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MIL-OSI Global: One year on from Alexei Navalny’s death, what is his legacy for Russia?
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ben Noble, Associate Professor of Russian Politics, UCL

A spontaneous memorial of flowers in St Petersburg, Russia, on the day of Alexei Navalny’s death, February 16 2024. Aleksey Dushutin/Shutterstock

This is the best day of the past five months for me … This is my home … I am not afraid of anything and I urge you not to be afraid of anything either.

These were Alexei Navalny’s words after landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on January 17 2021. Russia’s leading opposition figure had spent the past months recovering in Germany from an attempt on his life by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Minutes after making his comments, Navalny was detained at border control. And he would remain behind bars until his death on February 16 2024, in the remote “Polar Wolf” penal colony within the Arctic Circle.

“Why did he return to Russia?” That’s the question I’m asked about Navalny most frequently. Wasn’t it a mistake to return to certain imprisonment, when he could have maintained his opposition to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, from abroad?

But Navalny’s decision to return didn’t surprise me. I’ve researched and written about him extensively, including co-authoring Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?, the first English-language, book-length account of his life and political activities. Defying the Kremlin by returning was a signature move, reflecting both his obstinacy and bravery. He wanted to make sure his supporters and activists in Russia did not feel abandoned, risking their lives while he lived a cushy life in exile.

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Besides, Navalny wasn’t returning to certain imprisonment. A close ally of his, Vladimir Ashurkov, told me in May 2022 that his “incarceration in Russia was not a certainty. It was a probability, a scenario – but it wasn’t like he was walking into a certain long-term prison term.”

Also, Navalny hadn’t chosen to leave Russia in the first place. He was unconscious when taken by plane from Omsk to Berlin for treatment following his poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok in August 2020. Navalny had been consistent in saying he was a Russian politician who needed to remain in Russia to be effective.

In a subsequent interview, conducted in a forest on the outskirts of the German capital as he slowly recovered, Navalny said: “In people’s minds, if you leave the country, that means you’ve surrendered.”

Video: ACF.

Outrage, detention and death

Two days after Navalny’s final return to Russia, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) – the organisation he established in 2011 – published its biggest ever investigation. The YouTube video exploring “Putin’s palace” on the Black Sea coast achieved an extraordinary 100 million views within ten days. By the start of February 2021, polling suggested it had been watched by more than a quarter of all adults in Russia.

Outrage at Navalny’s detention, combined with this Putin investigation, got people on to the streets. On January 23 2021, 160,000 people turned out across Russia in events that did not have prior approval from the authorities. More than 40% of the participants said they were taking part in a protest for the first time.

But the Russian authorities were determined to also make it their last time. Law enforcement mounted an awesome display of strength, detaining protesters and sometimes beating them. The number of participants at protests on January 31 and February 2 declined sharply as a result.

Between Navalny’s return to Russia in January 2021 and his death in February 2024, aged 47, he faced criminal case after criminal case, adding years and years to his time in prison and increasing the severity of his detention. By the time of his death, he was in the harshest type of prison in the Russian penitentiary system – a “special regime” colony – and was frequently sent to a punishment cell.

The obvious intent was to demoralise Navalny, his team and supporters – making an example of him to spread fear among anyone else who might consider mounting a challenge to the Kremlin. But Navalny fought back, as described in his posthumously published memoir, Patriot. He made legal challenges against his jailers. He went on hunger strike. And he formed a union for his fellow prisoners.

He also used his court appearances to make clear his political views, including following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, declaring: “I am against this war. I consider it immoral, fratricidal, and criminal.”

Navalny’s final public appearance was via video link. He was in good spirits, with his trademark optimism and humour still on display. Tongue firmly in cheek, he asked the judge for financial help:

Your Honour, I will send you my personal account number so that you can use your huge salary as a federal judge to ‘warm up’ my personal account, because I am running out of money.

Navalny died the following day. According to the prison authorities, he collapsed after a short walk and lost consciousness. Although the Russian authorities claimed he had died of natural causes, documents published in September 2024 by The Insider – a Russia-focused, Latvia-based independent investigative website – suggest Navalny may have been poisoned.

A mourner adds her tribute to Alexei Navalny’s grave in Moscow after his burial on March 1 2024.
Aleksey Dushutin/Shutterstock

Whether or not Putin directly ordered his death, Russia’s president bears responsibility – for leading a system that tried to assassinate Navalny in August 2020, and for allowing his imprisonment following Navalny’s return to Russia in conditions designed to crush him.

Commenting in March 2024, Putin stated that, just days before Navalny’s death, he had agreed for his most vocal opponent to be included in a prisoner swap – on condition the opposition figure never returned to Russia. “But, unfortunately,” Putin added, “what happened, happened.”

‘No one will forget’

Putin is afraid of Alexei, even after he killed him.

Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s wife, wrote these words on January 10 2025 after reading a curious letter. His mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, had written to Rosfinmonitoring – a Russian state body – with a request for her son’s name to be removed from their list of “extremists and terrorists” now he was no longer alive.

The official response was straight from Kafka. Navalny’s name could not be removed as it had been added following the initiation of a criminal case against him. Even though he was dead, Rosfinmonitoring had not been informed about a termination of the case “in accordance with the procedure established by law”, so his name would have to remain.

This appears to be yet another instance of the Russian state exercising cruelty behind the veil of bureaucratic legality – such as when the prison authorities initially refused to release Navalny’s body to his mother after his death.

“Putin is doing this to scare you,” Yulia continued. “He wants you to be afraid to even mention Alexei, and gradually to forget his name. But no one will forget.”

Alexei Navalny and his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, at a protest rally in Moscow, May 2012.
Dmitry Laudin/Shutterstock

Today, Navalny’s family and team continue his work outside of Russia – and are fighting to keep his name alive back home. But the odds are against them. Polling suggests the share of Russians who say they know nothing about Navalny or his activities roughly doubled to 30% between his return in January 2021 and his death three years later.

Navalny fought against an autocratic system – and paid the price with his life. Given the very real fears Russians may have of voicing support for a man still labelled an extremist by the Putin regime, it’s not easy to assess what people there really think of him and his legacy. But we will also never know how popular Navalny would have been in the “normal” political system he fought for.

What made Navalny the force he was?

Navalny didn’t mean for the humble yellow rubber duck to become such a potent symbol of resistance.

In March 2017, the ACF published its latest investigation into elite corruption, this time focusing on then-prime minister (and former president), Dmitry Medvedev. Navalny’s team members had become masters of producing slick videos that enabled their message to reach a broad audience. A week after posting, the film had racked up over 7 million views on YouTube – an extraordinary number at that time.

The film included shocking details of Medvedev’s alleged avarice, including yachts and luxury properties. In the centre of a large pond in one of these properties was a duck house, footage of which was captured by the ACF using a drone.

Video: ACF.

Such luxuries jarred with many people’s view of Medvedev as being a bit different to Putin and his cronies. As Navalny wrote in his memoir, Medvedev had previously seemed “harmless and incongruous”. (At the time, Medvedev’s spokeswoman said it was “pointless” to comment on the ACF investigation, suggesting the report was a “propaganda attack from an opposition figure and a convict”.)

But people were angry, and the report triggered mass street protests across Russia. They carried yellow ducks and trainers, a second unintended symbol from the film given Medvedev’s penchant for them.

Another reason why so many people came out to protest on March 26 2017 was the organising work carried out by Navalny’s movement.

The previous December, Navalny had announced his intention to run in the 2018 presidential election. As part of the campaign, he and his team created a network of regional headquarters to bring together supporters and train activists across Russia. Although the authorities had rejected Navalny’s efforts to register an official political party, this regional network functioned in much the same way, gathering like-minded people in support of an electoral candidate. And this infrastructure helped get people out on the streets.

The Kremlin saw this as a clear threat. According to a December 2020 investigation by Bellingcat, CNN, Der Spiegel and The Insider, the FSB assassination squad implicated in the Novichok poisoning of Navalny had started trailing him in January 2017 – one month after he announced his run for the presidency.

Alexei Navalny on a Moscow street after having zelyonka dye thrown in his face, April 2017.
Evgeny Feldman via Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA

At the protests against Medvedev, the authorities’ growing intolerance of Navalny was also on display – he was detained, fined and sentenced to 15 days’ imprisonment.

The Medvedev investigation was far from the beginning of Navalny’s story as a thorn in the Kremlin’s side. But this episode brings together all of the elements that made Navalny the force he was: anti-corruption activism, protest mobilisation, attempts to run as a “normal” politician in a system rigged against him, and savvy use of social media to raise his profile in all of these domains.

Courting controversy

In Patriot, Navalny writes that he always “felt sure a broad coalition was needed to fight Putin”. Yet over the years, his attempts to form that coalition led to some of the most controversial points of his political career.

In a 2007 video, Navalny referred to himself as a “certified nationalist”, advocating for the deportation of illegal immigrants, albeit without using violence and distancing himself from neo-Nazism. In the video, he says: “We have the right to be Russians in Russia, and we’ll defend that right.”

Although alienating some, Navalny was attempting to present a more acceptable face of nationalism, and he hoped to build a bridge between nationalists and liberals in taking on the Kremlin’s burgeoning authoritarianism.

But the prominence of nationalism in Navalny’s political identity varied markedly over time, probably reflecting his shifting estimations of which platform could attract the largest support within Russia. By the time of his thwarted run in the 2018 presidential election, nationalist talking points were all but absent from his rhetoric.

However, some of these former comments and positions continue to influence how people view him. For example, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Navalny tried to take a pragmatic stance. While acknowledging Russia’s flouting of international law, he said that Crimea was “now part of the Russian Federation” and would “never become part of Ukraine in the foreseeable future”.

Many Ukrainians take this as clear evidence that Navalny was a Russian imperialist. Though he later revised his position, saying Crimea should be returned to Ukraine, some saw this as too little, too late. But others were willing to look past the more controversial parts of his biography, recognising that Navalny represented the most effective domestic challenge to Putin.

Another key attempt to build a broad political coalition was Navalny’s Smart Voting initiative. This was a tactical voting project in which Navalny’s team encouraged voters to back the individual thought best-placed to defeat the ruling United Russia candidate, regardless of the challenger’s ideological position.

The project wasn’t met with universal approval. Some opposition figures and voters baulked at, or flatly refused to consider, the idea of voting for people whose ideological positions they found repugnant – or whom they viewed as being “fake” opposition figures, entirely in bed with the authorities. (This makes clear that Navalny was never the leader of the political opposition in Russia; he was, rather, the leading figure of a fractious constellation of individuals and groups.)

But others relished the opportunity to make rigged elections work in their favour. And there is evidence that Smart Voting did sometimes work, including in the September 2020 regional and local elections, for which Navalny had been campaigning when he was poisoned with Novichok.

In an astonishing moment captured on film during his recovery in Germany, Navalny speaks to an alleged member of the FSB squad sent to kill him. Pretending to be the aide to a senior FSB official, Navalny finds out that the nerve agent had been placed in his underpants.

How do Russians feel about Navalny now?

It’s like a member of the family has died.

This is what one Russian friend told me after hearing of Navalny’s death a year ago. Soon afterwards, the Levada Center – an independent Russian polling organisation – conducted a nationally representative survey to gauge the public’s reaction to the news.

The poll found that Navalny’s death was the second-most mentioned event by Russian people that month, after the capture of the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka by Russian troops. But when asked how they felt about his death, 69% of respondents said they had “no particular feelings” either way – while only 17% said they felt “sympathy” or “pity”.

And that broadly fits with Navalny’s approval ratings in Russia. After his poisoning in 2020, 20% of Russians said they approved of his activities – but this was down to 11% by February 2024.

Video: BBC.

Of course, these numbers must be taken for what they are: polling in an authoritarian state regarding a figure vilified and imprisoned by the regime, during a time of war and amid draconian restrictions on free speech. To what extent the drop in support for Navalny was real, rather than reflecting the increased fear people had in voicing their approval for an anti-regime figure, is hard to say with certainty.

When asked why they liked Navalny, 31% of those who approved of his activities said he spoke “the truth”, “honestly” or “directly”. For those who did not approve of his activities, 22% said he was “paid by the west”, “represented” the west’s interests, that he was a “foreign agent”, a “traitor” or a “puppet”.

The Kremlin had long tried to discredit Navalny as a western-backed traitor. After Navalny’s 2020 poisoning, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that “experts from the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency are working with him”. The Russian state claimed that, rather than a patriot exposing official malfeasance with a view to strengthening his country, Navalny was a CIA stooge intent on destroying Russia.

Peskov provided no evidence to back up this claim – and the official propaganda wasn’t believed by all. Thousands of Russians defied the authorities by coming out to pay their respects at Navalny’s funeral on March 1 2024. Many, if not all, knew this was a significant risk. Police employed video footage to track down members of the funeral crowd, including by using facial recognition technology.

The first person to be detained was a Muscovite the police claimed they heard shouting “Glory to the heroes!” – a traditional Ukrainian response to the declaration “Glory to Ukraine!”, but this time referencing Navalny. She spent a night in a police station before being fined for “displaying a banned symbol”.

Putin always avoided mentioning Navalny’s name in public while he was alive – instead referring to him as “this gentleman”, “the character you mentioned”, or the “Berlin patient”. (The only recorded instance of Putin using Navalny’s name in public when he was alive was in 2013.)

However, having been re-elected president in 2024 and with Navalny dead, Putin finally broke his long-held practice, saying: “As for Navalny, yes he passed away – this is always a sad event.” It was as if the death of his nemesis diminished the potency of his name – and the challenge that Navalny had long presented to Putin.

Nobody can become another Navalny

Someone else will rise up and take my place. I haven’t done anything unique or difficult. Anyone could do what I’ve done.

So wrote Navalny in the memoir published after his death. But that hasn’t happened: no Navalny 2.0 has yet emerged. And it’s no real surprise. The Kremlin has taken clear steps to ensure nobody can become another Navalny within Russia.

In 2021, the authorities made a clear decision to destroy Navalny’s organisations within Russia, including the ACF and his regional network. Without the organisational infrastructure and legal ability to function in Russia, no figure has been able to take his place directly.

More broadly, the fate of Navalny and his movement has had a chilling effect on the opposition landscape. So too have other steps taken by the authorities.

Russia has become markedly more repressive since the start of its war on Ukraine. The human rights NGO First Department looked into the number of cases relating to “treason”, “espionage” and “confidential cooperation with a foreign state” since Russia introduced the current version of its criminal code in 1997. Of the more than 1,000 cases, 792 – the vast majority – were initiated following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russian law enforcement has also used nebulous anti-extremism and anti-terrorism legislation to crack down on dissenting voices. Three of Navalny’s lawyers were sentenced in January 2025 for participating in an “extremist organisation”, as the ACF was designated by a Moscow court in June 2021. The Russian legislature has also passed a barrage of legislation relating to so-called “foreign agents”, to tarnish the work of those the regime regards as foreign-backed “fifth columnists”.

Mass street protests are largely a thing of the past in Russia. Restrictions were placed on public gatherings during the COVID pandemic – but these rules were applied selectively, with opposition individuals and groups being targeted. And opportunities for collective action were further reduced following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Freedom of speech has also come under assault. Article 29, point five of the Russian constitution states: “Censorship shall be prohibited.” But in September 2024, Kremlin spokesperson Peskov said: “In the state of war that we are in, restrictions are justified, and censorship is justified.”

Legislation passed very soon after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine made it illegal to comment on the Russian military’s activities truthfully – and even to call the war a war.

YouTube – the platform so central to Navalny’s ability to spread his message – has been targeted. Without banning it outright – perhaps afraid of the public backlash this might cause – the Russian state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, has slowed down internet traffic to the site within Russia. The result has been a move of users to other websites supporting video content, including VKontakte – a Russian social media platform.

In short, conditions in Russia are very different now compared to when Navalny first emerged. The relative freedom of the 2000s and 2010s gave him the space to challenge the corruption and authoritarianism of an evolving system headed by Putin. But this space has shrunk over time, to the point where no room remains for a figure like him within Russia.

In 2019, Navalny told Ivan Zhdanov, who is now director of the ACF: “We changed the regime, but not in the way we wanted.” So, did Navalny and his team push the Kremlin to become more authoritarian – making it not only intolerant of him but also any possible successor?

There may be some truth in this. And yet, the drastic steps taken by the regime following the start of the war on Ukraine suggest there were other, even more significant factors that have laid bare the violent nature of Putin’s personal autocracy – and the president’s disdain for dissenters.

Plenty for Russians to be angry about

How can we win the war when dedushka [grandpa] is a moron?

In June 2023, Evgeny Prigozhin – a long-time associate of Putin and head of the private military Wagner Group – staged an armed rebellion, marching his forces on the Russian capital. This was not a full-blown political movement against Putin. But the target of Prigozhin’s invective against Russia’s military leadership had become increasingly blurry, testing the taboo of direct criticism of the president – who is sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as “grandpa” in Russia.

And Prigozhin paid the price. In August 2023, he was killed when the private jet he was flying in crashed after an explosion on board. Afterwards, Putin referred to Prigozhin as a “talented person” who “made serious mistakes in life”.

In the west, opposition to the Kremlin is often associated with more liberal figures like Navalny. Yet the most consequential domestic challenge to Putin’s rule came from a very different part of the ideological spectrum – a figure in Prigozhin leading a segment of Russian society that wanted the Kremlin to prosecute its war on Ukraine even more aggressively.

Video: BBC.

Today, there is plenty for Russians to be angry about, and Putin knows it. He recently acknowledged an “overheating of the economy”. This has resulted in high inflation, in part due to all the resources being channelled into supporting the war effort. Such cost-of-living concerns weigh more heavily than the war on the minds of most Russians.

A favourite talking point of the Kremlin is how Putin imposed order in Russia following the “wild 1990s” – characterised by economic turbulence and symbolised by then-president Boris Yeltsin’s public drunkenness. Many Russians attribute the stability and rise in living standards they experienced in the 2000s with Putin’s rule – and thank him for it by providing support for his continued leadership.

The current economic problems are an acute worry for the Kremlin because they jeopardise this basic social contract struck with the Russian people. In fact, one way the Kremlin tried to discredit Navalny was by comparing him with Yeltsin, suggesting he posed the same threats as a failed reformer. In his memoir, Navalny concedes that “few things get under my skin more”.

Although originally a fan of Yeltsin, Navalny became an ardent critic. His argument was that Yeltsin and those around him squandered the opportunity to make Russia a “normal” European country.

Navalny also wanted Russians to feel entitled to more. Rather than be content with their relative living standards compared with the early post-Soviet period, he encouraged them to imagine the level of wealth citizens could enjoy based on Russia’s extraordinary resources – but with the rule of law, less corruption, and real democratic processes.

‘Think of other possible Russias’

When looking at forms of criticism and dissent in Russia today, we need to distinguish between anti-war, anti-government, and anti-Putin activities.

Despite the risk of harsh consequences, there are daily forms of anti-war resistance, including arson attacks on military enlistment offices. Some are orchestrated from Ukraine, with Russians blackmailed into acting. But other cases are likely to be forms of domestic resistance.

Criticism of the government is still sometimes possible, largely because Russia has a “dual executive” system, consisting of a prime minister and presidency. This allows the much more powerful presidency to deflect blame to the government when things go wrong.

There are nominal opposition parties in Russia – sometimes referred to as the “systemic opposition”, because they are loyal to the Kremlin and therefore tolerated by the system. Within the State Duma, these parties often criticise particular government ministries for apparent failings. But they rarely, if ever, now dare criticise Putin directly.

Nothing anywhere close to the challenge presented by Navalny appears on the horizon in Russia – at either end of the political spectrum. But the presence of clear popular grievances, and the existence of organisations (albeit not Navalny’s) that could channel this anger should the Kremlin’s grip loosen, mean we cannot write off all opposition in Russia.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia, has vowed to continue her husband’s work. And his team in exile maintain focus on elite corruption in Russia, now from their base in Vilnius, Lithuania. The ACF’s most recent investigation is on Igor Sechin, CEO of the oil company Rosneft.

But some have argued this work is no longer as relevant as it was. Sam Greene, professor in Russian politics at King’s College London, captured this doubt in a recent Substack post:

[T]here is a palpable sense that these sorts of investigations may not be relevant to as many people as they used to be, given everything that has transpired since the mid-2010s, when they were the bread and butter of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Some … have gone as far as to suggest that they have become effectively meaningless … and thus that Team Navalny should move on.

Navalny’s team are understandably irritated by suggestions they’re no longer as effective as they once were. But it’s important to note that this criticism has often been sharpest within Russia’s liberal opposition. The ACF has been rocked, for example, by recent accusations from Maxim Katz, one such liberal opposition figure, that the organisation helped “launder the reputations” of two former bank owners. In their response, posted on YouTube, the ACF referred to Katz’s accusations as “lies” – but this continued squabbling has left some Russians feeling “disillusioned and unrepresented”.

So, what will Navalny’s long-term legacy be? Patriot includes a revealing section on Mikhail Gorbachev – the last leader of the Soviet Union, whom Navalny describes as “unpopular in Russia, and also in our family”. He continues:

Usually, when you tell foreigners this, they are very surprised, because Gorbachev is thought of as the person who gave Eastern Europe back its freedom and thanks to whom Germany was reunited. Of course, that is true … but within Russia and the USSR he was not particularly liked.

At the moment, there is a similar split in perceptions of Navalny. Internationally, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, and a documentary about him won an Oscar.

But there are also those outside of Russia who remain critical: “Navalny’s life has brought no benefit to the Ukrainian victory; instead, he has caused considerable harm,” wrote one Ukrainian academic. “He fuelled the illusion in the west that democracy in Russia is possible.”

Trailer for the Oscar-winning documentary Navalny.

Inside Russia, according to Levada Center polling shortly after his death, 53% of Russians thought Navalny played “no special role” in the history of the country, while 19% said he played a “rather negative” role. Revealingly, when commenting on Navalny’s death, one man in Moscow told RFE/RL’s Russian Service: “I think that everyone who is against Russia is guilty, even if they are right.”

But, for a small minority in Russia, Navalny will go down as a messiah-like figure who miraculously cheated death in 2020, then made the ultimate sacrifice in his battle of good and evil with the Kremlin. This view may have been reinforced by Navalny’s increasing openness about his Christian faith.

Ultimately, Navalny’s long-term status in Russia will depend on the nature of the political system after Putin has gone. Since it seems likely that authoritarianism will outlast Putin, a more favourable official story about Navalny is unlikely to emerge any time soon. However, how any post-Putin regime tries to make sense of Navalny’s legacy will tell us a lot about that regime.

While he was alive, Navalny stood for the freer Russia in which he had emerged as a leading opposition figure – and also what he called the “Beautiful Russia of the Future”. Perhaps, after his death, his lasting legacy in Russia remains the ability for some to think – if only in private – of other possible Russias.

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Ben Noble has previously received funding from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. He is an Associate Fellow of Chatham House.

– ref. One year on from Alexei Navalny’s death, what is his legacy for Russia? – https://theconversation.com/one-year-on-from-alexei-navalnys-death-what-is-his-legacy-for-russia-249692
MIL OSI – Global Reports –
February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Travelling Gallery returns with new exhibition
Source: Scotland – City of Edinburgh

Travelling Gallery is delighted to be partnering with the University of St Andrews this February to present the exhibition Between Women.
The exhibition features the work of Franki Raffles, Sylvia Grace Borda, Sandra George, Carolyn Scott and Niu Weiyu.

Between Women takes images made by the photographer Franki Raffles from her base in Edinburgh during the 1980s and 1990s as a starting point to explore relationships between gender, labour, education, care and activism in documentary photography since the 1950s in Scotland and internationally. Raffles’ photographs will appear alongside images by Sylvia Grace Borda, Sandra George, Carolyn Scott and Niu Weiyu which together illuminate how gender is produced and reproduced through workplaces, housing, healthcare, and particularly schools, playgrounds and nurseries, across urban and rural landscapes.

In examining the relationships and power structures between women, this exhibition takes inspiration from two projects by Raffles. The first is a trip Raffles made in 1984–85 to the Soviet Union and Asia, including an extended period in China, during which her concern with women at work crystallised. The second, Picturing Women, was part of a 1988–89 educational initiative organised by Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, aimed at helping young people analyse photographs, for which Raffles studied the working relationships between women at a school. These two projects provide a framework through which connections and comparisons with Niu Weiyu, Carolyn Scott, Sandra George and Sylvia Grace Borda’s photographs emerge.

One of the few women photographers to gain professional recognition in twentieth-century China, Niu worked for state-run media organisations and produced a large number of photographs that portray women’s roles as workers throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Carolyn Scott’s documentary photographs images of children and families in Newcastle’s Rye Hill area where she lived between 1967-68 observe the relationships and socialisation forged through play, but also the effects of deindustrialisation on the community. Sandra George’s photographs of Edinburgh during the 1980s and 1990s attest to the importance of community educational groups and spaces in activism and organising, alongside public demonstrations and gatherings. Sylvia Grace Borda’s studies of schools, leisure centres and nurseries in the New Town of East Kilbride reflect on the complex legacies of post-1945 Welfare State architecture from the perspective of the early 2000s.

Together, these photographs highlight the possibilities for solidarity between women in sites and spaces spanning the local and the global, but also the importance of recognising differences and intersectional identities that account for the constructs of gender, sexuality, race, disability and class in activism and organising.

Launching in Edinburgh at the Community Wellbeing Centre on Monday 17 February from 11am to 5pm, the exhibition will tour throughout the week visiting the following locations:

Tuesday 18 February, 10am – 4pm – Glasgow Women’s Library

Wednesday 19 February, 10am – 4pm – Dundee International Women’s Centre

Thursday 20 February, 10am – 4pm – Fluthers Car Park, Cupar

Friday 21 February, 10am – 4pm – East Sands Leisure Centre, St Andrews

Between Women is curated by Vivian K. Sheng and Catherine Spencer, with support from the University of St Andrews Impact and Innovation Fund.

Culture and Communities Convener, Councillor Val Walker said:

It’s brilliant to see the Travelling Gallery return for 2025.

It’s crucial that art and culture is as accessible to as many people as possible. I’m proud that through our ongoing support of the Travelling Gallery, and the recent increased Creative Scotland investment, art is brought straight into the hearts of towns and cities across Scotland. I hope everyone takes the opportunity to visit the exhibition, bringing together work which illuminates how gender is produced and reproduced through workplaces.

Here in Edinburgh, we’re clear that that our residents should be able to easily access a variety of cultural activities, and this exhibition brings art closer to people’s communities.

Louise Briggs, Curator, Travelling Gallery said:

We’re delighted to be working with Vivian, Catherine, and the University of St Andrews to present this exhibition. We’re looking forward to discussing the work of each artist with our visitors, who we believe will have their own stories and experiences to share that chime with many of the references (and local sites) found in the work on display.”

With thanks to the University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums, Edinburgh Napier University, Franki Raffles Estate, Craigmillar Now, Gaofan Photography Museum, Sylvia Grace Borda and Carolyn Scott.

Travelling Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in a bus. Since 1978 it has been bringing exhibitions to communities throughout Scotland. We recognise that art can change lives and we create fair conditions and remove barriers to allow access and engagement to audiences in their own familiar surroundings. The gallery space offers an open and welcoming environment for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities to discover and enjoy contemporary art. Over the past forty years, Travelling Gallery has brought innovative exhibitions to every part of Scotland reaching hundreds of thousands of visitors and school pupils. Travelling Gallery is a ‘not for profit’ organisation, regularly funded by Creative Scotland and supported by the City of Edinburgh Council.

For more information, please vist the Travelling Gallery website.

The gallery has ramp access for wheelchairs; hearing loop and will have large print format exhibition interpretation.

Artist Biographies

Sylvia Grace Borda is an artist working with photography, net art, video installation, and eco-art, who has undertaken projects in Canada, Finland, Northern Ireland, Latvia, Scotland, Ethiopia and Taiwan. Her artwork is concerned with establishing systems of public understanding that underpin literacy, advocacy, and action to conserve the built and natural environments. In Scotland, she focused on New Town architecture in EK Modernism (2005–10) and A Holiday in Glenrothes (2008), and created an edible photo artwork, the Lumsden Biscuit (2016–17). Her roles at Queen’s University Belfast (2008–10); University of Salford (2011), and University of Stirling (2012–15) have focused on visual arts and social histories, digital engagement and innovation. In 2023, she received the Mozilla Foundation Rise 25 award in recognition of her transformative media arts practice to democratize the web for communities. Exhibitions include National Galleries of Scotland, RIAS, Street Level Photoworks, and The Lighthouse, Glasgow.

Sandra George (1957–2013) was an Edinburgh-based social documentary photographer, multi-disciplinary artist, and a community worker in Craigmillar. George studied Photography at Napier University, Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, and Community Education at The University of Edinburgh. For over 30 years she worked extensively as a freelance photographer for organisations and publications including the Sentinel, Tollcross Community Newspaper, Shelter, Craigmillar Festival News, and Craigmillar Chronicle, and taught photography and art to communities across Edinburgh. She started working in community development in Wester Hailes in the 1980s, and in Craigmillar from the 1990s, and was an integral member of initiatives including McGovan house, the Thistle Foundation, and the Craigmillar Arts Centre. Alongside a commitment to community work, anti-racism and social justice, George’s photographs document children at play and their educational and leisure environments. George’s archive is held at Craigmillar Now, a community-led arts and heritage organisation in Craigmillar.

Franki Raffles (1955–1994) was a feminist photographer specialising in social documentary. Raffles studied philosophy at the University of St Andrews from 1973–1977, where she was an active member of the Women’s Liberation Movement. After experimenting with photography while living on the Isle of Lewis, she moved to Edinburgh in 1983, and started documenting women at work, as well as organising and campaigning. Raffles frequently collaborated with Edinburgh District Council’s Women’s Committee, including on the project To Let You Understand: Women’s Working Lives in Edinburgh (1989) Zero Tolerance campaign against domestic violence in the early 1990s. She travelled widely throughout her career, including extended trips to Asia and the Soviet Union. Raffles’ work is currently the focus of a major exhibition Franki Raffles: Photography, Activism, Campaign Works at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. Her archive is held at the University of St Andrews.

Carolyn Scott is an artist working in photography, film and installation. She was raised in Edinburgh and now lives in Cupar, Fife. Carolyn lived in the Rye Hill district of Newcastle Upon Tyne in the late 1960s where, in the spring and early summer of 1968, using a twin-lens Rollieflex camera, she photographed the immediate area in which she lived. Her Rye Hill Social Documentary Photography Collection images were unseen for nearly 40 years until she revisited them during her studies at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee University, where she received a BA and MFA. Carolyn’s work has been shown in the Cupar Arts Festival, St Andrews Photography Festival, Royal Scottish Academy and The Centre for Theology and Inquiry, Princeton. The Rye Hill Social Documentary Photography Collection is now held at the University of St Andrews.

Niu Weiyu (牛畏予) (1927–2020) worked as a photojournalist and photographer for North China Pictorial, Southwest Pictorial, and the News Photography Bureau. She later joined the Xinhua News Agency, where she worked for various branches from the 1950s to the 1980s. Weiyu was one of the few women photographers during this period, who were often assigned to feature women workers, such as the first women pilots, as well as public figures and officials in the Chinese Communist Party, and she travelled extensively throughout her career.

Vivian K. Sheng is an art historian working on contemporary Chinese and East Asian art in transnational contexts and an assistant professor in contemporary art at the University of Hong Kong. In Fall 2022, she was a Global Fellow hosted by the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews. Her research investigates the intricate interrelations between women, domesticity and art practices in contexts of ever more intensified cross-border movements and exchanges, provoking reflections on notions of identity, home and belonging beyond the territorial fixity of natio-state. Relevant issues are explored in her forthcoming monograph book— The Arts of Homemaking: Women, Migration and Transnational East Asia. Her writings have appeared in ASAP/Journal, Art Journal, PARSE Journal,Third Text, Sculpture Journal, Yishu and INDEX JOURNAL.

Catherine Spencer is an art historian at the University of St Andrews. She is currently working on a book entitled Abstract Subjects: Art, Borders and ‘Britain’, and co-editing Grassroots Artmaking: Political Struggle and Activist Art in the UK, 1960–Present with Maryam Ohadi-Hamadani and Amy Tobin (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). Her writing on Franki Raffles has been published in Art History (2022) and the catalogue for the 2024–5 exhibition Franki Raffles: Photography, Activism, Campaign Works at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. In 2021, she co-curated Life Support: Forms of Care in Art and Activism with Caroline Gausden, Kirsten Lloyd, and Nat Raha at Glasgow Women’s Library. Her essays have appeared in Art History, Art Journal, ARTMargins, Tate Papers, Parallax and Oxford Art Journal.
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Australia: European Commission Approves CSL and Arcturus Therapeutics’ KOSTAIVE®, the First Self-amplifying mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine

Source: CLS Limited

European Commission Approves CSL and Arcturus Therapeutics’ KOSTAIVE®, the First Self-amplifying mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine

– KOSTAIVE represents a significant advancement in vaccine technology, demonstrating superior immunogenicity and antibody persistence for up to 12 months post-vaccination compared to conventional mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in clinical trials

WALTHAM, Mass. and SAN DIEGO, Feb. 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Global biotechnology leader CSL (ASX: CSL; USOTC: CSLLY) and sa-mRNA pioneer Arcturus Therapeutics (Nasdaq: ARCT) today announced that the European Commission has granted marketing authorization for KOSTAIVE ^® (ARCT-154), a self-amplifying mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, for individuals 18 years and older. KOSTAIVE is the first sa-mRNA COVID-19 vaccine to receive approval from the European Commission (EC). KOSTAIVE is currently marketed in Japan against COVID-19.

The European Commission approval follows a positive opinion adopted by the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on December 12, 2024. The centralized marketing authorization of KOSTAIVE is valid in all EU member states and in the EEA countries.

“The European Commission’s approval marks a significant milestone in our ongoing development program for KOSTAIVE,” said Jonathan Edelman, MD, Senior Vice President of the Vaccines Innovation Unit, CSL. “We are actively working to optimize KOSTAIVE’s formulation to better meet the needs of healthcare professionals and their patients. As COVID-19 remains an unpredictable global threat, CSL is dedicated to completing these technical enhancements and making this innovative vaccine available in Europe as soon as possible.”

The approval is based on positive clinical data from several studies, including an integrated phase 1/2/3 study demonstrating KOSTAIVE’s efficacy and tolerability, and Phase 3 COVID-19 booster trials, which achieved higher immunogenicity results compared to a conventional mRNA COVID-19 vaccine comparator. A follow-up analysis evaluating a booster dose of KOSTAIVE also showed that the vaccine elicited superior immunogenicity and antibody persistence for up to 12 months post-vaccination against multiple SARS-CoV-2 strains in both younger and older adult age groups versus the same mRNA comparator.

“KOSTAIVE and sa-mRNA technology signify a major advancement in vaccine innovation, providing the potential for broader and more enduring protection,” said Joseph Payne, CEO of Arcturus. “This approval highlights the clinical promise of KOSTAIVE and its ability to protect against the ever-changing COVID-19 virus.”

About sa-mRNA
mRNA vaccines help protect against infectious diseases by providing a blueprint for cells in the body to make a protein to help our immune systems recognize and fight the disease. Unlike standard mRNA vaccines, self-amplifying mRNA vaccines instruct the body to make more mRNA and protein to boost the immune response.

About CSL
CSL (ASX: CSL; USOTC: CSLLY) is a global biotechnology company with a dynamic portfolio of lifesaving medicines, including those that treat haemophilia and immune deficiencies, vaccines to prevent influenza, and therapies in iron deficiency and nephrology. Since our start in 1916, we have been driven by our promise to save lives using the latest technologies. Today, CSL – including our three businesses: CSL Behring, CSL Seqirus and CSL Vifor – provides lifesaving products to patients in more than 100 countries and employs 32,000 people. Our unique combination of commercial strength, R&D focus and operational excellence enables us to identify, develop and deliver innovations so our patients can live life to the fullest. For inspiring stories about the promise of biotechnology, visit CSLBehring.com/Vita and follow us on Twitter.com/CSL.

For more information about CSL, visit www.CSL.com.

About Arcturus
Founded in 2013 and based in San Diego, California, Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: ARCT) is a commercial mRNA medicines and vaccines company with enabling technologies: (i) LUNAR® lipid-mediated delivery, (ii) STARR® mRNA Technology (sa-mRNA) and (iii) mRNA drug substance along with drug product manufacturing expertise. Arcturus developed KOSTAIVE®, the first self-amplifying messenger RNA (sa-mRNA) COVID vaccine in the world to be approved. Arcturus has an ongoing global collaboration for innovative mRNA vaccines with CSL Seqirus, and a joint venture in Japan, ARCALIS, focused on the manufacture of mRNA vaccines and therapeutics. Arcturus’ pipeline includes RNA therapeutic candidates to potentially treat ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency and cystic fibrosis (CF), along with its partnered mRNA vaccine programs for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and influenza. Arcturus’ versatile RNA therapeutics platforms can be applied toward multiple types of nucleic acid medicines including messenger RNA, small interfering RNA, circular RNA, antisense RNA, self-amplifying RNA, DNA, and gene editing therapeutics. Arcturus’ technologies are covered by its extensive patent portfolio (over 400 patents and patent applications in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, and other countries). For more information, visit www.ArcturusRx.com. In addition, please connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties for purposes of the safe harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements, other than statements of historical fact included in this press release, are forward-looking statements, including those regarding strategy, future operations, the likelihood of success (including safety, efficacy and commercialization) of KOSTAIVE, the likelihood that clinical results received to date will be predictive of future clinical results of protection against changing virus variants, the likelihood of optimizing KOSTAIVE’s formulation and completing technical enhancements, and the impact of general business and economic conditions. Arcturus may not actually achieve the plans, carry out the intentions or meet the expectations or projections disclosed in any forward-looking statements such as the foregoing and you should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. These statements are only current predictions or expectations, and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our or our industry’s actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements, including those discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in Arcturus’ most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, and in subsequent filings with, or submissions to, the SEC, which are available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Except as otherwise required by law, Arcturus disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise.

CSL Media Contacts:
Sue Thorn, CSL
Mobile : +1 617-799-3151
Email: Sue.Thorn@cslbehring.com

Em Dekonor, CSL Seqirus
Mobile: +44 (0)7920500496
Email: Emmanuella.Dekonor@seqirus.com

In Australia:
Jimmy Baker, CSL
Mobile: +61 450 909 211
Email: Jimmy.Baker@csl.com.au

Investor Inquiries:
Chris Cooper, CSL
Mobile: +61 455 022 740
Email: Chris.Cooper@csl.com.au

Arcturus Media Contact:
Public Relations & Investor Relations
Neda Safarzadeh
VP, Head of IR/PR/Marketing
(858) 900-2682
IR@ArcturusRx.com

SOURCE CSL

MIL OSI News –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Police name victim of fatal Ealing stabbing and appeal for witnesses to come forward

Source: United Kingdom London Metropolitan Police

The victim of a fatal stabbing in Ealing has been named – as detectives continue to appeal for witnesses.

Police were called at around 22:15hrs on Monday, 10 February, to the Grosvenor pub in Oaklands Road, Hanwell, to reports that a man had stumbled into the pub with serious injuries.

Officers attended the scene alongside London Ambulance Service crews, and found 33-year-old Dariusz Serafin there with a several knife wounds. Despite the efforts of paramedics, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Homicide detectives are carrying out extensive enquiries to establish the circumstances of the incident. There have not been any arrests.

Detective Chief Inspector Alison Foxwell, from the Met’s Specialist Crime unit, said: “We are making good progress with our investigation, and a number of leads are being followed up.

“Our enquiries thus far lead us to believe that the stabbing took place in the vicinity of Sydney Road junction with Regina Road. Although this is a predominantly residential area, its proximity to The Broadway – and a number of shops, pubs and restaurants still open at the time of the incident – leads us to believe there will have been witnesses who may have seen or heard something.

“We urge anyone with information to contact us urgently. There may also be CCTV, ring doorbell or dash cam footage which may be relevant to the investigation.

“We urge anybody who was in the area to check their footage from between 20.30hrs and 22.30hrs on Monday, 10 February, and to notify the police if they believe they have captured anything which may assist our investigation.”

The victim’s family are being supported by specialists. In a statement, they said: “Dariusz, known for his boundless empathy and loving spirit for people and animals, touched everyone he met with his kindness and compassion. His presence will be deeply missed, but his memory will live on in the hearts of those he loved.

“In his honour, his family urges everyone to help end senseless knife crime in the streets of London, and to assist in bringing the person responsible for his death to justice. Rest peacefully, Dariusz.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact 101 or ‘X’ @MetCC, quoting CAD 7176/10FEB25. You can also provide information anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Information can also be provided directly to police via an online portal.

MIL Security OSI –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: CMS Announcement on Federal Navigator Program Funding

Source: US Department of Health and Human Services

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced a reduction in funding for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Navigator program to $10 million. The savings from this reduction will allow the Federally-facilitated Exchanges (FFEs) to focus on more effective strategies that improve Exchange outcomes and to reduce the user fee in future years, which would translate into a reduction in premium. This change will directly benefit people enrolled without subsidies who pay the full premium for their health insurance. In addition, lower premiums will reduce the burden on hardworking American taxpayers who fund the premium subsidies through the FFEs.

MIL OSI USA News –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Midland DTO Leader Sentenced to Life in Federal Prison

Source: Office of United States Attorneys

MIDLAND, Texas – A Mexican national unlawfully residing in Texas was sentenced Thursday to life in federal prison for his criminal actions as the leader of a drug trafficking organization tied to a Mexican cartel.

According to court documents, Jose Ramon Castillo-Lopez aka “Pepo,” 30, of Namiquipa, Chihuahua, Mexico, supplied a co-conspirator with a firearm, along with methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl “M30” pills for distribution purposes. Castillo-Lopez also utilized a garage in Midland to disassemble stolen vehicles as load vehicles used to transport illicit drugs and money.

On Oct. 1, 2022, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents learned that Castillo-Lopez had been arrested and charged with attempted capital murder for allegedly shooting a Seminole, Texas police officer. Through a review of his phone calls in the Gaines County Jail, DEA agents confirmed that Castillo-Lopez was the leader of a United States-based DTO, working directly with his counterpart on the Mexican side of the organization. Additionally, Castillo-Lopez had instructed in detail two co-defendants, his girlfriend Myra Mendez and her brother Aaron Mendez, to take over the DTO operations in the United States.

Castillo-Lopez was responsible for the distribution of 100-300 pounds of actual methamphetamine per month, more than 20 kgs of cocaine, and several hundred grams of fentanyl M-30 pills and heroin. Additionally, Castillo-Lopez was responsible for telling the Mexican side of the DTO how much and what types of narcotics were needed for distribution, the collection of narcotics proceeds, and he ensured distribution occurred in Midland/Odessa, San Antonio, Amarillo, San Angelo and throughout the state of Mississippi.

Castillo-Lopez pleaded guilty on Sept. 23, 2024, to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of actual methamphetamine and 5 kgs or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine.

“This federal life sentence is a significant victory for the United States in combatting the Mexican cartels and their drug trafficking organizations,” said U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas. “Castillo-Lopez was responsible for orchestrating the movement of massive amounts of dangerous narcotics into our country and through our communities. This case is a testament to the dedication and expertise of our federal, state and local law enforcement partners. Together, we prioritize the safety of Americans and will bring the full force of justice to criminal organizations.”

“Mr. Castillo-Lopez now has a lifetime to contemplate the terrible choices he made,” said Towanda R. Thorne-James, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA’s El Paso Division. “He willingly put the lives of Texans and Mississippians at risk and now he’s facing the consequences. The men and women of the DEA will continue to bring other drug traffickers like him to their own day of reckoning.”

The DEA investigated the case with valuable assistance from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Midland Sheriff’s Office, Odessa Police Department and the Midland Police Department.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Sloane prosecuted the case.

###

MIL Security OSI –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: ‘Emilia Pérez’ was nominated for 13 Oscars. Why do so many people hate it?

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Alejandra Marquez Guajardo, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Michigan State University

Going by recent media coverage, you wouldn’t be remiss for assuming it had been nominated for a slew of Golden Raspberries. Netflix

French director Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” first made waves among critics at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, when it won multiple awards. It went on to receive 10 Golden Globe nominations, winning four, including best musical or comedy.

“It is so beautiful to see a movie that is cinema,” gushed Mexican director Guillermo del Toro. Another Mexican filmmaker, Issa López, who directed “True Detective: Night Country,” called it a “masterpiece,” adding that Audiard portrayed issues of gender and violence in Latin America “better than any Mexican facing this issue at this time.”

The film is a musical about a Mexican drug lord named Manitas del Monte, played by trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón. Del Monte hires a lawyer to facilitate her long-awaited gender transition. After her surgery, she fakes her death with her lawyer’s help and sends her wife, Jessi, played by Selena Gómez, and their children to Switzerland. Four years later, Manitas – now known as Emilia Pérez – tries to reunite with her family by posing as Manitas’ distant cousin.

So why is it bombing among Mexican moviegoers?

Modest research into a ‘modest’ language

As a scholar of gender and sexuality in Latin America, I study LGBTQ+ representation in media, particularly in Mexico. So it’s been interesting to follow the negative reaction to a film that critics claim has broken new ground in exploring themes of gender, sexuality and violence in Mexico.

Many of the film’s perceived errors seem self-inflicted.

Audiard admitted that he didn’t do much research on Mexico before and during the filming process. And even though he doesn’t speak Spanish, he chose to use a Spanish script and film the movie in Spanish.

Jacques Audiard speaks during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Feb. 10, 2025.
Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images for Santa Barbara International Film Festival

The director told French media outlet Konbini that he chose to make the film in Spanish because it is a language “of modest countries, developing countries, of poor people and migrants.”

Not surprisingly, an early critique of the film centered on its Spanish: It uses some Mexican slang words, but they’re spoken in ways that sound unnatural to native speakers. Then there’s the film’s overreliance on clichés that border on racism, perhaps most egregiously when Emilia’s child sings that she smells of “mezcal and guacamole.”

Of course, an artist need not belong to a culture in order to depict or explore it in their work. Filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein and Luis Buñuel became renowned figures in Mexican cinema despite being born in Latvia and Spain, respectively.

When choosing to explore sensitive topics, however, it is important to take into account the perspective of those being portrayed, both for accuracy’s sake and as a form of respect. Take Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The director collaborated with members of the Osage nation to further the film’s historical and cultural accuracy.

Glossing over the nuance

“Emilia Pérez” centers on how violence stems from the corruption prevalent in Mexico. Multiple musical numbers denounce the collusion between authorities and criminals.

This is certainly true. But to many Mexicans, it feels like an oversimplification of the issue.

The film fails to acknowledge the confluence of factors behind the country’s violence, such as U.S. demand for illegal drugs stemming from its opioid crisis, or the role that American guns play in Mexico’s violence.

Professor and journalist Oswaldo Zavala, who has written extensively about Mexican cartels, argues that the film perpetuates the idea that Latin American countries are solely to blame for the violence of drug trafficking. Furthermore, Zavala contends that this perspective reinforces the narrative that the U.S.-Mexico border needs to be militarized.

The musical features few male characters; the ones who do appear are invariably violent, and this includes Manitas before undergoing their transition. The cruelty of Manitas contrasts with Emilia’s kindness: She helps the “madres buscadoras,” which are the Mexican collectives made up of mothers searching for missing loved ones presumed to be kidnapped or killed by organized crime. One of these collectives, Colectivo de Víctimas del 10 de Marzo, criticized the film for depicting groups like theirs as recipients of money from organized crime and beneficiaries of luxurious galas attended by politicians and celebrities.

The group’s leader, Delia Quiroa, announced that the group would send a letter to the academy to express its condemnation of the film.

Members of the Madres Buscadoras de Sonora search for the remains of missing persons on the outskirts of Hermosillo, a city in northwestern Mexico, in 2021.
Alfred Estrella/AFP via Getty Images

Backlash on multiple fronts

These political and cultural blind spots have spurred a backlash among Mexican moviegoers.

When the movie premiered in Mexico in January 2025, it bombed at the box office, with some viewers demanding refunds. Mexico’s Federal Consumer Protection Agency had to intervene after the movie chain Cinépolis refused to honor its satisfaction-guarantee policy.

Mexican writer Jorge Volpi called the movie “one of the crudest and most deceitful films of the 21st century.”

Trans content creator Camila Aurora playfully parodied “Emilia Pérez” in her short film “Johanne Sacrebleu.” In scenes filled with stereotypical French symbols such as croissants and berets, it tells the story of an heiress who falls in love with a member of her family’s business rivals.

While some viewers have nonetheless praised “Emilia Pérez” for its nuanced portrayal of trans women and the casting of a trans actress, the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD described it as “a step backward for trans representation.”

One point of contention is the musical number Emilia sings, “medio ella, medio él,” or “half she, half he,” which insinuates that trans people are stuck between two genders. The movie also seems to portray the character’s transition as a tool for deception.

A social media viper pit

Meanwhile, Gascón’s historic nominations as the first trans actress recognized by the Oscars and other awards have been overshadowed by her controversial statements.

She made headlines when she accused associates of Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres of disparaging her work. Torres is also an Oscar nominee for best actress.

Gascón’s historic nomination for best actress has been overshadowed by sniping on social media.
Yamak Perea/ Pixelnews/Future Publishing via Getty Images

The latest controversy began in late January 2025 when Gascón’s old social media posts resurfaced. The now-deleted messages included attacks on Muslims in Spain and a post calling co-star Selena Gómez a “rich rat,” which Gascón has denied writing.

“Emilia Pérez” is limping into the Oscars. Netflix and Audiard have distanced themselves from Gascón to try to preserve the film’s prospects at the annual Academy Awards ceremony.

It could be too little too late.

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

– ref. ‘Emilia Pérez’ was nominated for 13 Oscars. Why do so many people hate it? – https://theconversation.com/emilia-perez-was-nominated-for-13-oscars-why-do-so-many-people-hate-it-248297

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Eric Nost, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Guelph

Government scientists at NOAA collect and provide crucial public information about coastal conditions that businesses, individuals and other scientists rely on. NOAA’s National Ocean Service

Information on the internet might seem like it’s there forever, but it’s only as permanent as people choose to make it.

That’s apparent as the second Trump administration “floods the zone” with efforts to dismantle science agencies and the data and websites they use to communicate with the public. The targets range from public health and demographics to climate science.

We are a research librarian and policy scholar who belong to a network called the Public Environmental Data Partners, a coalition of nonprofits, archivists and researchers who rely on federal data in our analysis, advocacy and litigation and are working to ensure that data remains available to the public.

In just the first three weeks of Trump’s term, we saw agencies remove access to at least a dozen climate and environmental justice analysis tools. The new administration also scrubbed the phrase “climate change” from government websites, as well as terms like “resilience.”

Here’s why and how Public Environmental Data Partners and others are making sure that the climate science the public depends on is available forever:

Why government websites and data matter

The internet and the availability of data are necessary for innovation, research and daily life.

Climate scientists analyze NASA satellite observations and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather records to understand changes underway in the Earth system, what’s causing them and how to protect the climates that economies were built on. Other researchers use these sources alongside Census Bureau data to understand who is most affected by climate change. And every day, people around the world log onto the Environmental Protection Agency’s website to learn how to protect themselves from hazards — and to find out what the government is or isn’t doing to help.

If the data and tools used to understand complex data are abruptly taken off the internet, the work of scientists, civil society organizations and government officials themselves can grind to a halt. The generation of scientific data and analysis by government scientists is also crucial. Many state governments run environmental protection and public health programs that depend on science and data collected by federal agencies.

Removing information from government websites also makes it harder for the public to effectively participate in key processes of democracy, including changes to regulations. When an agency proposes to repeal a rule, for example, it is required to solicit comments from the public, who often depend on government websites to find information relevant to the rule.

And when web resources are altered or taken offline, it breeds mistrust in both government and science. Government agencies have collected climate data, conducted complex analyses, provided funding and hosted data in a publicly accessible manner for years. People around the word understand climate change in large part because of U.S. federal data. Removing it deprives everyone of important information about their world.

Bye-bye data?

The first Trump administration removed discussions of climate change and climate policies widely across government websites. However, in our research with the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative over those first four years, we didn’t find evidence that datasets had been permanently deleted.

The second Trump administration seems different, with more rapid and pervasive removal of information.

In response, groups involved in Public Environmental Data Partners have been archiving climate datasets our community has prioritized, uploading copies to public repositories and cataloging where and how to find them if they go missing from government websites.

Most federal agencies decreased their use of the phrase ‘climate change’ on websites during the first Trump administration, 2017-2020.
Eric Nost, et al., 2021, CC BY

As of Feb. 13, 2025, we hadn’t seen the destruction of climate science records. Many of these data collection programs, such as those at NOAA or EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, are required by Congress. However, the administration had limited or eliminated access to a lot of data.

Maintaining tools for understanding climate change

We’ve seen a targeted effort to systematically remove tools like dashboards that summarize and visualize the social dimensions of climate change. For instance, the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool mapped low-income and other marginalized communities that are expected to experience severe climate changes, such as crop losses and wildfires. The mapping tool was taken offline shortly after Trump’s first set of executive orders.

Most of the original data behind the mapping tool, like the wildfire risk predictions, is still available, but is now harder to find and access. But because the mapping tool was developed as an open-source project, we were able to recreate it.

Preserving websites for the future

In some cases, entire webpages are offline. For instance, the page for the 25-year-old Climate Change Center at the Department of Transportation doesn’t exist anymore. The link just sends visitors back to the department’s homepage.

Other pages have limited access. For instance, EPA hasn’t yet removed its climate change pages, but it has removed “climate change” from its navigation menu, making it harder to find those pages.

During Donald Trump’s first week back in office, the Department of Transportation removed its Climate Change Center webpage.
Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Fortunately, our partners at the End of Term Web Archive have captured snapshots of millions of government webpages and made them accessible through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The group has done this after each administration since 2008.

If you’re looking at a webpage and you think it should include a discussion of climate change, use the “changes” tool“ in the Wayback Machine to check if the language has been altered over time, or navigate to the site’s snapshots of the page before Trump’s inauguration.

What you can do

You can also find archived climate and environmental justice datasets and tools on the Public Environmental Data Partners website. Other groups are archiving datasets linked in the Data.gov data portal and making them findable in other locations.

Individual researchers are also uploading datasets in searchable repositories like OSF, run by the Center for Open Science.

If you are worried that certain data currently still available might disappear, consult this checklist from MIT Libraries. It provides steps for how you can help safeguard federal data.

Narrowing the knowledge sphere

What’s unclear is how far the administration will push its attempts to remove, block or hide climate data and science, and how successful it will be.

Already, a federal district court judge has ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s removal of access to public health resources that doctors rely on was harmful and arbitrary. These were put back online thanks to that ruling.

We worry that more data and information removals will narrow public understanding of climate change, leaving people, communities and economies unprepared and at greater risk. While data archiving efforts can stem the tide of removals to some extent, there is no replacement for the government research infrastructures that produce and share climate data.

Eric Nost is affiliated with the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative and the Public Environmental Data Partners, which have received funding for some of the work reviewed in this piece from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Sustainable Cities Fund, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Alejandro Paz is affiliated with the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative.

– ref. How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see – https://theconversation.com/how-to-find-climate-data-and-science-the-trump-administration-doesnt-want-you-to-see-249321

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Parents can soon use QR codes to reveal heavy metal content in baby food

Source: The Conversation – USA – By C. Michael White, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacy Practice, University of Connecticut

It’s impossible to eliminate heavy metals from baby food entirely, but testing can help consumers make informed decisions. Jeff Greenberg via Getty Images

Parents across the U.S. should soon be able to determine how much lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury are in the food they feed their babies, thanks to a California law, the first of its kind, that took effect this year.

As of Jan. 1, 2025, every company that sells baby food products in California is required to test for these four heavy metals every month. That comes five years after a congressional report warned about the presence of dangerously high levels of lead and other heavy metals in baby food.

Every baby food product packaged in jars, pouches, tubs and boxes sold in California must carry a QR code on its label that consumers can scan to check the most recent heavy metal readings, although many are not yet complying.

Because companies seldom package products for a single state, parents and caregivers across the country will be able to scan these QR codes or go online to the companies’ websites and see the results.

I am a pharmacist researcher who has studied heavy metals in mineral supplements, dietary supplements and baby food for several years. My research highlights how prevalent these toxic agents are in everyday products such as baby food. I believe the new California law offers a solid first step in giving people the ability to limit the intake of these substances.

How do heavy metals get into foods?

Soil naturally contains heavy metals. The earth formed as a hot molten mass. As it cooled, heavier elements settled into its center regions, called the mantle and core. Volcanic eruptions in certain areas have brought these heavy metals to the surface over time. The volcanic rock erodes to form heavy metal-laden soil, contaminating nearby water supplies.

Another major source of soil contamination is the exhaust from fossil fuels, and in particular leaded gasoline. Some synthetic fertilizers contribute, too.

Heavy metals in the soil can pass into foods via several routes. Plants that yield foods such as sweet potatoes and carrots, apples, cinnamon, rice and plant-based protein powder are especially good at extracting them from contaminated soil.

Sometimes the contamination happens after harvesting. For example, local water that contains heavy metals is often used to rinse debris and bugs off natural products, such as leaves used to make a widely used supplement called kratom. When the water evaporates, the heavy metals are retained on the surface. Sometimes drying products in the open air, such as cacao beans for dark chocolate, allows dust laden with heavy metals to stick to their surface.

Producers can reduce heavy metal contamination in food in several ways, which range from modestly to very effectively. First, they can reserve more contaminated areas for growing crops that are less prone to taking in heavy metals from the soil, such as peppers, beans, squash, melons and cucumbers, and conversely grow more susceptible crops in less-contaminated areas. They can also dry plants on uncontaminated soil and filter heavy metals out of water before washing produce.

Producers are starting to use genetic engineering and crossbreeding to create susceptible plants that take up fewer heavy metals through their roots, but this approach is still in its early stages.

Sweet potatoes and other root vegetables are especially susceptible to absorbing heavy metals from soil.
skaman306 via Getty Images

How much is too much?

Although there is no entirely safe level of chronic heavy metal ingestion, heavy metals are all around us and are impossible to avoid entirely.

In January 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released its first-ever guidance for manufacturers that sets limits on the amount of lead that baby food can contain. But the FDA guidance does not require companies to adhere to the limits.

In that guidance, the FDA suggested a limit of 10 parts per billion of lead for baby foods that contain fruits, vegetables, meats or combinations of those items, with or without grains. Yogurts, custards and puddings should have the same cutoff, according to the agency. Root vegetables and dry infant cereals, meanwhile, should contain less than 20 parts per billion of lead. The FDA regulations don’t apply to some products babies frequently consume, such as formula, teething crackers and other snacks.

The agency has not defined firm limits for the consumption of other heavy metals, but its campaign against heavy metals in baby food, called Closer to Zero, reflects that a lower dose is better.

That campaign also laid out plans to propose limits for other heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury.

Modestly exceeding the agency’s recommended dosage for lead or arsenic a few times a month is unlikely to have noticeable negative health effects. However, chronically ingesting too much lead or inorganic arsenic can negatively affect childhood health, including cognitive development, and can cause softening of bones.

How California’s QR codes can help parents and other caregivers

It’s unclear how many products consistently exceed these recommendations.

A study by Consumer Reports in 2018
found that 33 of 50 products had concerning levels of at least one heavy metal. In 2023, researchers repeated testing on seven of the failing products and found that heavy metal levels were now lower in three, the same in one, and slightly higher in three.

Because these tests assess products bought and tested at one specific time, they may not reflect the average heavy metal content in the same product over the entire year. These levels can vary over time if the manufacturer sources ingredients from different parts of the country or the world at different times of the year.

Consumers can call up heavy metal testing results with their smartphones at the grocery store.

That’s where California’s new law can help. The law requires manufacturers to gather and divulge real-time information on heavy metal contamination monthly. By scanning a QR code on a box of Gerber Teether Snacks or a jar of Beech Nut Naturals sweet potato puree, parents and caregivers can call up test results on a smartphone and learn how much lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury were found in those specific products manufactured recently. These test results can also be accessed by entering a product’s name or batch number on the manufacturer’s website.

Slow rollout

In an investigation by Consumer Reports and a child advocacy group called Unleaded Kids, only four companies out of 28 were fully in compliance with the California law as of early this year. Some noncompliant companies had developed no infrastructure, some had developed websites but no heavy metal information was logged in, and some had information but required consumers to enter batch numbers to access results, without the required QR codes on the product packaging.

The law requires companies to provide this information for foods produced after Jan. 1, 2025, with no provisions for extensions, and the major producers agreed to comply not only for California residents but to provide the results nationwide. California enforces noncompliance by embargoing misbranded baby food products, issuing penalties, and suspending or revoking registrations and licenses.

When companies’ testing and reporting systems are fully up and running, a quick scan at the grocery store will allow consumers to adapt their purchases to minimize infants’ exposures to heavy metals. Initially, parents and caregivers may find it overwhelming to decide between one chicken and rice product that is higher in lead but lower in arsenic than a competitor’s product, for example.

However, they may also encounter instances where one baby food product clearly contains less of three heavy metals and only slightly more for the fourth heavy metal than a comparable product from a different manufacturer. That information can more clearly inform their choice.

Regardless of the readings, health experts advise parents and caregivers not to eliminate all root vegetables, apples and rice but instead to feed babies a wide variety of foods.

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

– ref. Parents can soon use QR codes to reveal heavy metal content in baby food – https://theconversation.com/parents-can-soon-use-qr-codes-to-reveal-heavy-metal-content-in-baby-food-247579

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: How Americans really feel about deporting immigrants – 3 charts explain the conflicting headlines from recent polls

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Leo Gugerty, Professor Emeritus in Psychology, Clemson University

A protest in San Diego against the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan, Jan. 31, 2025. Carlos Moreno/NurPhoto via Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s signature promise during his campaign was to carry out the “largest deportation” operation in U.S. history, targeting all migrants “who violated the law coming into this country.”

Since anyone living in the U.S. without legal permission has broken civil immigration law, Trump would have to deport all of the 11 million to 12 million immigrants living without legal authorization in the U.S., not just people who have committed serious crimes. Most immigrants living in the country illegally have been here longer than 10 years, so many longer-term residents would be deported.

Trump has claimed that his election victory gives him a “powerful mandate” for such actions. But what do the American people really think about mass deportation?

News outlets like CBS and Scripps News have been reporting since mid-2024 that a majority of Americans support Trump’s plans to deport most or all undocumented immigrants.

These stories rely on some polls during 2024 that showed majority support for mass deportation. Meanwhile, other polls in 2024 found public support for deportation below 40%.

I am a psychologist with expertise in survey research and the influence of political ideology on people’s beliefs about news events. And I believe the key to making sense of these conflicting polls lies in understanding the psychological principles that underlie opinion polling.

Conflicting polls

Extensive psychological research research demonstrates that people make better decisions about complex, high-stakes problems when they think about and compare multiple courses of action, instead of narrowing in on one option.

When it comes to deportation, the main policy alternative offered by presidents as far back as George W. Bush has been allowing immigrants to become legal permanent residents if certain conditions are met, like passing a background check.

Because of this, Pew Research, a prominent pollster, suggests that the best way to determine how people feel about issues like mass deportation is to give them a question that forces them to choose between deportation and something else – in this case, legalization.

For example, one July 2024 poll using a “forced-choice” question asked people whether they’d rather see “a way for undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements … to stay here legally” or “a national effort to deport and remove all illegal immigrants” from the U.S.

Another type of question used by pollsters focuses people’s attention on only one choice by asking them how much they support a policy like deportation, but without mentioning alternatives. Polls that follow this approach ask people’s opinion of deportation in one question, and their opinion of legalization in another.

This is not ideal because research shows it can lead people to exaggerate their support for the named policy.

What the polls say

In total, I found 14 polls conducted during the past eight years that measured Americans’ opinions on both mass deportation and legalizing status. I dropped two from my analysis because they had questions worded in biased language.

The findings from the remaining 12 polls are representative of the diverse demographics of the U.S.

Graph 1 present the results from the eight polls that used a single forced-choice question. I believe these polls give the best picture of how Americans as a group feel about the two immigration policies.

These polls suggest that over the past eight years, Americans’ overall support for mass deportation has increased from around 22% to around 44%. Meanwhile, support for legalizing immigrants’ status has decreased from about 77% to 55%.

However, all four polls conducted in 2024 find support for legalizing status to be above 54% and support for deportation below 45%.

Graph 2 shows the results of the four polls that used separate questions to assess opinions about deportation and legalization.

This chart clearly demonstrates the problem with asking people to rate their support for deportation and legalization in separate questions. Two polls, both taken in the past year – one by Gallup, the other by Times/Siena – found that a majority of respondents supported deportation and that the same group of respondents supported legalization in equal or even greater numbers.

Consider the October 2024 poll where 57% of respondents supported deportation and 57% supported legalization. These percentages add up to more than 100% because many people in the group said they supported both policies. Since mass deportation and general legalization are polar opposites, people who support both policies should not be considered to strongly support either policy.

For this reason, the separate questions technique does not yield good absolute information about the percentage of people who support either deportation or legalization. However, it does give useful relative information like which policy a group supports more and how opinions change over time.

Keeping this in mind, the results of the 12 polls I analyzed indicate that people favored legalizing immigrants’ status over deportation. Eleven polls, including five taken since 2024, showed this pattern. Overall public support for deportation has actually increased since 2016, while support for legalization has decreased.

However, these changes in opinion over time do not hold true for all Americans.

Americans are polarized about immigration

The poll results I’ve discussed so far are averages calculated based on the responses of everyone who responded to the poll. But group averages don’t tell the whole story on any issue – especially when opinions differ widely within a group, as they do with immigration. So let’s look at the results for Republicans and Democrats separately.

Graph 3 breaks down the results by party for the eight polls that used the best practice: forced choice question.

During Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2020, just over half of Republicans supported legalization; just under half supported deportation. Only within the past year has Republican opinion shifted, with about 70% now supporting deportation.

In contrast, Democrats’ opinions have remained steady for eight years, with about 90% supporting legalization and 10% favoring deportation.

In other words, the apparent shift toward greater support for deportation shown in Graphs 1 and 2 occurred only among Republicans – not for Americans as a whole.

A mandate to legalize

Despite the recent uptick in Republican support for mass deportation, a clear majority of people in the U.S. would rather give undocumented immigrants a path to legal status than have them deported. This has remained true for eight years.

Polls that seem to contradict this conclusion by showing majority support for mass deportation have used the less reliable separate-questions technique. These results are questionable because these poll respondents voiced equal or stronger support for legalizing immigrants’ status.

If Trump has a “powerful mandate” on immigration, my research shows, it’s for getting legal authorization for immigrants who’ve lived in the U.S. a long time without it – not deporting them.

Leo Gugerty is affiliated with the Democratic Party of Pickens County, SC, as a volunteer.

– ref. How Americans really feel about deporting immigrants – 3 charts explain the conflicting headlines from recent polls – https://theconversation.com/how-americans-really-feel-about-deporting-immigrants-3-charts-explain-the-conflicting-headlines-from-recent-polls-248838

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Drivers warned to keep hands on the wheel, eyes on the road

Source: City of Liverpool

An alarming increase in the number of young people distracted while driving has been reported by road campaigners.

In a bid to combat the rising tide of mobile phone use behind the wheel, Liverpool City Council has launched a hard-hitting campaign aimed at young drivers.

The message is clear: Driving demands 100 per cent focus, and any distraction, especially from mobile phones, can have devastating consequences.

The campaign comes as alarming statistics reveal a surge in mobile phone use among young drivers. According to the RAC’s 2024 Report on Motoring, a staggering 43 per cent of young motorists admit to listening to voice notes while driving without hands-free technology, and 40 per cent confess to recording messages. These figures starkly contrast with the overall driving population, where the rates are just 14 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively.

Merseyside Police enforced nearly 2,500 mobile phone offences across Merseyside in 2024 – up from just over 1,600 in 2023.

The consequences of getting caught using a handheld phone while driving are severe: six penalty points on your license and a £200 fine. If you get six or more points within two years of passing your test, your licence will be revoked – which means you’ll also have to apply and pay for a new provisional licence and pass both theory and practical parts of the driving or riding test again to get a full licence.

You can also be taken to court where you can:

• be banned from driving or motor cycle riding.
• get a maximum fine of £1,000.

Liverpool City Council is committed to making the City’s roads safer for everyone. This campaign is just one step in ongoing efforts to educate drivers and enforce the law.

Cllr Dan Barrington, Liverpool City Council Cabinet Member for Transport and Connectivity, said: “Driving is a responsibility, not a game.

“When you’re behind the wheel, your only ‘screen time’ should be looking through the windscreen. A momentary glance at your phone can lead to a lifetime of regret.

“It’s deeply concerning to see such a high proportion of young drivers putting themselves and others at risk,” Cllr Barrington added.

“We need to change this culture of distraction and make it clear that using a mobile phone while driving is simply unacceptable.

“We understand the temptation to check your phone, especially for young people who are constantly connected,” Cllr Barrington acknowledged. “But no message, no notification, no call is worth risking your life or the lives of others. Put your phone away, focus on the road, and arrive safely.”

Inspector Gavin Dixon of Merseyside Police, Roads Policing Department, said: “As a Roads Policing Department we have to deal with the very real consequences of distracted driving.

“Every year people are killed or serious injured by drivers not paying attention, whether that be mobile phone use or some other in car distraction. We use a number of tactics to catch drivers that wish to put their own convenience before other people’s safety.

“In the last 12 months, we have deployed unmarked vehicles, unmarked motorcycles, AI camera detection equipment and arial CCTV resulting in more and more people getting caught.

“Our message is simple, leave your phone alone or we might be speaking to you next. We can’t be everywhere, but we can be anywhere.”

MIL OSI United Kingdom –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: A926 Blairgowrie to Alyth – essential gas works

Source: Scotland – City of Perth

The road was temporarily closed last week for an emergency repair to the gas main.

However, further investigation has revealed that an entire 600-metre length of the gas main needs to be replaced.

Due to its location in the middle of the road, it would be dangerous to operate a contraflow system while engineers are working.

We appreciate the inconvenience this will cause for many motorists but these works by SGN are vital for ensuring the safety and reliability of the gas supply.

As the local authority, we will be looking to bring forward any other works scheduled for this road so they can happen concurrently, reducing inconvenience for motorists.

Diversions will be put in place, and there will be changes to public transport to assist commuters during this period.

Stagecoach Service 57/57A will be impacted by this closure. Dundee and Perth bound services will operate between Meigle and Blairgowrie Wellmeadow via the A94 – Coupar Angus – A923. Services will not operate via Rattray, New Alyth & Alyth.

Passengers from Rattray will require to access Service 57/57A at Blairgowrie Wellmeadow.

Passengers from New Alyth & Alyth will be linked to Service 57/57A at Meigle by a shuttle bus operating a reduced timetable.

Blairgowrie Freedom Coach will operate the earlier morning commuter journeys on Mondays to Saturdays for the six-week period, while Stagecoach will undertake off peak journeys during the day and the early evening journeys. No late evening journeys or Sunday shuttle service will operate.

For further information on the shuttle service, please contact Stagecoach (Blairgowrie) tel: 01250 872772.

School transport will operate as normal on the morning of Monday 17 February, and the Council’s Public Transport Unit will be liaising with schools, operators and families affected by the closure to put in revised arrangements for the Monday afternoon journeys onwards. These arrangements will be the same to those put in place last week.

MIL OSI United Kingdom –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI United Nations: DR Congo displacement, health crisis worsens amid dwindling aid access

Source: United Nations MIL OSI b

14 February 2025 Peace and Security

A dire displacement crisis is escalating in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo as M23 rebels make headway while aid routes are cut off, UN humanitarians warned on Friday.

“The crisis is worsening as people flee to areas where humanitarian aid cannot reach due to insecurity,” UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesperson Eujin Byun told reporters in Geneva.

The development comes a day after the top UN aid official in the country Bruno Lemarquis warned that a shortage of humanitarian routes was threatening the aid operation in the region.

Advance on Bukavu

The rebels, who seized North Kivu province’s capital Goma late last month, are advancing towards Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, following a short-lived lull in fighting.

Ms. Byun said that in South Kivu, more than half of the aid groups providing critical support to survivors of sexual violence “report being unable to reach those in need due to insecurity and continuous displacement”.

Meanwhile, in North Kivu, “the destruction of health facilities, including mortuaries, and overcrowded hospitals increase the risk of spreading infectious diseases, including cholera, malaria, and measles,” she said.

The UNHCR spokesperson also highlighted the fact that “heavy artillery shelling and looting” have destroyed 70,000 emergency shelters around Goma and Minova in North and South Kivu provinces, leaving some 350,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) “once again without a roof over their heads”.

While some 100,000 displaced people have attempted to return to their home areas – where they are met with damage to their homes and a lack of essential services – many remain stranded, Ms. Byun said.

Deadly remnants

Unexploded ordnance left over from the fighting is another obstacle to their safe return.

Ms. Byun warned of the possibility that those people “will be displaced once again”.

The UNHCR spokesperson stressed that most of the 28 IDP sites around Goma are now destroyed. The agency’s concern in terms of aid access is that the road from Goma to Bukavu has been cut off, she said.

Ms. Byun also recalled that the airport in Goma is “still not functioning for humanitarian aid”.

“Since violence has spread to South Kivu, this supply line is our biggest concern,” she added.

With the rebels pushing towards Bukavu, the UN’s Mr. Lemarquis expressed worry on Thursday about the fate of South Kivu’s main airport some 20 miles from the province’s capital, which until recently was the “main lifeline” for bringing in humanitarian personnel.

Mpox spread

Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization (WHO), Christian Lindmeier, highlighted the “heavy” impact of the hostilities on the mpox response, “particularly in Goma and the adjacent area” as the fighting spread southwards.

He stressed that the DRC is “the worst-affected country for mpox”, with Kivu being the epicentre of the highly infectious clade 1b outbreak.

Due to the rapid spread of the clade 1b strain, in August last year WHO moved to declare mpox once again a “public health emergency of international concern”, for the second time after a global outbreak of the virus made headlines in 2022.

Earlier this month, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that before the latest violence in eastern DRC, mpox cases had been stabilizing. But the recent fighting has forced patients to flee treatment centres, increasing transmission risks.

“Out of 143 confirmed mpox patients in isolation units in Goma and around, 128 fled in fear for their lives,” Mr. Lindmeier said, stressing that only 15 patients remain in isolation.

“That’s of course dangerous for everybody around,” he insisted.

Mr. Lindmeier added that some health facilities in the area had been looted, health workers had fled, and people were unable to access healthcare because of the security situation.

MIL OSI United Nations News –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI China: China, Mongolia eye synergy of development strategies

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

HARBIN, Feb. 14 — Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Friday met with Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene in Harbin, capital city of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province.

Oyun-Erdene is here for the closing ceremony of the 9th Asian Winter Games.

China and Mongolia are friendly neighbors connected by mountains and rivers, said Li, noting that close cooperation and joint development are in the common interests of both sides.

China is willing to work with Mongolia to further implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, firmly grasp the right direction for the development of bilateral ties, consolidate political mutual trust, carry forward the traditional friendship, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and bring more benefits to the two peoples, Li said.

Li added that China is ready to strengthen the synergy of development strategies and policy coordination with Mongolia, maintain the positive momentum of bilateral cooperation, and boost cooperation in traditional fields such as mineral, energy, connectivity and infrastructure, as well as expand cooperation in emerging areas such as artificial intelligence and green development.

Li called on both sides to deepen cooperation in fields such as culture, education and tourism, support youth exchanges, and consolidate public support for friendship between the two countries.

China is ready to work with Mongolia and other Asian countries to uphold the common values of peace, unity and cooperation, closely coordinate and cooperate with each other, practice genuine multilateralism, jointly safeguard regional peace, stability and development, and better safeguard common interests, the premier noted.

Oyun-Erdene extended his warm congratulations to China for successfully hosting the 9th Asian Winter Games, emphasizing that the event would further promote Asian values and amplify Asian voices.

Noting that Mongolia and China are eternal neighbors, he said developing long-term, stable and friendly relations with China is Mongolia’s primary foreign policy focus.

Oyun-Erdene said Mongolia firmly adheres to the one-China policy and looks forward to making joint efforts with China to strengthen high-level exchanges and strengthen the connection between Mongolia’s development strategy and the Belt and Road Initiative.

Mongolia is ready to deepen practical cooperation with China in fields such as economy and trade, connectivity, energy, resources and infrastructure, and push comprehensive strategic partnership to a higher level, Oyun-Erdene added.

MIL OSI China News –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: 8 Venezuelan illegal aliens with ties to Tren da Aragua are charged with transnational commercial sex enterprise crimes

Source: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement

NASHVILLE – A U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement investigation with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation led to a four-count indictment which was unsealed in the Middle District of Tennessee charging eight defendants, with ties to the Tren da Aragua (TdA) gang, with various offenses stemming from their involvement with a transnational commercial sex enterprise.

“The success of this operation to stop Tren da Aragua operating in our communities is a significant step forward in our ongoing battle against human trafficking and transnational organized crime,” said ICE Homeland Security Investigations Nashville Special Agent in Charge Rana Saoud. “This investigation exemplifies the importance of collaboration among local, state, and federal agencies in ending these crimes in our communities. Human exploitation leaves a trail of suffering in its wake.”

The defendants, Yilibeth del Carmen Rivero-De Caldera, 51, Kleiver Daniel Mota-Rivero, 35, Yuribetzi Del Valle Gomez Machuca, 39, Wilmarys Del Valle Manzano Solorzano, 22, Frankyanna Del Valle Romero-Rivero, 30, Endrik Alexander Morales-Rivero, 25, Jesus Enrique Castillo Rodriguez, 24, Ariannys Beatriz Gutierrez-Carrillo, 24; all of Venezuela, operated an illegal commercial sex and sex trafficking enterprise out of Nashville motels from July 2022 through March 2024, according to court documents.

The defendants facilitated the victims’ arrival into the United States and used online commercial sex websites to post advertisements and internet or cellular communications to conduct illicit criminal activities, according to the indictment.

“This indictment demonstrates our commitment to stop human trafficking whenever and wherever we find it, and to hold those involved accountable” said acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Robert E. McGuire. “We are coming after transnational criminal organizations like TdA, but this case shows that we will also do whatever it takes to stop those who would traffic women and girls no matter who is behind their suffering.”

“We will not allow TdA – or any criminal organization – to get a stronghold in Tennessee,” said Tennessee Bureau of Investigations Director David Rausch. “We are thankful for our local, state, and federal partners who joined us in investigating this case, and we stand prepared to continue aggressively investigating human trafficking in our state, holding traffickers and buyers accountable and helping victims take their first steps toward becoming survivors.”

A grand jury in the Middle District of Tennessee previously returned the four-count indictment charging all eight defendants for roles in facilitating the recruiting of young women from impoverished parts of Venezuela and other South and Central American countries, and their transportation across the U.S. southern border and state lines to engage in commercial sex in the Nashville area.

Three of the defendants, Yilibeth del Carmen Rivero-De Caldera, Kleiver Daniel Mota-Rivero, and Yuribetzi Del Valle Gomez Machuca, are additionally charged with sex trafficking conspiracy for conspiring to use force, fraud, and coercion to compel the women into engaging in commercial sex acts for the defendants’ profit that include invoking alleged ties to the Venezuelan gang TdA and its reputation for violence. The indictment further charges defendant Kleiver Daniel Mota-Rivero with one count of possession of a firearm by an illegal alien.

Mother and son defendants Rivero-De Caldera and Mota-Rivero are charged with conspiring to impose a coercive debt scheme upon the victims to compel them to continue engaging in commercial sex acts until the defendants deemed their debts repaid. Defendants Rivero-De Caldera and Mota-Rivero previously were arrested and detained on state charges relating to their conduct.

The defendants face a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. Conspiracy to commit interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and conspiracy to commit interstate and foreign travel or transportation in aid of racketeering enterprises carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Mota-Rivero also faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison if convicted of possession of a firearm by an illegal alien.

In addition to ICE HSI Nashville and TBI, the FBI, the DEA, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, Shelbyville Police Department, U.S. Secret Service, and additional federal, state, and local Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force partners who coordinated related law enforcement operations across multiple jurisdictions assisted in this investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brooke K. Schiferle for the Middle District of Tennessee and Trial Attorneys Lindsey Roberson and Jessica Arco of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit are prosecuting the case.

To report any information about human trafficking, child sexual abuse, or the trafficking in child sexual abuse material contact the ICE Tip Line at 1-866-347-2423.

MIL OSI USA News –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Five men convicted as the Met’s shoplifting crackdown continues

Source: United Kingdom London Metropolitan Police

Five men who targeted shops across Barnet have been convicted as part of the Met’s continued drive to bring London’s most prolific shoplifters to justice.

Officers in Colindale made 18 arrests in the space of just four days and secured 85 charges.

They identified the 15 worst affected shops across the borough that were repeatedly targeted over the past six months. They worked with staff and security teams to streamline the way they gathered evidence to identify persistent offenders.

The operation was carried out between Thursday, 30 January and Sunday, 2 February.

In one case, officers spotted a man wanted for a string of thefts in the area acting suspiciously by the Co-op on East Barnet Road at 07:30hrs on Saturday, 1 February, before heading inside.

This led to them carrying out a carefully coordinated sting to arrest the offender, who was tackled to the ground by the exit as he attempted to make off on an electric scooter with a bag of stolen meat.

The incident was caught on CCTV and the footage recovered as part of the investigation.

Gavin Fonti, 44 (20.12.81), of no fixed address, was charged with theft from the store, as well as a further five counts of theft from a nearby BP Garage on Great North Road.

He appeared at Willesden Magistrates Court on Monday, 3 February, where he was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison. 

Sergeant Dave Salmon, from the Colindale Emergency Response Policing Team, said: 

“This is an excellent example of neighbourhood policing at its best, and thanks to the awareness and quick-thinking of our officers, we’ve been able to remove more prolific shoplifters from our streets.

“We know shoplifting has a significant impact on businesses and shop staff, as well as members of the public. It often fuels other crime and anti-social behaviour, so we’ve taken a proactive approach with the worst affected stores.

“This is not only building stronger relationships between Safer Neighbourhood officers and local businesses, but also instilling more trust and confidence in local policing.”

This work is another example of the steps the Met is taking to remove the worst offending shoplifters across the capital.

Elsewhere in London, recent enforcement activity in Lambeth has led to 11 of the 14 most prolific shoplifters in the area serving prison terms, while in Homerton, officers have made 15 arrests relating to more 50 crimes since September 2024, of which six people are currently serving prison terms.

Those sentenced alongside Fonti for offences in the Barnet area were:

Craig Buttery, 36 (18.04.89), of no fixed address, was charged with 22 thefts and two breaches of a Community Banning Order, and will serve four months behind bars.

Geoff Kilday, 49 (01.11.76), of no fixed address, has been handed a 12-week prison sentence after being charged with one count of theft.

Mohammed Bey, 52 (13.11.73), of Creighton Avenue, Muswell Hill, was charged with one count of theft and given a 12-week suspended sentence for 12 months.

While Leon Day, 42 (02.08.1983), of no fixed address, was sentenced to 24 weeks’ imprisonment after being charged with 21 counts of theft.

MIL Security OSI –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: What does Platonic love really mean?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Armand D’Angour, Professor of Classics, University of Oxford

If the object of your affection were to suggest that a “platonic” relationship might be of more interest to them, your heart might sink a little. The common understanding of Platonic love, so called after the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, is that it indicates a relationship of strong affection from which sex is excluded. But there’s potentially much more to the concept of Platonic love than the absence of romantic or physical passion.

The term is derived from Plato’s writing on the topic of love in the Symposium, a work composed in the early fourth century BC. It’s set at a dinner party in Athens that supposedly took place much earlier in 416 BC, when a playwright called Agathon won first prize for his tragic drama.

Agathon threw a party – symposium in Greek means “drinking together” – where everyone over-indulged. So the following night the partygoers, including the philosopher Socrates, decided that instead of drinking they would give speeches in praise of the god of love, Eros (whence comes the word “erotic”).

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In the course of the party, the comic poet Aristophanes offers a humorously extravagant story about the origins of love:

Once upon a time human beings were duplicates of what we are today, with four arms, four legs, and two faces. These double-humans came in three types, male-male, female-female, and male-female. They were over-powerful beings who threatened the gods – so Zeus decided to split them in half. Now we’re just halves of a whole, and each half desperately seeks its matching half in a quest for completion. This is what we mean by love.

Humour aside, Aristophanes’ tale accounts for both sexual orientation and why human beings may feel incomplete alone.

There’s great thoughtfulness and variety in the Symposium. In addition to this comic representation of love as literally “seeking our other half”, Plato reports four speeches given by participants, followed by a presentation by Socrates, and finally an extended contribution by the flamboyant Alcibiades, who bursts in late on the gathering.

For ancient Greeks, love was literally divine. The notion that love is a god (Eros) or goddess (Aphrodite) distinguishes many of the speeches in the Symposium. Another culturally distinctive feature is that the party consists entirely of men, who tacitly acknowledge that love is to be thought of as homoerotic.

In ancient Athens, heterosexual relations were rarely seen to involve an intellectual dimension. Women and girls were generally not educated, so the notion of intellectual engagement as a component of a relationship was something reserved for love between men, although Plato’s propositions about love don’t exclude (as Aristophanes’ tale shows) love between the sexes or between women.

In Plato’s day, Athens’ rival city Thebes had established a unit of warriors, the Sacred Band, consisting of 150 pairs of male lovers. The first speaker, the young aristocrat Phaedrus, argues that an army of this kind will be invincible, because men will always strive to show courage in front of the partner they love.

He takes sexual love for granted in arguing that love “inspires lovers to act nobly in matters of life and death”. The following speaker, Pausanias, makes a distinction between true love and sex, insisting that the latter should be reserved for committed relationships.

Other speakers offer more abstract views of love – as a force of universal harmony, or (as Agathon argues) a stimulus to artistic creativity. Socrates then offers to “tell the truth about love”, recounting how Diotima (a fiction evidently based on a real woman, Aspasia of Miletus) had taught him that love begins with physical desire but leads on to “higher” forms such as love of knowledge, beauty, and truth.

The final speech is given by the drunken latecomer to the party, the playboy politician Alcibiades, famously beloved of Socrates. The most handsome youth of his day, he describes how he once tried in vain to seduce the older man. Socrates was not interested because – as he argued a true lover should be – he was keener on improving the young man’s soul through philosophy than being gratified by his body.

Properly understood, then, Platonic love is not about the negation of passion but about its elevation and transformation. This means it cannot be simply narcissistic. Aristophanes’ myth of the original human beings seeking a similar matching half is challenged by Socrates’ doctrine.

Love’s aim, we eventually learn, is not to complete us, but to inspire us to grow creatively in relation to another person. Not to guide us to love our mirror image, but to lead us to educate and be educated by another person to become the highest version of ourselves.

This invites us to think about relationships in terms of shared aspirations. From this point of view, Platonic love means focusing on what lies beyond the relationship itself, on the ideals that connect those who truly love each other.

In practice, one might conclude, the highest form of love is a partnership in which two people are united by a common creative quest. Such love is not passionless, but a powerful force that begins with physical desire but ends with its transcendence.

To love Platonically is to see in another person not just what they are, but what they may be inspired to become, and to climb together toward something greater than one might attain alone.

Seen in this light, the quest for our “matching half” proposed by Aristophanes, if only in jest, cannot be the answer. And though we may not be wholly satisfied with any of the views expressed in the dialogue, the aim of the Symposium is surely to invite us to continue the conversation.

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

– ref. What does Platonic love really mean? – https://theconversation.com/what-does-platonic-love-really-mean-249625

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: In the struggle to get Britain working, the long shadow of austerity could be part of the problem

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Guilherme Klein Martins, Lecturer in Economics, University of Leeds

pxl.store/Shutterstock

Austerity is an unusual economic concept. While it is one of the economic terms that attracts the most interest from the public, it remains controversial in policy debates. Advocates argue that reducing government deficits through spending cuts and tax increases restores confidence and stabilises economies. Critics, however, warn that these policies just deepen downturns.

My recent research, using data from 16 countries over several decades, provides new evidence supporting the second view. That is, austerity has significant and persistent negative effects on employment and the size of an economy (measured by GDP), with the damage lasting more than 15 years.

A common defence of austerity is that while it may slow growth in the short term, it ultimately strengthens economies by reducing debt and making room for private-sector expansion. But my findings challenge this assumption.

I analysed episodes of austerity, defined as large fiscal contractions (reduced state spending or large tax increases) across a variety of advanced economies. What I found was the negative impact on GDP remains substantial even after a decade and a half. On average, GDP is more than 5.5% lower 15 years after a large austerity shock than would have been expected if there had been no austerity, based on statistical estimates.

Beyond GDP, austerity has a lasting impact on labour markets (the number of jobs on offer and people available to do them). My research shows that large fiscal contractions lead to a significant drop in the total number of hours worked, which is a key indicator of labour market health.

This is a crucial finding, as policymakers often assume that labour markets will adjust quickly after an economic shock. Instead, results suggest employment levels (which is best measured by the total number of hours worked by everyone in the labour force) remain depressed for more than a decade after major austerity measures.

One reason for this is the connection between investment and employment. When governments cut spending, firms delay investments. This, in turn, lowers productivity growth and reduces job creation.

If businesses anticipate that the economy will remain weak for a long time, they adjust their hiring and investment strategies. This can reinforce a cycle of stagnation. My results suggest that, on average, an austerity shock generates a reduction of 4% in the total worked hours and 6% in the capital stock (the value of physical assets like buildings and machines used to produce goods and services) after 15 years.

The effects of an austerity shock on countries’ GDP:

UK: A case study

Perhaps one of the most striking real-world examples of the long-term effects of austerity is the UK. Following the 2008 global financial crisis, the UK government implemented sweeping austerity measures starting in 2010. These policies were framed as necessary to reduce the budget deficit and restore investor confidence. Spending cuts affected key areas, including welfare, healthcare, education and local government services like social housing, roads and leisure facilities.

The 2010 coalition government brought in more than £80 billion of cuts to public spending.

But here’s a conundrum. The UK’s fiscal deficit (the difference between what it spent and what it raised in taxes) after the implementation of these policies was greater than before the austerity cuts. The deficit in 2023/2024 was 5.7% of GDP, while in 2007/2008, it was 2.9%.

What is evident is that these measures are associated with stagnant wages, weakened public services and sluggish GDP growth. Productivity growth has remained weak, and long-term economic damage is evident in underfunded infrastructure and an increasingly fragile NHS.

More than a decade later, real earnings have barely recovered to pre-crisis levels. The past 15 years have been the worst for income growth in generations, with working-age incomes growing by only 6% in real terms from 2007 to 2019, compared to higher growth rates in countries including the US, Germany and Ireland.

Read more:
How the UK’s austerity policies caused life expectancy to fall

My findings contribute to a growing body of research challenging the longstanding view that shocks like austerity have only short-run effects. Traditionally, models assume that economies return to their long-run growth paths after temporary disruptions. But recent evidence, including my research, suggests that demand shocks can have persistent effects on supply by reducing investment and participation in the labour force.

In the wake of the COVID pandemic, many governments responded with generous financial support, temporarily reversing the austerity-driven policies of the previous decade. The strong recovery in some economies suggests that government spending can play a crucial role in sustaining long-run growth. On the other hand, a return to austerity measures could once again lead to prolonged stagnation.

What should policymakers take away from this? First, the assumption that austerity is a path to long-term prosperity needs to be re-evaluated. While reducing excessive public debt might be important, the economic costs of large and rapid cuts to spending can far outweigh the benefits.

Second, policymakers should recognise that timing matters. Gradual adjustments to spending, when really necessary, should be accompanied by measures to support investment and employment in order to reduce the likelihood of causing long-term harm.

Finally, economic policy should prioritise long-term growth over short-term deficit reduction. Governments facing tough spending choices should explore alternative approaches – things like progressive taxation and targeted public investment. And when cuts are needed, they should avoid implementing them during periods of economic recession.

Austerity is often framed as a necessary sacrifice for future prosperity. As governments consider fiscal strategies in an era of rising debt and economic uncertainty, they should take heed of austerity’s long-run costs. The evidence suggests that a more balanced approach – one that prioritises investment and economic stability – may be the wiser path forward.

Guilherme Klein Martins 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. In the struggle to get Britain working, the long shadow of austerity could be part of the problem – https://theconversation.com/in-the-struggle-to-get-britain-working-the-long-shadow-of-austerity-could-be-part-of-the-problem-249888

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: AFRICA/SIERRA LEONE – “People are forced to travel almost 8 miles every Sunday to go to Mass”: new mission stations in the diocese of Kenema

Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

Friday, 14 February 2025

SMA

Buedu (Agenzia Fides) – “Our mission in Sierra Leone is gradually growing, as is the number of Christians and small communities. People continue to come and live their faith with great enthusiasm and participation,” says Father Peddy Sinda, of the Society of African Missions (SMA), responsible for the mission of St. John the Baptist in Buedu, Kailahun district, diocese of Kenema.“Most of the villages where we serve do not have a church or oratory,” explains the missionary. “Since many elderly people can no longer walk to the parish, we have just opened a new mission station. However, we have been subject to theft and intrusion due to the exposed location of the mission house.”The St. John the Baptist Catholic Church-Buedu Mission opened its doors on December 13, 2020 and was entrusted to the SMA Fathers. The mission serves more than 27 villages, of which only six have a place of worship (oratory). “Fowa, in the Kailahun district, is one of the villages that does not have one. Its population, mostly of Kissi ethnicity, has about 273 Catholics, including men, women and children, some already baptized and confirmed.”“This municipality has great potential to become a ‘Christian city’,” says Father Sinda, who has just returned from the inauguration of the new SMA mission in the diocese of Bo, where the missionaries have opened their third evangelization territory in Sierra Leone. However, despite the growth of faith, many faithful must travel almost eight miles every Sunday to attend Mass at the Buedu church, a distance impossible to cover for the sick and elderly. “They are mainly farmers and can barely afford one meal a day. They long for a place of worship,” underlines Father Sinda.The pastoral activities of the SMA missionaries in this region include the administration of the sacraments, visiting the sick and the elderly, school pastoral care – with five primary schools and one secondary school – youth support programs, training of community prayer leaders, animation of the Holy Childhood, programs for the emancipation of women and raising awareness in the community. (AP) (Agenzia Fides, 14/2/2025)
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MIL OSI Europe News –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: ASIA/INDIA – Prime Minister of Manipur resigns: Archbishop Neli wants “a clear orientation towards peace”

Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

Archdiocese of Imphal

Imphal (Agenzia Fides) – “With the resignation of the Prime Minister, we find ourselves in a political stalemate and we must wait and see. The situation in which Manipur finds itself today is very complex and it is not easy to find a solution. It is necessary to continue efforts to activate a path of dialogue that involves all possible actors, at the local level, at the level of the central government, at the level of the representation of civil society and the communities in conflict”, said Archbishop Linus Neli of Imphal, capital of the Indian state of Manipur, on the situation in the north-eastern Indian state, which is in a state of polarization between the two communities of the Meitei and Kuki-zo, who started an inter-ethnic conflict in May 2023. While on the ground the provisional solution was to divide the conflicting parties into isolated and strictly separate areas, “efforts to activate dialogue with a negotiating table and mediators,” explains the Archbishop. Now the political earthquake is leading to a situation of uncertainty and stalemate: “The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which governs Manipur, will have to find another politician to appoint as Prime Minister. In the meantime, the administration is temporarily subordinate to the central government in Delhi. Now we have to wait and see, and the situation will become even more complicated,” notes Archbishop Neli. If the BJP fails to appoint a new Prime Minister due to internal disputes, the state parliament could be dissolved and new elections held. Biren Singh, a member of the BJP and Prime Minister of Manipur for two terms, resigned due to growing disagreements within his own party, mainly related to the handling of the ethnic conflict between the Meitei and Kuki communities. The political crisis in Manipur is unfolding against a backdrop of ongoing ethnic violence, which continues to displace thousands of people in precarious conditions. After months of clashes, sporadic outbreaks of violence involving armed groups in both factions continue to occur despite the massive deployment of security forces sent by the central government.The local Catholic community, which has believers in both the Meitei and Kuki communities, is calling for “a clear orientation towards peace,” said Archbishop Neli, who, along with other religious leaders, is personally involved in organizations and forums ready to participate in any initiative for dialogue and mediation. “We are in the Jubilee Holy Year and the theme is hope: our hope is that a concrete step of reconciliation can take place this year,” he concludes. “The most important thing is a common will. Let us pray and hope that the Lord will accompany us on this path of rapprochement and pacification.” (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 14/2/2025)
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MIL OSI Europe News –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Work begins on state-of-the-art nursery

Source: Scotland – City of Aberdeen

Today (Friday 14 February) marks an exciting milestone as the first turf is cut for a state-of-the-art standalone nursery on the Ferryhill School site in Aberdeen.

The new nursery is Phase 1 in a two-phase project which is part of Aberdeen City Council’s wider suitability improvement initiative to create an enhanced learning environment for nursery and primary school-aged children in the Ferryhill area.

Councillor Martin Greig, Convener of the Education and Children’s Services Committee, said: “It’s great to get the shovel in the ground so that this major upgrade project at Ferryhill School can begin. I am delighted that the school will benefit from a new nursery building as well as significant refurbishment and extension work.

“The considerable investment of £17.1m by Aberdeen City Council will really improve the learning environment for the pupils for generations to come. The excellent new facilities will enhance the opportunities to support and care for the young people. It is a place where they can be inspired to be creative and adventurous.”

Councillor Jessica Mennie, Vice-Convener of Education and Children’s Services Committee, said: “I share the excitement and anticipation of Ferryhill School pupils and staff as work begins on their new nursery ahead of major improvement works to the school building.”

The nursery will address the limitations of the existing provision and provide significantly upgraded facilities for pupils and staff. The construction work is being undertaken by Morrison Construction North with local architects Mackie Ramsay Taylor responsible for the design work.

Designed with modern learning and play in mind, the nursery will feature a large, open-plan, and well-lit playroom and covered external spaces, seamlessly connecting indoor and outdoor environments to offer year-round access to play and learning areas. The building is designed to achieve high environmental standards, reflecting the Council’s and architects’ commitment to sustainability.

The nursery building will meet high energy-efficiency standards, showcasing a commitment to sustainability. Heated by air-source heat pumps and powered in part by rooftop photovoltaic panels, it will be an example of responsible design.

The construction work is expected to be finished this summer with pupils set to move into their new nursery in August 2025.

Ferryhill Nursery will be completed as work begins on Phase 2, which will see Ferryhill School handed over to Morrison Construction at the start of the summer to begin a major refurbishment and extension of the building.

The Ferryhill School improvements will mean greater flexibility and better use of space across the whole school site; a modern dining facility providing a much improved experience for the pupils and staff, and facilitate any future free school meals expansion; a double-court PE hall, which conforms with Sport Scotland guidance; and the improved nursery provision including direct access to the outdoors.

Mike Bruce, Managing Director, Morrison Construction North, said: “Morrison are delighted to be involved in the construction of Ferryhill Nursery, these works will involve the Nursery, playing field and the attenuation system for the Primary School extension due to start this summer. As ever we will be using local Sub Contractors, with our own labour planned to complete the kit frame which is due to start next month.”

Bruce Ballance, Director, Mackie Ramsay Taylor Architects, said: “This project marks a significant milestone in Mackie Ramsay Taylor’s broader vision to create an innovative, sustainable, and community-focused educational setting.

“While the first phase is the state-of-the-art standalone nursery, future phases will include the extension of the primary school and the creation of a central landscaped area, further enhancing the educational environment. We look forward to the positive impact this development will have on the school community.”

Ferryhill School Nursery pupils at the turf-cutting ceremony expressed their excitement about the new facilities.

Three-year-old Brian said he is looking forward to watching the “Builders making our nursery, building the walls.”

Four-year-old Rosie added that she is looking forward to “Playing in the big sandpit in the new garden.”

While Henley, also four, said she is looking forward to “Our new nursery with its new big playroom.”

During Phase 2 of the project, the pupils and staff at Ferryhill School will temporarily relocate to the vacant Walker Road School building, to ensure uninterrupted learning.

Councillor Martin Greig, Convener of the Education and Children’s Services Committee; Allister McKechnie, Architect, Mackie Ramsay Taylor Architects; Mike Bruce, Managing Director, Morrison Construction North; Councillor Jessica Mennie, Vice-Convener of Education and Children’s Services Committee; with Ferryhill School Nursery pupils, Henley, Brian and Rosie.

MIL OSI United Kingdom –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: International trade mission to Ukraine deepens industry ties and boosts growth
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 3

First-of-its-kind international defence trade mission to Kyiv deepens industry ties between Ukraine and its allies
The UK and allies have deepened industry ties with Ukraine by leading a first-of-its-kind international defence trade mission to Kyiv this week.

Led by the Minister for the Armed Forces, the trade delegation, which included Norway and The Netherlands, met with Ukrainian ministers, officials, and industry partners to strengthen strategic partnerships and enhance defence cooperation in support of Ukraine.

This was the fifth trade mission to Ukraine by Britain’s Task Force HIRST, but the first in conjunction with allies, setting a blueprint for future trade missions to be international as the norm.

Following the visit, UK companies have agreed to work more closely with Ukrainian partners, agreeing to new commitments that will build on previous agreements and boost their capabilities.

Despite a significant Russian airstrike targeting Kyiv on Wednesday morning this week, which killed one innocent civilian, the trade mission went ahead successfully, highlighting that the UK and our Allies will not be intimidated by Putin’s brutal tactics.

With firms across the UK ramping up defence production to meet Ukraine’s requirements, support for Ukraine will directly boost the UK defence sector, create UK jobs, and deliver on this Government’s growth agenda and Plan for Change.

Minister for the Armed Forces, Luke Pollard MP said:

The UK is continuing to lead the way on global support for Ukraine. By strengthening defence industry ties with allies, we are providing Ukraine with the firepower it needs on the battlefield, whilst bolstering our own defence industrial base —creating jobs and driving investment.

Our partnerships with The Netherlands, Norway, and Ukraine will help build resilient supply chains to ensure we put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to achieve a just and lasting peace through strength.

We will stand with our allies to support Ukraine for as long as it takes.

The Minister, along with officials from the Ministry of Defence and Department for Business and Trade, attended meetings focused on continuing to develop the industrial relationship with Ukraine, boosting their capabilities on the battlefield, whilst supporting growth back in the UK.

The Ministry of Defence set up Task Force HIRST to drive increases in UK, Ukrainian and allies’ industrial capacity to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as national military resilience.

Kevin Craven, CEO of ADS said:

Our continued industrial partnership with the Ukraine will be pivotal if we are to strengthen our collective security. It is an honour for ADS and our members to work in such close collaboration with Ukraine.

UK support to Ukraine has, at its heart, the knowledge that helping Ukraine is protecting our values and way of life.

The visit coincided with the NATO meeting of defence ministers, where the Defence Secretary announced a new £150 million package of military aid to Ukraine.

The £150 million package includes thousands of drones, dozens of battle tanks and more than 50 armoured and protective vehicles to be deployed to Ukraine by the end of spring, building on the thousands of pieces of equipment the UK has already given to Ukraine.

In a boost to the UK’s economy, the package also includes a multi-million-pound contract with UK defence firm Babcock, who will train Ukrainian personnel to maintain and repair crucial equipment such as Challenger 2 tanks, self-propelled artillery, and combat reconnaissance vehicles inside Ukraine. Through this agreement, equipment can be serviced and returned to the frontline quicker.

This is part of the UK’s unprecedented £4.5 billion pledge for Ukraine this year, its highest-ever level.

The Government is clear that the security of the UK starts in Ukraine and is therefore committed to Ukraine’s long-term security as a foundation for the government’s Plan for Change.

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Published 14 February 2025
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI: Fintech Startup Infini Integrates Crypto to Transform Traditional Banking
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

HONG KONG, Feb. 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Infini is redefining the fintech landscape by seamlessly integrating crypto solutions into traditional banking. With a vision to empower users through secure, intuitive, and innovative financial services, Infini is revolutionizing how individuals engage with digital assets.

Bridging Web2 and Web3: The Genesis of Infini

Founded in 2024 by a team of financial experts and tech innovators—Crypto Whale Christian Li and Tech Lead Ryan Sun—Infini was created to make financial empowerment accessible to all. Headquartered in Hong Kong, the company has secured financial licensing and compliance partnerships, ensuring a seamless experience for users worldwide who seek to bridge Web2 and Web3.

Infini’s core mission is to introduce yield-generating opportunities to traditional finance users, enabling seamless crypto payments and earnings while lowering barriers to entry.

Rapid Growth and Expanding Ecosystem

Since its inception, Infini has experienced exponential growth. In just six months, the platform has achieved a remarkable 500% Compound Monthly Growth Rate (CMGR) in Monthly Active Users (MAUs). This success stems from Infini’s user-first approach, cutting-edge technology, and comprehensive financial tools tailored for payments, investments, and wealth management.

Unlocking the Power of Crypto for Everyday Use

Infini enables users to leverage their crypto holdings for real-world transactions. Through strategic partnerships with leading payment gateways, users can seamlessly deposit and withdraw stablecoins (USDT/USDC) into their Infini accounts. Whether shopping online or making in-store purchases, Infini facilitates instant crypto-to-fiat conversions, ensuring frictionless global accessibility without reliance on traditional banking infrastructures.

Infini Earn: Smart Investment Opportunities

Infini Earn allows users to generate yield on their account balances through an optimized delta-neutral strategy, offering an average return of 10% APY. By providing a secure and accessible way to earn passive income, Infini bridges the gap between traditional finance and crypto, empowering individuals to take full control of their wealth without intermediaries.

Introducing the Infini Card: A Crypto-Enabled Debit Solution

A standout feature of Infini is the Infini Card, a Visa/Mastercard-enabled prepaid debit card linked to Infini Earn and the broader payment ecosystem. This card allows users to spend their stablecoin balances at global merchants, just like a traditional debit card.

How It Works:
1. Simple Application: Users can sign up at Infini’s platform by providing basic personal information, paying a one-time activation fee, and depositing stablecoins.
2. Instant Access: The card is ready for use immediately. Spending limits can be increased through Know Your Customer (KYC) verification.
Key Benefits:
- Earn While You Spend: Infini balances continue to generate yield even as users make purchases.
- Secure & Compliant: Custodial security and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance are ensured by Cobo, an ISO 27001-certified partner.
- No Barriers to Entry: Users can start with as little as $1, making crypto earnings accessible to retail investors without complex learning curves.
- Global Acceptance: Accepted worldwide at Visa and Mastercard merchants, including Apple Pay and Google Pay integrations.
- Instant Crypto-to-Fiat Conversion: Transactions are seamlessly converted at the point of sale, providing a frictionless payment experience.
A User-Centric Approach to Fintech Innovation

Infini continuously evolves its platform based on user feedback, refining transaction speeds, security measures, and support services. A dedicated customer support team is available via email and live chat, offering personalized assistance for transactions, account management, and investment insights.

As fintech and crypto landscapes rapidly evolve, Infini is at the forefront, delivering integrated, user-friendly financial solutions. Whether you are a seasoned crypto enthusiast or a newcomer exploring digital assets, Infini provides a seamless platform that blends the reliability of traditional finance with the innovation of crypto.

Contact Information:
Company: Infini
Address: Hong Kong
Email: contact@infini.money
X: https://x.com/0xinfini
Contact Person: Valerio Li

The MIL Network –
February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI: NordVPN verifies its no-logs assurance assessment for the fifth time

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

LONDON, Feb. 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NordVPN, a leading cybersecurity company, underwent an independent assurance engagement at the end of 2024. Seeking to maintain a high level of trust and transparency, NordVPN commissioned Deloitte Audit Lithuania, one of the market-leading Big Four firms, to conduct an assurance report on the configuration of its IT systems, supporting infrastructure, and no-logs claims.

For the fifth time in NordVPN’s history, an independent team of researchers verified that the company’s no-logs statement is accurate and aligns with its privacy claims.

“The trust we earn from our customers underscores everything we do in the cybersecurity industry. It’s a currency that’s hard to acquire and one we never take for granted. To maintain that trust, we not only strive each year to innovate and develop world-leading cybersecurity products, but we also fully commit to our promise not to monitor or record our users’ online traffic. Having this assurance reaffirmed by independent, globally respected researchers for the fifth time demonstrates that privacy isn’t just a buzzword at NordVPN — it’s in our DNA,” says Marijus Briedis, CTO at NordVPN.

During the engagement process, Deloitte’s practitioners interviewed NordVPN’s employees and inspected server infrastructure, and technical logs. They had access to NordVPN services from November 18 until December 20, 2024 and reviewed privacy relevant configuration settings and deployment processes of standard VPN, Double VPN, Onion Over VPN, obfuscated servers, and P2P servers.

Deloitte Audit Lithuania conducted the assessment in accordance with the International Standard on Assurance Engagements 3000 (Revised) (ISAE 3000), established by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) with the aim of examining NordVPN’s IT system configuration and management.

NordVPN’s first independent no-log engagement was completed in 2018, followed by second, third, and fourth assessments in 2020, 2022, and 2023, showing the company’s continuous commitment to privacy.

The full no-logs assurance engagement report is available to all NordVPN users, after logging in to their Nord Account user control panel.

ABOUT NORDVPN

NordVPN is the world’s most advanced VPN service provider, chosen by millions of internet users worldwide. The service offers features such as dedicated IP, Double VPN, and Onion Over VPN servers, which help to boost your online privacy with zero tracking. One of NordVPN’s key features is Threat Protection Pro™, a tool that blocks malicious websites, trackers, and ads and scans downloads for malware. The latest creation of Nord Security, NordVPN’s parent company, is Saily — a global eSIM service. NordVPN is known for being user friendly and can offer some of the best prices on the market. This VPN provider has over 6,400 servers covering 111 countries worldwide. For more information, visit https://nordvpn.com.

More information: brigita@nordsec.com

The MIL Network –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: 13 persons arrested for illegally disposing 35 000 tonnes of hazardous waste

Source: Europol

Abusing an infrastructure of legal businesses, the criminal network is believed to have managed the illegal trafficking and disposal of the waste from the countries of origin, mainly Italy, to the destination in Croatia. To that end, the criminal network relied on legal companies in Italy, as well as transport companies and other legitimate businesses in Italy and Croatia. Laboratory…

MIL Security OSI –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI: China Medical System （867.HK） is Included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook 2025

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

SHENZHEN, CHINA, Feb. 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — In February 11th 2025, with a Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) score of 61, surpassing 93% of global peers, China Medical System Holdings Limited (“CMS” or the “Group”) has been included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook 2025 (the “Yearbook 2025”). This marks the Group’s first inclusion in the global edition of S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook (the “Yearbook”), following the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook (China Edition) inclusion for consecutive two years.

Since its launch in 2008, the Yearbook’s professionalism and authority have been highly recognized by global ESG investors and other stakeholders. The Yearbook aims to identify outstanding companies in sustainable development from each industry. 7,690 companies across 62 industries were assessed, while only 780 stood out and were included in the Yearbook 2025. The inclusion in the Yearbook 2025 represents a high recognition of sustainable development practices of CMS.

CMS has been actively responding to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for years, by integrating ESG governance into its corporate strategy and formulating an ESG strategy covering various dimensions in operation. The Group continues to invest in innovation to enhance the accessibility of advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies, and actively take its social responsibilities to create greater value at the business, industry, and societal levels. The Group’s sustainability performance has also been recognized by several authoritative ESG rating institutions. The Group’s MSCI ESG rating has been maintained at “AA”; the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency (HKQAA) sustainability rating is in the top 10% of the industry; and the Sino-Securities Index ESG rating is “AA”.

In the future, with its ESG vision of “becoming a world-leading sustainable pharmaceutical enterprise”, CMS will strengthen its practices in corporate governance, social contributions, and environmental protection, working together with all stakeholders to promote sustainable development and contribute to the realization of a more habitable planet.

About CMS
CMS is a platform company linking pharmaceutical innovation and commercialization with strong product lifecycle management capability, dedicated to providing competitive products and services to meet unmet medical needs.

CMS focuses on the global first-in-class (FIC) and best-in-class (BIC) innovative products, and efficiently promotes the clinical research, development and commercialization of innovative products, enabling the continuous transformation of scientific research into clinical practices to benefit patients.

CMS deeply engages in several specialty therapeutic fields, and has developed proven commercialization capabilities, extensive networks and expert resources, resulting in leading academic and market positions for its major marketed products. CMS continues to promote the in-depth development of its advantageous specialty fields and expand business boundaries. While strengthening the competitiveness of the cardio-cerebrovascular/gastroenterology business, CMS independently operates its dermatology and medical aesthetics business, and ophthalmology business, aiming to gain leading positions in specialty therapeutic fields, whilst enhancing the scale and efficiency. At the same time, CMS has expanded its business territory to the Southeast Asian market, striving to become a “bridgehead” for global pharmaceutical companies to enter the Southeast Asian market, further escorting the sustainable and healthy development of the Group.

CMS Disclaimer and Forward-Looking Statements
This press release is not intended to promote any products to you and is not for advertising purposes. This press release does not recommend any drugs, medical devices and/or indications. If you want to know more about the diagnosis and treatment of specific diseases, please follow the opinions or guidance of your doctor or other medical and health professionals. Any treatment-related decisions made by healthcare professionals should be based on the patient’s specific circumstances and in accordance with the drug package insert.

This press release which has been prepared by CMS does not constitute any offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any securities, and shall not form the basis for or be relied on in connection with any contract or binding commitment whatsoever. This press release has been prepared by CMS based on information and data which it considers reliable, but CMS makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, whatsoever, and no reliance shall be placed on, the truth, accuracy, completeness, fairness and reasonableness of the contents of this press release. Certain matters discussed in this press release may contain statements regarding the Group’s market opportunity and business prospects that are individually and collectively forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Any forward-looking statements and projections made by third parties included in this press release are not adopted by the Group and the Company is not responsible for such third-party statements and projections.

Media Contact

Brand: China Medical System Holdings Ltd.

Contact: CMS Investor Relations

Email: ir@cms.net.cn

Website: https://web.cms.net.cn/en/home/

Source: China Medical System Holdings Ltd.

The MIL Network –

February 15, 2025

MIL-OSI: 180 Degree Capital Corp. Issues Q4 2024 Shareholder Letter

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

Montclair, NJ, Feb. 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — 180 Degree Capital Corp. (NASDAQ:TURN) today issued the following Q4 2024 Shareholder Letter:

Fellow Shareholders,

We are incredibly proud of our recent announcement of the signing of a definitive agreement for 180 Degree Capital Corp. (“180 Degree Capital”) to enter into a business combination (the “Business Combination”) with Mount Logan Capital Inc. (“Mount Logan”). For those of you who have not had a chance to listen to our joint call with the team from Mount Logan or review the presentation deck that summarizes the proposed transaction, both can be found at https://ir.180degreecapital.com/ir-calendar/detail/2908/180-degree-capital-and-mount-logan-capital-proposed-merger. We expect to file a registration statement and joint proxy statement/prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) soon. This document will give us the opportunity to speak with our shareholders more extensively about the proposed Business Combination and the process that led to our Board’s unanimous approval of this strategically important transaction.

This proposed transaction is not the end of 180 Degree Capital. We believe it is the logical next step in our evolution. It is also an opportunity that is not afforded commonly to closed-end funds, particularly since we believe most have limited differentiation. We believe there are clear reasons why 180 Degree Capital has this truly unique opportunity to combine with an asset manager and to transition to an operating company. We will get to those below, but first, I want to touch on why we believe Mount Logan is a proverbial “diamond in the rough.”

Mount Logan has the following attributes that we believe will provide value to 180 Degree Capital shareholders:

Mount Logan has what we believe to be an outstanding management team comprised of its CEO, Ted Goldthorpe, its Co-Presidents, Matthias Ederer and Henry Wang, and its CFO, Nikita Klassen;
Mount Logan’s asset management platform has approximately $2.4+ billion of assets under management (as of September 30, 2024) that we believe generates predictable fee revenue that can be used to benefit the growth of the combined company and its shareholders;
Mount Logan has operational leverage and unique investment access through its association with BC Partners, a leading global private equity and credit firm;
Mount Logan is focused on what we believe is the fast-growing market of private credit;
We believe that Mount Logan remains undiscovered by the majority of investors due to it being listed on the Cboe Canada exchange rather than a US national exchange; and
We believe Mount Logan is significantly undervalued by public market investors.

For 35 years, I have been a value investor attempting to uncover great companies that I believe are trading below their intrinsic value. As we spent more time with Ted and his colleagues over the past six months, it became abundantly clear to us that 1) we believe Mount Logan is one of these great undiscovered and undervalued companies and 2) the combination of our two companies has the potential to unlock substantial value for 180 Degree Capital shareholders by:

Shifting the valuation of our business from one based on net asset value to a valuation based on operating metrics with a foundation of what we believe will be more predictable fee-related revenues attributed to earnings from the management of permanent and semi-permanent capital vehicles. Other similar businesses commonly trade based on multiples of operating metrics rather than discounts to net asset value.
Changing to an asset-light operating company that leverages an association with BC Partners enables economies of scale that are not possible at 180 Degree Capital’s current size; and
Substantially increasing the available capital for us to be able to leverage our relationships with small and microcapitalization public companies, to develop capital structure solutions that seek to unlock value and generate favorable risk-adjusted returns.

I, as the largest individual shareholder of 180 Degree Capital, and Daniel as a top-ten shareholder, could not be more excited about the future of the combined entity. We believe the proposed Business Combination to be the best opportunity to build value for all shareholders of 180 Degree Capital. We believe strongly in 180 Degree Capital’s future under the leadership of Ted and his colleagues. I have been an investor in the public markets for 35 years, during which investors entrusted me with billions of dollars of capital. We are interested in building true value for shareholders over the short and long term. We believe this combination achieves both of these objectives.

We are not the only ones who understand the potential for value creation from this Business Combination. Some of our largest shareholders have signed either voting agreements or non-binding indications of support, that when combined with ownership of management and the board, account for approximately 27% of our outstanding shares in the aggregate. We appreciate the time and consideration these shareholders spent to understand the merits of this proposed Business Combination and their support for it.

While we work toward filing the registration statement and joint proxy statement/prospectus for the proposed Business Combination with the SEC, we thought this would be a good time to reflect on our successes since the start of 180 Degree Capital in 2017. We believe that these successes have enabled us to enter at this next phase of 180 Degree Capital’s evolution and value creation for our fellow shareholders. Here are some of the data points we are proud of and show our contributions since I joined 180 Degree Capital’s predecessor company board of directors in June 2016, when we started 180 Degree Capital at the end of 2016, and the end of last year:

	June 30, 2016	December 31, 2016	December 31, 2024	Change from December 31, 2016
Day-to-Day Operating Expenses	~$6.0 million	~$6.3 million	~$3.5 million	-44%
% Private Investments	86%	92%	<1%	-91%
% Public Investments	14%	8%	>99%	+91%
% Cash + Public Securities of NAV	21%¹	27%	102%	+75%
Insider Ownership	2.1%²	2.6%²	12.7%	+10.1%

^1. Net of $5,000,000 in debt on balance sheet as of June 30, 2016.
^2. Excludes restricted stock subject to forfeiture provisions. The equity compensation program was terminated in March 2017 in conjunction with 180 Degree Capital’s transition from a business development company to a registered closed-end fund.

We slashed expenses, in part by transitioning from a business development company to a registered closed-end fund structure. A collateral impact of this transition was the elimination of our ability to compensate employees through the issuance of options or restricted stock. We didn’t care. It was the right decision for our shareholders. We transitioned the balance sheet. We substantially increased insider ownership through solely open market purchases. As noted previously, no equity was given to the management team or other employees as compensation. No one has bought and held more stock in the open market than me during that time period.

As the table below shows, we believe our shareholders have benefited from our ability to generate positive returns on our investments since we took over management of 180 Degree Capital. These returns were offset by material declines in the legacy private portfolio that we inherited.

Public Portfolio Contribution to Change in NAV (2017-2024)	Legacy Private Portfolio Contribution to Change in NAV (2017-2024)
+$3.13/share	-$2.41/share

TURN Public Portfolio Gross Total (Excluding SMA Carried Interest)

TURN Public Portfolio Gross Total (Including SMA Carried Interest)

Change in NAV

Change in Stock Price

Russell Microcap Index

Lipper Peer Group Average

Inception to Date
Q4 2016 – Q4 2024

+185.7%

+204.5%

-33.9%

-11.4%

+68.5%

+81.8%

Math is math. Our public market investment strategy over the history of 180 Degree Capital outperformed our comparable peers and indices. It is fair to ask why our stock price has not followed. We believe it is largely because of the significant negative impact of the private portfolio that we inherited, and the discounts disproportionately applied to closed-end funds of our size. Hence, I come back to our proposed Business Combination with Mount Logan, and what we believe it can do to potentially unlock value for 180 Degree Capital shareholders when we are no longer constrained by the market dynamics ascribed to closed-end funds.

We will let our upcoming registration statement and included joint proxy statement/prospectus provide the truth to our shareholders regarding how and why our Board unanimously approved this proposed Business Combination. In the meantime, our work over the prior eight years set up 180 Degree Capital for this next phase of what we believe will be long-term shareholder value creation. We realize our lack of scale has caused our expense ratio to be too high. We believe we have uncovered a unique solution for that and other growth-limiting issues with our proposed Business Combination. Our Board and management team firmly believe that this Business Combination is in the best interest of all of our shareholders. We could not be more excited about the potential for future value creation as a result of combining with Mount Logan, and we look forward to discussing this proposed combination with all of you and prospective future shareholders of the combined entity.

All the best,

Kevin M. Rendino
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

About 180 Degree Capital Corp.

180 Degree Capital Corp. is a publicly traded registered closed-end fund focused on investing in and providing value-added assistance through constructive activism to what we believe are substantially undervalued small, publicly traded companies that have potential for significant turnarounds. Our goal is that the result of our constructive activism leads to a reversal in direction for the share price of these investee companies, i.e., a 180-degree turn. Detailed information about 180 Degree Capital and its holdings can be found on its website at www.180degreecapital.com.

Press Contact:
Daniel B. Wolfe
Robert E. Bigelow
180 Degree Capital Corp.
973-746-4500
ir@180degreecapital.com

Additional Information and Where to Find It

In connection with the proposed Business Combination, 180 Degree Capital intends to file with the SEC and mail to its shareholders a proxy statement on Schedule 14A (the “Proxy Statement”), containing a form of WHITE proxy card. In addition, the surviving Delaware corporation, Mount Logan Capital Inc. (“New Mount Logan”) plans to file with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4 (the “Registration Statement”) that will register the exchange of New Mount Logan shares in the Business Combination and include the Proxy Statement and a prospectus of New Mount Logan (the “Prospectus”). The Proxy Statement and the Registration Statement (including the Prospectus) will each contain important information about 180 Degree Capital, Mount Logan, New Mount Logan, the Business Combination and related matters. SHAREHOLDERS OF 180 DEGREE CAPITAL AND MOUNT LOGAN ARE URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT AND PROSPECTUS CONTAINED IN THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT AND OTHER DOCUMENTS THAT ARE FILED OR WILL BE FILED WITH THE APPLICABLE SECURITIES REGULATORY AUTHORITIES AS WELL AS ANY AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS TO THESE DOCUMENTS CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT 180 DEGREE CAPITAL, MOUNT LOGAN, NEW MOUNT LOGAN, THE BUSINESS COMBINATION AND RELATED MATTERS. Investors and security holders may obtain copies of these documents and other documents filed with the applicable securities regulatory authorities free of charge through the website maintained by the SEC at https://www.sec.gov and the website maintained by the Canadian securities regulators at www.sedarplus.ca. Copies of the documents filed by 180 Degree Capital are also available free of charge by accessing 180 Degree Capital’s investor relations website at https://ir.180degreecapital.com.

Certain Information Concerning the Participants

180 Degree Capital, its directors and executive officers and other members of management and employees may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies in connection with the Business Combination. Information about 180 Degree Capital’s executive officers and directors is available in 180 Degree Capital’s Annual Report filed on Form N-CSR for the year ended December 31, 2024, which was filed with the SEC on February 13, 2025, and in its proxy statement for the 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders (“2024 Annual Meeting”), which was filed with the SEC on March 1, 2024. To the extent holdings by the directors and executive officers of 180 Degree Capital securities reported in the proxy statement for the 2024 Annual Meeting have changed, such changes have been or will be reflected on Statements of Change in Ownership on Forms 3, 4 or 5 filed with the SEC. These documents are or will be available free of charge at the SEC’s website at https://www.sec.gov. Additional information regarding the persons who may, under the rules of the SEC, be considered participants in the solicitation of the 180 Degree Capital shareholders in connection with the Business Combination will be contained in the Proxy Statement when such document becomes available.

Mount Logan, its directors and executive officers and other members of management and employees may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from the shareholders of Mount Logan in favor of the approval of the Business Combination. Information about Mount Logan’s executive officers and directors is available in Mount Logan’s annual information form dated March 14, 2024, available on its website at https://mountlogancapital.ca/investor-relations and on SEDAR+ at https://sedarplus.ca. To the extent holdings by the directors and executive officers of Mount Logan securities reported in Mount Logan’s annual information form have changed, such changes have been or will be reflected on insider reports filed on SEDI at https://www.sedi.ca/sedi/. Additional information regarding the persons who may, under the rules of the SEC, be considered participants in the solicitation of the Mount Logan shareholders in connection with the Business Combination will be contained in the Prospectus included in the Registration Statement when such document becomes available.

Non-Solicitation

This letter and the materials accompanying it are not intended to be, and shall not constitute, an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities, or a solicitation of any vote or approval, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offering of securities shall be made, except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

Forward-Looking Statements

This letter and the materials accompanying it, and oral statements made from time to time by representatives of 180 Degree Capital and Mount Logan, may contain statements of a forward-looking nature relating to future events within the meaning of federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “could,” “continue,” “estimate,” “expects,” “intends,” “will,” “should,” “may,” “plan,” “predict,” “project,” “would,” “forecasts,” “seeks,” “future,” “proposes,” “target,” “goal,” “objective,” “outlook” and variations of these words or similar expressions (or the negative versions of such words or expressions). Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical fact and reflect Mount Logan’s and 180 Degree Capital’s current views about future events. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements about the benefits of the Business Combination involving Mount Logan and 180 Degree Capital, including future financial and operating results, Mount Logan’s and 180 Degree Capital’s plans, objectives, expectations and intentions, the expected timing and likelihood of completion of the Business Combination, and other statements that are not historical facts, including but not limited to future results of operations, projected cash flow and liquidity, business strategy, payment of dividends to shareholders of New Mount Logan, and other plans and objectives for future operations. No assurances can be given that the forward-looking statements contained in this press release will occur as projected, and actual results may differ materially from those projected. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates and assumptions that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the ability to obtain the requisite Mount Logan and 180 Degree Capital shareholder approvals; the risk that Mount Logan or 180 Degree Capital may be unable to obtain governmental and regulatory approvals required for the Business Combination (and the risk that such approvals may result in the imposition of conditions that could adversely affect New Mount Logan or the expected benefits of the Business Combination); the risk that an event, change or other circumstance could give rise to the termination of the Business Combination; the risk that a condition to closing of the Business Combination may not be satisfied; the risk of delays in completing the Business Combination; the risk that the businesses will not be integrated successfully; the risk that the cost savings and any other synergies from the Business Combination may not be fully realized or may take longer to realize than expected; the risk that any announcement relating to the Business Combination could have adverse effects on the market price of Mount Logan’s common stock or 180 Degree Capital’s common stock; unexpected costs resulting from the Business Combination; the possibility that competing offers or acquisition proposals will be made; the risk of litigation related to the Business Combination; the risk that the credit ratings of New Mount Logan or its subsidiaries may be different from what the companies expect; the diversion of management time from ongoing business operations and opportunities as a result of the Business Combination; the risk of adverse reactions or changes to business or employee relationships, including those resulting from the announcement or completion of the Business Combination; competition, government regulation or other actions; the ability of management to execute its plans to meet its goals; risks associated with the evolving legal, regulatory and tax regimes; changes in economic, financial, political and regulatory conditions; natural and man-made disasters; civil unrest, pandemics, and conditions that may result from legislative, regulatory, trade and policy changes; and other risks inherent in Mount Logan’s and 180 Degree Capital’s businesses. Forward-looking statements are based on the estimates and opinions of management at the time the statements are made. Readers should carefully review the statements set forth in the reports, which 180 Degree Capital has filed or will file from time to time with the SEC and Mount Logan has filed or will file from time to time on SEDAR+.

Neither Mount Logan nor 180 Degree Capital undertakes any obligation, and expressly disclaims any obligation, to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Any discussion of past performance is not an indication of future results. Investing in financial markets involves a substantial degree of risk. Investors must be able to withstand a total loss of their investment. The information herein is believed to be reliable and has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but no representation or warranty is made, expressed or implied, with respect to the fairness, correctness, accuracy, reasonableness or completeness of the information and opinions. The references and link to the website www.180degreecapital.com and mountlogancapital.ca have been provided as a convenience, and the information contained on such websites are not incorporated by reference into this press release. Neither 180 Degree Capital nor Mount Logan is responsible for the contents of third-party websites.

The MIL Network –

February 15, 2025

MIL-OSI United Kingdom: New car parks and improved drainage works to start at Herrington Country Park

Source: City of Sunderland

Car parking at one of Sunderland’s most popular parks is being boosted with new spaces for 90 more vehicles

Works at Herrington Country Park, which at over 320 acres is also one of the city’s biggest park, are due to begin on Monday 17 February.

The park has had a 20 year run of annual Green Flag awards from Keep Britain Tidy and alongside its lakes, paths, play areas and wildlife, is known for its views of Penshaw Monument. It is also a major events space and hosts a weekly 5k park run and the annual Kubix festivals. This year’s Kubix festival is due to be held on Saturday 12 July.

New car parking is to help meet its growing popularity and prevent inconsiderate visitor parking which has damaged some grassed areas and verges. The car park project was agreed as part of Sunderland City Council’s ongoing investment budgets and maintenance programmes into the city and its infrastructure.

The City Council’s Environment, Transport and Net Zero Portfolio Holder, Councillor Lindsey Leonard said: “We have unrivalled parks and green spaces in our city which are the envy of many. We all understand how important they are for the thousands of residents and visitors who access and enjoy them annually.

“But when the car parks are full we do get some inconsiderate parking and this in turn damages grassed areas and verges and can make parts of the park look unsightly. Increasing the number of parking spaces will help prevent this as while a relatively small grassed area is lost, even more is protected because drivers will not be parking on it.”

The current number of spaces at the café car park is 62 with 55 of those being standard spaces, five are disabled parking and two are electric vehicle charging bays, and there are nine standard bays at the skate park.

The expanded car parking will see the existing car park close to the café expanded to a total capacity of 129 which includes five accessible bays, provision for seven future EV charging bays and four minibus bays. There will also be a new layout and improvements to footpaths, cycle and motorbike parking and landscaping. The skate park parking will increase to 33 standard bays with plans to create a wildflower meadow nearby.

Existing drainage will be upgraded as part of the project to mitigate current flooding issues occurring in the main cafe car park and on the highway leading to the skate park.

Cllr Leonard added: “We’re continuing our City Plan for a more dynamic, healthy and vibrant smart city, and city parks are an important part of this work so that everyone can enjoy our outdoor spaces.

“We appreciate the patience of Herrington’s many visitors while we carry out these improvements at one of our most popular parks.”

This development is estimated to take 15 weeks and will be completed by June 2025. The park and businesses will continue to be open throughout with minimal disruption.

MIL OSI United Kingdom –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Parents urged to vaccinate children against measles amid a rise in cases

Source: City of Leeds

Parents and carers are being urged to ensure their children have the Measles Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine amid a rise in measles cases nationwide, including in Leeds.

Parents and carers are being urged to ensure their children have the Measles Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine amid a rise in measles cases nationwide, including in Leeds.

Measles is a serious disease which can be spread easily amongst unvaccinated people with babies, children, pregnant women and people with weakened immunity, at highest risk. It can lead to hospitalisation and in rare cases tragically can cause death.

The uptake of routine childhood vaccinations nationally, including the MMR vaccine, is the lowest in a decade. In January 2024, the UK Health Security Agency (UKSHA) declared a national measles incident to coordinate the wider investigation and response to the rise in cases.

The majority of cases nationally and locally are among children under the age of 10 who have missed their MMR vaccine. Normally the first dose of MMR vaccine is given around a child’s first birthday; the second dose is given at around three years and four months old, before starting school.

However, it is never too late to get vaccinated, people can be vaccinated at any age with the two doses providing the best protection.

Young adults are also being urged to catch up on any missed doses, particularly before thinking about starting a family given the risk of the disease to pregnant women.

Over the past few months Leeds City Council has been working in partnership with the NHS, UKHSA, schools, higher education settings and community organisations to increase uptake of the MMR vaccine in communities in Leeds and provide advice on how to recognise symptoms and where to access the vaccine.

Victoria Eaton, director of public health, Leeds City Council, said:

“Measles can be a very serious disease; it can have similar symptoms to chickenpox but the health complications from measles can be much more severe and in some cases could lead to brain inflammation and pneumonia. Measles symptoms often start with a cough, high fever, runny nose and sore watery eyes, usually followed by a rash a few days later, this often starts on the face and spreads to the rest of the body.

“If you do think you have symptoms, ring 111 or contact your doctor’s surgery immediately – please don’t go to hospital or your doctor’s surgery without first calling ahead, it’s extremely important you don’t spread the disease to vulnerable people.

“Having two doses of the MMR vaccine at the right time gives long-term protection against measles and it is free from your GP practice.

“A non-porcine version of the MMR vaccine is also available which does not contain any pork products; however, you may need to request this from your GP practice ahead of vaccination.”

Councillor Fiona Venner, Leeds City Council executive member for equality, health and wellbeing, said:

“We’ve done a lot of work with our NHS partners and other organisations to increase public awareness and understanding of the risk of measles and as a result we are pleased that more parents are coming forward to get their children vaccinated, however there is still more work to do.

“If you or your child have missed your vaccine doses, it’s never too late, call or contact your GP surgery and request the MMR vaccine as soon as possible.”

For more information on measles, and the MMR vaccine, visit the NHS website: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/measles/.

MIL OSI United Kingdom –

February 15, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa is Providing the Lifesaving Training When Every Second Counts

Source: United States Navy (Medical)

Camp Foster, Okinawa, Japan February 13, 2025, staff from the U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa (USNHO) Emergency Department are training the future EMTs charged with providing lifesaving critical care to those in need en route to the hospital. Okinawa is a small island stretching 70 miles from north to south, up to 7 miles wide at its widest and only 2 miles wide at the narrowest. This geography, along with streets not wide enough for two cars to pass and 95% of the population all in the middle of the island, makes Okinawa one of the most densely populated non-metropolitan areas in the world. This unique environment makes it a daily challenge for the EMT personnel who provide emergency first responder care to 6 branch clinics and the interfacility transfers of patients of USNHO.

The two most northern branch clinics can take as long as two hours to navigate the densely populated narrow streets where the average posted speed limit is 30km/h or 19mph. The gravity of that kicks in when you are potentially the sole provider riding in the back of an ambulance with a patient suffering grievous injuries. CDR Pete Nyilas, the Director for Medical Services at USNHO, explained the importance of the hospital providing EMT training to our corpsmen and the incredible responsibility these, often very young sailors, are shouldering. The Naval Hospital is doubling down and conducting ongoing training to ensure enough EMTs are trained to fill the role. A class is testing out today, February 13, 2025, then there will be a refresher training in March, followed by another training class between April and May. This is the constant battle rhythm needed to keep a continuous roster of EMTs to mitigate burnout, accommodate time off, and manage the permanent change of station (PCS) moves that are constantly happening. The goal is to have at least two EMTs per ambulance rig and enough to cover the 24-hour duty they stand when on call.

The EMT course at the Naval Hospital is “rigorous and tests our corpsmen to the top of their training,” CDR Nyilas said. He pointed out that this course and opportunity are unique to Okinawa because stateside emergency transport is done by civilian ambulances and emergency responders, not by the Medical Treatment Facility (MTF) personnel. Nyilas also pointed out the similarities in real-world trauma that the corpsmen might encounter on a battlefield.

The EMT course is challenging, and after passing, the students must take the Nationally Recognized Emergency Medical Transport (NREMT) test and pass to receive a nationally recognized certification that is good for two years. The previously mentioned refresher course given every third month helps keep the certifications current. Time is the enemy of this program because the students are often first tour young Sailors who come on two-year unaccompanied orders. By the time they make it into a course, pass it, schedule to take the NREMT, and pass to finally make it onto the watch bill, it can be nearly a year, and they are halfway through their tour! The demands of the course and the testing make the success rate around 70%, and some find that they are incompatible with the call of this specialized service.

Senior Chief Rachel Kerner, the Senior Enlisted Leader for the Directorate for Medical Services, explained how very important these newly trained EMTs are and their important role on the island. Kerner said, “The importance of having well-trained, well-prepared EMTs stationed strategically around the island means a couple of minutes, and those can be crucial to a positive outcome for our patients.” Senior Chief Kerner pointed out that the opportunity to serve as an EMT is not just for the Corpsmen assigned to the hospital, that there are currently EMT-trained staff with the Dental BN in the Laboratory and Family Medicine who can help cover shifts to maintain their skills and relieve other EMTs. She also stressed the unique opportunity to serve in this capacity overseas, and when she asks her EMTs before they PSC how they liked being an EMT, they usually say something very similar. “The hours were brutal, and the traumas were tough, but I would not have wanted to do anything else while I was here!”

The training is conducted in the Naval hospital, and one of the instructors is HM3 Nessa Zazi. You might mistake her youthful appearance and braces for a lack of experience and be very mistaken. She commanded her role as instructor and evaluator with the confidence and poise of a well-seasoned veteran of the ambulance rig. She was testing out a student, HM3 Jason Veloz, serving with the 3D Marine Division, conducting a complete mockup scenario of a semi-responsive patient on a scene to which he was called. It wasn’t lost in the moment that these two young Corpsmen were preparing to be the sole provider when those minutes count to evaluate and prep a patient for emergency transport. Zazi provided feedback after the role-playing exercise, during which each of them remained in character and walked through a very plausible patient encounter. HM3 Zazi said, “You need to expedite your evaluation and initial contact with the hospital Emergency Department; short, sweet, and to the point; if you are taking too long, you are holding up traffic!” Zazi also let Veloz know that she liked how he examined the patient even though a neighbor had provided their recollection of how the patient went down. HM3 Zazi’s parting advice, “You just have to complete the reps and sets before you can gain more confidence.”

LCDR Amanda Studer, an emergency medicine physician at USNHO, leads the Emergency Department (ED) in a modernization effort that affects the emergency care of all the beneficiaries of USNHO in Okinawa. While it is easy to navigate Okinawa as a foreigner, some of the simple things we have come to expect in the U.S. are not the same here; the first is 911. We teach kids to dial 911 in an emergency from a very young age. In Okinawa, it is still 911 on base, but off base it is 119. Like any complicated system, many caveats and exceptions can lead to confusion, especially in a stressful medical situation. Dr. Studer has worked tirelessly to make changes and upgrade the dispatch system, including overseeing the EMT training program. When talking about the Sailors who have stepped up to the call, Studer said, “These are our modern-day superheroes who show up for you during some of the worst days of your lives.” She explained how it builds confidence in our community to see the strives and improvements to the system. The upgrades are not just in the programs and phone numbers; Dr. Studer was instrumental in helping acquire additional ambulances from the Army in Korea. This massive undertaking involved the Marines, Airforce, Army, and the Navy to ship the vehicles here to Okinawa. Opening lines of communication with host nation EMS allows both services to learn from each other and share best practices for improving care for every patient on Okinawa. Under her watch, the program procured over $500,000 in critical lifesaving EMS equipment. She helped coordinate long overdue EMS site visits for both Navy/Marine Corps and Army services and has helped build the infrastructure for a modern, readily equipped EMS program.

The collaboration between Marine Corps Installation Pacific Command (MCIPAC), the host nation, sister services, and USNHO has provided the resources to help maintain medical care for the residents here in Okinawa. Our beneficiaries can be confident that a new group of well-trained EMTs will test out next Tuesday, and these modern-day heroes will be on the streets providing emergency medical care to those in need.

The U.S. Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Okinawa (USNMRTCO) supports the Defense Health Agency’s U.S. Naval Hospital, Okinawa (USNHO) as the largest OCONUS Navy Medicine medical treatment facility and stands at the ready to respond to contingency operations to support the INDOPACOM region. It is a critical regional asset for direct care delivery, regional referrals, and medical contingency operations. The staff of USNHO understands their vital role as pre-positioned, forward-deployed naval forces within the first island chain, aligned and in support of the joint military commands and operations.

Trey Savitz, Public Affairs Officer
U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa, Japan
Comm: 011-81-971-7024
DSN: (315) 646-7024
isaac.s.savitz.civ@health.mil

MIL Security OSI –

February 15, 2025

Category: Transport

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