it back — and that’s exactly what I was charged to do … Chinese influence cannot control our own backyard.”
    On Iran: “[President Trump is] dead serious that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon … He’s also dead serious that if we can’t figure this out at the negotiating table, then there are other options.”
    White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Sunday Morning Futures
    On tariffs: “When the President issued his reciprocal tariffs, our government at the time specifically said that chips and semiconductors, which are critical components of our national security, were going to be dealt with through a separate Commerce authority known as a 232. That was always the plan because those components are so essential to our national security. We need to have a separate process for dealing with how to reshore those essential industries … There are no exemptions.”
    On President Trump’s historic actions: “History will record that the actions President Trump has taken in recent days were the beginning of saving the West from complete economic domination by another power.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Remarks by Director Kratsios at the Endless Frontiers Retreat

    US Senate News:

    Source: The White House
    class=”has-text-align-center”>THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN INNOVATION
    AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY
    Endless Frontiers Retreat, Austin, Texas
    April 14, 2025
    THE DIRECTOR: Thank you for the kind introduction. It is a pleasure to speak to you all this evening, here in the early light of the new Golden Age of America.
    President Trump has given all of us who serve in his administration a monumental task—the renewal of our nation.
    I know, and I think you know, too, that such a renewal will require the reinvigoration of American science and industry. Over the last few decades, America has become complacent, forgetting old dreams of building a wondrous future.
    But we know the American pioneer spirit still seeks the exploration of endless frontiers. Our technologies, and what we do with them, will be the tools with which we will make the destiny of our country manifest in this century.
    Yet this American hope in the possibility of progress and the power of science and technology does not allow builders and innovators to retreat from politics. Indeed, quite the opposite, which is what brings me here today. A Golden Age is only possible if we choose it.
    ***
    There is nothing predestined about technological progress and scientific discovery. They require the efforts and energies of men and women, the collective choice for order and truth over disorder and opinion.
    The last century was called the American Century, as—despite wars and domestic conflict—the United States stood at the forefront of science and technology, building the future. With the strength of our industry and ingenuity, we created the largest middle class the world has ever seen. As President Trump said to me in his letter laying out the science and technology agenda of this administration, “The triumphs of the last century did not happen by chance.”
    Ours was the Atomic Age. Ours the victory in the Space Race. And ours the invention of the Internet, collecting and connecting the multiplicity of human knowledge.
    Today we fight to restore that inheritance. As the failure of the Biden administration’s “small yard, high fence” approach makes clear, it is not enough to seek to protect America’s technological lead. We also have a duty to promote American technological leadership.
    ***
    A gap lies between our moment and the speed of transformation America experienced midcentury. Progress has slowed. Yes, large language models astonish us, rockets still turn our eyes upward, and satellites envelop the globe. But as we look forward to America’s 250th birthday celebration next year, our progress today pales in comparison to the huge leaps of the 20th century. Consider the country of fifty years ago.
    As the nation approached its bicentennial, Americans looked forward to electricity too cheap to meter. By the end of 1972, 30 nuclear plants were operational, 55 were under construction, and more than 80 were planned or ordered. That same year, the Apollo 17 astronauts became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the moon. Five years before, the X-15 rocket plane had set a speed record for a crewed aircraft of Mach 6.7. America was flying higher, faster, and farther than ever before…
    Today, however, energy prices still burden producers and consumers alike, and the grid remains precarious. Over the past 30 years only three commercial nuclear reactors have been built and 10 have been closed. Despite spending almost twice as much on healthcare as peer nations, we have the lowest life expectancy. Apollo 17’s steps on the lunar surface have proved mankind’s last. The X-15’s record still stands, and the Concorde was decommissioned more than two decades ago. Our passenger planes are slower than they used to be. Our trains crawl compared to those in other parts of the world. Our cars do not fly
    Advances have not stopped, but something has gone wrong.  
    ***
    Stagnation was a choice. We have weighed down our builders and innovators. The well-intentioned regulatory regime of the 1970s became an ever-tightening ratchet, first hampering America’s ability to become a net-energy exporter and then making it harder and harder to build. We seem to have lost focus and vision, to have lowered our sights and let systems and structures and bureaucracies muddle us along.
    But we are capable of so much more.  
    Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated, cause things to grow, and improve productivity.
    As Vice President Vance said in a recent speech, the tradition of American innovation has been one of increasing the capacities of America’s workers, of extending human ability so that more people can do more, and, more meaningful work. But unrestricted immigration, and reliance on cheap labor both domestically and offshore, has been a substitute for improving productivity with technology.
    We can build in new ways that let us do more with less, or we can borrow from the future. We have chosen to borrow from the future again and again. Our choice as a civilization is technology or debt. And we have chosen debt.
    Today we choose a better way.
    ***
    Our first assignment is to secure America’s preeminence in critical and emerging technologies. This administration will ensure that our nation remains the leader in the industries of the future with a strategy of both promotion and protection—protecting our greatest assets and promoting our greatest innovators.
    To the degree it even tried to accomplish this, the Biden administration failed on its own terms, led by a spirit of fear rather than promise. The old regime sought to protect its managerial power from the disruptions of technology, while promoting social division and redistribution in the name of equity. They secured American technology poorly, and failed to strengthen our leadership at all.
    Promoting America’s technological leadership requires three things of government. First, we have to make the smart choices of creatively allocating our public research and development dollars. Second, we have to make the right choices in constructing a common-sense, pro-innovation regulatory regime. And third, we have to make the easy choice to adopt the incredible products and tools made by American builders and to enable their export abroad.
    In a moment of strategic significance, we must be more creative in our use of public research and development money, and shape a funding environment that makes clear what our national priorities are. Whether in AI, quantum, biotech, or next-generation semiconductors, in partnership with the private sector and academia, it is the duty of government to enable scientists to create new theories and empower engineers to put them into practice. Prizes, advance market commitments, and other novel funding mechanisms, like fast and flexible grants, can multiply the impact of government-funded research.
    At a time defined by the desire to build in America again, we have to throw off the burden of bad regulations that weigh down our innovators, and use federal resources to test, to deploy, and to mature emerging technologies. We know, for example, the greatest obstacle to limitless energy in this country has been a regulatory regime opposed to innovation and development. This, too, has been the chief barrier to pushing the envelope again in transportation, whether supersonic aircraft or high-speed rail and flying cars. The time has come to review the rules on the books and to ask whom they really protect and what they really cost.
    For a future stamped with the American character, the federal government must become an early adopter and avid promoter of American technology. Our innovators make incredible breakthroughs, but consumers, government included, require products that meet their needs, not just the wide-open country of frontier technology. Our industrial might, unleashed at home, and our technical achievements from AI to aerospace, successfully commercialized, can also be powerful instruments of diplomacy abroad and key components of our international alliances. American progress in critical technologies will make us the global partner of choice and the standards setter to follow if we enable and encourage American companies to distribute the American tech stack around the world.
    ***
    This approach to promoting America’s technological leadership goes hand in hand with a threefold strategy for protecting that position from foreign rivals. First, we must safeguard U.S. intellectual property and take seriously American research security. Second, we must prevent rival nations from infiltrating our infrastructure and supply chains, as well as from embedding themselves in the infrastructure of our allies. And third, we must enforce export controls and other measures that keep American frontier technologies out of competitors’ hands.
    We face many dangers as a nation, but thanks to decades of feckless American leaders, China in particular has grown into both a geopolitical rival and technological competitor. This threat requires us to protect our science and technology resources with heightened vigilance, and defend the vital work American researchers do in public and corporate contexts alike from misuse, theft, and disruption. To safeguard our intellectual capital, we must restrict foreign access to sensitive data and strengthen oversight of international collaborators.
    Our infrastructure, supply chains, and those of our allies must be secured, too. We cannot afford to remain dependent, as we are in too many essential industries, on Chinese inputs and products, nor can we allow our closest partners to become points of insecurity by relying on Chinese-controlled critical infrastructure, whether in telecom, the grid, or AI. We must establish and secure trusted supply chains, implement public-private partnerships to enhance supply-chain resilience, and create investment incentives to reshore more critical manufacturing.
    Finally, after thirty years of subsidizing Chinese growth, it is time for us to stop helping a rival catch up with us in this race. Strict and simple export controls and know your customer rules, with an unapologetic America-first attitude about enforcing them, are central to stopping China from continuing to build itself up at our expense. We want peace between our countries, and that peace depends on keeping America’s bleeding-edge technology out of our competitor’s hands.
    ***
    The Golden Age of American innovation is on our horizon, if we choose it.
    In a changing technological environment, the task ahead of us is to adapt to new realities without destroying the American way of life or dis-inheriting the American worker. We seek, in the most basic terms, to secure our economy, restore our middle class, and uphold America as the planet’s best home for innovators.
    For many years now the temptation for the kinds of people represented in this room—builders and discoverers—has been to withdraw from politics. In the face of burdensome regulation and inefficient government and the circus of election cycles, many of you have chosen retreat of various kinds.
    But there is no substitute for victory. You and your fellow Americans cannot afford to give up on the nation. In a world so shaped by politics as well as technology, we must take action in both of these domains. We need all Americans to continue to rise to the occasion, to make full use of their talents, and to build.
    All of us must labor to preserve the inheritance of the American Century to share with posterity, and to ensure that the technologies that give shape to our world help the American people secure the blessings of liberty we received from our forebearers. I bear that responsibility in my role as the President’s Science and Technology Advisor. You bear it, too, in exercising whatever powers and responsibilities you have, whether in business, education, or the laboratory—as Americans.
    It is the choices of individuals that will make the new American Golden Age possible: the choice of individuals to master the sclerosis of the state, and the choice of individuals to craft new technologies and give themselves to scientific discoveries that will bend time and space, make more with less, and drive us further into the endless frontier.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: The NPR, PBS Grift Has Ripped Us Off for Too Long

    US Senate News:

    Source: The White House
    For years, American taxpayers have been on the hook for subsidizing National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as “news.”
    As President Trump has stated, taxpayer funding of NPR’s and PBS’s biased content is a waste.
    Here are some examples of the trash that passes for “news” at NPR and PBS:
    In 2024, NPR ran a Valentine’s Day feature around “queer animals,” in which it suggested the make-believe clownfish in Finding Nemo would’ve been better off as a female, that “banana slugs are hermaphrodites,” and that “some deer are nonbinary.”
    In 2024, PBS produced a documentary making the case for reparations.
    In 2023, PBS’s Washington Week roundtable covered up Joe Biden’s clear mental decline, with far-left “journalist” Jeff Goldberg claiming Biden is actually “quite acute.”
    In 2022, NPR educated the nation on the “whole community of genderqueer dinosaur enthusiasts” and “trans-ceratops.”
    In 2021, a PBS station aired a “children’s program” that featured a drag queen named “Lil’ Miss Hot Mess.”
    In 2021, NPR reported on the “cousin of diet culture” known as “healthism, which is the idea that we have to be healthy” — as if that was a bad thing.
    In 2021, NPR suggested doorway sizes are based on “latent fatphobia.”
    In 2021, NPR lamented that “animals deserve pronouns, too.”
    In 2022, NPR ran a feature titled “What ‘Queer Ducks’ can teach teenagers about sexuality in the animal kingdom.”
    In 2020, PBS show Sesame Street partnered with CNN for a town hall aimed presenting children with a one-sided narrative to “address racism” amid the Black Lives Matter riots.
    In 2020, NPR explored “the racial origins of fat phobia.”
    In 2017, NPR ran a story titled “Cannibalism: It’s ‘Perfectly Natural,’” in which an author describes eating another human’s placenta: “It was really the prep that made it taste good. Granted, the [husband] was a chef and so he knew how to prepare it osso bucco style and used a really nice wine I had brought. It smelled great. It didn’t taste bad.”
    In 2017, PBS aired a panel devoted to what it “mean[s] to be woke” and “white privilege.”
    In 2017, PBS produced an entire movie celebrating a transgender teenager’s so-called “changing gender identity.”
    In 2015, NPR dedicated an entire segment to the “population of anthropomorphic animal enthusiasts known as ‘furries.’” 
    NPR and PBS have zero tolerance for non-leftist viewpoints:
    In 2020, NPR refused to cover the explosive Hunter Biden laptop scandal in the runup to the election, baselessly claiming there were “many, many red flags” and its “assertions don’t amount to much.”
    NPR wrote: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

    When a 25-year veteran NPR reporter and editor spoke out about the network’s refusal to report on the Hunter Biden laptop — and their obsession with liberal causes — they suspended him.
    The editor found that registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans 87 to zero in their newsroom.
    NPR prolifically reported on the Russian collusion hoax, with the editor describing “[Adam] Schiff talking points” as “the drumbeat of NPR news reports.”
    NPR management asked its editors to avoid the term “biological sex” when discussing transgender issues.

    NPR CEO Katherine Maher once called President Trump “racist,” shared a photo of herself wearing a “Biden for President” campaign hat, serves on the board of a Soros-funded activist group, and described the “reverence for the truth” as a “distraction.”
    In 2023, a study found that congressional Republicans saw 85% negative coverage while congressional Democrats saw 54% positive coverage on PBS’s flagship news program.
    According to a 2024 study, PBS news staff used 162 variations of the term “far-right,” but only six variations of “far-left.”
    Media bias rating agency AllBias — which surveyed nearly 24,000 readers — found NPR’s bias aligns with “liberal, progressive or left-wing thought and/or policy agendas.”
    In 2010, NPR terminated journalist Juan Williams, who said it was because he was not a “predictable, black liberal.”
    NPR repeatedly dismissed the theory that COVID-19 originated in a lab — a conclusion now deemed likely by the FBI, CIA, and Department of Energy.
    April 2020: “Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory Of Pandemic Emergence”
    May 2020: “As Trump Pushes Theory Of Virus Origins, Some See Parallels In Lead-Up To Iraq War”
    May 2021: “Many Scientists Still Think The Coronavirus Came From Nature”
    March 2023: “Virologist says COVID origin report could make it harder to study dangerous diseases”
    September 2024: “New research points to raccoon dogs in Wuhan market as pandemic trigger. It’s controversial”

    A 2024 Media Research Center study found that PBS’s coverage of the Republican National Convention was 72% negative, while coverage of the Democratic National Convention was 88% positive.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Government-backed guarantees ease financing strains for China’s SMEs

    Source: China State Council Information Office

    Li Shiji, who owns a small grain-processing company in Shenyang of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, found it difficult to secure business loans for most of his career due to a lack of collateral. But the recent launch of a government-backed financing tool has eased his company’s financial pressures, he says.

    A government financing guarantee product initiated by Liaoning Province Financing Guaranty in partnership with various banks has helped Li’s firm secure 5 million yuan (about 693,385 U.S. dollars) in much-needed loans.

    By analyzing common traits among enterprises in specific industries and establishing a standardized, scenario-based financing model, the product effectively enables small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entities in rural industries to access loans. As of the end of March, the program had supported 16 county-level industrial clusters, providing 430 million yuan in guaranteed loans and sustaining 3,800 jobs.

    China has promoted government financing guarantees to help small businesses and rural ventures overcome long-standing lending barriers. Unlike commercial guarantors, public financing guarantee institutions prioritize public welfare over profits, offering credit enhancement, risk sharing and lower fees to facilitate lending to small-scale borrowers.

    The country has built a three-tier system to ensure the system fully covers all cities and counties. The National Financing Guarantee Fund, which is the cornerstone of the system, had backed loans totaling 5.81 trillion yuan by the end of March, benefiting approximately 5 million borrowers. Of that total, 98.96 percent was allocated to small or agricultural businesses, significantly reducing borrowing costs.

    He Daixin, a finance expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that government guarantees have become a key countercyclical macroeconomic tool, supporting growing numbers of SMEs and rural entities.

    Yet challenges persist, including the vague definition of institutional roles and sustainability concerns. In response to these challenges, Chinese authorities in February introduced new measures to regulate government financing guarantees, setting operational requirements for these institutions.

    In effect since March 1, 2025, the regulations mandate that government-backed guarantee institutions should expand services to help enterprises weather challenges while stabilizing and boosting employment. 

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: China’s foreign trade up 1.3 pct in Q1, sustaining stable development

    Source: China State Council Information Office

    An aerial drone photo shows a view of the Tangshan Port in north China’s Hebei Province, Jan. 13, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    China’s total goods imports and exports in yuan-denominated terms expanded 1.3 percent year on year in the first quarter of this year, demonstrating stable growth and strong resilience despite external headwinds, official data showed on Monday.

    According to the General Administration of Customs (GAC), China’s exports during the period rose 6.9 percent to 6.13 trillion yuan (about 850.1 billion U.S. dollars) while imports fell 6 percent to 4.17 trillion yuan.

    Despite the weak momentum of global economic growth, intensified trade protectionism and geopolitical tensions, China’s foreign trade has maintained stable growth with progress in high-quality development this year, Wang Lingjun, deputy head of the GAC, told a press conference.

    The country’s foreign trade continued to see structural improvement. The imports and exports of the equipment manufacturing sector expanded 7.6 percent year on year in January-March, accounting for about half of the country’s total foreign trade, according to the GAC.

    GAC spokesperson Lyu Daliang said at the press conference that China’s exports to more than 170 countries and regions expanded in the first three months, with strong growth seen in the high-end, smart and green manufacturing sectors.

    In March alone, the country’s imports and exports rose 6 percent from one year earlier, representing continuous improvements compared with staying flat in February and 2.2-percent fall in January, according to the GAC data.

    Lyu said that China’s exports now faced a complex and severe external situation, but “the sky won’t fall.”

    He said China had made steady progress in diversifying its foreign trade markets and deepening industrial and supply chain cooperation with partners around the world in recent years. He emphasized that China’s vast domestic market remains a strong backup for the economy, adding that the country will turn domestic certainty into a buffer against global volatility.

    He attributed the decline in imports in the first quarter to various factors including the decline in international commodity prices and fewer working days.

    China has committed to boosting high-standard opening up and expanding imports, sharing development opportunities with the rest of the world, he said, adding that China has maintained its position as the world’s second-largest importer for 16 consecutive years, with its share of global imports rising from 7.9 percent to 10.5 percent.

    Looking ahead, Lyu said China had huge potential for import growth, and the country’s vast market always presents a great opportunity for the world.

    A breakdown of the GAC data showed that ASEAN remained China’s largest trading partner in the first quarter. During this period, trade between China and the ASEAN bloc reached 1.71 trillion yuan, up 7.1 percent from one year earlier and accounting for 16.6 percent of China’s overall trade value, the GAC said.

    During the January-March period, China’s foreign trade with the European Union went up 1.4 percent year on year to 1.3 trillion yuan. That with Belt and Road partner countries rose 2.2 percent to 5.26 trillion yuan, accounting for 51.1 percent of China’s total foreign trade.

    China’s foreign trade with the United States expanded 4 percent year on year to 1.11 trillion yuan during this period, despite disruptions from the U.S. administration’s reckless tariff policies, according to Wang.

    Wang reiterated that the U.S. “reciprocal tariffs” subvert the existing international economic and trade order, put U.S. interests above the common good of the international community, seriously violate the WTO rules, undermine the rules-based multilateral trading system and disrupt the global economic order.

    “There is no winner in a trade war, and protectionism is a dead end,” he said, adding that China will continue to work with other parties to jointly oppose the U.S. tariff bullying and hegemonism, and safeguard the multilateral trading system and economic globalization. 

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Britain suspends import tariffs on 89 products amid global trade tensions

    Source: China State Council Information Office

    The British government has announced a temporary suspension of import tariffs on 89 types of goods to bolster domestic businesses and ease financial burden on consumers. The measure takes immediate effect and will remain in place until July 2027.

    According to an official press release updated on Monday, the suspended tariffs apply to a wide array of items, ranging from everyday essentials such as pasta, fruit juices, spices, and coconut oil, to industrial materials like plywood and plastics used in construction and manufacturing. Seasonal goods such as agave syrup – popular among cocktail makers, and plant bulbs for gardening are also included.

    The authority estimates that the tariff cuts will save British businesses at least 17 million pounds (about 22.42 million U.S. dollars) annually. Officials said the savings could be passed down to consumers through lower retail prices especially ahead of the summer season.

    “Free and open trade grows economies, lowers prices and helps businesses to sell to the world, which is why we’re cutting tariffs on a range of products,” said British Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds. “From food to furniture, this will reduce the cost of everyday items for businesses, with savings hopefully passed onto consumers.”

    British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves also stressed the policy’s potential to address cost-of-living concerns. “In a changing world, we know families are anxious about the cost of living, and businesses are uncertain about their future. That’s why we’ve announced lower prices on imports of everyday essentials – helping businesses to thrive and pass on savings to customers,” she said.

    The announcement comes amid mounting external trade pressures, including recent tariff increases imposed by the United States on a variety of British exports. The U.S. measures, which have affected sectors such as steel, automotive, and food products, have raised costs for exporters and strained transatlantic trade.

    Industry groups warn that the American tariffs could further weigh on Britain’s manufacturing sector, which is already grappling with high input costs and sluggish global demand. Against this backdrop, the British government’s tariff suspensions are seen as a countermeasure to reinforce domestic competitiveness and economic resilience. (1 pound = 1.32 U.S. dollar) 

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Social media is the new election battleground. Is embracing influencers smart, risky or both?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Grantham, Lecturer in Communication, Griffith University

    From Abbie Chatfield and Hannah Ferguson to Ozzy Man, influencers have never been more central to an Australian election campaign.

    Much has been made of the increasingly common site of politicians on TikTok or Instagram reels. Some political groups don’t like it, as don’t some in traditional media.

    But in the first election in which Millennials and Gen Z voters will outnumber Baby Boomers, it’s an inevitable, politically necessary change – though not without its pitfalls.

    A messy scene

    Politics in the social media sphere is already starting to get messy.

    A few weeks ago, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) investigated whether influencer content promoting political messages constitutes electoral advertising.

    The findings suggest it does not, but the AEC has proceeded to ask that this content is accompanied with authorisations.

    Late last week, Independent MP Allegra Spender admitted to commissioning influencer content through a talent agency.

    This doesn’t seem to breach electoral rules, but the lines are being blurred, particularly given the content included glowing remarks about Spender and only suggested they were created “in collaboration”, not as a paid advertisement. This has since been fixed.

    The scrutiny reveals growing discomfort around this emerging form of political communication – including from politicians themselves.

    As influencer Chatfield said:

    there’s this like moral panic about influencers in politics as well, this whole idea influencers can’t be trusted with something as serious and as high brow as politics.

    But is that the case, especially if money has changed hands?

    A politicised sphere

    In what is perhaps a sign of the globally uncertain times, influencing is more political than ever.

    Look at the recent clash involving Holly MacAlpine, who is mounting a legal challenge to the Liberal Party’s social media strategy. She accused them of deliberately editing a clip of her supporting The Greens to make it look like she was instead criticising the party. Last night she launched a crowdfunding campaign for legal representation that reached its goal amount within hours.

    Influencers are becoming more than messengers. They are political actors in their own right.

    In response, TikTok has adjusted its algorithm to recognise political content at the point of upload. The content is now being held for review prior to going live.

    It’s also running an election safety campaign alongside the AEC.

    However, at the time of writing, these guidelines don’t appear on all content that discusses politics or elections. It doesn’t appear to be attached to Australian political content in the same way this style of guideline was used during other events, like COVID.

    Politics with personality

    All this matters because younger generations don’t get their political information from newspapers or nightly news bulletins.

    Instead, they turn to short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, where politics is often delivered with humour, personality, and authenticity (real or perceived).

    The algorithms that drive these platforms reward familiarity and engagement. When a well-known face appears on screen, users linger, boosting the reach of that post. Political messages, even subtle ones, can travel far beyond the original audience.

    Influencers have a lot to contribute to political discourse, particularly in podcasts, but the way they formulate and deliver messages varies widely.

    Some are not explicitly aligned with a political party, while others are transparent about where their preferences sit. How much they affect the election campaign heavily depends on their specific niche and how that relates to broader election commentary.

    Glenn James, host of the Money Money Money podcast and a figure in the personal finance space was recently invited to the budget lock-up. He asked questions about student debt.

    His content sits at the intersection of finance and policy, making it particularly powerful in an election where cost-of-living pressures and education debt are key issues for younger voters.

    It’s an example that not all political influence on social media is overtly partisan. Sometimes, it’s about asking the right questions.

    Reaching eyeballs

    Perhaps influencers’ most significant contribution is not just persuasive power, but reach.

    Their ability to cut through and capture attention is unmatched in today’s fragmented media landscape. In the past, audiences followed specific news outlets aligned with their values.

    Now, thanks to TikTok’s “For You” Page and Instagram Reels’ algorithmic curation, users are increasingly exposed to political content from creators they don’t necessarily follow and would not otherwise encounter.

    Another example is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent use of “delulu with no solulu” (delusional with no solution) in parliament following a dare from podcast Happy Hour with Lucy and Nikki.

    Even though it made no sense to a portion of the population, it gained significant momentum and was trending across platforms.

    Adopting the blueprint

    Influencers aren’t journalists, and most aren’t claiming to be. They’re generally upfront about the fact they’re not wedded to journalistic standards of impartiality, objectivity and holding the powerful to account.

    So in an attempt to ensure traditional media reporting is also noticed by social media users, media outlets are using similar techniques, albeit through a journalistic lens.

    From playing to the algorithm to providing behind the scenes content from the campaign trail, traditional media are solidifying their place in this election commentary and getting noticed.

    It’s a new playing field in political campaigning. But whether it meaningfully shifts voter behaviour, or just adds to the already overwhelmed digital chatter, remains to be seen.

    Susan Grantham 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. Social media is the new election battleground. Is embracing influencers smart, risky or both? – https://theconversation.com/social-media-is-the-new-election-battleground-is-embracing-influencers-smart-risky-or-both-253537

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: expert reaction to State of the Climate 2024

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Climate scientists comment on the ‘State of the Climate 2024’ report, published by Copernicus Climate Change Service and World Meteorological Organization.

    Madeleine Thomson, Head of Climate Impacts & Adaptation at Wellcome, said:

    “Europe is heating up, and we’re not prepared for the toll this will take on our health.”

    “Deaths from heat stress are the most visible impact. But extreme heat doesn’t just kill—it also increases the risk of heart disease, pregnancy complications, and poor mental health. It also fuels indirect health threats like crop failures and wildfires.”

    “We urgently need to cut emissions and adapt our cities. Simple changes, like adding green spaces and waterways, can help cool urban areas and protect public health.”

    Dr Ben Clarke, Research Associate in Extreme Weather and Climate Change at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said:

    “This report found that damage from storms and flooding across Europe in 2024 cost at least €18 billion.

    “Every year, European countries are having to reach deeper into their pockets to respond to weather disasters.

    “Storm Boris is a perfect example. Catastrophic impacts were avoided with days of preparation that saw reservoirs emptied and flood defenses erected. Even still, the floods caused upwards of €2 billion in damages.

    “It is painfully clear that the cost of acting on climate change is far lower than the cost of inaction. Cutting emissions and investing in climate adaptation will save lives and protect economies.”

    Dr Friederike Otto, Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Environmental Policy and co-lead of World Weather Attribution, Imperial College London, said

    “Think 1.3°C of warming is safe? This report lays bare the pain Europe’s population is already suffering from extreme weather.

    “But we’re on track to experience 3°C by 2100. You only need to cast your mind back to the floods in Spain, the fires in Portugal, or the summer heatwaves last year to know how devastating this level of warming would be.

    “In a volatile global economy, it is frankly insane to keep relying on imported fossil fuels –  the main cause of climate change – when renewable energy offers a cheaper and cleaner alternative.

    “The EU can’t afford to put its climate commitments on the backburner. It needs to lead the charge and accelerate the shift to evidence based politics, actually helping low-income people and not oligarchs”

    Declared interests

    For all other experts, no reply to our request for DOIs was received.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI China: Internet summit in HK highlights digital future

    Source: China State Council Information Office 2

    The World Internet Conference Asia-Pacific Summit is underway, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, April 14, 2025. [Photo/China Daily]
    The 2025 World Internet Conference Asia-Pacific Summit kicked off in Hong Kong on Monday, attracting nearly 1,000 participants from around the globe to explore future development and potentials across various domains in digital technology.
    The two-day summit was held under the theme of “Integration of AI and Digital Technologies Shaping the Future — Jointly Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace”.
    Speaking at the summit, Wang Yong, vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee, said that the Chinese government consistently embraced the digital era with an open attitude, sharing opportunities and benefits brought by internet development with countries around the world, including those in the Asia-Pacific region.
    China is willing to work hand in hand with other countries to promote technological innovation, deepen exchanges and cooperation, safeguard security and stability of cyberspace, establish a sound governance order, and jointly advance the world toward a bright future of digital and intelligent integration, Wang said.
    John Lee, chief executive of China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), said the summit demonstrated the city’s rising role as an international innovation and technology hub. It also reflected Hong Kong’s deepening integration with the country’s national development.
    Lee said that at challenging time, with geopolitics and trade relations getting tense, cooperation is important. Hong Kong champions free trade and multilateralism, and is willing to offer a range of welcoming programs for investors.
    Zhuang Rongwen, chief of the Cyberspace Administration of China and chairman of the World Internet Conference, said that the theme of the summit reflected its aim to align with the trends of the information era, focus on the development and security of artificial intelligence, deepen exchanges, foster consensus, and enhance cooperation.
    Zheng Yanxiong, deputy director of the State Council Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office and director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the HKSAR, said that as a pioneer in internet development, Hong Kong serves as a “super connector” and a “super value-adder” in the advancement of digital-intelligence integration. By jointly promoting the building of a community with a shared future in cyberspace, Hong Kong is set to become a new hub for innovation in internet technology, industry, and culture.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS FIGHT BACK AGAINST TRUMP’S ATTACKS ON THE FTC AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (8th District of New York)

    Washington, D.C. —  Today, Senate and House Democrats filed an amicus brief opposing President Donald Trump’s unlawful attempt to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). FTC Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya are duly appointed, Senate-confirmed Commissioners at an independent federal agency created by Congress. Trump’s illegal attempts to terminate them threaten the integrity of independent federal agencies and the FTC’s ability to enforce civil antitrust law and protect the public from fraudsters and monopolists.

    The brief was led in the Senate by Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Ranking Member Cory Booker (NJ), Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (NY), Judiciary Ranking Member Dick Durbin (IL), Commerce Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (WA), Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA), and Senator Amy Klobuchar (MN). Co-Chairs of the House Litigation and Rapid Response Task Force, Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (MD-08) and Assistant Democratic Leader Joe Neguse (CO-02), in conjunction with Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06), and Antitrust Subcommittee Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (NY-12) are leading the brief in the House of Representatives. 251 Congressional Democrats signed the amicus brief. 

    “Donald Trump and Elon Musk are crippling the independent Federal Trade Commission, which is entrusted with protecting American consumers and ensuring a fair and competitive marketplace. These purported firings violate the law and a century of Supreme Court precedent, but they are no mistake. The FTC has been at the frontlines of holding to account the very billionaires and Big Tech CEOs who have donated millions to Trump and sat in the front row at Trump’s inauguration,” said Ranking Member Raskin. “That’s why Democrats are joining the fight to protect the FTC which has helped all Americans by stopping junk fees, ensuring prices are fair for American consumers at the grocery store, and preventing big business from stifling competition from small business owners.”

    “The unlawful firing of FTC Commissioners is yet another example of the Trump administration’s continued executive overreach, and threatens the agency’s ability to carry out its mission,” said Assistant Democratic Leader Joe Neguse. “House Democrats won’t stand for it, and will continue to defend the constitution and rule of law.”

    “House Democrats are united in our overwhelming opposition to Donald Trump’s unlawful attempt to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission appointed by Democratic Presidents. Congress created this commission and required it to be bipartisan to protect consumers and we will not stand by while Donald Trump rips it apart. I thank my Senate Democratic colleagues, Rep. Raskin, Rep. Pallone, Assistant Leader Neguse and the entire Litigation Working Group and Rapid Response Task Force for leading our effort to push back on this unprecedented takeover,” said Leader Jeffries.

    “Trump’s attempt to fire the two FTC Commissioners—one of whom he himself appointed—is unlawful. Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya must be reinstated to their rightful positions, and I’m proud to stand with my colleagues in fighting to restore an independent FTC that protects consumers,” said Ranking Member Pallone.

    “The law is clear–the President of the United States does not have the power to fire an FTC Commissioner without cause,” said Senator Booker. “The FTC catches scammers, breaks up monopolies, protects children’s privacy online, and encourages competition to keep prices low at the grocery store, pharmacy, and gas stations. Donald Trump’s illegal attempt to fire these Commissioners for no reason is a blatant attempt to strip the agency of transparency and accountability, at great cost to Americans. His actions violate nearly a century of Supreme Court precedent and Congress’ well-established constitutional practice of providing removal protections to members of the FTC and other independent agencies like the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Federal Reserve. I’m proud to lead this effort in the Senate and be joined by over 250 of my congressional colleagues to ensure the FTC continues to work for the American people and not for Trump’s billionaire friends.”

    “It is disgusting – but not surprising – that the Trump administration is working overtime to dismantle the agency that handles antitrust law and enforces consumer protections,” said Leader Schumer. “Lawlessness has been a hallmark of the first few months of this administration, and firing Senate-confirmed FTC commissioners is just one example. This reckless decision will lead to higher prices for American families by giving a green light to businesses across the country to gouge consumers. Senate Democrats will continue to fight against this corporate handout with every tool possible.”

    “President Trump is yet again abusing the power of the presidency by unlawfully removing two FTC Commissioners.  The law and Supreme Court precedent are crystal clear: Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya cannot be removed without good cause,” said Senator Durbin. “I’m joining Senator Booker in filing this amicus brief to underscore that the President, whoever he may be, must follow the law.”

    “The FTC for 100 years has protected consumers—from stopping predatory scams to blocking illegal mergers.  You can’t just fire commissioners because you don’t like them, you can only fire them for cause.  The FTC should be an independent, bipartisan consumer watchdog that puts consumers ahead of politics,” said Senator Cantwell.

    “Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya are talented, dedicated public servants who stand up for consumers and workers against big corporations’ abuse. Their illegal firings are a gift to corporations who want a free pass to gouge and scam American families,” said Senator Warren. “We’re fighting back to make sure the Federal Trade Commission stays independent and fights for working people.”

    “President Trump’s firing of Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya was not only illegal, it also undermines the critical, bipartisan work that the FTC has carried out for over a century,” said Senator Klobuchar. “We stand with the Commissioners and urge the court to immediately reinstate them so they can continue to take on monopoly power and protect consumers from fraud, scams, and corruption.”

    In Slaughter v. Trump, a case filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the unlawful attempted firings of FTC Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya, the congressional amicus brief argues: 

    1. The Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor makes clear that Congress has the power to create independent multimember agencies like the FTC and provide removal protections for FTC Commissioners;

    2. Throughout our nation’s history, Congress has created independent agencies with multimember boards or commissions whose members enjoy removal protections, like the Commissioners of the FTC, and this established practice has been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court; and

    3. Constitutional text and history support Congress’ constitutional authority to temper the President’s exercise of removal.

    The full brief is available here.

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: MATSUI AND SCHNEIDER LEAD EFFORT TO PROTECT ESSENTIAL MEDICAL SUPPLY CHAINS FROM TRUMP TARIFFS

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-CA)

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-CA-07) and Congressman Brad Schneider (D-IL-10) led a group of 26 lawmakers in sending a letter toUnited States Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer and U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) Secretary Howard Lutnick. The letter raises serious concerns that the Trump Administration’s tariffs may jeopardize the fragile supply chains of generic drugs and medical devices, risking dangerous shortages of these essential medical supplies. 

    “We write with deep concern over your Administration’s tariff actions affecting medical supply chains,” wrote the lawmakers. “Reckless tariffs, retaliatory measures, and an escalating trade war threaten the supply of essential medicines and medical goods, risking severe shortages that could harm U.S. patients.” 

    The vast majority of active pharmaceutical ingredients used for generic drugs come from overseas. The same is true of crucial medical devices. Imposing tariffs on these products will lead to shortages given the low tolerability of manufacturers to take on additional economic risk. These same factors could force manufacturers overseas where critical inputs are less expensive. 

    “The supply disruptions of critical medical products will unavoidably hurt U.S. patients, force providers to make impossible rationing decisions, and potentially even result in death as treatments are delayed and more effective medicines and products are swapped for less effective alternatives,” the lawmakers continued. 

    Congresswoman Matsui has been a leader in Congress to secure medical supply chains. Last Congress, she authored the Mapping America’s Pharmaceutical Supply (MAPS) Act, a bill to help the federal government prepare for and mitigate future drug shortages by identifying pharmaceutical supply chain vulnerabilities.

    Full text of the letter can be found below or HERE. 

    Dear Ambassador Greer and Secretary Lutnick,

    We write with deep concern over your Administration’s tariff actions affecting medical supply chains. Reckless tariffs, retaliatory measures, and an escalating trade war threaten the supply of essential medicines and medical goods, risking severe shortages that could harm U.S. patients.

    Critical drug supply chains are already fragile, with 271 drugs currently in shortage, down from a record 323 in early 2024 but still alarmingly high.  Many of these are low-margin generic sterile injectable drugs (GSI) crucial in hospital settings, including IV saline, chemotherapy, antibiotics, and anesthetics. Often priced at $2 or less per unit, these drugs are highly vulnerable to economic disruptions.

    These economic conditions discourage manufacturers from investing in reliable supply chains, leaving these drugs heavily reliant on foreign active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), particularly from China and India, which together account for 80% of registered API manufacturing sites.  The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response estimates that 90-95% of GSI for acute critical care depend on API from these countries.  This reliance threatens military readiness as well as general public health; in 2019, a Defense Health Agency official warned that disruption of Chinese supply could cause “severe shortages.” 

    Similarly, nearly 70% of U.S.-marketed medical devices are produced solely overseas.  The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) highlights the complexity of global medical device supply chains, where disruptions lead to prolonged shortages.  These supply chains are characterized by varying access to inputs across the globe, specialized regional economies and production capabilities, and an incoherent international regulatory landscape. If tariffs are implemented on medical products, it would be extremely difficult to coordinate a response such that the number and duration of shortages in the U.S. does not increase. 

    The supply disruptions of critical medical products will unavoidably hurt U.S. patients, force providers to make impossible rationing decisions, and potentially even result in death as treatments are delayed and more effective medicines and products are swapped for less effective alternatives. We have already seen these harmful effects during chemotherapy drug shortages in the U.S. in 2023. If tariffs are implemented, clinicians would be forced to make similar decisions on a much larger scale, having devastating impacts on patient care and resource allocation across the healthcare system.

    Tariffs may also backfire by driving manufacturers to cheaper foreign markets, undermining efforts to strengthen domestic and allied-country production. With generic drugmakers already operating on thin margins, cost spikes could force them to cut product lines, exacerbating shortages. For example, we aware of one large generics manufacturer that has identified 60 products that would immediately be at risk of being discontinued if the administration moved forward with tariffs as proposed. Onshoring production requires deliberate policy incentives, not blunt economic penalties.

    The shared goal of bringing more of our critical medical supply chains to the U.S. and allied countries requires the deliberate attention of the Executive Branch and Congress to incentivize manufacturing. Unfortunately, without additional policy changes, the blunt instrument of tariffs will likely result in more shortages of essential medicines and medical goods, threatening public health and inadvertently increasing reliance on foreign countries for our supply of critical medical products.

    To avoid devastating consequences to patients and our public health infrastructure, we urge you to consider the following in tariff decisions:

    • Assess the impact of tariffs on essential medicines and medical goods and seek input from manufacturers and experts.
    • Exempt or provide waivers for API, generic drugs, essential medicines, and critical medical supplies.
    • If tariffs are implemented, coordinate with the FDA to expedite approval of alternative sources.
    • Issue timely and clear guidance to manufacturers on tariffs, exemptions, and exclusions.
    • Collaborate with Congress and international allies to build resilient medical supply chains.

    Congress stands ready to work toward securing our medical product supply chains. We implore you to carefully weigh tariff decisions with respect to essential medicines and medical goods.

    # # #

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Kiwi Farmers doing their bit on emissions

    Source: New Zealand Government

    New figures released today confirm that New Zealand farmers are on track to meet the target of a 10 percent reduction in biogenic methane emissions by 2030 Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. 

    “New Zealand farmers are among the most carbon-efficient food producers in the world and these latest results further demonstrate that Labour’s failed He Waka Eke Noa was not needed, and that we were right to take agriculture out of the Emissions Trading Scheme,” Mr McClay says. 

    New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2023) shows there was a further 2 per cent drop in agricultural emissions in 2023, supporting the government’s projections showing methane to be on track to reduce emissions by 10.1% by 2030. 

    “This is a step in the right direction; however, New Zealand cannot afford to reduce emissions through the planting of food producing land or further reduction of stock numbers,” Mr McClay says.

    “That is why we are introducing legislation this year to restrict full farm to forest conversions and instead support agricultural methane reduction through a $400m commitment to science and innovation. 

    “The primary sector is responsible for 360,000 jobs and contributes $58 billion each year to the New Zealand economy through exports. 

    “This latest emissions reduction was achieved without Labour’s proposed taxes or a price on methane and I would like to thank our farmers for their hard work and commitment to innovations. 

    “The Government is committed to meeting New Zealand’s climate obligations without closing down farms or sending jobs and production overseas,” Mr McClay says. 

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: ICYMI: Padilla, Western Senators Introduce Bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act to Combat Wildfires

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)

    ICYMI: Padilla, Western Senators Introduce Bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act to Combat Wildfires

    A list of Senate Fix Our Forests Act provisions particularly impactful for California is available here
    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In case you missed it, last week, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), co-chair of the bipartisan Senate Wildfire Caucus, and Senators John Curtis (R-Utah), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) introduced the Senate version of the Fix Our Forests Act, bipartisan legislation to combat catastrophic wildfires, restore forest ecosystems, and make federal forest management more efficient and responsive.
    The comprehensive Senate bill reflects months of bipartisan Senate negotiations to find consensus on how to best improve forest management practices, accelerate processes to protect communities, advance watershed restoration, and strengthen partnerships between federal agencies, states, tribes, and private stakeholders. The Senate version of the bill would also bolster coordination efforts across agencies through a new Wildfire Intelligence Center, which would streamline the federal response and create a whole-of-government approach to combating wildfires.
    A one-pager on the bill is available here.
    See coverage on the Senate version of the Fix Our Forests Act below:
    LA Times: California Sen. Padilla hopes Fix Our Forests Act will prevent more L.A. fires
    By Faith E. Pinho
    Months after wildfires ravaged Los Angeles County, California Sen. Alex Padilla is hoping his bill to overhaul forest management and prevent wildfires might be the first bipartisan measure for President Trump to sign.
    “I don’t think anything could completely prevent wildfires, but through this work, if we can prevent just one more community from experiencing the heartbreak felt by the families in Santa Rosa or in Paradise or the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, then this effort would’ve been worth it,” Padilla said Thursday.
    Padilla, who chairs the Senate Wildfire Caucus, joined with a bipartisan group of senators from the West — Sens. John Curtis (R-Utah), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) — to introduce the Fix Our Forests Act, which mirrors a bipartisan measure of the same name that the House passed in January.
    The Fix Our Forests Act would usher in sweeping changes to how the federal government manages its land — which constitutes 45% of the uninhabited, wildfire-prone land in California, according to the Congressional Research Service. It would create a wildfire intelligence center to centralize federal management, require assessments of fireshed areas and streamline how communities reduce their wildfire risk. It also would ramp up research into wildfire mitigation technologies and change some forestation treatments. […]
    Padilla argued that his bill improved upon issues brought by those groups, including adding a provision for prescribed burns, “building on the expertise and experience of Native American tribes that have been implementing prescribed fires for generations.”
    The Senate version also redefined projects eligible for grants, “to make sure that the L.A. would be eligible right now,” said Matt Weiner, chief executive and founder of the advocacy organization Megafire Action, which pushed for the legislation.
    “I think it’s pretty crazy, frankly, that we’re on the cusp of getting to the president’s desk here a bill that he could sign into law that would be bipartisan and one of the most comprehensive rewrites of federal wildfire policy in decades,” Weiner said. “Amid all the chaos, there’s an opportunity to do something really meaningful here in a bipartisan way.” […]
    California’s leaders — including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler — applauded the Senate version of the bill. Newsom pointed to his own efforts temporarily lifting state regulations to speed up rebuilding in the wake of the L.A. fires.
    “The Fix Our Forest Act is a step forward that will build on this progress — enabling good projects to happen faster on federal lands,” Newsom said in a statement.
    Axios San Diego: New bill aims to bolster fight against wildfires in California
    By Kate Murphy
    A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the West is introducing a bill to combat “catastrophic” wildfires and overhaul forest management.
    Why it matters: Climate change and drought are causing wildfires to become more intense, widespread and harder to put out.
    The legislation comes after the Los Angeles County blazes in January were called one of the costliest wildfire events in U.S. history, with estimated damages reaching up to $131 billion.
    State of play: Some highlights of the Fix Our Forests Act — sponsored by Sens. John Curtis (R-Utah), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) —are :
    Reducing wildfire risks in certain areas with more cross-boundary collaboration.
    Creating an interagency program to help communities build wildfire-resistant measures.
    Increasing research to test and utilize wildfire prevention technologies. […]

    What they’re saying: As the state faces more frequent and catastrophic wildfires, this bill “prioritizes building fire-resilient communities, accelerating the removal of hazardous fuels, and strengthening coordination across federal, state, and tribal agencies, including through the creation of the first-ever National Wildfire Intelligence Center,” Sen. Padilla said in a statement.
    PoliticoPro: Western senators lead bipartisan push for wildfire mitigation bill
    By Jordan Wolman
    A bipartisan group Western-state senators is planning to introduce wildfire mitigation legislation that would expedite forest-thinning projects, establish an interagency risk-and-response center and set stricter limits on legal challenges.
    Republicans John Curtis of Utah and Tim Sheehy of Montana are joining Democrats Alex Padilla of California and John Hickenlooper of Colorado in sponsoring the Fix Our Forests Act, according to a draft of the bill shared first with POLITICO.
    The legislation, which passed the House in a bipartisan vote earlier this year after wildfires devastated Los Angeles, presents a rare opportunity for compromise in Congress and a chance for progress on forestry and wildfire issues that have plagued the West in recent years. […]
    The Senate bill also has support from groups including The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, International Association of Fire Chiefs and Megafire Action.
    The Senate version of the bill has received significant support from environmental groups, first responders, and wildfire organizations, including:
    The Nature Conservancy; National Wildlife Federation; Environmental Defense Fund; National Audubon Society; Citizens’ Climate Lobby; Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership; Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition; The Stewardship Project; the Federation of American Scientists; CAL FIRE; the International Association of Fire Chiefs; Alliance for Wildfire Resilience; Megafire Action; the Association for Firetech Innovation; Climate & Wildfire Institute; Tall Timbers; Bipartisan Policy Center Action (BPC Action); Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting, and the Outdoors (HECHO); the American Property Casualty Insurance Association; and the Property and Environment Research Center.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Padilla, Schiff, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats Request U.S. Marshals Service Investigation Into Escalating Threats Against Judges

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)

    Padilla, Schiff, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats Request U.S. Marshals Service Investigation Into Escalating Threats Against Judges

    Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats ask Marshals to proactively investigate unlawful threats and prepare to protect judges and their family members in the current heightened threat environment
    WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.), members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and all Committee Democrats warned the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) about the elevated threat environment for federal judges, Supreme Court justices, and their families and requested information about USMS’ ability to investigate the threats against the judiciary.
    “The USMS’s Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report noted an increase in ‘the need for protective services’ and ‘the number and intensity of concerning and potentially threatening electronic communications related to’ judges and other persons involved in the judicial process. Since then, federal judges at all levels of the judiciary and appointed by presidents of both parties have expressed concern for their and their colleagues’ safety as a result of this threat environment. The level of these threats was sufficient to spur the federal judiciary to establish a Judicial Security and Independence Task Force,” wrote the Senators.
    The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced the Judicial Security and Independence Task Force to respond to the growing number of threats to sitting federal judges, the judiciary’s latest effort to protect its judges and staff against violence and intimidation. In their letter, the Senators urged the Marshals to investigate the sources of these threats and determine whether they violate federal law. The Senators also asked whether the Marshals have sufficient resources to protect judges and their families and whether recent cuts to Justice Department funding and personnel have hindered the Marshals’ ability to conduct the necessary investigations.
    “The USMS, as the agency primarily responsible for the federal judiciary’s safety, must protect against these threats. As family members increasingly become targets, USMS should be prepared to provide protection as needed for targeted family members. USMS must also proactively investigate the sources of these threats, both for a full understanding of the threat environment and to determine whether civil or criminal remedies are appropriate,” continued the Senators.
    Federal judges, Supreme Court justices, and their family members have faced relentless attacks, especially on social media, which have escalated in recent years. A Supreme Court justice was the target of an assassination attempt, another justice’s family member received bomb threats at her residence, a federal judge’s child was threatened, and several federal judges have had deliveries anonymously sent to their residences in an apparent warning that people know their address.
    U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, led the letter. In addition to Padilla and Schiff, the letter was also signed by Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
    Full text of the letter is available here and below:
    Dear Acting Director Pittella:
    We write to request a briefing at your earliest convenience on the U.S. Marshals Service’s (USMS) response to threats against federal judges. These increasing threats of violence may endanger our system of government as well as the lives of these judges and their families— including in our home states.
    In February 2024, former USMS Director Ronald Davis testified that “[t]he number of verified threats against federal judges has doubled in the last three years.” Additionally, in January 2025, the USMS’s Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report noted an increase in “the need for protective services” and “the number and intensity of concerning and potentially threatening electronic communications related to” judges and other persons involved in the judicial process. Since then, federal judges at all levels of the judiciary and appointed by presidents of both parties have expressed concern for their and their colleagues’ safety as a result of this threat environment. The level of these threats was sufficient to spur the federal judiciary to establish a Judicial Security and Independence Task Force.
    The USMS, as the agency primarily responsible for the federal judiciary’s safety, must protect against these threats. As family members increasingly become targets, USMS should be prepared to provide protection as needed for targeted family members. USMS must also proactively investigate the sources of these threats, both for a full understanding of the threat environment and to determine whether civil or criminal remedies are appropriate, including potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1503.
    We would like to ensure that USMS has allocated its resources to fulfill these missions and to ensure that the USMS’s work has not been damaged by DOJ personnel and funding cuts. Please let us know if additional USMS resources are necessary to guarantee the protection of our federal judges and their families.
    To prepare for the briefing, we request answers to the below questions related to USMS’s work on this front.
    1. How has USMS responded to the threat environment with respect to federal judges?
    2. What steps has USMS taken to ensure the safety of judges’ family members as part of this threat environment?
    3. What is USMS’s current capacity to investigate threats against judges and their family members?
    4. What is USMS’s current capacity to analyze trends related to threats against judges and their family members, including the sources of those threat trends?
    5. Have any recent executive branch personnel or funding decisions affected USMS’s capacity to investigate or respond to threats against judges and their family members?
    6. Does USMS need any additional resources to investigate and respond to threats against judges and their family members?
    7. Has USMS, whether in conjunction with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices or otherwise, evaluated whether any threats against judges or their family members constitute potential obstruction under 18 U.S.C. § 1503 or any related federal statute? What is the investigation protocol USMS follows for such threats?
    Thank you for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to your response and a briefing.
    Sincerely,

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Central gov’t pledges full support for Macao’s high-quality development

    Source: China State Council Information Office 2

    Sam Hou Fai, chief executive of China’s Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), delivers the 2025 fiscal year policy address in Macao, south China, April 14, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    A spokesperson for the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council on Monday pledged efforts to fully support the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) in achieving new progress in its high-quality development.
    The spokesperson made the remarks following a speech that Sam Hou Fai, the sixth-term chief executive of the Macao SAR, delivered on Monday, which was Sam’s first policy speech since taking office.
    Noting that the chief executive’s speech fully demonstrated the reform-minded, innovative, responsible and enterprising spirit of the SAR’s new-term government, the spokesperson said that the central government will spare no effort in backing the SAR government and various sectors of Macao to complete the significant mission of advancing the “one country, two systems” practice.
    The speech outlined a vision for — as well as pathways to build — a Macao that is ruled by law, and that is dynamic and brimming with culture and happiness. It also highlighted issues and challenges facing the SAR, and put forward a raft of new approaches and response measures to tackle them, the spokesperson said.
    With the strong support of the central government and the mainland, the Macao SAR government and all sectors of Macao’s society will surely give full play to the advantages of the “one country, two systems” policy, proactively seize opportunities, and continuously create new achievements, the spokesperson said.
    Thus they will also make new and greater contributions to building a great modern socialist country and achieving the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by pursuing Chinese modernization, the spokesperson added.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: China refutes US officials’ ‘China threat’ narrative

    Source: China State Council Information Office

    China’s cooperation with Latin American and Caribbean countries aims to provide mutual support and is never driven by geopolitical calculations, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told a daily news briefing on Monday.

    Spokesperson Lin Jian made the remarks in response to the “China threat” narrative being pushed by certain U.S. officials. He said that their remarks are steeped in ideological bias and the result of a Cold War mentality, and that they contain not a single word of truth.

    “Who sees Latin America and the Caribbean as a backyard and forces the ‘Neo-Monroe Doctrine’ on them? Who keeps pointing fingers at the domestic affairs of these countries? Who has been coercing them with tariff threats? Who has engaged in massive global surveillance? Who has military bases all over the Western Hemisphere? Who is letting small arms, light weapons and ammunition flow into Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace?” Lin asked, noting that the world knows “full well” the answers to these questions.

    Lin said that China is committed to equality and mutual benefits in engaging with these countries, and never seeks to gain a sphere of influence or target any third party.

    The United States continues to vilify China and peddle the so-called China threat in order to create a pretext to justify their actions to control countries in this region, yet this will never succeed, Lin added.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Xi calls for deepening building of China-Vietnam community with shared future

    Source: China State Council Information Office

    Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chinese president, on Monday called for deepening the building of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future.

    Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president, holds talks with To Lam, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee, at the CPV Central Committee headquarters in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 14, 2025. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

    Xi made the remarks when meeting with General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee To Lam during his state visit to Vietnam.

    Xi pointed out that he was very pleased to pay a state visit to Vietnam and realize the first round of mutual visits with General Secretary To Lam.

    This year marks the 95th anniversary of the founding of the CPV, the 80th anniversary of the founding of Vietnam and the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the South, he said, extending warm congratulations to Vietnam on behalf of the CPC and the Chinese government.

    China will, as always, support Vietnam in taking a socialist path that suits its national conditions, successfully holding the 14th National Congress of the CPV in 2026, and its steadfast pursuit of realizing the two goals set for the centenary of the party and the country.

    This year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Vietnam, as well as the China-Vietnam Year of People-to-People Exchanges, said Xi, stressing that over the past 75 years, regardless of changes in the international landscape, China and Vietnam have supported each other in the struggle for national independence and liberation, advanced side by side in the cause of socialist development, and forged ahead in their respective modernization endeavors, setting an example of solidarity and cooperation between socialist countries.

    Facing the changing and turbulent world, China and Vietnam have stayed committed to peaceful development and deepened their friendly cooperation, bringing much-needed stability and certainty to the world, Xi said.

    Standing at a new historical starting point, the two sides should build on past achievements, forge ahead together and carry forward the profound traditional friendship featuring “camaraderie plus brotherhood,” said Xi.

    Guided by the overall goals of achieving higher political mutual trust, more solid security cooperation, deeper practical cooperation, stronger public support, closer multilateral coordination and better management and resolution of differences, the two countries should work to advance their comprehensive strategic cooperation with high quality, ensure steady and sustained progress in building a China-Vietnam community with a shared future, and contribute even more to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, Xi said.

    Building the China-Vietnam community with a shared future carries great global significance, Xi said, noting that as the two countries jointly pursue peaceful development, their combined population of over 1.5 billion is jointly advancing toward modernization, which will contribute to regional and global peace and stability while promoting common development.

    Both countries are committed to opening up and have played a constructive role in maintaining the stability and smooth operation of regional industrial and supply chains, as well as contributing to the advancement of economic globalization, Xi said.

    A small boat with a lone sail cannot withstand rough seas, Xi said, noting that only by working together in the same boat can they ensure stability and long-term progress.

    He noted that both China and Vietnam are beneficiaries of economic globalization, and the two sides should strengthen strategic resolve, jointly oppose unilateralism and bullying practices, and work together to uphold the global free trade system and maintain the stability of industrial and supply chains.

    Xi proposed six measures to deepen the building of the China-Vietnam community with a shared future.

    First, enhance strategic mutual trust at a higher level.

    Leaders of the two parties and countries should communicate with each other as relatives, Xi said, noting the two sides should give full play to the role of channels including inter-party, legislative bodies and political consultative organizations, deepen the exchange of experience in governance, and improve the leadership of the two parties in promoting national modernization.

    Second, build a stronger security barrier.

    The two sides should set the “3+3” strategic dialogue on diplomacy, defense and public security between the two countries at the ministerial level to enhance strategic coordination.

    It is necessary to give full play to the role of defense and law enforcement security cooperation mechanisms, resolutely tackle online gambling, telecom fraud and other cross-border crimes, strengthen bilateral and multilateral law enforcement and judicial cooperation, especially within the framework of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, so as to safeguard people’s lives and property and uphold regional peace and stability.

    Third, expand higher quality mutually beneficial cooperation.

    Seize the major opportunities of China’s new quality productive forces and Vietnam’s new productive forces to accelerate the formation of practical cooperation between the two countries. Realize the comprehensive connection of standard-gauge railways, highways, and smart ports at an early date. Promote high-tech cooperation such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. China’s mega market is always open to Vietnam, and the country welcomes more high-quality Vietnamese products. China encourages its companies to invest in Vietnam and hopes that Vietnam will create a more fair and friendly business environment.

    Fourth, tighten the bonds of people-to-people ties.

    China and Vietnam should take the China-Vietnam Year of People-to-People Exchanges as an opportunity and organize more people-oriented exchange activities, and enhance cooperation in tourism, culture, media, public health and other fields.

    The two sides should continue to explore resources of revolutionary heritage and promote stories of friendship. In the next three years, China will invite Vietnamese youth to China for “Red Study Tours,” which will help the younger generation of both countries better understand the hard-won nature of the socialist countries and the great value of China-Vietnam good-neighborliness and friendly cooperation, and will cultivate greater vitality for the development of bilateral relations and the respective national development endeavors.

    Fifth, conduct closer multilateral coordination.

    China and Vietnam should jointly uphold the outcomes of World War II, firmly safeguard the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law, promote a more equal and orderly multi-polar world and an economic globalization that is more inclusive and beneficial for all, and enhance cooperation under the frameworks of the three major global initiatives.

    China will stay committed to the principles of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness, and to the policy of pursuing friendship and partnership with its neighbors. It will deepen friendly cooperation with neighboring countries so that the fruits of Chinese modernization can better benefit the region.

    Sixth, achieve more positive maritime interaction.

    The two countries should earnestly implement the consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, properly manage maritime issues, expand maritime cooperation, demonstrate resolve in launching joint development, and work toward the early conclusion of a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.

    For his part, To Lam extended a warm welcome to Xi on his state visit to Vietnam, which took place on the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. He said that Xi is not only an outstanding leader of the Chinese people but also a great friend of the Vietnamese people.

    Xi’s choice to make Vietnam his first overseas destination this year fully reflects the importance he attaches to China-Vietnam relations and his support for Vietnam, the Vietnamese leader said. This visit will mark a new milestone in the history of friendly exchanges between the two parties and countries, further advancing the building of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, he added.

    Under Xi’s strong leadership, To Lam noted, China has achieved historic accomplishments in advancing socialism with Chinese characteristics, made comprehensive progress in its path to modernization, and witnessed rapid development of new quality productive forces. With China’s international stature on the rise, Vietnam extends its congratulations and expresses gratitude for China’s long-standing support and assistance, he said.

    Emphasizing that both Vietnam and China are socialist countries under the leadership of a communist party, To Lam said that developing relations with China is an objective requirement, a strategic choice, and a top priority for Vietnam. Vietnam firmly adheres to the one-China policy, supports China’s efforts toward national reunification, and resolutely opposes any separatist actions aimed at “Taiwan independence,” he said.

    Advancing Vietnam-China relations, To Lam noted, is in the fundamental interest of both peoples and conforms with the trend of the times. Vietnam looks forward to strengthening high-level exchanges between the two parties and countries, enhancing exchanges on governance experience, deepening strategic security cooperation, and continually consolidating political mutual trust; further elevating bilateral cooperation by creating new highlights in areas such as trade, science and technology, infrastructure and environmental protection; and promoting people-to-people exchanges, encouraging local and youth interactions, and enhancing tourism cooperation to nurture closer bonds between the peoples, he said.

    Vietnam supports the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind and the three major global initiatives proposed by Xi, To Lam said. Vietnam lauds the vision set forth during the CPC’s central conference on work related to neighboring countries, which envisions building a peaceful, safe and secure, prosperous, beautiful and amicable home with neighboring countries and insists on fostering friendly, mutually beneficial and prosperous relationships, he said.

    Vietnam is ready to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China, uphold multilateralism and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, safeguard international trade rules, abide by the agreements signed by both sides, and jointly make greater contributions to world peace and human progress, To Lam said, adding that Vietnam is also willing to properly address maritime differences with China to ensure maritime stability.

    Before the talks, To Lam invited Xi to a small-group chat over tea. The two general secretaries exchanged views on party building and national governance. Xi stressed that party building is crucial to the destiny of the party and the country, and that the party’s work style bears on whether it can win public support. The CPC Central Committee has decided to carry out an in-depth campaign throughout the party this year to learn and implement the spirit of the eight-point decision on improving work conduct. This is intended to secure new achievements in work style transformation to further support comprehensive reform and advance modernization. Both general secretaries agreed to strengthen exchanges and mutual learning, and pursue progress in socialist development.

    After the talks, the two leaders witnessed the display of 45 bilateral cooperation documents signed by China and Vietnam. These documents cover areas including connectivity, artificial intelligence, customs inspection and quarantine, agricultural trade, culture and sports, public welfare, human resource development, media, and more.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Internet summit in Hong Kong highlights digital future

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

    HONG KONG, April 14 — The 2025 World Internet Conference Asia-Pacific Summit kicked off here Monday, attracting nearly 1,000 participants from around the globe to explore future development and potentials across various domains in digital technology.

    The two-day summit was held under the theme of “Integration of AI and Digital Technologies Shaping the Future — Jointly Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace”.

    Speaking at the summit, Wang Yong, vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee, said that the Chinese government consistently embraced the digital era with an open attitude, sharing opportunities and benefits brought by internet development with countries around the world, including those in the Asia-Pacific region.

    China is willing to work hand in hand with other countries to promote technological innovation, deepen exchanges and cooperation, safeguard security and stability of cyberspace, establish a sound governance order, and jointly advance the world toward a bright future of digital and intelligent integration, Wang said.

    John Lee, chief executive of China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), said the summit demonstrated the city’s rising role as an international innovation and technology hub. It also reflected Hong Kong’s deepening integration with the country’s national development.

    Lee said that at challenging time, with geopolitics and trade relations getting tense, cooperation is important. Hong Kong champions free trade and multilateralism, and is willing to offer a range of welcoming programs for investors.

    Zhuang Rongwen, chief of the Cyberspace Administration of China and chairman of the World Internet Conference, said that the theme of the summit reflected its aim to align with the trends of the information era, focus on the development and security of artificial intelligence, deepen exchanges, foster consensus, and enhance cooperation.

    Zheng Yanxiong, deputy director of the State Council Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office and director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the HKSAR, said that as a pioneer in internet development, Hong Kong serves as a “super connector” and a “super value-adder” in the advancement of digital-intelligence integration. By jointly promoting the building of a community with a shared future in cyberspace, Hong Kong is set to become a new hub for innovation in internet technology, industry, and culture.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Trump’s tariffs rollercoaster is really about Republican unity

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lester Munson, Non-Resident Fellow, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

    After announcing Liberation Day – stiff “retaliatory” tariffs on every country and penguin-inhabited island in the world – US President Donald Trump rescinded the vast majority of tariffs eight days later when stock and bond markets crashed.

    He followed that with more exemptions for phones, computers and computer chips two days later. Ten percent tariffs remain across the board, along with rates up to 145% on China.

    Is Trump aligned with previous Reagan on tariffs?

    As with anything related to Trump, perceptions overwhelm reality. Trump’s showmanship – call him a carnival barker if you must – obfuscates what is really happening.

    Trump is seen as a protectionist and a populist. By comparison, former president Ronald Reagan was seen as a principled free trader and more ideologically conservative. Both images are misleading.

    Reagan slapped tariffs on cars, steel, lumber, computers, computer chips, motorcycles, machine tools, even clothes pins. The great guru of free markets, Milton Friedman, is reported to have said that the Reagan administration has been “making Smoot-Hawley look positively benign.” (Smoot-Hawley was an infamous tariff law enacted in 1930 at the beginning of the Great Depression.)

    Reagan went back and forth on tariffs, even attacking them in a radio address when Japan tried to impose them. At the end of the day, his record on the issue was as mixed as that of any American president.

    Trump’s politics, if not his showmanship, look a lot more like traditional Republican approaches in the cold light of day. The showmanship – provocative statements, grand exaggerations, outright falsehoods and even stand-up-comic-like aspects – is purposeful.

    Keeping Republicans united

    The main goal of Trump’s tariff showmanship, largely unreported in the press, is keeping congressional Republicans unified as he pushes his domestic policy agenda of lower taxes, budget cuts, expanded energy production and tougher immigration policies.

    Congressional Republicans have been working for months on legislating this agenda through the complex budget reconciliation process. This legislative process is difficult and involves passing budget resolutions through the Senate and the House on a specific schedule. This process is required because it allows for a path around the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate. With only 53 Republican senators and a Democratic Party that is committed to resisting Trump on almost every policy choice, Trump needs the reconciliation process to work this year.

    In one sense, all of Trump’s activities since his inauguration – the “waste”-cutting DOGE, spending cuts, ending foreign aid programs, laying off federal workers – have given him the political space with congressional Republicans, particularly fiscal conservatives, to advance his legislative agenda. It is important to know that Congressional Republicans have been ungovernable for quite some time.

    Over the past ten years, there have been five Republican Speakers of the House – John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Patrick McHenry (acting) and now Mike Johnson. This unprecedented turnover is caused by a virtually unmanageable Republican coalition of mainstream business-oriented conservatives and the fiscal hawks who generally populate the Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus is more than willing to vote against other Republicans – indeed they are proud of it. Because of this, speaker after speaker has had to reach out to Democrats for votes to pass legislation, ultimately dooming their time in the position.

    Trump has managed to keep this ungovernable group of House Republicans united, and this may be his true political gift.

    To achieve this, he has engaged in a comprehensive campaign of maximum pressure on just about everything: Canada, Greenland, NATO, Europe, China, Ukraine, American universities, federal workers, illegal immigrants, big law firms and even paper straws.

    Congressional Republicans, in appreciation of this shock and awe campaign, have stayed united. This means Trump’s legislative agenda can move forward.

    With his global tariff plan, Trump saw Republicans beginning to defect. In one Senate vote in April, four Republicans sided with Democrats against tariffs on Canada. Senator Ted Cruz warned that Republicans might lose the 2026 election because of tariffs. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the oldest senator and one of the most conservative, indicated he would support bringing tariff authority back to Congress and away from the president.

    Trump can read a room as well as anyone. When he saw Republican unity was at risk because of his tariff plan, he quickly pivoted to a much more moderate version. While Trump’s grandiosity is often highly criticised, it is that quality that gives him the ability to keep his party together, and therefore to govern.

    Sparking panic among Democrats

    The other major effect of Trump’s tariffs strategy is to sow discord among his opponents.

    Democrats, who want to criticise Trump but know their own party has often endorsed tariffs in the past, are reeling. Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said she understood Trump’s “motivation behind the tariffs” and even agreed with Trump that we “need to make more stuff in America”. She was immediately criticised by fellow Democrats.

    Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, tried a slightly more aggressive anti-Trump approach. He said:

    Tariffs, when properly utilized, have a role to play in trying to make sure that you have a competitive environment for our workers and our businesses. That’s not what’s going on right now. This is a reckless economic sledgehammer that Donald Trump and compliant Republicans in the Congress are taking to the economy, and the American people are being hurt enough.

    This response won’t help Democrats climb out of their deep hole of unpopularity, measured last month at an historic low.

    Lester Munson receives funding from the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

    – ref. Trump’s tariffs rollercoaster is really about Republican unity – https://theconversation.com/trumps-tariffs-rollercoaster-is-really-about-republican-unity-254471

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI: PrairieSky Announces Results of the Annual Meeting of Shareholders

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    CALGARY, Alberta, April 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — PrairieSky Royalty Ltd. (“PrairieSky” or the “Company“) (TSX: PSK) is pleased to announce that its shareholders approved all resolutions at the annual general meeting of shareholders of the Company held on April 14, 2025 (the “Meeting“) in Calgary, Alberta. The resolutions approved at the Meeting were as follows:

    The resolution to appoint the seven (7) nominees as directors of the Company to serve until the next annual meeting of shareholders of the Company, or until their successors are elected or appointed, was passed by way of ballot and each of the directors received the following votes for their election:

    Margaret A. McKenzie 212,802,872 (99.914%)
    Anna M. Alderson 212,841,516 (99.932%)
    Anuroop S. Duggal 209,670,592 (98.443%)
    P. Jane Gavan 204,866,881 (96.188%)
    Glenn A. McNamara 211,504,353 (99.304%)
    Andrew M. Phillips 212,830,654 (99.927%)
    Sheldon B. Steeves 211,493,978 (99.299%)
       

    The resolution to appoint KPMG LLP as the Company’s auditors was approved with 210,848,494 (97.387%) of the shares represented at the Meeting voting in favour of the resolution.

    The resolution to accept the Company’s approach to executive compensation was approved with 211,217,643 (99.170%) of the shares represented at the Meeting voting in favour of the resolution.

    The report on voting for the Meeting will be available at SEDAR+ www.sedarplus.com and on the Company’s website at www.prairiesky.com.

    ABOUT PRAIRIESKY ROYALTY LTD.

    PrairieSky is a royalty-focused company, generating royalty revenues as petroleum and natural gas are produced from its properties. PrairieSky has a diverse portfolio of properties that have a long history of generating funds from operations and that represent the largest and most concentrated independently-owned fee simple mineral title position in Canada. PrairieSky’s common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol PSK.

    FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

    PrairieSky Royalty Ltd.
    Investor Relations
    (587) 293-4000

    www.prairiesky.com

    PDF available: http://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/60671034-79e9-439e-9f12-5e2456de6556 

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Sudan: One child every 10 seconds forced to flee their home since conflict began two years ago – Save the Children

    Source: Save the Children

    PORT SUDAN, 15 April 2025 – One child every 10 seconds on average has been forced to flee their homes since the conflict began in Sudan two years ago, according to new analysis from Save the Children.
    Sudan was already facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises before conflict erupted in the capital, Khartoum, in April 2023, and the country is now facing the largest child displacement crisis globally, with over 6.5 million children uprooted from their homes [1] [2]. More than 12.6 million people are currently displaced by the conflict in Sudan – or one in three people [3].
    To mark two years of the conflict, Save the Children commissioned Sudanese illustrator Shiroug Idris – who was herself displaced by the conflict – to highlight the impact of conflict on children’s lives.
    Shiroug was herself forced to flee her home in Khartoum in 2023 and is now living 500 kms away in Kassala in eastern Sudan. She travelled to Gedaref with Save the Children to see the organisation’s work and ran a drawing workshop with children to let them tell their own stories of the conflict.
    “As someone who was forced to flee this terrible conflict, it is heartbreaking to witness what these children are going through. Millions have been displaced, forced from their homes, and robbed of the childhood every child deserves,” Shiroug said.
    “Through my drawings, I hope to make the world more aware of the atrocities unfolding in Sudan and the devastating impact on children’s lives. Governments around the world must do more to recognise this crisis and put an end to the suffering.”
    One of the children working with Shiroug was Fatima-, 11, who was forced to flee her home in Al Jazirah state in east-central Sudan following violent clashes in which a bullet fired through one of the windows of their home.
    Fatima- and her family escaped to a nearby village, but soldiers came to their house and threatened to kill them. Her family moved through multiple villages, facing violence, extortion, and hardship before reaching a camp in Gedaref Save the Children provided her family with food, blankets, mattresses, clothes, including pajamas and slippers.
    “I was scared that we would be killed, but my mum reassured me. When we arrived in Gedaref, I was happy because there were no sounds of fighting, just peace,” Fatima- said.
    Fatima- now attends school and a child friendly space, where she takes part in activities such as art, sports, and structured play, to help process her trauma, build resilience, and regain her confidence.
    Her message to other children in Sudan is: “Don’t be afraid; we will go back home, just like others have.”
    In the chaos and violence in the past two years in which an estimated 28,700 people have been killed, many children have been separated from their families, putting them at higher risk of being attacked or exploited.
    Over 2,686 child rights violations have been reported in the past year to Save the Children alone, the majority involving the killing and maiming of children, child recruitment and sexual violence against children.
    Mariam-, 14, was captured and raped by a group of armed men along with a friend who later died from her injuries. Mariam survived but became pregnant.
    Upon learning of her pregnancy, her family forced her to move out of her home, and Mariam gave birth in unclean, unsupported conditions. Her newborn daughter became sick and died.
    When Save the Children became aware of Mariam’s situation, the organisation supported her with health and psychological care and then worked closely with her family, helping them to understand why their daughter was not to blame. Today, she is back with her family, with ongoing support from Save the Children for her continued wellbeing.
    Mohamad Abdiladif, the Country Director for Save the Children Sudan, said:
    “For two years, conflict and widespread violence in Sudan have caused immense suffering for children. This has become the world’s largest displacement crisis for children, but despite the urgent need, the crisis in Sudan remains largely underreported and the world is not taking notice.”
    “When people are forced to flee their homes due to violence, it’s usually the women and children who go first – and we often see displacement camps filled with children. But the number of children displaced in Sudan – and their young age and vulnerability – is staggering. The world has a duty of care for children, and we are failing them.”
    Save the Children is urgently calling on the international community to take meaningful and urgent political action to address this crisis, for an immediate ceasefire and progress towards a lasting peace agreement.
    Save the Children has worked in Sudan since 1983 and provides programming for children and families affected by conflict, displacement, extreme poverty and hunger.
    -Names changed. We have spokespeople available in Sudan. 
    NOTES:
    [1] Snapshot was taken on 17 March 2025 and may include people who have since returned to their place of origin. Data from https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/sudansituation and https://dtm.iom.int/reports/dtm-sudan-mobility-update-15
    Calculations: Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Sudan: 8,856,313 (IOM, OCHA – February 2025). Over half (53%) of IDPs were reportedly children under the age of 18-years-old (IOM); IDPs who are under 18: 4,693,845(IOM); Total newly arrived refugees/asylum seekers: 3,772,215 (UNHCR, IOM & Governments – December 2024). IDPs who are under 18: 4,693,845 + Total newly arrived refugees/asylum seekers under 18 outside Sudan: 1,888,270 = 6,582,115 (This reflects data recorded since the commencement of the conflict in April 2023.)
    6,582,115 ÷ 731 (number of days from the last two years) = 9,004 every day
    9,004 ÷ 24 (hours in a day) = 375 every hour
    375 ÷ 60 (minutes in an hour) = 6.25 every minute = One every 10 seconds

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Sudan’s two years of war: Millions living in the world’s largest humanitarian crisis sink deeper into despair with no end in sight – MSF

    Source: Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

    Sudan – 15 April 2025 – The war in Sudan between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) enters its third year and people remain unseen, bombed, besieged, displaced and deprived of food, medical care and basic lifesaving services. 60 percent of the country’s 50 million people need humanitarian assistance, according to the UN, and people are facing simultaneous health crises and limited access to public health care.

    Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reiterates its calls on the warring parties and their allies to ensure that civilians, humanitarian personnel, and medical teams are protected and that all restrictions are removed on the movements of humanitarian supplies and staff, especially as the rainy season fast approaches.

    “The warring parties are not only failing to protect civilians — they are actively compounding their suffering,” said Claire San Filippo, MSF Emergency Coordinator. “Wherever you look in Sudan, you will find needs — overwhelming, urgent, and unmet. Millions are receiving almost no humanitarian assistance, medical facilities and staff remain under attack, and the global humanitarian system is failing to deliver even a fraction of what’s required.”

    As frontlines have shifted over the course of the war, especially in Khartoum and Darfur, civilians feared retaliatory attacks from both warring parties. For the past two years, both RSF and SAF have repeatedly and indiscriminately bombed densely populated areas. The RSF and allied militias have unleashed a campaign of brutality, including systematic sexual violence, abductions, mass killings, looting of aid, erasure of civilian neighbourhoods, and occupation of medical facilities. Both sides have laid siege to towns, destroyed vital infrastructure, and blocked humanitarian aid.

    Widespread starvation is taking hold, according to the UN, — Sudan is currently the only place in the world where famine has been officially declared in multiple locations. Famine was first declared in Zamzam camp, for internally displaced people, in August and has since spread to ten more areas. Seventeen additional regions are now on the brink. Without immediate intervention, hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk.

    In March MSF supported multi-antigen catch up vaccination campaigns for children under two in South Darfur.  The over 17,000 children, in 11 of the 14 localities, who received vaccinations were also screened for malnutrition showing 7% of those screened were suffering from severe acute malnutrition, with 30% with global acute malnutrition. In December 2024, during a therapeutic food distribution in Tawila locality, North Darfur, MSF teams screened over 9,500 children under five years old. They found a staggering 35.5% global acute malnutrition rate, with 7% of the children suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

    Simultaneously, Sudan is facing multiple, overlapping health emergencies. MSF teams have treated over 12,000 patients — including women and children — for trauma injuries directly resulting from violent attacks. During the first week of February 2025, MSF teams in three areas of Sudan – Khartoum, North Darfur, and South Darfur states – treated mass influxes of war-wounded patients. Sudan is also experiencing one of the worst maternal and child health crises we are seeing anywhere in the world. In October 2024, in two MSF-supported facilities in Nyala, capital of South Darfur, 26% of the pregnant and breastfeeding women seeking care were acutely malnourished.

    “Outbreaks of measles, cholera and diphtheria are spreading, driven by poor living conditions and disrupted vaccination campaigns. Mental health support and care for survivors of sexual violence remain painfully limited. These compounding crises reflect not just the brutality of the conflict, but the dire consequences of the crumbling public healthcare system and a failing humanitarian response”, says Marta Cazorla, MSF Emergency Coordinator.

    Since April 2023, more than 1.7 million people have sought medical consultations at hospitals, health facilities and mobile clinics MSF supports or is working in, and more than 32,000 people were admitted in our emergency wards.

    More than 13 million people have been displaced by the conflict, according to the UN — many of them multiple times. Of these, 8.9 million remain displaced inside Sudan, while 3.9 million have crossed into neighbouring countries. Many live in overcrowded camps or makeshift shelters, without access to food, water, healthcare, or a sense of future. People depend entirely on humanitarian organizations — but only where these organisations are responding.

    Health facilities destroyed

    According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 70 percent of health facilities in conflict-affected areas are barely operational or completely closed, leaving millions without access to critical care amid one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history. Since the war began, MSF has recorded over 80 violent incidents targeting our staff, infrastructure, vehicles and supplies. Clinics have been looted and destroyed, medicines stolen, and healthcare workers assaulted, threatened or killed.

    “Buildings were destroyed, even beds were looted, and medicines were burned to the ground. From afar, it looked like a hospital, but when you entered it, it was a shelter for snakes and grass,” said Muhammad Yusuf Ishaq Abdullah, MSF health promotion officer in Tawila, North Darfur, about the state of Tawila´s hospital after being attacked and looted in June 2023.

    These attacks must stop — medical personnel and facilities are not targets.

    Upcoming rainy season

    The rainy season, fast approaching, threatens to make an already catastrophic situation even worse — severing supply routes, flooding entire regions, and cutting off people just as the hunger gap peaks and malnutrition and malaria spike.

    MSF calls for immediate preparedness measures ahead of the rainy season. More border crossings must be opened, and key roads and bridges must be repaired and kept accessible, especially in Darfur, where seasonal flooding isolates communities year after year.

    Humanitarian restrictions must be lifted, and unhindered access must be guaranteed. MSF urges all actors — including donors, governments, and UN agencies — to enable and prioritize the aid delivery, ensuring that assistance not only reaches the country but is transported swiftly and safely to the hardest-hit and most remote communities. Without a serious commitment to overcoming the political, financial, logistical and security barriers that hinder last-mile delivery, countless lives will remain beyond the reach of help.  

    The people of Sudan have endured this horror for two years too long, they cannot and should not wait any longer.

    MSF is an international, medical, humanitarian organisation that delivers medical care to people in need, regardless of their origin, religion, or political affiliation. MSF has been working in Haiti for over 30 years, offering general healthcare, trauma care, burn wound care, maternity care, and care for survivors of sexual violence. MSF Australia was established in 1995 and is one of 24 international MSF sections committed to delivering medical humanitarian assistance to people in crisis. In 2022, more than 120 project staff from Australia and New Zealand worked with MSF on assignment overseas. MSF delivers medical care based on need alone and operates independently of government, religion or economic influence and irrespective of race, religion or gender. For more information visit msf.org.au  

    MIL OSI – Submitted News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Xi calls on China, Vietnam to oppose hegemonism, unilateralism, protectionism

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

    Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president, meets with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee headquarters in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 14, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    HANOI, April 14 — Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday urged China and Vietnam to jointly oppose hegemonism, unilateralism and protectionism.

    In his meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Xi said that under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Vietnamese government, the country has achieved political and social stability, and made impressive achievements in its cause of Doi Moi (reform), while its international status is increasing, for which China feels rejoiced.

    Both sides shoulder the historical mission of realizing national rejuvenation and accelerating national development, Xi noted.

    He called on the two countries to forge a strong sense of a community with a shared future, and deepen comprehensive strategic cooperation, so as to serve their respective modernization processes, and better benefit the two peoples.

    The two sides, Xi said, should strengthen the strategic coordination and consolidate the political foundation for building a China-Vietnam community with a shared future.

    He urged the two sides to intensify high-level exchanges, strengthen strategic communication, and jointly oppose hegemonism, unilateralism and protectionism.

    Xi also called on the two sides to implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, so as to jointly safeguard international fairness and justice, and safeguard peace, stability, development and prosperity in Asia and beyond.

    Xi said the two sides should promote high-quality development to provide solid strategic support for the two countries’ joint march toward modernization.

    China and Vietnam, Xi said, should give full play to their geographical advantages of being connected by land and sea, strengthen the alignment of development strategies and tap the potential of industrial cooperation.

    He also called on the two countries to steadily advance cooperation in infrastructure development, enhance connectivity and ensure a smooth flow of trade.

    The two countries should expand cooperation in traditional areas such as trade and investment, and expand cooperation in emerging industries such as 5G, artificial intelligence, clean energy and digital economy.

    Xi also said China and Vietnam should firmly uphold the multilateral trading system, and work together to push for economic globalization that is more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all.

    The two sides should deepen cultural cooperation and promote the main theme of China-Vietnam friendship, Xi said.

    He urged the two sides to ensure a series of activities to celebrate the 75th anniversary of China-Vietnam diplomatic ties and the China-Vietnam Year of People-to-People Exchanges a success, so as to tell stories well of friendship, mutually beneficial cooperation, as well as their joint pursuit of modernization.

    Xi also urged the two sides to carry out more projects to win the hearts and minds of the people and improve their lives.

    For his part, Pham Minh Chinh said that Xi’s state visit to Vietnam is the most important high-level exchange between the two countries this year, adding that this is a great, joyous event in Vietnam-China relations and of historic significance, and will surely lead Vietnam-China relations to greater development and inject strong impetus into bilateral cooperation.

    Since Xi’s visit to Vietnam in 2023, the strategic mutual trust between the two countries has been further enhanced, practical cooperation has witnessed significant progress and the friendship of the two peoples has deepened, he said.

    Vietnam attaches great importance to its relations with China and is determined to firmly promote the building of a Vietnam-China community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, said the Vietnamese prime minister.

    Noting that Vietnam sincerely congratulates China on its tremendous development achievements, he said Vietnam supports China’s sustained development and growth, and hopes to learn from China’s experience in the governance of the party and the country, its spirit of self-reliance and its development philosophy and model.

    The Vietnamese leader noted that his country looks forward to strengthening cooperation with China in areas including economy and trade, investment, connectivity, science and technology, as well as finance to enhance economic vitality and growth drivers so as to jointly cope with risks and challenges.

    He also said that Vietnam looks forward to the successful hosting of the Vietnam-China Year of People-to-People Exchanges and expects more robust personnel exchanges and sub-national cooperation, and closer bond of the two peoples.

    He said that his country also looks forward to strengthening cooperation with China in international and regional affairs, so as to maintain strategic focus in the complex and volatile international situation, and jointly safeguard multilateralism and the international order.

    Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president, meets with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee headquarters in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 14, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: New partnership to strengthen multi-agency responses to family violence in Auckland

    Source: New Zealand Government

    At an event in Auckland today, Karen Chhour, the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, announced a new partnership between Te Puna Aonui, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and Manawa Tītī* to strengthen the multi-agency response to family violence. 

    “Through this new partnership, we are investing in the development of a local system improvement plan, testing a more consistent approach to managing high-risk family violence cases, and delivering new specialist outreach support so that the families who need the most support receive it.

    “This new approach will enable coordinated support and collaboration to deliver timely and effective responses to people at high risk and with complex family violence needs. This will help ensure the safety of victim/survivors and children and young people,” said Karen Chhour.  

    A key focus of the family violence and sexual violence Action Plan, launched in December, is strengthening multi-agency responses to family violence so that people affected by violence receive the support they need and get to safety sooner.

    The Action Plan is designed to focus government agencies on parts of the system that require collaboration: including effective responses to people affected by violence, and improved ways of working with people who use violence. 

    “The system improvement plan will build on Manawa Tītī’s strategy and their key priority areas, including strengthening collaborative ways of working, whānau-centred responses, early intervention, and safer and effective responses to high-risk families, to strengthen their local response. This work has emerged following a local family death review,” said Karen Chhour. 

    “Evidence shows that having proactive, specialist outreach roles, delivered by people with the right capability, skills and knowledge, can increase safety and support for victims. Building on the recent publication of the Risk and Safety Practice Framework, the partnership will also enable a more consistent approach to identifying and responding to risk. 

    “This approach will help make children safer and reduce revictimisation. Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei, through their tribal development arm, Whāi Maia alongside Manawa Tītī will be testing and learning about new ways of working to deliver this service so that families and whānau get to safety sooner. 

    “I acknowledge the importance of local leadership and innovation in the family violence system and welcome the new partnership that will make a difference to the lives of people in Auckland,” said Ms Chhour. 

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: A Bridge to Progress: AfDB Executive Directors Visit Transformative Project in The Gambia

    Source: African Development Bank Group

    Standing on the Senegambia Bridge – an emblem of regional integration and economic resilience – a team of Executive Directors from the African Development Bank Group witnessed firsthand how infrastructure investment is reshaping lives in West Africa.

    “This bridge is more than steel and concrete—it’s a symbol of what’s possible when countries come together to build shared prosperity,” said Nomfundo Ngwenya, spokesperson for the mission and one of seven Executive Directors on the high-level visit.

    Fully funded by the African Development Fund, with 24 km of access roads supported by the European Union, the Senegambia Bridge is a vital artery connecting The Gambia and Senegal. It has eased cross-border transport, boosted trade, and improved daily life for thousands.

    “The difference this makes to traders, transporters, and families on both sides of the border is profound,” said Executive Director Darkortey Rufus. “We saw it. We heard it.”

    The delegation also visited several other projects with transformative impact, including:

    • The Women’s Garden in Bassori, empowering female farmers through irrigation and training, funded by the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP)
    • The OMVG 225/30 kV substation in Soma, part of a broader push for regional energy connectivity
    • A rural Energy Access Program site in Ker Ali, bringing electricity to previously off-grid villages.

    “This is what development looks like: local, practical, and community-owned,” said Chantal Nonault, another Executive Director on the mission. “We’re not just reviewing numbers—we’re seeing results.”

    Strengthening Partnerships, Shaping Future Support

    Held from 24 – 28 February, the mission was part of the Bank’s ongoing engagement with Regional Member Countries. The delegation, representing 34 of the Bank’s 81 member nations, met with President Adama Barrow and senior officials, including Finance Minister Seedy Keita.

    President Barrow expressed appreciation for the Bank’s sustained support and welcomed the Executive Directors’ first collective visit to The Gambia. He also emphasized the government’s reform agenda and home-grown solutions designed to complement external support. He referred to the mission as being not only a vote of confidence in The Gambia’s national development path but also a strong signal about partnerships that matter.

    The visit came at a critical moment as The Gambia advances its 2023–2027 National Development Plan, focusing on economic diversification, climate adaptation, digital transformation, and domestic resource mobilization. These priorities closely align with the African Development Bank’s Ten-Year Strategy (2024–2033).

    Since joining the Bank in 1974, The Gambia has built a robust partnership with the institution. The current portfolio includes 17 active projects valued at $227.47 million, with transport (45%), agriculture (20%), and energy (18%) as leading sectors.

    “The hospitality of the Gambian people and the commitment of its leadership were deeply inspiring,” the EDs said in a joint statement. “We leave with a clear sense of the progress made—and what more can be done.”

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: “The era of aid or free money is gone. Africa must overhaul its approach toward achieving fast-paced development.”

    Source: African Development Bank Group

    In the face of dwindling global funding, tariffs, and geopolitical tensions, African Development Bank Group President Akinwumi Adesina said on Friday that Africa must wean itself from aid dependency and urgently chart its future through self-reliance, strategic partnerships, and leveraging its vast natural resources.

    He spoke on Friday in Abuja at the 14th Convocation Ceremony of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), where he delivered a thought-provoking lecture. 

    The address “Advancing Africa’s Positioning within Global Development and Geopolitical Dynamics” outlined a bold vision for Africa’s future in a rapidly changing global landscape.

    “The recent dismantling of the official development aid agency in the US, and similar anti-aid measures in other parts of Europe, means that the old development models that Africa has always relied on will no longer work,” he told the audience.

    “The era of aid or free money is gone. African countries must now learn to develop via investment discipline. Countries can no longer rely on aid for growth or count it as part of government revenue, as has been the case for decades. Benevolence is not an asset class,” the Bank Group president said.

    At Nigeria’s largest open university, Adesina emphasized that Africa must overhaul its approach to achieving fast-paced growth and development. He said for the continent to spur growth it should rapidly ensure the full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area: “Produce local, buy local, trade more locally,” he charged the continent.

    Adesina highlighted several critical challenges facing the continent, including declining development aid, restrictive immigration policies, undervalued natural capital, and global tariff wars. However, he positioned these challenges as opportunities for Africa to redefine its global standing.

    The African Development Bank is leading the development of a new framework to re-estimate Africa’s GDP based on the proper valuation of its vast natural capital. This will lower Africa’s debt to re-estimated GDP and expand its ability to borrow more resources to finance its development. The Bank believes properly valuing Africa’s green wealth will improve the risk profiles and credit ratings of countries across the continent.

    He said of recent global tariff tensions:   “47 out of 54 African countries have been placed under higher US tariffs. The immediate direct effects of the tariffs on African countries will be a significant reduction in exports and foreign exchange availability. This will send other shock waves through African economies.”

    He continued: “Local currencies will weaken on the back of reduced foreign exchange earnings. Inflation will increase as costs of imported goods rise and currencies devalue against the US dollar. The cost of servicing debt as a share of government revenue will rise, as expected revenues decline.”

    To build resilient economies, Adesina said:  “Africa must chart its future, relying not on the benevolence of others but on its own determination for self-reliance, building reliable alliances, leveraging opportunities in the global dynamics, while putting Africa first. Only then will Africa be great again!”

    AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina performs groundbreaking ceremony for the Regional Training and Research Institute for Distance and Open Learning building at the National Open University of Nigeria Abuja

    Some key initiatives led by the African Development Bank under Adesina’s leadership include the establishment of the Africa Financing Stability Mechanism to help African countries refinance debt service payments;  the development of Security-Indexed Investment Bonds to rebuild areas devastated by conflict; the creation of the African Credit Risk Agency to fairly assess Africa’s investment risks; the implementation of the $25 billion African Adaptation Acceleration Program to support the continent’s resilience to climate change; and the development of a framework to revalue Africa’s GDP based on its natural capital wealth.

    The Bank Group president emphasized the importance of adding value and processing natural resources, explaining that this is the key to Africa’s future prosperity. He also cautioned that Africa must also carefully negotiate its engagement in the global geopolitical rush for critical minerals and rare earth elements.

    “Africa can be competitive in these global value chains. It must move away from exporting raw minerals and move into processing and value addition to benefit from the high returns at the top of global value chains,” Adesina said who was accompanied by his wife Grace Yemisi Adesina.

    He called for greater value addition to everything Africa produces, from oil to gas, minerals, metals, rare earths, and agricultural products.

    The African Development Bank is working with the African Union and the Economic Commission for Africa to develop the African Green Minerals Strategy. The strategy will support countries in embracing strong corporate governance, transparency, environmental protection, and sound mineral stewardship, including social responsibility and protection of communities’ lands and rights.

    “Africa must end the exports of its raw materials,” Adesina warned.  “The export of raw materials is the door to poverty. The export of value-added products is the highway to wealth. And Africa is tired of being poor.”

    The lecture also addressed the importance of investments in youth education and entrepreneurship. With Africa’s population projected to reach 2.4 billion by 2050 and 75% under 35, Adesina stressed the need for quality education and skills development aligned with the digital economy.

    As he approaches the end of his second five-year term as president of the African Development Bank Group in September, Adesina reflected on his legacy of strengthening and transforming the institution. Under his leadership, the Bank’s general capital increased from $93 billion in 2014 to $318 billion today, while achieving recognition as the Most Transparent Financial Institution in the world for two consecutive years.

    Adesina will be awarded an honorary doctorate from NOUN on Saturday. He is dedicating the honor to his late father, Roland F. Adesina, whom he credits with instilling in him the value of education.

    The National Open University of Nigeria is considered Africa’s largest and the world’s second largest open learning university. Through distance learning and online education, NOUN offers over 2,000 courses to more than 600,000 students, providing accessible and quality education to all Nigerians.

    The Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Olufemi Peters, told the gathering that Adesina was carefully chosen to deliver this year’s convocation lecture “to enable Nigerians to benefit from his outstanding global experience”.

    Adesina also performed the groundbreaking ceremony for the Regional Training and Research Institute for Distance and Open Learning building at the university. The institute is a flagship open and distance learning center in West Africa.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Nigeria’s Cross River State second to commence construction of its Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone

    Source: African Development Bank Group

    Nigeria’s Cross River State became the second to mark construction of a Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone after the country’s Vice President Kashim Shettima and African Development Bank President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina broke ground at the project site on Thursday 10 April.

    The SAPZ aims to tackle food insecurity, enhance local production, and position Nigeria as a food export leader by leveraging Cross River’s ports and research assets to boost global trade, reduce food imports, and drive prosperity through the agro-industrialization of crops like cocoa and cassava.

    The groundbreaking in Cross River follows that of Kaduna which took place few days earlier. Six other states – Kano, Kwara, Imo, Ogun, Oyo, and the Federal Capital Territory – are included in Phase 1 of the $538 million SAPZ program, with plans to expand to the remaining 28 states this year pending the African Development Bank’s Executive Board approval for Phase 2 funding.

    Shettima emphasized the project’s priority and need for national collaboration: “The SAPZ program has been recognized as a national priority for food security in Nigeria.” He noted, “There is no better time than now for the federal and state governments, development partners, the private sector, and our communities to work hand in hand to ensure the success of the SAPZ project.”

    Adesina celebrated the milestone, saying, “Today is a big day for Nigeria,” and added, “The Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones is bringing good news to Nigeria, State Governments and Local Governments. Good news to farmers, agribusinesses, and all rural areas of Nigeria. Good news of jobs, wealth, and prosperity with agriculture as a business.

    “With the abundant arable land, cheap labor and vast agro-ecological areas, Nigeria should not be importing food,” said Adesina who was accompanied by his wife Grace Yemisi Adesina.

    The Bank Group president highlighted Cross River’s export potential: “Bakasi deep seaport will turn the state into a logistics hub in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea, enabling trade with Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Guinea Bissau.”

    The 130-hectare Agro-Industrial Hub in Adiabo will leverage the Calabar Sea Port, Bakassi Deep Sea Port, a 23 kVA power plant in Tinapa, and a 630 kVA Calabar Power Plant. Its Agricultural Transformation Centre, supported by the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria and the University of Calabar, lies less than 45 minutes from Ikom, Etung, and Boki, boosting cocoa production for global markets.

    Governor Bassey Otu outlined the state’s vision, saying, “For us in Cross River State, the establishment of clusters of smallholder farmers focused on staple and cash crops such as rice, cassava, millet, cocoa, and oil palm is a vital step toward agro-industrialization.”

    “These initiatives are aimed at strengthening food security, diversifying our state’s economy toward export-oriented agriculture, and boosting our GDP,” added Governor Otu, saying the state should expect to see a big difference in two years. 

    Vice President Kashim Shettima, African Development Bank President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, Governor Bassey Out, and other dignitaries unveil the plaque for the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone in Adiabo, Cross River State, on April 10, 2025, harnessing the state’s ports to boost global trade in cocoa and cassava.

    The African Development Bank Group is investing $210 million, including $50 million from its Africa Growing Together Fund. The Islamic Development Bank is contributing $150 million, the International Fund for Agricultural Development is contributing $100 million, the Green Climate Fund is contributing $60 million, and the government is contributing $18 million.

    Speaking during the occasion, the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s Country Director, Dede Ekoue, noted that the SAPZ will build on the Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises in the Niger Delta (LIFE-ND) project which has empowered 26,000 youth and women agripreneurs in the Niger Delta, including 4,000 in Cross River, with plans to scale to 100,000 by 2028.

    The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, said, “The SAPZ program is a powerful catalyst for economic growth and import substitution. By investing in agro-processing development, we are investing in the future of our communities.”

    The African Development Bank Group has committed $934 million to SAPZs in 11 African countries. The 2024 Africa Investment Forum, held in Morocco, recorded $2.2 billion in investor interest for 28 Nigerian states, which make up the second phase of the project.

    Adesina explained that with the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones, Nigeria will reduce food imports, conserve foreign exchange, expand local production and processing of food and agricultural commodities, strengthen the Naira, and attract significant private investment into the development of agricultural value chains.

    The Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones will also revive and transform rural economies and create millions of jobs.

    Adesina was accompanied by the African Development Bank Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development Dr Beth Dunford, the Director General for Nigeria Dr Abdul Kamara, Prof Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, Senior Special Adviser on Industrialisation, Director Richard Ofori-Mante, Director of the Agricultural Finance and Rural Development Department, and Dr Yusuf Kabir, National Coordinator for SAPZ, Nigeria.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Israeli military reservists court Australian universities amid ‘hypocrisy’ over anti-war protests

    Hundreds of university staff and students in Melbourne and Sydney called on their vice-chancellors to cancel pro-Israel events earlier this month, write Michael West Media’s Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon

    While Australia’s universities continue to repress pro-Palestine peace protests, they gave the green light to pro-Israel events earlier this month, sparking outrage from anti-war protesters over the hypocrisy.

    Israeli lobby groups StandWithUs Australia (SWU) and Israel-IS organised a series of university events this week which featured Israel Defense Force (IDF) reservists who have served during the war in Gaza, two of whom lost family members in the Hamas resistance attack on October 7, 2023.

    The events were promoted as “an immersive VR experience with an inspiring interfaith panel” discussing the importance of social cohesion, on and off campus.”

    Hundreds of staff and students at Monash, Sydney Uni, UNSW and UTS signed letters calling on their universities to “act swiftly to cancel the SWU event and make clear that organisations and individuals who worked with the Israel Defense Forces did not have a place on UNSW campuses.”

    SWU is a global charity organisation which supports Israel and fights all conduct it perceives to be “antisemitic”. It campaigns against the United Nations and international NGOs’ findings against Israel and is currently supporting actions to suspend United States students supporting Palestine.

    It established an office in Sydney in 2022 and Michael Gencher, who previously worked at the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, was appointed as CEO.

    The event’s co-sponsor, Israel-IS, is a similar propaganda outfit whose mission is to “connect with people before they connect with ideas” particularly through “cutting edge technologies like VR and AI.”

    Among their 18 staff, one employee’s role is “IDF coordinator’” while two employees serve as “heads of Influencer Academy”.

    The events were a test for management at Monash, UTS, UNSW and USyd to see how far each would go in cooperating with the Israel lobby.

    Some events cancelled
     At Monash, an open letter criticising the event was circulated by staff and students. The event was then cancelled without explanation.

    At UNSW, 51 staff and postgraduate students signed an open letter to vice-chancellor Atilla Brungs, calling for the event’s cancellation. It was signed on their behalf by Jessica Whyte, an associate professor of philosophy in arts and law and Noam Peleg, associate professor in the Faculty of Law and Justice.

    Prior to the scheduled event, Michael West Media sent questions to UNSW. After the event was scheduled to occur, the university responded to MWM, informing us that it had not taken place.

    As of today, two days after the event was scheduled, vice-chancellor Brungs has not responded to the letter.

    UTS warning to students
     The UTS branch of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students partnered with Israel-IS in organising the UTS event, in alignment with their core “pillars” of Zionism and activism. The student group seeks to “promote a positive image of Israel on campus” to achieve its vision of a world where Jewish students are committed to Israel.

    UTS Students’ Association, Palestinian Youth Society and UTS Muslim Student Society wrote to management but deputy vice-chancellor Kylie Readman rejected pleas. She replied that the event’s organisers had guaranteed it would be “a small private event focused on minority Israeli perspectives” and that speakers would only speak in a personal capacity.

    While acknowledging the conflict in the Middle East was stressful for many at UTS, she then warned students, “UTS has not received formal notification of any intent to protest, as is required under the campus policy. As such, I must advise that any protest activity planned for 2nd April will be unauthorised. I would urge you to encourage students not to participate in an unauthorised protest.”

    Students who allegedly breach campus policies can face disciplinary proceedings that can lead to suspension.

    UTS Student Association president Mia Campbell told MWM, “The warning given by UTS about protesting definitely felt intimidating and frightening to a number of students, including myself.

    “Especially as a law student, misconduct allegations can affect your admission to the profession . . .  but with all other avenues of communication exhausted between us and the university, it felt like we didn’t have a choice.

    I don’t want to look back on what I was doing during this genocide and have done any less than what was possible at the time.

    A UTS student reads the names of Gaza children killed in Israel’s War on Gaza. Image: Wendy Bacon/MWM

    Sombre, but quietly angry protest
    The UTS protest was sombre but quietly angry. Speakers read from lists naming dead Palestinian children.

    One speaker, who has lost 120 members of his extended family in Gaza, explained why he protested: “We have to be backed into a corner, told we can’t protest, told we can’t do anything. We’ve exhausted every single policy . . . Add to all that we are threatened with misconduct.”

    Do you think we can stay silent while there are people on campus who may have played a part in the killings in Gaza?

    SWU at University of Sydney
     University of Sydney staff and students who signed an open letter received no reply before the event.

    Activists from USyd staff in support of Palestine, Students Against War and Jews Against the Occupation ‘48 began protesting outside the Michael Spence building that houses the university’s senior executives on the Wednesday evening, April 2.

    Escorted by UTS security, three SWU representatives arrived. A small group was admitted. Soon afterwards, the participants could be seen from below in the building’s meeting room.

    A few protesters remained and booed the attendees as they left. These included Mark Leach, a far right Christian Zionist and founder of pro-Israeli group Never Again is Now. Later on X, he condemned the protesters and described Israel as a “multi-ethnic enclave of civilisation.”

    Warning letters for students
    Several student activists have received letters recently warning them about breaching the new USyd code of conduct regulating protests. USyd has also adopted a definition of anti-semitism which critics say could restrict criticism of Israel.

    It has been slammed by the Jewish Council of Australia as “dangerous” and “unworkable”.

    A Jews against Occupation ’48 speaker, Judith Treanor, said, “Welcoming this organisation makes a mockery of this university’s stated values of respect, non-harassment, and anti-racism.

    “In the context of this university’s adoption of draconian measures to stifle freedom of expression in relation to Palestine, the decision to host this event promoting Israel reveals a shocking level of hypocrisy and a huge abuse of power.”

    Jews Against the Occupation ‘48: L-R Suzie Gold, Laurie Izaks MacSween and Judith Treanor at the protest. Image: Vivienne Moore/MWM

    No stranger to USyd
    Michael Gencher is no stranger to USyd. Since October 2023, he has opposed student encampments and street protests.

    On one occasion, he visited the USyd protest student encampment in support of Palestine with Richard Kemp, a retired British army commander who tirelessly promotes the IDF. Kemp’s most recent X post congratulates Hungary for withdrawing from “the International Criminal Kangaroo Court. Other countries should reject this political court and follow suit.”

    Kemp and Gencher filmed themselves attempting to interrogate students about their knowledge of conflict in the Middle East on May 21, 2024, but the students refused to be provoked and declined to engage.

    In May 2024, Gercher helped organise a joint rally at USyd with Zionist Group Together with Israel, a partner of far-right group Australian Jewish Association. Extreme Zionist Ofir Birenbaum, who was recently exposed as covertly filming staff at an inner city cafe, Cairo Takeaway, helped organise the rally.

    Students at the USyd encampment told MWM  that they experienced provocative behaviour towards them during the May rally.

    Opposition to StandWithUs
     Those who oppose the SWU campus events draw on international findings condemning Israel and its IDF, explained in similar letters to university leaders.

    After the USyd event, those who signed a letter received a response from vice-chancellor Mark Scott.

    He explained, “We host a broad range of activities that reflect different perspectives — we recognise our role as a place for debate and disagreeing well, which includes tolerance of varied opinions.”

    His response ignored the concerns raised, which leaves this question: Why are organisations that reject all international and humanitarian legal findings, including ones of genocide and ethnic cleansing,

    being made to feel ‘safe and welcome’ when their critics risk misconduct proceedings?

    SWU CEO Michael Gencher went on the attack in the Jewish press:

    “We’re seeing a coordinated attempt to intimidate universities into silencing Israeli voices simply because they don’t conform to a radical political narrative.” He accused the academics of spreading “provable lies, dangerous rhetoric, and blatant hypocrisy.”

    SWU regards United Nations and other findings against Israel as false.

    Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at UTS. She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS and the Greens.

    Yaakov Aharon is a Jewish-Australian living in Wollongong. He enjoys long walks on Wollongong Beach, unimpeded by Port Kembla smoke fumes and AUKUS submarines. This article was first published by Michael West Media and is republished with permission of the authors.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –