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  • MIL-OSI Global: Worker-led programs are tackling gender-based violence in supply chains, but they’re at risk

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Genevieve LeBaron, Distinguished SFU Professor of Global Supply Chain Governance, Simon Fraser University

    Gender-based violence and harassment is a widespread issue in supply chains. Women workers in garment manufacturing, food production and hospitality are routinely subjected to unwanted touching and sexual advances and inappropriate comments, while promotion and advancement are often conditional on sex. In the most severe cases, this abuse escalates to sexual assault and rape.

    Despite decades of awareness and an International Labour Organization convention passed in 2019 and ratified by 49 countries, research indicates little progress has been made.

    A 2024 report from Statistics Canada, for instance, has found that 47 per cent of women have experienced some form of harassment or sexual assault in the workplace.

    Rates of gender-based violence and harassment are thought to be even higher in some countries and industries. In Bangladesh, a 2018 study found at least 60 per cent of garment workers had experienced it in the previous year. Another found 85 per cent of garment workers in Indonesia were concerned about sexual harassment at work.

    In the face of such a persistent global issue, women working in garment supply chains have pioneered a highly effective solution for tackling gender-based violence and harassment.

    Worker-led binding agreements

    Supported by labour unions and organizations like the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, Worker Rights Consortium and Global Labor justice, women workers have led the development of legally binding agreements with brands and suppliers to eliminate gender-based violence and harassment.

    The latest of these is called the Central Java Agreement for Gender Justice. Signed in July 2024, it covers 6,250 workers producing clothing for brands like Nike and Fanatics, Inc. under licenses with universities affiliated with the Worker Rights Consortium.

    Worker Rights Consortium persuaded Fanatics, which is also licensed to produce apparel bearing the Nike logo, to enter into the agreement in response to complaints of gender-based violence and harassment at two garment factories in central Java, Indonesia, owned by the Korean-based firm Ontide.

    This agreement creates a union-led program to address the problem at two Indonesian factories; if factory management does not comply, it risks losing business with Nike and Fanatics.

    Building on success from India to Indonesia

    The 2024 Central Java Agreement builds on and incorporates key features of previous worker-led agreements to address the issue.

    In particular, it builds on the 2022 Dindigul Agreement to Eliminate Gender-Based Violence and Harassment in India and the 2019 Agreements to Eliminate Gender-Based Violence and Harassment in Lesotho.

    The Dindigul agreement was led by an independent, majority-Dalit trade union run by women. It established a set of legally binding agreements with major garment companies including H&M Group, Gap Inc., PVH and Eastman Exports Global Clothing Ltd.

    The Lesotho agreements involved brands such as Levi Strauss & Co., Nien Hsing Textile Co., unions, women’s rights advocates and labour organizations.

    While each agreement is unique, they all adhere to the principles of worker-driven social responsibility.

    Under this governance model, “worker organizations and unions, suppliers, and brand companies enter into enforceable and legally binding agreements” and “transnational corporations use their leverage and supply chain relationships to effect change amongst supplier worksites.”

    A new model of accountability

    These agreements include worker-led detection and remediation systems to address gender-based violence and harassment. For example, under the Lesotho agreement, workers can access a 24-hour hotline operated by a local women’s organization to lodge complaints or bring them directly to the unions involved in the agreement.

    The Dindigul agreement also provides multiple channels for workers to raise complaints of gender-based violence and harassment, including shop floor monitors selected by the local union (one for every 25 workers). It also offers multiple avenues for raising complaints, including to the union or to sexual harassment committees required under Indian law.

    Under the Central Java Agreement, workers can bring complaints to committees aimed at eliminating the problem, to shop floor monitors or their unions. Not only do each of the agreements permit workers to request independent investigations, they all provide a wide array of remedies in the case of any incidents and violations of freedom of association.

    What sets these agreements apart from most other initiatives to combat gender-based violence and harassment in supply chains is that they actually work. One study of the two-year impact of the Dindigul Agreement by Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute found that 76 per cent of grievances were resolved in two weeks.

    The report said the program “constituted a powerful monitoring mechanism, ensuring effective remediation and deterring violations” of both gender-based violence and harassment and freedom of association — briefly put, the right to voluntarily join or leave groups (like unions), and for those groups to pursue collective action.

    Now, a key question is whether and to what extent these successful programs will continue to thrive and grow under the current “America First” agenda of the U.S. government.

    Progress under threat

    Despite their success, these worker-led initiatives face mounting challenges.

    Labour organizations that support these agreements are under strain, with some potentially at high risk of collapsing. The U.S. Bureau of International Labor Affairs is cutting US$500 million in funding that supports labour enforcement efforts across 40 countries.

    At the same time, company rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion programs are constraining, if not eliminating, the political space in which labour groups negotiate such agreements.

    Tariffs and upheaval in global trade — especially efforts to redraw supply chains to evade costly tariffs — gives brands cover to withdraw commitments to worker-led initiatives and change sourcing patterns to circumvent them.

    Within the United States, cuts and funding freezes — including to sexual assault prevention groups — are a worrying sign that support for preventing gender-based violence and harassment and helping its survivors are being undercut and failing.

    If labour stakeholders lose the resources to support such initiatives, the impacts on women and workplaces within supply chains across the world will be devastating. These programs show that when workers lead, real change is possible, but they need continued investment and political support to survive.

    Genevieve LeBaron receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Humanity United Foundation, and Ford Foundation.

    Judy Fudge 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. Worker-led programs are tackling gender-based violence in supply chains, but they’re at risk – https://theconversation.com/worker-led-programs-are-tackling-gender-based-violence-in-supply-chains-but-theyre-at-risk-255756

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI: Sophon Unveils zkTLS-Based Social Oracle to Integrate Private Web2 Data Onchain

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Sophon uses zkTLS to convert private Web2 credentials into verifiable on-chain assets without compromising privacy, enhancing user experiences and enabling new perspectives on applications.

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, May 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sophon, a platform built to power consumer crypto experiences, has unveiled its integration of zkTLS (zero-knowledge Transport Layer Security) as the foundation for a new class of personalized and privacy-preserving blockchain applications. At the center of this effort is the Social Oracle, a system that verifies off-chain personal data, such as achievements, credentials, and social influence, on-chain, while preserving user privacy.

    While many blockchain apps focus on financial primitives or public data, such as token prices, Sophon addresses a critical gap: securely and verifiably incorporating private Web2 data. Using zkTLS allows users to selectively authenticate data from platforms like games, streaming services, or brokerages, unlocking custom experiences in Web3 while keeping sensitive details off-chain.

    What zkTLS Enables

    zkTLS is a cryptographic enhancement of the widely used TLS protocol (the basis of HTTPS), enabling verifiable proof of private data exchanged between a client and a server. While standard TLS ensures secure transmission, zkTLS makes it possible to verify that communication without exposing its contents.

    Whether proving a Steam gaming record to access a new release, verifying income without disclosing complete bank statements, or authenticating social activity without linking personal accounts, zkTLS facilitates selective, minimal disclosure tailored to the use case.

    Introducing the Social Oracle

    Built on zkTLS, Sophon’s Social Oracle acts as a trust layer for consumer crypto. With the user’s consent, fragmented digital behaviors, such as gameplay stats or streaming activity, can be converted into reusable credentials recognized across multiple apps.

    Rather than building redundant verification systems, developers on Sophon can tap into this shared infrastructure to access authenticated user signals while maintaining compliance with data protection standards. For users, this means frictionless access to gated experiences, role-based rewards, and digital reputation systems, all while maintaining control over what data they choose to reveal.

    Diverse zkTLS Models, Unified Vision

    Sophon supports multiple zkTLS architectures — including MPC-TLS for decentralization, TEE-TLS for hardware-based speed, and Proxy-TLS for scalability — giving developers flexibility based on performance and security needs.

    By staying infrastructure-agnostic and integrating providers like Reclaim Protocol, Sophon can support use cases across social platforms, gaming, DeFi, and tokenized marketplaces. More than a product, Sophon is a platform designed to support an ecosystem of apps that benefit from a common, privacy-first data layer.

    Unlike isolated apps that bolt on zkTLS in narrow ways, Sophon merges modular cryptographic trust with cross-app interoperability, creating a more composable foundation for user-centric Web3.

    Turning Data Into Momentum

    Sophon’s ecosystem is built on a virtuous cycle: users share verifiable Web2 data through zkTLS, becoming a secure network asset. Apps respond to this data by offering tailored rewards, exclusive access, or identity-based experiences, making the platform more appealing to new users, who bring in even more authenticated data.

    This network effect strengthens the Social Oracle with every new credential. Over time, the system evolves from a verification tool into a living, portable layer of user identity, recognized and respected across apps. It’s a model that moves away from temporary airdrops or mercenary incentives, instead generating lasting value from genuine engagement.

    Incentives Should Be Fun, Not Just Financial

    Many GameFi projects have faltered by prioritizing token rewards over user experience. Sophon flips this dynamic by rewarding meaningful activity, verified through zkTLS, not just with financial perks but access, recognition, and enjoyment.

    Whether unlocking an in-game item based on actual gameplay or gaining early access as a verified supporter, Sophon allows incentives to reflect earned identity rather than mere wallet activity.

    Making Blockchain Invisible, Benefits Obvious

    Due to privacy and verification constraints, Sophon’s zkTLS infrastructure already supports previously impractical apps. Users can verify Amazon Prime memberships to access curated marketplaces, prove brokerage balances to enhance DeFi yields, use airline miles for stock-based incentives, or authenticate multi-platform creator revenue for monetization tools. Even gaming platforms can now recognize off-chain achievements to mint items or establish player reputation.

    Crucially, Sophon removes the complexity typically associated with Web3. Instead of beginning with wallets, seed phrases, and technical onboarding, users start with platforms they already use and data they control. Sophon abstracts away the blockchain, letting trust and utility take center stage.

    Mainstream adoption won’t come from better blockchain explanations — it will come from making blockchain invisible while making its benefits undeniable.

    About Sophon

    Sophon is a consumer-focused platform designed to onboard the next generation of crypto users through everyday products that monetize and reward the data each of us naturally creates. Beyond just a blockchain, Sophon provides a complete operating system for crypto-powered experiences that functions as both a developer framework and user hub, delivering seamless interactions across gaming, social, AI and beyond.

    At the core of its architecture is zkTLS, a cryptographic enhancement of the standard TLS protocol that enables verifiable yet privacy-preserving data authentication. Built on this foundation, Sophon’s Social Oracle aggregates and transforms Web2 credentials, such as gaming history, financial records, and social activity, into reusable, trust-minimized proofs that can power personalized experiences across multiple decentralized applications. For developers, this creates powerful consumer insights that enable a whole new class of applications to be built onchain.

    Contact:
    Oskari Tempakka
    oskari@sophon.xyz

    Disclaimer: This is a paid post and is provided by Sophon. The statements, views, and opinions expressed in this content are solely those of the content provider and do not necessarily reflect the views of this media platform or its publisher. We do not endorse, verify, or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information presented. We do not guarantee any claims, statements, or promises made in this article. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, or trading advice.Investing in crypto and mining-related opportunities involves significant risks, including the potential loss of capital. It is possible to lose all your capital. These products may not be suitable for everyone, and you should ensure that you understand the risks involved. Seek independent advice if necessary. Speculate only with funds that you can afford to lose. Readers are strongly encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. However, due to the inherently speculative nature of the blockchain sector—including cryptocurrency, NFTs, and mining—complete accuracy cannot always be guaranteed.Neither the media platform nor the publisher shall be held responsible for any fraudulent activities, misrepresentations, or financial losses arising from the content of this press release. In the event of any legal claims or charges against this article, we accept no liability or responsibility. Globenewswire does not endorse any content on this page.

    Legal Disclaimer: This media platform provides the content of this article on an “as-is” basis, without any warranties or representations of any kind, express or implied. We assume no responsibility for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information presented herein. Any concerns, complaints, or copyright issues related to this article should be directed to the content provider mentioned above.

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/059f0146-dd74-489c-9259-f39296ef4c19

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Saskatchewan Provides Nearly $1 Million to Support Young Entrepreneurs

    Source: Government of Canada regional news

    Released on May 21, 2025

    The Saskatchewan Young Entrepreneurs Bursary applications are now open, supporting business sustainability and growth across the province 

    Today, Minister of Trade and Export Development Warren Kaeding, along with Saskatchewan Chamber CEO Prabha Ramaswamy launched the new Young Entrepreneur Bursary that will support up to 57 local young entrepreneurs with bursaries of $5,000 to foster business development. 

    The province will provide Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce with $285,000 per year, for three years, plus administration costs to support entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35 years of age who have been in operation for 10 years or less. Applications open today through to July 14, 2025 and will be awarded in the fall. 

    “The New Young Entrepreneur Bursary promotes business development and innovation, creating opportunities for small business owners and entrepreneurs across our Province,” Kaeding said. “Collaboration between government and organizations like Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce is an important component of Saskatchewan’s Growth Plan and our commitment to ensure the province remains one of the best places in Canada to start and grow a business.”

    The funding will be administered by the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce with support from local chambers across the province. 

    “Saskatchewan’s future depends on the bold ideas and determination of its next generation of entrepreneurs,” Ramaswamy said. “The Young Entrepreneur Bursary Program ensures that emerging business leaders have the support they need to pursue their vision and contribute to a thriving provincial economy. We are proud to partner with the Government of Saskatchewan to reduce financial barriers and champion the growth of our province’s entrepreneurial talent.”

    The bursary will encourage the next generation of entrepreneurship and support economic development across the province, creating jobs and opportunities, while ensuring we continue to build resilient and vibrant communities for years to come.   

    Saskatchewan is committed to fostering a competitive business environment where all businesses can succeed. The Government of Saskatchewan supports small businesses through low tax rates, reduced red tape and streamlined regulations. This promotes growth and innovation that enhances the quality of life for people across the province. 

    The innovative businesses and government support across the province are vital to the province’s recent economic success. 

    Statistics Canada’s latest GDP numbers indicate that Saskatchewan’s 2024 real GDP reached an all-time high of $80.5 billion, increasing by $2.6 billion, or 3.4 per cent. This ranks Saskatchewan second in the nation for real GDP growth, and above the national average of 1.6 per cent. 

    Private capital investment in Saskatchewan increased last year by 17.3 per cent to $14.7 billion, ranking first among provinces. Private capital investment is projected to reach $16.2 billion in 2025, an increase of 10.1 per cent over 2024. This is the second highest anticipated percentage increase among the provinces.  

    For more information visit : https://saskchamber.com/initiatives/young-entrepreneur-bursary/

    -30-

    For more information, contact:

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why the UK government is opposing universities on immigration

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Chris Millward, Professor of Practice in Education Policy, University of Birmingham

    PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    The UK government has announced its plans for controlling immigration, and these include new rules for international students.

    The recent white paper on immigration proposes that most graduates will be allowed to stay in the UK for 18 months after their course finishes. This is six months less than currently permitted.

    There will be a higher bar for universities to sponsor visas, excluding those universities at which higher numbers of students fail to complete their courses. The white paper also proposes a 6% levy on universities’ income from international students.

    Universities think these changes will worsen their financial problems. However, this appears less important to the government than controlling immigration.

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

    Universities are one of the UK’s strongest global assets, generating influence alongside export income. After the general election last year, science minister Peter Kyle vowed Labour would end what he termed the “war on universities” conducted by the previous Conservative government. That included a more welcoming approach to international students.

    One reason for the change in tone and policy signalled by the white paper is common to other popular destinations for international students: the rise of nationalist parties opposed to immigration. But there is another reason specific to the UK, which is the government’s aim to reform higher education.

    Politics and immigration

    Two weeks before the release of the immigration white paper, the Reform party secured control of ten local authorities across England, winning 677 seats. The party’s rising popularity will be of increasing concern to the Labour government.

    Reform is concerned about the effects of immigration on communities and wages. This affects international students because they figure within immigration statistics and increasingly stay for work.

    Like nationalist and anti-immigration parties in other countries, Reform also gains more support from voters without a university degree.

    In the US and Netherlands, similar movements have taken steps to reduce university funding and international students once in power. But these policies are not confined to nationalist parties.

    Canada and Australia’s Liberal and Labour governments also signalled caps on international student recruitment before their re-election earlier this year.

    This appears to be the strategy adopted by the UK’s Labour party – that it wants to assure voters who are more concerned about immigration than university finances.

    Higher education policy

    Alongside this, the government thinks employers are too reliant on migrant labour, and universities on international students. It wants them to focus more on developing the UK workforce. That requires employers to invest in skills development, and universities to provide courses that build crucial capabilities for the future.

    The white paper states that “at a time when skills matter more than ever to the economy and people’s employment prospects, there has been a long-term lack of coordination or investment to deliver the skills and capabilities our economy needs”.

    In England, coordinated higher education investment is difficult because most government funding is routed through loans to students. This encourages universities to meet demand from young people, which does not necessarily align with economic and public service priorities.

    After years of anaemic economic and productivity growth but repeated increases to the minimum wage, one-tenth of graduates now earn little more than that threshold.

    Higher education policy is increasingly focused on key skills.
    goodluz/Shutterstock

    In response, the last government encouraged young people to take apprenticeships rather than university degrees. It also allowed student maintenance loans and fees to decline in value in real terms.

    Universities filled the gap in their income with international students – particularly one-year taught postgraduates from Nigeria and India who often bring family members then stay for work. This made universities reliant on short-term income, while increasing immigration statistics.

    Changes to family visa rules, combined with a global economic downturn and geopolitical tensions, have led universities to forecast a 21% reduction in new international student entrants this year. And 44% of universities are expecting to be in financial deficit.

    Unlike its predecessor, the government accepts that UK student fees should increase with inflation, so has allowed this for the first time since 2017. But it wants a change from universities in return. Rather than relying on international students, they should make efficiencies and focus on courses that align with government priorities.

    In a system mostly financed by student fees, there are few levers for influencing this. The Office for Students, which regulates higher education, has been asked to focus on managing quality and financial risks rather than policy.

    Its funding for strategic priorities has been reduced. There are, though, three measures highlighted within the white paper that could become influential.

    First, the government is reforming the apprenticeships levy, so it can be used more flexibly for workforce development priorities. Second, the tightening of sponsorship rules aims to drive international recruitment towards courses supplying the highest levels of skills and knowledge. Third, the proposed levy on international student income equips the government to invest in priority courses, rather than relying on student choice.

    The first measure is already being implemented. A new organisation, Skills England, has been established to determine priorities for investment.

    This may include funds from the proposed levy on international student income, though the precedent of Australia suggests that may be difficult. Regardless, there is a mood in government for higher education reform.

    Chris Millward is a member of staff at the University of Birmingham. He is also a board member of MEDR, the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research in Wales, and a Trustee of the Academy of Social Sciences. All of these organisations are affected by the issues addressed in this article.

    – ref. Why the UK government is opposing universities on immigration – https://theconversation.com/why-the-uk-government-is-opposing-universities-on-immigration-256526

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Threat Actors Deploy LummaC2 Malware to Exfiltrate Sensitive Data from Organizations

    Source: US Department of Homeland Security

    Summary

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are releasing this joint advisory to disseminate known tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with threat actors deploying the LummaC2 information stealer (infostealer) malware. LummaC2 malware is able to infiltrate victim computer networks and exfiltrate sensitive information, threatening vulnerable individuals’ and organizations’ computer networks across multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors. According to FBI information and trusted third-party reporting, this activity has been observed as recently as May 2025. The IOCs included in this advisory were associated with LummaC2 malware infections from November 2023 through May 2025.

    The FBI and CISA encourage organizations to implement the recommendations in the Mitigations section of this advisory to reduce the likelihood and impact of LummaC2 malware.

    Download the PDF version of this report:

    For a downloadable copy of IOCs, see:

    Technical Details

    Note: This advisory uses the MITRE ATT&CK® Matrix for Enterprise framework, version 17. See the MITRE ATT&CK Tactics and Techniques section of this advisory for threat actor activity mapped to MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques.

    Overview

    LummaC2 malware first appeared for sale on multiple Russian-language speaking cybercriminal forums in 2022. Threat actors frequently use spearphishing hyperlinks and attachments to deploy LummaC2 malware payloads [T1566.001, T1566.002]. Additionally, threat actors rely on unsuspecting users to execute the payload by clicking a fake Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA). The CAPTCHA contains instructions for users to then open the Windows Run window (Windows Button + R) and paste clipboard contents (“CTRL + V”). After users press “enter” a subsequent Base64-encoded PowerShell process is executed.

    To obfuscate their operations, threat actors have embedded and distributed LummaC2 malware within spoofed or fake popular software (i.e., multimedia player or utility software) [T1036]. The malware’s obfuscation methods allow LummaC2 actors to bypass standard cybersecurity measures, such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions or antivirus programs, designed to flag common phishing attempts or drive-by downloads [T1027].

    Once a victim’s computer system is infected, the malware can exfiltrate sensitive user information, including personally identifiable information, financial credentials, cryptocurrency wallets, browser extensions, and multifactor authentication (MFA) details without immediate detection [TA0010, T1119]. Private sector statistics indicate there were more than 21,000 market listings selling LummaC2 logs on multiple cybercriminal forums from April through June of 2024, a 71.7 percent increase from April through June of 2023.

    File Execution

    Upon execution, the LummaC2.exe file will enter its main routine, which includes four sub-routines (see Figure 1).

    Figure 1. LummaC2 Main Routine

    The first routine decrypts strings for a message box that is displayed to the user (see Figure 2).

    Figure 2. Message Box

    If the user selects No, the malware will exit. If the user selects Yes, the malware will move on to its next routine, which decrypts its callback Command and Control (C2) domains [T1140]. A list of observed domains is included in the Indicators of Compromise section.

    After each domain is decoded, the implant will attempt a POST request [T1071.001] (see Figure 3).

    Figure 3. Post Request

    If the POST request is successful, a pointer to the decoded domain string is saved in a global variable for later use in the main C2 routine used to retrieve JSON formatted commands (see Figure 4).

    Figure 4. Code Saving Successful Callback Request

    Once a valid C2 domain is contacted and saved, the malware moves on to the next routine, which queries the user’s name and computer name utilizing the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) GetUserNameW and GetComputerNameW respectively [T1012]. The returned data is then hashed and compared against a hard-coded hash value (see Figure 5).

    Figure 5. User and Computer Name Check

    The hashing routine was not identified as a standard algorithm; however, it is a simple routine that converts a Unicode string to a 32-bit hexadecimal value.

    If the username hash is equal to the value 0x56CF7626, then the computer name is queried. If the computer name queried is seven characters long, then the name is hashed and checked against the hard-coded value of 0xB09406C7. If both values match, a final subroutine will be called with a static value of the computer name hash as an argument. If this routine is reached, the process will terminate. This is most likely a failsafe to prevent the malware from running on the attacker’s system, as its algorithms are one-way only and will not reveal information on the details of the attacker’s own hostname and username.

    If the username and hostname check function returns zero (does not match the hard-coded values), the malware will enter its main callback routine. The LummaC2 malware will contact the saved hostname from the previous check and send the following POST request (see Figure 6).

    Figure 6. Second POST Request

    The data returned from the C2 server is encrypted. Once decoded, the C2 data is in a JSON format and is parsed by the LummaC2 malware. The C2 uses the JSON configuration to parse its browser extensions and target lists using the ex key, which contains an array of objects (see Figure 7).

    Figure 7. Parsing of ex JSON Value

    Parsing the c key contains an array of objects, which will give the implant its C2 (see Figure 8).

    Figure 8. Parsing of c JSON Value

    C2 Instructions

    Each array object that contains the JSON key value of t will be evaluated as a command opcode, resulting in the C2 instructions in the subsections below.

    1. Opcode 0 – Steal Data Generic

    This command allows five fields to be defined when stealing data, offering the most flexibility. The Opcode O command option allows LummaC2 affiliates to add their custom information gathering details (see Table 1).

    Table 2. Opcode 1 Options
    Key Value
    p Path to steal from
    m File extensions to read
    z Output directory to store stolen data
    d Depth of recursiveness
    fs Maximum file size

    2. Opcode 1 – Steal Browser Data

    This command only allows for two options: a path and the name of the output directory. This command, based on sample configuration downloads, is used for browser data theft for everything except Mozilla [T1217] (see Table 2).

    Table 2. Opcode 1 Options
    Key Value
    p Path to steal from
    z Name of Browser – Output

    3. Opcode 2 – Steal Browser Data (Mozilla)

    This command is identical to Opcode 1; however, this option seems to be utilized solely for Mozilla browser data (see Table 3).

    Table 3. Opcode 2 Options
    Key Value
    p Path to steal from
    z Name of Browser – Output

    4. Opcode 3 – Download a File

    This command contains three options: a URL, file extension, and execution type. The configuration can specify a remote file with u to download and create the extension specified in the ft key [T1105] (see Table 4).

    Table 4. Opcode 3 Options
    Key Value
    u URL for Download
    ft File Extension
    e  Execution Type

    The e value can take two values: 0 or 1. This specifies how to execute the downloaded file either with the LoadLibrary API or via the command line with rundll32.exe [T1106] (see Table 5).

    Table 5. Execution Types
    Key Value
    e=0 Execute with LoadLibraryW()
    e=1 Executive with rund1132.exe

    5. Take Screenshot

    If the configuration JSON file has a key of “se” and its value is “true,” the malware will take a screenshot in BMP format and upload it to the C2 server.

    6. Delete Self

    If the configuration JSON file has a key of “ad” and its value is “true,” the malware will enter a routine to delete itself.

    The command shown in Figure 9 will be decoded and executed for self-deletion.

    Figure 9. Self-Deletion Command Line

    Figure 10 depicts the above command line during execution.

    Figure 10. Decoded Command Line in Memory

    Host Modifications

    Without any C2 interactions, the LummaC2 malware does not create any files on the infected drive. It simply runs in memory, gathers system information, and exfiltrates it to the C2 server [T1082]. The commands returned from the C2 server could indicate that it drops additional files and/or saves data to files on the local hard drive. This is variable, as these commands come from the C2 server and are mutable.

    Decrypted Strings

    Below is a list of hard-coded decrypted strings located in the binary (see Figure 11).

    Figure 11. Decoded Strings

    Indicators of Compromise

    See Table 6 and Table 7 for LummaC2 IOCs obtained by the FBI and trusted third parties.

    Disclaimer: The authoring agencies recommend organizations investigate and vet these indicators of compromise prior to taking action, such as blocking.

    Table 6. LummaC2 Executable Hashes
    Executables Type
    4AFDC05708B8B39C82E60ABE3ACE55DB (LummaC2.exe from November 2023) MD5
    E05DF8EE759E2C955ACC8D8A47A08F42 (LummaC2.exe from November 2023) MD5
    C7610AE28655D6C1BCE88B5D09624FEF MD5
    1239288A5876C09D9F0A67BCFD645735168A7C80 (LummaC2.exe from November 2023) SHA1
    B66DA4280C6D72ADCC68330F6BD793DF56A853CB (LummaC2.exe from November 2023) SHA1
    3B267FA5E1D1B18411C22E97B367258986E871E5 TLSH
    19CC41A0A056E503CC2137E19E952814FBDF14F8D83F799AEA9B96ABFF11EFBB (November 2023) SHA256
    2F31D00FEEFE181F2D8B69033B382462FF19C35367753E6906ED80F815A7924F (LummaC2.exe from November 2023) SHA256
    4D74F8E12FF69318BE5EB383B4E56178817E84E83D3607213160276A7328AB5D SHA256
    325daeb781f3416a383343820064c8e98f2e31753cd71d76a886fe0dbb4fe59a SHA256
    76e4962b8ccd2e6fd6972d9c3264ccb6738ddb16066588dfcb223222aaa88f3c SHA256
    7a35008a1a1ae3d093703c3a34a21993409af42eb61161aad1b6ae4afa8bbb70 SHA256
    a9e9d7770ff948bb65c0db24431f75dd934a803181afa22b6b014fac9a162dab SHA256
    b287c0bc239b434b90eef01bcbd00ff48192b7cbeb540e568b8cdcdc26f90959 SHA256
    ca47c8710c4ffb4908a42bd986b14cddcca39e30bb0b11ed5ca16fe8922a468b SHA256
    Table 7. LummaC2 DLL Binaries
    DLL Binaries Type
    iphlpapi.dll IP Helper API
    winhttp.dll Windows HTTP Services

    The following are domains observed deploying LummaC2 malware.

    Disclaimer: The domains below are historical in nature and may not currently be malicious.

    • Pinkipinevazzey[.]pw
    • Fragnantbui[.]shop
    • Medicinebuckerrysa[.]pw
    • Musicallyageop[.]pw
    • stogeneratmns[.]shop
    • wallkedsleeoi[.]shop
    • Tirechinecarpet[.]pw
    • reinforcenh[.]shop
    • reliabledmwqj[.]shop
    • Musclefarelongea[.]pw
    • Forbidstow[.]site
    • gutterydhowi[.]shop
    • Fanlumpactiras[.]pw
    • Computeryrati[.]site
    • Contemteny[.]site
    • Ownerbuffersuperw[.]pw
    • Seallysl[.]site
    • Dilemmadu[.]site
    • Freckletropsao[.]pw
    • Opposezmny[.]site
    • Faulteyotk[.]site
    • Hemispheredodnkkl[.]pw
    • Goalyfeastz[.]site
    • Authorizev[.]site
    • ghostreedmnu[.]shop
    • Servicedny[.]site
    • blast-hubs[.]com
    • offensivedzvju[.]shop
    • friendseforever[.]help
    • blastikcn[.]com
    • vozmeatillu[.]shop
    • shiningrstars[.]help
    • penetratebatt[.]pw
    • drawzhotdog[.]shop
    • mercharena[.]biz
    • pasteflawwed[.]world
    • generalmills[.]pro
    • citywand[.]live
    • hoyoverse[.]blog
    • nestlecompany[.]pro
    • esccapewz[.]run
    • dsfljsdfjewf[.]info
    • naturewsounds[.]help
    • travewlio[.]shop
    • decreaserid[.]world
    • stormlegue[.]com
    • touvrlane[.]bet
    • governoagoal[.]pw
    • paleboreei[.]biz
    • calmingtefxtures[.]run
    • foresctwhispers[.]top
    • tracnquilforest[.]life
    • sighbtseeing[.]shop
    • advennture[.]top
    • collapimga[.]fun
    • holidamyup[.]today
    • pepperiop[.]digital
    • seizedsentec[.]online
    • triplooqp[.]world
    • easyfwdr[.]digital
    • strawpeasaen[.]fun
    • xayfarer[.]live
    • jrxsafer[.]top
    • quietswtreams[.]life
    • oreheatq[.]live
    • plantainklj[.]run
    • starrynsightsky[.]icu
    • castmaxw[.]run
    • puerrogfh[.]live
    • earthsymphzony[.]today
    • weldorae[.]digital
    • quavabvc[.]top
    • citydisco[.]bet
    • steelixr[.]live
    • furthert[.]run
    • featureccus[.]shop
    • smeltingt[.]run
    • targett[.]top
    • mrodularmall[.]top
    • ferromny[.]digital
    • ywmedici[.]top
    • jowinjoinery[.]icu
    • rodformi[.]run
    • legenassedk[.]top
    • htardwarehu[.]icu
    • metalsyo[.]digital
    • ironloxp[.]live
    • cjlaspcorne[.]icu
    • navstarx[.]shop
    • bugildbett[.]top
    • latchclan[.]shop
    • spacedbv[.]world
    • starcloc[.]bet
    • rambutanvcx[.]run
    • galxnetb[.]today
    • pomelohgj[.]top
    • scenarisacri[.]top
    • jawdedmirror[.]run
    • changeaie[.]top
    • lonfgshadow[.]live
    • liftally[.]top
    • nighetwhisper[.]top
    • salaccgfa[.]top
    • zestmodp[.]top
    • owlflright[.]digital
    • clarmodq[.]top
    • piratetwrath[.]run
    • hemispherexz[.]top
    • quilltayle[.]live
    • equatorf[.]run
    • latitudert[.]live
    • longitudde[.]digital
    • climatologfy[.]top
    • starofliught[.]top

    MITRE ATT&CK Tactics and Techniques

    See Table 8 through Table 13 for all referenced threat actor tactics and techniques in this advisory. For assistance with mapping malicious cyber activity to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, see CISA and MITRE ATT&CK’s Best Practices for MITRE ATT&CK Mapping and CISA’s Decider Tool.

    Table 8. Initial Access
    Technique Title ID Use
    Phishing T1566 Threat actors delivered LummaC2 malware through phishing emails.
    Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment T1566.001 Threat actors used spearphishing attachments to deploy LummaC2 malware payloads.
    Phishing: Spearphishing Link T1566.002 Threat actors used spearphishing hyperlinks to deploy LummaC2 malware payloads.
    Table 9. Defense Evasion
    Technique Title ID Use
    Obfuscated Files or Information T1027 Threat actors obfuscated the malware to bypass standard cybersecurity measures designed to flag common phishing attempts or drive-by downloads.
    Masquerading T1036 Threat actors delivered LummaC2 malware via spoofed software.
    Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information T1140 Threat actors used LummaC2 malware to decrypt its callback C2 domains.
    Table 10. Discovery
    Technique Title ID Use
    Query Registry T1012 Threat actors used LummaC2 malware to query the user’s name and computer name utilizing the APIs GetUserNameW and GetComputerNameW.
    Browser Information Discovery T1217 Threat actors used LummaC2 malware to steal browser data.
    Table 11. Collection
    Technique Title ID Use
    Automated Collection T1119 LummaC2 malware has automated collection of various information including cryptocurrency wallet details.
    Table 12. Command and Control
    Technique Title ID Use
    Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols T1071.001 Threat actors used LummaC2 malware to attempt POST requests.
    Ingress Tool Transfer T1105 Threat actors used LummaC2 malware to transfer a remote file to compromised systems.
    Table 13. Exfiltration
    Technique Title ID Use
    Exfiltration TA0010 Threat actors used LummaC2 malware to exfiltrate sensitive user information, including traditional credentials, cryptocurrency wallets, browser extensions, and MFA details without immediate detection.
    Native API T1106 Threat actors used LummaC2 malware to download files with native OS APIs.

    Mitigations

    The FBI and CISA recommend organizations implement the mitigations below to reduce the risk of compromise by LummaC2 malware. These mitigations align with the Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs) developed by CISA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The CPGs provide a minimum set of practices and protections that CISA and NIST recommend all organizations implement. CISA and NIST based the CPGs on existing cybersecurity frameworks and guidance to protect against the most common and impactful threats, tactics, techniques, and procedures. Visit CISA’s CPGs webpage for more information on the CPGs, including additional recommended baseline protections. These mitigations apply to all critical infrastructure organizations.

    • Separate User and Privileged Accounts: Allow only necessary users and applications access to the registry [CPG 2.E].
    • Monitor and detect suspicious behavior during exploitation [CPG 3.A].
      • Monitor and detect suspicious behavior, creation and termination events, and unusual and unexpected processes running.
      • Monitor API calls that may attempt to retrieve system information.
      • Analyze behavior patterns from process activities to identify anomalies.
      • For more information, visit CISA’s guidance on: Enhanced Visibility and Hardening Guidance for Communications Infrastructure.
    • Implement application controls to manage and control execution of software, including allowlisting remote access programs. Application controls should prevent installation and execution of portable versions of unauthorized remote access and other software. A properly configured application allowlisting solution will block any unlisted application execution. Allowlisting is important because antivirus solutions may fail to detect the execution of malicious portable executables when the files use any combination of compression, encryption, or obfuscation.
    • Protect against threat actor phishing campaigns by implementing CISA’s Phishing Guidance and Phishing-resistant multifactor authentication. [CPG 2.H]
    • Log Collection: Regularly monitoring and reviewing registry changes and access logs can support detection of LummaC2 malware [CPG 2.T].
    • Implement authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) systems [M1018] to limit actions users can perform and review logs of user actions to detect unauthorized use and abuse. Apply principles of least privilege to user accounts and groups, allowing only the performance of authorized actions.
    • Audit user accounts and revoke credentials for departing employees, removing those that are inactive or unnecessary on a routine basis [CPG 2.D]. Limit the ability for user accounts to create additional accounts.
    • Keep systems up to date with regular updates, patches, hot fixes, and service packs that may minimize vulnerabilities. Learn more by visiting CISA’s webpage: Secure our World Update Software.
    • Secure network devices to restrict command line access.
    • Use segmentation to prevent access to sensitive systems and information, possibly with the use of Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) or virtual private cloud (VPC) instances to isolate systems [CPG 2.F].
    • Monitor and detect API usage, looking for unusual or malicious behavior.

    Validate Security Controls

    In addition to applying mitigations, the FBI and CISA recommend exercising, testing, and validating your organization’s security program against threat behaviors mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK Matrix for Enterprise framework in this advisory. The FBI and CISA recommend testing your existing security controls inventory to assess performance against the ATT&CK techniques described in this advisory.

    To get started:

    1. Select an ATT&CK technique described in this advisory (see Table 8 through Table 13).
    2. Align your security technologies against the technique.
    3. Test your technologies against the technique.
    4. Analyze your detection and prevention technologies’ performance.
    5. Repeat the process for all security technologies to obtain a set of comprehensive performance data.
    6. Tune your security program, including people, processes, and technologies, based on the data generated by this process.

    The FBI and CISA recommend continually testing your security program, at scale, in a production environment to ensure optimal performance against the MITRE ATT&CK techniques identified in this advisory.

    Reporting

    Your organization has no obligation to respond or provide information to the FBI in response to this joint advisory. If, after reviewing the information provided, your organization decides to provide information to the FBI, reporting must be consistent with applicable state and federal laws.

    The FBI is interested in any information that can be shared, to include the status and scope of infection, estimated loss, date of infection, date detected, initial attack vector, and host- and network-based indicators.

    To report information, please contact the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), your local FBI field office, or CISA’s 24/7 Operations Center at report@cisa.gov or (888) 282-0870.

    Disclaimer

    The information in this report is being provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The FBI and CISA do not endorse any commercial entity, product, company, or service, including any entities, products, or services linked within this document. Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favor by the FBI and CISA.

    Acknowledgements

    ReliaQuest contributed to this advisory.

    Version History

    May 21, 2025: Initial version.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: Best Horse Racing Betting Sites in Australia – Donbet Picked as the Top AU Racebook

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    New York City, May 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —

    Horse racing is more than just a pastime in Australia—it’s practically a national obsession. From the Melbourne Cup to the raw excitement of local meets, Australians love the thrill of the track. 

    Betting on horse racing has become an integral part of this beloved sport, with numerous horse racing betting sites Australia bettors can join vying for attention from punters. But with so many options, how do you choose the best?

    JOIN THE BEST HORSE RACEBOOK IN AU: DONBET

    Why Donbet Is the Best Horse Racing Betting Site in Australia

    When you’re placing bets online, reliability and ease of use are paramount. Donbet not only meets these criteria but exceeds them. Donbet’s platform is crafted specifically with Aussie punters in mind, combining user-friendly design, excellent odds, comprehensive race coverage, and robust security features.

    One of Donbet’s standout features is its exceptional user interface. Easy navigation ensures bettors can quickly find odds and place wagers without unnecessary complications. Additionally, Donbet consistently provides competitive odds on all major and minor races, ensuring maximum value for every wager.

    The platform also offers extensive coverage of Australian and international races. Whether you’re betting on prestigious races like the Melbourne Cup or smaller local meets, Donbet ensures you never miss a beat.

    What to Consider When Choosing Horse Racing Sportbooks in Australia

    User Experience and Interface

    A seamless betting experience is crucial. Choose platforms like Donbet, known for their intuitive navigation, quick loading times, and responsive customer support.

    Betting Markets and Odds

    The best horse racing betting sites Australia has ever seen should offer a wide variety of betting markets, from straightforward win/place/show bets to more exotic wagers. Competitive odds significantly enhance potential returns.

    Security and Licensing

    Always prioritize betting sites that are licensed and regulated by Australian gaming authorities. Secure platforms utilize advanced encryption to protect your personal and financial details.

    Promotions and Bonuses

    Look for sites offering generous sign-up bonuses, free bets, cashback offers, and loyalty programs. Donbet excels by regularly updating promotions tailored to horse racing enthusiasts.

    Payment Methods and Speed of Withdrawals

    Efficient payment processing is vital. Ensure your chosen betting site supports popular Aussie-friendly payment methods like credit cards, bank transfers, and e-wallets.

    Mobile Compatibility

    With betting increasingly moving online, top sites must offer mobile-optimized platforms or dedicated betting apps to allow seamless betting on-the-go.

    How to Join Horse Racing Sportsbooks in Australia

    Joining horse racing betting sites like Donbet in Australia is straightforward and quick. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the steps to help you easily get started:

    Step 1: Visit the Website

    Navigate to Donbet’s official site using your desktop or mobile browser. You’ll easily spot the “Join” or “Register” button, usually prominently displayed at the top right corner of the homepage.

    Step 2: Complete the Registration Form

    Click the button and enter your personal details accurately. These typically include your full name, date of birth, residential address, email, and contact phone number. It’s crucial to provide accurate information to ensure smooth verification and secure account management.

    Step 3: Verify Your Identity

    Australian betting regulations mandate identity verification for security purposes. You’ll be prompted to upload documents like your passport, driver’s license, or national ID card. Occasionally, additional proof of address might be required, such as a recent utility bill or bank statement.

    Step 4: Make Your First Deposit

    Once your account is verified, deposit funds using your preferred method. Donbet supports various popular payment options, including credit cards, bank transfers, and e-wallets. Deposits are typically processed swiftly, allowing immediate betting access.

    Step 5: Place Your Bets

    With your account funded, explore Donbet’s extensive race listings. You can choose from numerous betting markets, including win/place/show, quinellas, trifectas, and more exotic options. Select your races, choose your bets, confirm your wagers, and you’re all set!

    TAKE THE 600 AUD BONUS

    Most Popular Racetracks You Can Bet On In Australia

    Australia boasts some of the most prestigious and exhilarating racetracks worldwide, each with its distinctive charm and betting opportunities:

    • Flemington Racecourse, Victoria: Located in Melbourne, Flemington is internationally renowned, especially for hosting the Melbourne Cup—Australia’s most famous horse race. The Melbourne Cup Carnival attracts thousands of spectators and bettors every November, making it a highlight of the global racing calendar.
    • Randwick Racecourse, New South Wales: Situated in Sydney, Randwick is the home of The Championships, a celebrated event featuring races such as the Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Doncaster Mile. Its modern facilities and historic charm make it a favourite amongst punters.
    • Caulfield Racecourse, Victoria: Known for the prestigious Caulfield Cup, this Melbourne-based venue provides a critical testing ground for horses aiming for Melbourne Cup glory. Its engaging track layout ensures dynamic racing, offering bettors thrilling and strategic betting opportunities.
    • Moonee Valley Racecourse, Victoria: Located in Melbourne, Moonee Valley is famed for hosting the Cox Plate, known as Australia’s weight-for-age championship. Its compact and tight-turn course creates intense, exciting races ideal for experienced punters looking for challenging odds.
    • Eagle Farm Racecourse, Queensland: Brisbane’s leading racetrack, Eagle Farm, regularly hosts high-profile events like the Stradbroke Handicap and Queensland Derby. With a long straight track, it rewards strategic betting and offers great opportunities for punters looking to capitalize on form and distance specialists.
    • Ascot Racecourse, Western Australia: Ascot, located in Perth, combines lively atmosphere and competitive racing. It hosts major events like the Perth Cup and the Railway Stakes, attracting crowds and bettors keen on the vibrant social scene and competitive odds.

    What Makes Donbet Ideal for Aussie Bettors

    Donbet’s superiority comes down to several unique features tailored explicitly for Australian punters:

    • Local Expertise: Donbet is staffed with industry experts who understand the nuances of Australian horse racing.
    • Comprehensive Coverage: Whether it’s major metropolitan races or regional meets, Donbet offers extensive markets to suit every preference.
    • Enhanced Odds and Promotions: Regularly updated special offers and boosted odds provide more value to bettors, making Donbet particularly attractive for seasoned and new punters alike.
    • Reliable Customer Support: Accessible 24/7 customer service via live chat, email, and phone ensures you always have assistance when needed.
    • Robust Security Protocols: Licensed by reputable gaming authorities and employing cutting-edge encryption technologies, Donbet ensures your betting experience is secure.

    5 Essential Tips for Betting on Horse Racing

    1. Research Thoroughly

    Extensive research is crucial to successful betting. Study each horse’s recent form, historical performance on specific tracks, jockey and trainer stats, and the horse’s preferred distance. Look at past race videos and consider expert opinions to build a detailed understanding of potential outcomes.

    2. Understand and Identify Betting Value

    Understanding betting odds is essential. Recognize how bookmakers set odds and spot value bets—horses that have higher odds than their realistic winning probability. Developing a knack for identifying these bets can significantly enhance your long-term profitability.

    3. Practice Bankroll Management

    Responsible bankroll management protects your finances and improves your betting strategy. Set clear betting limits and stick to them. Allocate specific amounts per bet and avoid impulsive decisions like chasing losses. Disciplined betting will lead to more consistent and enjoyable betting experiences.

    4. Diversify Your Betting Strategy

    Don’t rely only on straightforward win bets. Explore various betting markets such as place bets, each-way bets, quinellas, trifectas, and exactas. Diversification helps balance risk and reward, potentially increasing overall returns and keeping betting engaging.

    5. Monitor Track and Weather Conditions

    Conditions greatly influence race outcomes. Horses can perform differently depending on weather (dry, wet, muddy tracks). Check accurate weather forecasts and track reports on race day. Understanding how these factors affect each horse can provide crucial betting insights and improve your decision-making.

    Final Thoughts on Horse Racing Betting Sites in Australia

    Horse racing is woven into Australia’s cultural fabric, and betting enhances the excitement of each event. Choosing the right betting site makes all the difference in your horse racing betting sites Australia experience. Donbet rises above the competition, perfectly aligning with what Australian bettors value most—reliability, extensive market coverage, superior odds, security, and outstanding customer support.

    Whether you’re a seasoned punter or just starting, Donbet and horse racing betting sites in Australia offer an exhilarating, user-friendly, and safe betting experience. Enjoy the thrills and excitement of Australian horse racing with confidence and ease at Donbet—Australia’s premier destination for horse racing betting.

    Editorial Note

    This article is provided solely for informational and entertainment purposes. Nothing within should be interpreted as legal, financial, or professional advice. Readers should carry out their own research before participating in any gambling activities or signing up with any online casinos mentioned. 

    Gambling Caution

    Online gambling comes with financial risks and may lead to addictive behavior or monetary loss. We urge all readers to gamble responsibly. If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling, professional help is available. In Australia, you can dial 1800 858 858.

    18+ only. It is up to each individual to verify whether online gambling is permitted under their local, state, or federal laws. Neither the publisher, the authors, nor any syndication partners condone or support unlawful gambling. Participation in online gambling is done at the reader’s own discretion and risk.

    Affiliate Transparency

    This article may include affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase or register, a commission may be earned, at no extra cost to you.

    Syndication and Liability Disclaimer

    Any third-party publishers, media platforms, or syndication partners that republish this content do so understanding that it is meant for informational purposes only. These entities are not responsible for the legality, accuracy, or interpretation of the material.

    DonBet
    https://donbet.com
    support@donbet.com
    1150 Gemini St, Houston, TX 77058

    Attachment

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI China: Former Vice President Chen attends inauguration of Pope Leo XIV

    Source: Republic of Taiwan – Ministry of Foreign Affairs

    May 18, 2025  

    No. 161  

    Former Vice President Chen Chien-jen, serving as special envoy of President Lai Ching-te, together with his wife and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs François Chihchung Wu, attended the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV on the morning of May 18. In an audience with the pontiff following the ceremony, Mr. Chen conveyed greetings from President Lai and the sincere congratulations of the government, people, and Catholic community of Taiwan.

     

    Upon arriving for the ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, Mr. Chen was received by a ceremonial officer for the Holy See. The inauguration, a grand and solemn occasion, took around two hours. According to statistics released by the Holy See, more than 150 delegations attended. Before the ceremony commenced, Mr. Chen exchanged greetings with Paraguayan Chamber of Deputies Speaker Raúl Latorre; Guatemalan Special Envoy and Ambassador to the Holy See Alfredo Vásquez Rivera; other officials from diplomatic allies; and delegates from the United States, Japan, Europe, and numerous other friendly countries. He also extended felicitations to and shared cordial interactions with several high-ranking members of the Vatican clergy, including Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Secretary of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue Monsignor Indunil Janakaratne Kodithuwakku Kankanamalage. 

     

    After the inauguration, Pope Leo received the heads of national delegations. Mr. Chen presented the pontiff with a congratulatory letter from President Lai, a commemorative set of postage stamps depicting four of Taiwan’s Catholic churches—St. Joseph’s Church in Jinlun Village, Taitung County; the Holy Family Catholic Church in Taipei City; the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Wanjin Village, Pingtung County; and the Holy Rosary Cathedral Basilica in Kaohsiung City—and a collection of postcards on Holy See artifacts jointly produced by Taiwan and the Apostolic Nunciature in Taiwan, highlighting the close connection between the Catholic Church in Taiwan and the Holy See. Mr. Chen also presented Pope Leo with a photo taken in 2020, when the pontiff was serving as bishop of the Chiclayo Diocese in Peru. The picture showed him accepting antipandemic supplies donated by Taiwan. The materials, delivered in cartons labeled “Taiwan Box,” were donated to Cáritas Chiclayo and other Peruvian healthcare and charitable organizations by the Pingtung County Government and Dr. Lai Hsien-yung of Hualien County’s Mennonite Christian Hospital. The government and people of Taiwan provided proactive assistance to the international community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, fulfilling their international responsibilities and demonstrating that Taiwan could help and that Taiwan was helping.

     

    When Mr. Chen arrived at the airport in Rome on May 17, he met with Eswatini Prime Minister Russell Dlamini, who had also made the trip to attend the papal inauguration. Mr. Chen also attended a mass and prayer service for peace led by Bishop John Lee Keh-mien, President of the Chinese Regional Bishops’ Conference of Taiwan, at St. Benedict’s Monastery. On May 18, Mr. Chen had dinner with 16 prominent members of the Catholic clergy and several key officials and ambassadors of diplomatic allies, including Special Delegate of the Holy See to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta Cardinal Silvano Tomasi and Haitian Special Envoy and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Alrich Nicolas. 

     

    Since establishing diplomatic ties 83 years ago, Taiwan and the Holy See have enjoyed a profound diplomatic alliance and shared the core values of religious freedom, human rights, peace, and benevolence. The two sides will build on their existing friendship and solid foundation of cooperation in humanitarian assistance and other domains to further deepen bilateral relations and together make even greater contributions to the world. (E)

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: RBI Bulletin – May 2025

    Source: Reserve Bank of India

    Today, the Reserve Bank released the May 2025 issue of its monthly Bulletin. The Bulletin includes two speeches, four articles and current statistics.

    The four articles are: I. State of the Economy; II. Economic Activity and Banknotes: New Approaches; III. Digital Footprints: Decoding India’s Inbound Tourism through Internet Searches; and IV. Impact of Weather Anomalies on Vegetable Prices in India.

    I. State of the Economy

    Persistent trade frictions, heightened policy uncertainty, and weak consumer sentiment continue to create headwinds for global growth. Amidst these challenges, the Indian economy exhibited resilience. Various high frequency indicators of industrial and services sectors sustained their momentum in April. A bumper rabi harvest and higher acreage for summer crops, coupled with favourable southwest monsoon forecasts for 2025, augur well for the agriculture sector. Headline CPI inflation fell for the sixth consecutive month to its lowest since July 2019, primarily driven by the sustained easing in food prices. Domestic financial market sentiments, which remained on edge in April, witnessed a turnaround since the third week of May.

    II. Economic Activity and Banknotes: New Approaches

    by Gautham Udupa, Pradip Bhuyan, Dileep Kumar Verma and Nirupama Kulkarni

    This article investigates the impact of economic activity on banknotes in circulation, with a particular focus on the role of the formal sector. Leveraging high-frequency monthly nightlights data as a proxy for total economic activity and tax collection data as a measure of formal economic activity, the analysis isolates the effect of formalisation on Notes in Circulation (NiC), controlling for aggregate economic output.

    Highlights:

    • The growth rate in NiC (in value terms) during 2014 – 2024 was significantly lower as compared to that in the previous two decades.

    • The growth in NiC was noticeably higher than that in GDP during 1994 – 2004; the gap, however, has significantly reduced in the next two decades.

    • There exists positive relationship between nightlights and taxes and also between nightlights and GDP.

    • The article finds strong evidence that formal economic activity reduces the use of banknotes.

    III. Digital Footprints: Decoding India’s Inbound Tourism through Internet Searches

    By Lokesh and A R Jayaraman

    This article explores Destination Insights with Google (DIG), a non-traditional high-frequency data source, to track inbound tourism in India. DIG monitors global tourism trends through travel-related searches. The study examines the linkage between foreign tourist arrivals (FTA) and Google searches made for travel to India from the rest of the world.

    Highlights:

    • There is a strong association between FTA and travel-related search volume index.

    • The index captures directional changes in FTA reasonably well.

    • The index Granger causes FTA implying its ability to serve as a leading indicator to predict FTA.

    IV. Impact of Weather Anomalies on Vegetable Prices in India

    By Nishant Singh and Love Kumar Shandilya

    Vegetable prices exhibit high volatility and play a major role in driving India’s food and headline inflation. The volatility in vegetable prices is often exacerbated by supply-side disturbances, predominantly driven by weather shocks warranting regular monitoring of evolving weather conditions. This study investigates how weather anomalies, particularly in rainfall and temperature, affect vegetable prices in India.

    Highlights:

    • After controlling for seasonality in vegetables prices as well as movements in market arrivals and reservoir levels, empirical estimates suggest that weather anomalies add to price pressures in vegetables with temperature anomalies having a more immediate impact.

    • Moreover, the impact of temperature anomalies has increased in recent periods, highlighting the need for faster adoption of temperature-resistant crop varieties to support the objective of price stability.

    The views expressed in the Bulletin articles are of the authors and do not represent the views of the Reserve Bank of India.

    (Puneet Pancholy)  
    Chief General Manager

    Press Release: 2025-2026/384

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Former Vice President Chen attends inauguration of Pope Leo XIV

    Source: Republic of China Taiwan

    May 18, 2025  
    No. 161  

    Former Vice President Chen Chien-jen, serving as special envoy of President Lai Ching-te, together with his wife and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs François Chihchung Wu, attended the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV on the morning of May 18. In an audience with the pontiff following the ceremony, Mr. Chen conveyed greetings from President Lai and the sincere congratulations of the government, people, and Catholic community of Taiwan.
     
    Upon arriving for the ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, Mr. Chen was received by a ceremonial officer for the Holy See. The inauguration, a grand and solemn occasion, took around two hours. According to statistics released by the Holy See, more than 150 delegations attended. Before the ceremony commenced, Mr. Chen exchanged greetings with Paraguayan Chamber of Deputies Speaker Raúl Latorre; Guatemalan Special Envoy and Ambassador to the Holy See Alfredo Vásquez Rivera; other officials from diplomatic allies; and delegates from the United States, Japan, Europe, and numerous other friendly countries. He also extended felicitations to and shared cordial interactions with several high-ranking members of the Vatican clergy, including Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Secretary of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue Monsignor Indunil Janakaratne Kodithuwakku Kankanamalage. 
     
    After the inauguration, Pope Leo received the heads of national delegations. Mr. Chen presented the pontiff with a congratulatory letter from President Lai, a commemorative set of postage stamps depicting four of Taiwan’s Catholic churches—St. Joseph’s Church in Jinlun Village, Taitung County; the Holy Family Catholic Church in Taipei City; the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Wanjin Village, Pingtung County; and the Holy Rosary Cathedral Basilica in Kaohsiung City—and a collection of postcards on Holy See artifacts jointly produced by Taiwan and the Apostolic Nunciature in Taiwan, highlighting the close connection between the Catholic Church in Taiwan and the Holy See. Mr. Chen also presented Pope Leo with a photo taken in 2020, when the pontiff was serving as bishop of the Chiclayo Diocese in Peru. The picture showed him accepting antipandemic supplies donated by Taiwan. The materials, delivered in cartons labeled “Taiwan Box,” were donated to Cáritas Chiclayo and other Peruvian healthcare and charitable organizations by the Pingtung County Government and Dr. Lai Hsien-yung of Hualien County’s Mennonite Christian Hospital. The government and people of Taiwan provided proactive assistance to the international community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, fulfilling their international responsibilities and demonstrating that Taiwan could help and that Taiwan was helping.
     
    When Mr. Chen arrived at the airport in Rome on May 17, he met with Eswatini Prime Minister Russell Dlamini, who had also made the trip to attend the papal inauguration. Mr. Chen also attended a mass and prayer service for peace led by Bishop John Lee Keh-mien, President of the Chinese Regional Bishops’ Conference of Taiwan, at St. Benedict’s Monastery. On May 18, Mr. Chen had dinner with 16 prominent members of the Catholic clergy and several key officials and ambassadors of diplomatic allies, including Special Delegate of the Holy See to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta Cardinal Silvano Tomasi and Haitian Special Envoy and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Alrich Nicolas. 
     
    Since establishing diplomatic ties 83 years ago, Taiwan and the Holy See have enjoyed a profound diplomatic alliance and shared the core values of religious freedom, human rights, peace, and benevolence. The two sides will build on their existing friendship and solid foundation of cooperation in humanitarian assistance and other domains to further deepen bilateral relations and together make even greater contributions to the world. (E)

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Government Taskforce meets on Merseyside to bolster nation’s flood resilience

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Government Taskforce meets on Merseyside to bolster nation’s flood resilience

    Flood response capabilities on display at Merseyside fire base

    The third meeting of the Government’s national Floods Resilience Taskforce convened in Aintree today

    Bolstering the nation’s resilience to flooding, including in Merseyside, was top of the agenda as the Government’s national Floods Resilience Taskforce convened in Aintree today (Wednesday 21 May).  

    The meeting was chaired by Floods Minister Emma Hardy and hosted by Mersey Fire and Rescue Service at their National Resilience Centre of Excellence, one of the UK’s most advanced emergency service training facilities, used to co-ordinate national responses to large scale incidents and provide firefighters with the necessary training and skills to respond to events such as severe flooding.  

    The Government inherited the nation’s flood defences in their worst condition on record. To ensure the country is protected from the devastating impacts of flooding, more than 1,000 flood defences will be built or repaired through the Plan for Change as part of a record £2.65 billion two-year investment. 

    Today’s Taskforce meeting brought together partners including Defra, Cabinet Office, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Environment Agency, the Met Office, Local Resilience Forums, Mayoral Offices, emergency responders, the National Farmers Union, and environmental interest groups. 

    Floods Minister Emma Hardy said:

    The role of any government is to protect its citizens. Having inherited flood defences in disrepair, we are bringing together valued partners through our Floods Resilience Taskforce here in Aintree as we look to speed up and co-ordinate flood preparation and resilience. 

    Through our Plan for Change, we’re investing a record £2.65 billion to repair and build more than 1,000 flood defences across the country, protecting tens of thousands of homes and businesses including on Merseyside.

    The group discussed plans to modernise the UK’s system for flood warnings further, stressing the need for users to understand better how it works for effective decision-making, planning and response. The development of a common warnings framework across the UK will enhance the service and support actions to reduce risks to people, property and livelihoods.  

    The Taskforce also confirmed plans to improve the way the government identifies individuals vulnerable to flooding. This includes using the risk vulnerability tool, unveiled last month by the Cabinet Office, which will enable thousands of officials to see how vulnerable particular areas are to risks by mapping real time crisis data such as live weather warnings, alongside demographic statistics. 

    The meeting touched upon the flood recovery framework, which through local authorities in England provides government support in the aftermath of flooding in exceptional circumstances. There was also discussion of the Bellwin scheme, which is used to reimburse local authorities in England for the costs of the actions they take in the immediate aftermath of an emergency or disaster that endangers life or property. It was agreed that further work is required to improve public understanding of flood resilience. 

    Caroline Douglass, Executive Director for Flood and Coastal Risk Management at the Environment Agency, said:

    Protecting communities in England from the devastating impact of flooding is one of our top priorities as climate change brings more extreme weather. 

    By participating in the Floods Resilience Taskforce, we’re ensuring we share information and co-ordinate our approach to bolster protection for thousands of homes and businesses from the dangers of flooding, preventing billions of pounds worth of damages.

    Minister Oppong-Asare, Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office, said:

    The Flood Resilience Taskforce sits at the heart of our work to protect communities from extreme weather and flooding.  

    Today’s meeting highlighted how digital tools can strengthen our flood response to identify and support those who are most vulnerable to the impacts of flooding.  

    Through the taskforce, we’re continuing to work closely with key partners to keep people, homes, and businesses safe.

    Met Office Services Director Simon Brown said: 

    Our observations show that the UK is getting wetter, we are seeing more days with over 50mm rainfall in autumn months. A warmer, moister atmosphere increases the capacity for deluges of rain, which can result in serious flooding. A recent study looking at the storms through autumn and winter in 2023/24 found climate change increased the amount of rainfall from these storms, making them about 20% more intense. 

    A number of recent Met Office attribution studies have shown that some recent heavy rainfall events in the UK associated with flooding can be linked to human-caused climate change. Since 1998 the UK has seen six of the 10 wettest years on record. Events such as the wettest February on record in 2020, are expected to become more frequent by 2100 due to climate change.

    The Government’s record investment in flood defences includes around £2.5 million in funding for Merseyside across 2024/25 and 2025/26, including £1 million for a flood alleviation scheme to protect communities near the Pool watercourse at Churchtown in Southport.

    Updates to this page

    Published 21 May 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Urgent aid must be allowed to enter Palestinian territory

    Source: Scottish Greens

    21 May 2025 Economy Energy

    Patrick Harvie MSP calls on the UK Government to fix broken energy market

    More in Economy

    High energy bills are punishing households and families and baking in high rates of inflation for years to come, say the Scottish Greens.

    The Scottish Greens have called for UK Labour to listen to climate experts, take urgent action to fix the broken energy market, and end the artificial high price for clean green electricity, which is cheap to generate but expensive to consume.

    This comes following the publication of new monthly figures from the Office for National Statistics showing that inflation has jumped to 3.5% in April, the highest level since February last year.

    The ONS has revealed that big increases in utility bills – including electricity and gas bills – have impacted inflation, after changes to the Ofgem energy price cap earlier this year sent April rates soaring.

    Independent climate advisors have advised that the UK Government must act urgently to make electricity cheaper, through rebalancing prices to remove policy levies from electricity bills.

    The Scottish Greens’ climate spokesperson, Patrick Harvie, said:

    “At a time when so many are already struggling to make ends meet, households and families across our country are now facing the highest rates of inflation since February last year.

    “Labour promised to make energy bills cheaper, but they have only gone up. Keir Starmer and his colleagues must urgently step in to make sure that households get the benefit of the low price of renewable energy, to help get inflation under control.

    “This isn’t just about the price cap. Climate experts are clear – out-of-date policy levies on electricity bills are stopping costs from coming down for consumers, and that’s a barrier to people switching away from fossil fuels for heat and transport. So even though home-grown renewable energy is very cheap to generate, that’s not being reflected in the bills people are paying. 

    “We desperately need to fix the broken energy market that is plunging people into poverty all while keeping our reliance on climate-wrecking fossil fuels.”

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI China: Macao sees nearly 19 pct year-on-year growth in visitor arrivals in April

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

    MACAO, May 21 — China’s Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) welcomed over 3.09 million visitors in April 2025, marking an 18.9 percent year-on-year increase, the SAR’s Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) said on Wednesday.

    Same-day visitors jumped by 30.1 percent to over 1.75 million, while overnight visitors rose 6.9 percent to nearly 1.34 million. However, the average length of stay slightly dropped to 1.1 days due to the higher share of same-day travelers.

    As regards the source of visitors, the Chinese mainland remained the largest source of visitors, contributing over 2.12 million arrivals, up 22.4 percent. Arrivals from China’s Hong Kong and China’s Taiwan also grew, up 13.4 percent and 4.4 percent respectively.

    International visitor numbers increased by 10.4 percent to 230,014, with strong gains from India (up 50 percent) and Southeast Asian markets like Thailand and the Philippines, while some declines were recorded from Singapore and Malaysia.

    The DSEC also noted that from January to April, total arrivals in the Macao SAR reached 12,955,456, up 12.9 percent year-on-year.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: AI multi-agent orchestration drives more personalized cancer care

    Source: Microsoft

    Headline: AI multi-agent orchestration drives more personalized cancer care

    Every year, 20 million people globally are diagnosed with cancer.1 Every patient is unique, with hundreds of distinct tumor sub-types, each demanding treatment protocols involving new drugs, combinations, clinical trials, and device-based therapies. Top cancer centers rely heavily on multidisciplinary tumor boards—dedicated sessions where radiologists, pathologists, surgeons, oncologists, genetic counselors, and other specialists undertake sophisticated analysis of vast patient data and knowledge to align on personalized care plans.  

    Because of the immense preparation and specialization required, less than 1% of these patients have access to these personalized treatment plans, which have demonstrably improved patient outcomes.  

    A recent American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) study highlighted that clinicians spend between 1.5 to 2.5 hours per patient, meticulously reviewing imaging, pathology slides, clinical notes, and genomic data.2 And cancer care is just one example of the complex data analysis healthcare requires. Agentic AI holds the potential to reduce administrative friction and further transform care delivery.

    The healthcare agent orchestrator is available now in the Azure AI Foundry Agent Catalog. It features pre-configured agents with multi-agent orchestration and open-source customization options that allow developers and researchers to build agents that coordinate multi-disciplinary multimodal healthcare data workflows, such as tumor boards, and streamline deployment into healthcare enterprise productivity tools (such as Microsoft Teams and Word). Modular, general reasoners as well as specialized, multimodal AI agents work together to address tasks that would take hours, with the goal to effectively augment clinician specialists with customized cutting-edge agentic AI.  

    Microsoft Build 2025 session: Transform Cancer Care Management with Multimodal AI Agents

    By integrating the latest capabilities from across Microsoft, the healthcare agent orchestrator can manage analysis and reasoning over diverse healthcare data types—ranging from imaging (DICOM files) and pathology (whole-slide images) to genomics data and clinical notes from electronic health records (EHRs). Each agent is equipped with advanced AI models from Azure AI Foundry, combining general-purpose reasoning capabilities with healthcare-specific modality models to drive actionable insights grounded in multimodal clinical data.

    Key capabilities of healthcare agent orchestrator

    • Orchestrating agentic capabilities that can reason over complex EHR data and augment time-consuming tasks like building a chronological patient timeline, determining cancer stage, using specific reference guidelines, reviewing radiology and pathology images, synthesizing current medical literature, referencing treatment guidelines, surfacing relevant clinical trials, and generating customized reports. 
    • Providing tools that connect enterprise healthcare data through Microsoft Fabric and the fast healthcare interoperability resources (FHIR) data service.  
    • Ensuring interoperability and integration into existing workflows, including distribution to familiar tools the majority of healthcare organizations already use—Teams, Word, PowerPoint, and Microsoft 365 Copilot—where users can interact with AI agents. 
    • Providing robust explainability capabilities in agentic AI-generated outputs, such as grounding responses to the source EHR data—critical for validation, trust, and adoption in high-stakes healthcare environments. 

    Researchers and developers at leading cancer care institutions—including Stanford University, Johns Hopkins, Providence Genomics, Mass General Brigham, and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health—are currently exploring the healthcare agent orchestrator to study how agentic AI could deliver value to complex clinical tasks such as cancer care. 

    “Stanford Medicine sees 4,000 tumor board patients a year, and our clinicians are already using foundation model generated summaries in tumor board meetings today (via a PHI safe instance of GPT on Azure). The new healthcare agent orchestrator has the power to streamline this existing workflow by reducing fragmentation (saving time by avoiding copy-pasting) and enables surfacing new insights from data elements that were challenging to search, such as trial eligibility criteria, treatment guidelines, and real-world evidence. Stanford Health Care is excited further research the potential of using the healthcare agent orchestrator to build the first generative AI agent solution used in a production setting for real-world care for our cancer patients.”

    —Dr. Mike Pfeffer, Chief Information Officer, Stanford Health Care and Stanford School of Medicine

    “The vision of the healthcare agent orchestrator is to rapidly surface, summarize, and take action on relevant multimodal medical information for each complex cancer case, so hours of review can become minutes. Collaborating with Microsoft allows us to explore the value of these models for tumor boards and beyond.”

    —Dr. Joshua Warner, Radiologist at UW Health and Assistant Professor of Radiology, UW School of Medicine and Public Health

    Early development collaborations featured the integration of this multi-agent workflow into Teams chats, where, for example, group chats enabled conversations between multiple human experts and specialized healthcare AI agents connected to specific healthcare data. It demonstrated the promise to significantly enhance efficiency and collaboration among clinical providers. This capability is already bringing clinicians and developers together to build the agentic healthcare applications of the future: the catalyst is the powerful combination of healthcare-specific agents using general reasoning models and multimodal healthcare foundation models alongside the ability to interact directly with custom agents using Teams.  

    For example, Johns Hopkins oncologists Dr. Vasan Yegnasubramanian, Dr. Elsa Anagnostou, and Dr. Taxiarchis Botsis and their developer teams in the Johns Hopkins inHealth Precision Medicine program and Molecular Tumor Board are providing their expertise to refine and test the system to ensure it would have high utility if used in their clinical and precision medicine applications.  

    Coordinating collaboration of specialized agents

    The healthcare agent orchestrator builds upon recent research and releases from Microsoft Research and our collaborators. It coordinates collaboration of specialized agents designed explicitly for complex multidisciplinary clinical workflows like cancer care.  

    • The orchestrator leverages Semantic Kernel and Magentic-One to coordinate agents, maintain shared memory, and interact with the human in the loop.  
    • The patient history agent leverages Universal Medical Abstraction to organize patient data chronologically.3 Manual work that can take experts over three hours happens in minutes.   
    • The radiology agent leverages customer fine-tuned models like CXRRepotGen/MAIRA-2 to analyze radiology images for a second read.4  
    • The pathology agent demonstrates how to connect to external agents like Paige.ai’s “Alba” pathology agent to address complex queries related to pathology images (available in preview).5  
    • The cancer staging agent refers to the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) clinical guidelines to support accurate cancer staging. 
    • The clinical guidelines agent refers to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) clinical guidelines to suggest recommended treatment plans.  
    • The clinical trials agent identifies eligible clinical trials by matching patient profiles against databases such as ClinicalTrials.gov. This can result in more than double the recall improvement compared to the publicly available Critera2Query baseline.6  
    • The medical research agent delivers actionable, evidence-based guidance grounded on graph-based knowledge from trusted medical journals.
    • The report creation agent automates comprehensive, integrated, richly formatted reporting that serves as a trusted reference during multidisciplinary meetings. 

    “As we progress towards the routine use of multi-agent systems, the healthcare agent orchestrator demonstrates the power to simplify the integration of various models and agents with productivity tools that clinicians are already using. The flexible orchestration framework will make it easy for us at Paige to continue to focus on our pathology agents while enabling their integration into the larger cancer care workflow and leverage access to multi-modal data.”

    —Razik Yousfi, Chief Executive Officer of Paige.ai

    The orchestrator is intentionally open-ended: any approved agent—including third-party—that exposes an API, tool wrapper, or MCP endpoint can be pulled into a Teams conversational thread. Paige.ai is shipping their Alba agent in preview, the first example of an external agent that can be connected to healthcare agent orchestrator. Built on Paige’s foundation-scale vision models and coupled with a conversational large language model (LLM) front-end, Alba delivers real-time conversational digital pathology insights such as tumor grade, morphology, and biomarker status directly from whole-slide images.  

    “Providence clinical researchers have begun leveraging advanced AI capabilities provided by the healthcare agent orchestrator to quickly and efficiently parse through large sets of publications, clinical trials and electronic health records. We are excited about its potential to enhance our ability to interpret genomics and match clinical trials in the molecular tumor boards, ultimately benefiting patient care by providing more precise and timely treatment options. Its integration into our workflows also will help streamline communication and collaboration among clinical providers, ensuring that critical clinical information is shared promptly and accurately. As we continue to explore new ways to understand the biology of cancer, its capabilities will be instrumental in driving medical discoveries and advancing cancer treatment.”

    —Carlo Bifulco, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Providence Genomics and research faculty at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute

    Empowering developers to accelerate innovations for care teams

    As clinical care complexity escalates, the healthcare agent orchestrator empowers developers to confidently navigate the accelerating era of agentic AI, collaborate with clinicians, and democratize precision medicine tools by surfacing these capabilities into existing workflows. The initial framework is designed to study the opportunity of assisting tumor boards. The ultimate vision is to empower healthcare and life science developers to research how agentic AI capabilities could impact clinicians and patients more widely by providing real-time support to multidisciplinary care teams across the healthcare ecosystem. 

    Healthcare developers and clinical organizations are invited to explore healthcare agent orchestrator, available through the Azure AI Foundry Agent Catalog. Engage with the next generation of AI-powered healthcare agents today.  

    Contact Microsoft Healthcare AI Team

    1 Global cancer statistics 2022: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, April 4, 2024.

    2 Using an Adapted Tumor Board Evaluation Tool for Quality Assessment of a Thoracic Multidisciplinary Cancer Conference: A Pilot Study, JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics, October 5, 2023.

    3 Universal Abstraction: Harnessing Frontier Models to Structure Real-World Data at Scale, February 2, 2025

    4 MAIRA-2: Grounded Radiology Report Generation, June 6, 2024

    5 Nature Medicine, A foundation model for clinical-grade computational pathology and rare cancers detection, July 22, 2024

    6 Scaling Clinical Trial Matching Using Large Language Models: A Case Study in Oncology, August 4, 2023

    Disclaimer

    Healthcare agent orchestrator is intended for research and development use. It is not designed or intended to be deployed in clinical settings as-is nor is it intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of any health or medical condition, and its performance for such purposes has not been established. You bear sole responsibility and liability for any use of healthcare agent orchestrator, including verification of outputs and incorporation into any product or service intended for a medical purpose or to inform clinical decision-making, compliance with applicable healthcare laws and regulations, and obtaining any necessary clearances or approvals. 

    Matthew Lungren, MD, MPH

    Chief Scientific Officer, Health and Life Sciences

    Dr. Matthew Lungren is the Chief Scientific Officer for Microsoft Health and Life Sciences, where he leads efforts to translate cutting-edge technologies—including generative AI and cloud services—into real-world healthcare applications. He is also a Clinical Associate Professor at UCSF and an Adjunct Professor in Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University.

    See more articles from this author

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why is it so hard for young people to get jobs?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Farooq Mughal, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), Management Strategy & Organisation, University of Bath

    antoniodiaz/Shutterstock

    For generations, young people have been told the path to opportunity is clear. Study hard, get a degree, and success will follow. This promise – central to the idea of “meritocracy” – has shaped the aspirations and investments of millions (though in reality, access to university and employment is also shaped by factors like family income, schooling and geography).

    Today, however, many graduates in the UK and elsewhere find they are struggling to land a job – and it’s a problem which extends far beyond roles that match their qualifications. In some cases, graduates are being turned down for roles in supermarkets or warehouses – not because they’re unqualified, but because they’re seen as overqualified, too risky or surplus to requirements.

    In terms of the UK economy, this isn’t just a problem of job shortages. It signals a deeper breakdown in the social contract – the long-held promise that education leads to opportunity. And it exposes how the connection between learning and labour is coming undone.

    As the focus of employers, higher education providers and the state has shifted towards the notion of “employability” – the skills and attitudes that help people get and keep jobs – labour markets have become highly competitive and spoilt for choice.

    At the same time, it’s worth remembering that while employment remains a key concern, the value of education extends far further – shaping personal growth and civic engagement, for example.


    This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.

    You may be interested in:

    Five tips from an expert for choosing a self-help book that will actually work

    How to handle difficult conversations in your early career, from salary negotiation to solving conflict

    Five things young professionals can do today to promote gender equality at work

    Employability places the burden squarely on young people to become work-ready while ignoring the wider barriers they face. These include hiring algorithms, labour market saturation as graduate numbers remain high while vacancies dry up, and uneven access to opportunity.

    Even with degrees and internships, many young people are finding themselves locked out of meaningful work. Research I undertook with colleagues on education-to-work transitions shows how graduates often invest heavily in becoming employable through a mix of soft skills, adaptability and professionalism. But these efforts now rarely guarantee a job.

    Instead, graduates frequently enter a labour market that is both oversaturated and under-responsive. Over the past two decades, the number of graduates in the UK has grown sharply. This surge has intensified competition, pushing many into roles below their qualification level.



    Read more:
    Britain has almost 1 million young people not in work or education – here’s what evidence shows can change that

    The UK government’s Get Britain Working white paper recognises this disconnect. It also highlights the legacy effects of the COVID pandemic, especially among young people aged 16–24 who are not in education, employment or training (Neets) – of which there are now estimated to be 987,000, and rising.

    But while the government’s proposed youth guarantee scheme offers basic training and apprenticeships, it does little for those already in the labour market.

    What’s blocking the way?

    Despite the emphasis on developing skills, many young people – both graduates and non-graduates – struggle to progress in the labour market. For example, the number of entry-level roles in retail, hospitality and logistics is shrinking due to rising costs, automation and algorithmic hiring systems that privilege some over others.

    Recent increases to employer national insurance contributions and the national minimum wage are putting pressure on payrolls, reducing already limited opportunities for young people.

    UK chancellor Rachel Reeves’s 2024 budget contained some shocks for employers.
    Fred Duval/Shutterstock

    This highlights the limits of the popular narrative that effort always leads to reward. The idea that young people just need to try harder collapses under the weight of such constraints.

    Businesses are also facing tight margins, as well as the problems that come with high staff turnover due to a lack of career development opportunities, as rising costs make it harder to invest in staff. But our research shows that even highly motivated graduates – those who network, gain skills, take internships and are adaptable – can struggle to get a foot in the door.

    The UK employment rights bill, which is making its way through parliament, is designed to curb exploitative labour market practices. But professional bodies and trade associations warn that some employers may respond by cutting staff and reducing flexible work.

    While reforms such as reframing the purpose of Jobcentres are critical in making unemployment seem unattractive, they are likely to fall short of creating sustained opportunities.

    Policy paradox

    All of this reveals a paradox. In trying to clamp down on job precarity, the UK government may be shutting young people out of the entry points they need, skilled or otherwise. Well-intentioned policies such as the youth guarantee and employment rights bill risk failure when the labour market often rewards privilege over merit.

    Today’s labour market can penalise young people twice over. First, they’re expected to be employable with the right skillset. Yet even when they are, many find the door shut.

    In my view, the way forward is to create new, accessible roles that reflect a broader duty of care on the part of employers, universities and policymakers. This includes building skills pathways along the lines of the Youth Futures Foundation programme, which works in deprived areas to create pathways that connect young people with support and jobs.

    It also means embedding hiring practices that ensure a closer focus on someone’s potential, such as blind recruitment or diverse hiring panels.

    Incentivising employers to hire and value young talent could be transformative, as could forging partnerships between universities and industry which focus on building the skills needed for employment.

    Government initiatives such as the Trailblazers scheme, which identifies young people at risk of falling out of education or employment, are a good start. But they could be more effective alongside a combination of digital tools that bring together mobile apps for tracking career progress, a skills dashboard, and AI career advice.

    Restoring the social contract means sharing responsibility. Our research finds that employers should regularly review how they assess talent and design career pathways.

    Universities should collaborate with industry to ensure graduate skills align with employer expectations. And the government must address deep-seated inequalities shaped by region, class, race and institutional prestige.

    Ignoring these issues mean they will continue to largely dictate who gets in, who gets ahead, and who gets left out. A collective responsibility ensures that education is recognised not just as a route to employment, but as a cornerstone of a fair, thoughtful and inclusive society.

    Farooq Mughal works for the University of Bath. He is also a Trustee and Director in a non-executive capacity for the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution.

    – ref. Why is it so hard for young people to get jobs? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-hard-for-young-people-to-get-jobs-256532

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: China dominates global trade of battery minerals

    Source: US Energy Information Administration

    In-brief analysis

    May 21, 2025

    Data source: United Nations Statistics Division, UN Comtrade
    Note: Excludes trade within regions.

    China has a major role at each stage of the global battery supply chain and dominates interregional trade of minerals. China imported almost 12 million short tons of raw and processed battery minerals, accounting for 44% of interregional trade, and exported almost 11 million short tons of battery materials, packs, and components, or 58% of interregional trade in 2023, according to regional UN Comtrade data.

    In this article, we consider trade of three key minerals needed for batteries—graphite, lithium, and cobalt—among China and key global regions. These minerals are mined or extracted from natural and synthetic sources, processed for battery material manufacturing, and then used to produce batteries and battery components, with robust trade at each stage. As global demand for electric vehicles, energy storage, and other energy technologies increases, the importance of these minerals and materials also increases.

    Battery mineral production and raw battery minerals trade
    Lithium is produced through brine extraction or hard rock mining, cobalt is primarily produced as a byproduct of nickel and copper mining, and graphite is mined as a natural ore or synthetically produced from pitch and coke. China domestically produced approximately 18% (33,000 short tons) of the world’s mined lithium in 2023, and Chinese companies control 25% of the world’s lithium mining capacity.

    According to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Tearline Project, Chinese companies have significant investments in multiple mining and extraction projects in Argentina, giving China access to the lithium triangle, an area in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile that contains 50% of the world’s lithium. Domestically, China produced 79%, or 1.27 million short tons, of the world’s natural graphite in 2024, according to the U.S. Geological Survey; the United States did not produce any natural graphite that year. Chinese companies own 80% of cobalt production in Congo-Kinshasa, where more than half of global cobalt production is located.

    After production, raw battery minerals are shipped globally to be used as feedstock for refining. China accounted for 46% of the world’s raw battery mineral import trade in 2023, according to the UN Comtrade data. Australia, the world’s largest lithium producer, sent almost all its exports to China alone. China, Australia, and the rest of Asia and Oceania (particularly India and Japan) accounted for 71% of the world’s raw battery mineral import trade in 2023.

    Battery mineral processing and processed battery minerals trade
    China processes over 90% of the world’s graphite, and in 2022, Chinese companies accounted for over two-thirds of the world’s cobalt and lithium processing capacity.

    China imported 20% of the world’s processed battery minerals in 2023, made up of mainly cobalt from Africa. That same year, China exported 58% of the world’s processed battery minerals, mainly synthetic graphite to the rest of Asia and Oceania. China began implementing export restrictions on graphite products related to electrode manufacturing in 2023, and we expect such restrictions to lead to lower graphite exports from China in 2024 and 2025.

    Battery materials manufacturing and battery materials and component trade
    Processed battery minerals are used to produce battery materials, which vary depending on a battery’s chemical composition. China accounted for 53% of the world’s battery material export trade in 2023.

    Battery materials are then used to produce battery components like electrodes, electrolytes, and separators. For example, a lithium-ion battery cell usually includes a graphite anode, lithium-based cathode, and a dissolved lithium salt electrolyte. In 2022, China produced 85% of the world’s anodes, 82% of electrolytes, 74% of separators, and 70% of cathodes.

    China accounted for 74% of the world’s battery pack and component exports in 2023. That same year, China controlled nearly 85% of the world’s battery cell production capacity by monetary value.

    Principal contributor: Gavin Clark

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Aristotle would scoff at Mark Zuckerberg’s suggestion that AI can solve the loneliness epidemic

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Gregg D. Caruso, Professor of Ethics and Management and Director of the Waide Center for Applied Ethics, Fairfield University

    Mark Zuckerberg has said that chatbots could meet a need for Americans who want more friends. Andrej Sokolow/Picture Alliance via Getty Images

    Mark Zuckerberg recently suggested that AI chatbots could combat social isolation by serving as “friends” for people experiencing loneliness.

    He cited statistics that the average American has fewer than three friends but yearns for as many as 15. He was close: According to a 2021 report from the Survey Center on American Life, about half of Americans have fewer than four close friends.

    Zuckerberg then posited that AI could help bridge this gap by providing constant, personalized interactions.

    “I would guess that over time we will find the vocabulary as a society to be able to articulate why that is valuable,” he added.

    Loneliness and social disconnection are serious problems. But can AI really be a solution? Might relying on AI for emotional support create a false sense of connection and possibly exacerbate feelings of isolation? And while AI can simulate certain aspects of companionship, doesn’t it lack the depth, empathy and mutual understanding inherent to human friendship?

    Researchers have started exploring these questions. But as a moral philosopher, I think it’s worth turning to a different source: the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

    Though it might seem odd to consult someone who lived over 2,000 years ago on questions of modern technology, Aristotle offers enduring insights about friendships – and which ones are particularly valuable.

    More important than spouses, kids or money

    In his philosophical text Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle maintained that true friendship is essential for “eudaimonia,” a Greek word that is typically translated as “flourishing” or “well-being.”

    For Aristotle, friends are not just nice to have – they’re a central component of ethical living and essential for human happiness and fulfillment.

    “Without friends, no one would choose to live,” he writes, “though he had all other goods.”

    A 10th-century manuscript of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
    DeAgostini/Getty Images

    A solitary existence, even one of contemplation and intellectual achievement, is less complete than a life with friends. Friendship contributes to happiness by providing emotional support and solidarity. It is through friendship that individuals can cultivate their virtues, feel a sense of security and share their accomplishments.

    Empirical evidence seems to support the connection between friendship and eudaimonia. A 2023 Pew Center research report found that 61% of adults in the U.S. say having close friends is essential to living a fulfilling life – a higher proportion than those who cited marriage, children or money. A British study of 6,500 adults found that those who had regular interactions with a wide circle of friends were more likely to have better mental health and be happier.

    And a meta-analysis of nearly 150 studies found that a lack of close friends can increase the risk of death as much as smoking, drinking or obesity.

    Different friends for different needs

    But the benefit of friendship that Aristotle focuses on the most is the role that it plays in the development of virtue.

    In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identifies three tiers of friendship.

    The first tier is what he calls “friendships of utility,” or a friendship that is based on mutual benefit. Each party is primarily concerned with what they can gain from the other. These might be colleagues at work or neighbors who look after each other’s pets when one of them is on vacation. The problem with these friendships is that they are often fleeting and dissolve once one person stops benefiting from the relationship.

    The second is “friendships of pleasure,” which are friendships based on shared interests. These friendships can also be transient, depending on how long the shared interests last. Passionate love affairs, people belonging to the same book club and fishing buddies all fall into this category. This type of friendship is important, since you tend to enjoy your passions more when you can share them with another person. But this is still not the highest form of friendship.

    According to Aristotle, the third and strongest form of friendship is a “virtuous friendship.” This is based on mutual respect for each other’s virtues and character.

    Two people with this form of friendship value each other for who they truly are and share a deep commitment to the well-being and moral development of one another. These friendships are stable and enduring. In a virtuous friendship, each individual helps the other become better versions of themselves through encouragement, moral guidance and support.

    As Aristotle writes: “Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good and alike in virtue. … Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of their own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good – and goodness is an enduring thing.”

    In other words, friendships rooted in virtue not only bring happiness and fulfillment but also facilitate personal growth and moral development. And it happens naturally within the context of the relationship.

    According to Aristotle, a virtuous friend provides a mirror in which one can reflect upon their own actions, thoughts and decisions. When one friend demonstrates honesty, generosity or compassion, the other can learn from these actions and be inspired to cultivate these virtues in themselves.

    To Aristotle, the most valuable friendships challenge you to become a better version of yourself.
    Anil Oguz/iStock via Getty Images

    No nourishment for the soul

    So, what does this mean for AI friends?

    By Aristotle’s standards, AI chatbots – however sophisticated – cannot be true friends.

    They may be able to provide information that helps you at work, or engage in lighthearted conversation about your various interests. But they fundamentally lack qualities that define a virtuous friendship.

    AI is incapable of mutual concern or genuine reciprocity. While it can be programmed to simulate empathy or encouragement, it does not truly care about the individual – nor does it ask anything of its human users.

    Moreover, AI cannot engage in the shared pursuit of the good life. Aristotle’s notion of friendship involves a shared journey on the path to eudaimonia, during which each person helps another live wisely and well. This requires the kind of moral development that only human beings, who face real ethical challenges and make real decisions, can undergo.

    I think it is best to think of AI as a tool. Just like having a good shovel or rake can improve your quality of life, having the rake and the shovel do not mean you no longer need any friends – nor do they replace the friends whose shovels and rakes you used to borrow.

    While AI may offer companionship in a limited and functional sense, it cannot meet the Aristotelian criteria for virtuous friendship. It may fill a temporary social void, but it cannot nourish the soul.

    If anything, the rise of AI companions should serve as a reminder of the urgent need to foster real friendships in an increasingly disconnected world.

    Gregg D. Caruso 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. Aristotle would scoff at Mark Zuckerberg’s suggestion that AI can solve the loneliness epidemic – https://theconversation.com/aristotle-would-scoff-at-mark-zuckerbergs-suggestion-that-ai-can-solve-the-loneliness-epidemic-256758

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Record pension scheme funding means up to £160 billion ready to boost growth

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Record pension scheme funding means up to £160 billion ready to boost growth

    The reforms will support the Government’s Plan for Change by boosting economic growth and securing the financial future of millions of UK savers.

    • Funding levels in the Defined Benefit (DB) pension sector have hit a record high, with three in four now in surplus and deficit payments down by over £10 billion a year
    • Increased resilience follows years of businesses creating security for members through building a larger surplus.
    • New freedoms to safely release surplus funding will unlock investments and benefit savers as part of the Government’s Plan for Change.

    Working people, pension scheme members and businesses are set to benefit from record highs in pension scheme funding. 

    The majority of DB schemes are now running at a surplus which means the value of their assets exceed that of the promised pension benefits due to members.

    Thanks to the forthcoming Pension Schemes Bill – trustees and employers will soon be able to safely release part of this surplus to boost investment and benefit scheme members. 

    Funding levels for DB pension schemes, sometimes known as “Final Salary” pensions, are current in their strongest ever financial position with the number of DB schemes sufficiently financed tripling since 2010. 

    Minister for Pensions, Torsten Bell, said:

    The record funding levels for Defined Benefit pension schemes is excellent news for Britain’s employers and workers.

    Fast falling deficit payments offer employers a cashflow boost of over £10 billion a year, that can support higher wages and investment. 

    And growing scheme surpluses can also be used productively. Currently some trustees are held back from sharing the benefits of a surplus, but our plans will allow all schemes to safely do so, delivering greater investment across firms and benefits for savers.

    In 2019, just 600 Defined Benefit schemes were financed sufficiently, meaning businesses could meet the costs associated with their schemes without dipping into operational budgets – by 2024 that figure had tripled to over 1,800.

    Because of this robust financial position, the additional payments businesses have had to pay to plug pension deficits has fallen from £16 billion in 2010 to under £5 billion in 2024. This is delivering an immediate cashflow benefit to firms and should support higher levels of investment and wages. 

    The funding position of schemes in deficit has improved significantly, from a collective deficit of £500bn in 2019 to a deficit of just £140bn in 2024. Schemes running at a surplus have seen their collective surplus now rise to more than £160bn. Currently, many schemes cannot access their surplus – but the forthcoming Pension Schemes Bill will allow Pension trustees and the sponsoring employers to safely release some surplus to invest back into their businesses and unlock more money for pension scheme members. The upcoming changes will focus on member protection, and trustees will continue to be required to fulfil their duties towards scheme beneficiaries. 

    These changes form part of a package of reforms in the upcoming Pension Schemes Bill that will secure the financial future of millions of UK savers and drive long-term economic prosperity.

    Additional Information

    Updates to this page

    Published 21 May 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • EPFO adds 14.58 lakh net members in March 2025

    Source: Government of India

    Source: Government of India (4)

    The Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has released its provisional payroll data for March 2025, reporting a net addition of 14.58 lakh members. This marks a year-on-year increase of 1.15% compared to March 2024, highlighting a steady rise in formal employment and growing awareness about social security benefits among the workforce.

    The data reveals that EPFO enrolled approximately 7.54 lakh new subscribers in March 2025, a 2.03% increase over February 2025 and a 0.98% rise compared to March last year. This growth is attributed to improving employment opportunities and increased awareness of EPFO’s benefits among workers entering the organized sector.

    A significant observation from the report is the continued dominance of the 18–25 age group in new registrations. Around 4.45 lakh new members in this category joined EPFO in March, accounting for nearly 59% of all new subscribers for the month. Compared to February 2025, this marks a 4.21% increase, while on a year-over-year basis, this group has grown by 4.73%. The net payroll addition for the same age bracket stands at around 6.68 lakh, indicating a 6.49% increase from March 2024. These numbers reaffirm the trend that most individuals joining the EPFO system are young first-time job seekers entering the formal workforce.

    In addition to new joiners, the data highlights a strong return of members to the EPFO fold. Roughly 13.23 lakh individuals who had previously exited EPFO rejoined in March 2025. This reflects a 0.39% increase over February and a notable 12.17% increase compared to the same period last year. These members chose to transfer their provident fund accumulations rather than withdraw them, a move that not only preserves their long-term savings but also keeps them within the social security framework.

    March also witnessed continued progress in gender inclusion. Around 2.08 lakh women enrolled as new EPFO members, a modest 0.18% increase over February and a 4.18% increase from March 2024. The total net addition of female members stood at approximately 2.92 lakh for the month, with year-over-year growth of 0.78%. This steady rise signals an encouraging shift towards a more inclusive and gender-balanced formal workforce.

    From a regional perspective, the top five states and union territories contributed significantly to the overall net payroll addition, accounting for nearly 59.67% of the total, or about 8.70 lakh members. Maharashtra led the chart, contributing 20.24% of the total net payroll for the month. Other prominent contributors include Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Haryana, Gujarat, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Telangana, each adding over 5% to the overall total.

    Industry-wise, EPFO data revealed month-on-month growth in several sectors, particularly restaurants, cement, general insurance, canteens, forwarding agencies, travel agencies, and hotels. Notably, expert services — which include manpower suppliers, contract workers, security agencies, and related services — accounted for nearly 45.59% of the total net additions.

    It is important to note that EPFO’s payroll data remains provisional, as data generation is a continuous process involving monthly updates to employee records. Historical figures are often revised based on late submissions, changes to filed returns, and updates to exit dates of members.

    Since April 2018, EPFO has been publishing monthly payroll data beginning from September 2017. The statistics are based on Aadhaar-validated Universal Account Numbers (UANs) and reflect net additions by accounting for new members, exits, and re-joinings to the EPFO coverage.

  • MIL-OSI Russia: The first special train loaded with agricultural products from Central Asia has arrived in the Chinese city of Wuhan

    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

    BEIJING, May 21 (Xinhua) — A train loaded with 1,610 tons of feed wheat flour arrived from Almaty to Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, on Tuesday.

    This batch of flour will be delivered to local feed factories. Let us recall that the special train delivered agricultural products from Central Asia to Hubei Province for the first time, writes the Changjiang Ribao newspaper /Yangtze Daily/.

    To meet Hubei Province’s demand for feed raw materials, in recent years, regular China-Europe/Central Asia railway services have opened routes linking the province with cities in Kazakhstan, including Uralsk and Kokshetau.

    Currently, textiles, electronic products, automobiles and other goods are shipped from Hubei to Central Asia. At the same time, a warehouse for goods from Kazakhstan’s Turkestan region has been established in Wuhan.

    Two more freight trains carrying agricultural products are expected to leave Kazakhstan for Wuhan by the end of this month. The volume of such products imported from Central Asia to Hubei will exceed 500,000 tons per year.

    According to statistics, Wuhan’s Wujiashan Station has handled a total of 293 China-Europe/Central Asia freight trains since the beginning of this year. -0-

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: UK House Price Index for March 2025

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government Non-Ministerial Departments

    Press release

    UK House Price Index for March 2025

    The UK HPI shows house price changes for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

    The March data shows:

    • on average, house prices have risen 1.1% since February 2025
    • there has been an annual price rise of 6.4% which makes the average property in the UK valued at £271,000

    England

    In England, the March Data shows on average, house prices rose by 1.3% since February 2025. The annual price rise of 6.7% takes the average property value to £296,000.

    • The North East experienced the most significant monthly increase with a movement of 4.2%
    • London saw the greatest monthly price fall, with a fall of -0.3%
    • The North East experienced the greatest annual price rise, up by 14.3%
    • London saw the lowest annual price growth, with a rise of 0.8%

    The regional data for England indicates that:

    Price change by region for England

    Region Average price March 2025 Annual change % since March 2024 Monthly change % since February 2025
    East Midlands £244,000 7.1 0.7
    East of England £344,000 6.5 1.4
    London £552,000 0.8 -0.3
    North East £168,000 14.3 4.2
    North West £217,000 9.4 2.5
    South East £386,000 5.3 0.7
    South West £311,000 5.3 0.7
    West Midlands £250,000 7.8 1.2
    Yorkshire and the Humber £211,000 9.5 2.0

    Repossession sales by volume for England

    The lowest number of repossession sales in January 2025 was in the South West.

    The highest number of repossession sales in January 2025 was in the North East.

    Repossession sales January 2025
    East Midlands 6
    East of England 5
    London 15
    North East 20
    North West 11
    South East 12
    South West 1
    West Midlands 6
    Yorkshire and the Humber 14
    England 90

    Average price by property type for England

    Property type March 2025 March  2024 Difference %
    Detached £471,000 £448,000 5
    Semi-detached £291,000 £268,000 8.5
    Terraced £247,000 £228,000 8.4
    Flat/maisonette £231,000 £222,000 3.9
    All £296,000 £277,000 6.7

    Funding and buyer status for England

    Transaction type Average price March 2025 Annual price change % since March 2024 Monthly price change % since January 2025
    Cash £282,000 6 1.2
    Mortgage £301,000 7.1 1.3
    First-time buyer £250,000 7.7 1.9
    Former owner occupier £356,000 5.6 0.5

    Building status for England

    Building status* Average price January 2025 Annual price change % since January 2024 Monthly price change % since December 2025
    New build £416,000 17.4 -1.1
    Existing resold property £285,000 3.6  

    *Figures for the 2 most recent months are not being published because there are not enough new build transactions to give a meaningful result.

    London

    London shows, on average, house prices decreased by 0.3% since Jan 2025. House prices have shown an annual price increase of 0.8% meaning the average price of a property is £552,000.

    Average price by property type for London

    Property type March 2025 March 2024 Difference %
    Detached £1,097,000 £1,099,000 -0.3
    Semi-detached £694,000 £669,000 3.7
    Terraced £620,000 £606,000 2.2
    Flat/maisonette £444,000 £447,000 -0.7
    All £552,000 £547,000 0.8

    Funding and buyer status for London

    Transaction type Average price March 2025 Annual price change % since March 2024 Monthly price change % since February 2025
    Cash £583,000 -2.1 -0.7
    Mortgage £546,000 1.7 -0.2
    First-time buyer £477,000 1.4 0.5
    Former owner occupier £677,000 -0.1 -1.6

    Building status for London

    Building status* Average price January 2025 Annual price change % since January 2024 Monthly price change % since December 2024
    New build £564,000 11.9 -0.7
    Existing resold property £561,000 1.5 1.2

    *Figures for the 2 most recent months are not being published because there are not enough new build transactions to give a meaningful result.

    Wales

    Wales shows, on average, house prices fell by 0.2% since February 2025. An annual price increase of 3.6% takes the average property value to £208,000

    There were 3 repossession sales for Wales in January 2025.

    Average price by property type for Wales

    Property type March 2025 March 2024 Difference %
    Detached £321,000 £318,000 0.9
    Semi-detached £208,000 £198,000 4.9
    Terraced £166,000 £158,000 4.9
    Flat/maisonette £133,000 £129,000 3.1
    All £208,000 £201,000 3.6

    Funding and buyer status for Wales

    Transaction type Average price March 2025% Annual price change % since March 2024 Monthly price change % since December 2024
    Cash £208,000 2.7 0.3
    Mortgage £208,000 4.1 0.2
    First-time buyer £180,000 4.6 0.6
    Former owner occupier £247,000 2.4 -0.3

    Building status for Wales

    Building status* Average price January 2025 Annual price change % since January 2024 Monthly price change % since December 2024
    New build £355,000 19.9 -0.5
    Existing resold property £206,000 4.9 0.9

    *Figures for the 2 most recent months are not being published because there are not enough new build transactions to give a meaningful result.

    UK house prices

    UK house prices rose by 6.4% in the year to March 2025, up from the revised estimate of 5.5% in the 12 months to Feb 2025. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, average house prices in the UK increased by 1.1% between February 2025 and March 2025, compared with a increase 0.2% from the same period 12 months ago (February 24 and March 2024).

    The UK Property Transactions Statistics showed that in March 2025, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the estimated number of transactions of residential properties with a value of £40,000 or greater was 177,000. This is 104.3% higher than a year ago (March 2025). Between February 2025 and March 25, UK transactions increased by 61.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis.

    House price monthly increase was highest in The North East where prices increased by 4.2% in the year to March 2025. The highest annual growth was in the The North East, where prices increased by 14.3% in the year to March 2025.

    See the economic statement.

    The UK HPI is based on completed housing transactions. Typically, a house purchase can take 6 to 8 weeks to reach completion. As with other indicators in the housing market, which typically fluctuate from month to month, it is important not to put too much weight on one month’s set of house price data.

    Access the full UK HPI

    Background

    1. We publish the UK House Price Index (HPI) on the second or third Wednesday of each month with Northern Ireland figures updated quarterly. We will publish the April 2025 UK HPI at 9:30am on Wednesday 18 June 2025. See calendar of release dates.
    2. We have made some changes to improve the accuracy of the UK HPI. We are not publishing average price and percentage change for new builds and existing resold property as done previously because there are not currently enough new build transactions to provide a reliable result. This means that in this month’s UK HPI reports, new builds and existing resold property are reported in line with the sales volumes currently available.
    3. The UK HPI revision period has been extended to 13 months, following a review of the revision policy (see calculating the UK HPI section 4.4). This ensures the data used is more comprehensive.
    4. Sales volume data is available by property status (new build and existing property) and funding status (cash and mortgage) in our downloadable data tables. Transactions that require us to create a new register, such as new builds, are more complex and require more time to process. Read revisions to the UK HPI data.
    5. Revision tables are available for England and Wales within the downloadable data in CSV format. See about the UK HPI for more information.
    6. HM Land Registry, Registers of Scotland, Land & Property Services/Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and the Valuation Office Agency supply data for the UK HPI.
    7. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Land & Property Services/Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency calculate the UK HPI. It applies a hedonic regression model that uses the various sources of data on property price, including HM Land Registry’s Price Paid Dataset, and attributes to produce estimates of the change in house prices each month. Find out more about the methodology used from the ONS and Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.
    8. We take the UK Property Transaction statistics  from the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) monthly estimates of the number of residential and non-residential property transactions in the UK and its constituent countries. The number of property transactions in the UK is highly seasonal, with more activity in the summer months and less in the winter. This regular annual pattern can sometimes mask the underlying movements and trends in the data series. HMRC presents the UK aggregate transaction figures on a seasonally adjusted basis. We make adjustments for both the time of year and the construction of the calendar, including corrections for the position of Easter and the number of trading days in a particular month.
    9. UK HPI seasonally adjusted series are calculated at regional and national levels only. See data tables.
    10. The first estimate for new build average price (April 2016 report) was based on a small sample which can cause volatility. A three-month moving average has been applied to the latest estimate to remove some of this volatility.
    11. The UK HPI reflects the final transaction price for sales of residential property. Using the geometric mean, it covers purchases at market value for owner-occupation and buy-to-let, excluding those purchases not at market value (such as re-mortgages), where the ‘price’ represents a valuation.
    12. HM Land Registry provides information on residential property transactions for England and Wales, collected as part of the official registration process for properties that are sold for full market value.
    13. The HM Land Registry dataset contains the sale price of the property, the date when the sale was completed, full address details, the type of property (detached, semi-detached, terraced or flat), if it is a newly built property or an established residential building and a variable to indicate if the property has been purchased as a financed transaction (using a mortgage) or as a non-financed transaction (cash purchase).
    14. Repossession sales data is based on the number of transactions lodged with HM Land Registry by lenders exercising their power of sale.
    15. For England, we show repossession sales volume recorded by government office region. For Wales, we provide repossession sales volume for the number of repossession sales.
    16. Repossession sales data is available from April 2016 in CSV format. Find out more information about repossession sales.
    17. We publish CSV files of the raw and cleansed aggregated data every month for England, Scotland and Wales. We publish Northern Ireland data on a quarterly basis. They are available for free use and re-use under the Open Government Licence.
    18. HM Land Registry is a government department created in 1862. Its vision is: “A world-leading property market as part of a thriving economy and a sustainable future.”
    19. HM Land Registry’s purpose is: “We protect your land ownership and provide services and data that underpin an efficient and informed property market.”
    20. HM Land Registry safeguards land and property ownership valued at £8 trillion, enabling over £1 trillion worth of personal and commercial lending to be secured against property across England and Wales. The Land Register contains more than 26.5 million titles showing evidence of ownership for more than 89% of the land mass of England and Wales.
    21. For further information about HM Land Registry visit www.gov.uk/land-registry.
    22. Follow us on @HMLandRegistry, our blog, LinkedIn and Facebook

    Contact

    Press Office

    Trafalgar House
    1 Bedford Park
    Croydon
    CR0 2AQ

    Email HMLRPressOffice@landregistry.gov.uk

    Phone (Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5:30pm) 0300 006 3365

    Mobile (5:30pm to 8:30am weekdays, all weekend and public holidays) 07864 689 344

    Updates to this page

    Published 21 May 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Investors leased more than 30 properties from the city to open private schools and kindergartens

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    The city has concluded more than 30 lease agreements with entrepreneurs for buildings and premises under the “1 ruble per square meter per year” program for opening private educational organizations. This was reported by the Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Urban Development Policy and Construction Vladimir Efimov.

    “The program “1 ruble per square meter per year” for opening kindergartens and schools has been in effect in the capital since 2013. At present, 31 real estate lease agreements with a total area of 44.3 thousand square meters have been concluded with investors. Thanks to the program, 24 private educational institutions are already operating in the capital. Entrepreneurs occupy 36.1 thousand square meters of space at a preferential rate, which allows them to save over 600 million rubles annually,” said Vladimir Efimov.

    Under the program “1 ruble per square meter per year” for educational facilities, the city puts up buildings and premises in different areas of the capital for specialized auctions. The winner is determined by the highest rent price that he is willing to pay during the renovation and preparation for the opening of the institution. After restoration work and fulfillment of all requirements of the capital Department of Education and Science The tenant can switch to a preferential rate of one ruble per square meter per year. The total term of the lease agreement is 49 years.

    “At seven sites with a total area of over 8.2 thousand square meters, entrepreneurs continue preparatory work to open private educational institutions. They will appear in the north, northwest, southeast of Moscow, as well as in the Novomoskovsky administrative district. Since the beginning of 2025 alone, two buildings have been transferred to the winners of the tenders – this is almost 1.8 thousand square meters. In Shcherbinka, it is planned to open a school for 150 students, and in the Voykovsky district – a kindergarten for 30 pupils,” she noted.

    Ekaterina Solovieva, Minister of the Moscow Government, Head of the Moscow Department of City Property.

    According to the head of the capital’s Department of Competition Policy Kirill Purtov, the demand for city premises for opening educational institutions under the preferential program is confirmed by statistics. In 2024, the average competition at auctions for the right to lease such facilities was five participants per lot.

    More information about current offers from the city, including preferential programs, is published onMoscow investment portal. To participate in the auction, you will need to register on the electronic trading platform. “RoselTorg” and enhanced qualified electronic signature.

    How educational institutions save on rent thanks to the cityHow the preferential rent program helps capital entrepreneurs save money

    The development of electronic services for entrepreneurs is being implemented within the framework of the national project “Data Economy”.

    Get the latest news quicklyofficial telegram channel the city of Moscow.

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect

    https: //vv.mos.ru/nevs/ite/154109073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Counts in Bradfield and Calwell become clearer, while Jacqui Lambie faces a possible problem in the Tasmanian Senate

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

    Counting in several extremely close seats continues, but some results have become clearer. In Liberal-held Bradfield, Teal candidate Nicolette Boele has taken the lead, while the Calwell distribution of preferences indicates an independent is on track to pass the Liberals and benefit from their preferences against Labor. Meanwhile, Jacqui Lambie may have a problem in the Tasmanian Senate contest.

    Labor has won 93 of the 150 House of Representatives seats, the Coalition 43, all Others 12 and two remain undecided (Bradfield and Calwell). After Tuesday’s split between the Liberals and Nationals, the ABC has the Liberals on 28 seats and the Nationals on 15, with the Liberals to form the official opposition.

    The Australian Electoral Commission has 18 Liberals, nine Nationals and 16 seats won by Queensland’s Liberal National Party. LNP members can caucus with either the Liberals or Nationals, so they are splitting 10–6 to the Liberals.

    I will continue to use Coalition in my coverage of this election, as the Liberal and National parties contested the election as the Coalition. It would be difficult to split the LNP vote into its Liberal and National components.

    In the close seats, Boele leads the Liberals by 43 votes in Bradfield. She had trailed by 43 votes before the final votes were counted on Monday. The Poll Bludger said the last 181 formal postals counted favoured Boele by 125–56, giving her 69% of that batch.

    Of the just over 14,000 total formal postal votes counted in Bradfield, the Liberals have won by 56.4–43.6. But late postals are often much better for the left than early ones.

    What’s happening now in Bradfield is a full distribution of preferences, in which candidates are excluded from the bottom up on primary votes. If the margin after this distribution is complete is under 100 votes, there will be an automatic recount.

    In Goldstein, Teal incumbent Zoe Daniel’s late surge has fallen short, as she trails Liberal Tim Wilson by 135 votes with everything counted, in from a 292-vote deficit last Thursday.

    As with Bradfield, there will now be a full distribution of preferences in Goldstein. If the margin after this distribution is under 100 votes, there will be a recount. Daniel could also request a recount, but even if there is a recount, Wilson is very likely to win.

    In Labor-held Calwell, which has 13 candidates, final primary votes were 30.5% Labor, 15.7% Liberals, 11.9% for independent Carly Moore, 10.7% for independent Joseph Youhana, 8.3% for the Greens and 6.9% for independent Samim Moslih.

    The danger for Labor is that either Moore or Youhana overtake the Liberals on the distribution of preferences, then beat Labor at the final count on Liberal preferences. The AEC has a page that is updated with each exclusion in the preference distribution.

    After six exclusions, the totals are 32.8% Labor, 17.1% Liberals, 14.7% Moore, 12.1% Youhana, 9.9% Greens, 7.9% Moslih and 5.6% One Nation (to be excluded next). Analyst Kevin Bonham says Moore needs 7.5% more than the Liberals to make the final two, and 67% of overall preferences to beat Labor. For Youhana, these figures are 13.4% and 69%.

    Lambie may have a problem in the Tasmanian Senate contest

    I have previously covered the Senate count. There have only been minor changes to the primary votes since that May 9 article. The Poll Bludger has modelled the state Senate contests using 2022 election preference flows.

    According to this model, Labor will win the last seat in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, but only narrowly in WA. In Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie and the Liberals would edge out Labor. As I wrote previously, this result would give Labor 30 of the 76 total senators, the Coalition 27, the Greens 11, One Nation two and others six.

    For a state a quota is one-seventh of the vote or 14.3%. In Tasmania Labor has 2.48 quotas, the Liberals 1.65, the Greens 1.13, Jacqui Lambie 0.51, One Nation 0.35 and Legalise Cannabis 0.24. One Nation will be the last exclusion, and whichever of Labor, the Liberals or Lambie is last after One Nation’s preferences are distributed loses.

    There’s evidence that One Nation’s preferences have become better for the Coalition at this election than in 2022. In Capricornia, which had a One Nation primary vote of 15.5%, the LNP share of overall preferences increased nine points since 2022 to 62%.

    Lambie wants the salmon farming industry to stop farming in Macquarie Harbour and says they should move offshore. This stance could cost her preferences from One Nation and other right-aligned parties.

    I expect One Nation and other right-wing preferences in Tasmania to go strongly enough to the Liberals to give the Liberals one of the last two undecided seats, with the final seat between Labor and Lambie.

    Labor is pro-salmon farming, so perhaps Lambie could benefit from Greens and Animal Justice preferences (the Greens have a small surplus over one quota and Animal Justice has 0.09 quotas).

    Tasmanian poll and upper house elections

    A Tasmanian state EMRS poll, conducted May 13–17 from a sample of 1,000, gave Labor 31% of the vote (up one since February), the Liberals 29% (down five), the Greens 14% (up one), the Jacqui Lambie Network 6% (down two), independents 17% (up five) and others 4% (up one).

    Tasmania uses a proportional system for its lower house elections, so a two-party estimate is not applicable. Incumbent Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff’s net favourability was down four points to +6, while Labor leader Dean Winter’s was down one to +5. Rockliff led Winter by 44–32 as preferred premier (44–34 previously).

    Every May two or three of Tasmania’s 15 upper house seats are up for election for six-year terms. The Poll Bludger said Tuesday that current upper house standings are four Liberals, three Labor, one Green and seven independents. On Saturday there will be elections in Liberal-held Montgomery, Labor-held Pembroke and independent-held Nelson.

    European elections wrap

    I covered Sunday’s European elections in Romania, Portugal and Poland for The Poll Bludger. In Romania the centrist defeated the far-right candidate by 53.6–46.4, but the left had a dismal result in Portugal. I also covered recounts in the April 28 Canadian election and polls ahead of the June 3 South Korean presidential election.

    Adrian Beaumont 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. Counts in Bradfield and Calwell become clearer, while Jacqui Lambie faces a possible problem in the Tasmanian Senate – https://theconversation.com/counts-in-bradfield-and-calwell-become-clearer-while-jacqui-lambie-faces-a-possible-problem-in-the-tasmanian-senate-257122

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: LCQ7: Managing passenger flows at land boundary control points

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

    Following is a question by Professor the Hon William Wong and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Logistics, Ms Mable Chan, in the Legislative Council today (May 21):

    Question:

    It has been reported that during the Labour Day Golden Week holiday on May 2 when a large number of Mainland tourists visited Hong Kong, the mobile network and Wi-Fi system at MTR Lok Ma Chau Station were overwhelmed as a large number of passengers simultaneously used their mobile phones to scan QR code tickets to enter and leave via turnstiles, and thus a significant number of passengers were stranded. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

    (1) whether it has compiled statistics on the number of passengers stranded at Lok Ma Chau Station on May 2 due to the failure of the mobile network and station Wi-Fi system;

    (2) as passengers were being stranded at Lok Ma Chau Station on May 2, whether the Government has communicated with relevant Mainland authorities to notify passengers who intended to enter Hong Kong via the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line Control Point that they should use alternative boundary control points (BCPs); given that Shenzhen Metro Line 4 is operated by the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL), whether the Government has urged MTRCL on the same day to immediately notify passengers travelling on Line 4 of the passenger stranding situation at Lok Ma Chau Station and called on them to cross the border via alternative BCPs;

    (3) whether the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has conducted drills with relevant Mainland authorities regarding unexpected incidents at BCPs and formulated various contingency plans; and

    (4) whether simulation tests have been conducted at all BCPs to establish co-ordination mechanisms and joint response measures between the Mainland and Hong Kong for handling peak passenger flows and potential unexpected incidents (including emergency situations such as malfunctions of immigration systems, baggage and security screening system failures, and railway service disruptions); if so, of the time when such tests were conducted; if not, whether such tests will be conducted in the future?

    Reply:

    President,

    The Golden Week holiday is the peak period of Mainland visitors visiting Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government has been maintaining close liaison with relevant organisations and parties to prepare well for arrangements of boundary control points (BCPs), public transportation, crowd management, etc, with a view to ensuring the smooth operation of various aspects in receiving visitors and offering a high-quality experience to them. In view of this year’s Labour Day Golden Week holiday, the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL) had made advance preparations by enhancing the train services for cross-boundary railways (including Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau Stations of the East Rail Line, and the Hong Kong West Kowloon High Speed Rail Station), as well as deploying additional staff and strengthening information dissemination. Meanwhile, the MTRCL maintained close liaison with relevant departments at the BCPs, so as to adjust train services in a timely manner according to the situation at the BCPs, and provide visitors with safe, reliable and convenient railway services.

    In consultation with the Security Bureau, the Transport Department (TD) and the MTRCL, my consolidated reply to the question raised by Professor the Hon William Wong is as follows:

    (1) As observed by the MTRCL, during this year’s Labour Day Golden Week holiday, the number of visitors arriving in or exiting from Hong Kong via the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line Control Point using the MTR East Rail Line and the total patronage were slightly higher than those of the same period last year. On May 2 (Friday) this year, the peak arrival and departure periods for Mainland visitors were in the morning and evening respectively, during which an average of approximately 7 500 visitors entered and exited Lok Ma Chau Station per hour.

    During the peak departure period in the evening, a relatively large number of passengers used their phones at the same time to activate QR codes at ticket gates, resulting in a sudden surge in mobile data demand within a short period of time; the pressure on the mobile network providers’ provision of mobile data also intensified the passengers’ demand for Wi-Fi capacity at the station. As a result of the overall overloading of mobile data and Wi-Fi networks, passengers needed longer time for connection to the network to retrieve the QR codes, leading to a higher passenger flow at the stations’ entry/exit gates and concourse at certain periods of time. The MTRCL immediately took contingency measures in response to the actual situation, such as diverting passenger queues before the gates, adjusting the operation of individual escalators as appropriate to control the passenger flow, and intermittently allowing passengers to exit the gates without having to tap their cards from approximately 9.45pm to 10.30pm to divert passenger flow. Throughout this period, the Transport and Logistics Bureau (TLB) and the TD maintained close communication with the MTRCL and promptly urged the MTRCL to enhance services in all aspects to ensure the smooth and safe operation of the station in face of the large patronage. 

    To cope with the peak travelling period for visitors during the Labour Day Golden Week this year, the MTRCL anticipated that there would be an increase in demand for network data capacity by passengers. As such, arrangements were made before the Golden Week to increase the in-station Wi-Fi capacity for supplementary purpose to cater for the needs of passengers who require internet access but do not have mobile network data. In light of the situation that occurred on the evening of May 2, the MTRCL promptly contacted mobile network providers in that same evening to immediately upgrade the mobile data capacity near BCPs as well as further increase the Wi-Fi capacity at Lok Ma Chau Station so as to facilitate the use of QR codes for passengers to take trains.

    In response to the aforementioned situation, the TLB has requested the MTRCL to review its arrangements for future visitor peak periods based on the experience gained this time. The MTRCL will also enhance its publicity efforts on Mainland social media platforms to remind visitors to activate their QR codes for payment in advance, thereby reducing the time spent at the gates. In addition, the MTRCL will promote the use of mobile Octopus for tourists as another payment option that does not require internet connection. The MTRCL will further discuss with relevant parties on how to manage passenger flow more effectively and plan ahead to ensure that the peak passenger flow can be handled more smoothly in future.

    (2) The Inter-departmental Joint Command Centre, comprising the Police, the Immigration Department, the Customs and Excise Department and relevant parties (including the MTRCL), was activated during the Labour Day Golden Week (i.e. from May 1 to 5, 2025) to monitor the real-time situations at various BCPs. The Joint Command Centre maintained close liaison with the Mainland port authorities through the established port hotlines and real-time notification mechanisms, and took timely contingency actions as necessary to ensure the smooth operation of the land control points.

    In addition, relevant departments at BCPs continuously monitored real-time situations at the control points and maintained liaison with the corresponding Mainland port authorities, including immediate mutual notification of the passenger flow situation upon learning about the heavy network traffic at the MTR Lok Ma Chau Station on May 2 this year as well as implementation of appropriate crowd control and diversion measures to facilitate passenger flow and maintain order at the BCP.

    (3) and (4) The HKSAR Government and relevant Mainland authorities have conducted incident drills at various BCPs from time to time, simulating emergencies such as fires, power supply failures, immigration system malfunctions and infectious disease incidents. These drills aim to formulate and practise contingency plans, strengthen co-ordination between departments and various parties and enhance overall response capabilities, thereby ensuring safety and order at BCPs in the event of unexpected incidents. Recent joint exercises include the flooding evacuation drill at the Express Rail Link West Kowloon Control Point in March 2025 and the joint exercise at the Lo Wu Control Point in October 2024 to simulate scenarios of power supply and system network incidents at the Hong Kong Port and contingency measures taken by relevant parties.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Interest rates are coming down. Here’s what homeowners should know about refinancing

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ama Samarasinghe, Lecturer, Financial Planning and Tax, RMIT University

    doublelee/Shutterstock

    On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia cut the target cash rate by 0.25 percentage points. It now sits at 3.85% – the lowest since May 2023.

    Australia’s big four banks were all quick to announce they would be passing the cuts on to borrowers. If you’ve got a mortgage, you might be wondering if this is your cue to act.

    Refinancing your home loan – whether by negotiating a better deal with your current lender or switching to a new one – could save you thousands over the life of your loan.

    However, it won’t be the right decision for everyone. And there are some important things to know about how the process works – including hidden costs and risks.

    What is refinancing?

    Refinancing simply means replacing your existing home loan with a new one – either from your current lender or a different one. The goal? To take advantage of better loan terms.

    If you’re on a “variable rate” loan, your lender may already be passing on some or all of the recent rate cut (though you may have had to opt in).



    Read more:
    RBA cuts interest rates, ready to respond again if the economy weakens further

    But if you’re on a “fixed rate” loan, your repayments will stay the same until your fixed term ends – meaning you might not benefit from the cut unless you refinance (though break costs could apply).

    Switching to a loan with a lower rate can mean smaller monthly repayments. Or, by keeping repayments the same size but with a lower interest rate, you could potentially pay off a loan faster and save in the long term.

    Refinancing activity has been trending up since 2021, with external refinancing (switching banks) rising significantly among both owner-occupiers and investors. That’s a clear sign many borrowers are chasing better deals.

    Refinancing activity could increase further after this month’s rate cut.
    Zivica Kerkez/Shutterstock

    Can refinancing save you money?

    Yes – if it’s right for you and you do it right. Switching to a lower interest rate could slash thousands off your yearly repayments.

    If you’ve built up equity, you might be able to release funds to reinvest or improve your property. Some lenders also offer refinancing cashback deals – one-off payments to attract new customers.

    There are some important things to consider – including some traps to avoid – if you’re thinking about refinancing your home loan.

    1. Be mindful of your loan-to-value ratio

    Loan-to-value ratio (LVR) is the amount you borrowed as a percentage of the property’s value or purchase price.

    If your LVR is above 80%, you probably paid lenders mortgage insurance (LMI) on your original loan, designed to protect the lender in case you default.

    If your current loan still exceeds 80% of your home’s value (based on the new lender’s valuation), you might need to pay LMI again. That cost could wipe out any benefit from a lower rate.

    2. Careful how you compare

    When comparing rates and repayments, make sure you’re comparing apples with apples.

    If you’ve already paid five years on a 30-year loan, you have 25 years left. But when you ask a new lender for a quote, they may show repayments based on a full 30-year term – which could make the monthly repayment look much lower.

    To make a fair comparison, ask for quotes based on your remaining loan term. If you decide to switch, aiming for a loan with the same term can help you avoid paying more interest in the long run.

    3. Factor in all associated costs

    Refinancing comes with costs. These may include:

    • break fees if you’re leaving a fixed-term loan early
    • settlement fees for your current lender to close out the loan
    • application and valuation fees with the new lender
    • ongoing monthly fees that might not seem large but can add up over time.

    Also, if you’re applying to multiple lenders to compare offers, be aware requesting multiple credit checks in a short space of time can negatively impact your credit score.

    4. Consider renegotiating with your existing lender first

    Lenders rarely offer their best deals to existing customers – unless you ask. In fact, they often reserve the most attractive deals for new customers.

    Consider picking up the phone and asking for a rate review. If you have a better offer from another bank, you may be able to use that as leverage.

    Staying with your current lender can have advantages. It may be quicker and easier than refinancing with another lender. But don’t let loyalty cost you – especially if better rates are on the table elsewhere.

    5. Don’t assume your repayments will drop automatically

    For borrowers on variable loans, some banks don’t automatically reduce your repayments after a rate cut. You may need to manually adjust them through your bank’s app or website, or “opt in”.

    Alternatively, keeping your repayment amount the same could help you pay off your loan faster and reduce interest costs.

    Banks don’t always automatically adjust variable loan repayments after a rate cut.
    David Lade/Shutterstock

    6. Check your credit score before applying

    Your credit score can play a key role in refinancing. Lenders use it to assess how risky it is to lend to you – and it can affect the interest rate you’re offered.

    If your score has dropped since you first took out your loan, you may not qualify for the best deals.

    Check your score through your bank or a free online service before you apply. If it’s low, take time to improve it before refinancing to boost your chances of approval and better rates.

    For an estimate of your potential savings from refinancing, try the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)’s MoneySmart mortgage switching calculator.

    Disclaimer: This article provides general information only and does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is not intended as financial advice. Before acting on any information, consider whether it is appropriate for your circumstances.

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

    – ref. Interest rates are coming down. Here’s what homeowners should know about refinancing – https://theconversation.com/interest-rates-are-coming-down-heres-what-homeowners-should-know-about-refinancing-257116

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Media Advisory: Police graduation tomorrow in Porirua

    Source: New Zealand Police

    Media are invited to the 384 Allan Boreham Police recruit wing graduation.

    What:   Graduation of the New Zealand Police Allan Boreham 384 Recruit Wing.
    Who:   For families and friends to celebrate with the newly attested Police officers.
    Why:   Completion and graduation from their initial training course.
    Where:  Te Rauparaha Arena, 17 Parumoana Street, Porirua.
    When:  Thursday 22 May at 2pm – media will need to be in place by 1.45pm.
    How:    RSVP the Police Media Centre if you’re attending: media@police.govt.nz

    Commissioner Richard Chambers will be attending the ceremony, along with Her Worship Anita Baker, the Mayor of Porirua. Also attending will be members of the Police executive and Wing Patron, former Assistant Commissioner Allan Boreham.

    The three top award winners will be deployed to Eastern, Wellington and Tasman Districts. 

    The 384 Wing Patron:

    Allan Boreham is a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police and former head of Youth Justice for Oranga Tamariki, Ministry for Children. Allan holds the New Zealand Police in very high esteem and is honoured to be the patron for Wing 384.

    He says he is looking forward to supporting the wing members to succeed and gain all the satisfaction a Police career offers. Allan joined Police in 1985 (in Wing 97) and served for more than 33 years. He was also a Deputy Chief Executive in the public service for five years in charge of Youth Justice.

    His Police career was varied and involved completing a wide range of roles in public safety, investigations, and road policing. These included postings in Auckland, Tokoroa, Hamilton and Wellington. He received an award for his leadership in solving the 1997 kidnapping and murder of an Auckland businessman, Graham Kirkwood.

    More details about statistics, prize winners and other recruits will be shared after graduation on Thursday.

    ENDS

    Issued by Police Media Centre

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Canada’s consumer price index rose 1.7 percent in April

    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

    OTTAWA, May 20 (Xinhua) — Canada’s consumer price index rose 1.7 percent year-on-year in April, slower than the 2.3 percent increase in March, Statistics Canada said Tuesday.

    As noted, the slowdown in inflation in April was caused by a decrease in energy prices, which fell by 12.7 percent after a decrease of 0.3 percent in March.

    Excluding energy, the consumer price index rose by 2.9 percent in April, compared to 2.5 percent in March.

    On a monthly basis, the consumer price index fell by 0.1 percent in April –0–

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: LCQ14: Promoting research and development of Hong Kong

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

         Following is a question by the Hon Tang Fei and a written reply by the Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin, in the Legislative Council today (May 21):
     
    Question:
     
    According to a research publication released by the Legislative Council Secretariat last month, the number of research and development (R&D) personnel per million population in Hong Kong is significantly lower than that of neighbouring regions, and the proportion of local research postgraduates is continuously declining. There are views that research postgraduates also face multiple challenges in employment and the transformation of research outcomes. If such issues are not addressed in a timely manner, Hong Kong’s future innovation development and economic restructuring will be affected. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
     
    (1) given that according to the aforesaid research publication, Hong Kong currently has only 4 809 researchers per million population, lagging far behind Singapore and South Korea, whether the Government has drawn up specific measures to attract and nurture local R&D talent, particularly in STEM fields; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; whether it has set specific targets and timelines to increase the number of local R&D personnel in the next three years;
     
    (2) given that according to the aforesaid research publication, in the 2022-2023 academic year, only 63 per cent of research postgraduates from universities funded by the University Grants Committee secured full-time employment within six months after graduation, and only 11.6 per cent of graduates could manage to find jobs directly related to their studies, whether the Government has tailor-made support measures to address the employment challenges faced by research postgraduates, so as to help them maximise their potential and meet the needs of the local R&D industry; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and
     
    (3) as there are views pointing out that while Hong Kong’s R&D outcomes reach international standards, they fall short in terms commercialisation and industrialisation, whether the Government will strengthen efforts to promote industry-academia-research collaboration to enhance the industrialisation of R&D outcomes and foster the development of an innovative economy; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
     
    Reply:
     
    President,
     
    The Government has all along been dedicated to promoting the development of innovation and technology (I&T), with a view to driving economic restructuring and more diversified development. Apart from the nation’s clear support for Hong Kong’s development into an international I&T hub under the 14th Five-Year Plan, the recently promulgated 2024-2035 master plan on building China into a leading country in education also proposed to establish an integrated co-ordinating mechanism for education, technology and talent, strengthening the supportive role of education for science and talent, closely tying in with the development of technological innovative centres in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the development of a highland for high-level calibre and platform for attracting talent, and enhancing the overall efficacy of the innovation system.
     
    The replies from the Education Bureau and the Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau to the Hon Tang Fei’s question are as follows:
     
    (1) and (2) The Government has been expanding the local research and I&T talent pool through a multi-pronged approach. On the front of nurturing talent, the Government guides the University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded universities to align their planning with the nation’s strategy of invigorating China through science and education, and support the goal of developing Hong Kong into an international I&T hub, including setting the key performance indicators in the 2022 Policy Address with 35 per cent of the students pursuing UGC-funded programmes to study in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) subjects. In addition, publicly-funded research postgraduate (RPg) places have been gradually increased from 5 595 in the 2022/23 academic year to 7 200 places in the 2024/25 academic year. Together with the gradual uplift of the over-enrolment ceiling from 70 per cent in the 2021/22 academic year to 100 per cent, institutions could flexibly enrol 14 400 RPg students at most, which is an increase of more than half, to constantly expand the I&T and research talents of Hong Kong.
     
    Additionally, the STEM Internship Scheme under the Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC) subsidises undergraduates and postgraduates taking full-time STEM-related programmes to enrol in short-term internships, so as to foster their interest early in pursuing careers in I&T after graduation. The Research Talent Hub under the ITC also provides funding support for eligible companies or organisations to engage university graduates to conduct research and development (R&D) work.
     
    For attracting talent front, the InnoHK Research Clusters has successfully attracted R&D talents from all over the world to Hong Kong, with over 2 500 local, overseas and Mainland researchers involved, and has provided training for over 1 200 PhD students. The ITC will launch the Frontier Technology Research Support Scheme, with a view to attracting international top-notch talents to conduct basic research in frontier technologies in Hong Kong and nurture local researchers.
     
    According to the report “Hong Kong Innovation Activities Statistics 2023” released by the Census and Statistics Department in December 2024, the number of R&D personnel has reached 43 403 in 2023, which has increased steadily over the years.
     
    (3) With an aim to enhance the I&T ecosystem and Hong Kong’s competitiveness on the I&T front, the Government has been promoting collaboration among the industry, academic and research sectors through various measures, and adopting a multi-pronged approach to support commercialisation of R&D outcomes of local universities. For example, the $10 billion Research, Academic and Industry Sectors One-plus Scheme under the Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) funds, on a matching basis, research teams from universities with good potential to become successful start-ups to transform and commercialise their R&D outcomes, while industry sponsorship is a mandatory requirement. Furthermore, the ITF will continue to provide annual funding to the Technology Transfer Office of each of the eight UGC-funded universities, thereby supporting the development of innovative ideas and R&D outcomes into new products or services. The R&D centres set up by the Government have also been taking forward industry-driven applied R&D work that suits market needs and transferring technologies to the industries through contract researches, licensing arrangements, etc to commercialise their R&D outcomes. Meanwhile, the Government facilitated the establishment of the Hong Kong New Industrialisation Development Alliance. Pooling together talent and resources from various fields, the Alliance aims to serve as a platform for collaboration among the Government, industry, academia, research and investment sectors. With a view to promoting co-operation among enterprises and organisations, we believe that the Alliance will also be conducive to the promotion of transformation and commercialisation of R&D outcomes.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI China: China’s lesser-known destinations draw more inbound tourists

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

    .

    Basking in the sunshine, John Jammet and his wife sat in the courtyard of a traditional house in the historic Pingyao County of north China’s Shanxi Province, with coffee in hand. Their trip seemingly offered them a glimpse into the lives of Chinese back in the day.

    “Last night we traveled in the main streets and the lanterns were very beautiful,” said the man from France. “What attracted me most were a lot of young girls and boys wearing traditional clothes. It showed that they love their culture and history.”

    Fascinated by the video game “Black Myth: Wukong,” Jammet became interested in the culture behind it, and thus decided to come to China and have a look. The couple carefully planned their trip, with it including China’s capital Beijing, Pingyao, the ancient capital Xi’an in northwest China and the picturesque Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in south China, reflecting their quest to see “both modern cities and traditional culture.”

    “In the Western world, I think there is misunderstanding about China, because our countries are different,” he explained. “It is important to see with our own eyes what’s the truth about China. For me, China is safe and clean, people are kind and helpful.”

    At the mention of China, images that immediately jump into the minds of many foreign tourists are normally the Great Wall, giant pandas and the many skyscrapers in the bustling metropolis of Shanghai in east China.

    Thanks partly to China’s eased visa policies, an increasing number of foreign tourists are now also turning their attention to lesser-known destinations to delve deeper into Chinese history and culture, just like Jammet and his wife.

    Foreign tourists learn to make traditional wheaten food at a homestay in Pingyao, north China’s Shanxi Province, May 15, 2025. (Photo by Qiao Yan/Xinhua)

    OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

    As of the beginning of May, China has granted unilateral visa-free entry to people from 38 countries, and has extended its visa-free transit period to 240 hours for travelers from 54 countries.

    In 2024, China recorded 64.88 million border crossings by foreign nationals, an 82.9-percent increase year on year. In the first quarter of 2025, this number stood at 17.44 million, up 33.4 percent compared to the same period in 2024.

    During the five-day May Day holiday, the most recent vacation in China for family outings and tourism, statistics regarding air ticket bookings on Chinese travel services platform Qunar showed that in addition to the megacities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the lower-tier cities of Chengdu, Xiamen, Nanjing, Chongqing and south China’s Haikou were also among the top-ranking destinations for non-Chinese tourists. In addition, hotel bookings made by foreign passport holders in Zhuhai, east China’s Qingdao and central China’s Wuhan grew by 70, 60 and 50 percent respectively.

    Hotels, restaurants and even hairdressers in residential areas not very close to traditional attractions in Beijing are beginning to greet foreign tourists, while small cities and counties are also seeing more inbound visitors.

    Zachary Iziah Smith, an American travel blogger, poses for a photo at Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, northwest China’s Gansu Province, April 11, 2025. (Xinhua)

    Kang Mobei is general manager of a shop affiliated to the Gansu Provincial Museum, which sells creative cultural products inspired by items in the museum, like a green fluffy toy based on the iconic copper galloping horse.

    Notably, Gansu Province in northwest China is home to many historical sites, including the Mogao Grottoes UNESCO World Heritage Site. During the May Day holiday, she found more foreign tourists in her shop, many of whom came from countries like Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and Japan.

    “Some of them had already been to the museum, and a few even showed me pictures they found on social media platforms like ‘rednote’ when asking for products,” said Kang, who observed that some customers had fluffy toys from other creative cultural product shops dangling from their bags.

    With overseas customers in mind, the store installed POS machines for international bank cards and carried out language training for their staff.

    A foreign visitor (L) learns how to make matcha beverage at a tea industrial park in Jiangkou County, southwest China’s Guizhou Province, April 14, 2025. (Xinhua/Yang Wenbin)

    EASIER, FASTER, BETTER KNOWN

    To meet this increasing demand from foreign customers for niche tourist destinations, Chen Wanni and Chen Min last year founded China Explorer Tour (CET), a tour operating company specializing in authentic food, adventure and cultural-immersion themed retreats and experiences across China.

    “It was more successful than we had expected,” said Chen Wanni, admitting that she was prepared for a loss in the first year, but surprisingly they managed to break even. The referral rate of the tourist routes reached 60 percent, with many customers recommending to their friends to come back, while quite a few have come more than once.

    “Tourism is not only an industry, but also a window for overseas travelers to learn about China,” she said.

    Chen Min informed Xinhua that more and more overseas tourists are expressing interest in China’s lesser-known destinations, in addition to the traditional attractions, representing the maturity of the nation’s tourism industry in recent years.

    Tom Peacock-Nazil from Britain last September booked a 10-day tour with CET, and visited not only Beijing and Xi’an but also southwest China’s Guizhou Province, where he saw both the stunning beauty of nature and various ethnic cultures.

    “I realized I had massively underestimated China,” he said. “I think I’ve fallen in love with China. That’s mainly because we’ve been off the beaten track. I’m dying to come back and I’ve been learning about other provinces. I’ve got plans already.”

    Tom Peacock-Nazil (2nd R) and other tourists pose for a photo in Leishan County, southwest China’s Guizhou Province, in September 2024. (China Explorer Tour/Handout via Xinhua)

    Sun Weili, a regional manager with the Chinese travel platform Trip.com Group, noted that the surge in foreign tourists for in-depth tours in China is a result of combined efforts. “Along with eased visa policies, they can also feel the convenience in terms of payment and traffic, as well as more diversified tours,” he said.

    For instance, a 16-day luxury train tour from Chengdu to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has attracted overseas visitors, which promises to take them to an in-depth journey to the northwestern region. So far tickets for all the 10 trips between May and October have been sold out, with 70 percent of the customers inbound tourists.

    Meanwhile, thanks to movies, video games and social media, Chinese culture is better promoted across the world, luring more curious overseas visitors to have a closer look. “We are more open and confident,” Sun said.

    Zhang Jun, who is with a travel agency in Datong in Shanxi, has worked as a tour guide for 18 years. He has noted the huge development of inter-city transportation which has made self-guided tours possible. “For instance, we used to sit in overnight trains and transfer to reach Pingyao from Beijing. But now the journey takes less than four hours.”

    John Jammet this time traveled in China for 15 days, which he found not enough to explore the country. “China is big,” he said. “I might need to spend a month here.”

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: MNCs foresee tailwinds for vibrancy

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

    The momentum generated by government policies aimed at stabilizing foreign investment, combined with the rapid growth of green and artificial intelligence-driven economies, will deliver strong tailwinds for foreign companies in China this year, said foreign business executives.

    With rising global economic headwinds and uncertainty over United States’ trade policies, many global enterprises are opting to consolidate their presence in China, with plans to maintain or expand investment.

    China’s stable and business-friendly environment supported a modest rebound in foreign direct investment in March, with actual FDI inflows into the Chinese mainland increasing by 13.2 percent year-on-year, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

    Marelli Holdings Co Ltd, a Saitama, Japan-headquartered multinational automotive parts manufacturer with more than 50 manufacturing facilities across the world, will expand its engineering team from 800 to 1,000 in China over the next three years.

    “Many opportunities arise from Chinese automakers’ rapid shift toward electrification and intelligence, especially in the form of software-defined vehicles, which are setting new benchmarks for speed, scale and innovation,” said David Slump, the group’s president and CEO.

    With China and the US agreeing to de-escalate trade tensions last week, Slump said that these two countries are major markets for Marelli.

    “We are closely monitoring and assessing the situation, and are committed to minimizing any impact on our operations and customers,” said Slump. He added that the company is already exporting advanced products and solutions from China to other markets, including Europe, Mexico and Southeast Asia.

    Also upbeat about the Chinese market, British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced in March an investment of $2.5 billion to establish in Beijing its sixth global strategic R&D center, and further expand its biotech innovation partnerships and local manufacturing capabilities.

    The new facility will advance early-stage research and clinical development and will be enabled by a new AI and data science laboratory.

    Susan Galbraith, executive vice-president, oncology R&D, Astra-Zeneca, said that having two of its six global strategic R&D centers in China reflects the group’s confidence in China’s world-class biomedical innovation ecosystem and reinforces the nation’s critical role in its global R&D strategy.

    Ji Wenhua, a professor at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies, which is part of the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said that China’s well-developed industrial bases, strong supply chain resilience and policy emphasis on innovation continue to make it an attractive destination for global capital.

    According to China’s 2025 Action Plan for Stabilizing Foreign Investment, the country will support pilot regions in effectively implementing opening-up policies related to areas such as value-added telecommunication, biotechnology and wholly foreign-owned hospitals, providing whole-journey services for foreign-invested projects in these sectors.

    The action plan also supports foreign businesses to participate in China’s new industrialization, with a focus on high-tech fields. Global capital has been welcomed in service sectors such as elderly care, culture and tourism, sports, healthcare, vocational education and finance.

    As part of its strategy to strengthen operations in China, US express transportation service provider FedEx Corp announced in mid-May that it would enhance its international export services from Shanghai.

    The cutoff times for same-day outbound shipments from Shanghai to Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, India and Africa will be further extended.

    The foreign trade value of foreign-invested businesses reached 4.1 trillion yuan ($567.51 billion) in China between January and April, up 1.9 percent year-on-year, accounting for 29 percent of China’s total foreign trade value, statistics from the General Administration of Customs showed.

    In the meantime, Jiangsu province, a major hub for foreign-invested companies, recorded 864.25 billion yuan in foreign trade value, up 7.2 percent year-on-year, according to Nanjing Customs.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Highlights: SMSF quarterly statistical report March 2025

    Source: New places to play in Gungahlin

    Our March 2025 quarterly statistical report on the self-managed super fund (SMSF) sector is now live. Visit our Self-managed super fund statistics page to access the report and explore the latest insights.

    Highlights include:

    • There are 646,168 SMSFs.
    • There are 1,197,293 members of SMSFs.
    • The total estimated assets of SMSFs are $1.01 trillion.
    • The top asset types held by SMSFs (by value) are:
      • listed shares (26% of total estimated SMSF assets)
      • cash and term deposits (16%).
    • 53% of SMSF members are male and 47% are female.
    • 85% of SMSF members are 45 years or older.

    Read the full report for further statistics about:

    • SMSF fund and member demographics
    • estimates on SMSF asset holdings
    • annual ‘flows’ in and out of SMSFs.

    Looking for the latest news for SMSFs? You can stay up to date by visiting our SMSF newsroom and subscribingExternal Link to our monthly SMSF newsletter.

    MIL OSI News –