Source: United States Navy
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, Chief of Navy Reserve and Commander, Navy Reserve Force, announced the selection of Air Traffic Controller 1st Class (AW/SW/IW) Stephanie Y. Ramirez as the 2024 Navy Reserve Sailor of the Year (RSOY), in a ceremony, May 16.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Janice Denoncourt, Associate Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law, Nottingham Trent University
On a glorious afternoon recently, I had the good fortune to attend a specially themed Education and Skills Garden Party hosted at Buckingham Palace in London to celebrate the contributions of educators in the United Kingdom and beyond.
As a Canadian citizen living and working in education in the United Kingdom, I was invited to attend by the High Commission of Canada in London.
The occasion provided a relaxing yet exciting opportunity to reflect on my involvement embedding sustainability into education related to innovation and intellectual property (IP) rights law.
King Charles has been a lifelong supporter of sustainability education, which is a new addition to the curricula. For me, the Royal garden and lake beautifully highlighted concerns with sustainability.
The King’s Royal garden at the Palace is an oasis in the city of London, alive with foliage and wildlife that guests may stroll around and explore. According to the event leaflet: “A survey of the Garden by the London Natural History Society revealed a wealth of flora and fauna, some quite rare species.”
Garden parties are a special way for members of the Royal Family to speak to a broad range of people, all of whom have made a positive impact on their community. Today these events are a way to recognize and reward public service.
A network of sponsors is used to invite guests, including lord-lieutenants, societies and associations, government departments and local government, as well as representatives of various churches and other faiths.
Charles first marked the issue of pollution in 1970 when he was a 21-year-old student. The King continues to champion his lifelong passion regarding the importance of the health of the environment and living sustainably.
Since 2004, I have been an innovation, intellectual property rights and business law educator. My research group contributed to a publication called The Guide to The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), developed to explore the connections between the United Nation’s 17 SDGs, sustainable development and IP.
Intellectual property is of concern because we need to envision and build a common future with innovation and creativity. How sustainability challenges are overcome depends on the commercialization of new green technology catalysts.
However, this process is complex. Choosing between solar versus wind, or hydro, geothermal or tidal energy technologies involves making difficult choices. IP rights, such as patents, provide practical scientific information about new green technologies. This information helps society to prioritize public, private and alternative financing to support climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Canadian firms have patented numerous climate change mitigation technologies.
For example, the Toronto-based WhalePower has significantly advanced fluid dynamics and has filed Canadian, European Union, United States, Chinese and Indian patents to protect its new technology. Their award-winning invention, inspired by the bumpy flippers of humpback whales, results in more efficient and reliable wind turbine blades.
Read more:
Here’s why UK tides are soon going to play a much bigger part in powering your home
This “tubercle” technology, named for a rounded point of a bone, also has applications for hydroelectric turbines and for revolutionizing fan design. These blades, featuring tubercles (bumps) on the leading edge, reduce aerodynamic drag and improve performance. WhalePower also generates revenue by licensing its patented technology to other companies to use in wind turbines.
Patents encourage knowledge sharing, because the way the invention works must be disclosed, rather than kept secret.
For example, new tidal energy inventors can read Whalepower’s patents and be inspired to further advance the new technology with additional incremental innovations.
A granted patent is published for free online and digitally tagged using globally recognized classification codes to facilitate easy searching by scientists, investors and financiers. The data collected on the patent register is also used to design new climate innovation research studies and inform policy-making.
In this manner, IP often stimulates investment by providing the legal rights needed to justify longer-term investment in a changing landscape of innovation.
Long-term investment into green technology is a form of environmental stewardship that I discuss in more detail in my article “Companies and UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure.” IP rights support firms like Whalepower by enabling knowledge tools that can bring sustainable development goals closer to fruition.
The significant role of IP rights in promoting sustainability gained a higher profile when the United Kingdom’s Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) became an Official Nominator for the annual Earthshot Prize launched by Prince William’s Royal Foundation in 2020.
CIPA helps to identify and nominate solutions for the environmental challenges that the prize aims to address. One nominated solution that uses DNA sequencing and nature’s own colours to create sustainable dyes to reduce the use of water and harmful chemicals in the fashion industry, Colorifix, was a runner-up in the 2023 edition.
Read more:
Can marketing classes teach sustainability? 4 key insights
CIPA provides crucial IP rights checks to finalists, ensuring that their innovations have no outstanding IP issues. This partnership is an example of how the Royal Family works together with CIPA to use the power of IP to help solve sustainability challenges.
As the King stated when he was Prince of Wales in 2017: “Mine is not a new commitment, but perhaps you will allow me to restate my determination to join you in continuing to do whatever I can, for as long as I can, to maintain not only the health and vitality of the ocean and all that depends upon it, but also the viability of that greatest and most unique of living organisms — nature herself.”
Janice Denoncourt is affiliated with the British Association for Canadian Studies (BACS)..
– ref. For a Canadian in London, King Charles’ Royal Garden Party inspires sustainability education – https://theconversation.com/for-a-canadian-in-london-king-charles-royal-garden-party-inspires-sustainability-education-256869
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kevin Walby, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Winnipeg
Once stigmatized and outlawed, psychedelics are moving from the counterculture to the mainstream. From Prince Harry’s use of psilocybin to National Football League quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ adventures with ayahuasca, our media is awash with accounts of their professed benefits.
Hundreds of universities around the world are now engaging in psychedelic research. And psychedelic legalization initiatives are taking hold.
Psychedelics are becoming big business. Just as private capital flooded the cannabis sector years ago, a psychedelic gold rush is underway.
Wealthy entrepreneurs are investing in the psychedelic industry while biotechnology start-ups are raising capital and running clinical trials on novel psychedelic molecules. Venture capitalists are eyeing the prospects of a new lucrative mass market.
To date, most debates about psychedelics have offered little critical analysis of their relationship to the political economy of modern capitalism and broader power structures. In our new book Psychedelic Capitalism, we make three central claims about the so-called psychedelic renaissance.
First, the medicalization of psychedelics is likely to restrict access and reinforce existing health and social inequalities.
Second, the corporatization of psychedelics will enable economic elites to dominate the market while appropriating the vast reservoir of knowledge built up by Indigenous communities, public institutions and underground researchers.
And third, rather than representing progressive drug reform, the limited legalization of select psychedelics for medical use will help to entrench and sustain the drug war and the criminalization of most drug use.
Across North America, we’re seeing a medicalization of psychedelics, where a range of problems are presented as treatable by these substances. This is happening in a way that boosts corporate control of the process and pushes aside community and Indigenous knowledge.
We have seen this scenario play out in Australia. Substances such as psilocybin and MDMA are legally available, but only through a doctor’s prescription and at great financial cost — raising questions about equity, access and who these therapies are for.
Framing psychedelics as pharmaceutical commodities and individualized health-care solutions reinforces the prohibitionist narrative that these substances are unsuitable for use outside of the medical context. This narrative shifts attention away from how medicalized use might perpetuate a neoliberal ideology — locating mental “disorder” within an individual, rather than addressing more systemic causes such as poverty, inequality and social exclusion.
It also disregards centuries of traditions created by Indigenous community use, as well as the values of the psychedelic underground.
A system built on expensive individual therapy, medically trained gatekeepers and hyper-controlled clinical access is not the model that most advocates have envisioned.
The foundations of psychedelic capitalism were largely created by public innovation at the public’s expense and are now in the process of being taken over by private capital.
Psychedelic conferences increasingly resemble corporate trade shows. The psychedelic tourism industry continues to expand and cater to elite clients. For-profit companies like Mind Medicine and Compass Pathways are eliminating psychotherapy from their treatment protocols and embracing a “pill-only” model favoured by Big Pharma.
Psychedelics, including microdosing and psychedelic-assisted therapy, are marketed as a way for the general population to extract more work out of their already overworked lives, and to be happy about it in the process.
Companies are competing to capture intellectual property to harness profits from existing compounds and erect legal barriers around new chemicals and their applications.
The for-profit ketamine industry already offers a glimpse into the future of corporatized psychedelic therapy. This includes a lack of attention to risks, deceitful marketing and little consideration to therapeutic care.
There has been a surge of new patent applications (and granted patents) in the U.S. on substances such as psilocybin, LSD, DMT, 5-MeO DMT and mescaline that seek to secure exclusivity, monopolize supply chains and privatize knowledge that already exists in the public domain.
Psychedelics have been swept up into the well-rehearsed capitalist playbook where private players are fabricating exclusionary rights over what are ultimately the products of collective human struggle and intellectual achievement.
The medicalized approach to psychedelic mainstreaming also connects to drug law and policy.
Across North America, the biomedical approach is the main influence on drug law and the primary avenue for psychedelic access in most jurisdictions. This approach is widely supported by psychedelic capitalists who have a financial stake in medical legalization and want to limit legal access to anything outside of the medical-pharma frame.
In the United States, places like Oregon and Colorado have more holistic legal models that include elements of community control to prevent corporate capture. But most state initiatives remain limited in scope and are centred around medicalized therapy, particularly for military veterans. Even in Oregon, which has been lauded for its progressive drug policies, there has been an unmistakable drift toward medicalization.
Canada’s cannabis industry exemplifies how processes of legalization can become intertwined with the interests of corporate-dominated industries.
As Michael Devillaer, professor of psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences and author of Buzz Kill (2024), has explained, the cannabis industry has prioritized profit maximization, product promotion and increased consumption at the expense of public health concerns.
As the medical legalization of psychedelics deepens, we are likely to see the intensification of criminal penalties for recreational and other uses.
In fact, police seizures of psychedelics like psilocybin in the U.S. have increased in recent years. Global arrests for the transportation of compounds such as ayahuasca, iboga and peyote have also increased.
These problems are likely to be exacerbated by systems of bifurcated scheduling, where a drug product is placed in a different class from the active ingredient or substance.
For example, if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were to approve psilocybin for depression or MDMA for PTSD, it is likely that only FDA-approved medicinal psilocybin and MDMA products would be rescheduled, while the substances themselves would continue to be prosecuted as restricted narcotics.
It is in the public interest to move beyond a myopic focus on medical legalization to a more open, decriminalized model of public access. An approach like this would not only mitigate the threats associated with corporate capture, it would also reduce the harms associated with criminalization and the war on drugs.
Community-controlled decriminalization is a better path to mainstreaming psychedelics than relinquishing power to the medical industry and pharmaceutical cartels that provide monopolized services to primarily affluent customers.
And treating drug use and dependence as a public health issue and incentivizing harm reduction and support services for at-risk populations would go a long way to mitigating the tragedies of the drug war.
Kevin Walby receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Jamie Brownlee 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. The rise of psychedelic capitalism: Work harder and be happy about it? – https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-psychedelic-capitalism-work-harder-and-be-happy-about-it-253003
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Eran Ben-Joseph, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
In 1918, as World War I intensified overseas, the U.S. government embarked on a radical experiment: It quietly became the nation’s largest housing developer, designing and constructing more than 80 new communities across 26 states in just two years.
These weren’t hastily erected barracks or rows of identical homes. They were thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, complete with parks, schools, shops and sewer systems.
In just two years, this federal initiative provided housing for almost 100,000 people.
Few Americans are aware that such an ambitious and comprehensive public housing effort ever took place. Many of the homes are still standing today.
But as an urban planning scholar, I believe that this brief historic moment – spearheaded by a shuttered agency called the United States Housing Corporation – offers a revealing lesson on what government-led planning can achieve during a time of national need.
When the U.S. declared war against Germany in April 1917, federal authorities immediately realized that ship, vehicle and arms manufacturing would be at the heart of the war effort. To meet demand, there needed to be sufficient worker housing near shipyards, munitions plants and steel factories.
So on May 16, 1918, Congress authorized President Woodrow Wilson to provide housing and infrastructure for industrial workers vital to national defense. By July, it had appropriated US$100 million – approximately $2.3 billion today – for the effort, with Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson tasked with overseeing it via the U.S. Housing Corporation.
Over the course of two years, the agency designed and planned over 80 housing projects. Some developments were small, consisting of a few dozen dwellings. Others approached the size of entire new towns.
For example, Cradock, near Norfolk, Virginia, was planned on a 310-acre site, with more than 800 detached homes developed on just 100 of those acres. In Dayton, Ohio, the agency created a 107-acre community that included 175 detached homes and a mix of over 600 semidetached homes and row houses, along with schools, shops, a community center and a park.
Notably, the Housing Corporation was not simply committed to offering shelter.
Its architects, planners and engineers aimed to create communities that were not only functional but also livable and beautiful. They drew heavily from Britain’s late-19th century Garden City movement, a planning philosophy that emphasized low-density housing, the integration of open spaces and a balance between built and natural environments.
Importantly, instead of simply creating complexes of apartment units, akin to the public housing projects that most Americans associate with government-funded housing, the agency focused on the construction of single-family and small multifamily residential buildings that workers and their families could eventually own.
This approach reflected a belief by the policymakers that property ownership could strengthen community responsibility and social stability. During the war, the federal government rented these homes to workers at regulated rates designed to be fair, while covering maintenance costs. After the war, the government began selling the homes – often to the tenants living in them – through affordable installment plans that provided a practical path to ownership.
Though the scope of the Housing Corporation’s work was national, each planned community took into account regional growth and local architectural styles. Engineers often built streets that adapted to the natural landscape. They spaced houses apart to maximize light, air and privacy, with landscaped yards. No resident lived far from greenery.
In Quincy, Massachusetts, for example, the agency built a 22-acre neighborhood with 236 homes designed mostly in a Colonial Revival style to serve the nearby Fore River Shipyard. The development was laid out to maximize views, green space and access to the waterfront, while maintaining density through compact street and lot design.
At Mare Island, California, developers located the housing site on a steep hillside near a naval base. Rather than flatten the land, designers worked with the slope, creating winding roads and terraced lots that preserved views and minimized erosion. The result was a 52-acre community with over 200 homes, many of which were designed in the Craftsman style. There was also a school, stores, parks and community centers.
Alongside housing construction, the Housing Corporation invested in critical infrastructure. Engineers installed over 649,000 feet of modern sewer and water systems, ensuring that these new communities set a high standard for sanitation and public health.
Attention to detail extended inside the homes. Architects experimented with efficient interior layouts and space-saving furnishings, including foldaway beds and built-in kitchenettes. Some of these innovations came from private companies that saw the program as a platform to demonstrate new housing technologies.
One company, for example, designed fully furnished studio apartments with furniture that could be rotated or hidden, transforming a space from living room to bedroom to dining room throughout the day.
To manage the large scale of this effort, the agency developed and published a set of planning and design standards − the first of their kind in the United States. These manuals covered everything from block configurations and road widths to lighting fixtures and tree-planting guidelines.
The standards emphasized functionality, aesthetics and long-term livability.
Architects and planners who worked for the Housing Corporation carried these ideas into private practice, academia and housing initiatives. Many of the planning norms still used today, such as street hierarchies, lot setbacks and mixed-use zoning, were first tested in these wartime communities.
And many of the planners involved in experimental New Deal community projects, such as Greenbelt, Maryland, had worked for or alongside Housing Corporation designers and planners. Their influence is apparent in the layout and design of these communities.
With the end of World War I, the political support for federal housing initiatives quickly waned. The Housing Corporation was dissolved by Congress, and many planned projects were never completed. Others were incorporated into existing towns and cities.
Yet, many of the neighborhoods built during this period still exist today, integrated in the fabric of the country’s cities and suburbs. Residents in places such as Aberdeen, Maryland; Bremerton, Washington; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Watertown, New York; and New Orleans may not even realize that many of the homes in their communities originated from a bold federal housing experiment.
The Housing Corporation’s efforts, though brief, showed that large-scale public housing could be thoughtfully designed, community oriented and quickly executed. For a short time, in response to extraordinary circumstances, the U.S. government succeeded in building more than just houses. It constructed entire communities, demonstrating that government has a major role and can lead in finding appropriate, innovative solutions to complex challenges.
At a moment when the U.S. once again faces a housing crisis, the legacy of the U.S. Housing Corporation serves as a reminder that bold public action can meet urgent needs.
Eran Ben-Joseph does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
– ref. Believe it or not, there was a time when the US government built beautiful homes for working-class Americans to deal with a housing crisis – https://theconversation.com/believe-it-or-not-there-was-a-time-when-the-us-government-built-beautiful-homes-for-working-class-americans-to-deal-with-a-housing-crisis-253512
Source: US State of South Carolina
(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that additional South Carolina State Grand Jury indictments were unsealed today in the narcotics trafficking investigation known as “Devil in Disguise.” To date, ten indictments have been issued in five counties against 108 defendants on over 380 narcotics and related charges. This investigation has primarily focused on fentanyl trafficking and associated overdoses.
“These new State Grand Jury indictments are the result of the hard work of law enforcement, prosecutors, and staff from many jurisdictions,” Attorney General Wilson said. “We will continue to aggressively fight drug traffickers with every resource we have. Soon, we’ll also have a new tool to charge fentanyl traffickers if their drugs kill someone, thanks to the fentanyl-induced homicide bill just passed by the legislature, which we’ve been working to get for three years,” he added.
According to the Greenville County Coroner’s Office, Greenville County had 278 drug-related overdose deaths in 2022, most of which were related to fentanyl trafficking. In response to the growing number of overdose deaths, the Greenville County Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) began an investigation to fight this problem. The DEU then coordinated with resources from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office, and the United States Department of Homeland Security. A South Carolina State Grand Jury investigation marshalling these and other combined resources has been proceeding since August 2023, resulting in the indictments unsealed from January 2024 through today. Under the South Carolina State Grand Jury, law enforcement and prosecutors have used traditional and advanced law enforcement techniques to move the investigations forward.
Mexican cartel organizations provide multiple major sources of supply for cocaine, fentanyl, and methamphetamine. Cartels would have members of their organization already within the United States fly to different locations to distribute shipments of cocaine, ultimately resulting in hundreds of kilograms being trafficked into South Carolina. Mexican cartels would coordinate with members of their organization who are in prison in the United States to have large loads of fentanyl smuggled into the US, then have other members of the organization transport the drugs to South Carolina. Fentanyl is being used to adulterate heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other illegal drugs.
To date, the Devil in Disguise investigation, through controlled purchases and seizures, has recovered over 44 kilograms of cocaine, 4 kilograms of fentanyl, and 10 kilograms of methamphetamine, among other drugs. The investigation has also seized over $1,000,000 cash in alleged narcotics proceeds, as well as multiple firearms, including assault rifles. The investigation has revealed that members of the various conspiracies have historically moved more than 540 kilograms of fentanyl since January of 2020, along with historical trafficking of approximately 850 kilograms of cocaine and 500 kilograms of methamphetamine.
Previously in this investigation, the State Grand Jury has indicted alleged fentanyl dealers for murder, accessory before the fact to murder, and conspiracy to commit murder for their alleged role in distributing fentanyl to victims who died from resulting overdoses. Other charges brought to date as a result of this investigation include trafficking in fentanyl, trafficking in methamphetamine, trafficking heroin, trafficking cocaine, money laundering, and illegal possession of a weapon, as well as possession, possession with intent to distribute, and distribution charges for the various narcotics involved. Both Attorney General Wilson and Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Creighton Waters thanked all the agencies for their dedicated efforts in the Devil in Disguise investigation.
Bond hearings for some of the newer defendants will occur on Monday, May 19, 2025, before the Honorable Heath P. Taylor at the Richland County Courthouse.
The case was investigated by the South Carolina State Grand Jury, which was assisted in this case by a partnership of the Attorney General’s State Grand Jury Division, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Thirteenth Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins’ Office, the United States Attorney’s Office, the United States Department of Homeland Security, the Greenville County Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Enforcement Unit, South Carolina National Guard Counterdrug Task Force, Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, Pickens County Sheriff’s Office, Anderson County Sheriff’s Office, Greenville County Coroner’s Office, Pickens County Coroner’s Office, Easley Police Department, Pickens Police Department, Greenville Police Department, Travelers Rest Police Department, Greer Police Department, Mauldin Police Department, and the Fountain Inn Police Department.
The cases will be prosecuted by State Grand Jury Section Chief Attorney S. Creighton Waters, as well as Assistant Attorney General Jennifer McKellar, Assistant Attorney General Jason Anders, and Assistant Attorney General Walt Whitmire.
Attorney General Wilson stressed that all defendants are presumed innocent unless and until they are proven guilty in a court of law.
Source: Interpol (news and events)
VIENNA, Austria – Countries need to take critical measures to target the huge illicit profits generated by drug trafficking, human trafficking, migrant smuggling, and frauds and scams, international organisations urged today, warning that behind every dollar laundered is a victim – a family destroyed, a life lost, a community damaged.
This was the urgent call to action by leaders from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), INTERPOL and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna today, at a high-level side event on the first day of the 34th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ).
Prioritising an economic and financial crime approach to crime prevention is critical to reduce the harm that crime causes to our societies, and to ensure financial stability and economic growth.
At today’s CCPCJ, FATF, INTERPOL and UNODC collectively called on governments to improve asset recovery efforts to remove organized crime and terrorist groups’ ability to expand value and territory, and to cooperate internationally to make financial investigations more targeted and effective.
Finance ministers have called for greater efforts to fight crime and terrorism by cutting off the profits which enable them. The FATF, the global watchdog on illicit finance covering over 200 jurisdictions, responded to this call by tightening standards for asset recovery.
Assessments of the FATF Global Network found that almost 80 per cent of countries are at low or moderate level of effectiveness on asset recovery.
UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said:
“This is a call to action to define innovative and scalable solutions to combat economic crime. Let us work together through our partnerships and use the opportunity of this CCPCJ and the 15th UN Crime Congress in 2026 to accelerate collective responses against criminal and terrorist financing to ensure our financial systems are drivers of peace, security, and prosperity.”
FATF President Elisa de Anda Madrazo said:
“The FATF is committed to providing countries with the tools and the international forum to collectively tackle the challenges we all face today. This is critical to financial stability, development, peace, and security. Global defences against illicit finance are only as strong as our weakest link, so we are sounding the alarm so that all countries work together to meet the complex, transnational threats of today. We cannot let crime thrive.”
From the operational perspective, INTERPOL has implemented its recently launched Silver Notice, designed to improve the speed and effectiveness of international cooperation in targeting criminal assets. Currently, 51 countries that are part of the pilot have indicated they will make use of the new Notice to request information on assets worldwide.
INTERPOL Acting Executive Director of Police Services Cyril Gout said:
“Illicit finance is not just one of many criminal threats – it is the enabler of them all. This is why INTERPOL focuses on developing and delivering innovative tools to facilitate international law enforcement cooperation and tackle illicit financial flows. We are proud to serve as a bridge between international commitments and national action.”
The three leaders highlighted their recent collective work in developing practical tools for practitioners to dramatically improve their capabilities in working across jurisdictional lines, with FATF President Elisa de Anda Madrazo noting that, “Criminals do not confine themselves within national borders, so we need to ensure that our borders do not provide opportunities for criminals to hide money and frustrate our pursuit of them.”
Later this year, the three organizations, together with the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, will release practical guidance for practitioners on key avenues of international collaboration.
The leaders stressed the strengthening of the FATF’s international standards on anti-money laundering and terrorism financing and called for accelerated progress on cooperating across borders and capacity building ahead of the UN 2026 Crime Congress, to be hosted by the United Arab Emirates.
They also recognized the positive impact of Member States increasingly working with the private sector and civil society on joint approaches to fighting financial crime and welcomed the acceleration of operational work through public private partnerships and task forces.
High-level participants at the event, “Global Call to Action to Combat Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism: International Cooperation”, discussed the critical steps that Member States must take to dramatically improve international cooperation to fight money laundering and terrorist financing, including capacity building, the effective implementation of the risk-based approach, public-private partnerships, and innovating through new technologies.
The 15th UN Crime Congress, Abu Dhabi, 25 – 30 April 2026, will provide its Member States the opportunity to grapple with these difficult issues and to commit to scalable and innovative responses to financial crime.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
A 17-minute promo of “Dong Ji Island” was screened on May 14 at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, offering audiences a preview of the upcoming war epic.
The first still released from “Dong Ji Island.” [Photo courtesy of Seventh Art Pictures]
Co-directed by Guan Hu and Fei Zhenxiang, and starring Zhu Yilong, Wu Lei and Ni Ni, the film is based on real events during the Second World War in 1942. It follows Chinese fishermen who embark on a perilous journey to rescue British prisoners of war held by the Japanese army aboard the Lisbon Maru, saving 384 POWs after the ship was torpedoed and sunk by a U.S. submarine.
The film’s release also commemorates the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. Producers said this transnational story of humanity showcases the universal values of compassion and courage displayed by Chinese fishermen during wartime, which will surely resonate with global audiences.
This forgotten chapter of history was revealed in last year’s acclaimed documentary “The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru” directed by Fang Li. Now, “Dong Ji Island” brings the story to life as a feature film with an $80 million budget. The production’s massive scale created unprecedented challenges in Chinese cinema, involving replica sets built on an actual island location, open-sea filming and a full-scale reconstruction of the Lisbon Maru. Directors Guan and Fei led the creative team through six years of preparation and 200 days of filming.
The Chinese poster for “Dong Ji Island.” [Image courtesy of Seventh Art Pictures]
Set for summer release in China, Seventh Art Pictures is launching international sales at Cannes for “Dong Ji Island.” Director Guan Hu is no stranger to global recognition, having won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes last year for “Black Dog.” His film “The Eight Hundred,” released in 2020, became that year’s highest-grossing live-action film worldwide.
The 17 minutes of footage was screened at the Palais at the Marche du Film in Cannes. Bloggers attending the event noted that the film’s quality exceeded expectations, praising its stunning visual effects, underwater sequences and inspirational plot. They also highlighted the actors’ captivating performances.
The film’s actors transformed themselves for their roles, undergoing intense strength and aquatic training amid the island’s harsh conditions. Their weathered appearances mirror the fishermen’s rugged spirit, and they mastered various boat handling techniques — helping to bring the heroic maritime rescue to life. Meanwhile, the production team meticulously reconstructed 1940s Dongji Island through historical research, replicating everything from coarse cloth vests to the Lisbon Maru incident using archives and survivor accounts, guaranteeing historical precision.
At a film tourism event on May 15 during Cannes, producer Liang Jing revealed: “Local fishermen supported us tremendously during production, assisting us through typhoons and numerous challenges. Audiences will be amazed by what they see on screen.”
Liang noted that Dongji Island became a popular destination after last year’s documentary “The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru,” but she believes the release of “Dong Ji Island” will bring even greater attention and tourism. “It’s truly a worthwhile destination,” she said. “The sunrise is breathtakingly beautiful.”
A new international Cannes poster for “Dong Ji Island.” [Image courtesy of Seventh Art Pictures]
The film’s official Weibo account simultaneously released an international poster for Cannes captioned: “Crimes sank with the colossal warship, but some salvaged humanity and truth. Coming summer 2025 — ‘Dong Ji Island’.”
Source: Securities and Exchange Commission
Thank you, Cicely, for your kind introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, I am very happy to be with you at my first SEC Speaks conference as SEC Chairman, though I have been a regular at this event over the past 15 years or so.[1]
The event has experienced some rather precipitous fits and starts over the past couple of years, and I shall make sure that it stays on track as valuable, comprehensive public outreach by the agency.
I extend my thanks to the folks at the Practising Law Institute for organizing the conference. I would also like to thank:
Today I intend to discuss innovation. In particular, about how the Securities and Exchange Commission should not fear innovation. Rather, it should embrace and champion it.
Markets, by their nature, evolve. They are dynamic because they are made up of human beings. When human beings encounter problems, they innovate to solve them because there is a demand — and there are rewards — for solutions. In a free society, human nature rises to the occasion with inventiveness and competitive spirit, plus Adam Smith’s invisible hand to provide incentives beyond mere altruism. All of that is a good thing.
Over the decades, including during my time as a Commissioner from 2002 to 2008 and before that on the staff of two SEC chairmen, the SEC has both enabled innovation and, unfortunately at times, stifled it. Fortunately, innovation — in other words, progress — eventually won the day. Let me take a few moments to revisit some recent history.
In the late 1960s, there was a big, beautiful bull market. Trading volume doubled to some 12 million shares a day — which I realize sounds quaint today — overwhelming the paper-based clearance and settlement systems and transfer agent duties. Efficiency began to deteriorate as rising stacks of paper stock certificates had to be physically delivered by clerks trundling carts carrying boxes of those paper certificates to and from various broker-dealers up and down Wall Street and in other financial districts all across America. Investors paid the price for this inefficiency as securities were misplaced, misdirected, lost, or delivered late. Fails ballooned and many inadequately capitalized broker-dealers were caught by that whiplash of scuttled transactions. As a Band-Aid, trading times each day were reduced and exchanges eventually closed on Wednesdays to allow firms time to process the mountains of certificates. At times, the New York Stock Exchange closed two days in a week to catch up on the paperwork.
The breakdown over an antiquated system became known as the “Paperwork Crisis.”
As William Dentzer, the first CEO of the Depository Trust Company, or DTC, put it: “The paperwork crisis caused the post-trade processing of hundreds of millions of dollars to be delayed or to fail entirely, dividends to investors to be misdirected, and brokerage firms to go bust.”[2]
Very much to its credit, the SEC at the time was proactive. It was clear that what needed to be done was to move to electronic transactions and book-entry. But how would we get there? The agency constructively held roundtables and engaged with industry. It used its rulemaking authority and powers of persuasion to allow for new ways of back-office processing of trades and other efficiencies tied to information technology. As a result of that collaboration between the SEC and market participants, the DTC was eventually established as an industry co-operative, later becoming the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. The computerization of securities was born with the SEC very much at the forefront of advancing that effort.
As things go, that late 1960s bull market was inevitably followed by a severe, long-lived bear market. Many broker-dealers went out of business because of the crushing downturn in revenues, rather than inadequate back-office capacity as in the preceding bull market. The SEC worked with Congress and the securities industry to enact the Securities Investor Protection Act in 1970. That law established the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, an industry-backed insurance fund to protect investors from losses in the event their broker fails. It was a positive innovation for investors in which the SEC played a significant role.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the American Stock Exchange and other organizations had come up with a creative response to the SEC’s identification of program trading of index stocks as a contributor to the 1987 market break. They proposed an instrument for trading a basket of stocks — “SPIDERS” — the S&P Depository Receipts, which is a basket of equities traded as a fund. It was the earliest exchange-traded fund, or ETF. But, the proposal languished at the Commission for several years, as the Divisions at the time raised various issues with this new fund. In no uncertain terms, Chairman Richard Breeden demanded that the Division heads “figure it out”[3] and gave them a limited amount of time to do so. He was emphatic about getting it done right away. And the SEC did. The SPDR launched in 1993. Some at the SEC were worried whether the market would accept this innovation. In fact, it took some effort by the sponsoring firms to persuade institutions to purchase the product. But, it grew to $1 billion in three years. Chairman Breeden’s view was, let the market decide; we cannot be the arbiter. I think we can all agree that the innovation of SPDRs and ETFs has been a boon for investors.
During Arthur Levitt’s tenure as chairman in the mid-to-late 1990s, proprietary trading systems took off in popularity, controversially drawing trading off-exchange. Chairman Levitt believed that the SEC needed to provide regulatory flexibility for the electronic markets to be able to innovate. So, Regulation Alternative Trading Systems, or “Reg ATS,” adopted in 1999, allowed for ATSs to be regulated like broker-dealers, rather than exchanges.
As we moved to a new century, the market came up with another innovation: the gold fund, the first commodity ETF. This concept had been internally bouncing around the Divisions like a pinball and across town to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Although it took a while, innovation prevailed, and investors gained the option to invest in gold without physically owning it.
This brings me to today. The crypto markets have been languishing in SEC limbo for years.
Initially, the SEC first pursued what I call the “head-in-the-sand” approach — perhaps hoping that crypto would go away. Then, it pivoted and pursued a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later approach of regulation through enforcement. The “just come in to visit” entreaty often meant coming home to a subpoena. It seemed like a catch-22 for market participants. This environment did not create trust. In reality, the message was, “You go figure it out.” That is a fine approach if the regulator plays an active role in interacting with the marketplace to encourage solutions and adapt existing rules and practices if the existing approaches are inapposite to new developments in technology. Old ways of doing things should not be immutable, especially if Congress has granted an agency discretion to make changes consistent with Congressional intent and in the public interest. While the SEC must be faithful to its statutes in any effort to be innovative, it should use its available authority and discretion to adapt to and accommodate new developments.
The SEC’s claim at the time that it was willing to talk to prospective registrants proved ephemeral at best because the SEC made no adaptations to registration forms or other regulatory requirements to accommodate this new technology. I have been told that market participants would in good faith enter what they thought were policy meetings with Commission staff only to receive enforcement inquiries shortly after their meeting. If that culture were not bad enough, SEC leadership for too long prevented staff from communicating with market participants when complicated legal questions arose. I am pleased to announce that I recently directed Division of Corporation Finance staff to maintain transparent interactions with the public. When staff is allowed to talk openly with industry, market participants can move more nimbly and allocate capital to productive uses.
It is a new day at the SEC. While I have directed Commission staff across our policy Divisions to begin drafting rule proposals related to crypto, the staff continue to “clear the brush” through staff-level statements. For example, last week the staff of the Division of Trading and Markets issued a set of FAQs that addressed broker-dealer and transfer agent questions. While the views of the staff are not rules or regulations of the Commission, they can provide useful insights for the public.[4] Ultimately, the Commission is, of course, responsible and must itself squarely address these issues to ensure that the public has clear rules of the road.
Last, as I mentioned at a recent Crypto Task Force roundtable, I would like the Commission to allow SEC registrants to custody and trade both securities and non-securities under one roof. Enabling this reality could reduce costs for investors while allowing non-security trading to enter a regulated environment at the federal level expeditiously. This would be an initial step towards the possibility of eventually achieving a “super-app” reality. Thank you to Commissioner Hester Peirce, the Crypto Task Force, and Trading and Markets staff for their continued efforts.
In keeping with this theme of innovation and the progress of the Crypto Task Force, we have asked Congress for reprogramming approval to integrate the functions of the agency’s Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology, or “FinHub” into other parts of the agency.
Established in 2018, FinHub was created during a critical period of emerging technologies. The rapid development of distributed ledger technology, including digital assets, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, required a centralized effort to build understanding at the SEC. Unfortunately, FinHub over time came to be perceived by many in the digital asset industry as a tool for enforcement rather than a tool to foster innovation. Moreover, as currently constituted, FinHub is too small to be viable and efficient, and this staff expertise can be better utilized elsewhere in the agency.
The principles and priorities under which FinHub was founded are being integrated into the very fabric of the SEC. I will ensure that innovation will be ingrained in the culture SEC-wide, as it should be, and not focused on one small office.
Financial innovation sometimes means getting out of the way of capital formation and allowing all investors to gain the benefits of our robust markets.
Since 2002, the SEC staff has taken the position that closed-end funds investing 15% or more of their assets in private funds should impose a minimum initial investment requirement of $25,000 and restrict sales to investors that satisfy the accredited investor standard. As a result, many retail investors have missed out on opportunities to invest in closed-end funds that invest in private investment funds, like hedge funds and private equity funds.
Much has changed since 2002 — including the growth of private markets and the increased oversight and enhanced reporting by both private fund advisers and registered funds. Indeed, in the last 10 years alone, private fund assets have almost tripled from $11.6 trillion to $30.9 trillion.[5] Allowing this option could increase investment opportunities for retail investors seeking to diversify their investment allocation in line with their investment time horizon and risk tolerance.
With this in mind, I intend to have the Commission address this situation and reconsider this 23-year-old practice concerning investments by closed-end funds in private funds. This common-sense approach will give all investors the ability to seek exposure to a growing and important asset class, while still providing the investor protections afforded to registered funds. We must consider and resolve important disclosure issues for these products, particularly for those that trade on exchanges, including conflicts of interest, illiquidity, and fees.
Before I close, I want to mention a topic that has drawn significant scrutiny, the Consolidated Audit Trail, known by the innocuous-sounding nickname “CAT.” This particular “CAT” has quite an appetite for data and computer power, with costs rising to nearly $250 million a year. These costs are divvied up and eventually, one way or another, fall on the shoulders of investors. The financial services industry and Congress have rightly pushed back on the seemingly endless cost increases and the risks of storing so much sensitive data together. Much of the increases are due to changing demands for information and access.
Therefore, I have instructed the staff to undertake a comprehensive review of the CAT. In addition to examining the costs of the system, I would like to see the staff take a hard look at the reporting requirements and scope of what is collected. I look forward to the agency engaging with the public on this important issue.
As I begin my tenure as Chairman, I can tell you that we are getting back to our roots of promoting, rather than stifling, innovation. The markets innovate, and the SEC should not be in the business of telling them to stand still.
It is a new day at the SEC, and I look forward to what we are going to be able to accomplish for investors and the markets.
Thank you.
[1] These remarks reflect my individual views as Chairman of the Commission and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission or my fellow Commissioners.
[4] See 17 C.F.R. § 202.1(d). Staff statements represent the views of the respective office or division; they are not rules, regulations, or statements of the Commission. Further, the Commission neither approves nor disapproves their content. Staff statements have no legal force or effect: they do not alter or amend applicable law, and they create no new or additional obligations for any person.
Source: Tasmania Police
Issued: 19 May 2025
Rangers are reminding fishers to be alert on K’gari after a man was bitten by a dingo whilst fishing in knee deep water around 11:30am near Eurong on 16 May 2025.
The man was fishing alone when he was approached from behind by the dingo. It bit him on the back of the leg, resulting in two puncture wounds and a small superficial laceration which required basic first aid treatment.
The man told rangers from the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation (DETSI) that the dingo was almost fully submerged in the water at the time of the incident.
He was wearing a fishing bag containing a fish, and rangers believe the dingo may have been attracted by the smell.
After being bitten, the man used his fishing rod to make contact with the dingo.
In addition to this incident, DETSI has received recent reports that dingoes have been loitering around fishers on the island in hope of getting a free feed.
Dingoes are known to steal fish and bait from anywhere they can scavenge, including vehicles, berley bags, shallow waters and straight off a fisher’s line.
To fish responsibly, it’s important to stay close to the water’s edge when reeling in a fish and avoid dragging your catch across the sand.
When removing bait from fishing hooks, it is recommended that a protective cover is placed on the hook, and it is stored out of reach of dingoes.
Ranger Dan Novak would like to remind all visitors including fishers to be alert for dingoes on K’gari.
“Dingoes are opportunistic predators and will strike when they see a chance to do so,” Mr Novak said.
“To avoid a dingo incident, it’s always a good idea to have a mate stand guard, preferably holding a dingo stick.
“It is an offence to hang bait or berley bags on the outside of vehicles, in trees, or have these lying around.
“We have also seen dingoes grabbing bycatch or fish that are undersized as they’re being released.
“To reduce the chance of a negative dingo interaction we remind visitors to be dingo safe at all times.”
Visitors to K’gari are reminded to ‘Be dingo-safe!’ at all times:
For more information go to K’gari dingoes
Source: Tasmania Police
Issued: 19 May 2025
A purple-necked rock wallaby
The Queensland Government will help safeguard populations of purple-necked rock-wallabies through a $364,000 offset program that will improve crucial habitat in the state’s northwest.
The four-year offset project will fund environmental improvements on Chidna Station, which is a 26,000-hectare pastoral lease property around 130 kilometres north of Mount Isa.
Chidna Station features rugged, rough country of breathtaking beauty that provides ideal habitat for the purple-necked rock wallaby along with other threatened species.
The offset project will be a collaboration between the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation and environmental management group Conservation Partners.
Conservation Partners have developed a strategic management plan for the purple-necked rock-wallabies, and will focus on the following pivotal actions:
Acting Deputy Director General Environment and Heritage Policy and Programs Kahil Lloyd said the Queensland Government is committed to protecting and conserving our populations of threatened species.
“This collaborative offset project represents a significant step forward in boosting populations of an at-risk species on privately-owned land,” Mr Lloyd said.
“I’d like to thank the landholder at Chidna Station for their dedication to conservation and protecting the natural and cultural values of their property.
“Conservation Partners have vast experience in habitat and species management and through this project will build upon the exceptional work of the department’s threatened species unit.
“Our Offsets Framework is just one of the ways that we are making a difference to our threatened species.”
Conservation Partners Chief Executive Steve Murphy said the organisation works closely with private landholders to conserve Queensland’s threatened species.
“Conservation Partners works on stations in western Queensland, the Gulf and Cape York Peninsula, and many cattle stations have important conservation values,” he said.
“Over the next four years we will work with Indigenous landowner Brussie Spreadborough to improve fire patterns on Chidna Station, mainly using aerial prescribed burning.
“We’ll also closely monitor the impact on Purple-necked Rock-wallabies as well as Chidna’s other endangered wildlife populations, such as Carpentarian Grasswrens and Gouldian Finches.”
Brussie Spreadborough said the partnership with Conservation Partners is a win-win situation.
“Working with Conservation Partners means that I can concentrate on cattle, while also having a hand in good conservation work that looks after the native wildlife that lives on my place,” he said.
Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – “We missionaries are called to set out on a journey to be artisans of hope and to restore dignity to people whose dignity and freedom have been violated,” said Comboni Missionary Maria Rosa Venturelli (SMC), who last Thursday presented the third event of the “Paths of Hope” cycle in the “ad gentes” mission, with the theme “The Path of Liberation from Old and New Slavery.”The initiative, born from the collaboration between the Pontifical Missionary Union (PUM) and the Secretariat for Missionary Animation of the Lazio Region (SUAM LAZIO), is intended as a path of missionary spirituality during the Holy Year, which will culminate in October with the Jubilee of the Missionary World (see Fides, 24/3/2025). The protagonists of this third event were the testimonies. The meeting, held in the Roman Basilica of the Holy XII Apostles in Rome, was opened by Father Marc Nsanzurwimo, of the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers), who addressed the topic from a historical perspective, recalling the massive campaign against slavery called for by Pope Leo XIII and entrusted by him to Cardinal Lavigerie, then Archbishop of Algiers.”Around the 19th century, Pope Leo XIII took the initiative to abolish slavery in Africa. He entrusted this delicate task to Cardinal Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers, and launched a large-scale campaign against slavery involving influential political and ecclesiastical leaders and other actors in Europe and on both sides of the Mediterranean,” Father Nsanzurwimo emphasized in his report. “His strategy consisted of organizing visits to major European capitals, holding conferences, and involving the media.”Father Prosper Harelimana, Coordinator for Justice, Peace, Integrity of Creation, Encounter and Dialogue of the White Fathers, outlined the current situation: “Sometimes we are led to believe that slavery is a thing of the past. But today, around 50 million people around the world live in slavery, especially women and children,” he said. “We White Fathers work together with governmental, non-governmental, and religious organizations and other people of good will. In Uganda, for example, a project was launched to reach out to victims of human trafficking, to talk to them, and to listen to them.” The topic of “Protection and Care for Vulnerable People in a Missionary Context” was also discussed during the meeting, which was moderated and summarized by Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen (Ofm Conv), Secretary General of the Pontifical Missionary Union. Father Romuald Uzabumwana (SAC) reported on the work of the Pallottines, who are active in eleven African countries: “When you go on mission, you meet children and people in need, who are the most vulnerable,” said Father Uzabumwana, who also analyzed the various forms of abuse in his report. “Protection and care for the vulnerable are at the heart of the Church’s mission, and we missionaries are invited to be the oil of consolation and the wine of hope for these people who suffer in body and soul, as Pope Francis taught us in his message for World Mission Day 2025.”The next meeting is scheduled for September 16 on the theme “The Path to Restoring Divine Dignity to Every Person and Every Creature.” (EG) (Agenzia Fides, 19/5/2025)
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Source: Government of India
Source: Government of India (2)
span class=”fadeinm1hgl8″>In a landmark moment for sports in the region, the Sikkim Cricket Ground in Mining witnessed the inauguration of high-mast LED floodlights on the evening of May 18. This significant upgrade, marked by a grand ceremony, was led by Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang.
With this state-of-the-art lighting system in place, the venue is now equipped to host day-night matches and high-definition live broadcasts, ushering in a new era for cricket in the state.
The Rs 12.2 crore project, fully funded by the Government of Sikkim, was executed by the Sikkim Cricket Association (SICA). Work commenced in December 2024 and was completed by April 18. The system features four 44-meter-high masts, each bearing 64 high-powered LED floodlights, totaling 256 units. With each light operating at 1.2 kW, the setup delivers an impressive 2800 lux illumination at the pitch, well above the standard required for televised matches.
The inauguration ceremony was attended by a host of dignitaries, including Justice Biswanath Somadder, Chief Justice of the High Court of Sikkim, Cabinet Ministers, MLAs, the Chief Secretary, the Chief Administrator-cum-Cabinet Secretary, and senior government officials.
SICA President Tika Subba expressed heartfelt gratitude to the state government and the BCCI for their support.
“Thanks to the government and the BCCI, this long-cherished dream has come true,” he said, also acknowledging the past challenges posed by inadequate lighting that often disrupted match schedules and gameplay quality.
To mark the occasion, a friendly match was played between the SICA President XI and the Chief Secretary XI. Batting first, the Chief Secretary XI posted 121/9 in 20 overs. In reply, the SICA President XI chased down the target in 19.4 overs, securing a five-wicket win.
The newly installed floodlights meet international standards and come with a five-year manufacturer’s warranty. They promise low maintenance and high efficiency, paving the way for Sikkim’s emergence on the national cricketing map.
In a noteworthy announcement, Chief Minister Tamang revealed that preparations are underway for a possible visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.“The Sikkim government has received confirmation regarding PM Modi’s visit. Several meetings have taken place… May 29 is the tentative date, though it is yet to be confirmed,” he said.
(With inputs from ANI)
Source: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – OSCE
Headline: OSCE strengthens Montenegro’s border security with training on arms and human trafficking
Participants in an OSCE training for Montenegrin border and criminal police officers on combating arms and human trafficking, Bar, 13 May 2025. (OSCE/Katerina Koci) Photo details
The OSCE is helping strengthen Montenegro’s ability to combat arms and human trafficking through targeted training for border and criminal police officers. From 13 to 16 May in Bar, Montenegro, the OSCE Transnational Threats Department (TNTD), in close co-ordination with the OSCE Mission to Montenegro, trained 15 officers from Montenegro’s Police Directorate as part of its ongoing support for border security and management.
The course marked another deployment of the OSCE-led Mobile Training Team (MTT). It brought together expert trainers from the national police forces of North Macedonia and Tunisia, the OSCE Forum for Security and Co-operation, and INTERPOL’s I-Force Project as well as national experts from the Ministry of the Interior, the criminal police and the Forensic Centre of Montenegro, along with representatives from the US Embassy including the Director of its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
“This course is part of our long-standing support to participating States in strengthening border security in a human right-based way. Montenegro’s location, bordering the Schengen area, places it at a crucial juncture in the regional and European security landscape: a place where threats can be intercepted, co-operation can begin, and resilience is built,” highlighted Siv-Katrine Leirtroe, Head of TNTD’s Border Security and Management Unit.
Participants took part in hands-on scenario-based exercises, real-life operational case studies and theoretical sessions tailored to Montenegro’s context. The training focused on detecting and responding to indicators of trafficking in human beings using a victim-centred approach. The segment on arms trafficking furthermore explored Montenegro’s national profile and regional trafficking trends, introducing international tools such as INTERPOL’s iARMS database. The course promoted stronger interagency co-operation and emphasized human rights principles as well as gender- and age-sensitive approaches in border security controls.
“For Montenegro, the fight against trafficking in weapons and human beings is a key priority in safeguarding national and regional security. Only through co-ordinated efforts, information exchange, and continuous training can we effectively respond to threats that undermine the rule of law and the safety of our citizens,” said Predrag Savovic, Senior Police Inspector, Head of the Small Arms and Light Weapons Commission of Montenegro.
This training course is part of the OSCE extrabudgetary project “Training and Deployment of OSCE Mobile Training Team to Better Address Challenges in Identifying the Cross-Border Movement of Foreign Terrorist Fighters and Other Cross-Border Crimes in the OSCE Area–Phase II”, funded by Germany and the United States.
Source: People’s Republic of China – Ministry of National Defense
BEIJING, May 19 — The China-Cambodia “Golden Dragon 2025” joint exercise kicked off at the Military Police Training Center of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) in Kampong Chhnang Province in Cambodia on the morning of May 17.
Under the theme of “peace, friendship, and cooperation”, this year’s joint exercise focuses on the topic of joint counter-terrorism and humanitarian relief operations.
The exercise will be conducted in two domains, namely naval and air operations as well as land and air operations, and adopts a mixed training approach. It involves three phases including adaptive training, command drills, and live drills, aiming to enhance the joint operational capabilities of the two militaries in combating terrorism.
On May 18, the Chinese naval amphibious dock landing ship Changbaishan (Hull 989), the guided-missile frigates Panzhihua (Hull 621) and Guangyuan (Hull 649), conducted open ship day activities. Subsequently, the Chinese participating troops will also carry out other activities such as medical outreach, as well as educational assistance through donations.
On May 18, the two sides’ participating troops conducted mixed-group joint training on such subjects as coordination among assault vehicle crews, fast roping, and unmanned equipment operations to strengthen their tactical collaboration.
The China-Cambodia “Golden Dragon” series of joint exercises, as a regular military cooperation program between the two countries and two militaries, has been successfully held six times before. This year’s joint exercise relies on the China-Cambodia joint logistics and training center at the Ream Naval Base to support the maritime exercise for the first time. For the first time, China sent air force helicopters and radar troops to participate in cross-border joint exercise.
The joint exercise between the two militaries will make a positive contribution to promoting pragmatic cooperation and the building of an all-weather China-Cambodia community with a shared future in the new era.
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Source: United Kingdom London Metropolitan Police
A man who fled abroad following the fatal stabbing of a teenager in Finsbury Park has been convicted of manslaughter.
After a six-week trial at Isleworth Crown Court, Kevin Peraj, 23, was found guilty on Friday, 16 May of killing 19-year-old Ahmed Habib under joint enterprise.
He was brought to justice following a detailed Metropolitan Police investigation, which included reviewing hundreds of hours of CCTV and extensive enquiries within the UK and abroad.
Detective Inspector Brett Hagen, who led the investigation, said: “I would like to pay my respects to Ahmed’s family, I am, once again, very sorry for your loss. I hope this result, and that Peraj will now face the consequences of his actions, brings some small comfort.
“Our investigation into the events of that day continues as at least one other man was involved in the attack.
“I am keen to hear from anyone who may have any information, no matter how small. Please think back to when this happened and come forward if you have any information that may help our investigation.”
Detectives launched an investigation after receiving reports at about 02:50hrs on Thursday, 11 July 2024 of two men injured in a car in Stroud Green Road, at the junction of Tollington Park, N4.
Officers, London Ambulance Service and medics from London’s Air Ambulance all attended and found Ahmed, the driver, suffering from stab injuries. Despite the best efforts of the emergency services, he sadly dead at the scene. The injuries of the second man, aged 21, in the car were not life-threatening.
Detectives established the two men sustained their injuries in Seven Sisters Road close to Yonge Park before driving to Stroud Green Road where the car came to a stop.
After reviewing many hours of footage, detectives found CCTV that captured Peraj approaching the vehicle and attacking the passenger in the car.
In an attempt to escape police, on the night of the murder Peraj tried to flee the country. He made his way to Heathrow Airport, but was too late and missed his flight.
Instead he left the UK via the Eurotunnel and headed to Albania.
Quick time enquiries had led officers to identify Peraj, [8.7.01] of Islip Street, NW5. He contacted police after a warrant was issued at his family address and was arrested upon his return to the UK on Tuesday, 16 July.
He was interviewed and charged with murder the following day under joint enterprise, before his conviction for manslaughter. The motive for the attack remains unclear.
Peraj will be sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court on Friday, 1 August.
Officers believe Peraj was acting with another man – anyone with information asked to call 101 or ‘X’ @MetCC and give reference 873/11July2024.
You can also provide information anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Source: City of Wolverhampton
Help at the Hub will see a wide variety of city organisations offer advice and information to residents. The event will take place on Tuesday 3 June between 11am and 2pm in the main hall of Low Hill Community Centre, Kempthorne Avenue, Low Hill, WV10 9JJ.
The event has been organised by officers at the council’s Public Protection Scams Team who will be handing out free scams awareness and prevention packs.
Residents with concerns can speak with advisors from Act on Energy, Alzheimer’s Society, Aquarius, Citizens Advice, Neighbourhood Safety Co-ordinator, Public Protection, Revenue & Benefits, Severn Trent, SUIT, Talking Therapies, Terrific for Twos, West Midlands Police, Wolverhampton City Credit Union, City of Wolverhampton College, Wolves Foundation and Wolverhampton Homes.
People are welcome to drop in and speak to any number of the organisations for free help and assistance.
Councillor Bhupinder Gakhal, City of Wolverhampton Council’s cabinet member for resident services, said: “Once again, we are heading out into the community with another Help at the Hub event.
“These free help days have become regular fixtures in the city’s calendar and I am pleased to see that they continue to prove popular with residents.
“On 3 June, officers and organisations will be in Low Hill and they will be covering a wide range of topics, from energy questions and health concerns to giving out safety and protection advice.
“Whatever your worry, don’t face it on your own. Come along and get some friendly help and support.”
Residents do not have to book an appointment but are asked to please be prepared to wait if the event is busy.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Suspended sentence for bankrupt who defrauded HMRC
Former Chinese takeaway owner Zhang Jin Chen sold his house in Portsmouth and spent money from the sale in shops such as Apple and Burberry
Chen knew he owed HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) more than £43,000 in VAT at the time he made the purchases and other cash withdrawals
The 51-year-old then filed for bankruptcy, claiming he only had £20 in his bank account
A former Chinese takeaway owner who withdrew thousands of pounds from his bank account and bought items from shops such as Apple and Burberry instead of settling his tax bill has been sentenced.
Zhang Jin Chen owed HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) more than £43,000 in VAT when he sold the house he owned with his then wife in Portsmouth in the autumn of 2020.
However, Chen disposed of £107,550 of his proceeds from the house sale without paying HMRC back.
The 51-year-old then applied for his own bankruptcy the following summer, claiming he only had £20 in his bank account, and £100 in cash.
Chen, of Havant Road, Portsmouth, was found guilty of fraudulently disposing of property as a bankrupt under the Insolvency Act 1986.
He was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for 18 months, at Portsmouth Crown Court on Friday 16 May.
He was also ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and 10 days of rehabilitation activity.
Mark Stephens, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:
Zhang Jin Chen had the money available to pay the VAT he owed to HMRC twice over following the sale of his house but chose not to do so. Instead, he withdrew huge sums of money in cash and made purchases from the likes of Burberry and Apple.
Individuals who are declared bankrupt commit a criminal offence when they put assets out of the reach of creditors in the five years leading up to their bankruptcy.
Chen clearly intended to conceal his affairs and defraud HMRC so he could be more than £100,000 better off, instead of little over £60,000 if he had paid his debts.
Chen ran a Chinese takeaway called Fortune House from an address on Albert Road in Portsmouth. He registered Fortune House as a business with HMRC in February 2012 but did not register it for VAT.
HMRC officials visited the takeaway in February 2020, finding evidence that Fortune House should have been VAT registered since December 2012.
Chen applied for bankruptcy in July 2021, stating that he knew he owed HMRC £43,876 in VAT but that he could not repay the debts.
However, in October 2020, Chen and his ex-wife sold their jointly owned house on Garnier Street in Portsmouth.
Over the next two months, Chen withdrew his proceeds of the sale in cash, the largest of which were two withdrawals of £30,000 in November 2020.
He also spent more than £3,500 on Apple products in November and December 2020 and a further £880 on a purchase from Burberry nine days before Christmas.
Chen signed a five-year Bankruptcy Restrictions Undertaking in March 2022 restricting him from being able to borrow more than £500 without disclosing his bankrupt status.
The restrictions also prevent him holding certain roles in public organisations.
The Insolvency Service is seeking to recover the funds under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
Zhang Jin Chen is of Havant Road, Portsmouth. His date of birth is 26 June 1973
Guidance on the main statutory consequences flowing from a Bankruptcy Restrictions Order or Undertaking
Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
LOS ANGELES, May 19 (Xinhua) — Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, is the prime suspect in a car bombing Saturday outside a fertility clinic in the southern California city of Palm Springs, authorities said Sunday.
Authorities believe the suspect was killed in the blast and at least four others were injured.
“The suspect had a nihilistic streak,” FBI Los Angeles Field Office Assistant Director Akil Davis said at a news conference Sunday, adding that the bombing was a “targeted attack.”
According to him, the suspect tried to broadcast the explosions live.
Palm Springs Police Chief Andy Mills said at a news conference Sunday that investigators were continuing to gather evidence at the explosion scene.
E. Mills noted that “the city is safe” and “our society is not in any danger.” –0–
Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
SEOUL, May 19 (Xinhua) — Two people were killed and two others injured in a knife attack in South Korea, and the suspect is on the run, Renhap News Agency reported Monday.
The suspect fled after stabbing a woman in her 60s at a convenience store in Siheung City, 30 km southwest of Seoul, at around 9:34 a.m. local time. The woman was taken to hospital with serious stab wounds to her stomach and face.
The unidentified body of a man in his 50s was found in the suspect’s home after police established his car number, home address and identity. The body had likely been there for several days.
The suspect stabbed another man in his 70s at a sports park 2km from the store at around 1:21pm local time. The man was seriously wounded in the stomach and taken to hospital for treatment.
Police found another unidentified body in a house opposite the store at around 2 p.m. local time. –0–
Source: Amnesty International –
65 signatories from nine different political parties and independent parliamentarians sign open letter demanding transparency amid escalating mass atrocities in Gaza
Letter also expresses alarm at the Government’s position in the London High Court hearing on UK arms exports to Israel
Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip
‘If these subsequent assessments have not led you to conclude that there is a serious risk of genocide in Gaza, triggering your obligation to prevent, we must ask how adequate your assessments are’ – MPs
Over sixty parliamentarians including Baroness Kennedy, Kit Malthouse, Baroness Warsi, Jeremy Corbyn, Alistair Carmichael, Carla Denyer are issuing an open letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling for the immediate release of the UK government’s assessments on the risk of genocide in Gaza.
The letter follows a statement by the Minister for the Middle East on 6 May, confirming in parliament that the Government is conducting “ongoing assessments” of the risk of genocide. Yet, the only assessment disclosed to date – made public during the London High Court hearing [Al-Haq v Secretary of State] on UK arms exports to Israel – concluded in September 2024 that there was “no serious risk of genocide occurring.”
Since then, as Amnesty International reports, the situation in Gaza has deteriorated dramatically. On 2 March, Israel launched a new phase of its military campaign, imposing a total siege that has blocked humanitarian aid and fuelled mass starvation. Tens of thousands of civilians, including an unprecedented number of children, have been killed or injured. Entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed, and Gaza’s population faces famine and displacement on a devastating scale.
Government response raises legal and ethical alarms
The letter challenges the Government to explain why, despite this worsening crisis, it has not revised its previous conclusion. It calls for the immediate release of:
“If these subsequent assessments have not led you to conclude that there is a serious risk of genocide in Gaza, triggering your obligation to prevent, we must ask how adequate your assessments are,” the letter states.
Under the Genocide Convention, the UK has a binding duty to act to prevent where there is a serious risk of genocide. The signatories argue that the government should explain how it has not assessed that threshold as having been met.
F-35 fighter jet exports: a dangerous legal position
The letter also expresses alarm at the Government’s position in Al-Haq v Secretary of State, in which it defended the continued supply of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel. In its legal submission, the Government argued:
“It is entirely unrealistic to suppose… any possibility of genocide would have been altered by any such curtailment on the use of F-35s.”
Parliamentarians state in the letter:
“It appears that the position of the UK government is that it is legitimate to provide weapons to states committing genocide if the assessment is that the impact of doing so would be minor. That is an abhorrent position to hold. If that is not the government’s position, then you must urgently correct the record.”
Transparency, accountability, and action needed
The letter concludes by demanding full transparency from the Government, both to parliament and the public, regarding its assessments, decision-making, and continued arms exports to Israel.
“Parliament must know the nature of the government’s assessments and recent assessments and their conclusions should be made public. It is imperative that it is explained to the House how your government has failed to recognise the serious risk of genocide based on current evidence.”
The signatories are calling for an immediate response and the full publication of all relevant assessments.
List of signatories [65 in total]
Source: European Parliament
Priority question for written answer P-001943/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Friedrich Pürner (NI)
In its judgment[1] on 14 May 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld the action brought by The New York Times and annulled the Commission’s decision to deny access to the text messages exchanged between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
Submitted: 14.5.2025
Source: Government of India
Source: Government of India (4)
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday inaugurated the Pradhan Mantri Divyasha Kendra (PMDK) in Kota, Rajasthan, and distributed assistive devices to differently abled beneficiaries, bringing smiles and a renewed sense of hope to many.
Addressing the gathering, Birla said, “The launch of the Pradhan Mantri Divyasha Kendra in Kota will significantly benefit persons with disabilities. These assistive devices will not only enhance their mobility but also help them lead more self-reliant lives. They no longer need to depend on others—this initiative is a step toward empowerment and dignity.”
The event saw the distribution of various aids designed to meet individual needs. Recipients expressed gratitude and shared their joy at the life-changing support. “I feel like I’ve been reborn,” said Surendra, a beneficiary. “Earlier, we felt helpless. Now, I believe I can do anything.”
Zakir Hussain shared a similar sentiment: “We faced many challenges before, but now things are much easier.” Another recipient, beaming with pride, said, “Thanks to PM Modi and Om Birla. Earlier, travelling was difficult, but this electric scooter has changed everything.”
Rajesh, another beneficiary, added, “Now we can move around independently without feeling like a burden. I thank the government for this invaluable support.”
The PMDK initiative, spearheaded by Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (ALIMCO)—a public sector enterprise under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment—seeks to provide high-quality, affordable assistive devices to senior citizens and people with disabilities.
Currently, 45 PMDKs are operational across various states and Union Territories, with a target of 100 centres by June.
The newly inaugurated centre in Kota focuses particularly on serving visually impaired individuals and offers a comprehensive range of services, including advanced rehabilitation technologies such as prosthetics, orthotics, Braille appliances, and mobility aids. The centre also promotes skill development through vocational training programmes aimed at fostering employment and entrepreneurship.
(With inputs from IANS)
Source: Hon Matthew Robson
“New Zealand prides itself on being in the forefront of countries supporting the international rule of law and not the international rule of might ”, said former Associate Foreign Minister in the Helen Clark government, the Hon Matt Robson.
“To uphold this principled position Foreign Minister, the Hon Winston Peters, must strongly condemn the US action of placing Cuba on its “List of Non-Cooperative Terrorism countries.
“This illegal act is a further breach of international law alongside the ever-tightening unilateral sanctions on Cuba, in place since 1960, which have been condemned as illegal by an overwhelming vote in the UN General Assembly, including that of New Zealand vote” said the Hon Matt Robson.
“Cuba is recognised by the UN for its commitment to anti-terrorism measures. The irony is that it has been the United States that has supported terrorism against Cuba from the attempted assassination of its leaders, military invasions ,economic sabotage to the bombing of a Cuban airliner and protection in the US of the culprits.”
“Cuba is renowned not for terrorism but for sending medical professionals to the poorest countries of the world since 1960, training doctors in Cuba from those countries, including many from Pacific nations, and during Covid providing specialist health personnel, including to developed Italy , to world acclaim”.
“The Hon Winston Peters should place New Zealand on the side of the vast majority of countries supporting international law and condemn the United States for its illegal persecution of a developing country,” Hon Matt Robson said.
Source: NATO
The fourth annual NATO Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) Conference took place on 6 – 9 May 2025 in Riga, Latvia. The event provided a forum for high-level policy discussions on the current state of and potential adaptions to NATO IAMD.
The conference, which focuses on political and strategic-level themes, engaged NATO delegates, senior decision-makers in capitals, and stakeholders from across the Alliance.
The Secretary General opened the conference with keynote remarks highlighting the critical role of IAMD for NATO’s deterrence and defence. Mr Rutte underscored the need for Allies to invest more in defence and increase overall defence industrial production in light of global security challenges.
Source: World Health Organisation
Each year, WHO honours individuals and organizations from each of the six WHO regions for their outstanding contributions to tobacco control. These accolades include the WHO Director-General’s Special Recognition Awards, the World No Tobacco Day Awards, and, in 2025, one WHO Director-General’s Special Recognition Certificate.
The recipients of the 2025 awards are:
Shared award:
Shared award:
Shared award:
Shared award:
Shared award:
American film star celebrity John Cusack, who describes himself on his x-page bio as an “apocalyptic shit-disturber”, has posted an open letter to the world denouncing the Israeli “mass murder” in Gaza and calling for “your outrage”.
While warning the public to “don’t stop talking about Palestine/Gaza”, he says that the “hollow ‘both sides’ rhetoric is complicity with power”.
“This is not a debate with two sides that can be normalised — and all the hired bullshit in print and on tv will never change the narrative,” he said.
His statement comes as hundreds of directors, writers, actors have denounced Israeli genocide in Gaza and the film industry’s “silence,” “indifference” and “passivity” coinciding with the Cannes Film Festival.
More than 350 prominent directors, writers and actors signed an open letter condemning the genocide and the “official inaction” of the film industry in regard to the mass suffering.
The industry open letter was published on the first day of the Cannes festival. It began by calling attention to the fate of 25-year-old Fatma Hassouna, a Palestinian freelance photojournalist, who was murdered in an Israeli air strike on April 16.
She was assassinated after it was announced that Iranian director Sepideh Farsi’s film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, in which she Hassouna was the star, had been selected in the ACID parallel, independent film section of the festival.
She was about to get married.
Cusack’s own open letter, offered as a template at X@JohnCusack last week, said:
“To Whom it May Still Concern
“There is a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Not a metaphor, not a tragedy in the abstract — a genocide. Carried out in real time, in front of satellites, smartphones, and sanitized press conferences. And what has the so-called “land of the free” done? Applauded. Armed. Rationalised. Looked away.
London protest: ‘No to another Nakba” Video: Al Jazeera
“The blood in Gaza does not just stain the hands of those launching the missiles. It stains every hand that signs off on the bombs, every hand that wrings itself in liberal anguish but does nothing, and every hand that beats its chest in right-wing bloodlust cheering it all on.
“The American far right sees in this mass killing a projection of its own fantasies — walls, camps, and the unrelenting dehumanisation of the “other.” No surprise there. And where are the liberals? Their silence is violence. Their hollow “both sides” rhetoric is complicity with power. And mass murder. And the machine of empire—greased with our taxes, shielded by our media, and excused by our moral debauchery .
How’s everybody at the Met gala doing tonight ?
“If you claim to care about justice — if you ever marched, ever lit a candle for any cause — then your voice should be raised now. Or it means nothing. The children of Gaza do not need your sorrow. They need your outrage. Your pressure. Your courage.
“End the siege. End the weapons shipments. End the lies. Call this what it is: a genocide.
“And if your politics cannot confront that—then your politics are worthless.
“In furious solidarity
“John Cusack”
Here’s a template –
To Whom It May Still Concern,
There is a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Not a metaphor, not a tragedy in the abstract—a genocide. Carried out in real time, in front of satellites, smartphones, and sanitized press conferences. And what has the…
— John Cusack (@johncusack) May 7, 2025
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
An update following a cyber-attack on the Legal Aid Agency’s online digital services.
On Wednesday 23 April, we became aware of a cyber-attack on the Legal Aid Agency’s online digital services.
These are the services through which legal aid providers log their work and receive payment from the Government.
In the days following the discovery, we took immediate action to bolster the security of the system, and informed all legal aid providers that some of their details, including financial information, may have been compromised.
Since then, we have worked closely with the National Crime Agency and National Cyber Security Centre as well as informing the Information Commissioner.
On Friday 16 May we discovered the attack was more extensive than originally understood and that the group behind it had accessed a large amount of information relating to legal aid applicants.
We believe the group has accessed and downloaded a significant amount of personal data from those who applied for legal aid through our digital service since 2010.
This data may have included contact details and addresses of applicants, their dates of birth, national ID numbers, criminal history, employment status and financial data such as contribution amounts, debts and payments.
We would urge all members of the public who have applied for legal aid in this time period to take steps to safeguard themselves. We would recommend you are alert for any suspicious activity such as unknown messages or phone calls and to be extra vigilant to update any potentially exposed passwords. If you are in doubt about anyone you are communicating with online or over the phone you should verify their identity independently before providing any information to them.
Jane Harbottle, Chief Executive Officer of the Legal Aid Agency, said:
I understand this news will be shocking and upsetting for people and I am extremely sorry this has happened.
Since the discovery of the attack, my team has been working around the clock with the National Cyber Security Centre to bolster the security of our systems so we can safely continue the vital work of the agency.
However, it has become clear that to safeguard the service and its users, we needed to take radical action. That is why we’ve taken the decision to take the online service down.
We have put in place the necessary contingency plans to ensure those most in need of legal support and advice can continue to access the help they need during this time.
I am incredibly grateful to legal aid providers for their patience and cooperation at a deeply challenging time.
We will provide further updates shortly.
Further information on how to protect yourself from the impact of a data breach can be found on the NCSC website.
Source: City of Stoke-on-Trent
Published: Monday, 19th May 2025
Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Staffordshire Police are teaming up in a major new crackdown on illegal cannabis grows in the city.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Staffordshire Police are teaming up in a major new crackdown on illegal cannabis grows in the city.
The joint operation will target cannabis grows in council properties, privately rented homes and empty commercial buildings to combat the negative impact the drug has on our communities.
Action will be taken against council tenants, private landlords and their tenants, and owners of commercial buildings when a cannabis grow is found.
Private landlords who knowingly allow cannabis grows in their properties could face criminal charges, while council tenants will see their tenancies terminated.
To encourage private building owners and landlords to make sure buildings are in legal use – as well as encouraging regeneration of the city’s empty properties – charges on empty homes are now applicable and can be up to a 300% premium.
The crackdown will build on the existing police Operation Levidrome, which has seen more than 21 significant cannabis grows detected in the city in the last three months.
Councillor Jane Ashworth, leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, said: “We are committed to tackling this issue – and it starts with the property owners.
“Criminal gangs are targeting empty buildings to set up dangerous grow which create fire risks and other hazards.
“We need to keep drugs out of our communities and out of the hands of children.
“We won’t stand by while illegal activity threatens the safety of our residents.
“If you see, smell or hear something suspicious: grass a grow!!! Together we will weed them out.”
Stoke North Local Policing Team Inspector Victoria Ison said: “We’re determined to continue working with our partners in the city to rid the area of organised crime, including the gangs responsible for cannabis cultivation.
“We’re acting proactively to identify, dismantle and disrupt cannabis grows in Stoke-on-Trent, and we welcome the city council’s clampdown on tenancy rules to ensure that grows are more easily identified.
“Working in partnership with the local authority helps us act strongly against those responsible for harm in local communities. By working together, we have arrested more than 260 people suspected of high-harm offences in the city under our Making Great Places initiative.
“Officers are continuing to act on the concerns of local people and businesses as robustly as possible in Stoke-on-Trent.”
Over the coming months, council housing teams will carry out proactive inspections of high-risk properties, particularly those standing empty. More information about how to spot and report cannabis farms can be found at: https://www.staffordshire.police.uk/police-forces/staffordshire-police/areas/staffordshire-police/campaigns/2021/cannabis-farms/
The campaign will also work to help aide the reduction in anti-social behaviour across the city.
For any other concerns relating to anti-social behaviour (ASB), report through to the ASB Team on 01782 234234, complete the online form at www.stoke.gov.uk or email asb@stoke.gov.uk
To report anonymously, call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
For information on charges for Empty Homes, visit: www.stoke.gov.uk/emptyandsecondhomes
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shannon Bosch, Associate Professor (Law), Edith Cowan University
Oscar Jenkins, a 33-year-old former teacher from Melbourne, was one of many foreigners who responded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call in 2022 for volunteers to join Ukraine’s armed forces to help repel Russia’s invasion.
In early 2024, Jenkins joined Ukraine’s International Legion of Territorial Defence, which has attracted some 20,000 fighters from 50 countries since the war began. He had no previous military experience, but this wasn’t a requirement to join.
In December, Jenkins was captured by Russian forces in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine and accused of serving as a “mercenary” in Ukraine’s 66th Mechanised Brigade’s 402nd Rifle Battalion. He was tried in a Russian court and sentenced on May 16 to 13 years imprisonment in a maximum-security penal colony.
When a foreigner volunteers to fight in a war, their legal status under international law can be complicated.
Are they a soldier with the full authorisation of one of the warring parties to engage in hostilities? Or are they an illegal mercenary?
And what happens if they are captured?
The answers to these questions have very real importance to the thousands of foreigners who have joined Ukraine’s International Legion since 2022.
Russian authorities have classified all of Ukraine’s foreigner fighters as “mercenaries”. They’ve used this label to deny foreign fighters the status of “prisoner of war” (POW), with the requisite protections that come along with that under international humanitarian law.
While foreigners are permitted under international law to enlist in the armed forces of a state for political or moral reasons, mercenaries have historically been outlawed due to their sole motivation being financial gain.
International humanitarian law (the rules that govern war) define mercenaries as individuals who are not nationals or residents of a state engaged in war and are recruited to fight outside that state’s official armed forces.
They are motivated solely by private gain (like money or promises of reward), often well in excess of what the traditional armed forces are paid. Mercenaries are essentially professional soldiers who sell their services to a state without any real ties to that country.
Once a fighter is classified as a “mercenary”, they lose all the legal protections that are traditionally afforded lawful combatants.
This includes prisoner of war status if they are captured and immunity from prosecution for fighting in a conflict. Prisoners of war are also entitled to humane treatment and access to food and medical care. And they cannot be subjected to sham trials or torture.
According to my research, many of the foreign nationals who joined the International Legion were motivated by a desire to defend Ukraine against Russia’s aggression. They were sworn into Ukraine’s armed forces and paid the same as a Ukrainian soldier of equal rank.
Once enlisted in the armed forces, they were immediately exempt from “mercenary” status, irrespective of their motivation for joining.
As such, these foreign fighters should be entitled to the full range of protections guaranteed to members of Ukraine’s armed forces under the Geneva Conventions.
Labelling lawful foreign members of the Ukrainian armed forces as “mercenaries”, and denying them their protections, is an abuse of international law.
If an Australian enlists in Ukraine’s armed forces and is captured by Russian forces, there is a limited toolkit the Australian government can use to help him or her. However, it is not powerless.
Through its embassy in Moscow, Australia can request access to detainees to assess their welfare while in prison. Russia can, however, decline this access. Details of a detainee’s capture may also be withheld.
Australia can also apply diplomatic pressure to ensure humane treatment of prisoners and their full POW rights.
This can be done by working with international bodies, such as the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention or organisations like the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), which can request access to detainees.
It appears the government is already doing some of these things. According to Foreign Minister Penny Wong, the government has been working with Ukraine and the ICRC to advocate for Jenkins’ welfare and release, and providing consular support to Jenkins’ family.
Australia also has an obligation to warn its citizens they will likely face severe consequences if they travel to Ukraine to fight and are captured by Russian forces, given Russia’s misuse of the “mercenary” label.
Through back-channel negotiations, Australia could also push Ukraine or its allies to include Australians being held by Russia in future prisoner swaps.
In January of this year, Ukraine and Russia carried out such an exchange of 470 prisoners from both nations. And in talks last week in Turkey, both sides agreed to release another 1,000 prisoners on each side.
Such exchanges have involved foreign fighters in the past. In 2022, 10 foreign citizens were included in a prisoner swap, including five Britons, two Americans, a Croatian, a Swede and a Moroccan. Several of them had been convicted of being mercenaries and sentenced to death after a Russian sham trial.
There is no guarantee Jenkins would qualify for such an exchange, however, if Russia continues to classify him as a mercenary.
Shannon Bosch 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. Russia is labelling Oscar Jenkins a ‘mercenary’, not a prisoner of war. What’s the difference – and why does this matter? – https://theconversation.com/russia-is-labelling-oscar-jenkins-a-mercenary-not-a-prisoner-of-war-whats-the-difference-and-why-does-this-matter-256996
