Category: Transport

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Leaf your mark for a greener City

    Source: South Australia Police

    Join the City and your neighbours in planting for a greener future as part of our annual winter planting program this June and July.

    The tree planting program encourages our community to care for their local bushland, with the goal of increasing urban canopy coverage and working towards a greener, more sustainable City for us all.

    This year, the winter tree planting program includes a series of family-friendly events throughout June and July, where residents can help plant shrubs and trees to rejuvenate bushland and coastal dunes.

    To register, please contact the City’s Conservation Team on 9405 5000 or conservationmaint@wanneroo.wa.gov.au

    2025 winter planting events

    Quinns Rocks foreshore, Quinns Rocks

    • Sunday 8 June 2025, 8.30am to 11am
    • In conjunction with Perth NRM and the Quinns Rocks Environmental Group

    Koondoola Bushland, Koondoola

    • Thursday 12 June 2025, 11am to 1pm
    • In conjunction with the Friends of Koondoola Bushland

    Mary Street Reserve, Wanneroo

    • Wednesday 9 July 2025, 1pm to 3pm
    • In conjunction with Friends of Mary Park

    Da Vinci Park, Tapping

    • Thursday 10 July 2025, 9am to 11am

    The events include a morning tea. Participants need a water bottle and enclosed shoes.

    MIL OSI News

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Serious crash, Canning Road, Hastings

    Source: New Zealand Police (District News)

    Emergency services are at the scene of a serious crash that has blocked Canning Road at Camberley, Hastings.

    About 2pm, a motorcycle carrying two riders crashed between Hapia Street and Orchard Road, and then collided with a member of the public on the footpath.

    Two people have serious injuries while a third has critical injuries.

    The Serious Crash Unit has been notified and cordons are in place.

    Members of the public are asked to avoid the area.

    ENDS

    Issued by the Police Media Centre

    MIL OSI New Zealand News

  • MIL-Evening Report: Provocative, progressive and fearless: why Beatrice Faust’s views still resonate in Australia

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Judith Brett, Emeritus Professor of Politics, La Trobe University

    Beatrice Faust is best remembered as the founder, early in 1972, of the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL). Women’s Liberation was already well under way. Betty Friedan had published The Feminine Mystique in 1962, arguing that many women found life as a full-time housewife and mother unfulfilling. With prevailing social assumptions denying them meaningful work, they were bored and frustrated, trapped by an ideal of domesticity that had become a prison.

    Consciousness raising groups were meeting to understand how patriarchal assumptions had limited their members’ lives and self-understandings. Campaigns for equal pay, for childcare, for abortion law reform, were underway. In 1970 Germaine Greer, who had been at Melbourne University with Faust in the late 1950s, published The Female Eunuch, with its attack on the suburban consumerist nuclear family.

    WEL began when Beatrice invited ten carefully-selected women to meet in the upstairs room of her Carlton terrace. The idea behind WEL was simple, as many brilliant ideas are. It was to survey political candidates for the 1972 federal election on their position on various issues of central concern to women and then to publicise the results.

    American feminist activists Gloria Steinem and Patricia Carbine had surveyed the candidates for the forthcoming US presidential election and rated them according to their responses. After 23 years of Coalition government, momentum was building behind the Labor party and its dynamic leader, Gough Whitlam, and a Labor victory seemed within reach. So why not do the same here?

    Compared with much of Women’s Liberation, WEL was a reformist project. It was not attempting to overthrow the patriarchy or hasten socialism, but to position women’s concerns high on the mainstream political agenda and to achieve practical reforms that would make a difference to women’s lives. Scores of women joined that first year. For many, it transformed their lives, and by the end of the year WEL had become an effective feminist lobby group.

    When Faust started WEL she already had a decade of political activism behind her, in civil liberties and in the campaign to decriminalise abortion, which was illegal in all Australian states and territories. Like many other sexually active young women before the contraceptive pill was readily available, Faust had abortions, three in fact.

    By the time she started WEL, Beatrice Faust already had years of political activism behind her.
    Sydney Communist Party

    She had another reason to campaign for reform of the abortion laws. Her mother had died 12 hours after giving birth to Beatrice. She had been advised to have an abortion, but she was a Catholic and had refused. Her mother’s death was the defining fact of Faust’s life. The motherless child was sickly, and her childhood miserable. She believed that her father blamed her for his wife’s death and that she was unwanted and unloved.

    The pioneering political psychologist, Harold Lasswell, said of political activists that they try to solve for others what they cannot solve for themselves. There was nothing Faust could do about her mother’s death, but she could agitate to ensure other children were not born unwanted, as she felt herself to be.

    Repealing the laws that made abortion illegal, together with better sex education and easily available contraception, were her core political missions. She also agitated against the wowserish censorship regime limiting what adults could read and see in 1960s Australia, and publicly celebrated and privately enjoyed the pleasures of sex.

    Faust grew to sexual maturity during the 1950s when a repressive public sexual morality was already fraying, both from the emergence of a confident youth culture and the decline in the moral authority of churches.

    The advent of reliable contraception in the early 1960s turbo-charged this, removing the fear of pregnancy that had kept respectable unmarried people chaste. With the pill separating sex from reproduction, sex could become, as Faust put it, a recreational activity pursued for pleasure. The implications of this are still playing out, in the unstable co-existence in the contemporary moment of constrained public discourse with private sexual licence.

    Faust was a passionate advocate of sex education so that men and women could better understand their own and each others’ sexuality. Contrary to many in the women’s movement, she did not believe that differences between men and women were only the result of social roles and conditioning. The social constructions of gender built on biological foundations, Faust believed. This meant if a woman was to live as an autonomous social being and to have sexual agency, she needed to understand her body, and how it differed from the bodies of other women and of men. For her and her mother, biology had been a sort of destiny, so when the women’s movement started mocking biology, she disagreed.

    Faust was not just a political activist. She was also in her time a public intellectual, who wrote books, articles, op eds and reviews and commented frequently in the media. Because of her unusual openness about her sexuality, she became a go-to person as constraints loosened during the 1970s on the public discussion of all matters sexual.

    Her sexual style, she claimed, was masculine, giving her an androgenous perspective that made her as sympathetic to men as to women, and which informed her provocative perspectives on pornography, rape and paedophilia. Describing herself as “a sceptical feminist”, she was wary of the misandry she believed informed feminist separatism and feared that second-wave feminism was succumbing to the same sexual puritanism that had weakened the first.

    Many of her views will be challenging for contemporary readers. It’s hard for societies to get the balance right on sex. Too much repression is harmful as is too much licentiousness, the needs and desires of men and women need balancing, a range of individual differences accommodated, and violence and depravity confronted.

    Whatever the prevailing norms, not everyone will be happy. We need to be able to talk about this, to discuss issues around age of consent, sexual assault, victim blaming, gender identity and more, without being told “you can’t say that”. Faust was never afraid to say what she thought. She was fearless.

    Fearless Beatrice Faust (MUP), by Judith Brett, is available from April 23.

    Judith Brett 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. Provocative, progressive and fearless: why Beatrice Faust’s views still resonate in Australia – https://theconversation.com/provocative-progressive-and-fearless-why-beatrice-fausts-views-still-resonate-in-australia-252027

    MIL OSI AnalysisEveningReport.nz

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: World Immunisation Week shows importance of health targets

    Source: New Zealand Government

    World Immunisation Week, celebrated in the last week of April, is an opportunity for parents and caregivers to ensure their children are up to date with their immunisations, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.

    “High immunisation coverage is critical to protect not only the health of individuals, but the community from the spread of preventable diseases.

    “This week is an opportunity to emphasise our focus on childhood immunisation and achieving our target of 95 per cent of children aged 24 months being fully immunised.

    “We know that immunisation for both children and their parents and families is one of the best tools we have to protect Kiwi kids from serious illnesses like whooping cough (pertussis) and measles.

    “Last month, a Taranaki healthcare provider hit 100 per cent for all enrolled children under eight months of age. This is an incredible achievement, and one that we want to see replicated around the country.”

    The recent spread of measles internationally has highlighted the importance of ensuring Kiwis are vaccinated against the disease. 

    “A measles outbreak in New Zealand would mean kids off school, in hospital and, as we’ve seen overseas, could cost some children their lives,” Mr Brown says. 

    “Raising the country’s childhood immunisation rates is a priority for this Government. High rates of immunisation are a safe and effective way to better protect New Zealanders from disease, including measles, and saves lives.”

    Results released in the second quarter 2024/25 earlier this show more children are now fully immunised, with 77 per cent of two-year-olds being immunised in the second quarter of this year, up from 75.7 per cent in the previous quarter.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Release: Govt’s flagship cost of living policy a failure

    Source: New Zealand Labour Party

    After promising $250 a fortnight to many families, the Government has been forced to admit just a couple hundred families are receiving it.

    In a response to a written parliamentary question on their flagship FamilyBoost policy, the Revenue Minister has admitted that so far just “249 households have received the full $975 for both Q3 2024, Q4 2024, and Q1 2025.”

    “This means only up to 249 families are receiving the full $250 tax cut that Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis promised during the election campaign,” Labour finance and economy spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said.

    “That tax cut was made up of income tax cuts, plus the FamilyBoost childcare rebate. While many people have found their tax cut was less than promised and is quickly being eaten up by rising costs, now we discover that people aren’t getting as much as promised in childcare either. 

    “Nicola Willis promised 100,000 families would get FamilyBoost, but barely half that are actually getting childcare support, and as at 9 April just 249 families have received the full amount over the three quarters since the policy was introduced.

    “We’ve been asking the Government to make the policy easier for families to access, because it currently requires families to keep invoices and make claims retrospectively which can be a bureaucratic nightmare for busy parents. We’ve also been asking them to consider an end of year wash-up, so people get what they’re entitled to over the year rather than different amounts each quarter.

    “But so far they’ve refused to budge. Costs are piling up on families under this Government and people are not getting what they were promised.

    “Nicola Willis needs to stop blaming officials for her own failure to make good on her election campaign promises. People voted for her based on this, she should take responsibility for it,” Barbara Edmonds said.


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    MIL OSI New Zealand News

  • MIL-Evening Report: The ocean can look deceptively calm – until it isn’t. Here’s what ‘hazardous surf’ really means

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Cornell, PhD Candidate, Beach Safety Research Group, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney

    Over the Easter weekend, seven people drowned along the Australian coast. Most were swept off rock platforms – extremely dangerous locations that are increasingly prevalent in Australia’s coastal fatality data.

    The weather was unseasonably warm, the surf at times looking calm and at others foreboding. And yet, despite warnings from Surf Life Saving, emergency services and meteorologists, many still entered the water – often unaware of how deceptively dangerous the conditions could be.

    It was a tragic reminder that many people don’t understand ocean conditions and how waves and swells work. Current water safety warnings aren’t doing enough to change behaviour – but with simple improvements and better education around long-period swells, we could save lives.

    The difference between waves and swells

    Waves on the ocean are caused by wind. Some, called sea waves, are generated by nearby winds. Others, known as swell waves, are created by distant weather systems, such as storms far away, and travel long distances.

    Swells can travel thousands of kilometres and may still be present even if the local wind is calm. It’s estimated that up to 75% of wave action across the globe is caused by distant storms, not local winds. This makes the predicting of swells and waves a complex science.

    A long-period swell refers to waves that arrive at longer intervals, typically 12 to 20 seconds apart. These swells carry more energy than short-period ones, travel greater distances, and tend to produce sets of larger waves when they hit the coast.

    Long-period swells can result in sudden large waves that crash into the beach with more energy.
    Sneaky Buddy/Shutterstock

    What makes long-period swells so dangerous?

    Over Easter, hazardous long-period swells generated by an ex-cyclone offshore were hitting much of the east coast. The Bureau of Meteorology issued warnings, and Surf Life Saving reinforced these messages with media alerts and beach closures.

    But the surf didn’t always look threatening – at least not all of the time.

    The misleading nature of long-period swells is part of the problem. They create deceptively calm periods, and lulls between these wave sets can last ten or 15 minutes. During that time, people feel safe entering the water, wading out, going onto a rock platform or relaxing near the shoreline.

    When the next set arrives, it can be unexpected and forceful – knocking people over, pulling them into the water or creating unexpected currents.

    Unlike short-period waves, long-period swells carry momentum that enables them to surge much further up beaches and rock platforms, increasing the chances of sweeping people into the water. When these waves break, they do so with considerable force, and the powerful backwash can drag people into deep water.

    The sudden arrival of these waves, without a gradual buildup, makes them especially dangerous in exposed areas like rock shelves or platforms.

    Rock platforms are dangerous because of a combination of environmental exposure and low visibility in our approach to coastal safety. They’re often exposed to powerful waves, have uneven, slippery surfaces, and lack easy exit points.

    If someone is knocked into the water, there’s usually nothing to hold onto, and climbing back up is almost impossible – especially in heavy clothing or fishing gear.

    Why current warnings don’t cut through

    Australians may be familiar with fire danger ratings, cyclone warnings and the UV index.

    But the way we communicate surf risk – particularly around swell behaviour – is vague and technical. Phrases like “hazardous surf” or “long-period swell” are accurate, but fail to convey what people will actually experience at the shoreline.

    Most members of the public don’t know what a 16-second swell interval means, or how it affects where and how waves break. As a result, warnings go unnoticed, or people believe they can assess the risk themselves by looking at the water – which, during a lull, can seem completely harmless.

    Social media compounds this problem. Over Easter, videos of huge waves circulated widely, but so did footage of people playing or standing near the water with no apparent concern. The public sees mixed signals – and the science and warnings don’t always cut through.

    How to improve coastal hazard communication

    If we want to reduce coastal deaths during swell events, we need to bridge the gap between forecasts and real-world understanding.

    1. Translate forecasts into direct, behavioural warnings

    Instead of just saying “hazardous surf”, add language that explains what that means: “Conditions may appear calm, but large sets of waves will arrive every 10–15 minutes. Stay well back from the waterline”.

    2. Use visual risk systems

    Just like fire danger ratings, a colour-coded coastal risk index could be introduced for days when swell conditions are particularly hazardous. Simple signage at beaches could indicate the risk level and explain the reason for it.

    3. Integrate live updates at key sites

    SMS alerts or digital signage at car parks and entry points could provide real-time hazard updates. These should be visual and multilingual to reach a broader audience.

    4. Make ocean science public knowledge

    Government campaigns, surf clubs and schools should all help explain the basics of swell behaviour – including what long-period swell is, why wave sets arrive and why calm periods aren’t always safe. Just like “swim between the flags” became a known rule, so, too, should basic awareness of wave cycles. Surfers could be champions of this education.

    The conditions that contributed to the Easter drownings were forecast, monitored and forewarned. But most people don’t make decisions based on marine forecasts – they make them based on what they see in front of them.

    Long-period swell is a classic hidden hazard. It tricks even experienced beach goers, not because the science is unclear, but because the risk isn’t made clear to the public.

    Samuel Cornell receives funding from Meta Platforms, Inc. His research is supported by a University of New South Wales Sydney, University Postgraduate Award. His research is supported by Royal Life Saving Society – Australia to aid in the prevention of drowning. Research at Royal Life Saving Society – Australia is supported by the Australian government. He has been affiliated with Surf Life Saving Australia and Surf Life Saving NSW in a paid and voluntary capacity.

    ref. The ocean can look deceptively calm – until it isn’t. Here’s what ‘hazardous surf’ really means – https://theconversation.com/the-ocean-can-look-deceptively-calm-until-it-isnt-heres-what-hazardous-surf-really-means-255011

    MIL OSI AnalysisEveningReport.nz

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: 24 April 2025 News release Increases in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks threaten years of progress, warn WHO, UNICEF, Gavi

    Source: World Health Organisation

    Immunization efforts are under growing threat as misinformation, population growth, humanitarian crises and funding cuts jeopardize progress and leave millions of children, adolescents and adults at risk, warn WHO, UNICEF, and Gavi during World Immunization Week, 24–30 April.

    Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, meningitis and yellow fever are rising globally, and diseases like diphtheria, that have long been held at bay or virtually disappeared in many countries, are at risk of re-emerging. In response, the agencies are calling for urgent and sustained political attention and investment to strengthen immunization programmes and protect significant progress achieved in reducing child mortality over the past 50 years.

    “Vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives over the past five decades,” said WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Funding cuts to global health have put these hard-won gains in jeopardy. Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are increasing around the world, putting lives at risk and exposing countries to increased costs in treating diseases and responding to outbreaks. Countries with limited resources must invest in the highest-impact interventions – and that includes vaccines.”

    Rising outbreaks and strained health systems

    Measles is making an especially dangerous comeback. The number of cases has been increasing year on year since 2021, tracking the reductions in immunization coverage that occurred during and since the COVID-19 pandemic in many communities. Measles cases reached an estimated 10.3 million in 2023, a 20% increase compared to 2022.

    The agencies warn that this upward trend likely continued into 2024 and 2025, as outbreaks have intensified around the world. In the past 12 months, 138 countries have reported measles cases, with 61 experiencing large or disruptive outbreaks – the highest number observed in any 12-month period since 2019.

    Meningitis cases in Africa also rose sharply in 2024, and the upward trend has continued into 2025. In the first three months of this year alone, more than 5500 suspected cases and nearly 300 deaths were reported in 22 countries. This follows approximately 26 000 cases and almost 1400 deaths across 24 countries last year.

    Yellow fever cases in the African region are also climbing, with 124 confirmed cases reported in 12 countries in 2024. This comes after dramatic declines in the disease over the past decade, thanks to global vaccine stockpiles and use of yellow fever vaccine in routine immunization programmes. In the WHO Region of the Americas, yellow fever outbreaks have been confirmed since the beginning of this year, with a total of 131 cases in 4 countries.

    These outbreaks come amidst global funding cuts. A recent WHO rapid stock take with 108 country offices of WHO – mostly in low- and lower-middle-income countries – shows that nearly half of those countries are facing moderate to severe disruptions to vaccination campaigns, routine immunization and access to supplies due to reduced donor funding. Disease surveillance, including for vaccine-preventable diseases, is also impacted in more than half of the countries surveyed.

    At the same time, the number of children missing routine vaccinations has been increasing in recent years, even as countries make efforts to catch up children missed during the pandemic. In 2023, an estimated 14.5 million children missed all of their routine vaccine doses – up from 13.9 million in 2022 and 12.9 million in 2019. Over half of these children live in countries facing conflict, fragility, or instability, where access to basic health services is often disrupted.

    “The global funding crisis is severely limiting our ability to vaccinate over 15 million vulnerable children in fragile and conflict-affected countries against measles,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “Immunization services, disease surveillance, and the outbreak response in nearly 50 countries are already being disrupted – with setbacks at a similar level to what we saw during COVID-19. We cannot afford to lose ground in the fight against preventable diseases.”

    Continued investment in the ‘Big Catch-Up initiative’, launched in 2023 to reach children who missed vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, and other routine immunization programmes will be critical.

    How immunization addresses these challenges

    Joint efforts by WHO, UNICEF, Gavi and partners have helped countries expand access to vaccines and strengthen immunization systems through primary health care, even in the face of mounting challenges. Every year, vaccines save nearly 4.2 million lives against 14 diseases – with nearly half of these lives saved in the African Region.

    Vaccination campaigns have led to the elimination of meningitis A in Africa’s meningitis belt, while a new vaccine that protects against five strains of meningitis holds promise for broader protection, with efforts underway to expand its use for outbreak response and prevention.

    Progress has also been made in reducing yellow fever cases and deaths through increasing routine immunization coverage and emergency vaccine stockpiles, but recent outbreaks in Africa and in the Region of the Americas highlight the risks in areas with no reported cases in the past, low routine vaccination coverage and gaps in preventive campaigns.

    In addition, the past two years have seen substantial progress in other areas of immunization. In the African Region, which has the highest cervical cancer burden in the world, HPV vaccine coverage nearly doubled between 2020 and 2023 from 21% to 40%, reflecting a concerted global effort towards eliminating cervical cancer. The progress in immunization also includes increases in global coverage of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, particularly in the South-East Asia Region, alongside introductions in Chad and Somalia, countries with high disease burden.

    Another milestone is the sub-national introduction of malaria vaccines in nearly 20 African countries, laying the foundation to save half a million additional lives by 2035 as more countries adopt the vaccines and scale-up accelerates as part of the tools to fight malaria.

    Call to action

    UNICEF, WHO, and Gavi urgently call for parents, the public, and politicians to strengthen support for immunization. The agencies emphasize the need for sustained investment in vaccines and immunization programmes and urge countries to honour their commitments to the Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030).

    As part of integrated primary health-care systems, vaccination can protect against diseases and connect families to other essential care, such as antenatal care, nutrition or malaria screening. Immunization is a ‘best buy’ in health with a return on investment of $54 for every dollar invested and provides a foundation for future prosperity and health security.

    “Increasing outbreaks of highly infectious diseases are a concern for the whole world. The good news is we can fight back, and Gavi’s next strategic period has a clear plan to bolster our defences by expanding investments in global vaccine stockpiles and rolling out targeted preventive vaccination in countries most impacted by meningitis, yellow fever and measles,” said Dr Sania Nishtar, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “These vital activities, however, will be at risk if Gavi is not fully funded for the next five years and we call on our donors to support our mission in the interests of keeping everyone, everywhere, safer from preventable diseases.”

    Gavi’s upcoming high-level pledging summit taking place on 25 June 2025 seeks to raise at least US$ 9 billion from our donors to fund our ambitious strategy to protect 500 million children, saving at least 8 million lives from 2026–2030.

    #####

    Notes to editor:

    Download multimedia content here: https://weshare.unicef.org/Package/2AM4086M4S1G

    About WHO
    Dedicated to the health and well-being of all people and guided by science, the World Health Organization leads and champions global efforts to give everyone, everywhere, an equal chance at a safe and healthy life. We are the UN agency for health. We connect nations, partners and people on the front lines in 150+ locations – leading the world’s response to health emergencies, preventing disease, addressing the root causes of health issues and expanding access to medicines and health care. Our mission is to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. www.who.int

    About UNICEF
    UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. Across more than 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone. For more information about UNICEF and its work, visit: www.unicef.org.

    About Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
    Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunize a whole generation – over 1.1 billion children – and prevented more than 18.8 million future deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 78 lower income countries. Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningococcal and yellow fever vaccines. After two decades of progress, Gavi is now focused on protecting the next generation, above all the zero-dose children who have not received even a single vaccine shot. The Vaccine Alliance employs innovative finance and the latest technology – from drones to biometrics – to save lives, prevent outbreaks before they can spread and help countries on the road to self-sufficiency. Learn more at www.gavi.org.

    MIL OSI United Nations News

  • MIL-OSI USA: Padilla, Mayor Lurie Tour San Francisco Senior Housing Facility, Highlight Affordable Housing Solutions

    US Senate News:

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

    Padilla, Mayor Lurie Tour San Francisco Senior Housing Facility, Highlight Affordable Housing Solutions

    WATCH: Padilla discusses Housing for All Act to address housing and homelessness crisesSAN FRANCISCO, CA — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) joined San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie to tour a local affordable housing facility for low-income seniors and highlight federal and local solutions to help address the city’s housing and homelessness challenges. The visit comes as the Trump Administration continues to defund essential federal housing programs and services, including the potential closure of San Francisco’s regional Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) field office.
    In addition to discussing the impact of the Trump Administration’s devastating proposed housing assistance cuts, Senator Padilla spotlighted his Housing for All Act, a comprehensive approach to help address the homelessness and affordable housing crises in California and across the nation. The legislation would invest in proven solutions to address affordable housing shortages and provide a historic level of federal funding for both existing programs to reduce homelessness and innovative, locally developed solutions to help vulnerable populations experiencing homelessness.
    A one-pager on the Housing for All Act is available here. 
    Mayor Lurie also highlighted his plans to expand affordable housing in San Francisco, including his Family Zoning plan to ensure the next generation of San Franciscans can afford to live in the city and his PermitSF effort to speed up the city’s permitting process and build housing more quickly.
    “At a time when costs are rising and seniors are being priced out of affordable housing, Donald Trump is attacking Social Security, health care, and now housing. That’s unacceptable,” said Senator Padilla. “I’m fighting not just to stop those cuts, but to bring the full weight of the federal government to help solve California’s housing and homelessness crises through my comprehensive Housing for All Act, a bill to make historic federal investments in the creative solutions that cities and states across the country have already deployed successfully. We know the steps we need to take to make housing more affordable and reduce homelessness — now we need the resources to meet the scale of these crises.”
    “Here in San Francisco, we have to meet our housing challenges head-on. We’re doing our part with initiatives like Family Zoning to keep the next generation in the city, and PermitSF to speed up housing approvals and get more homes built faster,” said Mayor Daniel Lurie. “Thank you to Senator Padilla for visiting our city, touring the Dr. George W. Davis Senior Center, and championing solutions like the Housing for All Act to expand affordable housing across California.”
    Senator Padilla believes everyone deserves access to affordable and safe housing and recognizes the need to drastically increase the affordable housing stock to address the homelessness crisis facing California and the country, including through his Housing for All Act. Earlier this month, Padilla introduced the bipartisan Housing Unhoused Disabled Veterans Act to ensure veterans experiencing homelessness and receiving disability payments maintain access to crucial housing support. In the aftermath of the Los Angeles fires, Padilla introduced the bipartisan Disaster Housing Reform for American Families Act to expedite, expand, and improve temporary housing available to victims of disasters like wildfires and storms.
    Padilla has fought against the Trump Administration’s proposals to cut HUD staff and field offices who help provide crucial housing services. Padilla and U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-Mo.-05) recently led more than 100 Democrats in the Senate and House in condemning staffing cuts and potential closures of HUD field offices across the country. Earlier this year, Senator Padilla sounded the alarm that these wide-ranging cuts would hamper HUD’s ability to support vulnerable communities and address the housing and homelessness crises.
    Video of today’s press conference is available here, and can be downloaded here.
    Additional photos from today’s visit are available here.

    MIL OSI USA News

  • MIL-Evening Report: The major parties have announced their plans to address domestic and family violence. How do they stack up?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor (Practice), Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University

    In the past week, at least seven women have been killed in Australia, allegedly by men. These deaths have occurred in different contexts – across state borders, communities and relationships. But are united by one truth: they are part of the ongoing national crisis of men’s violence against women and children.

    While in the first four weeks of the election campaign there was silence from the major parties on this issue, now – with one week to go – both have released their commitments.

    The Coalition announced its plan last night, following Labor’s promises earlier in the week.

    Neither represent a commitment to ending gender-based violence. They both propose a patchwork of largely reactive initiatives. These will fail to deliver holistic reform to prevent violence and to intervene early enough to meaningfully reduce it.

    What has Labor pledged?

    Labor’s “commitment to women” announcement focuses on addressing financial abuse, a “fast growing and insidious form” of abuse. Key strategies proposed include:

    • preventing perpetrators from using tax and corporate systems to accrue debts as a form of coercive control

    • making perpetrators liable for debts incurred by the victim-survivor because of coercive control

    • and exploring options to stop perpetrators accessing the superannuation of victim-survivors after death.

    Labor has also pledged $8.6 million for perpetrator responses, including early interventions for young people.

    What about the Coalition?

    The Coalition’s approach is much more scatter gun, providing a list of disconnected strategies. It outlines 14 commitments.

    The announcement promises to improve support by expanding the Safe Places Emergency Accommodation Program and the Leaving Violence Program (which provides one-off funding to help cover the cost of leaving an abusive relationship).

    The Coalition will also increase crisis helpline support to ensure victim-survivors “have their calls answered and get the immediate assistance they require”.

    This is much needed. Frontline services are consistently under-resourced and have been calling for at least $1 billion annually to meet demand.

    The question of funding

    The Coalition’s $90 million pledge, with no clear timeframe or detail on how it will be distributed, represents less than 10% of what frontline services say is needed every year.

    Labor’s earlier announcement does not detail the funding commitment that will be allocated to their suite of proposed initiatives, other than to say $8.6 million will be provided for perpetrator interventions.

    Neither party has committed to multiyear funding models for domestic, family and sexual violence frontline services. This is essential for workforce retention and to ensure consistent delivery of trauma-informed care.

    We cannot criminalise our way out

    Law and order responses dominate the Coalition’s announcement. These include implementation of a national domestic violence register and the development of uniform national knife laws.

    Legal accountability is important and we need to improve information sharing across state and territory borders. But we cannot police or prosecute our way out of a problem rooted in structural inequality and social attitudes. It also fails to recognise that for many victim-survivors, the criminal legal system can be re-traumatising and does not meet their justice needs.

    The Coalition also commits to introducing new offences for online coercive behaviour and spyware use. This would be a significant legal shift by introducing family and domestic violence offences and bail laws for certain abusive behaviours at the federal level.

    It’s unclear how this would translate into state and territory criminal laws, or whether it is even necessary. All states and territories currently have laws prohibiting stalking and monitoring behaviours. Some states are in the early stages of developing or implementing coercive control offences.

    The Coalition has also reiterated its 2023 promise to hold a Royal Commission into sexual abuse in Indigenous communities.

    Indigenous scholars and organisations have previously rejected this proposal, particularly in light of the failure of the Northern Territory Intervention which required the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act to implement.

    Evidence shows First Nations-led solutions should be prioritised over punitive approaches.

    What’s missing?

    The proposals from the two parties miss several critical areas.

    There’s no mention of sexual violence. While it would be optimistic to hope this is yet to come, it’s disappointing to see it has fallen off the agenda.

    The proposals don’t say anything about housing or recovery support beyond emergency accommodation. A lack of access to safe, long-term housing is one of the most significant barriers for victim-survivors escaping and recovering from violence. In the middle of a broader housing crisis, this is an essential component of any strategy.

    Children remain largely invisible. While the Coalition’s announcement commits to improving child protection, it offers nothing on delivering age-appropriate crisis responses, and to support the recovery needs of children and young people as victim-survivors in their own right.




    Read more:
    Australia had a national reckoning over domestic violence, but where’s the focus this election?


    Much has been written in recent weeks about the need to effectively engage men and boys, but they’re also barely mentioned by either party.

    Finally, there is no discussion of the need for greater monitoring and evaluation efforts. We cannot fix what we do not measure.

    Both parties’ announcements promise to build on the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children, which aspires to eliminate gender-based violence in one generation.

    Nearly three years into the delivery of that plan, the persistent prevalence of this violence shows we must do more. We need visible, bipartisan leadership that treats this issue with the same gravity we afford to other national emergencies.


    The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault. The Men’s Referral Service (call 1300 766 491) offers advice and counselling to men looking to change their behaviour.

    Kate has received funding for research on violence against women and children from a range of federal and state government and non-government sources. Currently, Kate receives funding from Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), the South Australian government, Safe Steps, Australian Childhood Foundation, and 54 Reasons. This piece is written by Kate Fitz-Gibbon in her role at Monash University and Sequre Consulting, and is wholly independent of Kate Fitz-Gibbon’s role as chair of Respect Victoria and membership on the Victorian Children’s Council.

    Hayley has received funding for research on violence against women and children and criminal justice-related issues from a range of federal and state government and non-government sources. Currently, Hayley receives funding from ANROWS, and the ACT Justice Reform Branch.

    ref. The major parties have announced their plans to address domestic and family violence. How do they stack up? – https://theconversation.com/the-major-parties-have-announced-their-plans-to-address-domestic-and-family-violence-how-do-they-stack-up-255127

    MIL OSI AnalysisEveningReport.nz

  • MIL-OSI China: Agricultural trade between China and ASEAN countries strengthened

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

    Agricultural trade between China and ASEAN countries strengthened

    Updated: April 24, 2025 09:12 Xinhua
    A staff member checks imported seafood at Dongxing port in Dongxing, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, March 18, 2025. Over the years, along with the deepening of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the development of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, the export and import of agricultural products between China and Southeast Asia countries have been continuously strengthened. Agricultural products from both sides won great popularity among buyers. [Photo/Xinhua]
    An aerial drone photo taken on March 18, 2025 shows trucks loaded with agricultural products from China and ASEAN countries waiting for customs clearance at Dongxing port in Dongxing, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. [Photo/Xinhua]
    Villagers pack tangerines for export in Baohe Village of Changshou District, southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, March 24, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    Staff members process imported shrimp at a food company in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, April 19, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    An aerial drone photo taken on March 21, 2025 shows trucks loaded with agricultural products from China and ASEAN countries at the port of the Friendship Pass in Pingxiang, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. [Photo/Xinhua]
    Customs officers inspect imported fruits at the port of the Friendship Pass in Pingxiang, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, March 21, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    A customer purchases imported fruits at a market near the Dongxing port in Dongxing, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, April 17, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    Staff members check fresh young coconuts imported from Thailand at a fruit company at Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, April 19, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    A villager carries newly-picked tangerines for export in Heyan Village of Changshou District, southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, March 24, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    A staff member labels selected lemons for export to Vietnam at a fruit company in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, April 14, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    Staff members process imported shrimp at a food company in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, April 19, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    A staff member loads packed lemons for export onto a truck at a fruit company in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, April 14, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    An aerial drone photo taken on March 21, 2025 shows trucks loaded with fruits from ASEAN countries waiting for customs clearance at the port of the Friendship Pass in Pingxiang, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. [Photo/Xinhua]

    MIL OSI China News

  • MIL-OSI USA: Duckworth, Durbin, Senators Demand President Trump Rescind Harmful Claims That He Will Transfer Incarcerated U.S. Citizens to a Foreign Prison

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Illinois Tammy Duckworth

    April 22, 2025

    [CHICAGO, IL] – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) led 24 of their Democratic colleagues in a letter to President Donald Trump calling for him to immediately rescind the dangerous and offensive claim that he may transfer incarcerated U.S. citizens to El Salvador.

    In the letter, the Senators also urge the President to follow the law and adhere to all applicable court orders and immediately facilitate the return to the United States of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom this Administration illegally deported to El Salvador in direct contravention of a court order specifically prohibiting such removal. In the letter, the Senators explain how these unprecedented actions threaten the constitutional protections of all Americans and violate the fundamental principles on which this nation was founded. 

    The Senators wrote, “With regard to your shocking assertion about transferring Americans to El Salvador, you cannot deport Americans to a foreign country for any reason. This nation’s founding fathers declared independence based on ‘repeated injuries and usurpations’ by the then-King of Great Britain, including ‘transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences’ and ‘depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.’ Accordingly, Congress has passed no provision into law that would permit exiling United States citizens to a foreign country for any reason.  One conservative legal scholar called your threats to deport U.S. citizens ‘obviously illegal and unconstitutional.’”

    The Senators continued, “Our laws also do not allow you to send individuals from U.S. soil to El Salvador without due process. Further, the Executive Branch must comply with longstanding domestic and international law that prohibits the United States from transferring any person from our jurisdiction or effective control to a place where the person would face certain serious human rights violations. Your Administration’s actions in sending individuals to a Salvadoran prison notorious for inhumane conditions underscore the urgency and applicability of these requirements. The bedrock principles of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause protect individuals from being “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’”

    Even under extraordinary wartime authorities such as the Alien Enemies Act, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that noncitizens should, at a minimum, have an opportunity to prove whether or not the Act should apply to them. The Supreme Court recently ordered the federal government to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia and “ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” 

    The Senators continued, “You must immediately facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia, which is unquestionably within your power to do since your Administration is paying the government of El Salvador to detain him… You must also end your unlawful attempts to deport noncitizens without due process under the Alien Enemies Act, as the Supreme Court ordered this weekend. You have no authority to openly defy court orders requiring you: (1)  to return someone who has been  wrongfully deported, or (2) to grant individuals the due process they are owed under our laws… You must immediately facilitate the return to the United States of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, follow all court orders, and withdraw your dangerous and offensive claims that you may transfer U.S. citizens to a foreign prison.  The Constitution demands it.”

    Along with Duckworth and Durbin, the letter was co-signed by U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Chris Coons (D-DE), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Patty Murray (D-WA), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM).

    The letter is endorsed by the following organizations: Center for Victims of Torture, American Immigration Council, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, FWD.us, People for the American Way, National Immigrant Justice Center, SMART Union, and Human Rights First.

    A copy of the letter is available on Senator Duckworth’s website and below:

    Dear President Trump:

    We call on you to immediately rescind the dangerous and offensive claim that you may transfer incarcerated U.S. citizens to El Salvador. We further urge you to follow the law and adhere to all applicable court orders and immediately facilitate the return to the United States of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom your Administration illegally deported to El Salvador in direct contravention of a court order specifically prohibiting such removal. Your unprecedented actions threaten the constitutional protections of all Americans and violate the fundamental principles on which this nation was founded. 

    With regard to your shocking assertion about transferring Americans to El Salvador, you cannot deport Americans to a foreign country for any reason. This nation’s founding fathers declared independence based on “repeated injuries and usurpations” by the then-King of Great Britain, including “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences” and “depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.” Accordingly, Congress has passed no provision into law that would permit exiling United States citizens to a foreign country for any reason. One conservative legal scholar called your threats to deport U.S. citizens “obviously illegal and unconstitutional.”

    Our laws also do not allow you to send individuals from U.S. soil to El Salvador without due process. Further, the Executive Branch must comply with longstanding domestic and international law that prohibits the United States from transferring any person from our jurisdiction or effective control to a place where the person would face certain serious human rights violations. Your Administration’s actions in sending individuals to a Salvadoran prison notorious for inhumane conditions underscore the urgency and applicability of these requirements. The bedrock principles of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause protect individuals from being “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Throughout our nation’s history, the Supreme Court has long read the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process to require that the government provide persons with certain procedural due process protections, including notice and an opportunity to be heard before any such deprivation of liberty.

    Even under extraordinary wartime authorities such as the Alien Enemies Act, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that noncitizens should, at a minimum, have an opportunity to prove whether or not the Act should apply to them. In a statement accompanying the Supreme Court’s recent order for the federal government to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia and “ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” Justice Sotomayor noted that your Administration’s argument suggesting that the government is permitted to leave Mr. Abrego Garcia in the Salvadoran prison after wrongfully sending him there “implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.” She went on to note that this is a “view [that] refutes itself.”

    You must immediately facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia, which is unquestionably within your power to do since your Administration is paying the government of El Salvador to detain him. As Judge Harvie Wilkinson, a conservative appointee of President Reagan, wrote in a unanimous Fourth Circuit opinion rejecting your Administration’s efforts to delay taking steps to bring Mr. Abrego Garcia back to the United States: 

    The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

    You must also end your unlawful attempts to deport noncitizens without due process under the Alien Enemies Act, as the Supreme Court ordered this weekend. You have no authority to openly defy court orders requiring you: (1) to return someone who has been  wrongfully deported, or (2) to grant individuals the due process they are owed under our laws.  As Judge Boasberg wrote in his order last week concluding that probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt:

    The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders—especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely “annul the judgments of the courts of the United States” would not just “destroy the rights acquired under those judgments”; it would make “a solemn mockery” of “the constitution itself.” …“So fatal a result must be deprecated by all.”

    You must immediately facilitate the return to the United States of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, follow all court orders, and withdraw your dangerous and offensive claims that you may transfer U.S. citizens to a foreign prison. The Constitution demands it.

    Sincerely,

    -30-

    MIL OSI USA News

  • MIL-OSI USA: Duckworth, Markey, Baldwin Introduce Resolution to Designate April as Earth Month

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Illinois Tammy Duckworth

    April 22, 2025

    [WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—founding co-chair of the Senate’s first-ever Environmental Justice Caucus—along with U.S. Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced the Earth Month resolution to recognize the importance of environmental stewardship and climate action.

    “Donald Trump’s decision to gut EPA and shutter environmental justice offices across the country threatens the Earth we all call home and endangers our public health—it’s the opposite of what our government should be doing to secure a cleaner, healthier future for our children and our planet,” said Senator Duckworth. “We can’t afford to ignore the climate crisis and how it’s harming our planet and the American people. During this Earth Month and always, I pledge to keep doing everything in my power to push back against the Trump Administration’s misguided campaign to make our environment and the millions of Americans who are dealing with the effects of legacy pollution—like higher cancer, asthma and death rates—unhealthier by rolling back environmental protections.”

    “Planet Earth is our home. Now more than ever, we need stewardship of our home. As the Trump administration is targeting environmental safeguards that ensure we have a livable future, I am doubling down on my commitment to fight back and uplift efforts that promote environmental stewardship and spur even more climate action. Earth Day is our moment to recommit and expand our movement for a just and livable future – a future with clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean land on which to live,” said Senator Markey. “We know environmental pollution and the climate crisis do not affect us all equally. That is why environmental stewardship and climate action must center the most marginalized communities, particularly Black and Indigenous communities who have been overburdened with pollution and the harms of climate change. Using the tenets of a Green New Deal – fighting for environmental justice and climate action while creating good-paying union jobs – we can work together toward a livable future every day, but especially during Earth Month.”

    “From the Great Lakes and the rolling hills of the Driftless Region, to the Great Northwoods and Mighty Mississippi, Wisconsin is rich with natural resources that have defined our state and way of life,” said Senator Baldwin. “I’m proud to carry on Wisconsin’s tradition of environmental stewardship and recognize Earth Month as we all do our part to protect and preserve Wisconsin’s wilderness and resources for the next generation.”

    Full text of the resolution is available on Senator Duckworth’s website.

    As co-chair and co-founder of the Senate Environmental Justice Caucus, Duckworth has long pushed to strengthen and defend environmental justice efforts across the country. Last month, Duckworth and—along with Senate Environmental Justice Caucus Co-Chair Corey Booker (D-NJ) and U.S. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE)—urged EPA Administrator Zeldin to reopen the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR), which Duckworth and Booker led the charge to create.

    Duckworth recently helped introduce legislation that would permanently codify the Office of Environmental Justice within the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) in response to Attorney General Bondi’s order eliminating all environmental justice efforts at the DOJ.

    For years, Duckworth has led the charge pushing for her A. Donald McEachin Environmental Justice For All Act—the most comprehensive environmental justice legislation in history—which would help achieve health equity and climate justice for all, particularly in underserved communities and communities of color that have long been disproportionately harmed by environmental injustices and toxic pollutants.

    Duckworth worked to help pass the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which included her Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act (DWWIA)—the most significant federal investment in water infrastructure in history that includes $15 billion for national lead pipe replacement. DWWIA, which focuses on disadvantaged communities, is helping rebuild our nation’s crumbling and dangerous water infrastructure and enable communities to repair and modernize their failing wastewater systems, with many of the provisions to help low-income communities designed specifically for communities like Chicago, Cahokia Heights and East St. Louis.

    -30-

    MIL OSI USA News

  • MIL-OSI USA: Senator Coons leads bicameral letter in support of AmeriCorps as members and staff are let go in DOGE cuts

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Delaware Christopher Coons
    WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), Co-Chair of the bipartisan National Service Caucus, led 148 of his congressional colleagues in sending a letter to President Donald Trump defending AmeriCorps and NCCC AmeriCorps members and calling on him to reverse cuts to the program made last week by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The letter is co-led by U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Vice Chair of the National Service Caucus. The letter is co-led in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congresswoman Doris Matsui (CA-07), Co-Chair of the bipartisan House National Service Caucus, and Congresswoman Alma Adams (NC-12), Ranking Member of the Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development.
    The Trump Administration placed a majority of AmeriCorps employees on leave last week as part of DOGE’s broader spending cuts. Programs such as AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Seniors deploy more than 200,000 Americans annually to carry out results-driven projects at over 35,000 locations across the country. Working in partnership with thousands of nonprofit, faith-based, and community organizations, these dedicated volunteers and workers help promote employment opportunities, strengthen the workforce, and support those in need. 
    “We are deeply concerned these actions will prevent the agency from continuing to deliver critical services, which include supporting veterans, fighting wildfires, tutoring in schools, combatting the fentanyl epidemic, and much more,” the lawmakers wrote. 
    The lawmakers highlighted the program’s benefits to society, to AmeriCorps members, and to the federal government—pointing to a non-partisan study showing that there are an estimated $17 in benefits returned for every taxpayer dollar spent. Additionally, the recently passed Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act of 2025 maintains AmeriCorps funding at its fiscal year 2024 level and serves as a continuing resolution to extend federal government funding through the end of fiscal year 2025. The senators emphasized that the administration is expected to implement the law in a manner consistent with the funding levels enacted in fiscal year 2024. Failing to do so would be a violation of the law.
    “If not reversed, these recent actions will both stop current programs and prevent timely and efficient execution of the agency’s fiscal year 2025 appropriations, delaying or even halting the recruitment and deployment of new AmeriCorps members around the country,” the lawmakers added.
    AmeriCorps programs serve communities nationwide, including in Delaware, where roughly 200 AmeriCorps members and more than 1,000 AmeriCorps Seniors respond to disasters, improve housing, help veterans, and support educational services. If the Trump Administration’s actions aren’t reversed, these critical services could come to a halt.
    “We are deeply concerned that this is the goal: to eliminate AmeriCorps, in direct conflict with recently enacted appropriations. However, even delays will disrupt programs Americans rely on for their health, education, and safety. We urge you to reverse these actions and instead work with Congress on bipartisan improvements to AmeriCorps so that more Americans have the opportunity to serve their communities,” the lawmakers concluded. 
    In addition to Senators Coons, Schumer, and Heinrich, the letter is signed by U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Angus King (I-Maine), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.). In addition to House Representatives Matsui and Adams, 103 other House Representatives signed on.
    You can read the full text of the letter here. 

    MIL OSI USA News

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Transcript of April 2025 Fiscal Monitor Press Briefing

    Source: IMF – News in Russian

    April 23, 2025

    Speakers:

    Vitor Gaspar, Director, Fiscal Affairs Department
    Era Dabla‑Norris, Deputy Director, Fiscal Affairs Department
    Davide Furceri, Division Chief, Fiscal Affairs Department

    Moderator: Tatiana Mossot, Moderator, Senior Communications Officer

    The Moderator: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening for our viewers around the world. I am Tatiana Mossot with the IMF Communications Department, and I will be your host for today’s press briefing on the Spring Meetings 2025 Fiscal Monitor named “Fiscal Policy Under Uncertainty.” I am pleased to introduce the Director of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department, Vitor Gaspar. He is joined by Era Dabla‑Norris, Deputy Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department, and Davide Furceri, Division Chief of the Fiscal Affairs Department. Good morning, Vitor, Era, and Davide.

    Before taking your questions, let me start our briefing by turning to Vitor for his opening remarks. Vitor, the floor is yours.

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: Good morning. Many thanks for your kind introduction. Thank you all for your interest in the Fiscal Monitor, covering fiscal policies around the world. Since the last Fiscal Monitor in October 2024, global economic prospects have significantly deteriorated and risks to the economic outlook are elevated and tilted to the downside. Uncertainty is very high, and confidence has been weakening. Financial markets have partially corrected, and financing conditions have tightened.

    Global public debt is very high and rising. According to the WEO reference projection in 2025, it will rise above 95 percent of GDP. It is higher and growing faster than pre‑pandemic. It will be approaching 100 percent of GDP by the end of the decade, surpassing the pandemic peak, but global numbers hide a wide diversity across countries. In the figure, every bubble represents a country. The larger the bubble, the larger the country’s GDP. The figure shows debt levels on the vertical axis and debt growth on the horizontal axis compared to pre‑pandemic. The higher the bubble in the figure, the more debt has increased compared to 2019.

    119 countries are above the horizontal axis. For these countries, public debt is higher than pre‑pandemic. The further to the right in the figure, the faster debt grows compared to pre‑pandemic trends. Bubbles as you can see are all over the chart. That illustrates a wide diversity across countries. Therefore, fiscal policies must vary in line with country‑specific factors and circumstances, but in the face of turbulent and threatening times ahead, resilience is needed everywhere. Countries should redouble efforts to keep their own fiscal house in order.

    Let us zoom in on the top, the right top quadrant. Countries in the quadrant have public debt higher and rising faster. This group includes 59 countries. That is about one third of the 175 countries in the chart. But their economies represent 80 percent of world GDP. Their economic weight makes them the main drivers of global trends. You can see many large bubbles in this quadrant. No surprise. Most large economies, including the largest, are there.

    Now, let us focus on the remaining two thirds of countries in the world. There are 116 countries in the group that represent about 20 percent of world GDP. In the chart that you are looking at, the blue line represents all countries except for the 59 that I have mentioned before. The two lines in the chart representing the world and representing the remaining 116 countries evolve similarly up to the year of the pandemic. After 2020, as you can see, the trends diverge. The two lines actually cross in 2023. For these 116 countries, aggregate public debt is now well below pandemic levels, but going forward, it is very flat, indicating a stabilization of public debt at high levels. But the distinctive feature of the current conjuncture is uncertainty. One must go beyond referenced projections.

    In the words of the Managing Director, trade policy uncertainty is off the charts. Upside risk to public debt projections dominates the outlook. The October 2024 Fiscal Monitor introduced a novel tool to quantify the distribution of debt risks around the referenced projection. We call it public debt at risk. According to this tool, global public debt three years ahead would come at 117 percent of GDP in a severe adverse scenario.

    Recent developments with sharpening, increasing, and persistent uncertainty, tightening financing conditions push public debt at risk even higher. In a fast-changing and perilous world, Ministers of Finance must act urgently and decisively. They face stark tradeoffs and painful choices. Policymakers should invest their political capital in building confidence and trust. That starts with keeping their own houses in order. That is especially important in a situation that tested the resilience of individual economies, not to mention the entire system. Putting the house in order involves three policy priorities.

    First, fiscal policy should be part of overall stability‑oriented macroeconomic policies. Second, fiscal policy should in most countries aim at reducing public debt and rebuilding buffers to create space to respond to spending pressures and other economic shocks through a credible medium‑term framework. Third, fiscal policy should, together with other threshold policies, aim at improving potential growth, thereby easing policy tradeoffs. In these times of high uncertainty, fiscal policy must be an anchor for confidence and stability that can contribute to a competitive economy, delivering growth and prosperity for all.

    Ministers of Finance must build trust, tax fairly, spend wisely and take the long view. My colleagues and I are ready to answer any questions that you may have.

    The Moderator: Thank you, Vitor. We will now open the floor to your questions, but before we do that, a couple of ground rules, please. If you want to ask a question, please raise your hand first, wait until I call you and a colleague will give you the microphone. When you ask your questions, please identify yourself and the network you are working for. And for colleagues online, please ask your questions on Webex, and we will come to you.

    QUESTION: According to the report, tariffs and trade tensions have increased uncertainty and risks to economic growth. How can affected countries manage the negative impact on public confidence and growth, especially considering the high level of public debt and financial challenges they are already facing?

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: Thank you very much for your question. That allows me to summarize again the top‑level message from the Fiscal Monitor. Global public debt, as you said, is high, rising, and we always emphasize it is also risky. It rose above $100 trillion in 2024, and that was a headline six months ago. In the IMF referenced projections, that will continue rising, approaching 100 percent of GDP by the end of the decade.

    But what we emphasize most at this point in time is the unusually elevated degree of uncertainty. To repeat the quote from the Managing Director, “Trade policy uncertainty is literally off the charts.” There is, therefore, a sense of urgency in policymaking. According to our public‑debt‑at‑risk tool, our estimates for three years ahead point to debt at risk at 117 percent of GDP for the world, which is a level that has not been seen in many decades.

    But even that extreme adverse scenario may be under‑estimating tail risks because trade and geoeconomic uncertainty has escalated, financing conditions tightened, financial market volatility is visible from headlines, and spending pressures have intensified further. So, in those conditions, the point about countries keeping their own houses in order is crucial, and that is instrumental to deliver resilience and sustained growth from a long‑term perspective.

    The Moderator: Thank you, Vitor. As you may have seen, there are two chapters, the second one is on emerging markets. And I think Era and Davide; we have some questions for you too.

    QUESTION: Given the current global economic slow‑down, what are the specific challenges and impacts faced by emerging and developing countries and what policy measures can be implemented to mitigate these effects?

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Let me start with what we see as some of the key sources of uncertainty that emerging market and developing economies are facing. Vitor had laid out some of the broader issues but let me highlight three. So, in addition to the fact that we see growth prospects being marked down across the board, and we see that emerging markets and developing economies could be impacted through trade, financial and commodity channels, let me highlight three specific risks. The first is escalating uncertainty about tariffs and associated policies. In the Fiscal Monitor, we find that geoeconomic uncertainty, in particular, an escalation of geoeconomic uncertainty actually can push up debt over the medium term by about 4.5 percentage points. For emerging market economies in particular, it could be as high as 6 percent of GDP.

    Why is this the case? Because essentially, with higher geoeconomic uncertainty, that can dampen growth prospects, it lowers revenues because consumption production tends to fall. It also leads to higher spending, so as a result, fiscal positions deteriorate and debt increases. That is one important source of risks.

    A second source of risks is more volatile financial conditions. In the U.S., for instance, or other systemically important economies can spillover into emerging market and developing economies. And it can do so by raising sovereign borrowing costs. So, our analysis in the Fiscal Monitor shows that at 100 basis point increase in U.S. nominal Treasury yields translates into 100 basis point increase in emerging market economies’ borrowing costs. And this lasts for several months.

    A third source of risk is that we have seen that debt levels are high in many emerging markets and developing economies, so interest expenses are commensurately very high, and they are eating up a larger share of the budget. So, our analysis shows that 1 percentage point of GDP increase in interest expenses results in crowding out of other essential items within the budget, such as social spending and infrastructure investment. So, as Vitor pointed out, in this environment, it is very, very important for countries to put their own fiscal house in order.

    What does that mean? Country specifics will vary, but what it really means is that countries need to think about putting in place a gradual fiscal adjustment within a credible medium‑term fiscal framework. For EMDEs, where tax revenues are low, they can mobilize additional revenues by expanding the tax base. They can eliminate energy subsidies and other types of subsidies that can be distortionary. They can find ways to reprioritize spending. And most importantly, they can think about the policies that are needed to boost growth because that really can help ease these fiscal tradeoffs.

    QUESTION: My question is about energy subsidies and perhaps pension reforms, which are not related to emerging markets but pretty much the same problem. It is when the margin exists in many countries when you want to have some fiscal space. But in those many countries you have already social tensions that are quite high, so what are the possibilities for countries to make those reforms that are highly unpopular most of the time if they want to have this margin created?

    Ms. Dabla‑Norris: Let me talk about energy subsidies and my colleague Davide can speak a little bit about pension reforms. As you correctly pointed out, countries need to reduce debt. They need to create fiscal space. And energy subsidies and pension reforms can be important reforms that countries can undertake to generate fiscal savings. So, when we look at energy subsidy reforms in particular, energy, they account for about 1.5 percent of GDP on average in emerging markets and developing economies. And reforming them can have tremendous benefits for the economy. So let me enumerate some of them.

    First, it increases energy efficiency in the economy. Secondly, it generates fiscal savings that can then be used to increase other types of social spending and needed priority infrastructure investments. And finally, many of these subsidies tend to be highly regressive, so they do not necessarily benefit the poorest segment or the most vulnerable segments of society.

    In our Fiscal Monitor Chapter 2, what we did is we developed a novel real‑time measure of public sentiment. This is the sentiment of households, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders to gauge how governments can leverage strategies in order to make these kinds of reforms acceptable. There are a number of things that we found that are specific to energy subsidy reforms that I would like to talk about.

    The first is that we found that reforms that are—or changes that take place gradually have greater success of being implemented. To give you an example, Colombia very recently had an energy subsidy reform. They implemented it over a two‑year period, that was preannounced, so that people had time to adjust.

    A second strategy that we found successful—to be successful in shaping the acceptability of these reforms is that there was timely implementation of accompanying measures. And countries that put in place accompanying measures to really protect and support the most vulnerable, countries that put in place measures up‑front and invested in social programs and social infrastructure that was very visible to the public had a greater chance of succeeding.

    We also found that policies that were well‑communicated, that built consensus, that explained the tradeoffs to people had a much higher success of being accepted by the general public. For example, Morocco made it very clear that there was going to be a comprehensive communication strategy at the very beginning, at the very outset, and the message that was conveyed was that subsidies were a poor instrument for providing social support. A host of these strategies can be used by countries to implement these politically challenging reforms.

    Mr. Davide Furceri: The chapter also deals with pension reforms. We know that in many countries, spending on pensions is quite high. Just to give you a couple of numbers, in the case of advanced economies, it is 8 percent of GDP; in emerging market, about four. This spending is projected to increase due to increasing life expectancy and retirement. Reforming the pension system is important to generate fiscal savings but also to sustain labor‑force participation, as well as employment.

    Some of the key messages that we find in the chapter on reforms touch upon some of the issues that Era mentioned, gradual and timly of the reform. But for pension, what we find is that strategic communication and stakeholder engagement has been especially important. Indeed, there are cases of countries that have succeeded in implementing significant reform, for example, presenting an increasing retirement age as part of the reform that was trying to sustain adequate benefit levels. Or in some cases they were creating bipartisan commissions where they were engaging with stakeholders to hear their concerns and think about implementing the reform in the best way.

    An important issue when we think about pension reform is strengthening financial literacy and making sure that various stakeholders will talk about the potential benefits and cost of various pension schemes. Thank you.

    The Moderator: Very last one before we move to the U.S. and the other countries and regional and then we will move to other topics.

    QUESTION: I still want to focus on Chapter 2 because we are talking about developing economies and public sentiment. Era, when you were talking, you talked about subsidies being discretionary, not making the budgets, you know, complete and all of that, but we also know for many developing countries and even frontier economies, they are under pressure to cut back energy subsidies to ease debt burdens, yet these same subsidies often help keep the lights on for millions of families, low‑income families and businesses. You talked about growth earlier on. So, without these low‑income businesses, how would you also get growth? How does the IMF suggest governments manage this delicate balance and enable these countries to rationalize subsidies while safeguarding energy subsidies and cushioning the most vulnerable without leaving them behind because we are torn between having to think that subsidies are really 100 percent bad, so I really wanted to comment on that.

    Then on Nigeria, energy subsidy reforms that were seen have sparked protests and public frustrations, reflecting a top balance between fiscal responsibility and social equity. How do you think that Nigeria can navigate this difficult path and what specific measures can the IMF suggest ensuring that these reforms are fair, inclusive and accepted by the public. Thank you.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Let me talk in more detail about subsidies. Thank you for your question. These are challenging reforms to undertake. Why? Because they impact people’s, small firms’ pocketbooks immediately. An increase in energy prices as the government is moving towards cost recovery, pricing impacts pocketbooks immediately. This is a very tangible impact. Whereas the benefits that I spoke of, which are energy efficiency, the ability to reallocate fiscal savings take time to materialize. They are much more diffuse. Everyone benefits from those, but the pocket impact is felt immediately. This is why it is important as we note in our chapter, this is why it is important to have—for governments to think about a comprehensive strategy on how to implement these reforms. When you look at public sentiment across different sort of steps of these reforms, what we find that is really important is that countries that put in place compensatory mechanisms — whether this is cash transfers or more targeted transfers — really for those people who need it most have an easier time in carrying out these types of reforms. So in environments where the public does not trust the government, where there is weak accountability, doing these things up‑front in a very visible way, increasing support for social programs makes it very tangible to the public that the government is going to be doing this, and it is going to be accountable, if you will, for the fiscal savings that will be generated.

    QUESTION: Good morning. As risks for the fiscal outlook have intensified and debt levels may rise even further, as stated in the Fiscal Monitor, how worried are you about any sort of global debt crisis or regional crises that can appear, considering slower growth and new spending pressures on countries?

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: As you heard yesterday, recession and crisis more than an individual nature are not in our reference projections, although, of course, part of the role of the Fiscal Monitor is precisely to systemically look at risks and vulnerabilities, and our public‑debt‑at‑risk tool is one of the instruments to do exactly that.

    Now, one point which I believe is very important is that precisely because risks and uncertainty are so elevated right now, there is a sense of urgency in policy action. Why? Because there is still time to adopt policies that improve resilience, and there is still time to think through what are the most relevant vulnerability scenarios that apply to individual countries, to regions, or even to broader systems. And it is very important to do that result systemically so that one is ready if and when a crisis comes. Our experience during the pandemic showed that countries that had easy access to financial markets and ample fiscal space did substantially better than others at managing the shocks associated with the pandemic.

    The Moderator: Thank you. We will get back to this part of the room.

    QUESTION: My question is that you just mentioned the public debt remains very elevated and also this would cause fiscal space to continue to narrow down in many countries, including some major economies. So, what consequence will this bring to the world global economy if this kind of situation continues to develop?

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: So I think that the answer that I gave to the question just now applies, given these elevated risks and uncertainties, it is crucial that countries focus on keeping their own house in order since situations around the world are so diverse, as Era emphasized, that will imply different policies in different countries. But the crucial thing is that in a situation that is as fast changing as the one we are facing now and where risks and uncertainties are so elevated, there is an urgency in acting to improve fiscal space, build buffers, and, therefore, be in a position to ensure resilience and sustain growth.

    The Moderator: Thank you. We will get back to this part of the room. The gentleman with the red shirt, please.

    QUESTION: Thank you very much. Allow me to back‑pedal to the EMDEs. The Fiscal Monitor speaks about the need to widen the tax base. A number of frontier market economies have been rolling out significant economic present stacks and minimum top‑up tax in line with the Pillar 1 and Pillar 2. But now this puts them in the cross‑hairs with the Trump administration, and many are now wondering whether they should be rolling back. So which pathway does the Fund see sustainable, considering many are looking at preferential access to the American market?

    Mr. Davide Furceri: Regarding the tax, I think it is important to make three important points. The first is that in the current situation where many emerging market and developing countries are characterized by three factors, one, foreign aid is declining; second, we have seen that increasing financial volatility can increase interest rates in these countries. This is in a situation where interest rates over revenue for many countries is about 10 percent of GDP. Third, [volatile] financial conditions also implies that less flows will go to these countries. The point that we make in the Fiscal Monitor is that revenue and revenue mobilization can be a stable source for financing significant spending for social benefit or public investment. How we should strengthen revenue mobilization, typically there are three sorts of arrows that you can go. One is expanding the tax base. Second, eliminate tax exemptions. Third, which is also important, and that the IMF does a lot of work in terms of capacity development is strengthening tax administrations. When we think about the tax strategy, we have to consider all of these three elements, and for many emerging markets and developing countries, there are significant potential tax gains that can be achieved.

    The Moderator: Yes, please.

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: Just one word of addition. Davide correctly pointed out these three very important elements, broadening the tax base, dealing with tax expenditures and strengthening revenue administration. Yesterday I participated in a high‑level panel precisely on the mobilization of resources, and these three elements were repeated by the Ministers of Pakistan, Paraguay and Rwanda, and they found this frame relevant in their own experience of trying to improve the capacity of their countries to mobilize revenues.

    The Moderator: We have two questions online. I think this one will be for you, Era, about Spain. Yesterday they revised upwards the growth of Spain and have already highlighted the good performance of the Spanish economy. What should this country do with these good growth results regarding its fiscal policies in the short and medium term? And we will have another one for South Africa online.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Thank you for the question. Given Spain’s relatively strong fiscal position as well as economic position, there is scope now to front‑load some of the adjustment that they were thinking about because public debt levels in Spain still remain very high, although they have come down from the pandemic peaks. They still remain very high. This would be really important to put debt firmly down on a downward trajectory.

    Accumulative adjustment of about 3 percent of GDP over the next three years, say 2025 to 2029, similar to the one that was envisaged in terms of magnitude by the authorities but more frontloaded, would help achieve the goal. Now, as Vitor has pointed out, we are encouraging countries to bring debt down for a number of reasons. This is important because you want to reduce debt risks. This is important because countries should either expand or replenish the buffers that were diminished in the wake of the pandemic and also because of ongoing uncertainties. Finally, because countries will need—countries like Spain will need to spend on other areas, population aging, climate, defense and such.

    The Moderator: Just before we go to South Africa, any other European question? One time, two time, no European question in the room. OK.

    QUESTION: Thank you. The question on South Africa but also on the broader region: On South Africa, the IMF is quite significantly more pessimistic on the fiscal trajectory than our own government, which sees debt stabilizing, whereas the IMF sees it rising close to 90 percent of GDP at the end of the decade. Why are you so much more pessimistic of the authorities’ promised consolidation? But also on the region, sub‑Saharan Africa more broadly, how do you see the impact of what is happening globally on the region’s ability to borrow and particularly to borrow in international markets, and given a lot of the countries in the region are in debt distress or close to debt distress, what impact will that have on the economies of the sub‑Saharan Africa? Thank you.

    The Moderator: Thank you very much.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Thank you very much. Briefly on South Africa, the general government deficit in South Africa was about 6 percent of GDP in 2024. We project the fiscal deficit in 2025, although this is subject to considerable—all projections are subject to considerable uncertainties at this juncture to be around 6.6 percent of GDP. This is mainly driven by higher spending. Some of the differences stem from the fact that our projections are based on much more conservative assumptions regarding the buoyancy of the tax system, as well as the extent of primary spending compression that can be undertaken. So that really accounts for differences in projections between the two countries and also the path of debt going forward. Let me turn it over to Davide.

    Mr. Davide Furceri: Yes, more broadly and on financing costs for sub‑Saharan African regions, let me point out two factors. The first is that, of course, we have seen interest rates rising. So, this increasing interest rate in many countries, including South Africa, is basically driven by two factors. You have sort of an interest rate in main advanced economies that has been on a rising trend. On the positive side, in many countries, especially those with better fiscal positions, you actually have seen spreads, so the difference between the domestic interest rate and the foreign interest rate declines. However, and this is something that we point out in the Fiscal Monitor, that increased risk, increase of risk of uncertainty, financial market volatility, can turn things around. In other words, we see that increasing financial market volatility globally can lead to an increase in spreads.

    The second point is that one part we have seen for many low‑income countries since the pandemic is they are relying much more on domestic issuance of debt rather than on the foreign market. This is on one hand sort of offset some of the challenges like to the global environment but also increase some sort of domestic vulnerability, because sometimes the interest rates rise. There are things that are important to think about this strategy. But definitely, as we mentioned, interest rate is a source of rising in terms of revenue is a source of concern. Let me make the point again that we made, I think strengthening fiscal buffers, revenue mobilization are important elements to reduce — to have this trend to decline.

    The Moderator: Thank you. I believe we received some questions for Latin America and, yes, there are some reporters in the room. Yes, please, the lady in the third row here.

    QUESTION: Thank you. You already talked about emerging markets, but focusing on Latin America, I want to know which one—you already have talked about it too, but which one is the biggest fiscal risk and what should economies in Latin America should be thinking about doing in terms of growing and accepting new investment, for example, to confront the situation abroad? Thank you.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Thank you for your question. Many of the risks that other emerging market economies face, countries in Latin America obviously also face, we have already talked at length about that. But I am going to talk about a few things that are specific to many of the countries in Latin America. So, there is two challenges that limit fiscal flexibility in Latin America. The first is that there are spending rigidities. What I mean by that is there is a lot of amounts of spending that is mandatory, on pensions, on wages, on transfers. This leaves very little room for fiscal flexibility.

    At the same time, like many other emerging markets and developing economies, spending pressures are on the rise. There are growing demands for social services, for infrastructure, for adopting to climate change, and all of these are putting pressures on the budget. Now, when you look at what has happened since the pandemic, countries have made ambitious plans to consolidate their budget. There have been ambitious announcements of fiscal consolidation plans, but at the same time expenditure increases have outpaced revenue gains. So, for many countries in the region, we see debt levels continuing to rise. And the challenge here is that we are in a world with greater uncertainty than we were even six months ago. So, it is really important for countries in the region to implement at a minimum the announced fiscal consolidation plan and to do this within credible medium‑term frameworks. Many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region have fiscal rules. So to implement these rules, to spend efficiently, to think about the types of fiscal reforms that are needed, whether it is revenue mobilization in countries where revenue‑to‑GDP ratios are low, whether it is spending prioritization or reprioritization, to create the room that is needed for priority investments and social spending and infrastructure and such.

    The Moderator: Thank you. One last question.

    QUESTION: I am from Thailand. I want to ask about the overall trend of the public debt, especially for the ASEAN 5. It would be great if you could mention specifically on Thailand.

    The Moderator: I think we had the Nigeria question to answer too, and we will close there. Thank you.

    Mr. Davide Furceri: Let me start with Nigeria. So, Nigeria managed to do a very difficult reform that was important to deliver fiscal savings. The authorities also scaled up transfers, technical transfers. What we think there is, what is important to act on two pillars. One is to generate additional fiscal savings. We mentioned revenue mobilization. To really scale up spending on social protection, spending on investment, in a way as was mentioned, many countries, they need to spend, and there I want to go back to Vitor’s first remarks. We encourage countries to spend very wisely. Strengthening prioritization in terms of spending, strengthening the efficiency of spending is important. Final important message we would like to give for Nigeria but also for other countries is that fiscal institutions are very important. Having a medium‑term fiscal framework, Public Financial Management are key important because on the one hand they try to help the fiscal anchor, so they set apart for the fiscal adjustment, but also reduce the fiscal uncertainty per se. So as Vitor mentioned, we want the fiscal to be a source of stability and not a source of uncertainty, and that is where fiscal institutions have an important role to play.

    The Moderator: Thank you. Very quickly, Era.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: On ASEAN, there is a huge variation in fiscal positions across the region. On average, the ASEAN region debt‑to‑GDP ratios are lower than they are in other emerging market and developing economies. That said, in Thailand, relative to the other countries in ASEAN, debt levels are slightly more elevated, over 60 percent of GDP. Our advice has been that fiscal policy should be prudent and parsimonious, given all the reasons we have discussed over the course of this morning. So, measures that are needed to smooth adjustment in light of higher tariffs should be thought of in a wise way, temporary, targeted measures in the context of tariff uncertainty, and ongoing consolidation plans implemented to bring debt down in a sustainable manner.

    The Moderator: Thank you very much

    IMF Communications Department
    MEDIA RELATIONS

    PRESS OFFICER: Tatiana Mossot

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

    https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2025/04/24/tr-042325-fm-press-briefing

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  • MIL-OSI Russia: IMF Staff Reaches Staff Level Agreement with Armenia on the Fifth Review of the Stand-By Arrangement

    Source: IMF – News in Russian

    April 23, 2025

    End-of-Mission press releases include statements of IMF staff teams that convey preliminary findings after a visit to a country. The views expressed in this statement are those of the IMF staff and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF’s Executive Board. Based on the preliminary findings of this mission, staff will prepare a report that, subject to management approval, will be presented to the IMF’s Executive Board for discussion and decision.

    • IMF staff and the Armenian authorities have reached a staff-level agreement on the fifth review under the 3-year Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), which the Armenian authorities treat as precautionary. The SBA aims to support the government’s policy and reform agenda to maintain macroeconomic stability and foster sustainable and inclusive growth.
    • Economic activity remains strong. GDP growth reached 5.9 percent in 2024 and is expected to decelerate to 4.5 percent in 2025 as external growth drivers continue to taper off amid higher global uncertainty.
    • Policy priorities include enhancing economic resilience, further mobilizing tax revenues and prioritizing spending to maintain a moderate debt level, strengthening institutional frameworks, and continuing structural reforms to boost labor productivity, enhance trade diversification, and improve the overall business environment.

    Washington, DC: An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team led by Iva Petrova visited Yerevan from March 31 to April 10, 2025, to conduct discussions for the fifth review under the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) with Armenia. At the conclusion of the discussions, Ms. Petrova issued the following statement:

    “I am pleased to announce that the IMF team and the Armenian authorities have reached a staff-level agreement on policies for the completion of the fifth review under the three-year SBA, which supports Armenia’s economic reform program. The agreement is subject to approval by the IMF’s Executive Board, scheduled to consider this review in June. This approval would enable access of about US$ 25.0 million (SDR 18.4 million), bringing total access to about US$ 149.9 million (SDR 110.4 million) since the SBA’s inception.

    “Armenia’s economic activity remains robust, with real GDP growth of 5.9 percent in 2024, driven by robust consumption and investment. Employment growth has been steady, and inflation remains subdued, gradually picking up to 3.3 percent year-on-year in March 2025 in line with expectations. The current account deficit widened somewhat to 3.9 percent of GDP in 2024 as inflows from trade, tourism, and remittances continue to decelerate. The 2024 fiscal deficit was limited at 3.7 percent of GDP, keeping central government debt moderate at 48.3 percent of GDP. The banking system has high profitability and strong capital and liquidity buffers.

    “Real GDP growth is expected to remain generally strong but return to its potential of 4.5 percent in 2025 as trade and services normalize. Inflation is expected to remain around the Central Bank of Armenia’s (CBA) target by end-2025. Risks to this outlook stem from the unprecedented uncertainty related to the ongoing global trade tensions and potential slowdown in the growth of trading partners. Regional geopolitical shifts, which could lead to a reversal of recent capital inflows and FX volatility, also weigh on the outlook.

    The authorities’ upcoming medium-term expenditure framework aims to preserve macro-fiscal stability while supporting Armenia’s development needs. In this context, the 2025 budget deficit target of 5.5 percent of GDP remains appropriate, accommodating priority spending needs, including national security, refugee integration, and infrastructure development. However, with rising spending pressures, creating fiscal space while ensuring a gradual fiscal consolidation, would require careful expenditure prioritization, implementation of recently introduced tax policies and further revenue administration efforts. Reforms to strengthen medium-term fiscal planning, enhance public financial management—including through robust fiscal risk management, transparency, and governance—and bolster the public investment management framework remain critical to support fiscal sustainability.

    “Amid subdued inflationary pressures and anchored inflation expectations, the current monetary policy stance is appropriate. In view of the significant uncertainty, the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) should continue to monitor closely economic developments and inflation expectations and stand ready to adjust policy rates if inflation expectations drift away from target. The flexible exchange rate remains a key shock absorber, and the authorities’ commitment to maintaining healthy international reserve buffers is welcome. The CBA continues to monitor vigilantly financial sector risks and to upgrade its supervisory toolkit and capacity.

    “Structural reform efforts should continue to strengthen economic resilience and foster inclusive growth. The authorities’ plans to boost labor force participation among vulnerable populations, encourage diversification in the country’s export basket and markets, and improve corporate transparency and access to finance are welcome. Achieving these objectives requires timely and effective implementation of the employment and export strategies, prioritizing governance reforms, and upgrading the insolvency framework to support quality investments.

    “The IMF team thanks the Armenian authorities, private sector, development partners, and the diplomatic community for fruitful discussions and cooperation.”

    IMF Communications Department
    MEDIA RELATIONS

    PRESS OFFICER: Wafa Amr

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

    https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2025/04/24/pr25121-armenia-imf-staff-reaches-staff-level-agreement-fifth-review-stand-by-arrangement

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  • MIL-OSI Economics: Transcript of April 2025 Fiscal Monitor Press Briefing

    Source: International Monetary Fund

    April 23, 2025

    Speakers:

    Vitor Gaspar, Director, Fiscal Affairs Department
    Era Dabla‑Norris, Deputy Director, Fiscal Affairs Department
    Davide Furceri, Division Chief, Fiscal Affairs Department

    Moderator: Tatiana Mossot, Moderator, Senior Communications Officer

    The Moderator: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening for our viewers around the world. I am Tatiana Mossot with the IMF Communications Department, and I will be your host for today’s press briefing on the Spring Meetings 2025 Fiscal Monitor named “Fiscal Policy Under Uncertainty.” I am pleased to introduce the Director of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department, Vitor Gaspar. He is joined by Era Dabla‑Norris, Deputy Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department, and Davide Furceri, Division Chief of the Fiscal Affairs Department. Good morning, Vitor, Era, and Davide.

    Before taking your questions, let me start our briefing by turning to Vitor for his opening remarks. Vitor, the floor is yours.

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: Good morning. Many thanks for your kind introduction. Thank you all for your interest in the Fiscal Monitor, covering fiscal policies around the world. Since the last Fiscal Monitor in October 2024, global economic prospects have significantly deteriorated and risks to the economic outlook are elevated and tilted to the downside. Uncertainty is very high, and confidence has been weakening. Financial markets have partially corrected, and financing conditions have tightened.

    Global public debt is very high and rising. According to the WEO reference projection in 2025, it will rise above 95 percent of GDP. It is higher and growing faster than pre‑pandemic. It will be approaching 100 percent of GDP by the end of the decade, surpassing the pandemic peak, but global numbers hide a wide diversity across countries. In the figure, every bubble represents a country. The larger the bubble, the larger the country’s GDP. The figure shows debt levels on the vertical axis and debt growth on the horizontal axis compared to pre‑pandemic. The higher the bubble in the figure, the more debt has increased compared to 2019.

    119 countries are above the horizontal axis. For these countries, public debt is higher than pre‑pandemic. The further to the right in the figure, the faster debt grows compared to pre‑pandemic trends. Bubbles as you can see are all over the chart. That illustrates a wide diversity across countries. Therefore, fiscal policies must vary in line with country‑specific factors and circumstances, but in the face of turbulent and threatening times ahead, resilience is needed everywhere. Countries should redouble efforts to keep their own fiscal house in order.

    Let us zoom in on the top, the right top quadrant. Countries in the quadrant have public debt higher and rising faster. This group includes 59 countries. That is about one third of the 175 countries in the chart. But their economies represent 80 percent of world GDP. Their economic weight makes them the main drivers of global trends. You can see many large bubbles in this quadrant. No surprise. Most large economies, including the largest, are there.

    Now, let us focus on the remaining two thirds of countries in the world. There are 116 countries in the group that represent about 20 percent of world GDP. In the chart that you are looking at, the blue line represents all countries except for the 59 that I have mentioned before. The two lines in the chart representing the world and representing the remaining 116 countries evolve similarly up to the year of the pandemic. After 2020, as you can see, the trends diverge. The two lines actually cross in 2023. For these 116 countries, aggregate public debt is now well below pandemic levels, but going forward, it is very flat, indicating a stabilization of public debt at high levels. But the distinctive feature of the current conjuncture is uncertainty. One must go beyond referenced projections.

    In the words of the Managing Director, trade policy uncertainty is off the charts. Upside risk to public debt projections dominates the outlook. The October 2024 Fiscal Monitor introduced a novel tool to quantify the distribution of debt risks around the referenced projection. We call it public debt at risk. According to this tool, global public debt three years ahead would come at 117 percent of GDP in a severe adverse scenario.

    Recent developments with sharpening, increasing, and persistent uncertainty, tightening financing conditions push public debt at risk even higher. In a fast-changing and perilous world, Ministers of Finance must act urgently and decisively. They face stark tradeoffs and painful choices. Policymakers should invest their political capital in building confidence and trust. That starts with keeping their own houses in order. That is especially important in a situation that tested the resilience of individual economies, not to mention the entire system. Putting the house in order involves three policy priorities.

    First, fiscal policy should be part of overall stability‑oriented macroeconomic policies. Second, fiscal policy should in most countries aim at reducing public debt and rebuilding buffers to create space to respond to spending pressures and other economic shocks through a credible medium‑term framework. Third, fiscal policy should, together with other threshold policies, aim at improving potential growth, thereby easing policy tradeoffs. In these times of high uncertainty, fiscal policy must be an anchor for confidence and stability that can contribute to a competitive economy, delivering growth and prosperity for all.

    Ministers of Finance must build trust, tax fairly, spend wisely and take the long view. My colleagues and I are ready to answer any questions that you may have.

    The Moderator: Thank you, Vitor. We will now open the floor to your questions, but before we do that, a couple of ground rules, please. If you want to ask a question, please raise your hand first, wait until I call you and a colleague will give you the microphone. When you ask your questions, please identify yourself and the network you are working for. And for colleagues online, please ask your questions on Webex, and we will come to you.

    QUESTION: According to the report, tariffs and trade tensions have increased uncertainty and risks to economic growth. How can affected countries manage the negative impact on public confidence and growth, especially considering the high level of public debt and financial challenges they are already facing?

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: Thank you very much for your question. That allows me to summarize again the top‑level message from the Fiscal Monitor. Global public debt, as you said, is high, rising, and we always emphasize it is also risky. It rose above $100 trillion in 2024, and that was a headline six months ago. In the IMF referenced projections, that will continue rising, approaching 100 percent of GDP by the end of the decade.

    But what we emphasize most at this point in time is the unusually elevated degree of uncertainty. To repeat the quote from the Managing Director, “Trade policy uncertainty is literally off the charts.” There is, therefore, a sense of urgency in policymaking. According to our public‑debt‑at‑risk tool, our estimates for three years ahead point to debt at risk at 117 percent of GDP for the world, which is a level that has not been seen in many decades.

    But even that extreme adverse scenario may be under‑estimating tail risks because trade and geoeconomic uncertainty has escalated, financing conditions tightened, financial market volatility is visible from headlines, and spending pressures have intensified further. So, in those conditions, the point about countries keeping their own houses in order is crucial, and that is instrumental to deliver resilience and sustained growth from a long‑term perspective.

    The Moderator: Thank you, Vitor. As you may have seen, there are two chapters, the second one is on emerging markets. And I think Era and Davide; we have some questions for you too.

    QUESTION: Given the current global economic slow‑down, what are the specific challenges and impacts faced by emerging and developing countries and what policy measures can be implemented to mitigate these effects?

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Let me start with what we see as some of the key sources of uncertainty that emerging market and developing economies are facing. Vitor had laid out some of the broader issues but let me highlight three. So, in addition to the fact that we see growth prospects being marked down across the board, and we see that emerging markets and developing economies could be impacted through trade, financial and commodity channels, let me highlight three specific risks. The first is escalating uncertainty about tariffs and associated policies. In the Fiscal Monitor, we find that geoeconomic uncertainty, in particular, an escalation of geoeconomic uncertainty actually can push up debt over the medium term by about 4.5 percentage points. For emerging market economies in particular, it could be as high as 6 percent of GDP.

    Why is this the case? Because essentially, with higher geoeconomic uncertainty, that can dampen growth prospects, it lowers revenues because consumption production tends to fall. It also leads to higher spending, so as a result, fiscal positions deteriorate and debt increases. That is one important source of risks.

    A second source of risks is more volatile financial conditions. In the U.S., for instance, or other systemically important economies can spillover into emerging market and developing economies. And it can do so by raising sovereign borrowing costs. So, our analysis in the Fiscal Monitor shows that at 100 basis point increase in U.S. nominal Treasury yields translates into 100 basis point increase in emerging market economies’ borrowing costs. And this lasts for several months.

    A third source of risk is that we have seen that debt levels are high in many emerging markets and developing economies, so interest expenses are commensurately very high, and they are eating up a larger share of the budget. So, our analysis shows that 1 percentage point of GDP increase in interest expenses results in crowding out of other essential items within the budget, such as social spending and infrastructure investment. So, as Vitor pointed out, in this environment, it is very, very important for countries to put their own fiscal house in order.

    What does that mean? Country specifics will vary, but what it really means is that countries need to think about putting in place a gradual fiscal adjustment within a credible medium‑term fiscal framework. For EMDEs, where tax revenues are low, they can mobilize additional revenues by expanding the tax base. They can eliminate energy subsidies and other types of subsidies that can be distortionary. They can find ways to reprioritize spending. And most importantly, they can think about the policies that are needed to boost growth because that really can help ease these fiscal tradeoffs.

    QUESTION: My question is about energy subsidies and perhaps pension reforms, which are not related to emerging markets but pretty much the same problem. It is when the margin exists in many countries when you want to have some fiscal space. But in those many countries you have already social tensions that are quite high, so what are the possibilities for countries to make those reforms that are highly unpopular most of the time if they want to have this margin created?

    Ms. Dabla‑Norris: Let me talk about energy subsidies and my colleague Davide can speak a little bit about pension reforms. As you correctly pointed out, countries need to reduce debt. They need to create fiscal space. And energy subsidies and pension reforms can be important reforms that countries can undertake to generate fiscal savings. So, when we look at energy subsidy reforms in particular, energy, they account for about 1.5 percent of GDP on average in emerging markets and developing economies. And reforming them can have tremendous benefits for the economy. So let me enumerate some of them.

    First, it increases energy efficiency in the economy. Secondly, it generates fiscal savings that can then be used to increase other types of social spending and needed priority infrastructure investments. And finally, many of these subsidies tend to be highly regressive, so they do not necessarily benefit the poorest segment or the most vulnerable segments of society.

    In our Fiscal Monitor Chapter 2, what we did is we developed a novel real‑time measure of public sentiment. This is the sentiment of households, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders to gauge how governments can leverage strategies in order to make these kinds of reforms acceptable. There are a number of things that we found that are specific to energy subsidy reforms that I would like to talk about.

    The first is that we found that reforms that are—or changes that take place gradually have greater success of being implemented. To give you an example, Colombia very recently had an energy subsidy reform. They implemented it over a two‑year period, that was preannounced, so that people had time to adjust.

    A second strategy that we found successful—to be successful in shaping the acceptability of these reforms is that there was timely implementation of accompanying measures. And countries that put in place accompanying measures to really protect and support the most vulnerable, countries that put in place measures up‑front and invested in social programs and social infrastructure that was very visible to the public had a greater chance of succeeding.

    We also found that policies that were well‑communicated, that built consensus, that explained the tradeoffs to people had a much higher success of being accepted by the general public. For example, Morocco made it very clear that there was going to be a comprehensive communication strategy at the very beginning, at the very outset, and the message that was conveyed was that subsidies were a poor instrument for providing social support. A host of these strategies can be used by countries to implement these politically challenging reforms.

    Mr. Davide Furceri: The chapter also deals with pension reforms. We know that in many countries, spending on pensions is quite high. Just to give you a couple of numbers, in the case of advanced economies, it is 8 percent of GDP; in emerging market, about four. This spending is projected to increase due to increasing life expectancy and retirement. Reforming the pension system is important to generate fiscal savings but also to sustain labor‑force participation, as well as employment.

    Some of the key messages that we find in the chapter on reforms touch upon some of the issues that Era mentioned, gradual and timly of the reform. But for pension, what we find is that strategic communication and stakeholder engagement has been especially important. Indeed, there are cases of countries that have succeeded in implementing significant reform, for example, presenting an increasing retirement age as part of the reform that was trying to sustain adequate benefit levels. Or in some cases they were creating bipartisan commissions where they were engaging with stakeholders to hear their concerns and think about implementing the reform in the best way.

    An important issue when we think about pension reform is strengthening financial literacy and making sure that various stakeholders will talk about the potential benefits and cost of various pension schemes. Thank you.

    The Moderator: Very last one before we move to the U.S. and the other countries and regional and then we will move to other topics.

    QUESTION: I still want to focus on Chapter 2 because we are talking about developing economies and public sentiment. Era, when you were talking, you talked about subsidies being discretionary, not making the budgets, you know, complete and all of that, but we also know for many developing countries and even frontier economies, they are under pressure to cut back energy subsidies to ease debt burdens, yet these same subsidies often help keep the lights on for millions of families, low‑income families and businesses. You talked about growth earlier on. So, without these low‑income businesses, how would you also get growth? How does the IMF suggest governments manage this delicate balance and enable these countries to rationalize subsidies while safeguarding energy subsidies and cushioning the most vulnerable without leaving them behind because we are torn between having to think that subsidies are really 100 percent bad, so I really wanted to comment on that.

    Then on Nigeria, energy subsidy reforms that were seen have sparked protests and public frustrations, reflecting a top balance between fiscal responsibility and social equity. How do you think that Nigeria can navigate this difficult path and what specific measures can the IMF suggest ensuring that these reforms are fair, inclusive and accepted by the public. Thank you.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Let me talk in more detail about subsidies. Thank you for your question. These are challenging reforms to undertake. Why? Because they impact people’s, small firms’ pocketbooks immediately. An increase in energy prices as the government is moving towards cost recovery, pricing impacts pocketbooks immediately. This is a very tangible impact. Whereas the benefits that I spoke of, which are energy efficiency, the ability to reallocate fiscal savings take time to materialize. They are much more diffuse. Everyone benefits from those, but the pocket impact is felt immediately. This is why it is important as we note in our chapter, this is why it is important to have—for governments to think about a comprehensive strategy on how to implement these reforms. When you look at public sentiment across different sort of steps of these reforms, what we find that is really important is that countries that put in place compensatory mechanisms — whether this is cash transfers or more targeted transfers — really for those people who need it most have an easier time in carrying out these types of reforms. So in environments where the public does not trust the government, where there is weak accountability, doing these things up‑front in a very visible way, increasing support for social programs makes it very tangible to the public that the government is going to be doing this, and it is going to be accountable, if you will, for the fiscal savings that will be generated.

    QUESTION: Good morning. As risks for the fiscal outlook have intensified and debt levels may rise even further, as stated in the Fiscal Monitor, how worried are you about any sort of global debt crisis or regional crises that can appear, considering slower growth and new spending pressures on countries?

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: As you heard yesterday, recession and crisis more than an individual nature are not in our reference projections, although, of course, part of the role of the Fiscal Monitor is precisely to systemically look at risks and vulnerabilities, and our public‑debt‑at‑risk tool is one of the instruments to do exactly that.

    Now, one point which I believe is very important is that precisely because risks and uncertainty are so elevated right now, there is a sense of urgency in policy action. Why? Because there is still time to adopt policies that improve resilience, and there is still time to think through what are the most relevant vulnerability scenarios that apply to individual countries, to regions, or even to broader systems. And it is very important to do that result systemically so that one is ready if and when a crisis comes. Our experience during the pandemic showed that countries that had easy access to financial markets and ample fiscal space did substantially better than others at managing the shocks associated with the pandemic.

    The Moderator: Thank you. We will get back to this part of the room.

    QUESTION: My question is that you just mentioned the public debt remains very elevated and also this would cause fiscal space to continue to narrow down in many countries, including some major economies. So, what consequence will this bring to the world global economy if this kind of situation continues to develop?

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: So I think that the answer that I gave to the question just now applies, given these elevated risks and uncertainties, it is crucial that countries focus on keeping their own house in order since situations around the world are so diverse, as Era emphasized, that will imply different policies in different countries. But the crucial thing is that in a situation that is as fast changing as the one we are facing now and where risks and uncertainties are so elevated, there is an urgency in acting to improve fiscal space, build buffers, and, therefore, be in a position to ensure resilience and sustain growth.

    The Moderator: Thank you. We will get back to this part of the room. The gentleman with the red shirt, please.

    QUESTION: Thank you very much. Allow me to back‑pedal to the EMDEs. The Fiscal Monitor speaks about the need to widen the tax base. A number of frontier market economies have been rolling out significant economic present stacks and minimum top‑up tax in line with the Pillar 1 and Pillar 2. But now this puts them in the cross‑hairs with the Trump administration, and many are now wondering whether they should be rolling back. So which pathway does the Fund see sustainable, considering many are looking at preferential access to the American market?

    Mr. Davide Furceri: Regarding the tax, I think it is important to make three important points. The first is that in the current situation where many emerging market and developing countries are characterized by three factors, one, foreign aid is declining; second, we have seen that increasing financial volatility can increase interest rates in these countries. This is in a situation where interest rates over revenue for many countries is about 10 percent of GDP. Third, [volatile] financial conditions also implies that less flows will go to these countries. The point that we make in the Fiscal Monitor is that revenue and revenue mobilization can be a stable source for financing significant spending for social benefit or public investment. How we should strengthen revenue mobilization, typically there are three sorts of arrows that you can go. One is expanding the tax base. Second, eliminate tax exemptions. Third, which is also important, and that the IMF does a lot of work in terms of capacity development is strengthening tax administrations. When we think about the tax strategy, we have to consider all of these three elements, and for many emerging markets and developing countries, there are significant potential tax gains that can be achieved.

    The Moderator: Yes, please.

    Mr. Vitor Gaspar: Just one word of addition. Davide correctly pointed out these three very important elements, broadening the tax base, dealing with tax expenditures and strengthening revenue administration. Yesterday I participated in a high‑level panel precisely on the mobilization of resources, and these three elements were repeated by the Ministers of Pakistan, Paraguay and Rwanda, and they found this frame relevant in their own experience of trying to improve the capacity of their countries to mobilize revenues.

    The Moderator: We have two questions online. I think this one will be for you, Era, about Spain. Yesterday they revised upwards the growth of Spain and have already highlighted the good performance of the Spanish economy. What should this country do with these good growth results regarding its fiscal policies in the short and medium term? And we will have another one for South Africa online.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Thank you for the question. Given Spain’s relatively strong fiscal position as well as economic position, there is scope now to front‑load some of the adjustment that they were thinking about because public debt levels in Spain still remain very high, although they have come down from the pandemic peaks. They still remain very high. This would be really important to put debt firmly down on a downward trajectory.

    Accumulative adjustment of about 3 percent of GDP over the next three years, say 2025 to 2029, similar to the one that was envisaged in terms of magnitude by the authorities but more frontloaded, would help achieve the goal. Now, as Vitor has pointed out, we are encouraging countries to bring debt down for a number of reasons. This is important because you want to reduce debt risks. This is important because countries should either expand or replenish the buffers that were diminished in the wake of the pandemic and also because of ongoing uncertainties. Finally, because countries will need—countries like Spain will need to spend on other areas, population aging, climate, defense and such.

    The Moderator: Just before we go to South Africa, any other European question? One time, two time, no European question in the room. OK.

    QUESTION: Thank you. The question on South Africa but also on the broader region: On South Africa, the IMF is quite significantly more pessimistic on the fiscal trajectory than our own government, which sees debt stabilizing, whereas the IMF sees it rising close to 90 percent of GDP at the end of the decade. Why are you so much more pessimistic of the authorities’ promised consolidation? But also on the region, sub‑Saharan Africa more broadly, how do you see the impact of what is happening globally on the region’s ability to borrow and particularly to borrow in international markets, and given a lot of the countries in the region are in debt distress or close to debt distress, what impact will that have on the economies of the sub‑Saharan Africa? Thank you.

    The Moderator: Thank you very much.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Thank you very much. Briefly on South Africa, the general government deficit in South Africa was about 6 percent of GDP in 2024. We project the fiscal deficit in 2025, although this is subject to considerable—all projections are subject to considerable uncertainties at this juncture to be around 6.6 percent of GDP. This is mainly driven by higher spending. Some of the differences stem from the fact that our projections are based on much more conservative assumptions regarding the buoyancy of the tax system, as well as the extent of primary spending compression that can be undertaken. So that really accounts for differences in projections between the two countries and also the path of debt going forward. Let me turn it over to Davide.

    Mr. Davide Furceri: Yes, more broadly and on financing costs for sub‑Saharan African regions, let me point out two factors. The first is that, of course, we have seen interest rates rising. So, this increasing interest rate in many countries, including South Africa, is basically driven by two factors. You have sort of an interest rate in main advanced economies that has been on a rising trend. On the positive side, in many countries, especially those with better fiscal positions, you actually have seen spreads, so the difference between the domestic interest rate and the foreign interest rate declines. However, and this is something that we point out in the Fiscal Monitor, that increased risk, increase of risk of uncertainty, financial market volatility, can turn things around. In other words, we see that increasing financial market volatility globally can lead to an increase in spreads.

    The second point is that one part we have seen for many low‑income countries since the pandemic is they are relying much more on domestic issuance of debt rather than on the foreign market. This is on one hand sort of offset some of the challenges like to the global environment but also increase some sort of domestic vulnerability, because sometimes the interest rates rise. There are things that are important to think about this strategy. But definitely, as we mentioned, interest rate is a source of rising in terms of revenue is a source of concern. Let me make the point again that we made, I think strengthening fiscal buffers, revenue mobilization are important elements to reduce — to have this trend to decline.

    The Moderator: Thank you. I believe we received some questions for Latin America and, yes, there are some reporters in the room. Yes, please, the lady in the third row here.

    QUESTION: Thank you. You already talked about emerging markets, but focusing on Latin America, I want to know which one—you already have talked about it too, but which one is the biggest fiscal risk and what should economies in Latin America should be thinking about doing in terms of growing and accepting new investment, for example, to confront the situation abroad? Thank you.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: Thank you for your question. Many of the risks that other emerging market economies face, countries in Latin America obviously also face, we have already talked at length about that. But I am going to talk about a few things that are specific to many of the countries in Latin America. So, there is two challenges that limit fiscal flexibility in Latin America. The first is that there are spending rigidities. What I mean by that is there is a lot of amounts of spending that is mandatory, on pensions, on wages, on transfers. This leaves very little room for fiscal flexibility.

    At the same time, like many other emerging markets and developing economies, spending pressures are on the rise. There are growing demands for social services, for infrastructure, for adopting to climate change, and all of these are putting pressures on the budget. Now, when you look at what has happened since the pandemic, countries have made ambitious plans to consolidate their budget. There have been ambitious announcements of fiscal consolidation plans, but at the same time expenditure increases have outpaced revenue gains. So, for many countries in the region, we see debt levels continuing to rise. And the challenge here is that we are in a world with greater uncertainty than we were even six months ago. So, it is really important for countries in the region to implement at a minimum the announced fiscal consolidation plan and to do this within credible medium‑term frameworks. Many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region have fiscal rules. So to implement these rules, to spend efficiently, to think about the types of fiscal reforms that are needed, whether it is revenue mobilization in countries where revenue‑to‑GDP ratios are low, whether it is spending prioritization or reprioritization, to create the room that is needed for priority investments and social spending and infrastructure and such.

    The Moderator: Thank you. One last question.

    QUESTION: I am from Thailand. I want to ask about the overall trend of the public debt, especially for the ASEAN 5. It would be great if you could mention specifically on Thailand.

    The Moderator: I think we had the Nigeria question to answer too, and we will close there. Thank you.

    Mr. Davide Furceri: Let me start with Nigeria. So, Nigeria managed to do a very difficult reform that was important to deliver fiscal savings. The authorities also scaled up transfers, technical transfers. What we think there is, what is important to act on two pillars. One is to generate additional fiscal savings. We mentioned revenue mobilization. To really scale up spending on social protection, spending on investment, in a way as was mentioned, many countries, they need to spend, and there I want to go back to Vitor’s first remarks. We encourage countries to spend very wisely. Strengthening prioritization in terms of spending, strengthening the efficiency of spending is important. Final important message we would like to give for Nigeria but also for other countries is that fiscal institutions are very important. Having a medium‑term fiscal framework, Public Financial Management are key important because on the one hand they try to help the fiscal anchor, so they set apart for the fiscal adjustment, but also reduce the fiscal uncertainty per se. So as Vitor mentioned, we want the fiscal to be a source of stability and not a source of uncertainty, and that is where fiscal institutions have an important role to play.

    The Moderator: Thank you. Very quickly, Era.

    Ms. Era Dabla‑Norris: On ASEAN, there is a huge variation in fiscal positions across the region. On average, the ASEAN region debt‑to‑GDP ratios are lower than they are in other emerging market and developing economies. That said, in Thailand, relative to the other countries in ASEAN, debt levels are slightly more elevated, over 60 percent of GDP. Our advice has been that fiscal policy should be prudent and parsimonious, given all the reasons we have discussed over the course of this morning. So, measures that are needed to smooth adjustment in light of higher tariffs should be thought of in a wise way, temporary, targeted measures in the context of tariff uncertainty, and ongoing consolidation plans implemented to bring debt down in a sustainable manner.

    The Moderator: Thank you very much

    IMF Communications Department
    MEDIA RELATIONS

    PRESS OFFICER: Tatiana Mossot

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    MIL OSI Economics

  • MIL-Evening Report: The biggest losers: how Australians became the world’s most enthusiastic gamblers

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wayne Peake, Adjunct research fellow, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University

    The story goes that the late billionaire Australian media magnate Kerry Packer once visited a Las Vegas casino, where a Texan was bragging about his ranch and how many millions it was worth.

    Packer produced a coin from his pocket and said: “I’ll toss you for it: my cash against your ranch”.

    The Texan declined.

    This story may or may not be true. But it is consistent with the old maxim that Australians love a punt and will bet on just about anything, even on two flies crawling up a wall (which one will fly off first?).

    A rich history

    Australians are the biggest (or worst) gamblers in the world per capita. How did it come to this?

    By the 1830s, following European settlement in Australia, there was a steady stream of migrants who were taking the ultimate gamble – resettling on the other side of the world.

    The discovery of gold in the 1850s then encouraged a torrent of speculators often armed with no more than a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

    Most remained insolvent but some found bonanzas. Gold-rich towns, Melbourne in particular, developed rapidly. Modern enclosed racecourses soon followed.

    At first, gambling was restricted to side bets between the horses’ connections.

    That changed in 1882 when Englishman Robert Sievier visited Australia. He was the first bookmaker to stand on a regular pitch, accept cash bets and pay winners after each race.

    Sievier soon had numerous imitators on course – bookmakers registered with race clubs, betting on races like the Melbourne Cup, which by the 1890s attracted 100,000-plus racegoers.

    Some fun on the front line

    People bet off-course too – in barber shops and saloons, not only on the races but rowing events, cycling and “pedestrianism” (foot races).

    Despite state betting acts passed in 1906 intended to restrict gambling, by the first world war, capital cities were dotted with racecourses.

    Male racegoers were encouraged to “play up and play the game” – as the famous 1892 imperialist poem Vitai Lampada by Henry Newbolt urged – and enlist in the defence forces.

    When their enthusiasm curbed in 1917 after causalities at the front seeped back, governments reduced the number of race meetings but this caused crowds at those remaining to treble.

    Meanwhile, at the front lines, Australian soldiers adopted the egalitarian coin-toss game of two-up: a game where coins are spun in the air and bets are laid on whether heads or tails are facing up once they settle on the ground.

    Two-up remains a facet of the Australian psyche today – illegal, although authorities turn a blind eye on Anzac Day, supposedly out of respect for returned soldiers.

    This concession reflects the connection in Australia between mateship, the “Anzac legend”, sport and gambling.

    The pokie problem

    After the first world war, racecourse attendances grew even larger.

    The 1929 Depression eroded them but the emergence of racing radio broadcasts and the spread of the telephone network fed a regrowth in illegal off-course betting, especially in New South Wales.

    That state was also the scene of the next big, and perhaps most significant, development in gambling in Australia: the legalisation of poker machines in 1956.

    “The pokies” were originally restricted to registered clubs: mostly returned servicemen clubs, but in 1997, the NSW Labor government allowed them into hotels, where they soon rendered the less exciting “dancing joker” card machines extinct.

    The other states long resisted the temptation to legalise pokies. As a result, coaches loaded with would-be players from Victoria visited clubs at New South Wales border towns such as Corowa.

    The pokies were finally legalised in Victoria in 1991, later in other states. In Western Australia they remain legal in casinos only.

    Poker machines are widely regarded as a more insidious and dangerous form of gambling – in most other countries they are restricted to casinos.

    Since then, pokies have become a major part of Australia’s gambling landscape. In fact:

    The options are endless

    Poker machines reign as the dominant form of gambling in Australia, but there are many more options: lotteries and instant lotteries (“scratchies”), Keno and sports betting, which is fast replacing horseracing as the main business of the so-called corporate bookmakers that have emerged in the past 25 years.

    As technology continues to advance, online gambling – which is difficult to regulate and control – might be the biggest ongoing threat to gamblers.

    Wayne Peake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    ref. The biggest losers: how Australians became the world’s most enthusiastic gamblers – https://theconversation.com/the-biggest-losers-how-australians-became-the-worlds-most-enthusiastic-gamblers-252496

    MIL OSI AnalysisEveningReport.nz

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: SH 25 blocked, Coromandel

    Source: New Zealand Police (District News)

    Motorists are advised of a crash on State Highway 25, which has blocked the road between Coromandel and Matarangi.

    The three-vehicle crash happened around 11am.

    Indications are there are various injuries, some serious.

    There are diversions in place off State Highway 25 at Whangapoua and Matarangi.

    ENDS

    MIL OSI New Zealand News

  • MIL-OSI Security: California Man Faces Federal Charges for Cyberstalking Ex-Girlfriend

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    PORTLAND, Ore.—A Granite Bay, California man was arrested and appeared in federal court Tuesday after he was indicted in Oregon for cyberstalking his ex-girlfriend and posting sexually explicit photos online.

    Jason David Campos, 42, has been charged with stalking, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.

    According to court documents, between 2009 and 2023, Campos is alleged to have stalked and harassed the victim, a former intimate partner, by posting sexually explicit images and personal information online using social media platforms and public forum websites. 

    In May 2007, while still in the relationship, Campos told the victim that the laptop containing the sexually explicit images had been stolen from his vehicle. Campos and the victim ended their relationship in 2008.

    The following year, the victim searched her name online and discovered that sexually explicit images, taken by Campos during their relationship, had been posted to Facebook, Craigslist, Classmates.com, in sex ads, and a Swedish website, without the victim’s consent. Campos used the victim’s name, including her maiden name, to create accounts on several social media platforms and public forum websites. Over the next 14 years, Campos used these accounts to publish sexually explicit images of the victim online. In numerous instances, Campos asked viewers to contact the victim directly and shared her personal information in order to further harass the victim.

    On July 16, 2021, Campos is further alleged to have created an email account using the victim’s name, which he used to contact the victim’s attorney in Oregon. Posing as the victim, Campos requested the client file which contained personal information including the victim’s address and information about a child. After obtaining the file, Campos contacted the victim directly.

    On January 23, 2022, the victim received an email from an account later linked to Campos, in which he referred to the child by name and asked if the victim was the child’s mother. Additionally, Campos used the email account to post several sexually explicit images of the victim to an online message board. He asked viewers to print the images and post them around a neighborhood in Oregon that the victim was residing in at the time.

    Campos was arrested in Granite Bay and made his initial appearance in federal court Tuesday before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Sacramento, California. He was arraigned, pleaded not guilty, and ordered detained pending further court proceedings.

    If convicted, Campos faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, three years’ supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 for wire fraud, a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, three years’ supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 for stalking, and a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in federal prison, one year of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 for aggravated identity theft.

    The case is being investigated by the FBI and is being prosecuted by Gregory R. Nyhus and Mira Chernick, Assistant U.S. Attorneys for the District of Oregon.

    An indictment is only an accusation of a crime, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

    MIL Security OSI

  • MIL-OSI China: Xi addresses Leaders Meeting on Climate and the Just Transition, urging jointly advancing global climate governance

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

    Xi addresses Leaders Meeting on Climate and the Just Transition, urging jointly advancing global climate governance

    Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech via video link at the Leaders Meeting on Climate and the Just Transition, April 23, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    BEIJING, April 23 — Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech via video link at the Leaders Meeting on Climate and the Just Transition on Wednesday.

    Noting that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement and the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations (UN), Xi said as unprecedented global changes unfold at a faster pace, humanity has come to a new crossroads.

    Although some major country’s persistent pursuit of unilateralism and protectionism has seriously impacted international rules and the international order, history will, as always, move forward through twists and turns, Xi said.

    “As long as we enhance confidence, solidarity and cooperation, we will overcome the headwinds and steadily move forward global climate governance and all progressive endeavors of the world,” he said.

    Xi shared four points in this regard.

    “First, we must adhere to multilateralism,” he said, adding that all countries should firmly safeguard the UN-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law, and firmly safeguard international fairness and justice.

    “It is important for all countries to champion the rule of law, honor commitments, prioritize green and low-carbon development, and jointly respond to the climate crisis through multilateral governance,” said Xi.

    Second, the international cooperation must be deepened, he said. “We should rise above estrangement and conflict with openness and inclusiveness, boost technological innovation and industrial transformation through cooperation, and facilitate the free flow of quality green technologies and products, so that they can be accessible, affordable and beneficial for all countries, especially the developing ones.”

    China will vigorously deepen South-South cooperation and continue to provide help for fellow developing countries to the best of its capability, added Xi.

    “Third, we must accelerate the just transition,” Xi said, adding that green transformation must be people-centered and pursued in a way that advances the well-being of people and climate governance in tandem, and strike a balance between multiple goals including environmental protection, economic growth, job creation, and poverty alleviation.

    “Developed countries are obliged to extend assistance and support to developing countries, help drive the global shift toward green and low-carbon development, and contribute to the common and long-term well-being of people of all countries,” said Xi.

    Fourth, results-oriented actions must be strengthened, according to Xi.

    “All parties should do their utmost to formulate and implement their program of action for nationally determined contributions (NDCs) while coordinating economic development and energy transition,” he said.

    China will announce its 2035 NDCs covering all economic sectors and all greenhouse gases before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belem, Brazil, added Xi.

    Xi highlighted that harmony between man and nature is a defining feature of Chinese modernization, and China is a steadfast actor and major contributor in promoting global green development.

    “Since I announced China’s goals for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality five years ago, we have built the world’s largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system as well as the largest and most complete new energy industrial chain,” he said, adding that China also leads the world in the speed and scale of “greening,” contributing a quarter of the world’s newly-added area of afforestation.

    “However the world may change, China will not slow down its climate actions, will not reduce its support for international cooperation, and will not cease its efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind,” said Xi.

    China is willing to work with all parties to earnestly honor the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, do the utmost respectively and collectively, and build a clean, beautiful, and sustainable world together, he added.

    MIL OSI China News

  • MIL-OSI China: Chinese premier meets Azerbaijani president

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

    Chinese Premier Li Qiang meets with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, April 23, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    BEIJING, April 23 — Chinese Premier Li Qiang met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday.

    Li said that since the establishment of diplomatic relations 33 years ago, China and Azerbaijan have always respected each other and treated each other as equals, fostering deep friendship and trust. Pragmatic cooperation has continually deepened, bringing tangible benefits to the two peoples.

    Li noted that earlier today, the presidents of the two countries announced the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries, thereby opening a new chapter in bilateral relations.

    China is willing to work with Azerbaijan to further promote traditional friendship, enhance strategic mutual trust, firmly support each other in safeguarding core interests, and advance bilateral cooperation to a larger scale, wider fields and higher levels, he added.

    Li noted that China is willing to enhance the alignment of the Belt and Road Initiative with Azerbaijan’s development strategies, and jointly advance the construction of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Corridor and establish a safe and stable China-Europe Trans-Caspian Express.

    He also expressed China’s willingness to deepen cooperation with Azerbaijan in emerging fields such as green energy, digital technology, and the digital economy, promote sustained optimization and development of trade, and create more new mutually beneficial opportunities.

    The two sides should further strengthen people-to-people exchanges, explore cooperation potentials in areas such as culture, tourism, and education, and promote mutual understanding among their peoples, Li added.

    Noting that unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, exacerbating the risks of a global economic recession, Li said China is willing to continue strengthening communication and coordination with Azerbaijan within multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations, effectively implementing the three major global initiatives, and jointly advocating for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.

    Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijan firmly adheres to the one-China principle and resolutely opposes and condemns “Taiwan independence,” expressing a willingness to continue providing mutual support with China on issues concerning each other’s core interests and major concerns.

    Azerbaijan looks forward to working with China to enhance high-level exchanges, continuously expand bilateral trade and investment, develop mutually beneficial cooperation in areas such as transportation and logistics, connectivity, energy, agriculture and tourism, and further facilitate personnel exchanges, so as to continuously enrich the connotation of the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries, Aliyev said.

    Azerbaijan highly appreciates China’s significant role in international affairs, supports the three major global initiatives, and is willing to strengthen communication and cooperation with China within multilateral frameworks to maintain regional peace and stability, uphold the international system centered on the United Nations, and promote international fairness and justice, Aliyev added.

    Chinese Premier Li Qiang meets with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, April 23, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    MIL OSI China News

  • MIL-OSI China: Chinese premier meets Kenyan president

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

    Chinese Premier Li Qiang meets with Kenyan President William Ruto, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, April 23, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    BEIJING, April 23 — Chinese Premier Li Qiang met with Kenyan President William Ruto, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday.

    Li noted that in recent years, under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, China-Kenya relations have continued to improve, with fruitful cooperation outcomes across various fields significantly enhancing the well-being of the two peoples. He added that the two heads of state will hold talks to further plan the deepening of China-Kenya relations and cooperation.

    China is willing to work with Kenya to continually enrich the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, expand mutually beneficial cooperation in all areas, and strive toward modernization together, Li said.

    Noting that the two countries have strong economic complementarity and broad cooperation prospects, Li said China is willing to work with Kenya to continue advancing the high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road, steadily advance major projects such as infrastructure, deepen cooperation in areas such as finance, digital economy, green energy, agricultural science and technology, and blue economy, jointly cultivate and expand new drivers of development, and promote more practical achievements.

    China is also willing to import more high-quality products from Kenya, promoting an optimized and balanced trade relationship, Li said, adding that the two sides should further facilitate personnel exchanges and enhance cooperation in cultural, tourism, and media sectors.

    In the current international landscape of intertwined challenges, China and Africa, as significant forces in the Global South, should unite more closely to confront difficulties and promote development and prosperity together, Li said, adding that China is willing to work with Kenya and other African countries to fully accelerate the implementation of the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, especially the ten partnership actions for modernization, and practice true multilateralism.

    Ruto said Kenya firmly abides by the one-China principle, recognizes Taiwan as an inalienable part of China’s territory, and acknowledges that the government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China.

    The Kenyan side looks forward to aligning development strategies with China under the Belt and Road Initiative, tapping into cooperation potential, and promoting practical collaboration in trade, investment, transportation infrastructure, and social welfare, Ruto said.

    Kenya highly appreciates China’s important role in international affairs and is willing to enhance communication and coordination with China on multilateral platforms such as the United Nations, to better promote unity and cooperation among the Global South and to pave a bright future for China-Africa cooperation, he added.

    Chinese Premier Li Qiang meets with Kenyan President William Ruto, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, April 23, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    MIL OSI China News

  • MIL-OSI China: International Lunar Research Station attracts more partners: CNSA

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

    SHANGHAI, April 23 — A total of 17 countries and international organizations, as well as more than 50 international research institutions have joined the China-initiated International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a senior official of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said Wednesday at a conference held in Shanghai.

    In current international lunar exploration, traditional spacefaring nations continue to carry out missions, emerging space nations are constantly joining in, and commercial spaceflight is flourishing, Bian Zhigang, deputy director of the CNSA, noted at the International Conference on Developers of the ILRS.

    Lunar exploration activities are evolving from short-term missions to long-term construction, from single-craft exploration to multi-craft collaboration, and from national missions to international cooperation, Bian said. The modes of exploration and cooperation are undergoing fundamental changes, he added.

    Bian stressed that the ILRS will offer new opportunities and platforms for fostering global intelligence integration, technological innovation, inclusive cooperation, and shared development.

    Wu Weiren, the chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, said that the ILRS, which is a scientific experimental facility consisting of sections on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit, is projected to be built in two phases: a basic model to be built by 2035 in the lunar south pole region, and an extended model to be built in the 2040s.

    Chang’e-7 and Chang’e-8 will become parts of the basic model.

    The ILRS will possess capabilities such as Earth-Moon transportation, energy supply, centralized control, communication, navigation, lunar surface scientific exploration and ground support capabilities, Wu said.

    It will conduct multidisciplinary, multiple-objective and comprehensive scientific and technological activities continuously, Wu added.

    The ILRS integrates observation, exploration, scientific experiments and in-situ resource utilization into a single system. It will conduct large-scale, long-duration, multiple-point continuous and real-time synchronous observations, according to Wang Chi, director of the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a CAS academician.

    The overall scientific objectives of the ILRS include lunar geology, lunar-based astronomical observation, space environment observation of the Sun-Earth-Moon system, lunar-based fundamental science experiments, and lunar in-situ resource utilization, Wang noted.

    The CNSA has always adhered to the principles of equality, mutual benefits, the peaceful utilization of space, and win-win cooperation, Bian noted. It welcomes international partners to participate in various stages of the ILRS and at all levels of the mission. This will promote the use of space technology to benefit humanity and advance the building of a community with a shared future for humanity in the field of outer space, he said.

    Amjad Ali, deputy director general and chairman secretariat of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) of Pakistan, said that the CNSA leads in inclusive space exploration, enabling emerging space nations like Pakistan to rise.

    The upcoming Chang’e-8 mission will carry a 30-kilogram lunar rover developed by SUPARCO which will contribute to terrain mapping and regolith analysis, according to Ali.

    He said that the ILRS, led by the CNSA, envisions the construction of a permanent lunar outpost by the 2030s. Pakistan’s involvement offers opportunities in science, infrastructure and in-situ resource utilization.

    “Our instruments will analyze regolith composition, test autonomous surface mobility and study lunar environmental conditions, contributing to global lunar science databases,” Ali said.

    “The CNSA-SUPARCO partnership strengthens intercultural dialogue, diplomacy and peaceful collaboration, proving that shared dreams can unite nations among the stars,” he added.

    More than 120 leaders of space agencies, as well as experts and scholars, from 13 countries, regions and international organizations attended the meeting.

    MIL OSI China News

  • MIL-OSI Security: Mid-level manager of northern border smuggling ring sentenced to prison

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    Defendant used status as truck driver to disguise border trips to facilitate smuggling

    Seattle – A Santa Rosa, California resident, who is a citizen of India, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to five months in prison for Conspiracy to Bring in and Transport Certain Aliens for Profit, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller. Rajat Rajat, 27, and three others were indicted in connection with a scheme to smuggle non-citizens across the northern border for profit. The group was connected to two smuggling episodes in November and December 2023. At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Tana Lin noted that Rajat played a critical role in the smuggling conspiracy arranging travel and paying coconspirators. Judge Lin said that as someone who had been smuggled into the country, Mr. Rajat perpetuated the cycle of exploitation inherent in the smuggling process.

    “Mr. Rajat was a mid-level manager of this smuggling scheme, directing noncitizens where and how to cross the border, and even fronting some travel costs for them and for coconspirators,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Miller. “We are committed to working with our law enforcement partners to stop the illegal border crossings that undermine U.S. security.”

    According to records filed in the case, the two smuggling events described in this case involved eight different citizens of India. On November 27, 2023, surveillance technology caught multiple people jumping a fence near the Boundary Village Apartments in Blaine, Washington. The fence is a quarter mile east of Peace Arch Park. Border Patrol agents near the apartments saw five people run to a white minivan. The vehicle was stopped by Border Patrol. Five citizens of India were in the van with California resident Bobby Joe Green, 68, as the driver.

    When questioned, three of the non-citizens told U.S. Border Patrol agents that they saw defendant Sushil Kumar at Peace Arch Park prior to crossing the border illegally. The investigation revealed that Kumar and Rajat Rajat, who was employed as a truck driver, directed the non-citizens on where and how to cross the border. Rajat paid Green to transport the non-citizens from the border. Rajat asked for monetary payments from the non-citizens for being smuggled into the U.S.

    Similarly, in December 2023, Rajat met three citizens of India in Peace Arch Park and allegedly directed them how to cross through the park and get into a car parked near the border. The car was stopped, and the non-citizens were interviewed. They indicated they had promised to make monetary payments to be smuggled into the U.S. Rajat was picked up near the border.

    In asking for a prison sentence, prosecutors wrote to the court, “This was an organized, coordinated, transnational scheme that operated repeatedly, over an extended period of time. Mr. Rajat’s role in the organization was not one that can be considered minor. Rather, he was essential to its function. Mr. Rajat acted as a middle-level manager in the smuggling organization, paying his co-conspirators for their involvement, and directing their roles. Mr. Rajat actively promoted the scheme by purchasing flights for his “customers” and communicating directly with them, advising noncitizens on how and when to clandestinely enter the United States.”

    Judge Lin ordered Rajat to serve three years of supervised release following prison, however she noted that he will likely be deported following his prison term.

    In March 2025, Sushil Kumar, 36, of Santa Rosa was sentenced to six months in prison and three years of supervised release. Bobby Joe Green was sentenced to four months in prison and three years of supervised release. The fourth defendant Sneha, 20, a citizen of India who is in the U.S. on a student visa and goes by just her last name, is scheduled to go to trial in January 2026.

    The charges contained in the superseding indictment of Sneha are only allegations. A person is presumed innocent unless and until he or she is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

    The case is being investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (ICE HSI) and the U.S. Border Patrol.

    The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Jin Kim and Mike Dion and Special Assistant United States Attorney Katherine Collins.

    MIL Security OSI

  • MIL-OSI USA: Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth

    US Senate News:

    Source: The White House
    class=”has-text-align-left”>By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:
    Section 1.  Background.  Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the modern world, driving innovation across industries, enhancing productivity, and reshaping the way we live and work.  To ensure the United States remains a global leader in this technological revolution, we must provide our Nation’s youth with opportunities to cultivate the skills and understanding necessary to use and create the next generation of AI technology.  By fostering AI competency, we will equip our students with the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to adapt to and thrive in an increasingly digital society.  Early learning and exposure to AI concepts not only demystifies this powerful technology but also sparks curiosity and creativity, preparing students to become active and responsible participants in the workforce of the future and nurturing the next generation of American AI innovators to propel our Nation to new heights of scientific and economic achievement.To achieve this vision, we must also invest in our educators and equip them with the tools and knowledge to not only train students about AI, but also to utilize AI in their classrooms to improve educational outcomes.  Professional development programs focused on AI education will empower educators to confidently guide students through this complex and evolving field.  Educators, industry leaders, and employers who rely on an AI-skilled workforce should partner to create educational programs that equip students with essential AI skills and competencies across all learning pathways.  While AI education in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12) is critical, our Nation must also make resources available for lifelong learners to develop new skills for a changing workforce.  By establishing a strong framework that integrates early student exposure with comprehensive teacher training and other resources for workforce development, we can ensure that every American has the opportunity to learn about AI from the earliest stages of their educational journey through postsecondary education, fostering a culture of innovation and critical thinking that will solidify our Nation’s leadership in the AI-driven future.
    Sec. 2.  Policy.  It is the policy of the United States to promote AI literacy and proficiency among Americans by promoting the appropriate integration of AI into education, providing comprehensive AI training for educators, and fostering early exposure to AI concepts and technology to develop an AI-ready workforce and the next generation of American AI innovators.
    Sec. 3.  Definition.  For the purposes of this order, “artificial intelligence” or “AI” has the meaning set forth in 15 U.S.C. 9401(3).
    Sec. 4.  Establishing an Artificial Intelligence Education Task Force.  (a)  There is hereby established the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education (Task Force).(b)  The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall be the Chair of the Task Force.(c)  The Task Force membership shall consist of the following members:(i)     the Secretary of Agriculture;(ii)    the Secretary of Labor;(iii)   the Secretary of Energy;(iv)    the Secretary of Education;(v)     the Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF);(vi)    the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy;(vii)   the Special Advisor for AI & Crypto; (viii)  the Assistant to the President for Policy; and(ix)    the heads of other such executive departments and agencies (agencies) and offices that the Chair may designate or invite to participate.(d)  The Task Force shall be responsible for implementing the policy stated in section 2 of this order and coordinating Federal efforts related to AI education, including the actions outlined in this order.
    Sec. 5.  Establishing the Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge.  (a)  Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Task Force shall establish plans for a Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge (Challenge), and the agencies represented on the Task Force shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, implement the plans by holding the Challenge no later than 12 months from the submission of the plan.  The Challenge shall encourage and highlight student and educator achievements in AI, promote wide geographic adoption of technological advancement, and foster collaboration between government, academia, philanthropy, and industry to address national challenges with AI solutions.(b)  The Challenge shall feature multiple age categories, distinct geographic regions for competition, and a variety of topical themes of competition to reflect the breadth of AI applications, encouraging interdisciplinary exploration. (c)  The Task Force and, as appropriate, agencies represented on the Task Force shall collaborate with relevant agencies and private sector entities to provide technical expertise, resources, and promotional support for implementing the Challenge, including through existing funding vehicles.  
    Sec. 6.  Improving Education Through Artificial Intelligence.  (a)  To provide resources for K-12 AI education, agencies represented on the Task Force shall seek to establish public-private partnerships with leading AI industry organizations, academic institutions, nonprofit entities, and other organizations with expertise in AI and computer science education to collaboratively develop online resources focused on teaching K-12 students foundational AI literacy and critical thinking skills.  The Task Force shall promptly announce such public-private partnerships on a rolling basis as they are formed.(i)   The Task Force shall seek to utilize industry commitments and identify any Federal funding mechanisms, including discretionary grants, that can be used to provide resources for K-12 AI education.  To the extent practicable and as consistent with applicable law, agencies shall prioritize funding for such purposes when it would further the aims of the program for which funding is available.(ii)  The Task Force shall work to ensure the resources funded as described in subsection (i) of this section are ready for use in K-12 instruction within 180 days following the Task Force’s formal announcement of the first slate of public-private partnerships.(b)  Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Task Force shall identify existing Federal AI resources on which agencies may rely, such as the NSF- and Department of Agriculture-sponsored National AI Research Institutes, to support partnerships with State and local educational agencies to improve AI education.(c)  Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education shall issue guidance regarding the use of formula and discretionary grant funds to improve education outcomes using AI, including but not limited to AI-based high-quality instructional resources; high-impact tutoring; and college and career pathway exploration, advising, and navigation.(d)  Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education shall identify and implement ways to utilize existing research programs to assist State and local efforts to use AI for improved student achievement, attainment, and mobility.
    Sec. 7.  Enhancing Training for Educators on Artificial Intelligence.  (a)  Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education shall take steps to prioritize the use of AI in discretionary grant programs for teacher training authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (Public Law 89-10), as amended, and Title II of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (Public Law 89-329), as amended, including for:(i)    reducing time-intensive administrative tasks;(ii)   improving teacher training and evaluation; (iii)  providing professional development for all educators, so they can integrate the fundamentals of AI into all subject areas; and(iv)   providing professional development in foundational computer science and AI, preparing educators to effectively teach AI in stand-alone computer science and other relevant courses.(b)  Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Director of the NSF shall take steps to prioritize research on the use of AI in education.  The Director of the NSF shall also utilize existing programs to create teacher training opportunities that help educators effectively integrate AI-based tools and modalities in classrooms. (c)  Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Agriculture shall take steps to prioritize research, extension, and education on the use of AI in formal and non-formal education through 4-H and the Cooperative Extension System.  The Secretary of Agriculture shall also utilize existing programs to create teacher and educator training opportunities that help effectively integrate AI-based tools and modalities into classrooms and curriculum.
    Sec. 8.  Promoting Registered Apprenticeships.  (a)  Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Labor shall seek to increase participation in AI-related Registered Apprenticeships, including by:(i)   Prioritizing the development and growth of Registered Apprenticeships in AI-related occupations.  The Secretary of Labor shall establish specific goals for growing Registered Apprenticeships in AI-related occupations across industries; and(ii)  Using apprenticeship intermediary contracts and allocating existing discretionary funds, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to engage industry organizations and employers and facilitate the development of Registered Apprenticeship programs in AI-related occupations.  In doing so, the Secretary of Labor shall support the creation of industry-developed program standards to be registered on a nationwide basis, enabling individual employers to adopt the standards without requiring individual registry.(b)  Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Labor shall encourage States and grantees to use funding provided under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) (Public Law 113-128), as amended, to develop AI skills and support work-based learning opportunities within occupations utilizing AI by:(i)    issuing guidance to State and local workforce development boards encouraging the use of WIOA youth formula funds to help youth develop AI skills;(ii)   clarifying that States can use Governor set-asides to integrate AI learning opportunities into youth programs across the State; and(iii)  consistent with applicable law, establishing AI skills training and work-based learning as a grant priority in all Employment and Training Administration youth-focused discretionary grant programs.(c)  Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Labor, through the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training, and in collaboration with the Director of the NSF, shall engage with relevant State and local workforce development boards, industry organizations, education and training providers, and employers to identify and promote high-quality AI skills education coursework and certifications across the country.  Through such engagement, the Secretary of Labor shall:(i)    identify applicable funding opportunities to expand access to high-quality AI coursework and certifications;(ii)   set performance targets for youth participation through any grants awarded for this purpose; and(iii)  utilize industry and philanthropic partnerships to the extent practicable.(d)  Within 120 days of the date of this order, and in consultation with the Secretary of Education and the Director of the NSF, the Secretary of Labor shall support the creation of opportunities for high school students to take AI courses and certification programs by giving priority consideration in awarding grants as appropriate and consistent with applicable law to providers that commit to use funds to develop or expand AI courses and certification programs.  The Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Education shall encourage recipients to build partnerships with States and local school districts to encourage those entities to consider offering high school students dual enrollment opportunities to take courses to earn postsecondary credentials and industry-recognized AI credentials concurrent with high school education.(e)  Within 120 days of the date of this order, all agencies that provide educational grants shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, consider AI as a priority area within existing Federal fellowship and scholarship for service programs.
    Sec. 9.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
                            DONALD J. TRUMP
    THE WHITE HOUSE,    April 23, 2025.

    MIL OSI USA News

  • MIL-OSI Australia: First cohort graduates from global initiative shaping the future of defence and space

    Source:

    24 April 2025

    Global Executive MBA in Defence and Space graduate Glen Gallagher in Washington, DC.

    The first hand-picked cohort from a specialist global program tailored to meet the pressing challenges facing the defence and space sectors graduated from the University of South Australia this week.

    Students from UniSA’s Global Executive MBA in Defence and Space have completed the customised 18-month program, a world-first to help build a global pipeline of talent for the two sectors, specifically benefitting international alliances such as AUKUS.

    The graduates, who include executives and uniformed personnel from defence and space organisations operating in Australia, the US, UK and Europe, will help address critical skills gaps in cyber security, space systems, geopolitics and defence procurement and build the innovation and leadership capabilities required across the sectors.

    UniSA partnered with the University of Exeter (UK) and Carnegie Mellon University (US) to deliver the program, with students undertaking online study and intensive in-person residentials in each of the three AUKUS countries.

    Professor Lan Snell, Dean of Programs (Postgraduate), UniSA Business, says the value of the program lies in its global structure.

    “Throughout the program students develop global experiences, networks and competencies in the defence and space sectors that other Executive MBA programs can’t match. That is not only attractive to SA locals, but to potential recruits and their employers nationally and internationally,” she says.

    Professor Snell says the 2025 graduates are well equipped to tackle the complexities associated with the multi-decade projects that will make up the AUKUS arrangement.

    “Our graduates have built on a range of skills and capabilities ranging from technical skills through to project management and leadership capabilities,” she says. “We now have heightened technical understandings and better developed future-focused capabilities such as communication, teamwork and problem solving.”

    Global Executive MBA in Defence and Space graduate Glen Gallagher says the program directly influenced his career progression over the past two years as he transitioned from Operations Manager at Boeing Defence Australia to Director, Advanced Systems at South Australian Government agency, Defence SA.

    “I think taking part in the program did influence my career path in terms of my confidence, skills and ability to tackle a senior executive role. If I hadn’t been undertaking the Global Executive MBA in Defence and Space, I might not have backed myself or had the necessary attributes to be successful in my current role,” he says.

    “The value of the program is also in the establishment of multiple networks with peers, colleagues and industry professionals from around the world that you wouldn’t typically be exposed to unless you take up a lot of international travel.”

    Gallagher says highlights of the program included the two-week residentials in the US and UK, particularly travelling to Washington, DC, in the lead up to the US election in November 2024.

    “Part of the program was held near Capitol Hill and that was amazing to witness in terms of the build-up in geopolitics at that time. It was an experience that can’t ever be beaten.”

    The next Global Executive MBA in Defence and Space cohort will commence at Adelaide University in 2026.

    …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
    Media contact: Melissa Keogh, UniSA Media M: +61 403 659 154 E: Melissa.Keogh@unisa.edu.au

    Other articles you may be interested in

    MIL OSI News

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Government launches call for evidence on men’s health 

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Government launches call for evidence on men’s health 

    It will inform England’s first ever men’s health strategy to tackle the life expectancy gap.

    • Call for evidence will inform England’s first ever men’s health strategy to tackle life expectancy gap
    • Members of the public and healthcare experts will get their say on ways to tackle biggest health problems facing men as part of Plan for Change to improve health care for everyone
    • This follows government’s first ever Men’s Health Summit held in partnership with Movember, co-hosted by Arsenal and Premier League 

    The government is today (Thursday 24 April) calling for men of all ages to come forward and feed into England’s first ever men’s health strategy.

    The 12-week call for evidence will gather vital insights from the public, health and social care professionals, academics and employers so the government can properly consider how to prevent and tackle the biggest issues facing men from all backgrounds.  

    It will ask for their views on what is working and what more needs to be done to close the life expectancy gap between men and women, as men in England die nearly four years earlier than women on average. 

    Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: 

    Every day, men across England are dying early from preventable causes. Men are hit harder by a range of conditions, while tragically suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 50. 

    Our Plan for Change means we will tackle these issues head on through a men’s health strategy, and today’s call for evidence is the crucial next step in understanding what works, what doesn’t, and how we can design services men will actually use. I urge people to come forward to share their views.

    The call for evidence will seek responses on how the government’s Plan for Change can work across the board to improve the health and wellbeing of men, through: 

    • Prevention – finding the right areas and the right ways to promote healthier behaviours  
    • Diagnosis and treatment – improving outcomes for health conditions that hit men harder
    • Encouragement to come forward – improving men’s access to, engagement with and experience of the health service

    This government is committed to fixing the NHS and getting a grip on the stark health inequalities that exist across the country through the Plan for Change, which will rebuild the health service and deliver better care for everyone. With a clearer, more tailored approach for both men and women, their distinct health needs will be met better.

    In women’s health, we’re turning the commitments in the women’s health strategy into tangible actions – taking urgent action to tackle gynaecology waiting lists through the Elective Reform Plan, investing in a major AI breast cancer screening trial, and implementing key priority areas outlines in our strategy – alongside taking wider government action to tackle violence against women and girls.

    Amy O’Connor, Global Lead, Policy and Advocacy at Movember, said:

    Too many men are dying too young, the men’s health strategy is a once in a generation opportunity to invest in positive change for men and their loved ones. Share your solutions – whether it’s more community support groups, improved education, or enhancing clinical training, to create a lasting impact on the future of men’s health.

    Julie Bentley, Samaritans CEO, said:

    Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 so it’s critical that suicide prevention is front and centre of this strategy. With men making up 75 percent of all suicides, this strategy is a real opportunity to prevent thousands of deaths.  

    Recognising what works for different groups of men, focusing on key risk factors and providing evidenced based support will be crucial and we’d encourage everyone to submit evidence to this important consultation. We look forward to working with Government on meaningful ways to cut suicide rates and save lives.

    Cllr David Fothergill, Chairman of the LGA’s Community and Wellbeing Board, said: 

    We are pleased that the Government has announced plans to launch the first-ever Men’s Health Strategy with a call for evidence. It’s a significant step towards improving men’s health outcomes and ensuring that men can live healthier, longer, happier lives.

    The call for evidence will be open for views on the Department of Health and Social Care website until 17 July. The government aims to launch the men’s health strategy later this year. 

    Notes to editors 

    • The call for evidence will run for 12 weeks from 24 April 2025 to 17 July 2025. 
    • Men are disproportionately affected by a number of health conditions including cancer, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. 
    • Around 3 in 4 people who died by suicide in 2023 were men. Suicide is the biggest cause of death in men under the age of 50. 
    • Those in the most deprived areas of England are expected to live almost 10 years less than those in the least deprived areas. 
    • The men’s health strategy was announced by the Health Secretary at the Men’s Health Summit held in partnership with Movember, hosted by Arsenal and the Premier League, in November. For more information see here Secretary of State commits to first ever men’s health strategy – GOV.UK

    Updates to this page

    Published 24 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Prime Minister launches major boost for UK clean energy industry

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Prime Minister launches major boost for UK clean energy industry

    Prime Minister brings forward £300 million for Great British Energy to invest in offshore wind supply chains ahead of the Future of Energy Security summit.

    • Prime Minister brings forward an initial £300 million investment ahead of Spending Review through Great British Energy to win global offshore wind investment for the UK
    • Fund will boost domestic jobs, mobilise additional private investment, and secure manufacturing facilities for critical clean energy supply chains like floating offshore platforms
    • Prime Minister and Energy Secretary to announce pro-investment plans at major international summit bringing together governments and industry from around the world to drive collective energy security

    Communities across the country will benefit from new investment in domestic clean energy supply chains – driving economic growth and supporting thousands of jobs through the Plan for Change.

    Workers and businesses in the UK’s industrial heartlands will benefit from an initial £300 million of funding through Great British Energy to invest in supply chains for domestic offshore wind. It is expected that the investment will directly and indirectly mobilise billions in additional private investment – helping de-risk clean energy projects and supporting thousands of jobs and revitalising the UK’s industrial heartlands.

    The public investment complements the £43 billion of private investment pledged for clean energy projects since July.

    Britain’s engineers, technicians, and welders are being backed by this fast-tracked funding, brought forward by the Prime Minister ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review, which will allow Great British Energy, the country’s publicly-owned clean energy company, to invest in new supply chains for offshore wind manufacturing components such as floating offshore platforms and cables. This builds on the government’s landmark investment in domestic supply chains through initiatives such as the Clean Industry Bonus and the National Wealth Fund.

    As part of the government’s modern Industrial Strategy, which will turbocharge growth in the UK’s key sectors including clean energy, the new investment in domestic offshore wind is part of the Prime Minister’s drive to ensure that the clean energy future is ‘built in Britain’. The funding will ensure that the nation builds resilient domestic supply chains for components which are essential to delivering clean power by 2030.

    It comes after the Prime Minister said that a new era of global insecurity means that the government must go further and faster in reshaping the economy through the Plan for Change, and that this requires a new muscular industrial policy that supports British industry to forge ahead.

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:

    Delivering the Plan for Change means winning the race for the clean energy jobs of the future, which will drive growth and help us reach clean power by 2030.

    That is why I am bringing forward much-needed investment in our domestic offshore wind supply chains, strengthening our security and creating good jobs for our welders, electricians, and engineers.

    Let my message to the world go out: come and build the clean energy future in Britain.

    Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said:

    It is only by taking back control of our energy that we can protect families and businesses from the rollercoaster of global markets we don’t control.

    That is why this government is doubling down on our clean energy superpower mission – driving economic growth, good jobs and investment across our country.

    The Prime Minister, ministers and business leaders will gather in London today for the 2-day summit on the Future of Energy Security – hosted by the UK government and International Energy Agency – as countries take action to protect themselves from future energy shocks in these unstable times. Leaders from around the world, including the President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen, will come together to address the global challenges and opportunities of speeding up the clean energy transition.

    The Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, the Minister for Investment Baroness Poppy Gustafsson, National Wealth Fund CEO John Flint and Great British Energy Chair Juergen Maier will today write to global clean energy developers and investors inviting them to invest here in Britain. It follows the government announcing a series of pro-growth measures including major reforms to speed up grid connections and overhaul planning rules.

    Dan McGrail, interim CEO of Great British Energy, said:

    Great British Energy will help the UK win the global race for clean energy jobs and growth by investing in homegrown supply chains and ensuring key infrastructure parts are made here in Britain.

    We will work closely with businesses across the clean energy sector to get funding out as fast as possible and get projects off the ground.

    Deputy CEO of RenewableUK, Jane Cooper, said,

    There’s a huge opportunity for the UK to secure thousands of new jobs and supply chain investment in the sector, which will make our home-grown energy supply even more secure.

    The Prime Minister’s funding will be critical to ensuring the UK grasps the industrial opportunities in the offshore wind supply chain, at a time of intense global competition for clean energy investment. By nurturing existing UK companies, and ensuring we’re a competitive location for international investors, there’s an opportunity to triple our manufacturing capacity over the next decade, adding £25 billion to the UK economy and creating an additional 10,000 jobs in the supply chain.

    This new government funding is a clear signal of intent to secure those priorities and is vital to unlocking further co-investment from industry.

    The funding for supply chains will be made available as part of the £8.3 billion for Great British Energy over this parliament, with individual companies able to apply for grants if they can show that they will produce long-term investments in UK supply chains.

    Great British Energy, the country’s publicly-owned clean energy company, will produce a return on investment for the British people, and ensure British billpayers reap the benefits of clean, secure, home-grown energy. This first phase of grant funding is needed to capture investment now and reap benefits of jobs and growth.

    Notes to editors

    More details on the £43 billion announced since July can be found here: Clean energy projects prioritised for grid connections .

    Great British Energy’s supply chain fund is expected to be open for applications by the end of the year, with an initial £300 million available for offshore wind schemes over this Parliament. Further details on criteria and eligibility will be published in due course.

    The investment comes in the context of the 2024 Industrial Growth Plan, in which the Offshore Wind Industry Council proposed to match fund £300 million of grant investment in the UK’s supply chains with private sector investment.

    Updates to this page

    Published 24 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Major step for fraud prevention with landmark ban on SIM farms

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    News story

    Major step for fraud prevention with landmark ban on SIM farms

    The UK will become the first country in Europe to ban the possession and supply of SIM farms – technical devices used to defraud the public.

    Getty Images

    Members of the public will be better protected from fraudsters and scammers through a landmark, Europe-first ban on the possession and supply of SIM farms, the Fraud Minister Lord Hanson has confirmed today.

    SIM farms are technical devices capable of holding multiple SIM cards enabling criminals to send scam texts to thousands of people at once or set up ‘verified’ online accounts in large volumes. They increase the chances of innocent consumers falling victim to major financial losses. 

    With recent data showing that fraud increased last year by 19%, and that it accounts for more than 40% of all reported crime in England and Wales, the government is acting to prevent and counter these evolving threats and deliver security for the public as a foundation of the Plan for Change. This follows the commitment to publish a new, expanded fraud strategy before the end of the year.

    The new offence will make the possession or supply of SIM farms without a legitimate reason illegal, shutting down a key route used by criminals to exploit the public, and will carry an unlimited fine in England and Wales and a £5,000 fine in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

    The ban will come into effect 6 months after the Crime and Policing Bill receives Royal Assent.

    It will mean that those offenders using these devices to defraud the public will not only continue to face the full force of the law for their heinous actions but will also be hit with hefty fines.

    Fraud Minister Lord Hanson said:

    Fraud devastates lives, and I am determined to take the decisive action necessary to protect the public from these shameful criminals.

    Two-thirds of British adults say they’ve received a suspicious message on their phone – equivalent to more than 35 million people – which is why cracking down on SIM farms is so vital to protecting the public.

    This marks a leap forward in our fight against fraud and will provide law enforcement and industry partners the clarity they need to protect the public from this shameful crime. This government will continue to take robust action to protect the public from fraud and deliver security and resilience through the Plan for Change.

    Anyone who is worried about being a victim of fraud and wants to find out more about how to better stay protected, including understanding the tactics fraudsters use, should visit Stop! Think Fraud – How to stay safe from scams.

    Rachel Andrews, Head of Corporate Security at Vodafone UK, said:

    Vodafone UK is committed to protecting all our customers from fraud, including activity enabled by SIM farms. So far this year we have blocked over 38.5 million suspected scam messages, and in 2024 that figure reached over 73.5 million for the year.

    As an industry, UK telecoms operators have blocked more than 1 billion suspected scam messages since 2023. However, we cannot fully tackle fraud in isolation, collaboration between industry and government is crucial. This is a really important step taken by the Home Office and we fully support the inclusion of SIM farms in the upcoming legislation.

    We look forward to working together on this issue.

    Nick Sharp, Deputy Director for Fraud at the National Crime Agency, said:

    Fraud is the crime we are all most likely to experience, and one that causes victims significant emotional and financial harm.

    We know that fraud at scale is being facilitated by SIM farms, which give criminals a means and an opportunity to contact victims at scale with relative ease.

    The ban announced today is very welcome. It will give us a vital tool to step up our fight against fraudsters, target the services they rely on, and better protect the public.

    Updates to this page

    Published 24 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom

  • MIL-OSI Security: Dresden Man Sentenced to Federal Imprisonment for Possession of Firearms and Ammunition

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    Jackson, TN – A federal judge has sentenced Chapell Dain Cissell, 31, to ten years in federal prison for possession of several firearms and a large amount of ammunition. Joseph C. Murphy, Jr., Interim United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, announced the sentence today.

    According to the evidence presented in court, in March 2021, several deputies with the Weakley County Sheriff’s Department responded to Fast Eddie’s Bar in Dresden, Tennessee, after receiving a report of an assault in progress. Upon arrival, the deputies spoke with the victims who said that an individual, later identified as Cissell, drove a black SUV into the parking lot of the bar wearing a “bullet proof vest” and holding an assault rifle firearm. Cissell pointed the firearm at the three victims, threatened to kill them, and fled the parking lot.  

    Deputies later found Cissell wearing a ballistic vest while sitting inside a pickup truck, preparing to leave his residence. The deputies observed a wooden handle of a revolver sticking out of the top of the vest.  Deputies also found three firearms and several hundred rounds of ammunition either on Cissell or in the vehicle he was occupying. Cissell admitted that there were additional firearms in his residence. Three additional firearms and over two thousand rounds of various caliber ammunition were discovered after a search of Cissell’s residence.

    On April 11, 2025, United States District Court Judge J. Daniel Breen sentenced Cissell to 120 months in federal prison and 3 years of supervised release, the maximum term of imprisonment, after Cissell pled guilty to six counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. 

    There is no parole in the federal system.

    The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the Weakley County Sheriff’s Department investigated this case.

    Assistant United States Attorney Adam Davis prosecuted this case on behalf of the government.

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    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