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  • MIL-OSI Global: Mohammed Sami emerges as favourite in predictable Turner prize 2025 shortlist

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Martin Lang, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader in Fine Art , University of Lincoln

    The Turner prize is the world’s most prestigious award for contemporary art. Named after the renowned British painter J.M.W. Turner, the prize used to be a huge media affair. After it relaunched in 1991, it had a full live feature on Channel 4 (back in the day when most people only had four television channels) presented by British art critic Matthew Collings, and the prize was announced over the years by major celebrities, such as Madonna.

    Famous for courting controversy, the Turner prize shortlist was often featured on the front pages of tabloid newspapers – Tracey Emin’s “unmade bed” being a point in case. In more recent years, the prize has become less controversial and shifted towards more political themes, following certain trends such as new media and identity politics.

    Originally, the prize was limited to a British artist under the age of 50, but the age limit was removed in 2017 to accommodate Lubaina Himid (then 63) who was seen as emblematic of overlooked artists (in particular women of colour).

    Organised by the Tate which appoints a jury to select the shortlist, this year’s panel includes Andrew Bonacina (independent curator), Sam Lackey (director of the Liverpool Biennale), Priyesh Mistry (associate curator of modern and contemporary projects at the National Gallery, London), and Habda Rashid (senior curator of modern and contemporary art at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).

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    The criteria for selection are straightforward: the artist must be based in Britain and have had an outstanding exhibition in the last 12 months. Since this exhibition could take place anywhere in the world, it’s not uncommon for the British public not to have seen it, and this is the case this year. On the 250th anniversary of J.M.W. Turner’s birthday, the shortlist for the 2025 Turner Prize was announced at Tate Britain, with four artists shortlisted: Nnena Kalu, Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa.

    Nnena Kalu was selected for her show at Manifesta 15 in Barcelona, supplemented by work at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Kalu creates colourful cocoon-like hanging sculptures that are wrapped and woven, and respond to the architectural space in which they hang.

    Much will be made of Kalu’s identity as a black, learning-disabled, female artist, but this doesn’t really need to come into the assessment of her work, which is really an exploration of colour, gesture and repetition.

    Rene Matić was nominated for their show at CCA Berlin. Matić’s work addresses race, gender and class from personal experience, reflecting concerns that are so commonplace in contemporary art that – ironically for one of the youngest-ever Turner Prize nominees – they now seem behind the curve, like a pastiche.

    Unlike Kalu, Matić’s installations and photography place identity front and centre, predictably from a personal point of view. This is supposed to make a powerful statement about the intersectionality of modern life, but is hardly an original position today.

    Mohammed Sami was nominated for his exhibition at Blenheim Palace, which, while in England, was easily missed by art lovers.

    Sami’s paintings depict interiors that evoke memory and loss. His use of shadows and the absence of human presence create a sinister atmosphere, adding depth to his exploration of personal and collective histories and to the genre of the interior.

    Zadie Xa was nominated for her show at the Sharjah Biennial 16. Xa’s interdisciplinary approach combines sound, textiles and mural painting to delve into her Korean heritage, including themes like shamanism.

    Her work pushes the boundaries of painting, integrating it with other media – such as sound, textiles and murals – to create immersive experiences.

    This year’s Turner prize is notable for including painting for the first time since before the pandemic – perhaps a nod to Turner himself in this anniversary year. Sami’s oil on canvas contrast with Xa’s interdisciplinary methods, highlighting the diversity of contemporary art practices. Kalu and Matić provide installations, photography and text art diversifying the shortlist in terms of medium.

    The four shortlisted artists will be exhibited together at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford in September, and the winner will be announced on December 9. While the line-up is stronger than others in recent years, it is still somewhat predictable and lacks the excitement and controversies of years gone by.

    Mohammed Sami is by far the best artist on the shortlist and is already emerging as a clear favourite to win. Although the 2017 winner Lubaina Himid’s work included elements of painting, if Sami does win, he would be the first painter to win the prize since Tomma Abts in 2006.

    Martin Lang 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. Mohammed Sami emerges as favourite in predictable Turner prize 2025 shortlist – https://theconversation.com/mohammed-sami-emerges-as-favourite-in-predictable-turner-prize-2025-shortlist-255248

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What 2,000 years of Chinese history reveals about today’s AI-driven technology panic – and the future of inequality

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Peng Zhou, Professor of Economics, Cardiff University

    In the sweltering summer of AD18, a desperate chant echoed across China’s sun-scorched plains: “Heaven has gone blind!” Thousands of starving farmers, their faces smeared with ox blood, marched toward the opulent vaults held by the Han dynasty’s elite rulers.

    As recorded in the ancient text Han Shu (the book of Han), these farmers’ calloused hands held bamboo scrolls – ancient “tweets” accusing the bureaucrats of hoarding grain while the farmers’ children gnawed tree bark. The rebellion’s firebrand warlord leader, Chong Fan, roared: “Drain the paddies!”

    Within weeks, the Red Eyebrows, as the protesters became known, had toppled local regimes, raided granaries and – for a fleeting moment – shattered the empire’s rigid hierarchy.

    The Han dynasty of China (202BC-AD220) was one of the most developed civilisations of its time, alongside the Roman empire. Its development of cheaper and sharper iron ploughs enabled the gathering of unprecedented harvests of grain.

    But instead of uplifting the farmers, this technological revolution gave rise to agrarian oligarchs who hired ever-more officials to govern their expanding empire. Soon, bureaucrats earned 30 times more than those tilling the soil.

    Revolutionary iron ploughs from the Han dynasty.
    Windmemories via Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA

    And when droughts struck, the farmers and their families starved while the empire’s elites maintained their opulence. As a famous poem from the subsequent Tang dynasty put it: “While meat and wine go to waste behind vermilion gates, the bones of the frozen dead lie by the roadside.”

    Two millennia later, the role of technology in increasing inequality around the world remains a major political and societal issue. AI-driven “technology panic” – exacerbated by the disruptive efforts of Donald Trump’s new administration in the US – gives the feeling that everything has been upended. New tech is destroying old certainties; populist revolt is shredding the political consensus.

    And yet, as we stand at the edge of this technological cliff, seemingly peering into a future of AI-induced job apocalypses, history whispers: “Calm down. You’ve been here before.”

    The link between technology and inequality

    Technology is humanity’s cheat code to break free from scarcity. The Han dynasty’s iron plough didn’t just till soil; it doubled crop yields, enriching landlords and swelling tax coffers for emperors while – initially, at least – leaving peasants further behind. Similarly, Britain’s steam engine didn’t just spin cotton; it built coal barons and factory slums. Today, AI isn’t just automating tasks; it’s creating trillion-dollar tech fiefdoms while destroying myriads of routine jobs.

    Technology amplifies productivity by doing more with less. Over centuries, these gains compound, raising economic output and increasing incomes and lifespans. But each innovation reshapes who holds power, who gets rich – and who gets left behind.

    As the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter warned during the second world war, technological progress is never a benign rising tide that lifts all boats. It’s more like a tsunami that drowns some and deposits others on golden shores, amid a process he called “creative destruction”.

    The Kuznets curve.
    Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

    A decade later, Russian-born US economist Simon Kuznets proposed his “inverted-U of inequality”, the Kuznets curve. For decades, this offered a reassuring narrative for citizens of democratic nations seeking greater fairness: inequality was an inevitable – but temporary – price of technological progress and the economic growth that comes with it.

    In recent years, however, this analysis has been sharply questioned. Most notably, French economist Thomas Piketty, in a reappraisal of more than three centuries of data, argued in 2013 that Kuznets had been misled by historical fluke. The postwar fall in inequality he had observed was not a general law of capitalism, but a product of exceptional events: two world wars, economic depression, and massive political reforms.

    In normal times, Piketty warned, the forces of capitalism will always tend to make the rich richer, pushing inequality ever higher unless checked by aggressive redistribution.

    So, who’s correct? And where does this leave us as we ponder the future in this latest, AI-driven industrial revolution? In fact, both Kuznets and Piketty were working off quite narrow timeframes in modern human history. Another country, China, offers the chance to chart patterns of growth and inequality over a much longer period – due to its historical continuity, cultural stability, and ethnic uniformity.

    The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.

    Unlike other ancient civilisations such as the Egyptians and Mayans, China has maintained a unified identity and unique language for more than 5,000 years, allowing modern scholars to trace thousand-year-old economic records. So, with colleagues Qiang Wu and Guangyu Tong, I set out to reconcile the ideas of Kuznets and Piketty by studying technological growth and wage inequality in imperial China over 2,000 years – back beyond the birth of Jesus.

    To do this, we scoured China’s extraordinarily detailed dynastic archives, including the Book of Han (AD111) and Tang Huiyao (AD961), in which meticulous scribes recorded the salaries of different ranking officials. And here is what we learned about the forces – good and bad, corrupt and selfless – that most influenced the rise and fall of inequality in China over the past two millennia.

    Chinese dynasties and their most influential technologies:

    Black text denotes historical events in the west; grey text denotes important interactions between China and the west.
    Peng Zhou, CC BY-NC-SA

    China’s cycles of growth and inequality

    One of the challenges of assessing wage inequality over thousands of years is that people were paid different things at different times – such as grain, silk, silver and even labourers.

    The Book of Han records that “a governor’s annual grain salary could fill 20 oxcarts”. Another entry describes how a mid-ranking Han official’s salary included ten servants tasked solely with polishing his ceremonial armour. Ming dynasty officials had their meagre wages supplemented with gifts of silver, while Qing elites hid their wealth in land deals.

    Map of the Han dynasty in AD2.
    Yeu Ninje via Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA

    To enable comparison over two millennia, we invented a “rice standard” – akin to the gold standard that was the basis of the international monetary system for a century from the 1870s. Rice is not just a staple of Chinese diets, it has been a stable measure of economic life for thousands of years.

    While rice’s dominion began around 7,000BC in the Yangtze river’s fertile marshes, it was not until the Han dynasty that it became the soul of Chinese life. Farmers prayed to the “Divine Farmer” for bountiful harvests, and emperors performed elaborate ploughing rituals to ensure cosmic harmony. A Tang dynasty proverb warned: “No rice in the bowl, bones in the soil.”

    Using price records, we converted every recorded salary – whether paid in silk, silver, rent or servants – into its rice equivalent. We could then compare the “real rice wages” of two categories of people we called either “officials” or “peasants” (including farmers), as a way of tracking levels of inequality over the two millennia since the start of the Han dynasty in 202BC. This chart shows how real-wage inequality in China rose and fell over the past 2,000 years, according to our rice-based analysis.

    Official-peasant wage ratio in imperial China over 2,000 years:

    The ratio describes the multiple by which the ‘real rice wage’ of the average ‘official’ exceeds that of the average ‘peasant’, giving an indication of changing inequality levels over two millennia.
    Peng Zhou, CC BY-SA

    The chart’s black line describes a tug-of-war between growth and inequality over the past two millennia. We found that, across each major dynasty, there were four key factors driving levels of inequality in China: technology (T), institutions (I), politics (P), and social norms (S). These followed the following cycle with remarkable regularity.

    1. Technology triggers an explosion of growth and inequality

    During the Han dynasty, new iron-working techniques led to better ploughs and irrigation tools. Harvests boomed, enabling the Chinese empire to balloon in both territory and population. But this bounty mostly went to those at the top of society. Landlords grabbed fields, bureaucrats gained privileges, while ordinary farmers saw precious little reward. The empire grew richer – but so did the gap between high officials and the peasant majority.

    Even when the Han fell around AD220, the rise of wage inequality was barely interrupted. By the time of the Tang dynasty (AD618–907), China was enjoying a golden age. Silk Road trade flourished as two more technological leaps had a profound impact on the country’s fortunes: block printing and refined steelmaking.

    Block printing enabled the mass production of books – Buddhist texts, imperial exam guides, poetry anthologies – at unprecedented speed and scale. This helped spread literacy and standardise administration, as well as sparking a bustling market in bookselling.

    Meanwhile, refined steelmaking boosted everything from agricultural tools to weaponry and architectural hardware, lowering costs and raising productivity. With a more literate populace and an abundance of stronger metal goods, China’s economy hit new heights. Chang’an, then China’s cosmopolitan capital, boasted exotic markets, lavish temples, and a swirl of foreign merchants enjoying the Tang dynasty’s prosperity.

    While the Tang dynasty marked the high-water mark for levels of inequality in Chinese history, subsequent dynasties would continue to wrestle with the same core dilemma: how do you reap the benefits of growth without allowing an overly privileged – and increasingly corrupt – bureaucratic class to push everyone else into peril?

    2. Institutions slow the rise of inequality

    Throughout the two millennia, some institutions played an important role in stabilising the empire after each burst of growth. For example, to alleviate tensions between emperors, officials and peasants, imperial exams known as “Ke Ju” were introduced during the Sui dynasty (AD581-618). And by the time of the Song dynasty (AD960-1279) that followed the demise of the Tang, these exams played a dominant role in society.

    They addressed high levels of inequality by promoting social mobility: ordinary civilians were granted greater opportunities to ascend the income ladder by achieving top marks. This induced greater competition among officials – and strengthened emperors’ authority over them in the later dynasties. As a result, both the wages of officials and wage inequality went down as their bargaining power gradually diminished.

    However, the rise of each new dynasty was also marked by a growth of bureaucracy that led to inefficiencies, favouritism and bribery. Over time, corrupt practices took root, eroding trust in officialdom and heightening wage inequality as many officials commanded informal fees or outright bribes to sustain their lifestyles.

    As a result, while the emergence of certain institutions was able to put a break on rising inequality, it typically took another powerful – and sometimes highly destructive – factor to start reducing it.

    3. Political infighting and external wars reduce inequality

    Eventually, the rampant rise in inequality seen in almost every major Chinese dynasty bred deep tensions – not only between the upper and lower classes, but even between the emperor and their officials.

    These pressures were heightened by the pressures of external conflict, as each dynasty waged wars in pursuit of further growth. The Tang’s three century-rule featured conflicts such as the Eastern Turkic-Tang war (AD626), the Baekje-Goguryeo-Silla war (666), and the Arab-Tang battle of Talas (751).

    The resulting demand for more military spending drained imperial coffers, forcing salary cuts for soldiers and tax hikes on the peasants – breeding resentment among both that sometimes led to popular uprisings. In a desperate bid for survival, the imperial court then slashed officials’ pay and stripped away their bureaucratic perks.

    The result? Inequality plummeted during these times of war and rebellion – but so did stability. Famine was rife, frontier garrisons mutinied, and for decades, warlords carved out territories while the imperial centre floundered.

    So, this shrinking wage gap cannot be said to have resulted in a happier, more stable society. Rather, it reflected the fact that everyone – rich and poor – was worse off in the chaos. During the final imperial dynasty, the Qing (from the end of the 17th century), real-terms GDP per person was dropping to levels that had last been seen at the start of the Han dynasty, 2,000 years earlier.

    4. Social norms emphasise harmony, preserve privilege

    One other common factor influencing the rise and fall of inequality across China’s dynasties was the shared rules and expectations that developed within each society.

    A striking example is the social norms rooted in the philosophy of Neo-Confucianism, which emerged in the Song dynasty at the end of the first millennium – a period sometimes described as China’s version of the Renaissance. It blended the moral philosophy of classical Confucianism – created by the philosopher and political theorist Confucius during the Zhou dynasty (1046-256BC) – with metaphysical elements drawn from both Buddhism and Daoism.

    Neo-Confucianism emphasised social harmony, hierarchical order and personal virtue – values that reinforced imperial authority and bureaucratic discipline. Unsurprisingly, it quickly gained the support of emperors keen to ensure control of their people, and became the mainstream school of thought in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

    However, Neo-Confucianist thinking proved a double-edged sword. Local gentry hijacked this moral authority to fortify their own power. Clan leaders set up Confucian schools and performed elaborate ancestral rites, projecting themselves as guardians of tradition.

    Over time, these social norms became rigid. What had once fostered order and legitimacy became brittle dogma, more useful for preserving privilege than guiding reform. Neo-Confucian ideals evolved into a protective veil for entrenched elites. When the weight of crisis eventually came, they offered little resilience.

    The last dynasty

    China’s final imperial dynasty, the Qing, collapsed under the weight of multiple uprisings both from within and without. Despite achieving impressive economic growth during the 18th century – fuelled by agricultural innovation, a population boom, and the roaring global trade in tea and porcelain – levels of inequality exploded, in part due to widespread corruption.

    The infamous government official Heshen, widely regarded as the most corrupt figure in the Qing dynasty, amassed a personal fortune reckoned to exceed the empire’s entire annual revenue (one estimate suggests he amassed 1.1 billion taels of silver, equivalent to around US$270 billion (£200bn), during his lucrative career).

    Imperial institutions failed to restrain the inequality and moral decay that the Qing’s growth had initially masked. The mechanisms that once spurred prosperity – technological advances, centralised bureaucracy and Confucian moral authority – eventually ossified, serving entrenched power rather than adaptive reform.

    When shocks like natural disasters and foreign invasions struck, the system could no longer respond. The collapse of the empire became inevitable – and this time there was no groundbreaking technology to enable a new dynasty to take the Qing’s place. Nor were there fresh social ideals or revitalised institutions capable of rebooting the imperial model. As foreign powers surged ahead with their own technological breakthroughs, China’s imperial system collapsed under its own weight. The age of emperors was over.

    The world had turned. As China embarked on two centuries of technological and economic stagnation – and political humiliation at the hands of Great Britain and Japan – other nations, led first by Britain and then the US, would step up to build global empires on the back of new technological leaps.

    In these modern empires, we see the same four key influences on their cycles of growth and inequality – technology, institutions, politics and social norms – but playing out at an ever-faster rate. As the saying goes: history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

    Rule Britannia

    If imperial China’s inequality saga was written in rice and rebellions, Britain’s industrial revolution featured steam and strikes. In Lancashire’s “satanic mills”, steam engines and mechanised looms created industrialists so rich that their fortunes dwarfed small nations.

    In 1835, social observer Andrew Ure enthused: “Machinery is the grand agent of civilisation.” Yet for many decades, the steam engines, spinning jennies and railways disproportionately enriched the new industrial class, just as in the Han dynasty of China 2,000 years earlier. The workers? They inhaled soot, lived in slums – and staged Europe’s first symbolic protest when the Luddites began smashing their looms in 1811.

    A spinning jenny.
    Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    During the 19th century, Britain’s richest 1% hoarded as much as 70% of the nation’s wealth, while labourers toiled 16-hour days in mills. In cities like Manchester, child workers earned pennies while industrialists built palaces.

    But as inequality peaked in Britain, the backlash brewed. Trade unions formed (and became legal in 1824) to demand fair wages. Reforms such as the Factory Acts (1833–1878) banned child labour and capped working hours.

    Although government forces intervened to suppress the uprisings, unrest such as the 1830 Swing Riots and 1842 General Strike exposed deep social and economic inequalities. By 1900, child labour was banned and pensions had been introduced. The 1900 Labour Representation Committee (later the Labour Party) vowed to “promote legislation in the direct interests of labour” – a striking echo of how China’s imperial exams had attempted to open paths to power.

    Slowly, the working class saw some improvement: real wages for Britain’s poorest workers gradually increased over the latter half of the 19th century, as mass production lowered the cost of goods and expanding factory employment provided a more stable livelihood than subsistence farming.

    And then, two world wars flattened Britain’s elite – the Blitz didn’t discriminate between rich and poor neighbourhoods. When peace finally returned, the Beveridge Report gave rise to the welfare state: the NHS, social housing, and pensions.

    Income inequality plummeted as a result. The top 1%’s share fell from 70% to 15% by 1979. While China’s inequality fell via dynastic collapse, Britain’s decline resulted from war-driven destruction, progressive taxation, and expansive social reforms.

    Wealth share of top 1% in the UK

    Evidence for UK inequality before 1895 is not well documented; dotted curve is conjectured based on Kuznets curve. Sources: Alvaredo et al (2018), World Inequality Database.
    Peng Zhou, CC BY-SA

    However, from the 1980s onwards, inequality in Britain has begun to rise again. This new cycle of inequality has coincided with another technological revolution: the emergence of personal computers and information technology — innovations that fundamentally transformed how wealth was created and distributed.

    The era was accelerated by deregulation, deindustrialisation and privatisation — policies associated with former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, that favoured capital over labour. Trade unions were weakened, income taxes on the highest earners were slashed, and financial markets were unleashed. Today, the richest 1% of UK adults own more 20% of the country’s total wealth.

    The UK now appears to be in the worst of both worlds – wrestling with low growth and rising inequality. Yet renewal is still within reach. The current UK government’s pledge to streamline regulation and harness AI could spark fresh growth – provided it is coupled with serious investment in skills, modern infrastructure, and inclusive institutions geared to benefit all workers.

    At the same time, history reminds us that technology is a lever, not a panacea. Sustained prosperity comes only when institutional reform and social attitudes evolve in step with innovation.

    The American century

    While China’s growth-and-inequality cycles unfolded over millennia and Britain’s over centuries, America’s story is a fast-forward drama of cycles lasting mere decades. In the early 20th century, several waves of new technology widened the gap between rich and poor dramatically.

    By 1929, as the world teetered on the edge of the Great Depression, John D. Rockefeller had amassed such a vast fortune – valued at roughly 1.5% of America’s entire GDP – that newspapers hailed him the world’s first billionaire. His wealth stemmed largely from pioneering petroleum and petrochemical ventures including Standard Oil, which dominated oil refining in an age when cars and mechanised transport were exploding in popularity.

    Yet this period of unprecedented riches for a handful of magnates coincided with severe imbalances in the broader US economy. The “roaring Twenties” had boosted consumerism and stock speculation, but wage growth for many workers lagged behind skyrocketing corporate profits. By 1929, the top 1% of Americans owned more than a third of the nation’s income, creating a precariously narrow base of prosperity.

    When the US stock market crashed in October 1929, it laid bare how vulnerable the system was to the fortunes of a tiny elite. Millions of everyday Americans – living without adequate savings or safeguards – faced immediate hardship, ushering in the Great Depression. Breadlines snaked through city streets, and banks collapsed under waves of withdrawals they could not meet.

    Unemployed men queued outside a Great Depression soup kitchen in Chicago, 1931.
    National Archives at College Park via Wikimedia

    In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal reshaped American institutions. It introduced unemployment insurance, minimum wages, and public works programmes to support struggling workers, while progressive taxation – with top rates exceeding 90% during the second world war. Roosevelt declared: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much – it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

    In a different way to the UK, the second world war proved a great leveller for the US – generating millions of jobs and drawing women and minorities into industries they’d long been excluded from. After 1945, the GI Bill expanded education and home ownership for veterans, helping to build a robust middle class. Although access remained unequal, especially along racial lines, the era marked a shift toward the norm that prosperity should be shared.

    Meanwhile, grassroots movements led by figures like Martin Luther King Jr. reshaped social norms about justice. In his lesser-quoted speeches, King warned that “a dream deferred is a dream denied” and launched the Poor People’s Campaign, which demanded jobs, healthcare and housing for all Americans. This narrowing of income distribution during the post-war era was dubbed the “Great Compression” – but it did not last.

    As oil crises of the 1970s marked the end of the preceding cycle of inequality, another cycle began with the full-scale emergence of the third industrial revolution, powered by computers, digital networks and information technology.

    The first personal computer, made by IBM.
    Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND

    As digitalisation transformed business models and labour markets, wealth flowed to those who owned the algorithms, patents and platforms – not those operating the machines. Hi-tech entrepreneurs and Wall Street financiers became the new oligarchs. Stock options replaced salaries as the true measure of success, and companies increasingly rewarded capital over labour.

    By the 2000s, the wealth share of the richest 1% climbed to 30% in the US. The gap between the elite minority and working majority widened with every company stock market launch, hedge fund bonus and quarterly report tailored to shareholder returns.

    But this wasn’t just a market phenomenon – it was institutionally engineered. The 1980s ushered in the age of (Ronald) Reaganomics, driven by the conviction that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”. Following this neoliberalist philosophy, taxes on high incomes were slashed, capital gains were shielded, and labour unions were weakened.

    Deregulation gave Wall Street free rein to innovate and speculate, while public investment in housing, healthcare and education was curtailed. The consequences came to a head in 2008 when the US housing market collapsed and the financial system imploded.

    The Global Financial Crisis that followed exposed the fragility of a deregulated economy built on credit bubbles and concentrated risk. Millions of people lost their homes and jobs, while banks were rescued with public money. It marked an economic rupture and a moral reckoning – proof that decades of pro-market policies had produced a system that privatised gain and socialised loss.

    Inequality, long growing in the background, now became a glaring, undeniable fault line in American life – and it has remained that way ever since.

    Fig 5. Wealth share and income share of top 1% in the US

    Sources: wealth inequality: World Inequality Database; income share: Picketty & Saez (2003). Dotted curves are conjectured based on Kuznets curve.
    Peng Zhou, CC BY-SA

    So is the US proof that the Kuznets model of inequality is indeed wrong? While the chart above shows inequality has flattened in the US since the 2008 financial crisis, there is little evidence of it actually declining. And in the short term, while Donald Trump’s tariffs are unlikely to do much for growth in the US, his low-tax policies won’t do anything to raise working-class incomes either.

    The story of “the American century” is a dizzying sequence of technological revolutions – from transport and manufacturing to the internet and now AI – crashing one atop the other before institutions, politics or social norms could catch up. In my view, the result is not a broken cycle but an interrupted one. Like a wheel that never completes its turn, inequality rises, reform stutters – and a new wave of disruption begins.

    Our unequal AI future?

    Like any technological explosion, AI’s potential is dual-edged. Like the Tang dynasty’s bureaucrats hoarding grain, today’s tech giants monopolise data, algorithms and computing power. Management consultant firm McKinsey has predicted that algorithms could automate 30% of jobs by 2030, from lorry drivers to radiologists.

    Yet AI also democratises: ChatGPT tutors students in Africa while open-source models such as DeepSeek empower worldwide startups to challenge Silicon Valley’s oligarchy.

    The rise of AI isn’t just a technological revolution – it’s a political battleground. History’s empires collapsed when elites hoarded power; today’s fight over AI mirrors the same stakes. Will it become a tool for collective uplift like Britain’s post-war welfare state? Or a weapon of control akin to Han China’s grain-hoarding bureaucrats?

    The answer hinges on who wins these political battles. In 19th-century Britain, factory owners bribed MPs to block child labour laws. Today, Big Tech spends billions lobbying to neuter AI regulation.

    Meanwhile, grassroots movements like the Algorithmic Justice League demand bans on facial recognition in policing, echoing the Luddites who smashed looms not out of technophobia but to protest exploitation. The question is not if AI will be regulated but who will write the rules: corporate lobbyists or citizen coalitions.

    The real threat has never been the technology itself, but the concentration of its spoils. When elites hoard tech-driven wealth, social fault-lines crack wide open – as happened more than 2,000 years ago when the Red Eyebrows marched against Han China’s agricultural monopolies.

    To be human is to grow – and to innovate. Technological progress raises inequality faster than incomes, but the response depends on how people band together. Initiatives like “Responsible AI” and “Data for All” reframe digital ethics as a civil right, much like Occupy Wall Street exposed wealth gaps. Even memes – like TikTok skits mocking ChatGPT’s biases – shape public sentiment.

    There is no simple path between growth and inequality. But history shows our AI future isn’t preordained in code: it’s written, as always, by us.

    For you: more from our Insights series:

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    Peng Zhou 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. What 2,000 years of Chinese history reveals about today’s AI-driven technology panic – and the future of inequality – https://theconversation.com/what-2-000-years-of-chinese-history-reveals-about-todays-ai-driven-technology-panic-and-the-future-of-inequality-254505

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What is the Resistance Front? An expert explains the terror group that carried out the latest Kashmir attack?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By M. Sudhir Selvaraj, Assistant Professor, Peace Studies and International Development, University of Bradford

    India is in mourning after 26 tourists were killed on April 22 in a resort in picturesque Pahalgam. The massacre is considered to be the deadliest attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir since 2000.

    The attack happened during peak tourist season as thousands flocked to the popular tourist destination. Most of those killed were Indians, with the exception of one Nepalese national. All the victims were men.

    Pakistan has denied any involvement, but there are serious fears of escalation between the two nuclear powers. India’s defence minister, Rajnath Singh, openly accused Pakistan and threatened: “We will not only target those who carried out the attack. We will also target those who planned this act in the shadows, on our soil.”

    India has shut a key border between the countries, expelled Pakistan’s diplomats and suspended the landmark Indus waters treaty which allows the sharing of water between the two countries.

    The timing of these attacks is noteworthy as it coincides with major international and domestic events. The US vice-president, J.D. Vance, had arrived the day before with his Indian-American wife Usha and their three children, seeking closer India-US relations against the backdrop of a burgeoning trade war between the US and China. Notably, Pakistan considers China historically as an all-weather friend and ally.

    The attack also comes a few weeks after the Indian government passed the Waqf (Amendment) Act which seeks to change how properties worth billions donated by Muslims, including mosques, madrassas, graveyards and orphanages, are governed. This act is also accused of diluting the rights of India’s Muslim communities by permitting the appointment of non-Muslims to their boards and tribunals.

    Resistance Front

    The Resistance Front (TRF) has claimed responsibility for the attack. A hitherto lesser-known armed group in the Kashmir region, TRF emerged in 2019 with the aim to fight for Kashmir’s secession from India. In 2023, it was designated as a terrorist organisation by the Indian government under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and the group’s founder, Sheikh Sajjad Gul was declared a terrorist.

    TRF was formed largely in response to the Indian government’s move to strip Kashmir (India’s erstwhile only Muslim-majority state) of its semi-autonomous status in 2019. At this point, the Modi split Kasmhir into two union territories – Jammu & Kashmir – and brought it under more direct federal control.

    The move also paved the way for the extension of land-owning rights and access to government-sponsored job quotas to non-locals. These changes could deprive locals of much-needed opportunities, and radically alter the demographics of the region.

    In a message on messaging app Telegram, the group said: “Consequently, violence will be directed toward those attempting to settle illegally.” This tends to support the idea that the influx of “outsiders” was the justification for the attack.

    In its short life, TRF has been responsible for numerous attacks targeting civilians, security forces and politicians in the region. The group took shape using social media and continues to rely on it to organise and recruit members.

    Notably, the name TRF breaks from traditional rebel groups operating in the region, most of whom bear Islamic names. By doing so, it supposedly aims to project a “neutral” (read as non-religious) front, rather emphasising the fight for Kashmiri nationalism.

    Was Pakistan involved?

    The group is also reported to be linked to the Pakistani spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Pakistan has denied these links. But analysts fear that any retaliation could escalate and threaten the tenuous peace along the border between the two countries.

    Importantly, the TRF is believed to be an offshoot of, – or perhaps simply a front for – the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based armed group. The LeT was involved in many terrorist attacks on Indian soil, most significantly, the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks in which an estimated 176 people were killed. The perpetrators of the atrocity are believed by many – including the US government – to have involved help from the ISI.

    While not explicitly stated as a link to the Pahalgam attack, it is noteworthy that the suspected mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistan-born Canadian citizen was extradited to India from the US on April 10. The US Embassy in New Delhi has confirmed that Rana will stand trial in India on ten criminal charges.

    In contrast to the supposed “neutral” ostensibly non-Islamist nature of the TRF, the LeT (which translates as Army of the Righteous/Pure), is a Sunni terrorist group. Its aim is to to establish an Islamic state in south Asia and parts of central Asia – with Kashmir being integral to its plans.

    To achieve this, since its formation in the early 1990s, the group’s focus has been on attacking military and civilian targets in Kashmir, supporting Pakistan’s claim to the region.

    In the late 1990s, the then US president, Bill Clinton, described south Asia as the most dangerous place on Earth. Given the chance of a rapidly escalating India-Pakistan standoff, this could well be the case once again.

    M. Sudhir Selvaraj 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. What is the Resistance Front? An expert explains the terror group that carried out the latest Kashmir attack? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-resistance-front-an-expert-explains-the-terror-group-that-carried-out-the-latest-kashmir-attack-250663

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Dementia care: are terms of endearment like ‘sweetheart’ comforting or condescending?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lauren Bridgstock, Research Associate, Healthcare Communication, Faculty of Health and Education, School of Nursing and Public Health, Manchester Metropolitan University

    shutterstock fizkes/Shutterstock

    In the emotionally complex world of dementia care, communication is more than just what we say – it’s how we say it. Terms of endearment like “darling”, “my lovely” and “sweetheart” are often used by healthcare staff with the best intentions: to comfort, connect and show warmth. But some people believe that elderspeak may sound patronising.

    For my doctoral research, I collaborated with a team of researchers who study real-life acute hospital interactions by examining video recordings of how healthcare professionals communicate with dementia patients. The researchers use these insights to develop training programs for healthcare workers.

    In my research, I focused on the use of elderspeak – a style of speech often directed at older adults. It typically involves a higher-pitched tone, simplified grammar and sentence structure and the use of terms of endearment.

    Some people compare elderspeak to the way someone might speak to a young child, which is why it’s often viewed as patronising. Terms of endearment – like love, sweetheart, or darling – are particularly controversial and frequently debated in healthcare settings.

    Some people have strong opinions about ‘elderspeak’ and assume it’s patronising.

    Yet, despite these concerns – and that healthcare professionals are discouraged from using terms of endearment during training – the data showed that experienced healthcare professionals were using the terms regularly, suggesting that they might actually serve a valuable purpose in communication. When I closely analysed a range of real-life hospital interactions where terms of endearment were used, that’s exactly what I found. Three key themes emerged from the data.

    1. Mirroring

    First, healthcare professionals weren’t the only people using these terms. Terms of endearment were used responsively – so both patients with dementia and staff used them, reflecting or mirroring each other’s language.

    This resulted in positive interactions. For example, a patient saying “OK duck” when a doctor asked them if they could sit the hospital bed up higher, and the doctor responding with “all right mate”. These examples shows that terms of endearment can be helpful for building rapport and trust between staff and patients.

    2. Signposting

    Second, terms of endearment were used at the beginning and end of conversations between staff and patients. In this case, terms of endearment were helpful for signposting and giving information about context to patients. Previous work has shown that people living with dementia can struggle with recognising cues in conversation. So, a term of endearment could help to signal that a conversation is coming to an end, such as a nurse saying: “Alright darling, it’s lovely to speak to you.”

    This is not surprising since people use terms of endearment to signal the end of conversations in many social settings. For example, in a shop, a cashier might say “Thanks very much, love!” to signal the end of the transaction.

    Terms of endearment were also used regularly when conversations began, signalling that the healthcare professional who has come to speak to the person with dementia is someone familiar or friendly. Although in this case, the healthcare professional would need to show caution depending on context and whether they’re familiar to the patient.

    For example, one doctor opened a conversation with: “Hello my dear, you haven’t seen me for a while, have you?” The conversation continued with no issue. Another doctor used a very similar opening of: “Hi darling, I’m Ethan I’m the doctor for today.” In this case some conversational trouble followed. The difference here is that in the first example the doctor’s words demonstrate he has met the patient before. In the second, the words show they are unfamiliar.

    3. Mitigation

    A third way terms of endearment are used is to mitigate or minimise an imposition on a patient. Examples of this are:

    • When a healthcare professional asks a patient to repeat something if their words were hard to interpret or unclear. For example: “What my lovely? Say that again.”

    • When a healthcare professional is giving an instruction during a healthcare task. For instance: “Just bend this knee my love.”

    • When a healthcare professional is responding to a patient expressing unease or discomfort – often when an unpleasant but medically necessary medical task is occurring, such as a blood test. For instance: “I won’t be a second darling.”

    In these cases, the terms of endearment work to soften whatever the healthcare professional is doing. This can help to save face – avoid or reduce embarrassment on the part of the patient – particularly in cases where the healthcare professional has to ask them to repeat a comment or question. It can also aid in minimising whatever the professional is doing – similar to if someone said “We’re just going to do xyz,” rather than “We are going to do xzy.” Terms of endearment also acknowledge the sensitivity of the healthcare situation.

    While there were many examples of terms of endearment being used successfully in healthcare settings, they are not a magic bullet that can improve every situation. There were a couple of examples in the data of patients rejecting terms of endearment. In both cases, patients were particularly distressed about the healthcare activity at hand – a painful injection, for example.

    In these cases, the terms of endearment were not enough to excuse the action that the healthcare professional was trying to do. This is therefore an example of where context and sensitivity to the individual situation are important.

    Lauren Bridgstock received funding from an ESRC Midlands Graduate School DTP collaborative PhD studentship between the University of Nottingham and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (ES/P000711/1). The data discussed in this article were collected as part of the NIHR funded VOICE (13/114/93) and VOICE2 (NIHR134221) research projects. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the ESRC, NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.

    – ref. Dementia care: are terms of endearment like ‘sweetheart’ comforting or condescending? – https://theconversation.com/dementia-care-are-terms-of-endearment-like-sweetheart-comforting-or-condescending-254306

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Hyper-individualistic and focused on worth, the manosphere is a product of neoliberalism

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sophie Lively, PhD Candidate in Human Geography, Newcastle University

    Marina April/Shutterstock

    Netflix’s hit drama, Adolescence, has reignited debates about the impact of the manosphere and violence against women.

    Many of the responses focus on trying to change the behaviour of boys and young men: encouraging them to find better role models, or to learn from the media about the harms of toxic influencers.

    But the problem is a wider one. The manosphere is a range of interconnected online misogynistic communities.

    My ongoing PhD research is analysing masculinity, class and nationalism and exploring how these narratives appear in the everyday lives of men. I argue that responding to the harm that stems from these online communities requires an understanding of the manosphere as a product of a global, neoliberal, capitalist system built on inequality and division.

    Neoliberalism can be described as “capitalism on steroids”. It’s a hyper-individualistic and market-driven ideology that fosters a culture of competition.

    Neoliberalism encourages us to see ourselves as isolated individuals, responsible for our own success or failure. Among many other things research has shown that one of its outcomes is a profound loneliness. This is something that the manosphere exploits.

    Role models are important, but the disconnect felt by so many today won’t be fixed by better role models within the same system. For example, black feminist thought, which recognises the way racism and sexism intersect and can offer extensive structural critiques, shows us that efforts to end violence against women must take place alongside work to change wider systems. So to start preventing violence we must first deal with root causes, such as poverty and inequality.

    Measuring people by ‘value’

    The manosphere picks up on messages around failing. Alongside hate-filled and misogynistic content, shame-based narratives from the manosphere suggest that boys and men are losers, weak and lazy if they aren’t “succeeding”. This is deeply damaging to all who find themselves drawn to such messages.

    The concept of self-worth regularly appears in the manosphere, but it’s largely in relation to wealth or productivity: hustle harder, rise and grind, make money. These ideas don’t just exist in these online spaces. Similar language – self-investment, output, productivity, personal growth, efficiency – has become part of our everyday way of talking about ourselves and others.

    The wellness industry promises us we can “glow up”. Self-help books and hustle culture encourage us to be better and produce more. Lifestyle influencers demonstrate how to turn our everyday existence into a marketable product.

    This way of thinking turns people into products. It’s not about who you are – it’s about what you produce. Today’s far-right (of which the manosphere is part) capitalises on these ideas and the obsession with economic value.

    There are versions of this aimed at women and girls, such as “cleanfluencers”, who reframe housework not only as a consumable personal brand but also as glamorous and fun.

    But the hustle culture messaging central to the manosphere is particularly distinct in its hypermasculine messaging centred on “self-improvement” which advocates working harder and longer while being ruthless and dominant.

    A focus on domination and individual success encourages young boys and men to see their self-worth tied up in that and that alone. This message extends beyond the manosphere and is part of the very system with which we all exist.

    Resisting the system

    Those captivated by manosphere narratives are victims as well as perpetrators. This doesn’t excuse their actions, or mean they shouldn’t be held accountable. How we care for each other within a capitalist society isn’t easy or straightforward.

    Too often, though, discussion focuses solely on punitive responses, such as advocating for longer prison sentences. If we only focus on punishment, we miss the bigger picture. We need to find more inclusive ways of talking about, and responding to, harm – while rethinking what it means to truly care for each other.

    Abolitionist movements strive to create systems which improve people’s health and safety and build a future without prisons. They seek to build responses to harm that are founded on education and community accountability – where communities take responsibility for identifying issues they need to address.

    Abolitionist approaches advocate for expanding support networks and investing in resources deemed appropriate by survivors. Proposals like this work towards preventing violence. Their community focus means they address the isolating effects of neoliberalism at the same time.

    We also can’t convince ourselves that once the likes of Andrew Tate and others involved in the manosphere disappear, women and girls will no longer suffer such extreme levels of misogyny and violence at the hands of boys and men.

    This is because we exist within a system built on inequality and violence. It’s a system which rewards competition over cooperation, greed over care and one which is harmful to us all.

    Sophie Lively receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council as part of Northern Ireland and North East Doctoral Training Partnership.

    – ref. Hyper-individualistic and focused on worth, the manosphere is a product of neoliberalism – https://theconversation.com/hyper-individualistic-and-focused-on-worth-the-manosphere-is-a-product-of-neoliberalism-254339

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why film adaptations of popular video games often fall flat

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jason Hawreliak, Associate Professor, Game Studies. Department of Digital Humanities., Brock University

    While some film adaptations of video games achieve commercial success, others struggle to replicate the ‘feel’ of a video game for cinema audiences. (Warner Bros.)

    Video game adaptations are having a moment. On television, shows like HBO’s The Last of Us and Amazon Prime’s Fallout — each based on popular game franchises — have been gigantic hits. On the big screen, 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie broke box office records, and at the time of writing, A Minecraft Movie looks to be well on its way to generating one billion dollars in ticket sales.

    With these recent successes, it can be hard to remember that movie adaptations of video games have historically been notoriously bad, typically failing to win over audiences and critics alike.

    My first experience with adaptation disappointment came from the 1993 adaptation of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros., starring Hollywood legend Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as his brother, Luigi.

    The film was a flop, garnering a 35 on aggregate site Metacritic and failing to break even at the box office. Curiously, the film looked nothing like the games, opting for a gritty, noir aesthetic and swapping out the cutesy enemies with horrifying monsters.

    Movie studio executives can perhaps be forgiven for trying to capitalize on the popularity of video games. With billions of players worldwide and a market valuation surpassing Hollywood and the music industry combined, video games are seemingly low-hanging fruit for commercial success. So why, with a few notable exceptions notwithstanding, are video game adaptations so difficult to pull off?

    A trailer for A Minecraft Movie. (Warner Bros.)

    The problem with adaptations

    One key issue is that video games and movies are two very different media with different functions and different representational strengths and weaknesses. At their most basic, video games are meant to be interactive. They provide players with goals to achieve and challenges to overcome through some combination of strategy, skill and luck.

    Sometimes, these goals and challenges are clear and direct. When a player sees a Goomba approach in Super Mario Bros., for example, they must press a button to jump on its head and defeat it; otherwise, the player takes damage and may have to start the level again.

    Other times, the goals and challenges are less direct. In open-world or “sandbox” games like Minecraft, players are given a high degree of freedom in how they interact with the game world. There are ways to “win” in Minecraft, but the true pleasure of the game lies in giving players freedom to explore a vast world and create unique structures, villages, or even functional computers.

    Interacting with a game world — its goals, rules and aesthetics — is a fundamentally distinct process from watching a film or reading a novel. Minecraft’s motto of “Create. Explore. Survive.” is not readily applicable in media like film and books though these media have experimented with interactivity too.

    Game worlds on the big screen

    So why have adaptations like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and A Minecraft Movie been successful, at least commercially? Part of the reason is that these are massive franchises with instant brand recognition. Even people who do not play video games know who Mario is, and Minecraft is among the most popular games of all time.

    However, as we have seen with recent unsuccessful adaptations like Warcraft and Borderlands, brand recognition alone is not sufficient.

    One reason why The Super Mario Bros. Movie and A Minecraft Movie have done well is that they get the “feel” of their respective worlds right. When Mario transports into the Mushroom Kingdom in the 2023 film, it looks and sounds like the Mushroom Kingdom players encounter in the games.

    The colours, shapes and sounds in the film closely match the colours, shapes, and sounds in the games. The Goombas look like Goombas, the power-ups look like power-ups and the film retains the whimsical nature of the games.

    Although the radical freedom afforded to players of Minecraft is difficult to replicate in a film, A Minecraft Movie nevertheless retains the look, sound and feel of the game. The Creepers look and behave like Creepers and the Piglins look and behave like Piglins.

    When Steve (played by Jack Black) first learns to build his first structures, the audience watches as he joyfully creates whatever he can imagine, gradually learning to build larger and more complex structures, just as players do in the game.

    Finally, it should be noted that while these films were commercial successes, they have failed to win over critics. On Metacritic, The Super Mario Bros. Movie sits at 46 (though the user score is a healthy 8.2) while A Minecraft Movie has a similarly paltry 45. As the Los Angeles Times puts it in their review, “A Minecraft Movie is a block of big dumb fun.”

    So no, it is unlikely the film will win an Oscar for best picture. But its ability to capture the essence of Minecraft is clearly enough for audiences, many of whom have spent countless hours exploring virtual mines, fending off zombies and creating their own fantastical worlds.

    Jason Hawreliak receives funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

    – ref. Why film adaptations of popular video games often fall flat – https://theconversation.com/why-film-adaptations-of-popular-video-games-often-fall-flat-254882

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Seizure of contraband at Fraser Valley Institution

    Source: Government of Canada News (2)

    April 24, 2025 – Abbotsford, British Columbia – Correctional Service Canada

    On April 16, 2025, as a result of the vigilance of staff members, a package containing contraband was seized on the perimeter of Fraser Valley Institution, a multi-level federal institution.

    The contraband seized included cannabis concentrate, crystal methamphetamine, fentanyl, MDMA, and a number of opiate pills. The total estimated institutional value of the seizure is $16,000.

    The police have been notified and the institution is investigating.

    The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) uses a number of tools to prevent drugs from entering its institutions. These tools include ion scanners and drug-detector dogs to search buildings, personal property, inmates, and visitors.

    CSC is heightening measures to prevent contraband from entering its institutions in order to help ensure a safe and secure environment for everyone. CSC also works in partnership with the police to take action against those who attempt to introduce contraband into correctional institutions.

    CSC has also set up a telephone tip line for all federal institutions so that it may receive additional information about activities relating to security at CSC institutions. These activities may be related to drug use or trafficking that may threaten the safety and security of visitors, inmates, and staff members working at CSC institutions.

    The toll-free number, 1‑866‑780‑3784, helps ensure that the information shared is protected and that callers remain anonymous. 

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Leading the Nation in Environmental Protection

    Source: US State of New York

    n celebration of Earth Week, Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that, since 2020, New York has dedicated nearly $125 million to on-farm projects that conserve natural resources, combat climate change, and protect soil and water quality. The projects have been awarded to more than 6,500 farms in every corner of New York through the Department of Agriculture and Markets’ Climate Resilient Farming Grant Program, Agricultural NonPoint Source Abatement and Control (Ag NonPoint) program, and Agricultural Environmental Management (AEM) program. Together, through the implementation of the best practices that these projects support, they have reduced 661,633 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to removing more than 154,000 cars off the road for one year.

    “New York State has long been a trailblazer in combating climate change, and we continue to lead the nation in environmental protection,” Governor Hochul said. “Protecting our state’s farms and ensuring our farmers have the resources they need to mitigate the effects of climate change is critical to not only protecting our environment, but also maintaining the economic viability of the state’s agricultural industry for generations to come. This milestone is a terrific testament to the progress we’ve made to create a cleaner, greener, more resilient New York.”

    New York State Agriculture Commissioner Richard A. Ball said, “New York State continues to lead the nation in the work that we as a state are doing to protect our natural resources and combat climate change. Agriculture is proud to be at the table in these discussions and implementing critical best management practices on the farm that are helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, capture and sequester carbon, and protect our soil and water quality. It is amazing all that can be accomplished when we work together, and under the leadership of our governor and in partnership with our SWCD, our farmers have made tangible progress in our fight against climate change.”

    New York Department of Environmental Conservation Acting Commissioner Amanda Lefton said, “Supporting New York’s farmers helps improve water and air quality for the benefit of all. We applaud the farmers who implement these important projects and thank the Department of Agriculture and Markets for funding these environmentally sustainable programs. This milestone investment signifies Governor Hochul’s continued commitment to the agriculture industry and our environment to advance a greener future for all New Yorkers.”

    New York State Soil and Water Conservation Committee Chair Matt Brower said, “These numbers are really impressive. We are fortunate that the State is able to provide the financial resources to help fund these practices and we are also fortunate to have the valuable staff at the local Soil and Water Conservation Districts to help the landowners install these practices. It is amazing what this partnership has accomplished over the years in terms of environmental protection and improvement.”

    Over the last five years, this investment in on-farm best management practices, such as nutrient management through manure storage, vegetative buffers along streams, conservation cover crops, water management, and more, through the State’s programs, has resulted in the following accomplishments statewide:

    • 445 acres of wetland restoration to protect wildlife habitat, floodplains, and ecosystem services that directly benefit downstream water quality.
    • 169 waste storage facilities to support manure management and implement sustainable nutrient application plans to farm fields.
    • 380 acres of riparian herbaceous and forest buffer established to protect waterways from erosion, filter water quality pollutants, and lower temperatures of surface water bodies.
    • 10,000 acres of residue and tillage management via mulch till, no till, strip till or direct seeding to control soil erosion, reduce run-off, and enhance soil health
    • 87,930 acres of cover crop planted to improve soil health, reduce erosion, and sequester carbon.
    • 9,734 feet of streambank and shoreline protection and 80 stream crossings to stabilize and revegetate areas prone to flood damage and reduce livestock access to water resources.
    • 29,080 feet of irrigation pipeline to support irrigation water management systems that control the rate, amount, placement, and timing of irrigation water to ensure efficient use of water and control runoff.

    These projects were completed by the State’s County SWCD (SWCD) with participating farmers and landowners. County SWCD will use the AEM framework to assist farmers through planning and implementation to make science-based and cost-effective decisions and to apply for funding through the State’s agricultural environmental programming. As a result, farmers can meet business goals while conserving the State’s natural resources.

    New York Association of Conservation Districts Executive Director Blanche Hurlbutt said, “Earth Day is an important reminder to us all to take care of our Mother Earth. SWCD through-out New York hosts tree sales and will encourage folks to plant a tree during this time of year. It is also important to protect New York’s soil and water by learning about ways to keep and protect them. This is another way of education that is provided by the SWCD.”

    New York Association of Conservation Districts President Sam Casella said, “As we celebrate Earth Week, it is an excellent opportunity to thank the Governor for her steadfast and continuing support of New York State’s Soil and Water Districts in so many ways; both financially and legislatively. Both are crucial for our States Districts and our dedicated District employees to continue their vitally important work to protect and preserve the New York State’s invaluable natural resources, now and for future generations. As I travel the country on behalf of New York Association of Conservation Districts, I have seen firsthand the collective efforts under the leadership of the Governor, NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets and other key agencies that have made New York State a true leader in Conservation work. Now more than ever, New York’s residents are fortunate to have that commitment, dedication and vision. We should thank them all as we celebrate Earth Week.”

    Conservation District Employees Association President Caitlin Stewart said, “New York State’s SWCD are the boots on the ground for natural resource management. From projects that protect farmland, forests, and watersheds to place-based education, and from climate resiliency to invasive species prevention, SWCD programs and services benefit students, producers, landowners, and municipalities. Our expert employees truly make Earth Day every day!”

    State Senator Michelle Hinchey said, “New York farmers are an example for the country, showing how vital good environmental stewardship is to growing our food, keeping our land and water healthy, and making measurable progress in fighting the climate crisis through agriculture. Despite federal rollbacks in farmer support, we will continue to fight for New York’s small family farmers by investing in the support they need to make their operations resilient and protect our food supply for future generations.”

    State Senator Pete Harckham said, “New York’s agricultural sector and family farms have withstood countless climate crisis related challenges over the years, but to maintain the vitality and capacity of this crucial part of the state’s economy we must continue to offer as much support as possible. The success of the climate resilient farming grants program has benefited the statewide farm community and our environment significantly while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions—a real win-win. In this time of reduced federal support across the board, it makes sense for the governor and state legislature to remain committed to this grant program.”

    Assemblymember Donna Lupardo said, “Earth Week is the perfect time to highlight New York’s efforts to address climate change through our many agricultural initiatives. 6,500 New York farms have already received support for soil health practices, climate resiliency, nutrient management, and other vital conservation measures. This work is more important now than ever due to changing attitudes about climate coming from the nation’s capital. I’d like to thank the Governor, the Department, and my colleagues from across the state, for their ongoing commitment to these critically important investments.”

    Throughout the year, SWCD will also host and participate in public education and outreach events to celebrate the environment, bring awareness to important natural resource issues and highlight the techniques and technologies used to implement conservation practices. To find a County District and learn more about their unique programs, visit the Soil and Water Conservation District Office page on the Department of Agriculture website.

    Administered by the Department and the New York State Soil and Water Conservation Committee, the Agricultural Nonpoint Source Abatement and Control Program is a cost-share grant program that provides funding to address and prevent potential water quality issues that stem from farming activities. Financial and technical assistance supports the planning and implementation of on-farm projects with the goal of improving water quality in New York’s waterways. The program seeks to support New York’s diverse agricultural businesses in their efforts to implement best management practice systems that improve water quality and environmental stewardship.

    The goal of the CRF Program is to reduce the impact of agriculture on climate change (mitigation) and to increase the resiliency of New York State farms in the face of a changing climate (adaptation). Program grant funds are available for projects that reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration in soils and vegetation, in addition to enhancing the on-farm adaptation and resilience to projected climate conditions due to heavy storm events, rainfall, and drought.

    To learn more about the State’s funding opportunities in this area, visit the Soil and Water Conservation Committee page on the Department of Agriculture website.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Press Briefing Transcript: Managing Director’s Global Policy Agenda, Spring Meetings 2025

    Source: International Monetary Fund

    April 24, 2025

    Speaker: Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, IMF

    Moderator: Julie Kozack, Director, Communications Department, IMF

    Ms. Kozack: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this IMF press briefing. I am Julie Kozack, Director of the Communications Department. Thank you so very much for joining us this morning and, as usual, we are going to begin with some opening remarks from our Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, after which we will turn to your questions. Without further ado, Kristalina, over to you.

    Ms. Georgieva: Thank you, Julie. And a very warm welcome to all the journalists who got up early to be with us on this beautiful Thursday morning, and also to those who are online. Great to have you with us.

    As you saw earlier this week in our latest World Economic Outlook, we have significantly downgraded our projections for global growth. Major trade policy shifts have spiked uncertainty off the charts, accompanied by tighter financial conditions and higher market volatility. Simply put, the world economy is facing a new and major test, and it faces it with policy buffers depleted by the shocks of recent years. That puts countries in a difficult position. It also creates urgency for action to strengthen the economies for a world of rapid change.

    Today, I want to zoom in on how countries can actually do it. This is the main question we are getting from our members in every single meeting I have had this week. In my Global Policy Agenda, let me, for the audience, remind you that it is a very nicely crafted document. In parentheses this year we have very informative charts, and I hope you will look into those as well. In it, we focus on both the immediate challenges and our medium-term directions. I emphasize three overarching priorities. First and most urgent, for countries to work constructively to resolve trade tensions as swiftly as possible, preserving openness and removing uncertainty. A trade policy settlement among the main players is essential, and we are urging them to do it swiftly because uncertainty is very costly. I cannot stress this strongly enough.

    Without certainty, businesses do not invest, households prefer to save rather than to spend, and this further weakens prospects for already weakened growth.

    Countries also need to address the imbalances that fuel many of the tensions we see. Among major economies, some countries like China need to act to boost private consumption and embrace a shift to services. Others, like the United States, need to reduce fiscal deficits. And in Europe, it is time to complete the Single Market, Banking Union, Capital Markets Union, removing internal barriers to intra-EU trade. Get it done. All countries should seize this moment to lower their trade barriers, both tariff and nontariff.

    The second overarching priority, countries must act to safeguard economic and financial stability. The best way to do that is to get their own house in order. On fiscal policy, most countries need to rebuild buffers and ensure debt sustainability, although some may see shocks that warrant temporary and targeted fiscal support.

    We urge countries to define credible adjustment paths, gradual in most cases, protecting key investments, maximizing spending efficiency, and making space for longer term needs.

    Tradeoffs will be tough for all, but they will be toughest for low-income countries, which face both tight financial conditions and global growth slowdown and falling aid flows. To help ease the tradeoffs there, domestic resource mobilization must be part of the mix. We cannot have countries with a tax to GDP below 15 percent where it is difficult to sustain the functioning of the state. For central banks, the times when countries marched in lockstep is over. Different countries will face different conditions. Inflation pressures in some countries are easing. In others, pressures are yet to abate.

    What is our advice? Watch the data, watch inflation expectations. Central banks will need to strike a delicate balance between supporting growth and containing inflation. To do so, they must not only adjust policy interest rates but also rely on credibility to anchor expectations. Central bank independence is critical for credibility, protect it.

    Open economies, including many emerging markets, are exposed to the trade shocks and tighter financial conditions. They must preserve exchange rate flexibility as a shock absorber.

    In the event of unwarranted currency market volatility, these countries can find policy guidance in the IMF’s integrated policy framework.

    My third and final overarching priority, double down on growth oriented reforms to lift productivity. Even before the latest shock, we were living in a low growth, high debt world, sounding the alarm on weak medium-term growth for quite some time. You heard me saying that many times. Now is the time for long needed but often delayed reforms that can create a good business environment, put entrepreneurship in the front seat, reform labor markets, create conditions for innovation and in a world of rapid technological advancements, give countries a chance to catch the benefits of these advancements for their people.

    The IMF, of course, as always, will be there for our members. We are focusing on what we do best, helping them secure economic and financial stability, resolve or, even better, prevent balance of payments problems, and put in place strong policies and institutions to underpin vibrant economies.

    We will help countries with surveillance, with diagnostics, with policy advice and, when necessary, by providing financial support.

    As part of crisis resolution, we must ensure that the Global Financial Safety Net is strong. We will look for ways to further strengthen our collaboration with regional financing arrangements, and with [major] swap-providing central banks. When we have a cohesive, effective, and efficient Global Financial Safety Net, this will deliver confidence to our members in this more shock prone world.

    We will continue to foster cooperative policy solutions for promoting a healthy rebalancing of the world economy to help countries address debt vulnerabilities. Here, I want to acknowledge the important work of the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable. This week, we agreed to publish a playbook that provides guidance for predictable and faster debt restructuring processes. And I was very pleased to see [the] support of all traditional, nontraditional creditors, private sector, and debtor countries to have that predictability.

    Finally, we will reiterate the need for continued cooperation in a multipolar world. The shared objective for all must be a better balanced and more resilient world economy.

    Before I wrap it up, I want to recognize Secretary Bessent’s remarks yesterday in which he laid out the U.S. administration’s vision for the Bretton Woods Institutions. The United States is our largest shareholder. And even more, the United States is the home of my colleagues and me. So, of course, we greatly value the voice of the United States. I very much appreciate Secretary Bessent’s reiteration of the U.S.’s commitment to the Fund and its role. He raised a number of issues and priorities for the institution that I look forward to discussing with the U.S. authorities and the membership as a whole. We will have opportunities to do so here, and we will also have opportunities to continue with our Executive Board as we carry out important policy reviews–the Comprehensive Surveillance Review, it will set our surveillance priorities for the next five years, and the Review of Program Design and Conditionality, which will carefully consider how our lending can best help countries address the low growth challenge and durably resolve balance of payments weaknesses. So, we have a way to go, and we are laser focused on it.

    Are there cyclists in this room, people who bike, bikers? As bikers would pay, ‘pedalare,’ step on the pedal. With that, I am very happy to take your questions.

    Ms. Kozack: Thank you very much, Kristalina. We will now turn to your questions. I see you have hands up already. Very good. Please just give your name and outlet when called on. I am going to start right here, woman right in the front row here.

    Questioner: Thanks very much for the opportunity to ask you—to put a question to you. You mentioned Secretary Bessent’s remarks yesterday. He accused the IMF and the World Bank of mission creep and specifically the IMF on mission creep in areas such as climate change, gender policies and also social issues. Do you think there is a role in the future for the IMF in areas such as climate, gender, and social issues?       

    Ms. Georgieva: Thank you for your question. So, what do we do here? We concentrate on macroeconomic and financial stability for growth and employment. We have 191 members. They face different challenges. They face different types of risks to their balance of payment. And what we do is to analyze what these risks and what the Fund in our mandate and what we do on the fiscal side, on the monetary policy side, on the financial sector side, what can we do to help them be more resilient to shocks. So, when we have, for example, Caribbean countries that are wiped out by extreme weather events regularly, naturally they are very concerned about that, and they say how can we be more resilient to these shocks? Again, we focus on balance of payment. What are the risks and what can be done to protect the balance of payments in these countries.

    I want to say that I actually agree with the Secretary on one thing. It is a very complicated world, a world of massive challenges of all kinds. We are a small institution. We are 4,000 people. Not very well-known, but a very fiscally disciplined institution. Our budget today in real terms is what it was 20 years ago. So, yes, we have to focus. And that is exactly why we engage with the membership, so we can make best use of the staff of the Fund. I really like to run a tight ship. Yes.

    Ms. Kozack: I can attest to that. Let us go here, the gentleman in the third row, blue shirt.

    Questioner: Just to follow-up on Claire’s question. Does Secretary Bessent’s prescriptions here for the Fund, will it cause you to sort of rethink some of the lending programs like the RSF and the RST? And then secondly, a lot of economists in the private sector have sort of a more pessimistic view, especially when you look at sort of the prospects for U.S. recession. You are not predicting that. Some of the Ministers here that we have been interviewing feel that the Fund is being too conservative. Can you just sort of explain the differences between yourselves and the private sector?

    Ms. Georgieva: Thank you very much. Actually, in the paper that I just flagged to you, we have a slide that shows Fund lending. You need a magnifying glass to see the share of the Resilience and Sustainability Trust in this lending. It is really small, but as I was explaining in the answer to the previous question, for countries that are highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, having policy advice strictly on the macro side, there is a bit of confusion. People think that we have climate experts. We do not. That is not our job. Our job is to say, OK, if you are Dominica and a hurricane can wipe out the equivalent of 200 percent of your GDP, what are reasonable policies to put in place, or to be more specific, because we have a program with Barbados, if you are Barbados natural disasters are highly damaging to your economy, what are the policy measures you can put in place. In the case of Barbados, we came up with creating an additional buffer for them that would actually prevent a balance of payments shock from derailing the economic development of the country. So, of course, we are a membership institution. What our members decide, this is what we do. We periodically review all of our instruments. At this point, we have the function of the Fund on balance of payments support defined with a number of instruments being deployed.

    To your second question, I am going to do this illustration. My glass, when you look at it, it is more than 60 percent full. This is where we are. This is what it is. How can I call it empty? I cannot. When we look at the data, what we see is that for the United States, recession risks have increased now to 37 percent, but we are not yet—we do not see either in the labor market or indicators for the functioning of the economy such a dramatic block of economic activities that would drag growth in the United States all the way to below zero.

    So, as you remember, I mean, this is something that people may not appreciate enough. Our earlier projections for a very vibrant U.S. economy were for 2.7 percent growth for this year. We have downgraded the United States—actually this is the largest of our downgrades—by 0.9 percent, to 1.8 percent for this year. But we see enough that carries the United States forward. And, of course, we recognize that there is work underway to resolve trade disputes and reduce uncertainty. I want to reiterate my message. Uncertainty is really bad for business, so the sooner this cloud that is hanging over our heads is lifted, the better for prospects for growth.

    For the world economy, as you know we are—you saw it in the WEO, we are also projecting an increase in recession risk from 17 to 30 percent. But again—and by the way, there we talk about growth falling below 2 percent, not below zero, so there is a lot that is carrying the world economy—actually the real economy is functioning in a way that we are seeing no predominant risk. Is there risk? Yes. But it is in our, we used to say, downside scenario and not in what is our—the scenario we anchor our projections.

    This being said—and I am sorry I am dwelling on that. It is a very important question. I get it from delegations when we talk about our projections a lot. This being said, countries can—they are not passive observers. They can act. And one thing that is amazing in these meetings is how much that sense of urgency to act is penetrating our membership. And I do hope that Ministers will go back and say, OK, tough reform, I have postponed it, postpone no more.

    Ms. Kozack: We are going to this side of the room. I am going to go all the way to the end. There is a woman in the third row at the end in a brown suit.

    Questioner: My question is many emerging markets, particularly in Asia, are feeling the pinch of escalating trade tensions and global uncertainties. So, from the IMF’s perspective, how has China and ASEAN countries been affected so far and is there any policy recommendations in the near term that are available from the IMF to navigate these countries through this thank you.

    Ms. Georgieva: Thank you for your question. Indeed, Asia is a continent that is quite significantly impacted because economies that rely a lot on exports, when tariffs are announced, feel the pinch more. When we look at China, we have downgraded growth projections for China from 4.6 to 4 percent. We would have downgraded it much more—we actually would have had not .06 but 1.3 percent downgrade if it was not for the policy accommodation that China is already putting in place. It helps. And that is the first piece of advice. If you have policy space, now is a good time to use it. With regard to China, we are emphasizing four points. First, rebalance your economy towards domestic consumption more.

    Second, to help with this, bring to an end the turmoil in the property sector. And, of course, add social protection for people so they do not feel compelled to save rather than spend.

    Third, lift up services, a warm embrace from healthcare to education to basically the service sector, vis-à-vis the goods consumption. And four—and the fourth is very important. Get the government to pull back from too much intervention in the economy. Let the private sector function to its full capacity.

    We are currently working on a paper, and that is in consultation, collaboration with the Chinese authorities, to document in details what are the ways in which the government may be supporting businesses and by doing so shifting the competitive position of these businesses. And this will be one of our contributions to China.

    I am particularly concerned about ASEAN. Why? Because ASEAN, very open economies. They find themselves in a very tough spot with announced tariffs quite significant across the board in ASEAN countries.

    ASEAN has done really well to build resilience over the last years. Their growth has been quite sound. They have prudently brought inflation down. They have disciplined fiscal policy. It helps. This is our number one advice to ASEAN. You have some policy space in monetary policy, in fiscal policy. Carefully and prudently use it, of course, being mindful that if you deplete it entirely and there is another shock, that would be a problem.

    We have been working with ASEAN on their external sector, especially forex. We have integrated the policy framework. It allows good thinking around how to apply the exchange rate flexibility, how to look at this from the perspective of sudden exogenous shocks. I am very pleased to see that ASEAN is doing something that other regions are doing, strengthening economic cooperation, policy coordination, and intra-ASEAN trade. Currently the ASEAN countries trade only 21 percent among themselves. Well, they sure can go up.

    And I think that we will see not only in ASEAN, we will see it in other places, Gulf Cooperation Council, Central Asia, the African continent with the Continental Free Trade Agreement, more being done to compensate, if global trade is going down, then regional trade can be a compensator and actually inject growth energy.

    I want to finish by saying that ASEAN has been remarkably prudent over the last years to build resilience. And that puts them in a good position to have the reputation to deploy their policy space if needed.

    Ms. Kozack: OK. I am going to stay on this side of the room. I will go to the gentleman in the second row with the red tie.

    Questioner: You said these present tensions could disproportionately impact low-income countries, and I am glad you mentioned the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement because my question is on Africa. You met with the Nigerian delegation earlier this week. What is the strategy or your advice for the African continent? As you have noted in the past, Africa is not a country. It is a continent. Egypt cut rates for the first time in five years seven days ago. Prior to that, Ghana hiked its interest rate for the first time in almost three years. In these tough times, what is your advice for the continent?

    Ms. Georgieva: Well, we have seen over the last years the African continent having some of the fastest growing economies, but we also have seen low-income countries primarily, and among them fragile conflict affected countries, falling further behind. And now this is a shock for the continent. The direct impact of tariffs on most of Africa, not on all of Africa, but on most of Africa is relatively small, but the indirect impact is quite significant. Slowing global growth means that all other things equal, they will see a downgrade. And actually, we have downgraded growth prospects for the continent.

    For the oil producers like Nigeria, falling oil prices creates additional pressure on their budgets. On the other hand, for the oil importers, this is a breath of fresh air. In other words, as you indicated in your question, different countries face different challenges. If I were to come with some basic recommendations that apply to Africa, I would say—and actually they apply to Nigeria, they apply to Egypt, they apply to Ghana, they apply to Coté d’Ivoire. First, continue on a path of strengthening your fundamentals. There is still a lot that can be done on the fiscal side to have strength. As I was talking about ASEAN, to have buffers for a moment of shock. And do not use any excuses, oh, it is difficult, we cannot really go for more tax because, yes, you can. There is a lot that can be done to broaden the tax base and a lot that can be done to reduce tax evasion and tax avoidance.

    Using technology as some countries are doing to chase the tax dollar when there is the foundation for that is a very good thing to do.

    Second, on the monetary policy side, we know more as I said in the opening—we are no more in a place when you can look at the book of the Central Bank Governor of the neighboring country and say, oh, they are doing this, I will do the same, because you have to really assess domestic resource mobilization, what is your inflationary pressures and do the right thing for your country.

    But above all, make it so that the image of the whole continent changes because now everybody suffers from wrongdoing, from corruption or from conflict in one country. It throws a shadow on the rest of the continent.

    Finally, like with ASEAN, deepen interregional trade and cooperation. Remove the obstacles to it. Sometimes there are infrastructure obstacles. The World Bank is working on reducing that infrastructure obstacle to growth and trade.

    Africa has so much to offer the world. Obviously, they have the minerals, the natural disasters, and the young population. I think a more unified, more collaborative continent can go a long, long way to [becoming] an economic powerhouse.

    Ms. Kozack: I will go to this side of the room. I am going to have the woman in the red jacket, third row.

    Questioner: Ms. Georgieva, you have been very complementary of the economic reform that the Argentinian government is implementing. You have said that Argentina is an example of a country that has made great strides through structural reforms and fiscal discipline. I would like to ask you about the challenges that now the new program is facing right now, and above all what are the risks that Argentina can face in these times of global uncertainty? Thank you.

    Ms. Georgieva: Argentina has demonstrated that this time it is different. This time there is decisiveness to put the economy on a soundtrack from high deficit to surplus, from double-digit inflation to inflation that in February dipped under 3 percent, from poverty over 50 percent to now around 37 percent. Still very high but going down. The state is stepping out from where it does not belong to allow more dynamism in the private sector. Actually, if you are interested, today we will have the global debate, and Federico is going to be one of the speakers to talk about smart regulation, how you make the economy more vibrant by not being an obstacle to private initiative.

    We saw that when the program was announced, the immediate impact on markets was positive because, among other things, you ask about risks. One risk for Argentina would be if it is alone in this macroeconomic stabilization, now the country is not alone. We are there. The World Bank is there. The InterAmerican Bank is stepping up. What are the risks? And I am sorry, and there is a very important opportunity for Argentina in a world hungry for what Argentina produces, both in agriculture and in minerals, mining, gas, lithium. What are the risks?

    First, external. A worsening global environment of all other things equal, it would impact Argentina negatively. Domestic resource mobilization, the country is going to go to elections, as you know, in October. And it is very important that they do not derail the will for change. So far, we do not see that. We do not see that risk materializing, but I would urge Argentina, stay the course.

    Ms. Kozack: All right. Let us go right here in the front, end of the first row.

    Questioner: Managing Director, we had a lot of news this week, for example, mixed signals on tariffs on China, commentary on the position of the Fed Chair, and of course now the U.S. support of the IMF. How would you sum up the mood of the meetings of your members this week, please? 

    Ms. Georgieva: The membership is anxious because we were just about to step on a road to more stability after multiple shocks. We were projecting 3.3 percent growth. And actually, we were worried that this is not strong enough. And here we are, growth prospects weakened. The membership is also recognizing—and I hear it time and again—that it is very important to have a rules based global economy in which there is predictability of planning for action, both for governments and for the private sector. I actually hear a lot of support from the membership for the Fund because we have actually, the same way Argentina earned the Fund to support it, we have earned the support of the members by being there for them.

    Where the expectations are for the outcome of the meetings is to get more consistency in how all countries are going to go about pursuing their interests, which is legitimate. Of course, every country has to think about its own people but doing it so in a way that enlarges the global pie. It does not shrink it.

    Ms. Kozack: We have time for one last question. I am going to go over here.

    Ms. Georgieva: I am sorry. What I would say is the worry I hear more often is actually not even the tariffs. It is uncertainty. Let us have clarity. And that is why we are—with my apologies to the audience—so repetitive to say we need to bring uncertainty down.

    Ms. Kozack: We have time for one last question, the woman in the burgundy suit.

    Questioner:  I wanted to ask you about the MENA region. How concerned are you with all of this turmoil around the dollar and its effect on the MENA region, especially that many countries there are exporters of intermediate goods that go into major industries and many of them are exporters of energy and what is happening to the dollar is definitely of effect. And you have mentioned uncertainty many times today in this press conference. So, this uncertainty, how will it affect the countries in our region that are trying to get out of a lot of geopolitical uncertainty with the help of the IMF and special programs, such as Egypt? So, will this make the IMF revisit some of those programs amid all of this turmoil?

    Ms. Georgieva: Thank you very much. The MENA region actually got quite a downgrade. It is still doing better this year than last year, but we were projecting that growth would go to 4 percent and now we downgraded it to 2.6. A little bit like Africa, most of the impact is indirect. While countries in the MENA region, of course, trade with the United States, but most of them do not have very high exposure. And where it bites is slowing down of the global economy. And MENA has many oil exporters. The price of oil is going down.

    The dollar has historically, it goes up, it goes down. It is not a new thing. So, if you have an oil exporter and you get your revenues in dollars, when the dollar weakens, that creates a bit of a problem for your fiscal position. But if you are an oil exporter, this is a gift because then you can deal more easily with the challenges you face.

    My take for the MENA region is a very diverse region, like the African continent. You have the Gulf Cooperation Council. I have a lot of praise to offer because they have been pursuing reforms and diversification of the economies. Most countries have done really well. So now they see oil growth down, but non-oil economies are still doing quite well.

    We have the more kind of middle-income countries that are faced with difficulties impacted by regional conflicts like Jordan, like Egypt. And there we have been engaged, we have been providing support, as you know. We have countries like Morocco that have done really well to get their house in order, to have sound fiscal monetary policy and the only country in the region that is eligible for Flexible Credit Line from the IMF. And then we have countries like Sudan or Syria that are severely impacted by conflicts.

    I was very pleased that the attention of our membership, despite difficulties at home, across-the-board on low-income countries and conflict affected states, has sharpened. There is a recognition that what happens there impacts the rest of the world.

    We had a Syria meeting during the week of the meetings. The first time in more than 20 years, the Central Bank Governor and the Minister of Finance from Syria are here at the meetings. Our intention is to first and foremost help them rebuild institutions so they can plug themselves in the world economy.

    You are asking me whether we are revisiting program assumptions. Of course, we will be carefully watching what is happening. Then I had a meeting with the Prime Minister of Jordan. We are not talking about amending the program for Jordan right now, but we are talking about the importance of the Fund as an anchor of stability and how we can exercise this role.

    Ms. Kozack: Thank you very much, Managing Director, and thank you very much to all of our journalists who have joined us today. I am bringing this press conference to an end. As always, the transcript will be made available on our website, and I want to wish all of you a very wonderful rest of your day. Thank you very much.

    Ms. Georgieva: Thank you very much. Have a good rest of your day.

    IMF Communications Department
    MEDIA RELATIONS

    PRESS OFFICER: Wafa Amr

    Phone: +1 202 623-7100Email: MEDIA@IMF.org

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI: XRP News: XRP Community Goes Wild As Rush To Join XenDex’s $XDX Presale Intensifies

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    SYDNEY, Australia, April 24, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The buzz is undeniable as XenDex officially ignites a new wave of excitement on the XRP Ledger. Just days after launching, the first all-in-one decentralized exchange on XRP Ledger is already making headlines, with thousands of users flooding into its community channels and early participants racing to secure their place in the project’s rapidly moving XDX presale.

    With lending & borrowing, AI-powered copy trading, staking, and cross-chain functionality, XenDex is delivering what the XRP ecosystem has long been missing. And crypto investors are taking notice.

    Buy $XDX Now!

    According to XenDex’s spokesperson, “People aren’t just supporting XenDex, they’re becoming obsessed with it. This is XRP’s DeFi moment, and the entire community knows it,”

    The $XDX token presale is officially live and demand is soaring.

    The exchange rate for the XenDex presale is set at 1 XRP for 10 XDX tokens. To participate, the minimum purchase amount is 150 XRP, which gives buyers 1,500 XDX. The project has established a soft cap of 30,000 XRP to ensure strong initial liquidity and market traction.

    Early buyers are rushing in to take advantage of the low entry point before price pressure sets in. As the presale fills, $XDX becomes increasingly scarce and valuable, fueling even more demand.

    Purchase XDX Now at The Lowest Price

    Why Do Investors Love XenDex?

    Unlike anything built on XRP before, XenDex offers:

    • Real utility with low fees and lightning speed
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    • Governance, staking, and yield farming — all in one app
    • A clean, fast UI that even Web2 onborders love

    The result? A growing legion of XRP holders who are not just using XenDex, investors are rallying around it.

    Thousands have already joined the XenDex community across Telegram and Twitter. And with features rolling out and listings on the horizon, FOMO is building by the minute.

    Participate in XDX Presale

    The clock is ticking. The presale is live. The community is growing fast. Don’t wait to watch it happen — be part of it.

    Website: https://xendex.net
    Buy $XDX Presale: https://xendex.net/presale/
    Telegram: https://t.me/XenDexCommunity
    Twitter: https://x.com/XenDex_XRP
    XDX Doc: https://xdxdoc.gitbook.io

    Contact:
    Frank Richards
    Frank@xendex.net

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

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

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8fbb673f-6267-40c0-8d0a-c022ae0c486f

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Aemetis India Begins Biodiesel Shipments to Oil Marketing Companies under $31 Million Allocation For the Next Three Months

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    CUPERTINO, Calif., April 24, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Aemetis, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMTX), a diversified global renewable natural gas and biofuels company, announced the Company’s subsidiary in India, Universal Biofuels, today began shipments to fulfill multiple orders for more than 33,000 kiloliters of biodiesel from the government-owned Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) for an aggregate of $31 million for delivery during May, June, and July. 

    Additional OMC orders are expected throughout the year to continue shipments to fuel blending terminals on an ongoing basis to support the India government goal of increasing from a 1% to 5% biodiesel blend. A 5% biodiesel blend is approximately 1.2 billion gallons, a significant increase from less than a 1% blend of biodiesel that is currently used in India.

    “We are pleased with the expanded commitment to biofuels that is being shown by the India government, including the achievement of a 20% blend of ethanol and new goals including a 30% ethanol blend,” stated Eric McAfee, Chairman and CEO of Aemetis. “We began our biodiesel shipments today from inventory to quickly ramp up to $10 million per month of shipments and fulfill the $31 million of new orders from OMCs for biodiesel over the next three months. We have already made the capital investments that allow us to quickly increase production volumes as new orders are issued by the OMCs.”

    Recently, India has stated plans for further growth in the use of biofuels, expanding revenues for farmers while reducing the importation of petroleum gasoline into India. India’s strong commitment to expanding biofuels markets supports the Aemetis India business plan for further expansion and a planned Initial Public Offering (IPO), subject to continued favorable stock market conditions.

    Universal Biofuels completed $112 million of biodiesel and glycerin shipments in the twelve months ended September 2024, including deliveries to the three government-owned oil marketing companies under a cost-plus contract. During a recent plant upgrade and maintenance period, Universal Biofuels expanded the production capacity of its proprietary process that produces biodiesel from waste and byproducts that Universal utilizes to produce biofuels that are lower carbon intensity at a significantly reduced cost.

    Aemetis’ Universal Biofuels subsidiary is one of the largest biodiesel producers in India, having been in operation for more than 17 years. Universal Biofuels increased its annual biodiesel production capacity from 60 million gallons to 80 million gallons in the past year, with further biodiesel expansion to other locations and diversification into biogas production planned during the next twelve months.

    About Aemetis

    Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Aemetis is a renewable natural gas and biofuels company focused on the operation, acquisition, development, and commercialization of innovative technologies that support energy independence and security. Founded in 2006, Aemetis operates and is expanding a California biogas digester network and pipeline system to convert dairy waste into renewable natural gas. Aemetis owns and operates a 65 million gallon per year ethanol production facility in California’s Central Valley near Modesto that also supplies about 80 dairies with animal feed. Aemetis owns and operates an 80 million gallon per year biofuels facility on the East Coast of India producing high quality distilled biodiesel and refined glycerin. Aemetis is developing a sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel biorefinery and a carbon sequestration project in California. For additional information about Aemetis, please visit www.aemetis.com.

    Safe Harbor Statement

    This news release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding assumptions, projections, expectations, targets, intentions or beliefs about future events or other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, projections of financial results; IPO plans; statements related to the development, engineering, financing, construction, timing, and operation of biodiesel, biogas, sustainable aviation fuel, CO2 sequestration, and other facilities; our ability to promote, develop, finance, and construct such facilities; and statements about future market prices and results of government actions. Words or phrases such as “anticipates,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “predicts,” “projects,” “targets,” “view,” “will likely result,” “will continue” or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on current assumptions and predictions and are subject to many risks and uncertainties. Actual results or events could differ materially from those set forth or implied by such forward-looking statements and related assumptions due to certain factors, including, without limitation, competition in the ethanol, biodiesel and other industries in which we operate, commodity market risks including those that may result from current weather conditions, financial market risks, customer adoption, counter-party risks, risks associated with changes to government policy or regulation, and other risks detailed in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, and in our other filings with the SEC. We are not obligated, and do not intend, to update any of these forward-looking statements at any time unless an update is required by applicable securities laws.

    Company Investor Relations
    Media Contact:
    Todd Waltz
    (408) 213-0940
    investors@aemetis.com

    External Investor Relations
    Contact:
    Kirin Smith
    PCG Advisory Group
    (646) 863-6519
    ksmith@pcgadvisory.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp Completes $225 Million Initial Public Offering

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    NEW YORK, NY, April 24, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp (the “Company”) announced today the closing of its initial public offering of 22,500,000 units, which includes 2,500,000 units issued pursuant to the partial exercise by the underwriters of their over-allotment option. The offering was priced at $10.00 per unit, resulting in gross proceeds of $225,000,000.

    The Company’s units began trading on April 23, 2025 on the Nasdaq Global Market (“Nasdaq”) under the ticker symbol “TVACU.” Each unit consists of one Class A ordinary share of the Company and one-half of one redeemable warrant, with each whole warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one Class A ordinary share of the Company at an exercise price of $11.50 per share. Once the securities constituting the units begin separate trading, the Class A ordinary shares and warrants are expected to be listed on Nasdaq under the symbols “TVA” and “TVACW,” respectively.

    Of the proceeds received from the consummation of the initial public offering (including the partial exercise of the over-allotment option) and a simultaneous private placement of warrants, $226,125,000 (or $10.05 per unit sold in the offering) was placed in trust.

    The Company is a blank check company formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, amalgamation, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses. The Company may pursue an acquisition opportunity in any business, industry or geographical location. The Company’s primary focus, however, will be on targets focused on industrial technology, specifically companies implementing advanced technologies including software, mobile and IoT applications, digital and energy transition and consolidation, logistics and transportation, cloud and cyber communications as well as high bandwidth services, including LTE, remote sensing and 5G communications into the industrial sector. The Company will pursue completing a business combination with a target that presents a significant value proposition to its customer marketplace, including major cost reductions in the field, substantial returns on investment (ROI), a considerable decrease in carbon footprint, and/or vast improvements in safety, compliance, and environmental protocol.

    The Company’s management team is led by E. Scott Crist, its Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors (the “Board”), and R. Greg Smith, its Chief Financial Officer. The Board also includes Andrew Clark, Harvin Moore, and Aruna Viswanathan.

    Cohen & Company Capital Markets, a division of J.V.B. Financial Group, LLC, acted as the lead book-running manager, and Clear Street LLC acted as joint book-runner for the offering.

    A registration statement relating to the securities was declared effective by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on April 22, 2025. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

    FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

    This press release contains statements that constitute “forward-looking statements,” including with respect to the proposed initial public offering and the anticipated use of the net proceeds thereof. No assurance can be given that the net proceeds of the offering will be used as indicated. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of the Company’s registration statement and prospectus for the Company’s offering filed with the SEC. Copies are available on the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release, except as required by law.

    Company Contact:

    Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp
    E. Scott Crist
    scott@texasventures.com
    713-599-1300

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Belgium’s euthanasia trends dispute ‘slippery slope’ argument – new study

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jacques Wels, Principal Investigator, Unit for Lifelong Health & Ageing, UCL

    Euthanasia has been legal in Belgium since mid-2002, and in the past two decades, the number of reported cases has risen sharply. In 2003, only 236 cases were recorded, but by 2023, this had increased to 3,423. This means that euthanasia now accounts for around 3% of all deaths. But what explains this increase? And does it suggest a worrying trend, as some critics fear?

    In a new study published in Jama Network Open, my colleagues and I analysed trends in all reported euthanasia cases between 2002 and 2023. Our findings show that the rise in euthanasia cases can be attributed to two factors: “regulatory onset” (the time required for both the medical community to adapt its practices and protocols to the new law, and for the public to become informed about its availability and implications) and demographic change, including population ageing.

    We saw a sharp rise in cases during the 15 years following the law being introduced, followed by a period of stabilisation. About one-third of the increase can be explained by demographic changes – mainly population ageing. Euthanasia is indeed most common among people in their 70s and 80s, who often suffer from terminal cancer or several conditions. The number of people in those age categories has steadily increased.

    A common point of contention in the euthanasia debate is the inclusion of psychiatric disorders as a valid reason. In Belgium, euthanasia for psychiatric conditions has been permitted since the law was first introduced. However, despite concerns that this might lead to a rapid expansion of cases, our study finds that psychiatric euthanasia remains extremely rare.

    Between 2002 and 2023, psychiatric conditions accounted for just 1.3% of all euthanasia cases, and this figure has remained stable over time. The strict criteria mean that these cases typically involve long-standing conditions where all treatment options failed. In all cases, the person seeking to end their life underwent an extensive assessment before euthanasia was approved.

    Euthanasia for dementia, however, has increased slightly in recent years. While cases remain low – under 1% of total euthanasia cases – there has been a gradual rise, partially reflecting the ageing of Belgium’s population.

    There are also regional differences. Historically, euthanasia rates have been higher in the Flemish region than in French-speaking Wallonia and Brussels. However, our study shows that this gap has narrowed in recent years. This may reflect shifting cultural attitudes or changes in access to end-of-life care, but, overall, the trend points to a growing alignment in practices across the country.

    One of the biggest concerns around euthanasia laws is the so-called slippery slope argument – the idea that legalisation could lead to a broadening of criteria, eventually allowing euthanasia for non-terminal conditions, mental health issues or even socioeconomic reasons. However, our study finds no evidence to support this claim.

    Slippery slope argument explained.

    The increase in euthanasia cases has largely followed demographic trends and legislation implementation, rather than any broadening of legal criteria or changes in medical practice. Over time, both the regional and gender gaps have decreased, showing a more consistent pattern across the population rather than diverging trends.

    Belgium’s approach differs significantly from the assisted dying bill currently being debated in the UK. With assisted dying, the patient ends their own life but a doctor prescribes the life-ending medication. With euthanasia, a doctor administers the life-ending medication. The proposed UK legislation would allow assisted dying only for terminally ill patients with a short life expectancy, whereas Belgium’s law permits euthanasia even when death is not expected in the near future.

    This is particularly relevant for patients with psychiatric disorders or dementia, who may suffer unbearably for years before meeting the UK’s proposed eligibility criteria. Another key distinction is decision-making: in Belgium, the final decision is made by doctors, whereas the UK is mooting judicial oversight.

    Data gaps

    One thing that countries allowing assisted dying need to think about is how to track and collect euthanasia data. Belgium has a national system for reporting, but there are still gaps – especially in connecting euthanasia data with people’s social and economic backgrounds. It’s important to understand who asks for euthanasia and why, to assess the long-term effects of the law.

    As more countries consider assisted dying laws, Belgium’s experience offers valuable lessons – not only on regulation but also on the importance of robust data monitoring from the outset.

    Jacques Wels receives funding from the Belgian National Scientific Fund (FNRS) and the European Research Council (ERC).

    Natasia Hamarat reports participating in the Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia (FCCEE).

    – ref. Belgium’s euthanasia trends dispute ‘slippery slope’ argument – new study – https://theconversation.com/belgiums-euthanasia-trends-dispute-slippery-slope-argument-new-study-252323

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Security News: New York Man Charged with Immigration Fraud for Concealing Role as Perpetrator of Rwandan Genocide

    Source: United States Department of Justice 2

    A federal grand jury in Central Islip, New York, returned an indictment April 22 and unsealed today charging a New York man with lying on his applications for a green card and United States citizenship by concealing his past role as a leader and perpetrator of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

    According to court documents, Faustin Nsabumukunzi, 65, of Bridgehampton, New York, was a local leader with the title of “Sector Counselor” in Rwanda in 1994 when the genocide began. Between April and July of that year, members of the majority Hutu population persecuted the minority Tutsis, committing acts of violence including murder and rape. An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the three-month genocide. Nsabumukunzi was arrested this morning on Long Island and is scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. ET before U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert for the Eastern District of New York.

    “As alleged, the defendant participated in the commission of heinous acts of violence abroad and then lied his way into a green card and tried to obtain U.S. citizenship,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “No matter how much time has passed, the Department of Justice will find and prosecute individuals who committed atrocities in their home countries and covered them up to gain entry and seek citizenship in the United States.”

    “As alleged, Nsabumukunzi repeatedly lied to conceal his involvement in the horrific Rwandan genocide while seeking to become a lawful permanent resident and citizen of the United States,” said U.S. Attorney John J. Durham for the Eastern District of New York. “For over two decades, he got away with those lies and lived in the United States with an undeserved clean slate, a luxury that his victims will never have, but thanks to the tenacious efforts of our investigators and prosecutors, the defendant finally will be held accountable for his brutal actions.”

    “This defendant has been living in the United States for decades, hiding his alleged horrific conduct, human rights violations, and his role in these senseless atrocities against innocent Tutsis,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Darren B. McCormack of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York. “The depraved conduct of which the defendant is accused represent the worst of humanity. As demonstrated through the tireless work of HSI New York agents, analysts, and task force officers, we will never tolerate the safe-harboring of individuals linked to such unimaginable crimes.”

    As alleged in the indictment, Nsabumukunzi used his leadership position to oversee the violence and killings of Tutsis in his local area and directed groups of armed Hutus to kill Tutsis. He is alleged to have set up roadblocks during the genocide to detain and kill Tutsis and to have participated in killings. According to court filings, Nsabumukunzi was subsequently convicted in absentia by a Rwandan court for genocide.

    As further alleged, Nsabumukunzi applied for refugee resettlement in the United States in 2003, applied for and received a green card in 2007, and later submitted applications for naturalization in 2009 and 2015. Nsabumukunzi is alleged to have lied to U.S. immigration officials in his immigration applications, including by falsely denying any involvement as a perpetrator of the Rwandan genocide. As a result of his ongoing efforts to conceal his actions during the genocide, Nsabumukunzi has been able to live and work in the United States since 2003.

    Nsabumukunzi is charged with one count of visa fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a) and two counts of attempted naturalization fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1425 (a) and (b). If convicted, he faces a statutory maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

    HSI Long Island is investigating the case, with assistance from the Interagency Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center.

    Trial Attorney Brian Morgan of the Justice Department’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Samantha Alessi and Katherine P. Onyshko for the Eastern District of New York are prosecuting the case, with assistance from HRSP Analyst/Historian Dr. Christopher Hayden and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.

    Members of the public who have information about former human rights violators in the United States are urged to contact U.S. law enforcement through the HSI tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE (1-866-347-2423) or internationally at 001-1802-872-6199. They can also email HRV.ICE@ice.dhs.gov or complete its online tip form at www.ice.gov/exec/forms/hsi-tips/tips.asp.

    An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Manchester marks Global Intergenerational Week with lessons in tech, chess, and fishing for city’s oldest and youngest residents

    Source: City of Manchester

    Lessons in using the latest tech, playing chess like a Grandmaster, the best bait to use to land the biggest fish, and enjoying a chat over a good book, are all things that Manchester’s youngest and oldest residents will be getting to grips with together over this next week as the city marks Global Intergenerational Week (24-30 April).

    The annual worldwide campaign celebrates the power of intergenerational relationships and the enormous benefits they bring to individuals and communities – from transferring skills across the generations, to helping combat social isolation and loneliness, and challenging ageism.

     Already reaping the benefits of time spent with each other are the residents of Belong Morris Feinmann in Didsbury and pupils at neighbouring Moor Allerton School, whose primary aged pupils delight in nipping through the fence that separates them from their next-door neighbours once a week, armed with a pile of books, to read together with their new-found older friends who live at the residential home.

    Teacher Angela Luckett said: “Every half term a different year group of children come across once a week to read, and so they get to really know each other.  Pupils read with the residents, sharing their literacy skills, but also quite often just having a chat with each other, which is really lovely to see.  It’s beautiful to see the relationships that have built over the visits – they get to form great friendships and really connect with each other.”

    Year 5 pupil Miles added: “I like it, it makes me calmer.  I like to read with them and it’s really fun.”

    For their part, the home residents really enjoy hearing the youngsters read and talking to them about the books they’ve brought in, as well also chatting with them about their own lives and things they’ve done.

    Resident Pauline Pike said: “I think it’s fantastic.  I think we both learn something from each other.  I think the children learn from us, and we certainly learn from them.”

    The weekly Book Buddies session at Belong Morris Feinmann

    Meanwhile, across at Didsbury Library a weekly chess club – running for a year now – provides the chance for would-be Grandmasters of all ages and all abilities to take each other on in sometimes tense table-top chess matches, learning new moves and strategies from each other as they talk and play, each vying to reach checkmate first.

    Didsbury Library is also the venue for a special intergenerational digital drop-in session that takes place each week.

    Talking tech and understanding all the ins and outs of how to get the most out of it is of course what young people often have a particular knack for and pupils at Barlow RC High School are no exception.  They’ve been putting their digital skills to good use over the last year by partnering with local charity Didsbury Good Neighbours to offer free tech training to any adults in the community who need it at the weekly drop-in sessions in the library.

    The weekly digi drop-in sessions run by pupils from The Barlow RC High

    Over in north Manchester the King William Angling Society based in Boggart Hole Clough offers a chance for young and old to put away their tech and enjoy the great outdoors together as they try their hand at the fine art of fishing.

    With a variety of fish of all sizes including Bream and Tench, Rudd, Perch, and Carp, all ready to be netted, the Society is running special intergenerational sessions this weekend on Saturday 26 April for young anglers to bring their grandparents along to learn to fish together – with all equipment and bait provided.

    Also in north Manchester, Heaton Park is inviting families to come together in the park this Saturday with their oldest and youngest family members and bring a picnic with them to enjoy together before taking a walk amongst the many blossom-filled trails full of spring colours, enjoying the ever-popular playground, or maybe taking a boat out on the lake in the park.

    Global Intergenerational Week 2025 takes place as Manchester journeys towards becoming a UNICEF recognised Child Friendly City – helping make Manchester the best place for a child to grow up in – a place where children are not only respected, but also where their voices are heard and they’re encouraged to participate in and play an active role in their local communities.

    Councillor Julie Reid, Executive Member for Early Years, Children and Young People, Manchester City Council, said: “Anyone who was lucky enough to grow up with much-loved grandparents, aunts and uncles or other older adults in their lives will already know how special these relationships across the generations can be and how much the different generations can learn from each other.  Not everyone however has been so fortunate or may no longer have these people in their lives, which is why creating opportunities for our younger and older generations in the city to get together and spend time with each other, enjoying each other’s company, helping each other, and learning new things, is so important.”

    Alongside the city’s ambition to be recognised as a Child Friendly City is its long-standing involvement in the World Health Organisation’s network of Age Friendly Cities and Communities – helping to ensure that people over the age of 50 in Manchester age well and have a happy and successful later life with greater independence and connectedness to their communities.

    Councillor Thomas Robinson, Executive Member for Healthy Manchester and Adult Social Care, said: “All generations can benefit from each other and here in Manchester, there are lots of opportunities for them to connect, share their skills, and not only stave off loneliness but benefit from each other’s wisdom, whatever it is, it’s important that they get the chance to come together.”

    Find out more information about Global Intergenerational Week in Manchester and activities across the city. 

    Find out more information about Global Intergenerational Week

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI USA: UConn Launches Largest Campaign in University History

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    The University of Connecticut announced Thursday that it has raised more than $720 million in a $1.5 billion fundraising campaign, the most ambitious in the University’s history.

    The multi-year “Because of UConn” Campaign is comprehensive, spanning all schools, colleges, campuses, and UConn Health. The campaign focuses on four pillars:

    • Students First: making transformative investments in financial aid, student health, career readiness, and life skills to improve time-to-degree and career outcomes.
    • Academic & Innovation Excellence: driving investment in top faculty and graduate fellows and building the innovation ecosystem of the state and beyond.
    • Health & Wellness of People & Planet: focusing on patient care, medical research, and the development of life-changing technologies that improve health care outcomes.
    • Husky Pride: investing in athletic excellence and supporting a thriving UConn Nation that includes more than 290,000 alumni worldwide.

    UConn President Radenka Maric unveiled the campaign at a kickoff event on Wednesday, April 23 at UConn Avery Point. “This ambitious campaign is fully aligned with a strategic plan that will lead the way to a bigger, brighter, bolder UConn,” says Maric. “It supports students to help them excel in the classroom and post-graduation. ‘Because of UConn‘ elevates our academic standing and fuels groundbreaking research that moves Connecticut and the world forward. It asks our donors and alumni to invest in a healthier world and our continued excellence in D1 sports.”

    Governor Ned Lamont speaks during the Because of UConn campaign event at the Avery Point campus on April 23, 2025. At left is President Radenka Maric (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

    The campaign is by far UConn’s largest and most ambitious to date. The momentum of the campaign has sparked the strongest start to a fundraising year ever, up more than 76% compared to this time last year.

    The campaign pillars support UConn’s 10-year Strategic Plan, designed to make an education more affordable and a UConn degree more valuable by elevating UConn among its national peers.

    Putting Students First 

    The campaign’s top priority is to bolster UConn’s academic mission to create opportunities for our students, including more than 8,550 who are the first in their families to attend college.

    The campaign will support efforts to improve student retention and graduation rates. Investing in student success will help UConn reach its goal of increasing its six-year graduation rate from 83% to 90% by 2030, with a particular focus on first-generation students.

    Research Excellence 

    As a world-class research institution, UConn encourages students and faculty to ask big questions and find solutions to pressing problems from biotech to advanced manufacturing to advance the Connecticut and national economy. The campaign will help the University provide fellowships for much-needed graduate researchers, help recruit and retain top faculty, and invest in lifesaving and world-changing research at more than 80 centers and 100 state-of-the-art STEM facilities on campus. UConn boasts nearly 300 scientists who are in the top 2% of researchers investigating everything from cancer to AI.

    UConn basketball great Emeka Okafor ’04 (BUS) speaks during the Because of UConn campaign event at the Avery Point campus on April 23, 2025. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

    It will also invest in UConn’s athletic programs and the health and financial literacy of student-athletes, including the men’s and women’s basketball teams, which have brought home three consecutive NCAA National Championship trophies in the last three years. UConn is proud to have 26 national championships across all sports.

    Leading the Way to a New Era

    The quiet phase of the campaign has been led by some of the University’s most generous lifetime donors, whose significant support has set the pace for this effort, including:

    • Over $52 million from Elisabeth DeLuca ’69 (NUR) to build a new state-of-the-art nursing facility at UConn to innovate in the field of nursing and address a statewide nursing shortage.
    • $46.5 million from Peter J. Werth to establish a legacy of innovation and entrepreneurship by creating an institute that empowers students and faculty to transform ideas into impactful ventures that fuel economic growth and opportunity. Werth has also been generous in his support of UConn student-athletes and their championship pursuits.
    • Over $25 million from alumni Denis ’76 (BUS) ’77 MBA and Britta Nayden ’76 (BUS) who have supported initiatives across the University, with a strong focus on student success. Their generosity has helped launch programming in the School of Business, expand scholarship support, and, more recently, advance initiatives in student athlete financial literacy, mental health, and wellness.
    • $15 million from Trisha Bailey ’99 (CLAS) ’23(HON) to transform student-athlete support by establishing a world-class facility that advances academic achievement, mental and physical wellness, and athletic excellence.
    • Over $11 million from Toni Boucher ’02 MBA, marked by a lead gift to establish the Boucher Management & Entrepreneurship Department, empowering students across disciplines to launch innovative ventures, drive economic growth, and honor the entrepreneurial legacy of her late husband, Bud.

    Corporations, including Eversource, Synchrony, Travelers, The Hartford, RTX, Stanley Black & Decker, and Bank of America, have been philanthropically generous in supporting students through scholarships, programming, as well as providing job opportunities.

    Bruce Liang, dean of UConn School of Medicine, and Provost Ann D’Alleva speak at the Because of UConn campaign event at the Avery Point campus on April 23, 2025. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

    “’Because of UConn‘ will have a profound impact on the University. It will double the number of named scholarships, fund scientific breakthroughs and advanced lifesaving therapies, and engage UConn Nation in the life and mission of the University like never before” says Amy Yancey, President and CEO of the UConn Foundation. “We are so grateful for the generous support of alumni and friends of the University who are investing in UConn to ensure a thriving Connecticut and success for future generations of Huskies.”

    Other campaign objectives include growing the endowment; increasing the number of donors; and increasing engagement touchpoints with UConn alumni and supporters through events, giving, social media and storytelling during the campaign timeframe.

    The campaign is led by volunteer alumni co-chairs Toni Boucher, Rich and Joyce Eldh, Doug and Sheila Elliot, and Board of Trustees Chair Dan Toscano. The Eldhs have been generous supporters of full scholarships for students from Bridgeport and the Elliots have been generous across many programs, including Elliot Ballpark, home to the UConn baseball team; the Toscanos, longtime supporters of UConn, have invested in scholarships, faculty, innovative programming such as Hillside Ventures, and UConn Athletics. Honorary co-chairs include Vlad Coric, Denis Nayden, Molly Qerim and Peter Werth. They’re among the more than 30 members of the campaign committee.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Dr. Hilary Onyiuke Among ‘Elite 8’ in Augmented Reality Spine Surgery

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    Dr. Hilary Onyiuke, the neurosurgeon who founded the UConn Health’s Comprehensive Spine Center and now codirects it, has been appointed to the National Technical Board of Augmedics, the medical technology company behind the xvision® Spine System.

    (Image provided by Augmedics)

    The xvision® Spine System is a groundbreaking augmented reality (AR) navigation platform that enables surgeons to visualize a patient’s anatomy in 3D through a specialized headset — without ever taking their eyes off the patient. Unlike traditional systems that require surgeons to glance between the surgical site and a separate monitor, xvision projects critical information directly into the surgeon’s field of view. This enables real-time guidance for accurate placement of implants and instruments during complex spine procedures.

    The system’s optical tracking and intuitive interface enhance precision, reduce intraoperative time, and minimize radiation exposure by reducing reliance on intraoperative fluoroscopy. It also supports freehand instrumentation, offering greater flexibility while maintaining a high level of accuracy.

    Over the past 18 months, Onyiuke has performed over 500 cases using xvision, developing a deep familiarity with its capabilities and limitations. His expertise and hands-on experience with the system played a key role in his selection to the National Technical Board, which includes only eight of the top surgeons from across the country.

    Prior to using xvision, Onyiuke was trained on robotic-assisted spine surgery systems. While robotics remains a valuable tool in the operating room, he notes that xvision offers a simpler, faster, and more adaptable approach with fewer workflow disruptions. He emphasizes that the technology puts control back in the surgeon’s hands — literally — while enhancing visibility and confidence during delicate spinal procedures.

    Surgeons see an augmented reality image of the anatomy in their field of vision while using xvision to perform spine surgery. (Image provided by Augmedics)

    UConn Health is unique because the adoption of xvision isn’t limited to a single provider. All spine surgeons at UConn Health now utilize the xvision system in their surgical practice. The universal embrace of this technology has not only improved surgical workflow and outcomes but also positioned UConn Health as a regional referral center for advanced spine care.

    Surgeons report smoother intraoperative experiences, faster decision-making, and improved outcomes for complex spine cases. Patients are also benefiting, especially those referred from outside institutions seeking treatment made possible by this leading-edge platform.

    Onyiuke is a professor of neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery and is vice chair of UConn Health’s Department of Neurosurgery.

    Augmedics recently celebrated its 10,000th xvision case, which was performed by Dr. Isaac Moss at UConn Health Wednesday.

    Learn more about the UConn Health Comprehensive Spine Center, or call 860-679-6662 for a consultation.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: New York Man Charged with Immigration Fraud for Concealing Role as Perpetrator of Rwandan Genocide

    Source: United States Attorneys General

    A federal grand jury in Central Islip, New York, returned an indictment April 22 and unsealed today charging a New York man with lying on his applications for a green card and United States citizenship by concealing his past role as a leader and perpetrator of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

    According to court documents, Faustin Nsabumukunzi, 65, of Bridgehampton, New York, was a local leader with the title of “Sector Counselor” in Rwanda in 1994 when the genocide began. Between April and July of that year, members of the majority Hutu population persecuted the minority Tutsis, committing acts of violence including murder and rape. An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the three-month genocide. Nsabumukunzi was arrested this morning on Long Island and is scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. ET before U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert for the Eastern District of New York.

    “As alleged, the defendant participated in the commission of heinous acts of violence abroad and then lied his way into a green card and tried to obtain U.S. citizenship,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “No matter how much time has passed, the Department of Justice will find and prosecute individuals who committed atrocities in their home countries and covered them up to gain entry and seek citizenship in the United States.”

    “As alleged, Nsabumukunzi repeatedly lied to conceal his involvement in the horrific Rwandan genocide while seeking to become a lawful permanent resident and citizen of the United States,” said U.S. Attorney John J. Durham for the Eastern District of New York. “For over two decades, he got away with those lies and lived in the United States with an undeserved clean slate, a luxury that his victims will never have, but thanks to the tenacious efforts of our investigators and prosecutors, the defendant finally will be held accountable for his brutal actions.”

    “This defendant has been living in the United States for decades, hiding his alleged horrific conduct, human rights violations, and his role in these senseless atrocities against innocent Tutsis,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Darren B. McCormack of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York. “The depraved conduct of which the defendant is accused represent the worst of humanity. As demonstrated through the tireless work of HSI New York agents, analysts, and task force officers, we will never tolerate the safe-harboring of individuals linked to such unimaginable crimes.”

    As alleged in the indictment, Nsabumukunzi used his leadership position to oversee the violence and killings of Tutsis in his local area and directed groups of armed Hutus to kill Tutsis. He is alleged to have set up roadblocks during the genocide to detain and kill Tutsis and to have participated in killings. According to court filings, Nsabumukunzi was subsequently convicted in absentia by a Rwandan court for genocide.

    As further alleged, Nsabumukunzi applied for refugee resettlement in the United States in 2003, applied for and received a green card in 2007, and later submitted applications for naturalization in 2009 and 2015. Nsabumukunzi is alleged to have lied to U.S. immigration officials in his immigration applications, including by falsely denying any involvement as a perpetrator of the Rwandan genocide. As a result of his ongoing efforts to conceal his actions during the genocide, Nsabumukunzi has been able to live and work in the United States since 2003.

    Nsabumukunzi is charged with one count of visa fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a) and two counts of attempted naturalization fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1425 (a) and (b). If convicted, he faces a statutory maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

    HSI Long Island is investigating the case, with assistance from the Interagency Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center.

    Trial Attorney Brian Morgan of the Justice Department’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Samantha Alessi and Katherine P. Onyshko for the Eastern District of New York are prosecuting the case, with assistance from HRSP Analyst/Historian Dr. Christopher Hayden and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.

    Members of the public who have information about former human rights violators in the United States are urged to contact U.S. law enforcement through the HSI tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE (1-866-347-2423) or internationally at 001-1802-872-6199. They can also email HRV.ICE@ice.dhs.gov or complete its online tip form at www.ice.gov/exec/forms/hsi-tips/tips.asp.

    An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Bridgehampton Man Charged with Immigration Fraud for Concealing His Role as a Perpetrator of Rwandan Genocide

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    Defendant Was a Local Leader During the Rwandan Genocide and Did Not Disclose His Role in the Violence, Including Killings and Rapes, to U.S. Immigration Authorities

    CENTRAL ISLIP, NY – Earlier today, at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, an indictment was unsealed charging Faustin Nsabumukunzi with visa fraud and attempted naturalization fraud for lying on his applications for a green card and for United States citizenship by concealing his role as a local leader and perpetrator of violence during the Rwandan genocide in 1994.  Nsabumukunzi was arrested this morning on Long Island and is scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon before United States District Judge Joanna Seybert.

    John J. Durham, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; and Darren B. McCormack, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations, New York (HSI New York), announced the arrest and charges.

    “As alleged, Nsabumukunzi repeatedly lied to conceal his involvement in the horrific Rwandan genocide while seeking to become a lawful permanent resident and citizen of the United States,” stated United States Attorney Durham.  “For over two decades, he got away with those lies and lived in the United States with an undeserved clean slate, a luxury that his victims will never have, but thanks to the tenacious efforts of our investigators and prosecutors, the defendant finally will be held accountable for his brutal actions.”

    Mr. Durham expressed his appreciation to the United States Interagency Human Rights Violators & War Crimes Center, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor for their work on the case.

    “As alleged, the defendant participated in the commission of heinous acts of violence abroad and then lied his way into a green card and tried to obtain U.S. citizenship,” stated Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.  “No matter how much time has passed, the Department of Justice will find and prosecute individuals who committed atrocities in their home countries and covered them up to gain entry and seek citizenship in the United States.”

    “This defendant has been living in the United States for decades, hiding his alleged horrific conduct, human rights violations, and his role in these senseless atrocities against innocent Tutsis,” stated HSI New York Acting Special Agent in Charge McCormack.  “The depraved conduct of which the defendant is accused represent the worst of humanity. As demonstrated through the tireless work of HSI New York agents, analysts, and task force officers, we will never tolerate the safe-harboring of individuals linked to such unimaginable crimes.”

    As set forth in court filings, Nsabumukunzi served as a local leader with the title of “Sector Councilor” in Rwanda in 1994 when the genocide began.  Between April 1994 and July 1994, members of the majority Hutu population persecuted the minority Tutsis, committing acts of violence, including murder, rape, and sexual violence.  An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the three-month genocide.

    As alleged in the indictment, Nsabumukunzi used his leadership position as Sector Councilor to oversee the violence and killings of Tutsis in his local sector of Kibirizi and directed groups of armed Hutus to kill Tutsis. He set up roadblocks during the genocide to detain and kill Tutsis and participated in killings and violence.  For example, Nsabumukunzi ordered a group of armed Hutus to locations where Tutsis were sheltering and the Hutus killed them.  Nsabumukunzi also facilitated the rape of Tutsi women by verbally encouraging Hutu men to do so.  According to court filings, Nsabumukunzi has been convicted of genocide in absentia by a Rwandan court.

    As further alleged, Nsabumukunzi applied for refugee resettlement in the United States in August 2003, applied for and received a green card in November 2007, and later submitted applications for naturalization in 2009 and 2015.  Nsabumukunzi lied to United States immigration officials to gain admission to the United States as a refugee, by falsely denying in the applications under penalty of perjury that he ever engaged in genocide.  He repeated those lies in his subsequent applications for a green card and for naturalization.  As a result of his ongoing efforts to conceal his actions during the genocide, Nsabumukunzi has been able to live and work in the United States since 2003.

    The charges in the indictment are allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.  If convicted on all counts, Nsabumukunzi faces a maximum of 30 years in prison.

    The government’s case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Human Trafficking and Civil Rights Section and the Criminal Section of the Office’s Long Island Division.  Assistant United States  Attorneys Samantha Alessi and Katherine P. Onyshko and Paralegal Specialist Erin Payne are in charge of the prosecution, along with Trial Attorney Brian Morgan from the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions (HRSP) Section, with assistance from HRSP Senior Historian Dr. Christopher Hayden.

    The Defendant:

    FAUSTIN NSABUMUKUNZI
    Age: 65
    Bridgehampton, New York

    E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 25-CR-138 (JS)

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Emmett Man Sentenced to Over 6 Years in Federal Prison for Possessing Child Sexual Abuse Material

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    BOISE – Kevin Kirkland, 52, of Emmett, was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for possession of child sexual abuse material, Acting U.S. Attorney Justin Whatcott announced today.

    According to court records, the investigation began when the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force received CyberTip reports from a cloud storage company. A CyberTip is a report submitted to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC gathers leads and tips regarding suspected online crimes against children and forwards them to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. ICAC determined that numerous egregious files of child sexual abuse material had been uploaded to a cloud storage account, later identified as belonging to Kirkland. ICAC seized Kirkland’s cellphone pursuant to a federal search warrant and located additional files of child sexual abuse material.

    U.S. District Judge Amanda K. Brailsford also sentenced Kirkland to 15 years of supervised release following his prison sentence and ordered him to pay $24,000 in restitution to victims in the images he possessed. Kirkland will be required to register as a sex offender as a result of the conviction.

    “I’m grateful for the continued dedication of our Internet Crimes Against Children Unit and the strong collaboration we have with our federal partners,” said Attorney General Raúl Labrador. “Their tireless work ensures that those who exploit children are brought to justice. Each successful prosecution reaffirms our commitment to protecting Idaho’s most vulnerable and holding offenders fully accountable under the law.”

    Acting U.S. Attorney Whatcott commended the cooperative efforts of the Idaho ICAC Task Force, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Emmett Police Department, which led to charge. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kassandra McGrady prosecuted the case.

    This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. As part of Project Safe Childhood, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho and the Idaho Attorney General’s Office partner to marshal federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

    ###

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: Atos completes reverse stock split

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Press release

    Atos completes reverse stock split

    Paris, France – April 24, 2025 – Atos SE (the “Company”) announces today the completion of the reverse stock split of the shares comprising its share capital, as decided by the Board of Directors on March 6, 2025, following the delegation of powers by the shareholders’ combined General Meeting of January 31, 2025 (29th resolution).

    The reverse stock split is a purely technical exchange transaction with no direct impact on the total value of the Company’s shares held by each shareholder.

    Terms and conditions of the reverse stock split

    The main terms of this reverse stock split, as detailed in the notice of reverse stock split published in the Bulletin des Annonces Légales Obligatoires (BALO) on March 10, 2025 and in the press release published by the Company on March 7, 2025, are as follows:

    • Basis of the reverse stock split: exchange of 10,000 old shares with a par value of €0.0001 for 1 new share with a par value of €1.
    • Number of old shares subject to the reverse stock split: 190,358,728,519 shares with a par value of 0.0001€.
    • Number of new shares resulting from the reverse stock split: 19,035,872 shares with a par value of 1€.
    • Centralization: the new shares resulting from the reverse stock split were admitted to trading on the regulated market of Euronext in Paris from April 24, 2025, the first day of trading, under ISIN code FR001400X2S4.

    The new shares resulting from the reverse stock split are eligible for the DSS (Deferred Settlement Service) with effect from today.

    Shareholders holding a multiple of 10,000 shares do not need to take any action. These shares were automatically consolidated by their financial intermediary on the basis of 1 new share (€1 par value) for each block of 10,000 old shares (€0.0001 par value).

    Shareholders who were unable to obtain a number of old shares forming a multiple of 10,000 will be compensated for their fractional rights by their financial intermediary within 30 days of April 24, 2025, i.e., until May 25, 2025 inclusive. Shareholders are invited to contact their financial intermediary if they have any questions on this subject.

    Adjustment of the exercise parity for the Warrants issued by the Company

    On March 6, 2025, the Board of Directors, using the delegation of powers granted by the shareholders’ combined General Meeting of January 31, 2025 (29th resolution), decided to adjust the exercise parity of the share subscription warrants issued by the Company on December 18, 2024 (the “Warrants”) in accordance with the terms set out below, which are included in the reverse stock split notice published in the BALO on March 10, 2025.

    As a result of the reverse stock split, the exercise parity of the Warrants corresponds to the product of (i) the exercise parity in force before the start of the reverse stock split and (ii) the ratio between the number of new shares comprising the Company’s share capital after the reverse stock split and the number of old shares comprising the Company’s share capital before the reverse stock split, i.e. 1/10,000, i.e. a maximum number of new ordinary shares to which the Warrants give entitlement in the event of exercise after this reverse stock split, of 1,107,589 new ordinary shares in the Company with a par value of one euro each on exercise of the Warrants.

    Adjustment of the rights of beneficiaries of free allocations of shares

    By decision of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of April 24, 2025, the rights of beneficiaries of free share allocations under the Company’s current free share allocation plans were adjusted to take account of reverse stock split transactions.

    As a result, the number of rights allocated to each plan beneficiary will correspond to the product of (i) the number of rights allocated to each plan beneficiary before the start of the reverse stock split, and (ii) the ratio between the number of new shares comprising the Company’s share capital after the reverse stock split and the number of existing shares comprising the Company’s share capital before the reverse stock split, i.e. 1/10,000, it being specified that where the number of rights calculated in this way is not a whole number, the number of rights allocated to the beneficiary will, for each holder, be rounded down to the nearest whole number, in accordance with the doctrine of the tax authorities.

    Timetable of upcoming operations

    April 24, 2025 Effective date of the reverse stock split and first day of trading of new shares (ISIN code: FR001400X2S4)
    From April 24 to May 25, 2025 Compensation period for shareholders with fractional rights through their financial intermediaries
    April 28, 2025 Restart of the period of suspension of exercise of the Warrants

    ***

    About Atos

    Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with circa 74,000 employees and annual revenue of circa €10 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high-performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 68 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea) and listed on Euronext Paris.

    The purpose of Atos is to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space.

    Contacts
    Investor relations:

    David Pierre-Kahn | investors@atos.net | +33 6 28 51 45 96

    Sofiane El Amri | investors@atos.net | +33 6 29 34 85 67

    Individual shareholders: +33 8 05 65 00 75

    Press contact: globalprteam@atos.net

    Attachment

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: WENDEL: Q1 2025 Trading update

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Q1 2025 NAV per share at €176.7

    Continued strategic deployment :

    €34bn of private Assets under Management for third parties

    Solid financial structure:
    Strong liquidity and LTV ratio at 17.2%

    Fully diluted Net Asset Value1as of March 31, 2025: €176.7 per share

    • Fully diluted NAV per share down -4.8% since the start of the year reflecting market volatility and evolution of valuation multiples:
      • Listed assets (29% of Gross Asset Value): flat total value year-to-date
      • Unlisted assets (33% of GAV): total value down 7.3%, mainly due to lower market multiples
      • Following the acquisition of Monroe Capital, Asset Management now represents 17% of GAV

    Good performance of Group companies in Q1 20205

    • Principal investments: all Group companies generated positive total sales growth in Q1, except Scalian

    Asset management: good momentum in fundraising and revenue growth

    • IK Partners’ revenues up +33% in Q1. Successful closing of the IK X flagship fund at €3.3 billion, the largest fund raised in its history and continued momentum in fundraising of IK Small & Dev Cap
    • Altogether IK Partners and Monroe have successfully raised more than €3 billion of new funds on various strategies over Q1 2025

    Successful implementation of new strategic directions

    • Principal Investments: successful Forward Sale of 6.7% of Bureau Veritas’ share capital, at a price of €27.25 per share on March 12, 2025
      • Wendel entered into a call spread transaction to benefit from up to c.15% of the stock price appreciation over the next three years on the equivalent number of shares underlying the Forward Sale Transaction
      • Total net proceeds for Wendel of €750 million
      • Wendel has retained 26.5% of the share capital and 41.2% of the voting rights of Bureau Veritas
    • Asset Management: With Monroe Capital acquisition, Wendel’s third party asset management platform reached €34 billion in AUM2
      • On March 31, 2025, Wendel has invested $1.133 billion to acquire 72% of Monroe Capital’s shares together with rights to c.20% of the carried interest generated on past and future funds

    Dividend: €4.70 per share, up 17.5%, proposed to May 15, 2025, AGM

    • c.2.5% of NAV as of December 31, 2024, as stated in the strategic roadmap
    • Representing a yield of c. 5.5% compared to the current share price4

    Strong financial structure and committed to remaining Investment Grade

    • Debt maturity of 3.4 years with an average cost of 2.4%
    • LTV ratio at 17.2%5 as of March 31, 2025, on a pro forma basis
    • Pro forma total liquidity of €1.76 billion as of March 31, 2025, including c.€800 million in cash and €875 million in committed credit facility (fully undrawn)
    • On March 31, 2025, S&P revised Wendel outlook to ‘Stable’ from ‘Negative’ on debt reduction and reaffirmed its ‘BBB’ rating
    Laurent Mignon, Wendel Group CEO, commented:

    “The first quarter of 2025 marks a significant milestone for Wendel, with the successful closing of Monroe Capital’s acquisition, materializing our strategy to grow third-party asset management alongside our principal investment activity. With €34 billion of assets under management and €3.4 billion raised in Q12025 now with Monroe Capital and IK Partners, we are building a strong and significant Asset management player generating recurring and predictable income, enhancing significantly Wendel’s value creation profile.

    We also successfully completed a forward sale of Bureau Veritas shares, achieved in good conditions, generating €750M of proceeds, that, combined with our financial discipline, contributed to significantly improve of our LTV ratio. This strengthened financial profile is a key lever to successfully deliver our 2027 value creation roadmap. Our teams remain fully mobilized to generate value through the current portfolio and put in place the asset management platform.”

    Wendel’s net asset value as of March 31, 2025: €176.7 per share on a fully diluted basis

    Wendel’s Net Asset Value (NAV) as of March 31, 2025, was prepared by Wendel to the best of its knowledge and on the basis of market data available at this date and in compliance with its methodology.

    Fully diluted Net Asset Value was €176.7 per share as of March 31, 2025 (see detail in the table below), as compared to €185.7 on December 31, 2024, representing a decrease of -4.8% since the start of the year. Compared to the last 20-day average share price as of March 31, the discount to the March 31, 2025, fully diluted NAV per share was -47.9%.

    Bureau Veritas contributed negatively to Net Asset Value, as end of March 2025, its 20-day average share price was down YTD (-3.2%). IHS Towers (+37.2%) and Tarkett (+55.5%) 20-day average share prices impacted positively the NAV. Total value creation per share of listed assets was therefore neutral (+€0.0) on a fully diluted basis over the first quarter.

    Unlisted asset contribution to NAV was negative over the course of the quarter with a total change per share of -€6.5 reflecting overall multiples’ decrease.

    Asset management activities contribution to NAV was slightly negative, -€0.8, due to IK Partners multiples’ evolution. A total of €29M of sponsor money is included in the NAV as of end of March, both for IK Partners and Monroe.

    Cash operating costs, Net Financing Results and Other items impacted NAV by -€1.7, as Wendel benefits from a positive carry and maintains a good cost control.

    Total Net Asset Value evolution per share amounted to -€9.0 since the start of the year.

    Fully diluted NAV per share of €176.7 as of March 31, 2025

    (in millions of euros)     03/31/2025 12/31/2024
    Listed investments Number of shares Share price (1) 2,965 3,793
    Bureau Veritas 89.9m(2)/120.3m €28.5/€29.5 2,565 3,544
    IHS 63.0m/63.0m $4.4/$3.2 254 192
    Tarkett   €16.4/€10.5 146 57
    Investment in unlisted assets (3) 3,346 3,612
    Asset Management Activities (4) 1,778 616
    Asset Managers (IK Partners & Monroe) 1,749 616
    Sponsor Money 29 –
    Other assets and liabilities of Wendel and holding companies (5) 161 174
    Net cash position & financial assets (6) 2,058 2,407
    Gross asset value     10,308 10,603
    Wendel bond debt     -2,378 -2,401
    IK Partners transaction deferred payment and Monroe earnout -244 -131
    Net Asset Value     7,686 8,071
    Of which net debt     -564 -124
    Number of shares     44,461,997 44,461,997
    Net Asset Value per share €172.9 €181.5
    Wendel’s 20 days share price average   €92.0 €93.5
    Premium (discount) on NAV -46.8% -48.5%
    Number of shares – fully diluted 42,456,176 42,466,569
    Fully diluted Net Asset Value, per share €176.7 €185.7
    Premium (discount) on fully diluted NAV -47.9% -49.6%

    (1)  Last 20 trading days average as of March 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024.
    (2)  Number of shares adjusted from the Forward Sale Transaction of 30,357,140 shares of Bureau Veritas. The value of the call spread transaction to benefit from up to c.15% of the stock price appreciation on the equivalent number of shares is taken into account in Other assets & liabilities.
    (3)  Investments in unlisted companies (Stahl, Crisis Prevention Institute, ACAMS, Scalian, Globeducate, Wendel Growth). Aggregates retained for the calculation exclude the impact of IFRS16.
    (4)  Investment in IK Partners (excl. Cash to be distributed to shareholders), in Monroe and sponsor money.
    (5)  Of which 2,005,821 treasury shares as of March 31, 2025, and 1,995,428 as of December 31, 2024.
    (6)  Cash position and short-term financial assets of Wendel & holdings.
    Assets and liabilities denominated in currencies other than the euro have been converted at exchange rates prevailing on the date of the NAV calculation.
    If co-investment and managements LTIP conditions are realized, subsequent dilutive effects on Wendel’s economic ownership are accounted for in NAV calculations. See page 285 of the 2024 Registration Document.

    Wendel’s Principal Investments’ portfolio rotation

    On March 12, 2025, Wendel realized a successful placement of Bureau Veritas shares as part of a prepaid 3-year forward sale representing approximately 6.7% of Bureau Veritas share capital and increased its financial flexibility by reducing the pro forma loan-to-value ratio to approximately 17%. The transaction immediately generated net cash proceeds of approximately €750M to Wendel.

    Wendel reinvested €11.5m in Scalian upon the acquisition of a specialized IT services player focused on the Defense sector in January 2025.

    Wendel’s Asset Management platform evolution

    Acquisition of a controlling stake in Monroe Capital LLC closed, a transformational transaction in line with the strategic roadmap

    Wendel completed on March 31, 2025 the definitive partnership agreement including the acquisition, together with AXA IM Prime, of 75% of Monroe Capital LLC (“Monroe Capital” or “the Company”), and a sponsoring program of $800 million to accelerate Monroe Capital’s growth, together with an investment of up to $200 million in GP commitment.

    With IK Partners and Monroe Capital, Wendel’s third party asset management platform reached €34 billion in AUM7, and should generate, on a full-year basis, c.€ 455 million revenues8, c.€160 million pre-tax FRE (c.€100 million in pre-tax FRE (Wendel share) in 2025. Wendel’s ambition is to reach €150 million (Wendel share) in pre-tax FRE in 2027.

    Strong value creation and performance of Third Party Asset Management (17% of Gross Asset Value)

    Q1 2025 performance

    Over the first quarter of 2025, IK Partners registered again particularly strong levels of activity, generating a total of €46.4 million in revenue, up 33 % vs. Q1 2024. Total Assets under Management (€14.9 billion, of which €4.8 billion of Dry Powder9) grew by 8% since the beginning of the year, and FPAuM10 (€10.2 billion) by 2%. Over the period, €0.64 billion of new funds were raised (IK X, IK PF III, IK SC IV and IK CV I) and 2 exits have been realized, for over €0.26 billion.

    As of March 31, 2025, Wendel’s third party asset management platform11 represented total assets under management of €34 billion and achieved €3.4 billion of fundraising.

    Sponsor money invested by Wendel

    Wendel committed €500 million in IK Partners funds (of which €300 million in IK X). As of March 31, 2025, €29 million of sponsor money have been called in IK Partners and Monroe Capital funds.

    Principal Investment companies’ sales

    Listed Assets: 29% of Gross Asset Value

    Bureau Veritas – A robust first quarter and an unchanged 2025 outlook; Increased returns to shareholders with a €200m share buyback program
    (full consolidation)

    Bureau Veritas revenue in the first quarter of 2025 amounted to €1,558.7 million, an 8.3% increase compared to the first quarter of 2024. Bureau Veritas delivered an organic growth of 7.3%.
    Three businesses led the growth: Industry, up 14.3%, Marine & Offshore, up 11.8%, and Certification, up 10.9%. Agri-Food & Commodities grew 6.0% while both Consumer Products Services and Buildings & Infrastructure grew low-single-digit organically in the first quarter of 2025.
    The scope effect was a positive 1.4%, reflecting bolt-on acquisitions (contributing to +3.0%) finalized in the past few quarters and partly offset by the impact of divestments completed over the last twelve months (contributing to -1.6%). Currency fluctuations had a negative impact of 0.4%, due to the strength of the euro against most currencies.

    2025 Share buyback program
    On April 24, 2025, Bureau Veritas announces a new EUR 200 million share buyback program to be completed by the end of June 2025. This decision reflects the Group’s confidence in its resilient business model and takes advantage of the current share price.

    2025 Outlook unchanged

    • While customers are navigating an uncertain period, Bureau Veritas has a robust opportunities pipeline, a solid backlog, and mid-to-long-term strong market fundamentals. Therefore, Bureau Veritas keeps its outlook unchanged, and expects to deliver for the full year 2025: Mid-to-high single-digit organic revenue growth;
    • Improvement in adjusted operating margin at constant exchange rates;
    • Strong cash flow, with a cash conversion12 above 90%.

    For more information: https://group.bureauveritas.com

    IHS Towers – IHS Towers will report its Q1 results in May 2025

    Tarkett reported its Q1 on April 17, 2025

    For more information: https://www.tarkett-group.com/en/investors/

    Unlisted Assets: 33% of Gross Asset Value

      Sales (in millions)
      Q1 2024 Q1 2025
    Stahl €225.6 €231.0
    CPI $29.0 $30.7
    ACAMS $20.7 $22.0
    Scalian €140.6 €131.8
    Globeducate (1) n/a €109.6

    (1)   Indian operations are deconsolidated and accounted for by the equity method due to the absence of audited figures. 3 months revenue from December 1, 2024, to February 28, 2025.

    Stahl – Total sales13up +2.4% in Q1 2025, in challenging market conditions
    (full consolidation)

    Stahl, the world leader in specialty coatings for flexible materials, posted total sales of €231.0 million in Q1 2025, representing a total increase of +2.4% versus Q1 2024.

    Q1 2025 was marked by increased levels of market uncertainty driven by geopolitical and trade tensions. Organic growth was -5.4%, against a high comparison basis with Q1 2024 (when sales grew organically by +9.8%). Scope contributed positively by +8.1% thanks to the Weilburger Graphics acquisition completed in September 2024, while FX was negative (-0.3%).

    Proforma for the sale of the wet-end leather chemicals activities, total growth over the quarter would have been +6.0%.

    Crisis Prevention Institute – Revenue growth of +5.8% as compared with Q1 2024

    (full consolidation)

    Crisis Prevention Institute recorded first quarter 2025 revenue of $30.7 million, up +5.8% vs. Q1 2024. Of this increase, +5.3% was organic growth, -0.9% came from FX movements and +1.4% from scope effect. Despite ongoing federal oversight and funding uncertainty for some of CPI’s customers, staff training sessions have continued to grow, however customers have been slower to add or replace new certified instructors during this period of uncertainty.

    On January 21, 2025, CPI announced the acquisition of Verge, a Norwegian leader in behavior intervention and training. This acquisition extends CPI’s presence in the Nordics, and enhances CPI’s ability to support professionals worldwide, leveraging Verge’s innovative techniques to address challenging behaviors, aggression and violence.

    ACAMS – Total sales up +6.4% in Q1, reflecting double-digit growth in the core North American segment as well as continued momentum in the conference sponsorship & exhibition business

    (full consolidation)

    ACAMS, the global leader in training and certifications for anti-money laundering and financial-crime prevention professionals, generated total revenue of $22.0 million, up +6.4% compared to the first quarter of 202414. First-quarter results were driven by double-digit growth in the core North American segment, with both bank and non-bank customers, as well as improved conference sponsorship & exhibition sales, offset by headwinds in select EMEA and APAC markets.

    Q1 growth reflects momentum from recent strategic and organizational changes including the senior leadership additions in 2024, a shift in focus to selling solutions for large enterprise customers, market expansion with the introduction of the Certified Anti-Fraud Specialist certification (CAFS), and investments in the technology platform. ACAMS anticipates continued growth in 2025 as these strategic changes and investments take hold.

    Scalian – Decrease of total sales of -6.3% in Q1 2025, in the context of continued market growth slowdown. Acquisition of a French IT services specializing in the defense sector in January 2025.

    (full consolidation)  

    Scalian, a leading consulting firm in digital transformation and operational performance reported total sales of €131.8M as of March 31, 2025, a -6.3% decrease vs. last year. The slowdown is spread across several sectors and geographies particularly automotive in Europe and Aeronautics (supply chain disruptions). Sales are down -11.2% organically but have benefited from a positive scope effect of +4.9%.

    In January 2025, Scalian completed the acquisition of a French IT services specialist. The acquisition was funded through shareholders’ equity contribution, including a €11.5m equity injection from Wendel in Scalian. This acquisition further reinforces Scalian’s unique positioning in the OT/IT space and is fully in line with the buy-and-build strategy implemented by the Group and which has resulted in the acquisitions of Yucca in 2023 as well as Mannarino and Dulin in 2024.

    Globeducate – Revenue growth of +11%15

    (Accounted for by the equity method. Globeducate acquisition was completed on October 16th, 2024. Indian operations are deconsolidated and accounted for by the equity method due to the absence of audited figures. 3 months revenue from December 1, 2024- February 28, 2025.)

    Globeducate, one of the world’s leading bilingual K-12 education groups, recorded first quarter 2025 revenue of €109.6 million, up +11% vs. Q1 2024. Of this increase, +3.5% came from accretive M&A transactions.

    Over September and November 2024, Globeducate completed 2 acquisitions:1 in Cyprus (Olympion School) and 1 in the UK (Ecole des Petits).

    Preliminary estimated impact of new tariffs on Wendel’s businesses

    Wendel Group’s companies are mainly business services, and are therefore only slightly directly impacted by conflicts over tariffs. For industrial companies (Stahl and Tarkett), these two companies have production units generally located in the countries in which they generate their revenues. According to the information available, the direct impact for these two companies is limited. The lack of visibility on the evolution of tariffs, as well as their real impact on global economic growth and USD exchange rates, constitute the main risk on the value creation potential of our assets.

    1 Fully diluted of share buybacks and treasury shares. Without adjusting for dilution, NAV stands at €7,719m and €173.6 per share.
    2 As of end of March 2025, AuM of IK Partners and Monroe Capital

    3 This amount includes usual closing adjustments

    4 Share price as of April 23, 2025: €86.05

    5 Including sponsor money commitment in IK (-€500m partly called as of 03.31.2025) & expected commitments in Monroe Capital (-$200m partly called as of 03.31.2025), IK Partners transaction deferred payment (-€131m), Monroe Capital 100% acquisition (including estimated earnout and puts on residual capital, i.e -$528M).

    6 €2.1bn of cash as of March 31, 2025, restated from sponsor money commitment in IK (-€500m partly called as of 03.31.2025) & expected commitments in Monroe Capital (-$200m partly called as of 03.31.2025), IK Partners transaction deferred payment (-€131m), Monroe Capital 100% acquisition (including estimated earnout and puts on residual capital, i.e -$528M).

    7 As of end of March 2025

    8 Based on USD/EUR exchange rate of 1.05

    9 Commitments not yet invested

    10 Fee Paying AuM

    11 IK Partners and Monroe Capital

    12 (Net cash generated from operating activities – lease payments + corporate tax)/adjusted operating profit.

    13 Total sales including wet-end activities, of which sale closing is expected in Q2 2025.

    14 Revenue in Q1 2024 excludes PPA restatement impact of $0.3m. Including this restatement, revenue is $20.4m in Q1 2024.

    15 Indian operations are deconsolidated and accounted for by the equity method due to the absence of audited figures. 3 months revenue from December 1, 2024 to February 28, 2025. These figures are compared with the same period last year and are estimated and non audited, accordingly, changes in percentages are rounded to the nearest whole figure.

    Agenda

    Thursday, May 15, 2025, at 3 PM CEST

    Annual General Meeting

    Wednesday, July 30, 2025

    H1 2025 results – Publication of NAV as of June 30, 2025, and condensed Half-Year consolidated financial statements (post-market release)

    Thursday, October 23, 2025

    Q3 2025 Trading update – Publication of NAV as of September 30, 2025 (post-market release)

    Friday, December 12, 2025

    2025 Investor Day.

    About Wendel

    Wendel is one of Europe’s leading listed investment firms. Regarding its principal investment strategy, the Group invests in companies which are leaders in their field, such as ACAMS, Bureau Veritas, Crisis Prevention Institute, Globeducate, IHS Towers, Scalian, Stahl and Tarkett. In 2023, Wendel initiated a strategic shift into third-party asset management of private assets, alongside its historical principal investment activities. In May 2024, Wendel completed the acquisition of a 51% stake in IK Partners, a major step in the deployment of its strategic expansion in third-party private asset management and also completed in March 2025 the acquisition of 72% of Monroe Capital. As of March 31, 2025, Wendel manages 34 billion euros on behalf of third-party investors, and c.6.3 billion euros invested in its principal investments activity.

    Wendel is listed on Eurolist by Euronext Paris.

    Standard & Poor’s ratings: Long-term: BBB, stable outlook – Short-term: A-2 

    Wendel is the Founding Sponsor of Centre Pompidou-Metz. In recognition of its long-term patronage of the arts, Wendel received the distinction of “Grand Mécène de la Culture” in 2012.

    For more information: wendelgroup.com

    Follow us on LinkedIn @Wendel 

    Attachment

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Stein Celebrates Boviet Solar Factory Grand Opening in Pitt County

    Source: US State of North Carolina

    Headline: Governor Stein Celebrates Boviet Solar Factory Grand Opening in Pitt County

    Governor Stein Celebrates Boviet Solar Factory Grand Opening in Pitt County
    lsaito

    Raleigh, NC

    Today, Governor Josh Stein joined business leaders and elected officials at the grand opening ceremony for Boviet Solar’s new solar module factory in Greenville. Governor Stein celebrated Boviet Solar’s $294 million investment in North Carolina and highlighted his continued commitment to clean energy.  

    “North Carolina continues to be a leader in the clean energy economy, and I am proud to welcome Boviet Solar as it opens its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Greenville,” said Governor Josh Stein. “As our state grows, so do our energy needs. I look forward to partnering with Boviet Solar to strengthen our workforce and build stronger clean tech infrastructure in North Carolina.”  

    “With nearly 110,000 people working in our clean energy sector, North Carolina ranks ninth in the nation for clean energy jobs,” said N.C. Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley. “Boviet is a powerful addition to our supply chain that includes a roster of 220 solar companies that are helping to provide more low-carbon energy sources.”

    In 2024, Boviet Solar announced it would create more than 900 jobs and invest $294 million in its first North American manufacturing facility that will produce high-quality solar panels and photovoltaic cells. Founded in Vietnam, the company is a leader in solar project development with commercial, industrial, and residential customers in the United States. The state-of-the-art facility in Pitt County will increase the company’s global production capacity in a 1-million-square foot manufacturing campus. 

    Apr 24, 2025

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Mike Kehoe Reminds Missourians of May 7 REAL ID Deadline

    Source: US State of Missouri

    APRIL 24, 2025

    Jefferson City — With less than two weeks until the federal REAL ID enforcement deadline of May 7, 2025, Governor Mike Kehoe is encouraging Missourians do their part in improving the security of state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards by obtaining a REAL ID-compliant identification card.

    “Starting on May 7, a REAL ID, passport, or another approved identification will be required to fly and enter federal buildings,” said Governor Mike Kehoe. “This is about keeping our state and country safe by preventing fraud and and enhancing security. We appreciate the Trump Administration and Secretary Noem for enforcing federal law to help keep American travelers safe. The Missouri Department of Revenue stands ready to assist Missourians with obtaining a REAL ID.”

    Beginning May 7, 2025, residents of every U.S. state and territory will be required to present a REAL ID-compliant driver license or ID card, or another form of ID accepted by the Transportation Security Administration, to board federally regulated domestic flights. Also beginning May 7, 2025, individuals must present a REAL ID-compliant driver license or ID card, or another form of acceptable ID, to access federal facilities and to enter nuclear power plants.

    Currently, just over 45 percent of the Missouri Department of Revenue’s total document holders have a REAL ID. A Missouri-issued REAL ID-compliant driver license or ID card will have a star, in the upper right-hand corner. A driver license or ID card that is noncompliant with REAL ID will have “NOT FOR REAL ID PURPOSES” in the upper right-hand corner.

    The Missouri Department of Revenue continues to provide resources and information to Missourians ahead of the May 7 enforcement deadline. Refer to the questions and answers below to learn more:

    Who will need a REAL ID?

    Under Missouri law, applying for a REAL ID is a choice, and is not mandatory. However, individuals will soon be required to present a REAL ID-compliant document for official purposes including, but not limited to, entering nuclear power plants, accessing federal facilities, and boarding federally regulated domestic flights.  If you plan on flying in the future but do not want to apply for a REAL ID, you can present another Transportation Security Administration approved acceptable form of ID such as your U.S. passport.

    A noncompliant driver license or ID card is, and will continue to be, acceptable for verification of identity, driving privileges, verification of age, voting and registering to vote, and other purposes not limited by the REAL ID Act.

    What documents do I need to obtain a REAL ID?

    To apply for a REAL ID-compliant driver license or ID card, Missourians will need to submit valid, original documents verifying their identity, lawful status, Social Security number, proof of residency, and official name change if needed. For a full list of acceptable documents, click here. Anyone wishing to apply for a REAL ID-compliant driver license or ID card must notify the person assisting them at the start of their transaction.

    When will REAL ID requirements start being enforced?

    REAL ID will start being enforced on May 7, 2025.

    Where can I apply for a REAL ID?

    Residents can apply for a REAL ID-compliant driver license or non-driver identification card at one of Missouri’s many contract license office locations. The transaction and processing fees for a REAL ID-compliant driver license or ID card, new or renewal, are the same as for a license or ID card that is noncompliant with REAL ID. Detailed fee information can be found at dor.mo.gov/driver-license/resources/license.html#fees.  Duplicate transaction fee waiver provisions may apply for an otherwise eligible first-time REAL ID-compliant card applicant, currently holding a valid document with more than six-months remaining until expiration.

    Why are these changes being made?

    The REAL ID Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2005 after the 9/11 Commission recommended the federal government set new standards for the issuance of identification to achieve enhanced security. Missourians can learn more about REAL ID at dor.mo.gov/driver-license/issuance/real-id/. Information is also available on the TSA website at tsa.gov/real-id and on the DHS website at dhs.gov/real-id.

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Six Individuals Indicted on Charges of Criminal Conspiracy Involving Illegal Drugs and Firearms

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    Yakima, Washington – The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington announced today that six people are in federal custody following the return of an indictment alleging 20 criminal counts involving drug trafficking and firearms.

    On April 22, 2025, the Drug Enforcement Administration; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Homeland Security Investigations, and the Moses Lake Police Department executed a number of federal search warrants at several locations, seizing nine firearms. The guns were seized as part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation into a drug trafficking network operating in Eastern Washington.

    According to unsealed charging documents, the following individuals have been charged in connection to the investigation. In addition, the names of others indicted in connection with this investigation will be unsealed upon the arrest of those individuals.

    • Jose Luis Martinez-Parra, charged with Conspiracy to Distribute Methamphetamine and Fentanyl, Distribution of 50 Grams or More of Actual (Pure) Methamphetamine, Distribution of Fentanyl, Distribution of 40 Grams or More of Fentanyl
    • Alexander Martinez-Mendoza, 18, charged with Conspiracy to Distribute Methamphetamine and Fentanyl, Distribution of 40 Grams or More of Fentanyl
    • Luis Martin Navarro-Ceballos, 29, charged with Conspiracy to Distribute Methamphetamine and Fentanyl, Distribution of 50 Grams or More of Actual (Pure) Methamphetamine, Carrying Firearm During Drug Trafficking, Alien in Possession of a Firearm
    • Maria Zamora-Cuevas, 33, charged with Conspiracy to Distribute Methamphetamine and Fentanyl
    • Rosa Zamora, 41, charged with Conspiracy to Distribute Methamphetamine and Fentanyl
    • Triston David Duplichan, 29, Conspiracy to Distribute Methamphetamine and Fentanyl, Possession with Intent to Distribute Fentanyl

    The individuals were arraigned at the Yakima Federal Courthouse on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.

    This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETFs) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).

    The Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Moses Lake Police Department investigated this case. Additional assistance was provided by the Yakima Police Department, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Indians Affairs. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Benjamin D. Seal.

    An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

    1:25-CR-2049-SAB

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Felon with Stolen Firearm Sentenced to More Than Six Years in Federal Prison

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    Yakima, Washington – Acting United States Attorney Richard R. Barker announced today that United States District Judge Mary K. Dimke sentenced Damian Iniguez, 31, of Yakima, Washington, to 75 months in prison on one count of Felon in Possession of a Firearm. Judge Dimke also imposed 3 years of supervised release.

    According to court documents and information presented at the sentencing hearing, on September 8, 2023, a Zillah Police Officer noticed a suspicious vehicle parked at a gas station. It had been parked at the gas station for two hours and the vehicle was running.

    When the officer approached the vehicle, the officer saw Iniguez slumped over in the driver’s seat. The vehicle’s gear shift was in “drive” and Iniguez’ foot was on the brake. When Iniguez woke up, he was uncompliant with commands of law enforcement to put the vehicle in park and turn the car off.

    Iniguez ultimately was placed under arrest, and during a subsequent pat down, the officer located a firearm in Iniguez’s sweatshirt pocket. The firearm was a loaded Glock .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine. Further investigation showed the firearm had been stolen from Oregon in 2021.

    Iniguez had been convicted of a crime previously and was not allowed to possess a firearm.

    “The unlawful possession of firearms by convicted felons poses a threat to the safety of our communities,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Richard R. Barker. “Mr. Iniguez’s case highlights the critical work of our local and federal law enforcement partners in removing firearms from the hands of those who are prohibited from having them. We will continue to pursue accountability for those who disregard federal firearm laws and endanger public safety.”

    “Felons know they should not possess firearms,” said ATF Seattle Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Blais. “Yet, Mr. Iniguez chose to possess a firearm – a stolen one, even worse. This sentence should serve to show that ATF will investigate, and the U.S. Attorney will prosecute, those who violate federal firearms laws in Washington.”

    This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the Zillah Police Department. This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Benjamin D. Seal and Courtney R. Pratten.

    1:23-cr-02068-MKD

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Five People Indicted for Trafficking Fentanyl, Methamphetamine, and Marijuana in Western Tennessee

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    Jackson, TN – Five people have been indicted in the Western District of Tennessee and are facing federal charges for their involvement in an organized drug trafficking scheme in the Western District of Tennessee according to recently unsealed indictments. The charges are the culmination of a two-year long investigation by FBI’s Transnational Organized Crime Task Force and the Drug Enforcement Administration in conjunction with the Selmer Police Department, McNairy County Sheriff’s Office, Adamsville Police Department, Bolivar Police Department, and Jackson Police Department.  Joseph C. Murphy, Jr., Interim United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, announced the unsealing of the indictments today.

    According to court documents, between April 2023 and March 2025, the defendants worked together and with others to distribute fentanyl, methamphetamine, and marijuana throughout West Tennessee. The investigation revealed the drug trafficking organization is linked to and worked in conjunction with the Sinaloa cartel in furtherance of the distribution efforts within McNairy County and Memphis, Tennessee.  The Sinaloa cartel, also known as Cártel de Sinaloa, is a transnational organization based in Sinaloa, Mexico and was designated on February 20, 2025 as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.  Cártel de Sinaloa is one of the world’s most powerful drug cartels and is one of the largest producers and traffickers of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine into the United States.

    During the investigation, agents seized 10 kilograms of cocaine, over 16 pounds of methamphetamine, 30,000 fentanyl pills, approximately 40 pounds of marijuana, approximately $21,000 in cash, and a firearm. The indictment is in conjunction with the initiative “Operation Take Back America.”

    On March 20, 2025, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging all five individuals with Conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute five kilograms of cocaine; four of the individuals with Conspiracy to distribute more than 50 grams of actual methamphetamine; and three of the individuals with conspiracy to distribute over 100 kilograms of marijuana. Two of the defendants were charged with multiple individual counts of distribution of cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl. One defendant was charged with being an illegal alien and unlawfully in the United States and knowing possession of a firearm.

    Those individuals named in the indictment are:

    • Juan Palomino, 36, of Selmer, TN
    • Joaquin Elizalde, 44, of Selmer, TN
    • Javier Varela, 41, of Byhalia, MS
    • Luis Lizarraga, 36, of Memphis, TN
    • David Asua, 46, of Memphis, TN

    “These defendants took part in a conspiracy that exposed our communities to significant amounts of Fentanyl, Methamphetamine, and Marijuana,” said Special Agent in Charge Joseph E. Carrico of the FBI Nashville Field Office. “The FBI and our law enforcement partners remain committed to identifying, disrupting, and dismantling any criminal enterprise that risks the wellbeing of our citizens.”

    McNairy County Sheriff Guy Buck stated “We are extremely proud of the outcomes of this investigation and would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Federal, State, and Local Agencies that played a vital role in its success. This case highlights how even small, tight-knit communities are directly impacted by the influence of drug cartels and the international drug trade. As Sheriff, I want to emphasize that no one is above the law, and we will ensure that every individual involved is held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

    This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETFs) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).

    This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Christie Hopper and Greg Allen.  It was investigated by FBI’s Transnational Organized Crime Task Force, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Selmer Police Department, the McNairy County Sheriff’s Office, the Adamsville Police Department, the Bolivar Police Department, and the Jackson Police Department.  The investigation was furthered by assistance from the FBI – Denver Division.

    The charges and allegations contained in the indictment are merely accusations of criminal conduct, not evidence.  The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and convicted through due process of law.

    ###

    For more information, please contact the media relations team at USATNW.Media@usdoj.gov. Follow the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Facebook or on X at @WDTNNews for office news and updates.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Former Owner Of York Pain Management Practice Sentenced To 42 Months For Health Care Fraud, Money Laundering, And Theft Of Public Money

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    HARRISBURG – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Rodney L. Yentzer, age 55, formerly of Carlisle, Pennsylvania and currently in Chuluota, Florida, was sentenced to 42 months imprisonment on charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and theft of public money. He was also ordered to pay an additional $2,993,386.19 in restitution after having paid $900,000 toward a civil settlement with the United States in 2022.

    According to Acting United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, Yentzer previously admitted to defrauding Medicare and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services between 2016 and 2020 and pleaded guilty to the three offenses for which he was sentenced. Yentzer agreed with others to defraud Medicare by submitting medically unnecessary urine drug tests for chronic opioid patients at medical clinics he controlled, including a group of clinics known as Pain Medicine of York or “PMY” (also known as All Better Wellness).

    “This defendant’s only interest was in his own wealth, and he exploited patients and defrauded a state healthcare system designed to promote wellness for vulnerable residents in order to line his pockets,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said. “I commend our federal partners for collaborating with our team on a comprehensive investigation that culminated in a significant prison sentence.”

    Yentzer assumed control of various medical practices between 2014 and 2018, including the original PMY location, which he acquired in 2014. The medical practices he later took control of included a group of clinics run by John H. Johnson, who was referred to as “Physician 1” in the February 2022 charges against Yentzer.

    In July 2015, John H. Johnson was indicted for various tax offenses in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. In September 2016, John H. Johnson was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud in connection with a separate health care fraud scheme. Johnson was sentenced to 84 months in federal prison on June 30, 2017 for accepting kickbacks in exchange for referring patients for medically unnecessary tests and for failing to pay employment taxes. He was also ordered to repay to the U.S. Government over $3 million restitution payments for fraudulent health care billing and unpaid taxes. Johnson surrendered to federal custody that same day. Following Johnson’s incarceration, the operation of his medical clinics was transitioned to PMY, which was also under Yentzer’s control.

    Prior to Johnson’s incarceration, Yentzer took direction from Johnson on various issues, including clinical issues at PMY. In 2016, Johnson advised Yentzer to put in place the practice of ordering multiple urine drug tests for each patient at every PMY office visit, and Yentzer agreed. Yentzer understood that this practice did not constitute individualized care, as required by Medicare, and was subsequently confronted repeatedly with information about the unlawful nature of the billing practices for urine drug tests. Nonetheless, Yentzer decided to keep this practice in place until PMY was shut down in late 2019, following a law enforcement raid.

    PMY billed Medicare for more than $10 million in urine drug tests from mid-2017 through the end of 2019, and Medicare paid out over $4 million for these urine drug tests. Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program was also billed for urine drug tests during this same time period. The urine drug tests ordered by PMY were sent to an in-house laboratory at PMY whenever possible. As a result, when medically unnecessary tests were billed to Medicare, Medicaid, or, in some cases, private insurance companies, the proceeds from them went to PMY itself.

    The proceeds from the health care fraud scheme were then used for the benefit of Yentzer, Johnson, Johnson’s wife, and Florentina Mayko, the former CEO of PMY. Yentzer bought a number of luxury items with those funds, such as a Rolex Submariner with a retail price of almost $37,000 for himself and a four-carat diamond ring worth over $40,000 for his wife, in addition to a set of approximately $7,000 Rolex watches for himself, John H. Johnson, and another friend and business associate. Yentzer also bought luxury vehicles for himself and his family members, such as a Porsche Boxster, a custom-built car trailer for almost $290,000, and an RV for approximately half a million dollars. Yentzer also made substantial upgrades to his home in Carlisle, PA, which he sold for approximately $1.3 million in 2022 to make restitution and civil settlement payments to the United States.

    Before reporting to prison, Johnson asked Yentzer to place his wife, Paula Z. Johnson— known as “Physician 2” in the charges against Yentzer—on the PMY payroll. In order to make it appear that she was performing legitimate work—even though she had not practiced medicine in years—Yentzer and John H. Johnson agreed that Paula Z. Johnson would periodically send Yentzer an email containing summaries and excerpts of medical literature. She received a large salary and also had a PMY employee come to her home once a week to perform yardwork and other household duties. This financial arrangement allowed John H. Johnson to share in PMY’s financial success without his assets being seized by the federal government for purposes of restitution payments.

    John H. Johnson, Paula Z. Johnson, and Rodney L. Yentzer devised various other ways to funnel money to the Johnsons so that they could benefit from this wealth without the money being captured for John H. Johnson’s restitution payments. Among other things, Yentzer purchased a car for the Johnsons’ son and leased an Audi Q5 for Paula Z. Johnson, at her request. Yentzer also made $28,000 in contributions to their children’s 529 college savings accounts, paid over $40,000 in legal bills for “asset and estate planning,” made over $40,000 in payments toward personal loans, and covered other large bills, all with the knowledge of both John H. Johnson and Paula Z. Johnson. On a number of occasions, Paula Z. Johnson requested these payments directly from Yentzer or his assistant.

    PMY shut down abruptly in November 2019 after search warrants were executed because it was no longer able to retain medical providers to see patients.

    In April 2020, Yentzer received over $191,000 in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stimulus money that was intended for health care providers who had health care related expenses and lost revenues attributable to COVID19. Yentzer obtained these funds even though after he had resigned from PMY the prior month and PMY had been closed since late 2019. Yentzer allegedly used these funds on various things unrelated to COVID19 relief, including personal expenses.

    In December 2023, Florentina Mayko, the former CEO of PMY, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for her role in the same health care fraud scheme. Mayko was also ordered to pay $1,408,976.48 in restitution and to forfeit to the United States several properties located in Ocean City, Maryland and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina that she had purchased used proceeds of the health care fraud scheme.

    In September 2024, John H. Johnson was sentenced to 97 months in federal prison and ordered to pay an additional $2.3 million in restitution on top of the restitution that he was ordered to pay in 2017. Paula Z. Johnson was sentenced to three years of probation, including six months of home detention with location monitoring, and was ordered to immediately pay $249,301.36 in restitution, fines, and assessments.

    The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration Diversion Control Program, and the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ravi Romel Sharma and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Smultkis prosecuted the case.

    # # #

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Felon convicted for firearm felony after attempt to flee

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    McALLEN, Texas – A 31-year-old McAllen man has pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a firearm, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.

    Jaime Garcia had attempted to evade authorities during a traffic stop Jan. 29. He eventually stopped his vehicle and proceeded to flee on foot, but law enforcement quickly apprehended him. During a subsequent search, they discovered a Micro-Draco firearm, which is an AK-styled pistol, in the backseat area of his vehicle.

    Further investigation revealed Garcia was previously convicted for burglary of habitation in 2022. As a convicted felon, he is prohibited from possessing firearms per federal law.

    U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton will impose sentencing July 15. At that time, Garcia faces up to 15 years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 maximum fine.

    He has been and will remain in custody pending sentencing. 

    The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Texas Department of Public Safety conducted the joint investigation.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Cahal P. McColgan is prosecuting the case as part of the joint federal, state and local Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) Program. PSN brings together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities and measuring the results. 

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Alice man sentenced to over 10 years in federal prison for methamphetamine conspiracy

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – A 39-year-old Texas man has been ordered to prison for his role in a conspiracy to distribute approximately 500 grams of methamphetamine, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.

    Thomas East pleaded guilty Nov. 21, 2024.

    U.S. District Judge David Morales has now ordered East to serve 132 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by five years of supervised release.

    East claimed he was a minor participant and deserved a lesser sentence. At the hearing, however, Judge Morales found he had a larger role and, specifically, that he made multiple trips to get methamphetamine. In addition, he stood to gain from the conspiracy by receiving some of the methamphetamine to sell on his own.

    The investigation began in February 2024 when authorities discovered East and his co-conspirator, Diana Contreras, were making trips to San Antonio to acquire large amounts of methamphetamine.

    On one of those occasions, law enforcement conducted a traffic stop and discovered nearly 500 grams of methamphetamine along with a firearm. Contreras and East admitted they agreed to take the trip to San Antonio to get the narcotics. Contreras planned to sell the drugs in and around the Alice area, while East planned to take smaller portions to sell on his own. 

    East has been in custody since where he will remain pending transfer to a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

    Contreras, 37, also from Alice, had pleaded guilty and was previously sentenced to 156 months in federal prison.

    The Drug Enforcement Administration conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Griffith prosecuted the case.

    MIL Security OSI –