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Category: Transport

  • MIL-OSI USA: Rep. Pettersen Meets With Providers & Administrators at Planned Parenthood Arvada Health Center Following Trump’s Effort to Ban Medicaid-Covered Planned Parenthood Treatments

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Brittany Pettersen (Colorado 7th District)

    SEE PICTURES FROM TUESDAYS EVENT

    LAKEWOOD – U.S. Representative Brittany Pettersen (CO-07) visited the Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountain’s (PPRM) Arvada clinic to hear from providers and administrators about the impacts of Trump’s ban on Medicaid coverage for care at Planned Parenthood. The ban was part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which specifically prohibited Medicaid recipients from using Planned Parenthood for their health care. PPRM therefore had to immediately notify around 15,000 patients, around 25% of their patient base, that they could no longer be treated at Planned Parenthood facilities, and were unable to offer an alternative for care. But on Monday, a federal judge ruled the federal government must allow Medicaid to reimburse Planned Parenthood for patient care.

    During the visit, Pettersen met with providers and administrators to discuss the real consequences of these changes, specifically, how individuals depend on these clinics for more than just reproductive services, and how these increased barriers, especially for rural and low-income individuals, could cause harm when they have access to few alternatives. In the first week alone, this local clinic had to notify 100 patients that they were unable to see them for their appointments that week. For many patients, Planned Parenthood is the only place they’ve ever known for getting the care they need. Pettersen also heard firsthand about the struggles PPRM has experienced with the chaotic implementation and judicial process around this ban. The Arvada clinic has 13 employees and the need for an additional provider, but the situation has created a difficult climate for hiring.

    “Trump not only handpicked the radical Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe vs Wade, he has also stripped coverage for reproductive healthcare away for patients who rely on Medicaid through his “big ugly bill.”  Like so many women, I relied on Planned Parenthood for access to health care when I was uninsured. In many places, Planned Parenthood is the only option people have to access care and Donald Trump and the Republicans are leaving millions of Americans with nowhere to turn” said Rep. Pettersen.  “As a mom, I know there isn’t anything more personal than deciding if you want to start a family and nobody should make that decision for you, especially Donald Trump. I’m outraged by his cruelty and the impacts this will have on women for years to come. Women and Americans deserve so much better than this.”

    “This law was designed to punish people on Medicaid who rely on Planned Parenthood for life-saving reproductive and sexual health care. It’s a cruel and calculated attack on health equity, and it’s having real, devastating consequences for our patients across Colorado.  In just the first nine days after the law took effect, nearly 1,000 patients across our region were denied essential care. These are people who couldn’t pick up their birth control, missed time-sensitive abortion care services, or were turned away from cancer screenings and STI treatment. These aren’t just numbers—they’re our neighbors, our friends, and our family members. Republicans in Congress who voted for this heinous bill should be ashamed of themselves” said Adrienne Mansanares, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. 

    Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion care provider, but they also provide basic care, including annual screenings, birth control, and other gynecological care. Each year, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains serves nearly 100,000 people at their 23 health centers in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Planned Parenthood estimates that 1 in 5 women have relied on Planned Parenthood for care at some point in their lives.

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: King Cosponsors Legislation to Streamline Green Card Status for At-Risk Immigrant Youth

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Maine Angus King

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) is cosponsoring legislation to help provide an expedited pathway to green card status for young immigrants under 21 whose case of abandonment, abuse or neglect by their legal guardian has been evaluated and affirmed by a U.S. state court. The Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Act, S. 1965, aims to exempt Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) children from annual employment-based visa caps. This would end years-long backlogs and allow these children to move forward with their lives as lawful, productive, permanent residents of the United States.

    “For generations, our country has been a beacon of hope for immigrants seeking a better life,” said Senator King. “However, navigating the immigration system and pathway to legal citizenship is often a lengthy, cumbersome process — especially for younger immigrants trying to escape abuse or neglect. The Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Act would gently ease some of the barriers to obtaining a green card for vulnerable minors and help keep these children safe and out of harm’s way. We owe it to the young people seeking refuge in our country to provide them with the tools and support to achieve their American dream.”

    The Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) was established in 1990 to create a pathway to lawful permanent residence (a “green card”) for immigrant children who have been abandoned, abused or neglected by their parents or guardians. Children who receive SIJS have faced horrific conditions in their home countries, leaving them unable to return and often with few resources here in the U.S. Despite being a humanitarian visa, the pathway to a green card for SIJS children runs through the employment-based immigration visa system — subjecting SIJS recipients to annual worldwide and country-specific visa limits. This has resulted in thousands of children stuck in a backlog, unable to move forward with their lives.

    The Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Act is cosponsored by Senators Cortez Masto (D-NV), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Peter Welch (D-VT), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Patty Murray (D-WA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM).

    Senator King is a strong opponent of the Trump Administration’s continued efforts to repeal protections for DACA recipients, also referred to as “Dreamers.” He has repeatedly sought a legislative solution to provide stability for DACA recipients. Most recently, he sent a letter to Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Angelica Alfonso-Royals, highlighting the popular support for providing Dreamers a pathway to citizenship and request that the Trump Administration comply with the recent Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that mandated the resumption of processing of DACA applications. Most recently, he cosponsored a bill to prohibit the sharing of personal data of DACA program applicants with immigration officials.

     

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: WATCH: On Medicaid’s 60th Anniversary, Hickenlooper Hammers Republicans’ Reckless Decision to Gut Medicaid, Strip Health Care from 15 Million Americans

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator John Hickenlooper – Colorado

    Hickenlooper: “They are making the people who suffer the most suffer more. That is not the America that I believe in.” 

    Hickenlooper helped introduce new legislation to repeal Republicans’ health cuts, protect rural hospitals, seniors’ nursing care

    WASHINGTON – Today, on Medicaid’s 60th anniversary, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper spoke on the Senate floor to call out the Republicans’ disastrous budget bill that slashes more than $1 trillion in funding for Medicaid and health care services to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. He also joined his Senate Democratic colleagues to introduce two new bills that would repeal the Republicans’ health care cuts in their “Big Beautiful Betrayal.”


    “They cut more than $1 trillion from Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and food stamps – the programs that help struggling Americans meet their most basic human need for food and health care. Again, just so they could pass the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of our country,”     said Hickenlooper.

    Earlier this month, Republicans narrowly passed their extreme budget bill that will increase prices for Coloradans, lead to 15 million Americans losing their health care, increase the deficit by $4 trillion, and hand out tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.

    Specifically, their bill slashed more than $1 trillion in Medicaid funding and failed to extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits. As a result, an estimated 15 million people will lose health benefits.

    In his speech, Hickenlooper highlighted how these cuts to Medicaid will disproportionally hurt rural hospitals like Sunrise Monfort Community Health Clinic in Evans, Colorado.

    “Sunrise’s network of 14 rural health clinics serves 43,000 patients across a broad swath of Northern Colorado. [50%] of them are enrolled in either Medicaid or Medicare,” Hickenlooper continued. “They estimate that those cuts in Medicaid will force between 7,000-14,000 of their patients off of health care. That’s ¼ of their patients. Again, all because lawmakers in Washington had decided to give still bigger tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy.”

    Hickenlooper voted NO on the bill after Republicans voted down critical Democratic-led amendments to prevent cuts to Medicaid, extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits, and safeguard small businesses and nursing homes from Medicaid cuts. He fought against the bill in the Senate and has continued to raise alarm about its impacts after Republicans passed it.

    Hickenlooper introduces bills to reverse health care cuts

    Today, Hickenlooper joined the entire Democratic caucus to introduce two new bills that would rollback the Republicans’ disastrous health cuts in their budget bill and protect health care for millions of Americans.

    The Protecting Health Care and Lowering Costs Act would repeal all of the provisions in the health section of the Republicans’ dangerous bill. Specifically, it would prevent millions of Americans from losing their health care and rural health clinics from closure. The legislation would also extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax cuts which lower health care costs for millions of Americans. 

    The Restoring Essential Health Care Act would specifically repeal the provision in the Republicans’ reckless bill that defunds Planned Parenthood. The Republican provision restricts Medicaid reimbursements for organizations that offer abortion services, even though it is already illegal to use federal funding for abortion. This week a federal judge blocked the provision.

    To download a full video of Hickenlooper’s remarks, click HERE. A full transcript of his remarks is available below:

    “Mr. President,

    “The United States is the wealthiest country on earth.

    “I think it’s fair to say it’s the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Probably in the history of the solar system.

    “What we do with that wealth speaks volumes about who we are as a country.

    “And about the responsibility we feel to our fellow Americans. It defines us.

    “Earlier this month, Republicans passed, what I would call, a truly devastating budget bill that gives many of the wealthiest people in this country – many of whom don’t want a tax break – but gives many of the wealthiest people in this country and corporations a $4.5 trillion tax break.

    “That was their goal. They just needed to find a way to pay for it. Well actually, they only paid for a small part of it.

    “But in doing so they cut more than $1 trillion from Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and food stamps – the programs that help struggling Americans meet their most basic human need for food and health care.

    “Again, just so they could pass the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of our country.

    “That speaks volumes about who this administration values.

    “But what does the bill mean for Americans?

    “Over time, 15 million Americans are going to lose their health care. Are likely to lose their health coverage. 241,000 of them live in Colorado. Hundreds and hundreds of hospitals around the country are at risk of closure, many of them in Colorado.

    “Take the Sunrise Monfort Community Health Clinic in Evans, Colorado.

    “We were there in May, and Sunrise’s network of 14 rural health clinics serves 43,000 patients across a broad swath of Northern Colorado. [50%] of them are enrolled in either Medicaid or Medicare.

    “And we spoke with their CEO back in May, and we were told point blank that gutting Medicaid… will force them to dramatically cut services.

    “They estimate that those cuts in Medicaid will force between 7,000-14,000 of their patients off of health care. That’s ¼ of their patients.

    “Again, all because lawmakers in Washington had decided to give still bigger tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy, and again many of whom don’t want or need tax cuts.

    “It’s nuts. 

    “The administration knew taking health care away from many Americans would be unpopular.

    “So they crafted and snuck in a provision to solve that: most of the Medicaid cuts won’t take place until 2027.

    “Why wait until 2027, you might ask? Well because it’s after the midterm elections at the end of 2026.

    “They basically gutted our social safety net system, and then they found a way to make sure that Republicans would be insulated from the immediate political costs, from their voters.

    “That’s why right now they’re building a massive public relations campaign to go out and sell the bill to Americans.

    “They, so far, completely deny that this bill is going to harm Americans in any way. Instead, they say it’s about government “efficiency” and cutting out waste, fraud, and abuse.

    “Well listen, I’m all for making government more efficient. When I was Mayor of Denver, we made the city smaller. We had a hiring freeze for 2 ½ years. We asked workers to do more with less and they did that. But we did it in increments and we worked to make sure that people knew how much they were valued, and that they could make a difference.

    “When I was Governor of Colorado, we balanced our budget every single year. We went through every board and regulation that we could find on the books – 24,500 rules and regulations. And we simplified or eliminated 11,000. We did all this without cutting services and without cutting resources that people rely on.

    “Now Republicans knew they were going way beyond “waste, fraud, and abuse” – that’s part of the reason it took 24 hours of voting and arm-twisting to pass this, what we call in my family, god-awful bill. They knew they were going to be hurting their constituents, and Americans.

    “The bill itself is a prime example of, what my grandfather used to call, a drunken spending spree –  it’s gonna cost the American people more than $4 TRILLION when you consider the interest payments on the national debt.

    “And none of the arguments that the Republicans have used have legs.

    “Ultimately, the bill isn’t just $1 trillion in cuts from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act – it really, through these rules and paperwork, creates new barriers to access. That means more paperwork, more hoops for families to jump through.

    “Under Trump’s Big Ugly Bill, government “efficiency” just means rolling out the red tape. Miles and miles of it.

    “And who pays the price?

    “Well, rural Coloradans are going to pay some price. People living in Cortez, Lamar, or Rifle will pay a price when their closest health care center closes.

    “Pregnant women who have to drive 50 miles to get to their closest hospital…

    “Kids who lose their health care because their parents had to navigate so much red tape to prove they do in fact meet the requirements will pay the cost.

    “Adult children who can’t provide sufficient “proof” that their full-time job is taking care of a disabled parent.

    “Now, listen to this. If you’re a single adult in Colorado, you don’t even qualify for Medicaid if you earn [more] than $1,735 a month. That means making less than $10.01 an hour.

    “If you make $10.02 an hour you already don’t qualify for Medicaid. So people making less than $10 an hour have to fill out reams of paperwork to demonstrate that they qualify.

    “They should be able to show their W2 and say ‘Hey, I’m making $9.50 an hour’ and that should be enough.

    “But somehow there’s a worry that people making less than $10 an hour should have to fill out all of this other paperwork. What kind of a bizarre world do we live in?

    “Bottom line: Republicans are cutting costs by punishing the poorest and most needy in our country when they can’t keep up. They are making the people who suffer the most suffer more.

    “That’s not the America that I believe in.

    “The Medicaid system isn’t perfect.

    “It exists in our country, because that country decided that no matter where you live, or how little money you make, working Americans deserve basic health care.

    “Who knows, someday we might get everyone covered. It’s a vow we need to make.

    “And certainly when we created Medicaid it was a vow we made to help take care of many of the neediest people in our country.

    “Because our country is measured not by how we treat the people at the very top, but how we treat large numbers of Americans who start at the bottom, striving for a better life.

    “That’s how our country should be measured.

    “And that’s the dream we are all chasing.

    “And ultimately, it’s the American people who will have the final word.

    “Thank you, Mr. President, I yield the floor.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Breaking the cycle of gender-based violence | Briser le cycle de la violence fondée sur le sexe

    Alberta’s government is investing in prevention-focused initiatives to stop violence before it starts. One-time grants totalling $720,000 will support three community-led programs that promote healthy relationships, emotional well-being and positive role modelling among men and boys. These programs help create the necessary conditions for healing and long-term safety.

    Gender-based violence affects people of all ages, genders and backgrounds across Alberta. With two in three women and one in three men experiencing sexual violence in their lifetime, there is a clear need to support prevention efforts that include and engage men and boys.

    “Men and boys are key partners in our work to end gender-based violence and this funding strengthens programs that build safer communities for everyone. I am grateful to the front-line workers leading that change and helping to break the cycle of violence today.”

    Tanya Fir, Minister of Arts, Culture and Status of Women

    This investment delivers on Priority 2: Prevent gender-based violence before it begins, as outlined in Building on Our Strengths: Alberta’s 10-Year Strategy to End Gender-Based Violence. The strategy commits to supporting targeted prevention programs that engage and mobilize more men and boys as partners in stopping violence at its roots.

    “Ending gender-based violence means engaging everyone – especially men and boys. Through our federal government’s National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, we’re proud to support Alberta’s efforts to create safe, supportive spaces where healing is nurtured and violence is stopped before it starts.”

    Rechie Valdez, federal Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism)

    These programs go beyond prevention, offering safe, supportive spaces where men and boys can heal, grow and reconnect with their communities after experiencing violence. Trusted community organizations will deliver these services to those at risk of experiencing or committing harm.

    “Preventing gender-based violence requires a collaborative approach including men. We are pleased to see the government support Men& now and in the future as part of its 10-Year Strategy. We look forward to using this investment to advance data-driven strategies to create a future free from domestic violence and abuse.”

    Kim Ruse, CEO, Fear is Not Love Society

    “Culturally rooted support for Indigenous men and boys is crucial to preventing gender-based violence. The Government of Alberta’s financial support of the I Am A Kind Man program helps Friendship Centres build capacity to be an essential catalyst for the development of respectful relationships founded on traditional values.”

    Joanne Mason, CEO, Alberta Native Friendship Centres Association

    “If we are going to be successful in preventing gender-based violence, we need to go upstream and stop the violence before it starts. This funding is supporting three rural Alberta communities to look closely at the social conditions that allow violence to take root – and identify how local leaders can help change those conditions to create safer, healthier communities.”

    Reave MacLeod, co-acting CEO, YWCA Banff

    In addition to this targeted grant, Alberta’s government continues investing more than $188 million in provincewide supports. This includes emergency shelters, safe transportation, legal assistance and other critical supports.

    Quick facts

    • Men and boys are  by gender-based violence both as victims and perpetrators, with one-third of Canadian men experiencing some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime.
    • The $720,000 investment expands three ongoing community-led initiatives that engage men and boys in violence prevention. The grant recipients are:
      • Fear is Not Love Society – $280,000 ($210,000 in 2024–25, $70,000 in 2025–26)
      • Alberta Native Friendship Centres Association (ANFCA) – $200,000
      • Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) Banff – $240,000
    • The grant includes $650,000 in federal funding for 2024–25 as part of the bilateral agreement under the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.

    Related information

    • Alberta’s 10-Year Strategy to End Gender-Based Violence

    Related news

    • Alberta takes action: Ending gender-based violence (May 13, 2025)

    L’Alberta fait progresser sa stratégie décennale, Bâtir sur nos forces, en investissant dans des programmes qui aident les hommes et les garçons à prévenir la violence fondée sur le sexe.

    Le gouvernement de l’Alberta investit dans des initiatives axées sur la prévention afin de stopper la violence avant qu’elle ne survienne. Des subventions ponctuelles totalisant 720 000 $ soutiendront trois programmes communautaires qui favorisent les relations saines, le bien-être émotionnel et les modèles positifs chez les hommes et les garçons. Ces programmes contribuent à créer les conditions nécessaires à la guérison et à la sécurité à long terme.

    La violence fondée sur le sexe touche des gens partout en Alberta, quels que soient leur âge, leur sexe et leurs origines. Puisque deux femmes sur trois et un homme sur trois subissent des violences sexuelles au cours de leur vie, il est essentiel de soutenir les efforts de prévention qui incluent et mobilisent les hommes et les garçons.

    « Les hommes et les garçons sont des partenaires clés dans le travail que nous menons pour mettre fin à la violence fondée sur le sexe, et ce financement renforce les programmes qui contribuent à bâtir des communautés plus sûres pour toutes et pour tous. Je suis reconnaissante envers le personnel de première ligne qui mène ce changement et qui contribue déjà à briser le cycle de la violence. »

    Tanya Fir, ministre des Arts, de la Culture et de la Condition féminine

    Cet investissement répond à la priorité numéro 2, « Prévenir la violence fondée sur le sexe avant qu’elle ne survienne », telle que définie dans le document Bâtir sur nos forces : Stratégie décennale de l’Alberta pour mettre fin à la violence fondée sur le sexe. La stratégie s’engage à soutenir des programmes de prévention ciblés qui mobilisent davantage les hommes et les garçons et qui en font des partenaires pour enrayer la violence à sa source.

    « Mettre fin à la violence fondée sur le sexe signifie mobiliser tout le monde – en particulier les hommes et les garçons. Nous sommes fiers de notre Plan d’action national pour mettre fin à la violence fondée sur le sexe, qui soutient les efforts de l’Alberta pour créer des environnements sûrs et bienveillants, où la guérison est appuyée et où la violence est stoppée avant même qu’elle n’éclate. »

    Rechie Valdez, ministre fédérale des Femmes et de l’Égalité des genres et secrétaire d’État (Petites entreprises et Tourisme)

    Ces programmes vont au-delà de la prévention : ils offrent des environnements sûrs et bienveillants où les hommes et les garçons peuvent guérir, évoluer et se reconnecter à leur communauté après avoir vécu de la violence. Des organismes communautaires de confiance offriront ces services aux personnes à risque de subir ou de commettre des actes de violence.

    « Prévenir la violence fondée sur le sexe nécessite une approche collaborative dont les hommes font partie. Nous sommes heureux de voir le gouvernement soutenir Men& dès maintenant et dans l’avenir dans le cadre de sa stratégie décennale. Nous avons hâte d’utiliser ce financement pour faire progresser des stratégies éclairées par des données afin de créer un avenir sans violence ni abus. »

    Kim Ruse, directrice générale, Fear is Not Love Society

    « Pour prévenir la violence fondée sur le sexe, les hommes et les garçons autochtones ont absolument besoin d’un soutien enraciné dans leur culture. Le soutien financier du gouvernement de l’Alberta au programme I Am A Kind Man aide les centres d’amitié à renforcer leur capacité pour devenir ainsi un catalyseur essentiel au développement de relations respectueuses fondées sur les valeurs traditionnelles des Autochtones. »

    Joanne Mason, directrice générale, Alberta Native Friendship Centres Association

    « Si nous voulons réussir à prévenir la violence fondée sur le sexe, nous devons intervenir en amont et stopper la violence avant qu’elle ne survienne. Ce financement soutient trois communautés rurales de l’Alberta dans l’analyse des conditions sociales qui permettent à la violence de s’enraciner et dans l’identification des moyens par lesquels les chefs de file locaux peuvent changer ces conditions et créer ainsi des communautés plus sûres et plus saines. »

    Reave MacLeod, codirectrice générale intérimaire, YWCA Banff

    En plus de cette subvention ciblée, le gouvernement de l’Alberta continue d’investir plus de 188 millions de dollars dans des mesures de soutien mises de l’avant à l’échelle provinciale, notamment des refuges d’urgence, des services de transport sécurisés, de l’aide juridique et d’autres mesures essentielles.

    En bref

    • Les hommes et les garçons sont touchés par la violence fondée sur le sexe à la fois comme victimes et comme auteurs : un homme canadien sur trois subira en effet une forme de violence conjugale au cours de sa vie.
    • L’investissement de 720 000 $ permet d’élargir trois initiatives communautaires en cours qui mobilisent les hommes et les garçons dans la prévention de la violence. Les bénéficiaires sont les suivants :
      • Fear is Not Love Society – 280 000 $ (210 000 $ en 2024-2025, 70 000 $ en 2025-2026)
      • Alberta Native Friendship Centres Association (ANFCA) – 200 000 $
      • Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) Banff – 240 000 $
    • La subvention comprend 650 000 $ de financement fédéral en 2024-2025 dans le cadre de l’accord bilatéral du Plan d’action national pour mettre fin à la violence fondée sur le sexe.

    Renseignements connexes

    • Stratégie décennale de l’Alberta pour mettre fin à la violence fondée sur le sexe

    Actualités connexes

    • L’Alberta prend des mesures pour mettre fin à la violence fondée sur le sexe (13 mai 2025)

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI: Equasens: H1 revenue at 30 June 2025: €116.0m

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Villers-lès-Nancy (France), 31 July 2025 – 6:00 PM (CET)

    PRESS RELEASE

    H1 revenue at 30 June 2025: €116.0m
    +7.4% on a reported basis and +6.4% like-for-like

    H1 2025 Group revenue (€m) 2024
    Reported basis    		 2025
    Reported basis    		 Change /
    Reported basis    		 Of which external growth Like-for-like change
    (organic growth)
    Q1 53.3 57.0 3.7 6.9% 0.5 3.2 5.9%
    Q2 54.7 58.9 4.3 7.8% 0.5 3.8 6.9%
    Total 108.0 116.0 8.0 7.4% 1.1 6.9 6.4%
    H1 2025 revenue / Division (€m) 2024
    Reported basis    		 2025
    Reported basis    		 Change /
    Reported basis    		 Of which external growth Like-for-like change
    (organic growth
    Pharmagest 82,1 85,9 3,9 4,7%   3,9 4,7%
    Axigate Link 15,4 16,5 1,0 6,7%   1,0 6,7%
    e-Connect 5,5 7,5 2,0 36,6%   2,0 36,6%
    Médical Solutions 3,9 5,1 1,1 29,1% 1,1 0,1 2,2%
    Fintech 1,1 1,0 -0,1 -7,6%   -0,1 -7,6%
    Total 108,0 116,0 8,0 7,4% 1,1 6,9 6,4%

    As of 30 June 2025, Equasens Group (Euronext Paris™ – Compartment B – FR 0012882389 -EQS), a leading provider of digital solutions for healthcare professionals, reported revenue of €116.0m, up 7.4% from H1 2024 on a reported basis and 6.4% like-for-like.

    Revenue from CALIMED SAS, acquired by the Medical Solutions Division in December 2024, was restated to reflect changes in the scope of consolidation (€1.1m).

    H1 2025 highlights by type of business

    In order to facilitate the analysis of performance, a new breakdown of the Group’s activities is proposed: “maintenance and subscriptions” includes all recurring revenues, and “software and services” mainly includes license sales and revenues from training, consulting, and intermediation.

    • Configuration and hardware sales (+9.9%) remain a major growth driver for the Group, particularly for the Pharmagest (+6.1%) and e-Connect (+125.9%) Divisions
    • Maintenance and subscriptions (+5.5%) grow steadily, benefiting from customer loyalty and the success of SaaS offerings, particularly in the Axigate Link Division (+5.6%). Calimed (Medical Solutions Division) contributed growth of 2.0% to this segment.
    • Software solutions and services (+6.4%) continue to perform very well, driven by license sales, particularly those linked to the Pharmagest Division’s latest product launches (+4.6%) and by new deployments by the Axigate Link Division (+8.9%).
    H1 2025 revenue / Activity (€m) 2024**
    Reported basis    		 2025
    Reported basis    		 Change / Reported basis
    Configurations and hardware 42.9 47.1 4.2 9.9%
    Maintenance and subscriptions 48.7 51.4 2.7 5.5%
    Software and services 16.4 17.4 1.1 6.4%
    Total 108.0 116.0 8.0 7.4%

    * Maintenance and subscriptions: recurring revenues including SaaS
    ** 2024 reported basis: reconstituted data

    H1 2025 highlights by Division
            
    The PHARMAGEST Division recorded H1 revenue of €85.9m (+4.7%).  This performance confirms the positive momentum that began in Q1 2025, driven by innovation and improved customer satisfaction.

    • In France, all business activities grew (+3.4% to €74.0m), driven by:
      • Equipment renewal needs and new equipment offerings, the “electronic labels” business was particularly buoyant in the second quarter.
      • The launch, in early 2025, of differentiating software solutions focused on pharmacy automation, productivity and safety. The market response to these new solutions has been very positive, with over 800 id.genius and 160 id.secure box sold.
      • Electronic invoice management solutions for pharmacies (Digipharmacie), which confirmed its market leadership by adding more than 900 new customers.
      • Only the professional training sector (Atoopharm) is experiencing a slowdown in response to changes in the regulatory environment, and in particular a one-year extension of the training cycle.
    • In Italy, sales grew evenly across both wholesale and pharmacy activities (+16.5% to €7.7m). This positive sales momentum remained strong, with the opening of more than 150 new pharmacies in the first half.
    • In Germany, sales were up (+11.2% to €3.0m) in both the medication adherence and pharmacy management segments, thanks in particular to the success of id.express payment terminals.
    • In Belgium, the return to growth has been confirmed (+6.4% to €1.2m).

    This Division accounts for 74.1% of total revenue.

    The AXIGATE LINK division reported H1 2025 revenue of €16.5m (+6.7%).

    • The Nursing Home sector (+4.5% to €8.4m) has benefited from the ESMS NUMERIQUE public funding in France, resulting in a strong business performance. Titanlink has been deployed at 164 sites since January 2025 in France (789 in total) and 16 in Belgium (58 sites in total).
    • The Homecare sector (+13.9% to €3.9m) has continued to perform well, driven by the signing of new contracts and the success of offers designed for Regional Resource Centres (CRT) and Family Caregiver Support Services (PFR). Expansion into the Home Care Services market has met with a very positive response.
    • The Hospital sector (+16.6% to €2.1m) has been particularly successful, with the signature of contracts for four hospital networks, confirming the growing reputation of the Axigate Hospilink solution in this market.

    This Division accounts for 14.2% of total revenue.

    The E-CONNECT division reported H1 2025 revenue of €7.5m (+36.6%).

    • Building on the momentum of Q1, the Division continued to roll out its Mobility solutions at a rapid pace, notably eS-KAP+, a new solution launched in Q1 2025 that has been very well received by more than 20 key software publishers in this market.
    • Since March 2025, the project to equip smartphones with a digital solution of the French health insurance card (Apps Vitale) has been gradually rolled out in accordance with the regional timetable established by the French national health insurance system.

    This Division accounts for 6.5% of total revenue.

    The MEDICAL SOLUTIONS Division had €5.1m in revenue, up 29.1% on a reported basis and 2.2% like-for-like.

    • The integration of Calimed (acquired at the end of 2024) has been the main driver of this growth as its SaaS offering for surgeons and doctors continues to attract new customers thanks to its high added value for these professions.
    • The Division’s long-standing solutions are benefiting from the very positive response to new offerings like the LOQUii voice-based AI companion and add-on services like online backup, attesting to the loyalty of the customer base and the strength of the recurring model in an intensely competitive environment.

    The Division accounts for 4.4% of total revenue.

    The FINTECH Division had H1 revenue of €1.0m (-7.6%).

    • Efforts are continuing to clean up the customer portfolio to limit risk exposure and improve its quality.
    • Sales remained buoyant in a difficult economic environment.

    The Division accounts for 0.9% of total revenue.

    Material subsequent events after 30 June 2025 Acquisition of the DIS and ResUrgences businesses – Strategic reinforcement of the AXIGATE LINK Division

    On July 1st, 2025, the Group finalized the acquisition of two businesses specialising in solutions for the public healthcare sector: Novaprove (publisher of ResUrgences software) and the business assets of DIS. This strategic acquisition, which adds more than 300 customers from the public healthcare sector and generates annual revenue of around €5m, significantly strengthens the position of the Axigate Link Division in the hospital and medical-social software market.
    ResUrgences, a cloud platform specialising in the management of hospital emergency services, used by eight university hospitals and 75 other establishments, and the DIS range representing a comprehensive suite of digital solutions used by 215 sites (125 healthcare establishments and 90 nursing homes), further enhance the Division’s existing offering. The integration of these new functional modules (Electronic Patient Records, invoicing, accounting, inventory management, and HR) into the Hospilink, Titanlink and Domilink ranges will create a comprehensive ecosystem to support the digital transformation of public and private institutions, in line with the Group’s ambition to become the leading technology partner for the French healthcare system.

    H2 2025 outlook:

    Encouraged by the positive commercial momentum experienced across all of its divisions in H1 2025, Equasens Group looks ahead to the second half with confidence for which it is expecting continuing growth.
    At the same time, Equasens Group remains attentive to the decisions of public authorities regarding the level of financial compensation granted by health insurance for the purchase of generic and biosimilar medicines. These decisions could have an impact on pharmacy economics and the pharmacy network.
    The investment and structural efforts made since 2024 are starting to show results, with the successful rollout of new software solutions for all healthcare professionals. These measures will be maintained for the remainder of FY 2025.
    The integration of DIS and ResUrgences businesses, effective as of 1 July 2025, will start contributing to the performance of the Axigate Link Division in Q3 and will create promising technical and commercial synergies.
    With a solid financial structure, the Group remains attentive to opportunities for external growth, both in France and in Europe that will strengthen its position as a leader in digital healthcare solutions.

    Financial calendar:

    • H1 2025 results: 26 September 2025
    • Presentation of H1 2025 results to analysts (SFAF): 29 September 2025 – Paris
    • Q3 2025 revenue: 5 November 2025
    • FY 2025 revenue: 5 February 2026

    About Equasens Group

    Founded over 35 years ago, Equasens Group, a leader in digital healthcare solutions, today employs over 1.300 people across Europe.
    Equasens Group’s specialised business applications facilitate the day-to-day work of healthcare professionals and their teams, working in private practice, collaborative medical structures or healthcare establishments. The Group also provides comprehensive support to healthcare professionals in the transformation of their profession by developing electronic equipment, digital solutions and healthcare robotics, as well as data hosting, financing and training adapted to their specific needs.
    And reflecting the spirit of its tagline “Technology for a More Human Experience”, the Group is a leading provider of interoperability solutions that improve coordination between healthcare professionals, their communications and data exchange resulting in better patient care and a more efficient and secure healthcare system.

    Listed on Euronext Paris™ – Compartment B

    Indexes: MSCI GLOBAL SMALL CAP – GAÏA Index 2020 – CAC®SMALL and CAC®All-Tradable
    Included in the Euronext Tech Leaders segment and the European Rising Tech label

    Eligible for the Deferred Settlement Service (“Service à Réglement Différé” – SRD) and equity savings accounts invested in small and mid caps (PEA-PME).
    ISIN: FR 0012882389 – Ticker Code: EQS

    Get all the news about Equasens Group www.equasens.com and on LinkedIn

    CONTACTS

    EQUASENS Group
    Analyst and Investor Relations:
    Chief Administrative and Financial Officer: Frédérique Schmidt
    Tel: +33 (0)3 83 15 90 67 – frederique.schmidt@equasens.com

    Financial communications agency:
    FIN’EXTENSO – Isabelle Aprile

    Tel.: +33 (0)6 17 38 61 78 – i.aprile@finextenso.fr

    Forward-looking statements
    This press release contains forward-looking statements that are not guarantees of future performance and are based on current opinions, forecasts and assumptions, including, but not limited to, assumptions about Equasens’ current and future strategy and the environment in which Equasens operates. These involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results or other events, to materially differ from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those detailed in Chapter 3 “Risk factors” of the Universal Registration Document filed with the French financial market authority (Autorité des Marchés Financiers or AMF) on April 29, 2025 under number D.25-0334. These forward-looking statements are valid only as of the date of this press release.

    Attachment

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Senator Marshall: Let’s Get Government Employees Closer to the People They Serve

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Kansas Roger Marshall

    Senator Marshall Joins RFD-TV to Discuss USDA Relocation & Trump Trade Deal
    Washington – On Thursday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Suzanne Alexander on RFD-TV’s Market Day Report to discuss the USDA coming to Kansas City as part of their relocation efforts, President Trump’s trade deals and their significance to American agriculture, and his legislation to bring farmers more clarity, the Clear Waters Act.

    Click HERE or on the image above to listen to Senator Marshall’s full interview.
    On USDA reorganization:
    “You know, the farmers and ranchers were the original conservationists, and we need to keep bragging on the USDA reorganization. Look, I’m excited to get government employees closer to the people that they serve. So, 4000 USDA employees here in DC, by the way, only 6% of them were working in the offices until January of this year, February of this year. So, we’re going to move about half of those out to the country, and one of those places is Kansas City. And what I’m excited about moving more workers to the Kansas City offices, number one, we get more Kansas City Chiefs fans. But beyond that, they’re going to be closer to my alma mater, Kansas State University, Iowa State University, Nebraska, really some of the strongest ag schools in America, and that’s going to help populate that USDA program there in Kansas City. It’s agriculture economics they focus on, as well as handing out the grants for agriculture research. So, I just think getting USDA workers closer to their customers has to be a good thing. So, I’m excited.”
    On USDA relocation pushback in Congress:
    “Look, I have a great deal of respect for Senator Klobuchar. She’s a good friend, but I we respectfully disagree. This has been well thought out. The first time I met Secretary Rollins in person, back in, goodness, it may have been November, December of last year, she talked about this reorganization. So, I think every member on that committee has had a chance to have her come in and talk about this. This isn’t half-baked. The Assistant Secretary, Steven Vaden, former Judge Vaden, international trade court judge is in charge of this plan. I think it’s well thought out. And again, I just don’t know what American is going to come up to me and say, “It’s not a good idea to move people out of Washington, DC.” I would take two-thirds of the Federal officers that are working here in DC and move them out to those flyover states. It’s just such a different culture here in Washington, DC – it is the swamp. I just think when you have USDA workers going to church, going to soccer games, going to a Kansas State football game together, that they’re going to just have a better product when it’s all said and done.”
    On the Clear Waters Act:
    “Yeah, think about Waters of the US. This has been going on since 1972. You get a Democrat president in office, and they expand what water the US has. And we get President Trump in office, and he tries to cut it back. But what our bill does is clarify this and give our farmers certainty. Look, your listeners understand that a pothole, that a pond, that is not a navigable stream. So, we clearly define what navigable streams are, that it needs to be a body of water that can continuously flow and touches one of those main navigable streams. Kansas only has three navigable streams, for instance, throughout the years. So, it just gives us some clarity. But I want to emphasize to anyone on the other side of this that farmers and ranchers are the best environmentalists. Those that are that are practicing modern precision agriculture are decreasing the drift from their fields by 90% using modern-day agriculture techniques. We’re decreasing 90% of the drip from those fields. But I just want to get the farmers, the ranchers, some certainty, our dairy farmers, people that have feed lots, we need certainty in this area. And look, we’re going to do our best to take care of the environment as well.”
    On the Dairy Pride Act:
    “Well, I think there’s a lot of fake products out there, right? And with all due respect to almond juice and some of the other juices out there, they’re not milk products. As far as I’m concerned. I don’t know why they’re in the milk portion of the grocery store, just like I don’t want plant-based protein sitting beside a hamburger born and raised and processed in Kansas. So, I think again, we just want customers to know what they’re drinking or eating. And almond juice is not milk. And by the way, we’re getting closer and closer to getting whole milk, there it is, whole milk back into schools as well.”
    On how Trump trade deals are benefiting American agriculture:
    “I’m just so ecstatic to see these chickens come home to roost, right? President Trump has used these tariffs to negotiate better trade deals, trade deals that I hope are going to let our grandchildren continue to work on our farms. Look, we’ve not sold a cheeseburger to Europe, a gallon of ethanol to England in my lifetime. So, beyond just the tariffs, what the President is doing is removing non-tariff barriers. And again, your listeners are educated. They understand what China [and] the EU does to keep American agriculture products out of those countries. So, by removing those, we’re going to sell more and more products. And I just, you know, there are lots of things we could talk about, but look at President Trump’s strategy here, how he’s boxing in China. Last night, he announced a deal with South Korea, but beyond that, the EU, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Australia, basically, he’s boxed China in here. China was doing a lot of trans shipments. So, they would make, say, t-shirts or tennis shoes. They would send it to Vietnam and bring it into this country on Vietnam tariff levels. Well, President Trump wasn’t born yesterday, so he’s tightening up that portion, and we’ll get that China trade deal soon, hopefully before the fall. Fall crops need to be harvested.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Deputy Chairman of Delovaya Rossiya Nonna Kagramanyan noted the high scientific and technical capabilities of the State University of Management

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Official website of the State –

    An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    On July 31, 2025, the State University of Management was visited on a working visit by the Deputy Chairman and Head of the Executive Committee of the All-Russian public organization “Business Russia”, a graduate of the State University of Management, Nonna Kagramanyan.

    At the beginning of the visit, the rector of the State University of Management Vladimir Stroyev and the vice-rector Maria Karelina introduced the guest to the technical capabilities of the Media Center and the developments of the Engineering Project Management Center.

    As a former employee of VGTRK, Nonna Kagramanyan especially highly appreciated the Jalinga studio and noted its wide opportunities for promoting educational programs and any other media projects. The guest also liked the more familiar interior design studio, where materials for the school entrepreneurship Olympiad for the united company Wildberries and Russ are currently being recorded. As Vladimir Stroyev noted, three online master’s courses have already been recorded in the interior design studio during the short time of its operation.

    Vladimir Filatov, Director of the Center for Management of Engineering Projects at the State University of Management, spoke about the main areas of work of the Center, the activities of the inter-university student design bureau, and showed prototypes of unmanned aerial vehicles.

    Vladimir Stroyev paid special attention to the inter-university design bureau, which won the first specialized competition from the Ministry of Education and Science. The rector noted that the current project of the State University of Management surprised the expert committee, which did not expect something like this from a management university, because at the moment this is the only such experience in Russia.

    Vladimir Filatov shared the design bureau’s work scheme, in which young scientists and students perform design work, and GUU also plays the role of integrator of the entire inter-university network. In less than a year, students digitized more than 3,000 drawings ordered by TMH Engineering. The director of the engineering center reported high customer satisfaction from cooperation with GUU, as this allowed them to unload their staff engineers, while the students receive the necessary practical work experience from completing the order.

    Summing up what she saw in a conversation with the rector, GUU graduate Nonna Kagramanyan sincerely rejoiced at the successes of her native university: “You listen – and you are filled with pride. You have a whole world here, a whole world.”

    Moving to a more practical plane, Nonna Sayadovna put forward her proposals. First. Taking into account the high demand of businesses for the services of engineers, Delovaya Rossiya is ready to promote the scheme of work of student design bureaus tested at SUM, as well as manually send information about the finished developments of SUM to its partners. Second. For more systematic work, Delovaya Rossiya expects SUM to provide a list of the capabilities of the student design bureau in the form of a presentation for distribution to the partners of the organization, with the purpose of concluding agreements between them and SUM. Third. Through its production partner, Delovaya Rossiya will facilitate the start of serial production of the prototypes available at SUM. Fourth. Delovaya Rossiya asks to provide presentation materials and production conditions of the SUM Media Center for the possible resumption of the project of programs “Business Russia” together with the TV channel “Russia 24”.

    In addition, Nonna Kagramanyan discussed with the management of the State University of Management plans to create an Advanced Engineering School, new youth laboratories, additional classes in the Pre-University, as well as methodological opportunities for accelerated training of engineering personnel.

    Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    .

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: North Dakota Development Fund Approves $2.16M in Loans for Child Care, Tech and Ag Projects in Q2

    Source: US State of North Dakota

    The North Dakota Department of Commerce announced today that six companies were approved for a total of $2.16 million in loan funds through the North Dakota Development Fund, Inc. (NDDF) during the second quarter of 2025.

    “These investments reflect our commitment to economic growth and meeting community needs across North Dakota,” said Commerce Economic Development & Finance Deputy Director and Head of Investments and Innovation Shayden Akason. “We’re proud to support businesses that are expanding access to child care – an essential service that enables parents to remain in the workforce and strengthens the state’s economic resilience.”

    Loan highlights:

    • Discovery Properties LLC, Mandan – $805,000 to purchase and renovate a building for a new child care facility.
    • Reser LLC dba The Learning Tree, Minot – $100,000 to expand and remodel its existing facility.
    • Transcend Childcare Center, Fargo – $100,000 to acquire an existing child care facility.
    • OmniByte Technology Inc., Fargo – in working capital support.
    • Peace Academy Inc., Fargo – $450,000 to remodel a building and expand child care operations.
    • Dakota Valley Growers, Bathgate – $455,000 to construct a compost facility for its feedlot.

    From East to the West, the NDDF is powering progress – backing projects in Bathgate, Fargo, Minot, and Mandan. Whether it is value-added agriculture, child care, or technology, the NDDF helps bridge regions and industries to build a stronger, more resilient North Dakota

    Established in 1991, the NDDF provides flexible financing for new or expanding businesses. The fund also manages the Child Care Loan Program, which supports providers addressing critical workforce needs.

    For more information about the Development Fund, visit belegendary.link/North-Dakota-Development-Fund.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Explosive Ernst Report Exposes Government Boondoggles $160 Billion Over Budget

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA)

    WASHINGTON – After her years of advocacy led to the defunding of the California Crazy Train, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is releasing an explosive new report exposing other taxpayer-funded projects that are billions of dollars over budget or more than five years behind schedule.
    Her report details how the worst boondoggles have racked up a combined $162.9 billion in cost overruns from their original projections.
    “Slamming the brakes on the California Crazy Train – that I fought for years to defund – was a strong start, but there is a lot more work to do,” said Ernst. “The boondoggles I am exposing are collectively $160 billion over budget and need to be brought to a squealing halt. When a government project goes off the rails, the public deserves to know. My bipartisan Billion Dollar Boondoggles Act ensures that all future boondoggles like these are publicized.”
    “If you’re receiving taxpayer dollars, you should expect to be held accountable by the American people,” said U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “No more boondoggles! Thank you, Senator Ernst, for your leadership in Congress to ensure federal dollars are being used effectively and efficiently.”
    Some of the worst boondoggles other than the California Crazy Train uncovered by Ernst include:

    The Department of Veterans Affairs electronic health record system upgrade that has tripled in cost from an initial $16.1 billion price tag to $49.8 billion.

    Additionally, flaws with the new system may have contributed to the deaths of several veterans and caused harm to others.

    The Bay Area Rail Transit Extension – that Nancy Pelosi tried to sneak funding for into a COVID relief bill – has ballooned in costs from $4.7 billion to $12.8 billion.

    At nearly $2 billion per mile, it’s been labeled “the worst new transit project in the U.S.”

    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Artemis moon mission launch booster and engine contracts that have already run $6 billion over budget.

    The real budget is a blackhole because “NASA hasn’t established an official cost estimate.”

    Read Ernst’s full report, “Off the Rails, the Billion Dollar Boondoggles Taking Taxpayers for a Ride,” here.
    Background:
    Ernst has long led the fight calling out government boondoggles, including the California High-Speed Rail, that are billions over budget and years behind schedule.
    In 2022, Ernst successfully inserted a provision into the Inflation Reduction Act requiring the Department of Transportation (DOT) to keep track of projects paid for by taxpayers that are a billion dollars over budget or behind schedule. After the Biden administration refused to enact the provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, Ernst continued her efforts and pushed for her Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act in 2023 to expose these government projects.
    In April 2025, Ernst asked the Trump administration to provide a list of billion dollar boondoggle projects funded by DOT that are either over budget or behind schedule. DOT Secretary Sean Duffy ended the Biden administration’s years of stonewalling and worked to get the data to Ernst.
    Ernst’s Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act advanced out of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week. The bill would replicate this report across all of government to further expose wasteful projects sucking up tax dollars.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Secretary of State Belanger to make important announcement on health care for northern and Indigenous communities 

    Source: Government of Canada News

    July 31, 2025 – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan 

    The Honourable Buckley Belanger, Secretary of State (Rural Development), will make an important announcement on bringing new health care innovations to northern and Indigenous communities across Saskatchewan.

    A media availability will follow the announcement.

    Date: Friday, August 1, 2025

    Time: 10:00 am (CT)

    Location:
    Virtual Health Hub
    200 – 111 2nd Avenue South
    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

    Members of the media are asked to contact ISED Media Relations at media@ised-isde.gc.ca to confirm their attendance. Media representatives wishing to attend are asked to arrive at 9:30 am (CT) and must present credentials.

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Aerospace expo to open

    Source: Hong Kong Information Services

    The “National Development & Achievements Series – Endless Exploration: The Journey of Chinese Aerospace, Aviation & Navigation” exhibition will be launched at the Science Museum from tomorrow to September 7.

    Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki said at the expo’s opening ceremony that the Chang’e-6’s successful return to earth bringing lunar soil samples from the far side of the Moon last year represents a global first, underscoring China’s leading position in lunar exploration.

    He added that the exhibition showcases the remarkable achievements of the Chang’e lunar exploration programme and the country’s remarkable accomplishments in aerospace, aviation and navigation.    

    The exhibition includes the first concurrent display in Hong Kong of lunar soil samples collected from the far side and near side of the Moon by the Chang’e-6 and the Chang’e-5 respectively.

    Other debut exhibits include the Chang’e-6 returner and parachute, seawater samples collected from 10,000 metres under the sea, and models of the “three pearls” of the shipbuilding industry, namely an aircraft carrier, a luxury cruise ship and a liquefied natural gas carrier.

    The expo will display large-scale aerospace, aviation and maritime models concurrently, including an approximately 12m-tall 1:5 Long March-5 launch vehicle and a full-size Fendouzhe full-ocean-depth manned submersible with a length of approximately 10m displayed outdoors, as well as a 1:8 model of a Y-20 heavy lifter with a wingspan of approximately 6m displayed indoors for the first time.

    It will also present Hong Kong’s significant contributions to the space and deep-sea exploration projects of the country. Plus, interactive exhibits of the “Lunar Base”, the “Zhurong Rover Expedition” and more are available for visitors to experience the challenges of building a lunar base and exploring Mars.

    Fixed-point guided tours will be provided on Saturdays and Sundays from August 9 to September 7. Additionally, lectures will be conducted tomorrow and on August 4, and the public is welcome to participate in lectures and tours on-site. Other activities include experiment classes, workshops and demonstrations.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: American Leadership in the Digital Finance Revolution

    Source: Securities and Exchange Commission

    Good afternoon. Thank you, Norm, for your kind introduction and the invitation to be here. It gives me great pleasure to be with you all, particularly at what I believe is a defining moment for American leadership in the crypto asset markets. Before I share a few reflections, I want to thank the America First Policy Institute for convening such a timely conversation. And, I must note, in order to keep my compliance folks happy, that the views I express here today are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the SEC as an institution or of the other Commissioners.

    ***

    Today, I would like to discuss what Commissioner Hester Peirce and I are calling “Project Crypto,” which will be the SEC’s north star in aiding President Trump in his historic efforts to make America the “crypto capital of the world.”[1] But before I discuss our plan for crypto market primacy, let me take a few moments to revisit some inflection points in the history of our financial markets that bear similarities to the one we are at now, so that the future we shape is worthy of the legacy that we inherit.

    Evolution of Capital Markets: From Buttonwood to Blockchain

    The winds of innovation have always swept through our capital markets, often at gale force. In 1792, they rustled the leaves of a buttonwood tree, beneath which two dozen stockbrokers assembled to establish the forerunner to the New York Stock Exchange. That modest agreement—fewer than a hundred words handwritten on a slip of parchment—set in motion an elegant design that would govern the flow of capital for generations.[2]

    In the centuries since, our markets have never stood still. They have expanded, evolved, and reinvented themselves in step with the ideas and technologies of their time. Markets are dynamic because of the people who participate in them. Markets channel human ingenuity toward society’s most intractable problems by rewarding those who develop the most innovative solutions that others value enough to buy. They are the mechanism by which Adam Smith’s invisible hand elevates those who act in the common good—even when pursuing their own.

    The SEC’s role is to safeguard markets that allow the spark of human creativity and skill to benefit society. Over the arc of its history, the agency has both enabled innovation and, regrettably at times, stifled it. Fortunately, progress has a way of prevailing. And when our regulatory posture is calibrated to meet innovation with thoughtfulness rather than fear, America’s leadership position has only grown stronger.

    ***

    In the 1960s—before my time, I am happy to say—Wall Street was riding a bull market. But behind the scenes, our market machinery was straining to keep up. Most clearing and settlement transactions involved a costly and cumbersome process. Rising stacks of paper stock certificates had to be physically delivered by clerks wheeling carts up and down Wall Street and in other financial districts all across America.[3] It was a scene from another century struggling to meet the demands of the modern securities markets.

    Indeed, the paper-based clearance and settlement systems, built for a gentler era, began to buckle under the weight of soaring volumes. Delays at one firm held up the work of another. Securities were lost or stolen. Fails ballooned. And many thinly capitalized broker-dealers were caught by the whiplash of scuttled transactions. In desperation, trading hours were reduced and exchanges eventually closed on Wednesdays to allow firms to process the mountains of certificates.

    The breakdown over an antiquated system was described by the SEC chairman at the time as “the most prolonged and severe crisis in the securities industry in 40 years… Firms failed. Investor confidence plummeted.” And very much to its credit, the SEC was proactive in remedying the so-called “Paperwork Crisis.” The agency helped market participants to develop the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, which would transform how securities were held and traded.[4] Instead of shuffling paper certificates from customer to broker, broker to broker, and broker to customer, title to shares could now be transferred through computerized ledger entries.[5] The certificates themselves were immobilized, stored securely in vaults, as ownership moved electronically, laying the foundation for the modern clearing and settlement system that has continued to this day.

    The ticker tape machine—like the one here—was also a breakthrough of its time, revolutionizing how Americans accessed market information, line by line, trade by trade.[6] But breakthroughs don’t belong in the past.

    By the late 1990s, electronic trading systems surged in popularity, unsettling old assumptions about how markets should function. Chairman Arthur Levitt likewise believed it behooved the SEC to provide regulatory flexibility for the electronic markets to innovate.[7] So, Regulation Alternative Trading Systems, or “Reg ATS,” adopted in 1999, allowed for ATSs to be regulated like broker-dealers, rather than like exchanges.[8]

    So, this brings me to today. To a moment that demands American ambition. To a project that can unleash it.

    Our regulatory framework need not be anchored to an analog past—unkind to new frontiers. After all, the future is arriving at full speed—and the world is not waiting. America must do more than just keep pace with the digital asset revolution. We must drive it.

    Forging the Future: America’s Leadership in the Golden Age of Finance

    So today, I would like the world to go on notice that under my leadership, the SEC will not stand idly by and watch innovations develop overseas while our capital markets remain stagnant. To achieve President Trump’s vision of making America the crypto capital of the world, the SEC must holistically consider the potential benefits and risks of moving our markets from an off-chain environment to an on-chain one.

    We are at the threshold of a new era in the history of our markets. As I mentioned earlier, today I am announcing the launch of “Project Crypto”—a Commission-wide initiative to modernize the securities rules and regulations to enable America’s financial markets to move on-chain.

    Just a few weeks ago, President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law, ensuring that America will continue to lead in global payments with a gold standard stablecoin regulatory framework. Upon signing the GENIUS Act into law, I was pleased that President Trump endorsed Congressional efforts to pass crypto market structure legislation by the end of the year. I commend the House of Representatives for garnering such strong bipartisan support, and I look forward to working with the Senate as they build off the House’s work and craft market structure legislation that future proofs our markets against regulatory mischief, cementing the United States as the crypto capital of the world.

    Yesterday, the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets released the PWG Report with clear recommendations for the SEC and other federal agencies to build a framework to maintain U.S. dominance in crypto asset markets. This report is the blueprint to make America first in blockchain and crypto technology. The President said last week that he wants “the entire world running on the backbone of American technology.”[9] I stand ready to help get that job done.

    That is why I am launching Project Crypto and directing the SEC’s policy divisions to work with the Crypto Task Force, led by Commissioner Peirce, to swiftly develop proposals to implement the PWG’s recommendations. Project Crypto will help ensure that the United States remains the best place in the world to start a business, develop cutting-edge technologies, and participate in capital markets. We will reshore the crypto businesses that fled our country, particularly those that were crippled by the previous administration’s regulation-by-enforcement crusade and “Operation Chokepoint 2.0”[10] Whether an incumbent or a new entrant, the SEC welcomes all market participants who are hungry to innovate.

    In accord with the PWG Report’s recommendations, I have directed the Commission staff to draft clear and simple rules of the road for crypto asset distributions, custody, and trading for public notice and comment. While the Commission staff works to finalize these regulations, the Commission and its staff will in the coming months consider using interpretative, exemptive, and other authorities to make sure that archaic rules and regulations do not smother innovation and entrepreneurship in America. Many of the Commission’s legacy rules and regulations do not make sense in the twenty-first century—let alone for on-chain markets. The Commission must revamp its rulebook so that regulatory moats do not hinder progress and competition—from both new entrants and incumbents—to the detriment of Main Street.[11]

    Onshoring Crypto: A New Day at the SEC

    Now, Project Crypto will involve a broad range of initiatives across the Commission. 

    First, we will work to bring crypto asset distributions back to America. The days of convoluted offshore corporate structures, decentralization theater, and confusion over security status, are over. President Trump has said that America is in its Golden Age—and under our new agenda, our crypto asset economy will be, too.

    In line with the PWG Report, a key priority of mine will be to establish—as swiftly as we can—a regulatory framework for distributions of crypto assets in America. Capital formation is at the heart of the SEC’s mission, yet for too long the SEC ignored market demands for choice and disincentivized crypto-based capital raising.[12] As a result, crypto markets pivoted away from offering crypto assets and deprived investors of the opportunity to use this technology to contribute to productive economic enterprises. The SEC’s head-in-the-sand posture—as well as its shoot first, ask questions later approach—are days of the past.

    Despite what the SEC has said in the past, most crypto assets are not securities. But confusion over the application of the “Howey test” has led some innovators to prophylactically treat all crypto assets as such. American entrepreneurs are harnessing blockchain technology to modernize a broad range of legacy systems and instruments. One such entrepreneur is Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio, a successful businessman and freshman senator, who before his election to the Senate founded a company that put car titles on the blockchain.[13] He saw a need for efficiency in transferring titles and devised a practical solution with the new technology.  These entrepreneurs need—and deserve—bright-line rules for determining whether the securities laws apply to their businesses.

    I have directed the Commission staff to work to develop clear guidelines that market participants can use to determine whether a crypto asset is a security or subject to an investment contract. Our goal is to help market participants to slot crypto assets into categories, such as digital collectibles, digital commodities, or stablecoins, and assess the economic realities of a transaction. This approach can allow market participants to determine, based upon clear guidelines, whether any outstanding promises or commitments of the issuer cause the crypto asset to be subject to an investment contract.

    In addition, it should not be a scarlet letter to be deemed a security. We need a regulatory framework for crypto asset securities that allows these products to flourish within American markets. Many issuers will prefer the flexibility in product design that the securities laws afford, and investors will benefit from the opportunity to earn distributions, voting rights, and other features typical of securities. Projects should not be forced to establish decentralized autonomous organizations and offshore foundations or decentralize too early if this is not their desired plan of action. I am excited to see new use cases for crypto asset securities in commerce, such as the ability to participate in blockchain network consensus with tokenized equities.

    Thus, for those crypto asset transactions that are subject to the securities laws, I have asked staff to propose purpose-fit disclosures, exemptions, and safe harbors, including for so-called “initial coin offerings,” “airdrops,” and network rewards. Regarding these sorts of transactions, our goal should be that issuers no longer exclude Americans from their distributions to avoid legal complexity and lawsuits,[14] but instead choose to include Americans to enjoy legal certainty and an accommodating regulatory environment. It is my view that a Cambrian explosion in innovation could occur if we stay true to this course.

    Additionally, many firms seek to “tokenize” their common stock, bonds, partnership interests, and other securities, or tokenize the securities of third parties.[15] Much of this innovation is offshore today due to regulatory challenges in the United States. I also hear from our regulatory policy staff that firms—from household names on Wall Street to unicorn tech companies in Silicon Valley—are lined up at our doors with requests to tokenize. I have asked the Commission staff to work with firms seeking to distribute tokenized securities within the United States and to provide relief where appropriate to assure that Americans are not left behind. 

    Enhancing Freedom: Choice Among Custodians and Trading Venues

    Second, to achieve the President’s goals, it is incumbent on the SEC to ensure that market participants have maximum choice when deciding where to custody and trade crypto assets.  As I have said before, the right to have self-custody of one’s private property is a core American value.[16] I believe deeply in the right to use a self-custodial digital wallet to maintain personal crypto assets and participate in on-chain activities like staking. However, some investors will continue to rely on SEC registrants, such as broker-dealers and investment advisers, to hold assets on their behalf, and these firms are subject to additional regulatory requirements when they do so. It will be a priority of my chairmanship to carry out the PWG Report’s recommendation to modernize the SEC’s custody requirements for registered intermediaries.

    The prior Administration’s “special-purpose broker-dealer” framework, SAB 121, and “Operation Chokepoint 2.0,” resulted in a dearth of custodial service provider options in the market today.[17]  The existing custody rules were created without crypto assets in mind. I have directed the staff to consider how best to adapt the existing regime to facilitate the custody of crypto assets, including possible exemptive or other relief, in addition to changes to the rules themselves.

    As the PWG Report recommends, market participants “should be permitted to engage in multiple business lines under the most efficient licensing structure possible.” We should not force market participants to be stretched to fit a Procrustean bed of regulation for regulation’s sake. I am in favor of affording them the freedom to choose the most efficient regulatory framework for their business, provided that the framework adequately protects investors.

    Facilitating Super-Apps: Horizontal Integration of Product Offerings

    Third, a key priority of my chairmanship is to allow market participants to innovate with “super-apps.”[18] I am often asked, “What do you mean by a super-app?” Plain and simple: securities intermediaries should be able to offer a broad range of products and services under one roof with a single license. A broker-dealer with an alternative trading system should be able to offer trading in non-security crypto assets alongside crypto asset securities, traditional securities, and other services, like crypto asset staking and lending, without requiring fifty-plus state licenses or multiple federal licenses. Nothing in the federal securities laws prohibits SEC-registered trading venues from listing non-securities on their platforms today, and I have directed the Commission staff to develop further guidance and proposals ultimately to make this “super-app” vision a reality. Maybe they’ll call it “Reg Super-App.”

    Consistent with the PWG Report, the SEC in concert with other regulators should strive to have the most efficient licensing structure for SEC registrants. They should not be unnecessarily subject to multiple regulators or regulatory regimes. This model has worked well for banks, which are broadly exempted from many duplicative regulatory frameworks, such as broker-dealer and clearing agency registration. Regulators should provide the minimum effective dose of regulation necessary to protect investors while allowing entrepreneurs and businesses to flourish. We should not overburden them with paternalistic regulation that could drive them offshore or make American companies less competitive internationally. Our regulators should unleash the forces of venue and product competition for the benefit of all Americans. We should not artificially constrain business models and impose duplicative regulatory costs on American businesses that favor the largest firms that are better able to bear the regulatory burdens.

    Per the PWG’s recommendations, I have directed the Commission staff to develop a framework that will allow non-security crypto assets and crypto asset securities to be traded side-by-side on SEC-regulated platforms. Additionally, I have asked the staff to evaluate the use of Commission authority to permit non-security crypto assets that are subject to an investment contract to trade on trading venues that are not registered with the Commission. I am keen to pursue such a solution, as it will not only enable state-licensed crypto asset platforms that are not registered with the SEC to list certain crypto assets, but it also clears the way for CFTC-regulated platforms to offer these products with margin capabilities—even without Congress providing the CFTC with any additional authority, unlocking even greater liquidity for these assets.

    Unleashing U.S. Markets: Big Beautiful On-Chain Software Systems

    Fourth, I have directed the Commission staff to update antiquated agency rules and regulations to unleash the potential of on-chain software systems in our securities markets. On-chain software comes in many shapes and sizes—some of these systems are truly decentralized and not operated by any intermediary. Other on-chain software systems have an operator. Both types of on-chain software should have a place within our financial markets. It is essential that any crypto asset regulatory market structure create a path for software developers to unleash on-chain software systems that do not require operation by any central intermediary. Decentralized finance software systems—like automated market makers—facilitate automated, non-intermediated financial market activity. Federal securities laws have always assumed the involvement of intermediaries that require regulation, but this does not mean that we should interpose intermediaries for the sake of forcing intermediation where the markets can function without them.

    We will create space in our markets for both models, by protecting pure publishers of software code, drawing reasonable lines to distinguish intermediated and disintermediated activity, and creating rational and workable rules of the road for intermediaries that seek to operate on-chain software systems. Decentralized finance and other forms of on-chain software systems will be part of our securities markets and not drowned out by duplicative or unnecessary regulation.

    To make this vision a reality, we will need to consider some changes to our rules. For example, accommodating trading of tokenized securities on-chain may require us to explore amendments to Reg NMS, in addition to what we otherwise would do in the normal course to correct market distortions that it engenders. Many of you will remember that I co-authored with Commissioner Cynthia Glassman a lengthy dissent to the adoption of Reg NMS twenty years ago last month.[19] This dissent is even more compelling now that we have had two decades of prescriptive requirements that distort market activity and impede the evolution of our securities markets. Congress clearly intended that “competitive forces, rather than unnecessary regulation, guide the development of the national market system.”[20] I will look for ways to bring us back in line with that intent and thereby promote innovation and competition in our markets.

    Fostering Innovation:  Commercial Viability is Our True North

    Finally, innovation and entrepreneurialism are the engines of the American economy. President Trump has described America as a “nation of builders.”[21] Under my leadership, the Commission will encourage our nation’s builders rather than constrain them with red tape and one-size-fits-all rules. While the Commission is actively considering industry requests that could jumpstart innovative activity, we are also contemplating an innovation exemption that would allow registrants and non-registrants to quickly go to market with new business models and services that do not neatly fit within our existing rules and regulations. The Commission will continue to ensure that market participants adhere to certain conditions and requirements designed to achieve the policy aims of the federal securities laws.

    Under my vision for an innovation exemption, innovators and visionaries will be able to immediately enter the market with new technologies and business models but will not be required to comply with incompatible or burdensome prescriptive regulatory requirements that hinder productive economic activity. Instead, they will be able to comply with certain principles-based conditions designed to achieve the core policy aims of the federal securities laws. These conditions may include, for example, a commitment to make periodic reports to the Commission, incorporate whitelisting or “verified pool” functionality, and restrict tokenized securities that do not adhere to a token standard that incorporates compliance features, such as ERC3643.[22] I encourage market participants and SEC staff alike to have an eye towards commercial viability when contemplating what various models could look like.

    ***

    As we advance these priorities, I look forward to working with my counterparts across the Administration to make the United States the crypto capital of the world. This represents more than a regulatory shift—it is a generational opportunity.

    From the leaves of a buttonwood tree to ledgers on a blockchain, the winds of innovation still blow—and it is our task that they carry American leadership forward. After all, ladies and gentlemen, we have never been content to follow. We will not watch from the sidelines. We will lead. We will build. And, we will ensure that the next chapter of financial innovation is written right here in America.

    Thank you very much for your time today. I encourage you to be attentive to our coming announcements and proposals and, as always, I welcome your thoughtful comments and suggestions.

    [2] See The History of NYSE, New York Stock Exchange, https://www.nyse.com/history-of-nyse.

    [3] See Wall Street: The Paperwork Predicament, Time Magazine (June 21, 1968), https://time.com/archive/6636314/wall-street-the-paperwork-predicament/.

    [4] See A Short History of the Depository Trust Company, Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society (1999), https://www.sechistorical.org/collection/papers/1990/1999_0101_DTCHistory.pdf.

    [6] Danny Lewis, The Physical Stock Ticker Is a Relic, But Its Influence Reverberates Loudly Today, Smithsonian Magazine (Nov. 15, 2016), https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-physical-stock-ticker-is-a-relic-but-its-influence-reverberates-loudly-today-180961092/.

    [7] Transformation & Regulation: Equities Market Structure, 1934 to 2018: Reg ATS, Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society, https://www.sechistorical.org/museum/galleries/msr/msr04c_reg_ats.php.

    [10] See, e.g., David H. Thompson et al., Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Federal Bank Regulators Come For Crypto, Cooper & Kirk (Mar. 24, 2023),  https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf; Testimony of Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer, Coinbase, Before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (Feb. 6, 2025), https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/117858/witnesses/HHRG-119-BA09-Wstate-GrewalP-20250206.pdf.

    [11] See The White House, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation (Jan. 31, 2025), https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-prosperity-through-deregulation/.

    [12] See e.g., Commissioner Hester Peirce, Hobs and Hobbes: Wharton FinTech Lecture, Securities and Exchange Commission (Nov. 1, 2024), https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/peirce-remarks-wharton-fintech-110124.

    [13] See e.g., Akash Sriram, California DMV puts 42 million car titles on blockchain to fight fraud, Reuters (July 30, 2024), https://www.reuters.com/technology/california-dmv-puts-42-million-car-titles-blockchain-fight-fraud-2024-07-30/.

    [14] See Danny Nelson, Crypto Airdrops Ban U.S. Users, but Americans Are Claiming Tokens Anyway, CoinDesk (Aug. 21, 2024), https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/08/21/crypto-airdrops-ban-us-users-but-americans-are-claiming-tokens-anyway.

    [15] See e.g., CNBC Television, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink: ‘I want the SEC to rapidly approve tokenization of bonds and stocks’, YouTube (Jan. 23, 2025), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi3q_upPjBM.

    [16] Chairman Paul Atkins, Remarks at Crypto Task Force Roundtable on Decentralized Finance, Securities and Exchange Commission (June 9, 2025), https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/atkins-remarks-defi-roundtable-060925.

    [17] See Commissioner Hester Peirce, Lava and Lamps: Opening Remarks for Crypto Custody Roundtable, Securities and Exchange Commission (Apr. 25, 2025), https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/peirce-lava-lamps-opening-remarks-crypto-custody-roundtable-042525.

    [18] Chairman Paul Atkins, Prepared Remarks Before SEC Speaks, Securities and Exchange Commission (May 19, 2025), https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/atkins-prepared-remarks-sec-speaks-051925.

    [19] Commissioners Cynthia Glassman and Paul Atkins, Dissent of Commissioners Cynthia A. Glassman and Paul S. Atkins to the Adoption of Regulation NMS, Securities and Exchange Commission (June 9, 2005), https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/final/34-51808-dissent.pdf.

    [21] Hendrix, supra note 11.

    [22] For additional  information on the ERC3643 protocol, see Overview of the Protocol: ERC-3643 Permissioned Tokens, ERC3643 Association, https://docs.erc3643.org/erc-3643.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: AFRICA/DR CONGO – Caritas Bunia: “In July alone, more than 100 people died in Ituri despite the state of siege in place for four years”

    Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

    Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) – “In our province alone, in July, more than 100 people, including women and children, were brutally murdered in attacks of unspeakable brutality.” This was revealed by the diocesan Caritas of Bunia (Ituri province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo), whose territory includes the church of Blessed Anuarite de Komanda, attacked by a commando unit of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) on the night of Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27 (see Fides, 28/7/2025).The 100 deaths recorded in July of this year alone represent, according to Caritas Bunia, “the flagrant failure of the state of siege” decreed on May 3, 2021, by President Félix Tshisekedi in Ituri and North Kivu, with the aim of “neutralizing the armed groups operating in the two provinces, restoring state authority through a temporary military government, protecting the civilian population, and stabilizing the region.””Four years and nearly 100 extensions later, the results are disappointing because new armed groups have emerged and are more active than ever,” Caritas states. Impunity reigns, and massacres continue without investigation or prosecution of the criminals. Even worse, there is compelling evidence revealing the complicity, passive or active, of the Congolese army, as in the recent Lopa massacre, where CODECO militiamen desecrated the Church of Saint John of Capistrano (see Fides, 23/7/2025). The desecration of the church “forced His Excellency Monsignor Dieudonné Uringi, Bishop of Bunia, to close the parish, whose reopening remains undefinite.”Meanwhile, more details have emerged about the attack on the village of Komanda. The attackers entered the village around 2:00 a.m. from their stronghold on Mount Hoyo. They attacked the parish church of Blessed Anuarite, killing about twenty people with machetes who were attending a prayer vigil. Other bodies were found in burned homes and businesses near the church, including that of a charred man found in a truck set on fire by the attackers. The total death toll is 43, with dozens injured.According to Caritas, the attack on the village of Komanda has sown widespread panic, causing a mass exodus of its population to Bunia, Beni, and Kisangani. It has also led to the suspension of economic and religious activities. All of this has exacerbated the existing humanitarian crisis due to the influx of newly displaced people. Caritas Bunia denounces “the unacceptable passivity of the security forces and MONUSCO (UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), which, despite being stationed less than 3 kilometers from the crime scene, failed to intervene to protect civilians.”In a statement sent to Fides, Caritas Bunia highlights the deteriorating security situation in Ituri: “With the emergence of a new rebel movement (Convention for Popular Revolution), recently founded by Thomas Lubanga and his accomplices in Uganda, and the unnatural alliances between the regular army (FARDC) and the criminal militias it was supposed to fight, Ituri is sinking into unprecedented chaos. The population, left to itself, no longer knows who to trust.”To prevent further massacres and improve security in the area, Caritas calls for the immediate lifting of the state of siege, describing it as “an ineffective measure rejected by the population”; the replacement of all FARDC and police personnel deployed in Komanda during the July 27 massacre, as well as in Lopa during the massacres and destruction of July 21, 2025; and the urgent review of civil protection strategies to prevent further tragedies. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 31/7/2025)
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  • MIL-OSI Europe: AFRICA/ETHIOPIA – Negotiations between Addis Ababa and Somalia over sea access stalled

    Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

    Thursday, 31 July 2025

    Wikipedia

    by Cosimo GrazianiAddis Ababa (Agenzia Fides) – According to diplomatic sources familiar with the matter, diplomatic negotiations between Ethiopia and Somalia to resolve the issue of Addis Ababa’s access to the sea and the related permit granted by Mogadishu are stalled. The last round of negotiations between the two countries took place in February, but the news leaked in the first weeks of July.The announcement has repercussions for African geopolitics, specifically in the Horn of Africa region, and worldwide, as it affects, for example, the transport of goods across the Red Sea.At the heart of the issue is Ethiopia’s request for sea access. In January of last year, the Ethiopian government signed an agreement with the breakaway region of Somaliland to gain access to the sea through a twenty-kilometer stretch along the latter’s coast. Somalia’s reaction, from which Somaliland formally separated, was swift, and Turkey intervened to resolve the dispute, mediating between the two sides. Its mediation led to an agreement last December between the two countries.Thereafter, Somalia and Ethiopia began technical negotiations to explore the possibility of sea access for Addis Ababa, but no meeting between the two countries’ delegations had been scheduled since last April. In addition to sea access, the possibility of recognizing Somaliland’s independence was also on the negotiating table, according to the same diplomatic source cited by the Somali news agency Shabelle.Ethiopia has never officially committed to this diplomatic move, which, moreover, remains a resource it can use at any time.While the December 2024 agreement was considered a success for Turkish diplomacy in Africa, the news of the current impasse weakens Ankara’s position on the continent. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invested considerably in recent years, both economically and politically, in his country’s presence throughout the African continent, especially in the Horn of Africa, whose role in international logistics is crucial. Turkey is present in Africa thanks to a dense network of religious institutions that have facilitated its cultural and social penetration; it has opened embassies throughout the continent; it has signed various military agreements, most notably one last year with Somalia, Libya, Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Ghana; and Turkish Airlines, the Turkish flag carrier, currently operates flights to more than fifty African destinations. Africa has also acquired strategic importance for Turkey due to its maritime presence, and from this perspective, its presence in the Horn of Africa is even more so. If an agreement brokered by Ankara in the region fails, Turkey’s own position will also be affected.The central issue in relations between Ethiopia and Somalia is the sovereignty of the latter. If Ethiopia were to give in on its recognition of Somaliland, the state would risk being completely dismembered. Armed clashes have recently erupted in the Puntland region, which has been at war with the central government since last year over constitutional amendments approved at the proposal of Somali President Hassan Mohamud. The clashes have occurred between local and pro-government forces. Like Somaliland, which declared its independence from Mogadishu thirty years ago, Puntland has been demanding greater autonomy from the central government since 1998.In this situation, Egypt could gain political leverage in the region, after years of tense relations with Ethiopia, particularly regarding the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile. Turkish mediation between Ethiopia and Somalia had removed it from the dispute, but the stalled negotiations have brought Cairo back into the game of current and future regional balances. At the beginning of the second week of July, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met with his Somali counterpart and promised increased vigilance in the Red Sea. This was a gesture for Addis Ababa, but also for Ankara, as part of the improvement in relations between Egypt and Turkey in other contexts, such as the Eastern Mediterranean and Libya. (Agenzia Fides, 31/7/2025)
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  • MIL-OSI Europe: EUROPE/ITALY – Bishop Berardi to the young pilgrims from the Vicariate of Northern Arabia who have arrived in Rome for the Jubilee: “Open your hearts to the Holy Spirit.”

    Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

    Thursday, 31 July 2025

    [embedded content]
    Rome (Agenzia Fides) – “We live because we have hope. Hope is a way of receiving what we believe in. It is a blessing that makes us know the meaning of our life, which is Jesus.” This morning, July 31, at the Convent of Saint Chrysogonus in Rome, Bishop Aldo Berardi O.SS.T., Apostolic Vicar of Northern Arabia (AVONA), celebrated the welcoming Mass for young pilgrims arriving from the Vicariate for the Jubilee of Youth. Of the group initially organized to come to Rome, some did not receive visas upon departure, which left a deep sense of bitterness among them and throughout the Vicariate community. But with words like “hope, discernment, charity, and faith,” Berardi encouraged the young people to continue despite the difficulties, convinced that Jesus is always with them.“We are here because we want to be confirmed. We want to be with others to feel like family. And the great Catholic family comes to Rome to receive Christ on a pilgrimage of hope. It is important that you are here, even if you are tired, the journey has been difficult, and you have had to wait in long lines. It is beautiful that you come to confirm your faith and receive the strength of the Holy Spirit. You are here to encounter Jesus, who is everywhere, along with these half a million pilgrims. Jesus never physically came to Rome,” the bishop emphasized, “but he is with us. He sent his Apostles throughout the world, each to a different place, but the Church of Rome is the one that presides in charity, the one that has confirmed the other Churches in the faith through spirituality.”“The discomfort of this large crowd is sometimes difficult, but spiritually it is powerful. So, do not be discouraged. When you return home, you will feel better, you will be stronger and witnesses of Jesus. We know that we cannot speak much outside our church, but we can live a lot. This means that our lives are a testimony of who we are, of what we believe, and of the love we have received in the Holy Spirit. God is everywhere. He is with us in our Vicariate, in our different countries, in our different communities. But the Lord also blesses us when we move physically and spiritually. So, when we move physically, even if it is difficult for us at times, we move in our hearts and find a way to touch the heart of God. God is touching the fruit of the Spirit that is in his hands. Open your hearts, your minds, and be assured that the Lord will give you strength and answer your questions. Perhaps not immediately, but the Lord is already speaking to you. So open your hearts to his presence, and the Holy Spirit will be with you.”Continuing his reflection, the Apostolic Vicar referred to Saint Ignatius of Loyola, whose liturgical memorial is celebrated on July 31. “The focus of the Jesuit Congregation founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola is discernment. Discernment takes time, sometimes years. And sometimes we say, ‘When I was in that place, this happened. I didn’t see the sign of God, now I understand.’ That’s why discernment is important, the presence of the Lord, and how to discern our activities, our commitment, what we are doing.”“Let us ask the Lord that this pilgrimage may touch our hearts and bless us,” concluded the Bishop, who presided over the Eucharistic concelebration with five priests from the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia.

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  • MIL-OSI Europe: EUROPE/ENGLAND – Saint John Henry Newman, from Propaganda Fide seminarian to Doctor of the Church

    Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

    Thursday, 31 July 2025

    Rome (Agenzia Fides) – Saint John Henry Newman will be proclaimed a Doctor of the Church. This was established by Pope Leo XIV, who confirmed the decision of the Plenary Session of Cardinals and Bishops, Members of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. The English Cardinal, founder of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England, will be the 38th saint to hold the title of Doctor.Already in 2010, during his apostolic journey to England, Benedict XVI, speaking to journalists during the papal flight, defined Newman as “a figure of a Doctor of the Church for us and for all,” as well as “a bridge between Anglicans and Catholics” (see Fides, 17/9/2010).Born in London on February 21, 1801, to an Anglican family, Newman studied at Great Ealing School, where he fervently embraced Calvinist doctrines. In June 1824, he was ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church and, the following year, a priest. In 1832, he accompanied his friend, Father Froude, on a trip to southern Europe.At the English College in Rome, he met Father Nicholas Wiseman, the future Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. Between 1833 and 1841, Newman and other exponents of the so-called “Oxford Movement” wrote the “Tracts for the Times,” a collection of 90 essays written to support and attest to the Catholic identity of the Anglican Church. The texts were not well received, and the protests they provoked led the Bishop of Oxford to suspend publication of the Tracts. Condemned by the Hebdomadal Board of Oxford University and disavowed by 42 bishops, in April 1842 he retired with some friends to Littlemore to write the famous “Essay development of christian Doctrine.” After these experiences, his decision to join the Catholic Church fully matured.In 1846, he returned to Rome with some Anglicans who had converted to Catholicism. After careful consideration, he decided to join the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. He attended the Roman church of Chiesa Nuova and frequented the priests of that community. In 1845, he began his studies to become a priest at the College of Propaganda Fide, then located in the Palazzo Ferratini, overlooking Piazza di Spagna.Cardinal Ivan Dias (1936-2017), Prefect of the then Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, when inaugurating the Missionary Museum of Propaganda Fide in 2010, described the stay of the future Doctor of the Church in the palace designed by Bernini and Borromini as follows: “Newman describes in his letters the great care shown by Cardinal Fransoni, Prefect of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, by Monsignor Brunelli, his Secretary General, and by Father Bresciani, Rector of the Urban College, to make them feel at home, adapting everything to ‘English customs’. They were quite moved by the fact that their windows in Propaganda overlooked the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte, where Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal had appeared three years earlier to Alphonse Ratisbonne, on January 20, 1842: ‘It is so wonderful to be here in Propaganda is like a dream, and yet so calm, so secure, so happy, as if I had always belonged there, as if there had been no violent rupture or vicissitude in my life, indeed, calmer and happier than before.’The eminent theologian, Cardinal Dias further explained, “he found himself among young priests and seminarians, most of whom came from mission countries. Among the 120 or 150 resident students, 32 different languages were spoken. Newman remembers Indians, Africans, Babylonians, Scots, and Americans, and also Chinese (…) Egyptians, Albanians, Germans, and Irish.” He and Ambrose St. John were the only English students. John Henry Newman was ordained a Catholic priest in the Magi Chapel (in the Palace of Propaganda Fide) on May 30, 1847, and celebrated his first Mass in the upper chapel that now bears his name.”The chapel mentioned by Cardinal Dias, which today also houses a relic of the saint, future Doctor of the Church, is the work of Borromini. Conceived as an oratory for the first floor of the palace, Borromini created it with a vault decorated with angels’ heads, represented as six-winged seraphim. Today, on the right wall, you can admire a painting depicting Newman behind a reliquary containing some hairs of the English saint between two candlesticks. (F.B.) (Agenzia Fides, 31/7/2025)

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: A World of Water exhibition asks: ‘Can the seas survive us?’

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Kenneth Paranada, Curator of Art and Climate Change, University of East Anglia

    Water is at the heart of the disruption wrought by climate change. The seas, once seen as vast and stable, are now unpredictable and restless.

    That tidy, looping diagram of the water cycle once pinned up in primary school classrooms – clouds, rivers, evaporation and rain – now reads more like a fragmented recollection than a dependable process. Human impact has cracked that once-stable loop wide open.

    Sea levels inch upward year on year. Droughts grow more prolonged and severe. Rainfall becomes erratic and violent. What was once spoken of in future tense is now present and pressing.

    In Norfolk, land and sea have long coexisted in an uneasy truce. Here, the threat of sea level rise is not a speculative concern, it is data-backed, visible and accelerating.

    According to research from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, vast swathes of Norfolk risk being submerged by rising seas if global temperatures rise by even two degrees celsius. It is one of the most at-risk areas in the UK.

    Against this backdrop comes the Sainsbury Centre’s exhibition, A World of Water (part of the Can the Seas Survive Us? season). In the show, water is explored as subject, medium and metaphor. It is both agent and witness, shaping civilisations, sustaining life, and now challenging our ability to coexist with it.

    Curated through an interdisciplinary lens, the exhibition was shaped by deep collaboration with scientists, artists, ecologists, activists and coastal communities. Rooted in lived experience, from a two-day walk along the Wherry Man’s Way to a 36-hour sail aboard a 1921 fishing smack, the curatorial process traced fragile coastlines and the North Sea’s rapid transformation into an industrial nexus of energy infrastructures.

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    The curatorial approach to the show embraces the multifaceted nature of water by weaving together maritime history, Indigenous knowledge and contemporary works rooted in the artists’ experiences.

    Many of the participating artists hail from communities already wrestling with rising tides and the realities of climate disruption. Their contributions form three thematic currents: Mudplume, Water Water Everywhere and In a State of Flux.

    These overlapping threads investigate how water connects, nourishes and imperils. Rather than positioning the sea as a line of division, the exhibition reframes it as a living, connective tissue linking culture, history and ecology.

    A curatorial geomorphology of the sea

    Guidance for the exhibition’s conceptual framework came, fittingly, from water itself. Its mutable nature – solid, liquid, vapour – shaped the rhythm of the curatorial process. Rather than impose a rigid thesis, the exhibition offers an ever-shifting constellation of perspectives.

    The exhibition journey begins with sound. Visitors are welcomed by a low murmur, tides lapping, water dripping, echoing through the museum entrance. This leads to Spiral Fosset (2024), a sculptural work by the Dutch collective De Onkruidenier.

    Mirroring the central staircase of the museum, the piece suggests the brackish confluence where fresh and saltwater mingle. From here, the viewer descends into the lower galleries, reimagined as an estuary.

    Within the lower galleries, artworks unfold like coastal mudflats at low tide. Seventeenth-century Dutch seascapes hang alongside photographs, video works and sculptures made from plastic waste. Sands from the beaches of Cromer, Happisburgh and Cley are featured, anchoring the exhibition in local terrain.

    East Anglia’s centuries-old ties with the Low Countries form a steady through line. Hendrick van Anthonissen’s View of Scheveningen Sands (1641) shares space with works by Norwich School masters such as John Sell Cotman, John Crome and Robert Ladbrooke.

    This approach privileges resonance over chronology. The exhibition avoids a linear march through time in favour of prioritising association, connection and drift. For instance, Shore Compass by Olafur Eliasson (2019) sits in subtle dialogue with Jodocus Hondius’s 1589 Drake Map an early cartographic rendering of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the world.

    Created during the height of European maritime expansion and colonialism, the map illustrates the interplay between empire, navigation and power. Time, like tide, is allowed to meander.

    The exhibition adopts what might be called a “curatorial geomorphology”: a way of curating that draws on the sculpting force of water. In the natural sciences, geomorphology examines how landscapes are formed and reshaped by flowing water, storms and tides, while hydrology traces water’s movement through the environment.

    This curatorial approach translates those scientific ideas into a cultural and creative practice. Like a river, it flows through histories, stories and meanings. What unfolds is a tidal narrative, an estuary of thought where time loosens, the present deepens and new futures begin to surface.

    Visitors to A World of Water can expect something different from a traditional gallery experience. It invites you to think with the seas, to tune into their rhythms, tensions and secret lives.

    As you wander through the galleries, you enter a realm shaped by flux, expect to feel and reimagine a world where land, water and life move as one. And perhaps, by moving as water does, we may begin to sense an answer to the question: Can the Seas Survive Us? Not in certainty, but through our collective and individual actions toward a more regenerative and sustainable future.

    A World of Water is at the Sainsbury Centre Norwich until August 3. It’s part of a six-month season of interlinked exhibitions and events that explore the question: “Can the seas survive us?”

    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.

    John Kenneth Paranada received funding from the John Ellerman Foundation; the Art Fund’s Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant; the Association of Art Museum Curators’ EPIC Curatorial Fellowship Award; the Mondriaan Fund’s International Art Presentation Grant; the Kingdom of the Netherlands’ Cultural Diplomacy Grant; and Arts Council England’s National Lottery Fund for the project A World of Water: Can the Seas Survive Us? at the Sainsbury Centre.

    – ref. A World of Water exhibition asks: ‘Can the seas survive us?’ – https://theconversation.com/a-world-of-water-exhibition-asks-can-the-seas-survive-us-262057

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Why some underwater earthquakes cause tsunamis – and others, just little ripples

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Blackett, Reader in Physical Geography and Natural Hazards, Coventry University

    After a massive earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka, a peninsula in the far east of Russia, on July 30 2025, the world watched as the resultant tsunami spread from the epicentre and across the Pacific Ocean at the speed of a jet plane.

    In some local areas, such as in Russia’s northern Kuril Islands, tsunami waves reached heights of over three metres. However, across the Pacific there was widespread relief in the hours that followed as the feared scenario of large waves striking coastal communities did not materialise. Why was this?

    Not all underwater earthquakes result in tsunamis. For a tsunami to be generated, the Earth’s crust at the earthquake site must be pushed upwards in a movement known as vertical displacement. This typically occurs during reverse faulting, or its shallow-angled form known as thrust faulting, where one block of the Earth’s crust is forced up and over another, along what is called a fault plane.

    It is no coincidence that this type of faulting movement occurred at a subduction zone on “the Pacific ring of fire”, where the dense oceanic Pacific plate is being forced beneath the less dense Eurasian continental plate.

    These zones are known for generating powerful earthquakes and tsunamis because they are sites of intense compression, which leads to thrust faulting and the sudden vertical movement of the seafloor. Indeed, it was the ring of fire that was also responsible for the two most significant tsunami-generating earthquakes of recent times: the 2004 Indonesian Boxing Day and March 2011 Tohoku earthquakes.

    Why did the Indonesian and Japanese earthquakes generate waves over 30 metres high, but the recent magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Kamchatka (one of the strongest ever recorded) didn’t? The answer lies in the geology involved in these events.

    In the case of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, the sea floor was measured to have risen by up to five metres within a rupture zone of 750,000 sq km.

    For the tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, estimates indicate the seafloor was thrust upwards by nearly three metres within a rupture zone of 90,000 sq km.

    Preliminary data from the recent Kamchatka event has been processed into what geologists call a finite fault model. Rather than representing the earthquake as a single point, these models show where and how the crust ruptured, including the length of that rupture in Earth’s crust, its depth and what direction it followed.

    The model results show that the two sides of the fault slipped by up to ten metres along a fault plane of 18°, resulting in about three metres of vertical uplift. Think of it like walking ten metres up an 18° slope: you don’t rise ten metres into the air, you only rise about three metres, because most of your movement is forward rather than upward.

    However, since much of this occurred at depths greater than 20km (over an area of 70,000 sq km) the seabed displacement would probably have been reduced as the overlying rock layers absorbed and diffused the motion before it reached the surface.

    For comparison, the associated slippage for the Tohoku and Indonesian events was as shallow as 5km in places.

    An added complication

    So, while the size of sea floor uplift is key to determining how much energy a tsunami begins with, it is the processes that follow – as the wave travels and interacts with the coastline – that can transform an insignificant tsunami into a devastating wall of water at the shore.

    As a tsunami travels across the open ocean it is often barely noticeable – a long, low ripple spread over tens of kilometres. But as it nears land, the front of the wave slows down due to friction with the seabed, while the back continues at speed, causing the wave to rise in height. This effect is strongest in places where the sea floor gets shallow quickly near the coast.

    The shape of the coastline is also important. Bays, inlets and estuaries can act like funnels that further amplify the wave as it reaches shore. Crescent City in California is a prime example. Fortunately however, when the wave arrived in Crescent City on July 30 2025, it reached a height of just 1.22 metres – still the highest recorded in the continental US.

    So, not every powerful undersea earthquake leads to a devastating tsunami — it depends not just on the magnitude, but on how much the sea floor is lifted and whether that vertical movement reaches the ocean surface.

    In the case of the recent Russian quake, although the slip was substantial, much of it occurred at depth, meaning the energy wasn’t transferred effectively to the water above. All of this shows that while earthquake size is important, it’s the precise characteristics of the rupture that truly decide whether a tsunami becomes destructive or remains largely insignificant.

    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.

    Matthew Blackett 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. Why some underwater earthquakes cause tsunamis – and others, just little ripples – https://theconversation.com/why-some-underwater-earthquakes-cause-tsunamis-and-others-just-little-ripples-262352

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Your dog can read your mind – sort of

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura Elin Pigott, Senior Lecturer in Neurosciences and Neurorehabilitation, Course Leader in the College of Health and Life Sciences, London South Bank University

    Dmytro Zinkevych/Shutterstock.com

    Your dog tilts its head when you cry, paces when you’re stressed, and somehow appears at your side during your worst moments. Coincidence? Not even close.

    Thousands of years of co-evolution have given dogs special ways to tune in to our voices, faces and even brain chemistry. From brain regions devoted to processing our speech to the “love hormone” or oxytocin that surges when we lock eyes, your dog’s mind is hardwired to pick up on what you’re feeling.

    The evidence for this extraordinary emotional intelligence begins in the brain itself. Dogs’ brains have dedicated areas that are sensitive to voice, similar to those in humans. In a brain imaging study, researchers found that dogs possess voice-processing regions in their temporal cortex that light up in response to vocal sounds.

    Dogs respond not just to any sound, but to the emotional tone of your voice. Brain scans reveal that emotionally charged sounds – a laugh, a cry, an angry shout – activate dogs’ auditory cortex and the amygdala – a part of the brain involved in processing emotions.

    Dogs are also skilled face readers. When shown images of human faces, dogs exhibit increased brain activity. One study found that seeing a familiar human face activates a dog’s reward centres and emotional centres – meaning your dog’s brain is processing your expressions, perhaps not in words but in feelings.

    Dogs don’t just observe your emotions; they can “catch” them too. Researchers call this emotional contagion, a basic form of empathy where one individual mirrors another’s emotional state. A 2019 study found that some dog-human pairs had synchronised cardiac patterns during stressful times, with their heartbeats mirroring each other.

    This emotional contagion doesn’t require complex reasoning – it’s more of an automatic empathy arising from close bonding. Your dog’s empathetic yawns or whines are probably due to learned association and emotional attunement rather than literal mind-mirroring.

    The oxytocin effect

    The most remarkable discovery in canine-human bonding may be the chemical connection we share. When dogs and humans make gentle eye contact, both partners experience a surge of oxytocin, often dubbed the “love hormone”.

    In one study, owners who held long mutual gazes with their dogs had significantly higher oxytocin levels afterwards, and so did their dogs.

    This oxytocin feedback loop reinforces bonding, much like the gaze between a parent and infant. Astonishingly, this effect is unique to domesticated dogs: hand-raised wolves did not respond the same way to human eye contact. As dogs became domesticated, they evolved this interspecies oxytocin loop as a way to glue them emotionally to their humans. Those soulful eyes your pup gives you are chemically binding you two together.

    Beyond eye contact, dogs are surprisingly skilled at reading human body language and facial expressions. Experiments demonstrate that pet dogs can distinguish a smiling face from an angry face, even in photos.

    Dogs show a subtle right-hemisphere bias when processing emotional cues, tending to gaze toward the left side of a human’s face when assessing expressions – a pattern also seen in humans and primates.

    When dogs and humans make eye contact, both experience a surge of oxytocin.
    Dmytro Zinkevych/Shutterstock.com

    Dogs rely on multiple senses to discern how you’re feeling. A cheerful, high-pitched “Good boy!” with a relaxed posture sends a very different message than a stern shout with rigid body language. Remarkably, they can even sniff out emotions. In a 2018 study, dogs exposed to sweat from scared people exhibited more stress than dogs that smelled “happy” sweat. In essence, your anxiety smells unpleasant to your dog, whereas your relaxed happiness can put them at ease.

    Bred for friendship

    How did dogs become so remarkably attuned to human emotions? The answer lies in their evolutionary journey alongside us. Dogs have smaller brains than their wild wolf ancestors, but in the process of domestication, their brains may have rewired to enhance social and emotional intelligence.

    Clues come from a Russian fox domestication experiment. Foxes bred for tameness showed increased grey matter in regions related to emotion and reward. These results challenge the assumption that domestication makes animals less intelligent. Instead, breeding animals to be friendly and social can enhance the brain pathways that help them form bonds.

    In dogs, thousands of years living as our companions have fine-tuned brain pathways for reading human social signals. While your dog’s brain may be smaller than a wolf’s, it may be uniquely optimised to love and understand humans.

    Dogs probably aren’t pondering why you’re upset or realising that you have distinct thoughts and intentions. Instead, they excel at picking up on what you’re projecting and respond accordingly.

    So dogs may not be able to read our minds, but by reading our behaviour and feelings, they meet us emotionally in a way few other animals can. In our hectic modern world, that cross-species empathy is not just endearing; it’s evolutionary and socially meaningful, reminding us that the language of friendship sometimes transcends words entirely.

    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.

    Laura Elin Pigott 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. Your dog can read your mind – sort of – https://theconversation.com/your-dog-can-read-your-mind-sort-of-261720

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: By building the world’s biggest dam, China hopes to control more than just its water supply

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Harper, Lecturer in International Relations, University of East London

    China’s already vast infrastructure programme has entered a new phase as building work starts on the Motuo hydropower project.

    The dam will consist of five cascade hydropower stations arranged from upstream to downstream and, once completed, will be the world’s largest source of hydroelectric power. It will be four times larger than China’s previous signature hydropower project, the Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtse river in central China.

    The Chinese premier, Li Qiang, has described the proposed mega dam as the “project of the century”. In several ways, Li’s description is apt. The vast scale of the project is a reflection of China’s geopolitical status and ambitions.

    Possibly the most controversial aspect of the dam is its location. The site is on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo river on the eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau. This is connected to the Brahmaputra river which flows into the Indian border state of Arunachal Pradesh as well as Bangladesh. It is an important source of water for Bangladesh and India.

    Both nations have voiced concerns over the dam, particularly since it can potentially affect their water supplies. The tension with India over the dam is compounded by the fact that Arunachal Pradesh has been a focal point of Sino-Indian tensions. China claims the region, which it refers to as Zangnan, saying it is part of what it calls South Tibet.

    At the same time, the dam presents Beijing with a potentially formidable geopolitical tool in its dealings with the Indian government. The location of the dam means that it is possible for Beijing to restrict India’s water supply.

    This potential to control downstream water supply to another country has been demonstrated by the effects that earlier dam projects in the region have had on the nations of the Mekong river delta in 2019. As a result, this gives Beijing a significant degree of leverage over its neighbours.

    One country restricting water supply to put pressure on another is by no means unprecedented. In fact in April 2025, following a terror attack by Pakistan-based The Resistance Front in Kashmir, which killed 26 people (mainly tourists), India suspended the Indus waters treaty, restricting water supplies to Pakistani farmers in the region. So the potential for China’s dam to disrupt water flows will further compound the already tense geopolitics of southern Asia.

    Concrete titans

    The Motuo mega dam is an advertisement of China’s prowess when it comes to large-scale infrastructure projects. China’s expertise with massive infrastructure projects is a big part of modern Chinese diplomacy through its massive belt and road initiative.

    This involves joint ventures with many developing nations to build large-scale infrastructure, such as ports, rail systems and the like. It has caused much consternation in Washington and Brussels, which view these initiatives as a wider effort to build Chinese influence at their expense.

    The completion of the dam will will bring Beijing significant symbolic capital as a demonstration of China’s power and prosperity – an integral feature of the image of China that Beijing is very keen to promote. It can also be seen as a manifestation of both China’s aspiration and its longstanding fears.

    Harnessing the rivers

    The Motuo hydropower project also represents the latest chapter of China’s long battle for control of its rivers, a key story in the development of Chinese civilisation.

    Rivers such as the Yangtze have been at the heart of the prosperity of several Chinese dynasties (the Yangtse is still a major economic driver in modern China) and has devastated others. The massive Yangtse flood of 1441 threatened the stability of the Ming dynasty, while an estimated 2 million people died when the river flooded in 1931.

    France 24 report on the construction of the mega dam project.

    Such struggles have been embodied in Chinese mythology in the form of the Gun-Yu myth. This tells the story of the way floods displaced the population of ancient China, probably based on an actual flooding at Jishi Gorge on the Yellow River in what is now Qinghai province in 1920BC.

    This has led to the common motif of rivers needing human control to abate natural disaster, a theme present in much classical Chinese culture and poetry.

    The pursuit of controlling China’s rivers has also been one of the primary influences on the formation of the Chinese state, as characterised by the concept of zhishui 治水 (controlling the rivers). Efforts to control the Yangtze have shaped the centralised system of governance that has characterised China throughout its history. In this sense, the Motuo hydropower project represents the latest chapter in China’s quest to harness the power of its rivers.

    Such a quest remains imperative for China and its importance has been further underlined by the challenges of climate change, which has seen natural resources such as water becoming increasingly limited. The Ganges river has already been identified as one of the world’s water scarcity hotspots.

    As well as sustaining China’s population, the hydropower provided by the dam is another part of China’s wider push towards self-sufficiency. It’s estimated that the dam could generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year – about the same about produced by the whole UK. While this will meet the needs of the local population, it also further entrenches China’s ability to produce cheap electricity – something that has enabled China to become and remain a manufacturing superpower.

    Construction has only just begun, but Motuo hydropower project has already become a microcosm of China’s wider push towards development. It’s also a gamechanger in the geopolitics of Asia, giving China the potential to exert greater control in shaping the region’s water supplies. This in turn will give it greater power to shape the geopolitics of the region.

    At the same time, it is also the latest chapter of China’s longstanding quest to harness its waterways, which now has regional implications beyond anything China’s previous dynasties could imagine.

    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.

    Tom Harper 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. By building the world’s biggest dam, China hopes to control more than just its water supply – https://theconversation.com/by-building-the-worlds-biggest-dam-china-hopes-to-control-more-than-just-its-water-supply-261984

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Ezell, Kiggans, Malliotakis Introduce Port Crane Tax Credit of 2025 to Boost National Security and Domestic Manufacturing

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Mike Ezell (Mississippi 4th District)

    U.S. Representatives Mike Ezell (MS-04), Jen Kiggans (VA-02), and Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11) introduced the Port Crane Tax Credit of 2025, legislation to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to establish tax credits that incentivize the domestic production of port cranes, a critical step toward strengthening U.S. supply chain security and revitalizing American manufacturing.

    The bill comes in response to growing bipartisan concerns over foreign-made port infrastructure—particularly cranes manufactured in adversarial nations—being installed at key U.S. shipping terminals. The proposed tax credit would reduce the financial burden for companies investing in American-made cranes and components, encouraging domestic production and reducing U.S. reliance on foreign suppliers for critical port equipment.

    “Our ports are essential to our economy—and our national security,” Ezell said. “They serve as the gateways for trade, driving billions of dollars in commerce and supporting millions of jobs across the country. But more than that, they are critical infrastructure, and their vulnerability can pose real risks to our national safety. From cybersecurity threats to supply chain disruptions, foreign control over critical components—like ship-to-shore cranes—creates unacceptable exposure to espionage, sabotage, and logistical choke points. The Port Crane Tax Credit of 2025 is about putting American workers and American safety first. It will incentivize the production and deployment of domestically manufactured cranes, reduce our dependence on adversarial nations, and stimulate investment in American manufacturing and innovation. This isn’t just an economic policy—it’s a national security imperative. I’m proud to introduce this legislation to strengthen our ports, empower our workforce, and reinforce the foundation of American resilience.”

    “Port security is vital, not just to our economy, but to our national defense. And yet many of these ports don’t get the security they so desperately need. The threat of cyber intrusions and espionage from the Chinese Communist Party is real. We must do everything in our power to protect our critical infrastructure, and that includes securing the cranes that operate at our ports,” Kiggans said. “I’m deeply concerned that so many of our ports are forced to use cranes manufactured by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC), a Chinese state-owned company. It makes no sense to let our top adversary build and maintain the very equipment that powers our supply chains. I’m proud to support the Port Crane Tax Credit Act introduced by my colleague Rep. Ezell, which will empower our port operators to use American-made cranes. Port security is national security. The work our ports do is imperative—we cannot afford to leave that in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”

    “Our bipartisan legislation delivers strong incentives to produce port cranes and expand domestic manufacturing right here in the United States, advancing our America First agenda to rebuild domestic industry and protect our national security,” Malliotakis said. “For maritime communities like ours, that means more good-paying jobs, a stronger local economy, and greater independence from foreign supply chains.”

    “Without safe, reliable and affordable cranes, America’s ports would not be able to move the goods that sustain our economy and support the daily lives of American consumers,” Cary S. Davis, AAPA President and CEO said. “Instead of levying unfair taxes on port development, the Port Cranes Tax Credit Act is a tangible first step on the supply side towards incentivizing the reshoring of key CHE in the coming years since there are currently no domestic STS crane manufacturers. We thank lead sponsors Representatives Ezell and Malliotakis, alongside original cosponsors, Representatives Weber and Kiggans, for recognizing the need for supply side incentives – not punishments on the demand side through taxes – and encourage others concerned about the future of the port industry and our nation’s supply chains to support this bill and quickly get it to President Trump’s desk.”

    “Congressman Mike Ezell’s leadership on the Port Crane Tax Credit Act of 2025 is exactly the kind of forward-thinking support Gulf Coast ports like ours need to stay competitive and meet the demands of a modern, American-made supply chain,” Bo Ethridge, Port Director, Port Pascagoula. “Port Pascagoula plays a critical role in the regional economy, and as manufacturing continues to return to U.S. shores, our port is experiencing increased demand and new growth opportunities. Yet we remain the only major Gulf Coast port without cargo cranes, which is an infrastructure gap that limits our ability to diversify commodities. This legislation is a vital step toward closing that gap. With federal support, including incentives like this tax credit, we can move forward with the acquisition of two mobile harbor cranes that will significantly enhance our operational capabilities and position us to serve a broader range of industries and cargo types. We’re proud to work alongside Congressman Ezell to strengthen America’s ports and power the future of domestic manufacturing.”

    “Congressman Ezell’s Port Crane Tax Credit Act will help ensure America supports critical infrastructure by growing domestic crane manufacturing capacity,” Jon Nass, CEO and Executive Director, Port of Gulfport. “It creates a path to bring new skilled jobs to Mississippi and reinforces our ability to compete globally while supporting our maritime and port industries. We appreciate Congressman Ezell’s leadership on this important legislation.”

    “Strengthening and securing our nation’s supply chain resiliency depends on U.S.-built and manufactured port cranes.  This bill addresses urgent national security concerns, and our nation’s ports greatly benefit from this proposed legislation to create tax incentives to support domestic production of port infrastructure equipment,” explained Paul Anderson, Port Tampa Bay President and CEO.

    “Modern cargo handling equipment is a major capital expense for Port operations. As the largest inland public port and logistic hub in Upstate New York, the Port of Albany couldn’t function without key equipment – from our mobile harbor cranes to our front loaders and forklifts. We have to keep the supply chain moving. If we have to wait six months, a year, even two years for a piece of equipment to be delivered, that should be unacceptable, but it’s become the norm due to market conditions,” Richard J. Hendrick Sr., Port of Albany CEO and AAPA Board of Directors Vice Chair said. “The Port’s been operating for almost one hundred years, and the numbers don’t lie – our overall economic impact on New York State is annually more than $813 million with approximately 4,500 related jobs. Vessel calls have increased 41% during the past year due to Heavy Lift work and breakbulk cargo. I’m proud of those numbers, and the people who make those numbers possible, year after year, but they need to have the right equipment. We need to support onshoring manufacturing and good manufacturing jobs, and to make sure that our U.S. ports are equipped to continue to get the job done. I applaud Representatives Malliotakis and Ezell, and original cosponsors Representatives Weber and Kiggans, for taking decisive action to move the 2025 Port Cranes Tax Credit Act forward.”

    The legislation aligns with broader efforts in Congress to protect critical infrastructure and bolster domestic supply chains in the face of growing economic and geopolitical threats.

    The Port Crane Tax Credit of 2025 is expected to draw bipartisan support and will be referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means for further consideration.

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Ahead of Confirmation Hearing, Warren Presses HHS Nominee on Dangerous Anti-Vax, Anti-Abortion View

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren

    July 31, 2025

    As HHS General Counsel, Michael Stuart would serve as chief legal representative and advisor to RFK Jr., entire agency

    “I am concerned that…you will greenlight Trump Administration policies that will endanger public health, strip Americans of their abortion rights, and cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance.”

    Text of Letter (PDF)

    Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Michael Stuart, nominee for General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), on his dangerous anti-vaccine views, staunch anti-abortion advocacy, and more. Ahead of his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Finance Committee later today — at which Senator Warren will question Stuart — Senator Warren sent Stuart a letter outlining her key concerns with his nomination.

    “Given your ideological views, zealous advocacy for restrictions on abortion, and record of anti-vaccine skepticism, I am concerned that, rather than faithfully following the law, you will greenlight Trump Administration policies that will endanger public health, strip Americans of their abortion rights, and cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance,” wrote Senator Warren.

    As HHS General Counsel, Stuart would serve as the chief legal representative and advisor to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the entire agency. Stuart’s interpretation of the law would play a key role in ensuring HHS is actually achieving its goal of protecting Americans’ health.

    Stuart’s history of anti-vaccine views threaten to endanger Americans — especially given all that Secretary Kennedy has already done to roll back vaccine access. As a West Virginia state senator, Stuart was a key proponent of Secretary Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign and appears to espouse the same anti-vaccine beliefs. As HHS GC, Stuart would advise Secretary Kennedy on critical vaccine-related decisions, including legal standards related to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

    Senator Warren posed a series of questions about Stuart’s plan to advise HHS on issues related to vaccines, including whether he believes Secretary Kennedy’s decision to fire the entire ACIP panel was done lawfully and whether Secretary Kennedy has the statutory authority to unilaterally change vaccines covered by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program program.

    Senator Warren also pressed Stuart on HHS’s massive cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, which totaled $2.7 billion in just the first three months of this year.

    “These cuts are under continuing legal scrutiny, and if confirmed, you would be responsible for advising HHS on navigating this legal landscape so as to remain in compliance with the law,” wrote Senator Warren.

    Senator Warren highlighted Stuart’s staunch anti-abortion views, including his track record of advancing harmful misinformation about reproductive rights and supporting extremist pieces of anti-abortion legislation as a West Virginia state senator. As HHS General Counsel, Stuart would be responsible for providing legal guidance on reproductive health policies and regulations

    “President Trump has frozen millions of dollars in family planning funding, issued executive directives to undermine abortion access, amplified misinformation and sowed confusion about the safety of mifepristone, rolled back protections to shield patients and providers from violence, revoked EMTALA guidance that protected women with medical emergencies, eliminated leave and travel benefits for servicemembers, and more,” wrote Senator Warren. “It is crucial that the person serving in this position be capable of interpreting and enforcing laws and regulations concerning women’s access to reproductive health care with a neutral and health-focused lens.”

    Senator Warren also raised concerns about how Stuart will approach Secretary Kennedy’s mass firings at HHS, crack down on abusive tactics in Medicare Advantage, protect Head Start from drastic cuts, and implement Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which is set to slash health care for millions of Americans.

    “HHS carries an enormous responsibility as its services and programming touch millions of American lives every day…The chief legal adviser to the Secretary of HHS must be able to, without bias,

    effectively advise the Secretary to ensure that all actions by HHS are in accordance with the law,” wrote Senator Warren. “I ask that you provide answers to my questions so that the Senate and the American people can better understand how you plan to carry out this role.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Felony Fugitive Homicide Suspect Deported to the United States from Kenya

    Source: US FBI

    On Friday, July 18, FBI Seattle took felony fugitive Salman Haji into custody following his arrest and deportation from Nairobi, Kenya, as part of an operation targeting violent crime. Haji was wanted for the January 2024 homicide of Mingyuan Huang in the parking lot of a business in Tukwila in what the investigation has determined to have been an attempted robbery. Haji is also charged in a federal armed carjacking case.

    “International fugitive investigations like this one require significant coordination with domestic and international law enforcement partners as well as our Legal Attaché offices, which advance the FBI’s mission worldwide,” said W. Mike Herrington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Seattle field office. “The FBI is committed to pursuing those who attempt to flee the criminal justice system and bringing them to justice, even when they seek to evade accountability by hiding overseas. This international operation was a joint effort by the Tukwila Police Department, FBI Seattle, FBI Legal Attachés Nairobi and The Hague, the DEA Nairobi Country Office, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, and Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations and Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.”

    “The Tukwila Police Department would like to thank the FBI and all the involved federal and international law enforcement partner agencies for their assistance in locating and taking Haji into custody and stand trial for the homicide of Mingyuan Huang,” said Eric Drever, Chief of Police, Tukwila Police Department.

    The operation that ultimately led to Haji’s arrest is part of Summer Heat, the FBI’s nationwide initiative targeting violent crime during the summer months. As part of this effort, the FBI has launched a multi-pronged offensive to crush violent crime. By surging resources alongside state and local partners, executing federal warrants on violent criminals and fugitives, and dismantling violent gangs nationwide, we are aggressively restoring safety in our communities across the country.

    For information on the federal case, view a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington: King County, Washington, murder suspect now indicted in armed carjacking in Seattle.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Reps. Gomez, Costa, Panetta, Harder, Adams Announce Eats Act To Expand Snap Benefit Eligibility To More College Students

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Jimmy Gomez (CA-34)

    WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), along with Reps. Josh Harder (CA-10), Jimmy Panetta (CA-20), Alma Adams (NC-12), Jim Costa (CA-21), and 130 other Members of Congress reintroduced the Enhance Access to SNAP (EATS) Act, which would expand Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility to all college students attending 2- and 4-year universities who meet traditional SNAP income and eligibility requirements. Current SNAP eligibility rules only include college students working 20 hours per week or participating in a federal or state work study, or those who meet very specific exemptions. The EATS Act would permanently ensure that low-income college students have equitable access to SNAP benefits by amending the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to include “attending an institution of higher education” as another form of qualification in addition to work.

    “Too many students are working toward a degree while quietly struggling with hunger,” said Rep. Gomez. “No student should have to choose between focusing on their finals or finding their next meal. It is essential that college students, especially first-generation students and students of color, don’t fall through the cracks. The EATS Act will expand access to SNAP benefits for students and ensure that hunger doesn’t stand in the way of a degree or a better life.”

    According to The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University, food insecurity is a serious problem on college campuses across the nation, especially for students of color, first generation students, low-income students, and students at community colleges. In 2023-2024, 41% of college students experienced food insecurity. Students of color were more likely to experience basic needs insecurity: 74% of Indigenous, 72% of Black, and 67% of Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian students experienced food insecurity, housing insecurity, and/or homelessness.

    Senator Kristen Gillibrand is introducing companion legislation in the Senate.

    “No college student should have to scrounge for food or wonder where they’ll get their next meal,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Food insecurity is a crisis that plagues low-income college students in New York and beyond, and we must do more to combat it. The EATS Act would eliminate work-for-food barriers for low-income students and ensure that as many as 4 million college students nationwide can access the SNAP benefits they need to learn and thrive. This legislation is critical, and I’m committed to fighting for its passage.”

    “There are many college students across the country that face food insecurity due to outdated and arbitrary restrictions that block access to SNAP benefits,” said Rep. Panetta.  “The EATS Act would eliminate those barriers and expand eligibility so students, including those in California’s CalFresh program, can get the nutrition they need.  By removing these unnecessary hurdles, we can ensure that rather than worrying about where their next meal will come from, our students can focus on their education and future success.”

    “College students across the nation are going hungry, skipping meals, and can’t afford to make ends meet – it’s unacceptable. No student should have to choose between food and their textbooks,” said Rep. Costa. “Our legislation eliminates barriers and expands SNAP eligibility for college students, so they get the nutrition needed to be successful.”

    “This is a commonsense bill – we know our students can’t learn if they’re hungry. One in three college students face food insecurity meaning millions of young people aren’t able to live up to their potential,” said Rep. Harder. “If we want to set future generations up for success, we have to make sure they are getting the nutrition they need. This bill does just that by extending access to SNAP to college students. It’s a no-brainer if we care about our future.”

    “As a former college professor of 40 years, I’ve seen students struggle with hunger firsthand and know how it impacts their health and academic achievement. They should be focusing on their education, not where their next meal is coming from, but harsh SNAP restrictions make that impossible for millions of college students, especially after the passage of Republicans’ One Big, Ugly Bill,” said Rep. Adams. “I’m proud to support the EATS Act so we can remove these outdated barriers to SNAP, make college more accessible to low-income families, and ensure no student goes to bed hungry.”

    “No student should have to choose between eating and learning. The EATS Act removes outdated and harmful barriers that have long prevented college students—including many student parents and students of color—from accessing SNAP. This bill is a step toward justice—toward a future where an empty stomach isn’t a prerequisite for learning, and where every student is healthy, housed, and fed,” said Shimica Gaskins, President & CEO, GRACE/End Child Poverty California.

    “All students should have the resources they need to meet their basic needs. But with one in five experiencing food insecurity and many lacking access to SNAP benefits, this is not their reality. It’s clear the system needs reformed,” said Jessica Thompson, Senior Vice President at The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS). “Removing the requirement to meet an additional exemption will improve students’ ability to access benefits and better support their academic success. That’s why TICAS is proud to endorse the EATS Act of 2025  – a critical step in addressing food insecurity for this overlooked population.” 

    “Far too many low-income college students are going hungry, all while juggling family, work, and a full course load in pursuit of economic mobility. Many are parents, caregivers, or older adults returning to school for a better future, but the current system, with its 20-hour per week work requirement, makes this nearly impossible. Balancing work, school, and other responsibilities leaves little time for these students to focus on their education, much less maintain their health or care for their loved ones. Hunger only compounds these challenges, preventing them from fully thriving,” said Crystal FitzSimons, President of the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC). “No student should have to choose between buying food and pursuing an education. Congress must pass the EATS Act to remove outdated barriers to SNAP eligibility and ensure every student has the food they need to learn and thrive.”

    The full text of the bill can be found  here.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Adventure awaits: USGS releases detailed topographic maps designed for recreational use

    Source: US Geological Survey

    Custom Extent 25K Recreational Topo showing elevation, hydrography, geographic names, transportation, structures, boundaries, and woodland tint around Grand Canyon Village in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. This OnDemand Topo was generated using the topoBuilder application in June 2025.

    The maps are highly detailed, allowing users to see subtle changes in terrain and plan routes that match their skill level, time constraints and interests. They also have specialized symbols that denote key recreational features like trailheads, campsites, picnic areas, and other amenities, making it easier to locate resources for outdoor enthusiasts of all ages and abilities. Rivers, trails, forests, and structures are emphasized, providing a comprehensive view of the environment with a focus on recreational opportunities. The maps highlight protected areas, such as national parks, national forests and national wild and scenic rivers, encouraging responsible exploration.

    “Whether you are a seasoned explorer or a casual hiker, the new USGS maps are a game-changer for recreational activities. If you’re looking for the shortest path to a summit or a leisurely trail along a river, these maps have you covered,” said Ariel Doumbouya, a USGS geographer and product lead. 

    These new maps are called 25K Recreational Topos because they have a 1:25,000 scale, which means one inch on the map represents 25,000 inches on the ground. This is about 2,083 feet or roughly 0.4 miles. This scale was used because it matches those used in Alaska, Canada, and by the U.S. Military, simplifying the user experience and aligning with scales used by national and international agencies and industries. 

    The level of detail these new maps bring to outdoor navigation make it easier to explore the natural wonders of the U.S. while supporting access to public lands for everyone. Designed with modern mapping technology, these maps offer precise coordinates and topographical details perfect for remote explorations.

    The new 25K Recreational Topo is available through the USGS topoBuilder application, where users can customize and download digital OnDemand Topo maps featuring the most up-to-date data from The National Map. These maps can be integrated with GPS devices or mobile apps, providing real-time navigation in the field. The maps are free for digital use, reinforcing the USGS commitment to making geographical data accessible to all, and enhancing public access to public lands for outdoor exploration.

    “The 25K Recreational Topos mark a milestone in supporting recreation and reflect USGS’s commitment to innovative cartography that serves and supports the American public.” said Doumbouya. “They empower adventurers to explore the outdoors with greater confidence, insights, and awareness of their surroundings.”

    Ready to hit the trails? Check out the new maps and start planning your next adventure. Let the 25K Recreational Topo guide you to places you’ve only dreamed of exploring!

    Learn more about the variety of topographic maps from the U.S. Geological survey. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI: Introducing Rippling Travel: For Faster Bookings, Smarter Spending, and Better Travel

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    SAN FRANCISCO, July 31, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Rippling, a leading business software company, today announced the launch of Rippling Travel, allowing companies to save more time and money on business travel. Rippling Travel unifies expense management, corporate cards, bill pay, payroll, and travel booking all within a single, integrated system – making it faster, easier, and cheaper than ever to book and manage corporate travel.

    “At Rippling, our focus has always been to free people to work on hard problems by automating away repetitive admin work so they can focus on strategic work,” said Matt Epstein, General Manager, Rippling Spend.

    That’s why we launched Rippling Travel. It makes it insanely easy for employees to book flights, hotels, and cars without having to worry about what is (and isn’t) in-policy. And for companies to automatically control every penny their employees spend on business travel, from in-flight seat upgrades to reimbursements on the road.

    Corporate travel has historically been a headache. For employees, it takes time and causes stress. For employers, it requires endless administrative tasks and back-and-forths on approvals. In fact, in a recent Rippling survey, 80% of companies said business travel is critical to revenue generation – but 93% still using legacy travel platforms report budget overruns and administrative inefficiencies.

    Rippling Travel solves these issues, providing an alternative to outdated software and disparate systems with a single system for unified travel and expense management that offers:

    • Seamless and cost conscious booking: Rippling Travel makes it quick and easy for employees to book and manage their travel. We partnered with Duffel to offer options from Expedia Group, Priceline, Booking.com, and direct airline integrations – all from within one intuitive platform.
    • Hyper-custom policies: Rippling Travel allows you to build hyper-custom policies around flights, hotels, and car rentals in just a few clicks. Rippling Travel’s deep integration with other business systems means policies automatically adapt to internal organizational changes (such as promotions or procedural updates).
    • Comprehensive reporting and analytics: Integrated into the Spend suite, Rippling Travel empowers employers with real-time, comprehensive data and analytics reports on all travel and spend related matters across the business.

    Ready to consolidate all spend management with Rippling – including Travel? Learn more and sign up for a demo today.

    About Rippling
    Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Spend – globally. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system. Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.8B from the world’s top investors – including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, and Bedrock.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Africa energy efficiency under the spotlight at G20 meeting

    Source: Government of South Africa

    Africa Energy Commission Executive Director, Rashid Ali Abdallah, has welcomed South Africa’s proposal – through the G20 Presidency legacy programme – to establish an energy efficiency facility.

    He was delivering remarks on the sidelines of the third G20 Energy Transitions Working Group (ETWG) meeting in the North West this week.

    Abdallah highlighted that for the African Union, energy efficiency is “at the core” of the development agenda through the African Energy Efficiency Strategy – which, amongst others, has set a target to increase energy productivity over the next 25 years.

    “To achieve African Energy Productivity target and contribute to the global doubling [of] energy efficiency by 2030… the continent needs access to sustainable finance and a strong coordination of the institutional framework with good human capacity.

    “It is for this reason that we welcome the proposal by the South African G20 Presidency to establish an energy efficiency legacy programme. This decision not only compliments our work as the African Union but reinforces the role of energy efficiency in addressing the challenge of energy security and equality,” he said.

    According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, some 600 million Africans still do not have access to electricity.

    Abdallah noted the South African government’s pursuance energy security and access.

    “This agenda is particularly relevant to Africa, as the continent is lagging in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal with over 70% of the population living in energy poverty. 

    “Access to renewable and affordable energy is essential to powering economies and powering essential services such as healthcare, clean water and education and improving living standards,” the Executive Director said.

    He added that as the African continent continues to improve sectors, including health, education, water and food security, “the importance of energy efficiency cannot be overlooked”.

    “Energy efficiency in Africa spans across all sectors. For example, 40% of utility in Africa Union states report electricity losses of over 20% – a stark contrast to the 6 to 10% seen in developed countries.

    “By improving this deficiency, we can save a significant amount of investment on the generation and transmission infrastructure on the continent. This compliments the implementation of the African Single Electricity Market and Continental Power System Master Plan initiative being spearheaded by the African Union,” Abdallah explained.

    Savings will also be extended to cash strapped households.

    “For household appliances and equipment, market transformation not only saves money but also accelerates access of modern cooking.

    “Adopting efficient lighting, modern transformer and cooling appliances has the potential to save African infrastructure investment equivalent to 40GW and more than US $20 billion in savings by 2040,” Abdallah said. – SAnews.gov.za

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: UNFPA urges governments to act on climate and gender at Global Symposium ahead of COP30

    Source: United Nations Population Fund

    Brasília, Brazil, 31 July 2025 – The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Government of Brazil today issued a powerful Call to Action urging governments to place gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) at the heart of global climate response. The Call to Action was issued as the 2025 Global Symposium on Climate Justice and Impacted Populations draws to a close in Brasilia. 

    Held just months ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the high-level symposium was convened by UNFPA and the Government of Brazil to mobilize bold, rights-based, and gender-responsive climate action at a pivotal moment as countries revise their national climate plans and realign funding priorities.

    The Call to Action outlines a shared roadmap to put gender equality, SRHR, and protection from gender-based violence (GBV) at the center of global climate response. It identifies concrete steps for governments and institutions to take as they prepare for key COP30 milestones –  including the Belem Health Action Plan, a flagship COP30 initiative focused on strengthening health systems as part of global climate action.

    The Call to Action demands: 

    • More climate finance directed to women and girls, especially in crisis-affected settings
    • Stronger support for national and local partners to include SRHR and protection from GBV in climate policies
    • Greater investment in data and evidence to inform gender-responsive climate action
    • Stronger emergency preparedness and health systems that can withstand climate shocks
    • That SRHR and protection for GBV are finally included in the COP30 Gender Action Plan on climate change

    Women and girls are already paying a steep price for a climate crisis they did not cause. They face rising rates of gender-based violence, worsening maternal health outcomes, and growing barriers to essential services like contraception and safe childbirth. Yet most national climate policies overlook their needs. Key systems, including health, education, and protection services, remain underfunded and overstretched. Just a fraction of global climate finance is allocated to gender equality, and reliable data on how women and girls are affected remains scarce or nonexistent.

    “We are at a pivotal moment in our march against climate change — one that must unite us all. Let us leverage this moment to forge a path forward that ensures climate justice and strengthens the resilience of women and young people in the face of climate change,” said Diene Keita, UNFPA Acting Executive Director, in her opening remarks.

    The three-day hybrid event, which brought together more than 150 policymakers, researchers, youth leaders, and advocates from around the world, built on UNFPA’s first global convening on climate and SRHR, the International Symposium on SRHR, Gender and Climate Change Resilience, held in Pretoria ahead of ICPD25 in 2019. There, participants issued the Future Africa Call to Action – a shared advocacy agenda, urging governments to integrate SRHR and gender equality into climate resilience efforts. This year’s event took that work further, delivering the Brasília Call to Action as the next step to embed gender, health, and equity into climate decision-making — especially as countries prepare new climate commitments ahead of COP30. 

    “Many aspects of climate change and its impacts on populations were examined and further explored during the discussions of this symposium, reinforcing the understanding that it is impossible to advance resilience and sustainable development without integrating gender equality into environmental and climate policies,” said Janja Lula da Silva, First Lady of Brazil and Special Envoy for Women at COP30, who participated in the closing ceremony. “There can be no climate justice without gender equality. And no climate justice without the full participation of women.”

    As the UN’s lead agency on sexual and reproductive health, UNFPA brings a critical rights-based perspective to climate action, grounded in gender equality and the lived realities of diverse women and girls. With decades of experience in humanitarian response, data systems, and frontline health services, UNFPA is working with countries to ensure sexual and reproductive health care and interventions to address GBV and harmful practices remain available during climate shocks. From supporting displaced women during emergencies to strengthening climate-resilient health systems, UNFPA is helping countries respond to today’s risks while preparing for a more uncertain future.

    Press Enquiries:

    Zina Alam; zialam@unfpa.org; media@unfpa.org 

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Reducing red tape for adventure activity and amusement ride operators

    Source: New Zealand Government

    Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden is consulting on health and safety regulations in the recreation and entertainment sectors to reduce unnecessary compliance pressure, while maintaining safety outcomes.  

    “We’re making it easier for recreation providers by making sure only those running genuinely high-risk adventure activities need to meet the stricter safety requirements,” says Ms van Velden.   

    “The first proposed change is to amend the definition of ‘adventure activities’ in the Adventure Activities Regulations. The current definition is so broad that it may require low-risk activities to meet compliance standards designed for higher-risk operations.   

    “There’s a big difference in the level of risk associated with things like white water rafting and bungy jumping versus a bike ride on one of the New Zealand cycle trails,” says Ms van Velden.   

    “I’m proposing this change to ensure only businesses providing higher-risk adventure activities need to meet the stricter higher risk safety requirements. We will be consulting with the sector so that we get the boundary right between high risk and lower risk activities.”   

    The second change is to update the Amusement Device Regulations so that only transportable high-risk amusement devices require a permit from local councils.   

    “I have heard from local councils who say the regulations are outdated and in need of review.   

    “Councils currently permit a wide range of amusement devices regardless of risk. There’s a difference in risk between large Ferris wheels that are frequently dismantled and reinstalled, and small merry-go-rounds or fixed amusement rides that are never moved.   

    “This change will streamline the process, such as the use of low-risk amusement devices at the school fair. It will make it easier for communities to put on local events like Guy Fawkes or Easter shows because the operators from the communities don’t have to get local permits from the Councils,” says Ms van Velden.   

    “I have also heard from a number of groups that recreational organisations are reluctant to organise volunteer work in the outdoors, like checking traps and pest control or trail maintenance, because of concerns about triggering health and safety liabilities.”   

    Social and community groups are having to develop extensive policies and documentation for their volunteer workers, rather than focusing on actions to keep them safe.   

    Local authorities are concerned about extensive health and safety obligations for people who spontaneously volunteer and self-organise during emergencies, over which they may not have much control.   

    “I will be seeking Cabinet approval to include a provision on clarifying the obligations for volunteer organisations in the Health and Safety Reform Bill that I expect to be introduced later this year.   

    “I have asked my officials to consult a wide range of affected groups like the Federated Mountain Clubs, Aotearoa Climbing Access Trust, Department of Conservation, Volunteering NZ, and Local Government NZ.   

    “It is important we get the balance right between encouraging voluntary activities that all New Zealanders benefit from, while keeping people safe.   

    “By targeting regulation better, we’re helping recreation and entertainment businesses spend less time on paperwork and more time delivering safe, enjoyable experiences,” says Ms van Velden.  

    “These changes will save time and costs for businesses and workers as we cut-red-tape to make it easier to do business. When our Kiwi businesses thrive, there are more jobs and lower prices for all New Zealanders.”

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI: Sleep Lean: Why SleepLean Is the Nighttime Fat Burner Everyone’s Talking About in 2025 (INVESTIGATIVE REPORT)

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    New York City, NY, July 31, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —

    As the connection between quality sleep and body composition gains wider recognition, a new supplement is capturing attention for its unique nighttime approach: Sleep Lean. Both early users and wellness enthusiasts are praising it as a promising step forward in aligning sleep patterns with body balance goals, all while preserving restful sleep.

    In recent years, wellness has expanded beyond daytime routines and fitness tracking to include what occurs during nighttime hours. This growing awareness has sparked interest in nighttime supplements like Sleep Lean, which provide support during one of the body’s most important regenerative phases: sleep.

    Traditionally, weight management products have centered around daytime activity, focusing on boosting energy, controlling diet, or adjusting caloric intake. However, emerging research into circadian rhythms and hormonal cycles has made one thing clear: sleep significantly influences how the body performs throughout the day.

    This is where Sleep Lean stands out. It isn’t a fast-acting stimulant or a harsh sleep aid. Instead, it works in harmony with the body’s natural rhythm, supporting rest, regulation, and renewal without interference.

    According to current wellness trends, demand for nighttime supplements has grown significantly over the last 18 months, particularly among midlife wellness consumers. As sleep becomes more widely acknowledged as a key pillar of health, products like Sleep Lean are moving from the margins to the mainstream of long-term body balance strategies.

    Why Sleep Lean Is Gaining Momentum in 2025

    As the global wellness landscape continues to expand, a meaningful shift is taking place. People are beginning to recognize sleep not just as a way to recharge energy, but as a crucial period for internal regulation and balance. Leading this movement is Sleep Lean, a new supplement making waves among those seeking a more natural and gentle approach to overall wellness.

    In contrast to traditional methods that emphasize energy-boosting products or strict daytime routines, Sleep Lean supplement offers a unique solution by working in sync with the body’s nighttime processes. Its growing popularity isn’t the result of flashy marketing.

    Instead, it’s being fueled by genuine user experiences, active wellness communities, and shared reports of better sleep paired with noticeable improvements in body rhythm.

    Experts in the wellness field are calling this emerging mindset the “rest revolution” — a pivot from pushing harder to supporting smarter. Sleep Lean supplement aligns perfectly with this concept by targeting the body’s natural metabolic recovery processes that occur during sleep.

    As awareness continues to rise both in the United States and internationally, Sleep Lean is standing out not as a passing trend but as a symbol of shifting wellness values. In a space often saturated with stimulating products, this supplement is helping people rediscover one of the most effective yet underappreciated health tools available: quality sleep.

    >>Visit the Official Website To Get More Information

    The Science Behind Sleep and Metabolism

    Recent scientific findings continue to highlight the strong connection between sleep and metabolic function. Despite this, most wellness strategies have historically focused on what happens during the day. That’s where Sleep Lean stands out in 2025, by addressing the often-overlooked role of nighttime in supporting internal balance and overall well-being.

    Sleep is far from a passive state. It marks a shift in how the body operates, triggering changes in hormone activity, cellular repair, and energy regulation. For example, growth hormone peaks during deep sleep, helping with tissue regeneration and nutrient allocation.

    Meanwhile, cortisol—associated with stress response and fat storage—tends to recalibrate overnight, especially in those who sleep well.

    Disrupted or poor-quality sleep interferes with these processes, contributing to imbalances in energy, appetite control, and weight fluctuations. Sleep Lean supplement is designed to support the body’s natural rhythms, encouraging more restorative rest while creating a calm internal environment for recovery and regulation.

    By focusing on nighttime as a window for wellness, Sleep Lean taps into a growing base of evidence showing that sleep is not just recovery—it’s a vital phase for realigning metabolic health. This approach appeals to people looking for solutions that work with their body, rather than quick fixes that mask deeper imbalances.

    How Sleep Lean Supports the Body Without Harsh Stimulants

    Sleep Lean is gaining attention for its unique focus on aiding the body’s natural processes during rest. While many wellness products are geared toward daytime activity, this supplement is specifically formulated to enhance restorative metabolism, the quiet balancing work that happens while we sleep.

    Instead of relying on strong stimulants or ingredients that may lead to energy crashes, Sleep Lean takes a more gentle and supportive approach. Its carefully selected components help promote easier sleep onset while also encouraging healthy nutrient processing and storage during the night.

    This combination of restful sleep support and metabolic assistance is becoming increasingly popular among those seeking effective, non-invasive options. Early users have reported better sleep quality alongside subtle yet consistent improvements in body composition.

    Experts in the wellness space point out that sleep is still one of the most underappreciated aspects of metabolic health. With the introduction of Sleep Lean, this important connection is finally receiving the attention it deserves.

    >>For more information, including pricing and availability, visit the official Sleep Lean website.

    What Makes Sleep Lean’s Ingredients Stand Out

    The growing popularity of Sleep Lean supplement can be traced back to its thoughtfully selected ingredients, each chosen to support restful sleep and nighttime metabolic function without overwhelming the body.

    At the heart of the formula are natural adaptogens, which help the body stay balanced during periods of stress. Rather than inducing drowsiness, these ingredients encourage a smooth transition into rest, creating the right conditions for the body to carry out its nightly repair and regulation work.

    Sleep Lean also includes specific amino acid compounds linked to neurotransmitter activity. These compounds play a subtle but important role in helping regulate the sleep-wake cycle, allowing users to move into deeper, more restorative sleep phases. During these stages, the body is better equipped to manage energy use and nutrient processing.

    Adding to this blend is a botanical complex rich in antioxidants. Known for their calming and cell-supporting properties, these botanicals contribute to the body’s overnight recovery and renewal efforts.

    Instead of forcing sleep, Sleep Lean works in harmony with the body’s natural rhythm. This gentle and holistic approach is a major reason why it is resonating with individuals seeking non-disruptive support for both rest and metabolic health.

    What Sets Sleep Lean Apart from Daytime Weight Loss Supplements?

    According to the official website, most wellness supplements focus on boosting energy, increasing thermogenesis, or controlling appetite during the day. Sleep Lean, however, takes a different approach by providing support while the user is resting, aligning with the body’s natural recovery phase at night.

    Daytime products typically aim to stimulate the body, offering quick bursts of energy or increased alertness that may aid motivation but can disrupt rest if consumed too late. Sleep Lean avoids these issues completely. It contains no ingredients that cause jitters, no sudden energy crashes, and no interference with the body’s natural cortisol rhythm.

    Instead, Sleep Lean is formulated to assist the body’s natural processes after dark: resetting, repairing, and restoring balance. Research indicates that during sleep, the body undertakes complex metabolic functions such as nutrient processing and cellular maintenance. Sleep Lean supports these activities rather than working against them.

    This fundamental difference makes Sleep Lean a popular choice for those seeking sustainable wellness support without sacrificing sleep quality. It does not compete with energy levels but instead complements the body’s circadian rhythm. In an age of constant overstimulation, a supplement that focuses on nighttime recovery offers a welcome and increasingly popular alternative.

    >>Visit the official website to learn more.

    Who Is Using Sleep Lean in 2025?

    In 2025, wellness communities are experiencing a subtle but important change. People are increasingly recognizing rest not as idle downtime but as a vital part of maintaining overall body balance. This perspective is evident in the growing number of individuals choosing Sleep Lean pills.

    The range of users is broad. Busy professionals incorporate it into their nightly routines to encourage deeper, more restorative sleep and to support balance. Those going through midlife transitions, when sleep and metabolism often become more unpredictable, find value in the supplement’s gentle assistance.

    Even younger wellness seekers, who previously paid little attention to nighttime supplementation, are now embracing Sleep Lean as a key element of a comprehensive self-care regimen.

    Discussions on social media and wellness podcasts frequently highlight the “rest and reset” philosophy. Instead of seeking rapid results, many users prefer approaches that feel manageable over the long term. Sleep Lean fits well within this mindset, serving as a quiet, consistent support that works behind the scenes.

    What brings this diverse group together is a common priority: steady progress without sacrifice. In a market crowded with products promising quick fixes, Sleep Lean supplement appeals to those who want lasting improvements aligned with the body’s natural rhythms.

    Is Sleep Lean Safe for Nighttime Use?

    In 2025, safety continues to be a major concern for consumers, particularly when it comes to supplements intended for use before sleep. Sleep Lean has attracted attention not only for its distinctive approach but also for its responsible formulation designed specifically for nighttime support.

    The product is created without ingredients known to interfere with restful sleep, such as strong stimulants, synthetic sedatives, or addictive substances. Instead, it relies on naturally sourced compounds that help regulate the body’s circadian rhythms, promote nervous system balance, and gently support metabolic processes.

    Each ingredient is chosen for its suitability during evening hours. Rather than causing sudden changes in the body, the formula aims to facilitate a gradual and smooth transition into deeper sleep. Users frequently report experiencing calmness without feeling groggy upon waking, which is uncommon in this category of supplements.

    Moreover, the Sleep Lean formula avoids artificial colors, common allergens, and unnecessary fillers. This careful composition makes it a suitable choice for many wellness-minded individuals who want a safe and high-quality nighttime supplement.

    As the demand for sleep-centered metabolic support increases, Sleep Lean stands out as a thoughtful and balanced option that values harmony with the body’s natural rhythms over aggressive intervention.

    Where to Buy Authentic Sleep Lean in 2025

    As Sleep Lean’s popularity grows, many people are asking where to purchase it safely. The most reliable source for genuine Sleep Lean remains the official website, which offers a secure way to ensure the product’s authenticity, proper storage, and access to full customer support.

    Buying directly from the official website guarantees that customers receive the original formula along with the latest information, accurate usage instructions, and any available promotions. Because unauthorized sellers and counterfeit versions have appeared on some third-party marketplaces, wellness experts advise verifying the source before making a purchase.

    Safety is another important reason to choose official channels. Supplements designed for use during rest often include temperature-sensitive ingredients and require precise dosing, making quality control essential. This level of care is not always guaranteed when buying from unverified sellers.

    For those planning to incorporate Sleep Lean into their wellness routine, the brand also provides package options aimed at supporting consistent use over several weeks. This is especially beneficial for individuals seeking sustained support for body balance.

    What Wellness Experts Are Saying About Sleep Lean

    As the focus on restorative wellness grows, health professionals and holistic practitioners are paying close attention to products like Sleep Lean that prioritize working with the body’s natural rhythms rather than forcing change. Although daytime supplements remain important, the wellness community is increasingly acknowledging that rest itself plays an active and essential role in overall balance.

    Experts tracking the industry view Sleep Lean’s rising popularity as part of a larger trend. More consumers are selecting supplements based not only on their ingredients but also on how and when these ingredients support bodily functions. By targeting the nighttime hours, Sleep Lean provides an innovative alternative to products that emphasize daytime energy use.

    Many nutrition specialists have noted that Sleep Lean’s formulation aligns well with current knowledge about safe and gentle nighttime support. The fact that it does not contain synthetic sedatives or potent stimulants is often highlighted as a significant advantage.

    Overall, Sleep Lean is being seen not merely as a supplement but as an effective tool within a broader approach to enhancing metabolic health through quality rest.

    Final Thoughts: The Place of Sleep Lean in the 2025 Wellness Landscape

    Each year, thousands of supplements enter the wellness market, yet only a select few succeed in changing how people view body balance. In 2025, Sleep Lean is becoming one of those standout products—not because it makes flashy claims, but because it aligns perfectly with the evolving ways consumers approach wellness.

    Rather than trying to override the body’s natural systems or work against biology, Sleep Lean formula complements the body’s inherent design for recovery—quietly and gently supporting this process during rest.

    Its growing popularity reflects a broader shift in mindset. More people are adopting long-term strategies, seeking solutions that easily fit into their daily lives instead of products that require drastic lifestyle changes. Sleep Lean offers a simple integration: one capsule, a consistent routine, and a commitment to peaceful nights and balanced days.

    As awareness continues to build, Sleep Lean’s role in wellness becomes clearer. It focuses not on rushing results but on fostering smarter, sustainable habits. In a world filled with constant stimulation, this calm and supportive approach could be what truly sets it apart.

    For the most reliable and up-to-date information about the product, including pricing and availability, always refer to the official Sleep Lean website.

    Disclaimer: The information provided in this article about Sleep Lean is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Results may vary from person to person. Before starting any new supplement, including Sleep Lean, it is recommended to consult with a healthcare professional, especially if you have existing medical conditions, are pregnant, nursing, or taking medications. This product is not designed to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The statements made regarding Sleep Lean have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Always follow the manufacturer’s guidelines and instructions when using this supplement.

    Brand website: https://sleeplean.net/

    Project name: Sleep Lean

    Address: 285 Northeast Ave, Tallmadge, OH 44278, United States

    Postal code: 44278

    Contact:

    Email: support@sleeplean.net

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