NewzIntel.com

Category: Transport

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: David Seymour to the Waikato Chamber of Commerce

    Source: ACT Party

    ACT Leader David Seymour to the Waikato Chamber of Commerce: Budget 2025 and Beyond

    Thank you for the opportunity to be here, and hear from you today. Wherever I go, and I’ve said it here in Hamilton before, I say business is a beautiful form of human cooperation that too many people demonise.

    Thank you for being in business. Bringing together ideas, investment, workers, and customers is almost magic. It means people can achieve together what they couldn’t do alone. That’s what I mean by beautiful, voluntary, human cooperation.

    Every year, Government sets a Budget. Every three years, the people elect a new Parliament. About every six-to-nine years, the Government changes, but the real change is invisible at the time.

    Politics has a rhythm that could put you to sleep, if it wasn’t so maddening: headlines, hot takes, and handouts. At least that’s what it seems like in the moment. But when you look back at politics a generation or two ago, you can see it was actually going somewhere.

    What’s difficult is looking through the now, and seeing backwards from the future. How will today look in your children’s rear view mirror? What big trends were we part of, whether we realised it or not? What things will we wish we’d spent more time on, even if they don’t stand out right now?

    If this sounds familiar, it should. Politics, like business, is just another extension of life.

    New Zealand is in the middle of a repair job. After years of economic mismanagement and runaway spending, the Government is patching the roof while the rain still falls. But a team that’s always rebuilding never lifts the trophy. That’s why we need to move from recovery to victory.

    My speech today is about acknowledging where we’re at, and feeling today’s very real challenges. But, it’s also about asking what choices we need to make if we’re going to look good in our children’s rear view mirror.

    There are lots of answers. Mine is cultural. We’ll only build a winning economy for future generations is if we restore freedom and personal responsibility to the individual, and reward effort and innovation.

    If you get those values right, and have agreement on the values, the policy choices can be easy.

    Budget 2025 and ACT’s influence

    Anyone who’s read one of ACT’s alternative budgets knows we’d like to spend less than the coalition. It’s also true that the coalition spends less than the other parties would without ACT.

    We’ve been identifying savings and instilling fiscal discipline. Collectively, our Ministers have saved current and future taxpayers billions. Brooke van Velden saved the most. Her long-overdue changes to a broken pay equity system didn’t just save the budget, they are good policy. No country got rich by inventing more complicated ways to argue with itself.

    As usual, Labour and the unions responded with scare tactics and misinformation. The fact is that Brooke’s changes bring back common sense. Pay equity claims will still be possible – but they’ll need real evidence of discrimination, not assumptions. That means a system that’s fair, workable, and sustainable for the long term.

    Not many MPs would have the guts to take this on, but Brooke is an ACT MP. We’re willing to take on tough issues and stand by our principles. This approach needs to be replicated and applied across a wider range of issues in order for New Zealand to tackle long-term issues.

    While it doesn’t go as far as we’d like, in many ways this budget reflects ACT’s values: freedom, responsibility, growth, and efficiency. It reduces the share of the nation’s economic pie consumed by Government and redirects spending to areas that generate long-term prosperity.

    Inflation is currently 2.5 per cent and the population has grown 0.9 per cent in the last year. That means our country’s inflation plus population growth is 3.4 per cent.

    If the Government’s Budget grew by 3.4 per cent, it would grow by $4.9 billion. The question is, does this Budget increase spending by $4.9 billion?

    No, it does not. It increases by a fraction of that. This Budget increases spending by $1.3 billion. That’s a 0.9 per cent increase.

    When the Government reduces its share of the economy, there is more for the firms, farms, and families of this country to consume.

    Debt remains the biggest issue for the future of our country though. Government spending has a diabolical power: time travel. It borrows today and sends the bill into the future, landing with children who are learning their ABCs this afternoon.

    Our national debt is now $175 billion, heading past $200 billion by 2026, and $234 billion by 2029. That’s $46,800 per New Zealander.

    Debt is rising by $2 million per hour, or $48 million a day.

    The status quo is not sustainable. We cannot keep borrowing at the expense of the next generation.

    Cutting waste, reinvesting in what matters

    Savings in this budget have been substantial. Take public broadcasting – $18.4 million cut from RNZ. Or the end of the EECA, a department which tells people what they already know, energy is expensive. That saves $56.2 million over four years.

    Then there’s the $375.5 million saved from scrapping Communities of Learning – a failed concept that pulled teachers out of classrooms.

    Other examples include Kiwisaver subsidies for those already well-off – halved and means-tested. Bilingual towns and climate resilience grants funding – eliminated.

    We’re also saving money by returning responsibility to Kiwis. Tightening benefit eligibility for 18-19 year olds saves $163 million, but it also promotes the value of work. Many teenagers who might have been going down a pathway of benefit dependency will now learn the value of providing for themselves instead. There will also be more aggressive recovery of court fines and legal aid debt, because responsibility goes both ways.

    These savings are not all cost-cutting, they’re a change in priorities. Every dollar saved is a dollar redirected to what truly matters: education, infrastructure, security, and growth.

    Policies that unleash growth

    At the heart of this Budget is a new 20% capital asset deduction for business investment.

    If you’re a farmer upgrading milking machines…

    A restaurant expanding its kitchen…

    A startup buying lab equipment…

    A logistics firm improving software systems…

    You’ll now get to write off 20% of tax from those capital investments immediately. Treasury estimates this policy alone will lift wages by 1.5% by the time today’s children enter the workforce.

    Why? Because investment drives productivity, and productivity drives higher wages. When people can reinvest more of what they earn, a virtuous cycle begins. Investment → productivity → profits → reinvestment → higher wages. The best part is that the Government just gets out of the way.

    I’ve heard some people complain that there is no cap on the policy, which might be the first time I’ve heard people upset that a policy might be too successful. The fact is that if the level of investment exceeds Treasury’s calculation then that is a good thing. Sure, it won’t be taxed as much as it would have previously, but that investment would likely have never entered the country otherwise.

    Spending on what’s important

    This Budget rightly focuses on the basics, and nothing is more basic than security.

    ACT has long called for Defence spending at 2% of GDP. This Budget makes progress, with a $500 million boost to Defence and Foreign Affairs. In a volatile world, alliances are our best defence. Peace through alliances beats peace through strength.

    At home, we’re investing in law and order. Nearly half a billion dollars to lock up the worst offenders. Because if you think prison is expensive, try the cost of letting criminals roam the streets.

    If there’s one long-term investment that always pays off, it’s education.

    The Budget includes $140 million to boost school attendance, and new investments in maths and learning support. We’re addressing the legacy of poor education policy head-on.

    Parents who choose private schooling, often making real financial sacrifices, will now receive more equitable treatment. Their GST bill is higher than the government support they receive, and that’s not fair.

    What next?

    This Budget doesn’t go as far as ACT would, but we’re proud to support it because it’s pregnant with our values. It gives more resources and choices to the people, compared with government.

    It focuses on growing the New Zealand economy, rather than government spending. It gives a ray of hope, that New Zealanders can achieve their potential in a place where your efforts make a difference.

    That’s the good news. This budget is a reset from the tax, borrow, and spend years. We might have won a battle but it’s a long war to reclaim New Zealand’s economic prosperity.

    Interest on debt is now a major expense in its own right, at $9 billion per year. Interest costs more than police and prisons combined, or about as much as primary, intermediate, and secondary schooling.

    That’s because the debt is nearly $200 billion, and welfare is over $50 billion a year. Nearly half of that is pensions, which rise by a billion and a half each year as more people retire and live longer. Put it another way: $50 billion is nearly $10,000 per person. If you’re in a family of four that is not getting $40,000 of taxpayer cash a year, you are below average.

    Health spending is up $13 billion in seven years, but results have been getting worse for years now. We could go on, but the point is the Government is currently borrowing $14.7 billion a year, and its plan to borrow only $3 billion in four years’ time depends on nothing going wrong for four years. What we’re doing is not sustainable.

    The options are either:

    1. Tax more, such as the Green’s and Labour’s wealth or capital gains tax
    2. Keep borrowing and see what happens (some people genuinely think this is the answer)
    3. Spend less.

    If we do nothing, it is a matter of time before the left gets back in and defaults to option 1. More taxes that are tall poppy syndrome in tax law. Your problems are caused by others’ successes, the story goes, and your solution is to take their money. It will deaden our society from the inside out.

    Option 2 is the road to some sort of banana republic status. The problem is some would default to it through inaction, and some others think using debt is actually an enlightened idea. The downward spiral from this approach goes like this:

    Investors lose faith in the New Zealand Government paying back its bonds, so they demand higher interest rates to buy its bonds. That makes it harder to pay. Everyone loses and we all find our dollar goes towards a lot less than it used to. That is the spiral that so many South American and Southeast Asian countries have experienced.

    If you’re not keen on new taxes, or the Government going broke, then you’re with us. The next five years of New Zealand politics will be in large part about which of the three options to choose. The Greens have set out their stall. Labour hasn’t come up with any policy since the election, but we can predict they’ll campaign on more taxes. Te Pāti Māori base their policy on TikTok trends, which admittedly is more than Labour is trying to propose.

    The coalition hasn’t seriously reduced spending yet though. Even Grant Robertson was spending far less as a percentage of GDP (28%) towards the beginning of his tenure than the current Government (33%). That five-point difference equates to about $23 billion more.

    There’s only one option left. If the Government’s going to balance its budget without more taxes, it’ll need to be smaller and more efficient. There’s four ways we can do that.

    Zero-basing Government

    Government has grown by default, not by design. We have zombie departments and bureaucracies that outlived their usefulness decades ago.

    We need to stop assuming government departments and activities should continue because they always have. It’s easy to think of New Zealand companies that no longer exist. Anyone shopped at Deka lately? Read the Auckland Star? Got a loan from South Canterbury Finance? Had Mainzeal put anything up for you? Anyone here had a night in thanks to Video Ezy this decade?

    What if we zero-based government?

    Every department should have to answer: “If you didn’t exist, who would notice and why?”

    If the answer is vague, bureaucratic, or defensive, it’s probably time to shut it down.

    We would:

    • Cut to 20 ministers – no associates (except Finance).
    • Eliminate the bloat of 82 ministerial portfolios.
    • Merge and reduce departments to no more than 30.
    • Assign each department to one Minister, with eight under-secretaries as a training ground for talent.

    This is not austerity. It’s clarity, on what Government can and cannot do.

    Make transfers fair on every generation

    Superannuation is the biggest elephant in the room.

    Every year, 60,000 New Zealanders turn 65. Each generation lives longer, and has fewer children. That fundamentally changes the maths, or more specifically the dependency ratios. There are more eligible recipients for each active taxpayer.

    The issue can’t be ducked forever. There’s been too much ducking already, and we’re starting to look like geese. My Party says gradually raising the superannuation age by two months per year until it reaches 67 is the right thing to do. Let’s make it fair, predictable, and, most importantly, sustainable.

    Government ownership

    The one thing we know is that the government is hopeless at owning things. State houses? You can tell which houses the Government owns as you drive by. Hospital projects, say no more.

    If in your next life you come back as a farm animal, I hope you don’t live on a Government farm. You are more likely to die on a Government owned farm than a privately owned one, taxpayers are not the only victim of Government going into business.

    Did you know you own Quotable Value, a property valuation company chaired by a former race relations conciliator that contracts to the government of New South Wales? You’re welcome.

    What about 60,000 homes? The government doesn’t need to own a home to house someone. We know this because it also spends billions subsidising people to live in homes it doesn’t own. On the other hand, the taxpayer is paying $10 billion a year servicing debt, and the KiwiBuild and Kainga Ora debacles show the government should do as little in housing as possible.

    There are greater needs for government capital. We haven’t built a harbour crossing for nearly seven decades. Four hundred people die every year on a substandard road network. Beaches around here get closed thanks to sewerage overflow, but we need more core infrastructure. Sections of this city are being red zoned from having more homes built because the council cannot afford the pipes and pumping stations.

    We need to get past squeamishness about privatisation and ask a simple question: if we want to be a first world country, then are we making the best use of the government’s half a trillion dollars plus worth of assets? If something isn’t getting a return, the government should sell it so we can afford to buy something that does.

    A regulatory reset

    We also need to stop strangling our economy with unnecessary regulation.

    The Regulatory Standards Bill, now before Parliament, will finally hold lawmakers accountable. Every new law will have to state:

    • What problem it addresses
    • Its cost-benefit analysis
    • The impact on liberty and property rights

    This Bill turns ‘because we said so’ into ‘because here’s the evidence.’ So if my colleagues want to tax you, take your property, or restrict your livelihood, they should be able to show you their work. This is a game-changer for transparency.

    Let’s take a real-world example: earthquake regulations in Auckland. The chance of a major quake is one in 110,000 years, yet owners are forced into costly upgrades because Christchurch had a disaster. This is not rational policy.

    Instead, we propose risk-based regulation, rooted in evidence, not fear. The same applies to housing. ACT fought hard to overhaul the RMA and introduce property-rights-based planning, because homes are for people, not bureaucrats.

    What comes next?

    New Zealand’s population will reach 6 million by 2043. That’s a good thing, but only if we create a high-performing economy that retains our best and brightest. In the year to February 2025, 69,100 Kiwis left the country. That is ambition seeking a home elsewhere.

    If we carry on in this direction, we’ll become a middling Pacific Island, lamenting the opportunities we let slip.

    This Budget is not the championship match, but it is a turning point.

    We’ve begun the repair work. Cutting waste, restraining spending, rebalancing priorities, but the goal is not just to fix what’s broken. The goal is to build a New Zealand that’s stronger, smarter, and more secure than ever before.

    A country where your effort matters more than where you were born.

    Where rewards come from risk and responsibility, not red tape and redistribution.

    Where the next generation doesn’t inherit a fiscal time bomb, but a ladder to opportunity.

    It won’t be done in a single Budget or a single term. But ACT is committed to seeing it through, because we believe in New Zealanders. We believe that if we give people the freedom, tools, and trust to succeed, they will.

    So, more than just rebuilding. Let’s start playing to win.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Greens call for investment in genuine global security  

    Source: Green Party of England and Wales

    / by Green Party

    In anticipation of the outcome of the strategic defence review being published today, Ellie Chowns MP, who holds the defence brief for the Parliamentary Green Party, said:

    “We acknowledge the need for greater defence spending and continued NATO membership, but also call for a more thorough reappraisal of strategic defence alliances. With Trump no longer a reliable ally, we need to deepen our defence cooperation with the EU, and review AUKUS.

    “A Green approach to security is not based on arms and threats, but on the three Ds: diplomacy and development as well as defence. Defence policy should not be a simple competition over spending, but based on real commitment to an international order based on human rights, equality and genuine cooperation.

    “If we are to avoid the horror of war, we need to look at the deeper causes of insecurity, including poverty and climate change. We strongly support the restoration of the international aid budget to at least 0.7% of GNI, with a considerable proportion spent on climate action.

    “And we will continue to argue that real patriotism means to stand against UK-made weapons or components being sold to dictators, human rights abusers or for use against civilians anywhere in the world.”

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI China: China expands visa-free access to 5 Latin American countries

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

    BEIJING, June 1 — China on Sunday began implementing a trial policy that unilaterally grants visa-free entry to citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. It is the first time that China has extended such access to nations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

    Under the policy, which will remain in effect through May 31, 2026, holders of ordinary passports from these five countries can enter China without a visa for up to 30 days for purposes including business, tourism, family visits, cultural exchange, and transit.

    The move is part of China’s broader efforts to expand visa-free access in line with its commitment to high-level opening-up. With this expansion, China now offers unilateral visa-free entry to 43 countries.

    Once made difficult by distance and complex visa procedures, travel between Latin America and China is increasingly accessible thanks to improved air connectivity and relaxed entry policies. In 2024, a direct flight was launched between Mexico City and south China’s Shenzhen, spanning a distance of over 14,000 kilometers to become China’s longest direct international passenger route.

    Other routes, such as the Beijing-Madrid-Sao Paulo, Beijing-Madrid-Havana and Beijing-Tijuana-Mexico City routes, have also strengthened links between China and Latin America and the Caribbean.

    Carolina Araya, a Chilean citizen and Spanish instructor at Anhui International Studies University in east China, was quick to share the news on social media after learning of the new policy, garnering many likes from friends and family.

    “With this visa-free policy, it will be so much easier for my parents to visit us,” she said. “I’m looking forward to welcoming them here in China.”

    Carola Ramon with the Argentine Council of Foreign Relations noted that recent years have seen growing cooperation between Argentina and China in areas such as student exchange, cultural collaboration and sports.

    She believes China’s visa-free entry initiative will enhance people-to-people ties and broaden exchange — not only between China and Argentina but across the broader China-Latin America region.

    Economic ties between China and Latin America have also deepened significantly. Bilateral trade has doubled over the past decade, surpassing 500 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Chinese exports, including electric vehicles, are increasingly popular in the region, while Latin American goods such as Chilean cherries and Argentine beef have become Chinese household staples.

    China has been steadily adjusting and optimizing its visa policies to boost cross-border mobility. Since late 2023, the country has rolled out a series of traveler-friendly measures. In late May, it announced that citizens of four Gulf countries — Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain — will also enjoy visa-free entry for up to 30 days, from June 9, 2025, through June 8, 2026.

    Additionally, China’s visa-free transit period has been extended to 240 hours for travelers from 54 countries.

    These policies have already had a notable impact. In 2024, China recorded 3.39 million entries under its unilateral visa-free policy, representing a 1,200 percent increase from the previous year. During this year’s May Day holiday alone, 380,000 people entered China visa-free, a 72.7 percent year-on-year jump.

    Yu Haibo, an associate professor of tourism management at Nankai University in Tianjin, said that China’s continued expansion of its visa-free policies reflects its commitment to high-standard opening-up.

    “These measures demonstrate China’s resolve to foster a more dynamic, inclusive and resilient form of economic globalization,” he said.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Joint debugging, testing conducted on high-speed railway in NE China

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

    Joint debugging, testing conducted on high-speed railway in NE China

    Updated: June 2, 2025 08:52 Xinhua
    An inspection train departs from Shenyang North Railway Station during a joint debugging and testing on the high-speed railway connecting Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, and Changbai Mountain reserve in the neighboring Jilin Province, June 1, 2025. With a length of 430 kilometers and design speed of 350 kilometers per hour, the high-speed railway will significantly improve regional connectivity and boost tourism and economic development upon operation. [Photo/Xinhua]
    An inspection train departs from Shenyang North Railway Station during a joint debugging and testing on the high-speed railway connecting Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, and Changbai Mountain reserve in the neighboring Jilin Province, June 1, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    A drone photo shows an inspection train running during a joint debugging and testing on the high-speed railway connecting Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, and Changbai Mountain reserve in the neighboring Jilin Province, June 1, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    An inspection train is set to depart from Shenyang North Railway Station during a joint debugging and testing on the high-speed railway connecting Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, and Changbai Mountain reserve in the neighboring Jilin Province, June 1, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    An inspection train departs from Shenyang North Railway Station during a joint debugging and testing on the high-speed railway connecting Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, and Changbai Mountain reserve in the neighboring Jilin Province, June 1, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Heavy rains impact thousands in China’s Yunnan

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

    Continuous heavy rainfall in southwest China’s Yunnan Province has triggered geological disasters and caused house collapses and road disruptions, affecting thousands of residents.

    As of 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, torrential rains in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture had affected 5,885 people from 1,652 households, damaging 27 houses, and destroying or damaging 16 bridges. Road disruptions were reported at 97 locations. A popular scenic area and a sightseeing platform had been temporarily closed.

    As of 8:00 p.m., Nujiang had urgently relocated 1,797 residents, with no fatalities reported so far.

    Meanwhile, in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, landslides, mudslides and floods have blocked multiple roads, with dense fog further complicating transportation. The Meri Snow Mountain scenic zone was temporarily closed after flash floods forced the evacuation of 300 tourists.

    Local transport authorities of Diqing have deployed workers and machinery to repair damaged roads. In Deqen County, crews of local fire department have rescued 138 trapped residents and relocated 331 others to safety.

    Meteorological authorities warn that more rainfall is expected in both prefectures in coming days, maintaining a high risk of landslides, mudflows, and flash floods.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: UAE budget carrier Flydubai resumes flights to Damascus after years-long suspension

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

    A flight operated by the Dubai-based budget carrier Flydubai landed at Damascus International Airport on Sunday, marking the resumption of direct commercial flights between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Syria after a year-long hiatus, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported.

    Flydubai had launched scheduled flights linking Dubai and Damascus, in a move aimed at enhancing regional connectivity and strengthening bilateral relations, SANA quoted Syria’s General Authority of Civil Aviation and Air Transport as saying.

    The inaugural flight was received by UAE Ambassador to Syria Hassan Ahmad al-Shihi, who was accompanied by an official delegation.

    On April 14, the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority announced its decision to resume commercial air links with Syria.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Chinese experts help modernize rice-prawn farming techniques, improving Cambodian farmers’ livelihoods

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

    Experts from Shanghai Ocean University provide training for Cambodian farmers in Takeo province, Cambodia on May 31, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    Cambodian farmer Min Chhon, 57, has experienced significant improvement in his family’s livelihoods after having received technical training and on-site guidance on rice-prawn farming from Shanghai Ocean University experts.

    Chhon said he grew only rice on his land of nearly two hectares, which yielded about six tons per annum, before the launch of projects of “Rice-Fish Farming Technology Cooperation and Poverty Alleviation Through Aquaculture in Lancang-Mekong Countries” and “Cambodian Smart Fisheries PILOT Project” carried out by the Shanghai Ocean University and Foreign Economic Cooperation Center (FECC) of China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

    “But since the launch of the projects, I have raised giant freshwater prawns in the rice fields, which yields around one ton of prawns in each harvest,” the father with three children told Xinhua on Saturday.

    “Before the technique of prawn farming were introduced, we only planted rice and earned a very limited income, but after we did rice-prawns farming in rice fields, we got much wealthier,” he said. “The yields from the rice-prawn farming are highly satisfactory.”

    Chhon is among dozens of farmers in southern Takeo province, who have been trained by Chinese experts from the Shanghai Ocean University and FECC in collaboration with the Fisheries Administration of Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

    Through the projects, the Chinese experts have provided Cambodian farmers with technical guidance and new technologies to boost prawn production in rice paddies and other aquaculture settings.

    Farmers have also been taught to use drones to distribute feed in rice fields and aquaculture ponds effectively.

    “Chinese experts have helped us, including juvenile nursery, donating feeds, juveniles, some equipment and technical manuals, delivering techniques, and others,” Chhon said.” These two projects have helped improve my family’s livelihoods significantly.”

    Experts from Shanghai Ocean University provide training for Cambodian farmers to use drones to distribute feed in rice fields and aquaculture ponds in Takeo province, Cambodia on May 31, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    Launched in January 2024 and will last till 2027, the projects are part of the Cambodia-China “Fish and Rice Corridor” cooperation, which has been established to accelerate agricultural modernization, to ensure food and nutrition security, and to increase incomes for rural farmers in Cambodia.

    Also, the projects will help more farmers get rid of poverty, and promote the sustainable development of Cambodian agriculture and rural areas.

    On Saturday, a team of experts from the Shanghai Ocean University visited the project sites and provided technical guidance to farmers in Chrey Ngor village of Bourei Cholsar district in Takeo province.

    Wu Xugan, a professor in aquaculture at Shanghai Ocean University, said the “rice-fish co-culture project” has provided technical and technological knowledge to farmers, helping them increase fish or prawn yields, which will not only boost their incomes, but also ensure nutrition and food security.

    “The rice-fish co-culture project is very important because rice and fish are two major foods for the Cambodian people,” he told Xinhua during the visit to a rice-prawn farm.

    “When we do the rice-fish co-culture, it has multiple benefits for both rice and fish. For example, we feed prawns, and the prawns will produce ammonia and manure, which are the fertilizers for rice,” he added.

    Also, he said, prawns will eat the pests that are harmful to rice paddies.

    Wu said the project has developed two rice-fish farming models, namely rice-giant freshwater prawn co-culture and rice-giant freshwater prawn rotation, and large-size prawn seedling cultivation technology.

    Thay Somony, director of the Department of Aquaculture Development at the Fisheries Administration of Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said that through the project, Chinese experts have trained Cambodian farmers on ecosystem service analysis, biodiversity conservation, climate adaptation strategies, and the digitalization of prawn nursing.

    “By adopting innovative practices such as rice-fish co-culture and digital prawn nursery, farmers can increase productivity while minimizing environmental impacts, leading to improved food security and enhanced economic resilience,” he told Xinhua in a recent interview.

    “The integration of diverse farming systems enables farmers to diversify their income sources, reducing their vulnerability to economic shocks and improving their overall livelihoods,” he added.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: China’s consumer goods trade-in program spurs 1.1 trillion yuan in sales

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

    Visitors try specialties of Harbin at the 5th China International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE) in Haikou, south China’s Hainan Province, April 16, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    China’s consumer goods trade-in program has generated 1.1 trillion yuan (about $153.1 billion) in sales in the first five months this year, the Ministry of Commerce said on Sunday.

    As of Saturday, nationwide trade-ins had fueled a surge in transactions, including 4.12 million vehicles, 77.62 million units of household appliances and 56.63 million units of digital products — such as mobile phones, among others, data from the ministry showed.

    The program, part of China’s broader efforts to spur domestic demand, has boosted a sustained recovery in the country’s consumer spending, according to the ministry.

    In the government work report released in March 2025, boosting consumption was listed as a top priority among this year’s tasks.

    Retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of the country’s consumption strength, rose 4.7 percent year on year in the first four months of 2025, accelerating from the 4.6-percent growth recorded in the first quarter of the year, official data revealed.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: China reports 10.8% increase in inter-regional trips during Dragon Boat Festival

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

    Locals row a dragon boat in Zhenyuan ancient town in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China’s Guizhou Province, May 20, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    China reported a year-on-year increase of 10.8% in inter-regional trips during the Dragon Boat Festival, official data showed on Sunday.

    More than 230.97 million inter-regional trips were made on Saturday, the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, the Ministry of Transport said.

    Road traffic accounted for the lion’s share of these trips, with about 209.99 million trips made by road, an increase of 11.3% year on year.

    Railway passenger trips totaled nearly 18.12 million, up 5% year on year, while the waterway passenger volume came in at 959,000, surging 21.3% year on year.

    Airlines handled 1.911 million passenger trips, remaining flat compared to the same period last year.

    The Dragon Boat Festival — also known as the Duanwu Festival — falls on the fifth day of the fifth month on the Chinese lunar calendar. This year, it was celebrated on May 31, and the holiday continues from May 31 to June 2.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Waller, The Effects of Tariffs on the Three I’s: Inflation, Inflation Persistence, and Inflation Expectations

    Source: US State of New York Federal Reserve

    Thank you to the conference organizers for inviting me to speak today. I have attended this conference several times and I’m honored to be on the program this year. Today, I will speak on the U.S. economic outlook and the implications for monetary policy.1 I will focus my comments on two issues: first, the effects of tariffs on inflation persistence, and second, the divergence of household inflation expectations and financial market measures of inflation expectations.
    The theme of this conference is structural shifts and monetary policy. The key structural shift that is affecting the economies of both the United States and South Korea is the recent change in U.S. trade policy, and a substantial share of my remarks will address how this shift is affecting the U.S. outlook.
    The variability in tariff announcements this year, including the whipsawing of court rulings and doubling of metal tariffs last week, has created considerable uncertainty about where trade policy will settle. In mid-April, based on how things looked at the time, I proposed two scenarios to consider in framing an outlook and a preferred stance of monetary policy: a large tariff scenario and a smaller tariff scenario.2 In both cases, I assumed that the tariff increases would lead to a one-time boost to prices that would temporarily raise inflation, after which inflation would return to its underlying rate. This temporary increase could play out with a prompt rise in inflation that could recede quickly, or it could occur more gradually with a more modest increase that would recede more slowly. As I will explain, crucial to this judgment is my assumption that longer-term inflation expectations remain anchored.
    The large-tariff scenario I described assumed an average, trade-weighted tariff for goods imports of 25 percent, which is close to where things stood after the 90-day tariff suspensions announced April 9, and my scenario assumed that this would remain in place for some time. In that case, I argued that inflation based on the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index could reach a peak of 5 percent on an annualized basis this year if businesses passed through all of the tariff costs to consumers. If firms absorbed some of the tariff increase, then inflation might peak around 4 percent. I also argued that an economic slowdown from these higher costs could push the unemployment rate up from 4.2 percent to 5 percent next year.
    The smaller-tariff scenario assumed a 10 percent average tariff on goods imports would remain in place but that higher country and sector specific tariffs would be negotiated down over time. In this case, inflation may rise to 3 percent on an annualized basis and then dissipate. Growth in output and employment would slow, with the unemployment rate rising but probably not as high as 5 percent.
    Reported progress on trade negotiations since that speech leaves my base case somewhere in between these two scenarios. The temporary reduction in China tariffs has significantly decreased the trade-weighted average tariff, since China supplied about 13 percent of U.S. goods imports in 2024. But that reduction is only temporary and is due to increase if a trade agreement is not reached by August 12. Meanwhile, tariffs on other countries were temporarily lowered to 10 percent, but it is unclear where they will end up. Furthermore, the Administration continues to say that it plans additional tariffs on specific industries and sectors of the economy. Last week’s court decisions declaring a large share of tariffs illegal introduce additional uncertainty, but there seem to be multiple options for maintaining tariffs, so I will stick with an estimated trade weighted tariff right now of 15 percent on U.S. goods imports, which falls in between my large- and smaller- tariff scenarios. I see the risks of my large tariff scenario having gone down, but there is still considerable uncertainty about the ultimate levels, and thus about the impact on the economic outlook.
    The context for this uncertainty about tariffs is that hard data on the fundamentals of the economy lately has been mostly positive and supportive of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) economic objectives. There is very little evidence of the effect of trade policy in this data on inflation or economic activity through April, but that may change in the coming weeks. In comparison, there is evidence of tariff effects in the “soft data” based on surveys of consumers, businesses, and investors—indications of an expected slowdown in economic activity and an increase in prices. As of today, I see downside risks to economic activity and employment and upside risks to inflation in the second half of 2025, but how these risks evolve is strongly tied to how trade policy evolves.
    A careful examination of the hard data on overall economic activity through April shows it has been, on balance, positive. I say this because, while real gross domestic product contracted slightly in the first quarter, private domestic final demand, a measure of spending by consumers and businesses, grew at a healthy annual rate of 2.5 percent in the quarter. Of course, economic policy uncertainty among businesses is very elevated, and this has affected measures of sentiment and confidence for consumers and businesses, which fell to historically low levels in April. One index of this policy uncertainty compiled from newspaper stories, government reports, and the dispersion of the forecasts of private-sector economists rose in April to nearly twice the level seen during the pandemic and the Global Financial Crisis.3 However, consumer sentiment rebounded with the announcement that the China tariffs had been lowered temporarily. And households’ spending should continue to be supported by income from the resilient labor market. In addition, my business contacts have told me that, because of tariff uncertainty, their investment plans are currently on hold but are not canceled. So we may see a slowdown in investment in the near term but a jump back up later this year.
    Wherever things end up on a continuum between my “large” and “smaller” scenarios, I do expect tariffs will result in an increase in the unemployment rate that will, all else equal, probably linger. Higher tariffs will reduce spending, and businesses will respond, in part, by reducing production and payrolls.
    We won’t get the jobs report for May until this Friday, but the consensus expectation is that employers added 130,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.2 percent. We have seen a reduction in wage pressures over recent months, and the ratio of job vacancies to the number of unemployed people has moderated from as high as 2 a couple of years ago to close to 1 today, which was about where it was before the pandemic. With a balanced labor market, if aggregate demand slows noticeably, businesses will likely look to cut workers. But I believe job cuts would be modest if the smaller-tariff scenario is realized. Most chief executives I have spoken to say that they can maintain their current operations with an effective tariff of 10 percent, looking for efficiencies here and there, and won’t have to significantly reduce their workforces.
    InflationNow let me turn to the outlook for inflation. Before the recent shift in U.S. trade policy, inflation had been making consistent, but uneven, progress over the past two years toward our 2 percent goal. While that progress seemed to stall at the beginning of 2025, it has resumed the past two months. The same pattern of higher readings at the start of the year, followed by lower readings the next couple of months, also occurred in 2024 and I expect that research will eventually reveal some residual seasonal effect or other factor that has affected at least some prices early in the year.
    Total PCE inflation for April rose 0.1 percent, and core PCE inflation without energy and food prices increased by the same amount. It was the second monthly reading at 0.1 percent or less, and it means that headline PCE inflation was up 2.1 percent over the 12 months through April and that core was up 2.5 percent. In the absence of the tariff increases, I was expecting inflation would continue to be coming down nicely to our 2 percent goal. But now I expect that the effect of higher tariffs will raise inflation in the coming months. The surge in imports to build up inventories ahead of the April 2 announcement makes the timing of price increases somewhat uncertain.
    Thinking about the rest of 2025 and 2026, I expect the largest factor driving inflation will be tariffs. As I said earlier, whatever the size of the tariffs, I expect the effects on inflation to be temporary, and most apparent in the second half of 2025. This will be determined not only by the ultimate size of the increase, but also by how exporters and importers respond, something that is highly uncertain. Will foreign exporters discount prices to try and preserve market share? Will domestic importers absorb some of the tariff increases to shore up demand and sales volumes? Will firms simply pass the entire tariff along to consumers? Since about 10 percent of personal spending goes to imported goods, if the ultimate tariff levels are closer to my 10 percent smaller-tariff scenario and if that is fully passed through to consumers, then the tariff would push up prices 1 percent. But based on my conversations with business leaders, I suspect the tariff cost will not be fully passed through and, instead, the burden will be distributed something like 1/3, 1/3, and 1/3 among consumers, importers and exporters. In this case, it would raise inflation three tenths of 1 percent for a short period. However, if the tariffs are higher than 10 percent, more of the increase is likely to be passed on to consumers, as businesses face limits in how much they can absorb and still find a way to remain profitable.
    I have also heard from business contacts that firms may choose to spread the tariff across non-imported goods. This would increase many goods prices a little instead of boosting import prices by a larger amount. But this approach would not affect the total impact of tariffs on the overall price level. Let me illustrate why using an example.
    Imagine a firm selling 10 goods with equal sales revenue so that all have an equal weight of 1/10 when aggregating the firm’s average price. Now assume one of the goods is imported. A 10 percent tariff on the imported good that is fully passed through raises the price of the imported good by 10 percent, while the prices of the other nine goods remain unchanged. This pricing strategy raises the average price of all goods by 1 percent. Now, instead, suppose the firm chooses a different strategy and decides to spread the tariff cost across all goods by raising all 10 goods prices by 1 percent. As a result, the price of the imported good increases much less, but the prices of the other nine goods now increase a bit even though they are not subject to tariffs. Under this strategy, the average price of the firm’s goods still goes up 1 percent, and the tariff is fully passed through. So both pricing strategies have the same total effect on the aggregate price level across the firm and, if repeated, across the economy. The same logic applies to passing along the tariff via a sequence of smaller price increases instead of at a single point in time—in the end, the aggregate price level goes up by the same amount regardless of whether it is gradual or immediate.
    I have heard the concern that some firms may raise prices opportunistically while blaming the tariff increase. There is always a risk that firms blame some purported cost spike for a price increase, but it doesn’t happen often because of the risk of losing market share to competitors or squandering the allegiance of loyal customers. So while this may happen in isolated instances, I do not believe it will be a significant source of additional inflation above and beyond the tariff-induced increase.
    Inflation PersistenceLet me now turn to the first of two issues about inflation that I want to cover in more detail. This is inflation persistence. The economics behind a tariff increase implies it should have a transitory effect on prices—tariffs raise prices once, but those prices don’t keep going up. I know that hearing “transitory” will certainly remind many people of the consensus on the FOMC in 2021 that the pandemic increases to inflation would be transitory. Inflation turned out to be much more persistent than we thought it would be. Am I playing with fire by taking this position again? It sure looks like it. So why do I believe a tariff-induced inflation spike will not be persistent this time?
    Looking back to how inflation played out in 2021 and 2022, I believe there were three key factors that increased the persistence of the initial burst of inflation in 2021. First, there was a negative labor supply shock that was more persistent than expected. I believed that once the economy reopened, all of this labor would return. However, many workers left the labor market because of illness, or to care for children and family members, or took early retirement. They never returned. And with every wave of COVID-19, the United States experienced additional waves of early retirements that inhibited the labor supply from returning to its pre-pandemic level. Also, with the service sector shut down, demand surged for goods as spending on travel and other services halted and the negative labor supply shock led to a shortage of workers in goods production, delivery, and sales. Goods industries raised wages to attract workers and then once the economy began to reopen, service-sector firms had to pay higher wages to get workers back. This persistent shortage of labor from these several pandemic-related effects continued through 2021 and 2022 as job vacancies skyrocketed and firms had no choice but to pass along escalating wage increases in the form of higher prices.
    The second factor driving inflation after the pandemic was that the supply chain disruptions that many expected to be temporary turned out to be more persistent. There were multiple waves of COVID affecting different regions of the world at different times, so that resolving production and transportation problems was constantly disrupted by the ebbing and flowing of the disease. One notable detail is that China’s lockdowns lasted much longer than expected and played an important role in global supply disruptions.
    The last factor was the quite stimulative fiscal response in the United States. There were hundreds of billions of dollars in grants to businesses to pay idled workers and large transfer payments to households. Furthermore, additional fiscal spending bills in 2021 and 2022 further stimulated aggregate demand. I am willing to admit that, at the time, I underappreciated how the large and sustained fiscal response would combine with highly accommodative monetary policy to overstimulate aggregate demand in an economy that quickly recovered from the early effects of the pandemic.
    Today I don’t see factors like the three I have described here reinforcing the inflationary effects of higher tariffs. There is no longer a shortage of labor and, at least so far, no indication that tariffs are causing big disruptions in supply chains, as the recent surge in imports that I mentioned should attest. While Congress is putting together a tax bill, as it stands now, a large share of that legislation extends tax cuts that have been on the books for eight years and thus would not be stimulative. Finally, monetary policy is in a very different position—we have shrunk our balance sheet by over $2 trillion and our policy rate is north of 4 percent instead of being at the effective lower bound. So I do not believe one can use 2021 and 2022 as a basis for predicting what will happen to the persistence of inflation arising from tariffs.
    Inflation ExpectationsNow let’s discuss the second issue of diverging inflation expectations. I have argued that I believe the tariff-induced inflation will be transitory and we should look through it when setting policy as long as longer-term inflation expectations are anchored.4 However, right now, we are seeing a dramatic disparity between household measures of inflation expectations and market-based measures, as well as the inflation expectations of professional forecasters. The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers show that both near- and longer-term inflation expectations have increased strikingly, on net, in the past few months and currently stand at 6.6 percent and 4.2 percent respectively. Meanwhile, inflation expectation measures based on prices of nominal versus inflation-adjusted securities have not increased very much, with 2-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities inflation compensation around 2.7 percent and 5-year and 10-year around 2.4 percent. Also, the median from the Survey of Professional Forecasters for consumer price inflation 6 to 10 years ahead is at 2.2 percent.
    This highly unusual discrepancy between inflation expectation measures creates problems for policymakers. Whose expectations should we be paying attention to? I prefer to look at market-based measures of inflation compensation and professional forecasters’ expectations because they have money on the line. Those buying inflation protected-securities lose money if they are wrong. Professional forecasters have clients and firms making financial decisions based on those forecasts and will lose customers if their predictions are wrong. As I used to teach my students, in a capitalist system, competition will drive firms out of business if they make bad decisions. Forecasting mistakes can be costly for consumers, but households aren’t competing with each other and won’t be driven out of business if they make bad decisions.
    But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the household measures of high inflation expectations are correct and financial market participants’ expectations are too low. What are the implications of this mismatch?5 If households actually believe inflation will be 7 percent for several years, workers would be expected to demand at least a 7 percent raise to keep their real wages from falling.6 If firms grant those wage demands, then inflation would rise by roughly 7 percent as the wage increases are passed through. Also, job search and the quits rate should increase as workers look for higher-paying jobs.
    Is this happening? Although that was the story a few years ago in a tight labor market, I am not now hearing about such an upturn in wage demands from my business contacts, and I don’t see it in wage and compensation data. After several years of outsized pay increases and in a labor market that has loosened significantly from a year or two ago, I think workers don’t have much leverage to ask for raises and are probably more worried about keeping their jobs right now. Furthermore, instead of increasing, the quits rate is below its pre-pandemic level. Given labor market conditions, it seems hard to believe that the high inflation expectations we are seeing in consumer surveys will lead to large nominal wage increases and a second-round burst of inflation.
    A second point here is that if consumers believed we were about to face high inflation, they would be front-loading purchases, much as importers seem to be front-loading their inventories. But, on the contrary, with the exception of motor vehicles, we haven’t seen a broad surge in the consumer spending, which overall is growing more slowly than it did in the second half of 2024.
    For financial businesses, they set interest rates of their loans and financial products based on expected inflation. Their views should be embedded in market-based inflation expectations and those of professional forecasters. If they got the forecast wrong and the nominal interest rates on their loans were too low, then their real returns would be dramatically reduced and their profit margins squeezed. I have a hard time believing interest rates are mis-priced so badly. If they were, then households would think the real interest rate on loans is greatly suppressed. Consequently, loan demand for interest-sensitive products like houses, cars, and durable goods should surge. While loan demand appears to be healthy, there are no reports from banks or other financial firms that loan demand is surging.
    So, based on wage demands, spending patterns, and loan demand, I see no evidence of economic activity that conforms to the inflation views reflected in the University of Michigan household measures, which, like other polling about the economy in recent years, may reflect attitudes about other factors.7
    In conclusion, given my belief that any tariff-induced inflation will not be persistent and that inflation expectations are anchored, I support looking through any tariff effects on near term-inflation when setting the policy rate. Fortunately, the strong labor market and progress on inflation through April gives me additional time to see how trade negotiations play out and the economy evolves. Assuming that the effective tariff rate settles close to my lower tariff scenario, that underlying inflation continues to make progress to our 2 percent goal, and that the labor market remains solid, I would be supporting “good news” rate cuts later this year.

    1. The views expressed here are my own and are not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Federal Reserve Board or the Federal Open Market Committee. Return to text
    2. See Waller (2025) A Tale of Two Outlooks. Return to text
    3. See Scott R. Baker, Nick Bloom, and Steven J. Davis (2025), “Economic Policy Uncertainty,” webpage, https://www.policyuncertainty.com/us_monthly.html. Return to text
    4. For an interesting history of monetary policymakers “looking through” inflation increases, see Nelson, Edward (2025). “A Look Back at “Look Through,” Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2025-037. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Return to text
    5. In what follows, I am focusing solely on the higher level of inflation expectations and not the higher level of inflation uncertainty. The level of inflation and uncertainty about inflation are highly correlated, so it is difficult to disentangle the effects separately. To see how these two effects can alter household behavior, see Dimitris Georgarakos, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Olivier Coibion, and Geoff Kenny (2024), “The Causal Effects of Inflation Uncertainty on Households’ Beliefs and Actions (PDF),” NBER Working Paper Series 33014 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, October). Return to text
    6. As documented in Nelson (2025), second round wage effects were a general concern of policymakers in the 1970s and 1990s when discussing oil price shocks or how to respond to changes in value-added taxes and exchange rate shocks. Return to text
    7. For a discussion of factors that were affecting inflation perceptions during the COVID pandemic, see David Lebow and Ekaterina Peneva (2024), “Inflation Perceptions during the Covid Pandemic and Recovery,” FEDS Notes (Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, January 19). Return to text

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What is populism?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Moffitt, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Monash University

    In 2017, in the wake of Brexit and Donald Trump’s first election win, populism was named the “word of the year” by Cambridge University Press.

    Almost a decade later, we might have thought the term’s popularity would have faded.

    But with Trump back in power in the United States, the Reform Party polling very well in the United Kingdom, and Argentinian president Javier Milei wielding his chainsaw at public events, populism is very much still with us.

    But what is populism? Is it a left or right phenomenon? And is it here to stay?

    What is populism?

    Put simply, populism is a political phenomenon that revolves around the central divide between “the people” and “the elite”.

    Although there is agreement on this divide, academics tend to disagree on two things when it comes to populism.

    The first is what kind of phenomenon it is. Is populism an ideology (that is, a belief system)? A strategy? Or is it a kind of performative political style?

    Secondly, experts disagree on whether populism is a threat or corrective to democracy. Some think it can be both.

    Populism: left or right?

    Much of the confusion about populism stems from the fact that it can appear across the ideological spectrum.

    This is because “the people” and “the elite” are flexible terms, and populists can characterise them in very different ways.

    Right-wing populists tend to characterise “the people” in socio-cultural terms, and often combine their populism with nativism.

    Think for instance, of how Trump’s “people” are coded as White Americans.

    Or, how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi evokes Hindu nationalism in his definition of “the people”.

    Other prominent right-wing populist leaders include the likes of Viktor Orban of Hungary, Nigel Farage of the United Kingdom, Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, and Australia’s Pauline Hanson.

    Left-wing populists, meanwhile, tend to characterise “the people” in socio-economic terms. They often combine their populism with calls for economic redistribution or shifts in power.

    Examples include Latin American populist leaders like Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who sought to bring the poor into their conception of “the people”.

    In the US, Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential primary campaigns put the working class and people in precarious work at the heart of his “people”.

    Other examples of left-wing populism include the Podemos and Syriza parties in Spain and Greece respectively.

    This also means the way populists tend to define “the elite” is quite different.

    Right-wing populist targets often include:

    • government and policy elites (think of Trump’s “drain the swamp”)
    • cultural elites (Trump’s attacks on media as “fake news”)
    • academics (attacks on the “ivory tower”) and
    • transnational bodies (such as attacks on the United Nations).

    These groups are connected in right-wing populist discourse and purported to be undermining “the people’s” livelihood by abetting increased immigration or the destruction of “traditional values”.

    Left-wing populists tend to target business and power elites, who they see as fleecing “the people” economically and keeping them from expressing their popular power (think of Occupy Wall Street’s divide between the 99% and the 1%).

    Populists also tend to have a suspicion of transnational organisations. But while right-wing populists tend to focus on the likes of the United Nations and World Health Organisation, left-wing populists are more suspicious of business transnationals such as the World Trade Organization or World Economic Forum.

    Is populism here to stay?

    After every major election where a populist leader or party succeeds, there is inevitably talk of a “populist earthquake”, “populist wave” or “populist tsunami”.

    These metaphors suggest populism has come out of nowhere, and is causing a major and unexpected shock to the system.

    But that’s simply not the case.

    If anything, the story of 21st century politics has been one in which populism has become “normalised” and “mainstreamed”.

    Populists are no longer merely “challenger” parties nor minor parties.

    They increasingly are among the top three parties in their respective countries (particularly in Europe), and have won government in places from the US to India to the Netherlands to Italy to Greece.

    This success has seen them steadily viewed as viable and “normal” political players.

    Meanwhile, mainstream parties and leaders have increasingly adopted elements of populists’ discourse, platforms and political styles, as a way to compete with populists.

    This, ironically, has had the effect of legitimising populists in many countries; it makes their policies and discourse look more “acceptable”.

    It’s important to be cynical about any pundit crowing about the “death” of populism – or, on the flipside, the idea it has come out of nowhere.

    Populism is here to stay. Acknowledging that can help us better understand its appeal, which in turn, can provide hints about how to best deal with it.

    Benjamin Moffitt receives or has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.

    – ref. What is populism? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-populism-249369

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Your smartphone is a parasite, according to evolution

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael L. Brown, Director of the Centre for Philosophy of the Sciences and Associate Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University

    vchal/shutterstock, The Conversation

    Head lice, fleas and tapeworms have been humanity’s companions throughout our evolutionary history. Yet, the greatest parasite of the modern age is no blood-sucking invertebrate. It is sleek, glass-fronted and addictive by design. Its host? Every human on Earth with a wifi signal.

    Far from being benign tools, smartphones parasitise our time, our attention and our personal information, all in the interests of technology companies and their advertisers.

    In a new article in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, we argue smartphones pose unique societal risks, which come into sharp focus when viewed through the lens of parasitism.

    What, exactly, is a parasite?

    Evolutionary biologists define a parasite as a species that benefits from a close relationship with another species – its host – while the host bears a cost.

    The head louse, for example, is entirely dependent on our own species for its survival. They only eat human blood, and if they become dislodged from their host, they survive only briefly unless they are fortunate enough to fall onto another human scalp. In return for our blood, head lice give us nothing but a nasty itch; that’s the cost.

    Smartphones have radically changed our lives. From navigating cities to managing chronic health diseases such as diabetes, these pocket-sized bits of tech make our lives easier. So much so that most of us are rarely without them.

    Yet, despite their benefits, many of us are hostage to our phones and slaves to the endless scroll, unable to fully disconnect. Phone users are paying the price with a lack of sleep, weaker offline relationships and mood disorders.

    From mutualism to parasitism

    Not all close species relationships are parasitic. Many organisms that live on or inside us are beneficial.

    Consider the bacteria in the digestive tracts of animals. They can only survive and reproduce in the gut of their host species, feeding on nutrients passing through. But they provide benefits to the host, including improved immunity and better digestion. These win-win associations are called mutualisms.

    The human-smartphone association began as a mutualism. The technology proved useful to humans for staying in touch, navigating via maps and finding useful information.

    Philosophers have spoken of this not in terms of mutualism, but rather as phones being an extension of the human mind, like notebooks, maps and other tools.

    From these benign origins, however, we argue the relationship has become parasitic. Such a change is not uncommon in nature; a mutualist can evolve to become a parasite, or vice versa.

    Smartphones as parasites

    As smartphones have become near-indispensible, some of the most popular apps they offer have come to serve the interests of the app-making companies and their advertisers more faithfully than those of their human users.

    These apps are designed to nudge our behaviour to keep us scrolling, clicking on advertising and simmering in perpetual outrage.

    The data on our scrolling behaviour is used to further that exploitation. Your phone only cares about your personal fitness goals or desire to spend more quality time with your kids to the extent that it uses this information to tailor itself to better capture your attention.

    So, it can be useful to think of users and their phones as akin to hosts and their parasites – at least some of the time.

    While this realisation is interesting in and of itself, the benefit of viewing smartphones through the evolutionary lens of parasitism comes into its own when considering where the relationship might head next – and how we could thwart these high-tech parasites.

    A bluestreak cleaner wrasse at work cleaning the mouth of a goatfish.
    Wayne and Pam Osborn/iNaturalist, CC BY-NC

    Where policing comes in

    On the Great Barrier Reef, bluestreak cleaner wrasse establish “cleaning stations” where larger fish allow the wrasse to feed on dead skin, loose scales and invertebrate parasites living in their gills. This relationship is a classic mutualism – the larger fish lose costly parasites and the cleaner wrasse get fed.

    Sometimes the cleaner wrasse “cheat” and nip their hosts, tipping the scale from mutualism to parasitism. The fish being cleaned may punish offenders by chasing them away or withholding further visits. In this, the reef fish exhibit something evolutionary biologists see as important to keeping mutualisms in balance: policing.

    Could we adequately police our exploitation by smartphones and restore a net-beneficial relationship?

    Evolution shows that two things are key: an ability to detect exploitation when it occurs, and the capacity to respond (typically by withdrawing service to the parasite).

    A difficult battle

    In the case of the smartphone, we can’t easily detect the exploitation. Tech companies that design the various features and algorithms to keep you picking up your phone aren’t advertising this behaviour.

    But even if you’re aware of the exploitative nature of smartphone apps, responding is also more difficult than simply putting the phone down.

    Many of us have become reliant on smartphones for everyday tasks. Rather than remembering facts, we offload the task to digital devices – for some people, this can change their cognition and memory.

    We depend on having a camera for capturing life events or even just recording where we parked the car. This both enhances and limits our memory of events.

    Governments and companies have only further cemented our dependence on our phones, by moving their service delivery online via mobile apps. Once we pick up the phone to access our bank accounts or access government services, we’ve lost the battle.

    How then can users redress the imbalanced relationship with their phones, turning the parasitic relationship back to a mutualistic one?

    Our analysis suggests individual choice can’t reliably get users there. We are individually outgunned by the massive information advantage tech companies hold in the host-parasite arms race.

    The Australian government’s under-age social media ban is an example of the kind of collective action required to limit what these parasites can legally do. To win the battle, we will also need restrictions on app features known to be addictive, and on the collection and sale of our personal data.

    Rob Brooks receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

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

    – ref. Your smartphone is a parasite, according to evolution – https://theconversation.com/your-smartphone-is-a-parasite-according-to-evolution-256795

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Dmitry Chernyshenko, Sergey Kravtsov and Gleb Nikitin talked to the participants of the new season of the project “Institute of Advisors on Social Change”

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    Dmitry Chernyshenko at a meeting with participants of the new season of the project “Institute of Advisors on Social Change”

    May 31, 2025

    Dmitry Chernyshenko, Sergey Kravtsov and Gleb Nikitin talked to the participants of the new season of the project “Institute of Advisors on Social Change”

    May 31, 2025

    Previous news Next news

    Dmitry Chernyshenko at a meeting with participants of the new season of the project “Institute of Advisors on Social Change”

    On May 30, 2025, in Nizhny Novgorod, at the site of the Corporate University of the Government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region (KUPNO), training for participants in the fourth stream of the project “Institute of Advisors for Social Change” started. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov and Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Gleb Nikitin spoke with the participants of the event.

    The Institute of Advisors for Social Change project is a cross-sector free program of the People’s Front project “Region of Care” and KUPNO, implemented with the support of the government of the Nizhny Novgorod region with the participation of RANEPA. It unites civil servants, managers and employees of NPOs, representatives of socially responsible businesses and the media and allows for the preparation of leaders of change in the social sphere.

    Since the project began, 115 people from 33 regions of Russia have already completed specialized training. More than 40 people have become students of the fourth training stream. They will have to develop projects in such areas as helping teenagers in crisis situations, reorganizing boarding schools, palliative care for children and adults, preventing social orphanhood, and many others. The main goal of the training is to help specialists restructure their work so as to proceed from the interests of the person, while using the strengths of partner organizations.

    “Today we could not help but come here, where they train social change advisers, first of all out of respect for you and your work. As the President teaches us, in public administration it is precisely this kind of direct communication that helps make wise decisions and effectively build processes. It is very important to check the real situation and take into account that it can even have a destructive effect if the situation is incorrectly interpreted and unrepresentative data is used. What you do is a great responsibility, you must be professionals of the highest level in order to fully justify the enormous trust that has been placed in you. Especially in such an area as social change. Of course, these changes must be positive,” noted Dmitry Chernyshenko.

    “We pay great attention to the education system, it is important that it is consistent – starting with kindergarten, then continuing in school, college, and university. On the instructions of the President of Russia, education in our country is built on the basis of traditional spiritual and moral values. We care about the fact that all children, including children with disabilities, have access to the development of their talents and self-realization,” said Minister of Education Sergey Kravtsov.

    According to Gleb Nikitin, the Institute of Advisors is a unique project to train leaders of change in the social sphere. The educational program gives participants an impetus to develop social innovations both in their home regions and at the federal level.

    “Together with the Region of Care and my advisor Nyuta Federmesser, we started implementing social change projects in the field of working with people with disabilities and disabilities five years ago. And at the initial stage, we went through many difficulties, overcoming the rigidity of the system. Some people had to be made to remember what humanity is. When faced with callousness, sometimes the inability to change something, when a person is having a hard time, feeling bad, you ask yourself: how can this be changed? We understood one thing clearly: we need to work with those who permanently live in social institutions and have health restrictions. All this requires a huge heart and a very special way of thinking. The Institute of Advisors project brought together exactly these people – supporters, caring and charged with changes for the better,” said Gleb Nikitin.

    Today, among the graduates of the “Institute of Advisors” of previous years, there are already 22 specialists from the Nizhny Novgorod region. Experts show in practice how to change the work of social institutions for the better, give wards more freedom of choice, fill people’s lives with new meanings.

    Director of the Department of State Policy in the Sphere of Education, Supplementary Education and Children’s Recreation of the Ministry of Education, Hero of Russia, participant of the program “Time of Heroes” Igor Yurgin joined the words of Sergey Kravtsov and noted that in the year of the 80th anniversary of the Victory and in the Year of the Defender of the Fatherland, it is important to remember that the participants of the SVO defend the values of the state. And among them, the upbringing of children, youth, assistance to children with disabilities is one of the main ones.

    The author of the People’s Front project “Region of Care”, adviser to the Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Nyuta Federmesser emphasized that systemic changes can be introduced into the work of state institutions only with the assistance of a motivated and caring public and government.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Record levels of peatland restored

    Source: Scottish Government

    Scotland on track to meet interim peatland restoration target.

    **Embargoed until 0001 Monday 2 June**

    More than 14,000 hectares of degraded peatlands have been restored across Scotland in the last year, helping to reduce carbon emissions and restore biodiversity.

    Peatlands are areas of wet land that support habitats and species that are important for biodiversity, they also protect the wider ecosystem by improving water quality and reducing the severity of flooding. 

    Covering nearly two million hectares, Scotland is home to two-thirds of the UK’s peatlands. However, nearly three-quarters of Scotland’s peatlands is currently degraded.

    The Scottish Government has pledged £250 million to support the restoration of 250,000 hectares of peatlands by 2030, with an interim target of 110,000 hectares by 2026. A total of 90,000 hectares have been restored since 1990 and 14,860 of those were completed throughout the 2024-25 financial year.

    Agriculture Minister Jim Fairlie said:

    “As we celebrate World Peatlands Day, I am very pleased to report Scotland’s Peatland ACTION partnership has put 14,860 hectares of degraded peatlands on the road to recovery last year. This is a new record in one year.

    “Restoring peatland benefits our environment by reducing emissions, reducing risks of flooding and wildfires and improving water quality, it also invests in people and skills, creating green jobs in rural communities.

    “This means we have exceeded our 2024 Programme for Government commitment and represents a 42% increase over the 10,360 hectares restored during 2023-24. I thank all of our partners for their sustained efforts and tenacity in delivering another milestone figure.”

    Nick Halfhide, NatureScot Interim Chief Executive, said:

    “As key partners in the Scottish Government’s Peatland ACTION Partnership, NatureScot has successfully facilitated 65% of the restoration work completed in 2024-25. This significant achievement contributes substantially towards the overall target of 250,000 hectares of degraded peatland being put on the road to recovery by 2030.

    “Restoring Scotland’s degraded peatlands is essential to addressing both the climate and nature emergencies – it makes a vitally important contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions while providing broader benefits for biodiversity and water quality.”

    A key delivery partner of the Peatland ACTION Partnership, Forestry and Land Scotland has delivered 1744ha of peatland restoration work across Scotland in the last year surpassing its yearly target of 1500ha. CEO Kevin Quinlan said:

    “Forestry and Land Scotland is proud to be supporting the Scottish Government’s commitment to restoring 250,000 hectares of peatlands by 2030 as a key delivery partner in the Peatland ACTION Partnership.

    “Every site we restore adds to the scale of the contribution we make in efforts to transform and restore one of Scotland’s largest degraded ecosystems to create a far healthier landscape.”

    Background

    NatureScot is due to publish the Peatland ACTION Annual Review 2024-25 this week.

    Peatland ACTION | NatureScot

    Peatlands | Forestry and Land Scotland

    Third World Peatlands Day – International Peatland Society

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Redesigned flight paths to deliver quicker, quieter flights and boost growth

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Redesigned flight paths to deliver quicker, quieter flights and boost growth

    Modernising our airspace will help to reduce pollution from flying and help pave the way for new technologies like flying taxis.

    • passengers will benefit from quicker flights and fewer delays, while residents could enjoy quieter take-offs through new government plans  
    • redesigned flight paths will create more direct and efficient routes, propel airport expansion and turbocharge growth as part of the Plan for Change  
    • plans will help to reduce aviation’s climate change impacts and help pave the way for new technologies like flying taxis to take to the skies, delivering a boost for innovation and jobs

    Holiday-makers will enjoy quicker flights and fewer delays as part of new laws set out today (2 June 2025) to open up new and more direct routes, propel airport expansion and boost growth.  

    The changes laid in Parliament today will enable the largest redesign of UK airspace since it was first formed in the 1950s, when there were only around 200,000 flights per year, compared to 2.7 million in 2024. The new UK Airspace Design Service (UKADS) will be fully operational by the end of 2025 and will be run by NATS (En Route) plc (NERL). 

    Modernising the airspace will open up capacity, supporting growth and thousands of jobs in the aviation and tourism sectors, as well as reducing delays and emissions per flight resulting from planes circling in the sky while waiting to land.

    Redesigned ‘skyways’ could also allow planes to climb quicker during take-off and descend more smoothly, reducing noise and air pollution for residents who live along flight routes.   

    The UKADS’ initial focus will be on redesigning London’s airspace, with expansion at Heathrow alone expected to create over 100,000 extra jobs, turbocharge economic growth, strengthen the UK’s status as a global hub and deliver major benefits for airlines and passengers. 

    Over a longer timeframe, the UKADS could design routes that support flight paths for new and emerging technologies such as drones and flying taxis, spurring British innovation and delivering highly skilled jobs in the tech space.   

    The Department for Transport will continue working with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to ensure the swift delivery of these new and improved routes, as well as to ensure independent oversight of the UKADS roll-out. 

    Aviation Minister, Mike Kane, said:  

    Redesigned ‘skyways’ will turbocharge growth in the aviation industry, not least by boosting airport expansion plans and supporting job creation, driving millions into the UK economy as part of the Plan for Change.  

    Modernising our airspace is also one of the simplest ways to help reduce pollution from flying and will set the industry up for a long-term, sustainable future.

    The measures will help secure the long-term future of the sector and make it more resilient to disruption. The plans come as global forecasts show a near doubling of passengers and cargo in the next 20 years.  

    One modernisation measure in the south west of England has already been estimated to save 12,000 tonnes a year, enough to power 7 trips around the world, with further modernisation plans expected to deliver even greater results.  

    Rob Bishton, Chief Executive of the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said:

    Modernising our airspace infrastructure is key to enabling the growth of the sector and helping mitigate its impacts.  

    Our work with government and stakeholders on the creation of the UK Airspace Design Service is another important step in the journey to streamline and improve confidence in the ability to deliver airspace change decisions.

    Martin Rolfe, CEO of NATS, said:

    The UK’s airspace network is one of the busiest and most complex in the world. We handle a quarter of Europe’s traffic despite having only 11% of its airspace, with one of the best safety and delay records anywhere. However, we have to modernise airspace if we are to maintain this level of performance as traffic grows towards 3 million flights per year.

    The government’s announcement to create a UK Airspace Design Service is a crucial step, building on the work we’ve already completed in other parts of the UK. We look forward to working with the government and the CAA to finalise the details regarding the best way to implement the plan and the processes required to ensure UKADS is successful.

    Karen Dee, Chief Executive of AirportsUK, the trade association for UK airports, said:

    The UK’s airspace is a critical piece of our national infrastructure and these proposals will help modernise it, bringing forward new technologies and routing methods that will make it more efficient, cleaner, and provide passengers with a better experience.

    Our airspace is some of the most complex in the world and we welcome the new UK Airspace Design Service (UKADS) that will bring together all the parties involved to help overcome some of the challenges this creates.

    Airports have led the calls for this approach to be adopted and we are pleased that government is fast-tracking it for implementation by the end of the year. Our members, firstly in the London area and then perhaps more widely across the UK, look forward to getting to work with UKADS to deliver the changes that will make our airspace fit for the 21st century.

    Tim Alderslade, CEO of Airlines UK, said:

    Modernising UK airspace is long overdue and these changes will help to speed up a programme that will provide tangible reforms, from a reduction in delays, improved resilience and lower carbon emissions. 

    This is a major priority for airlines and we look forward to working with Ministers and all parts of UK aviation to complete a once in a generation infrastructure programme as quickly as possible and ideally by the end of the decade, so we can continue delivering for passengers and cargo customers whilst meeting our commitment to net zero. 

    Alison FitzGerald, Chief Executive Officer of London City Airport, said:

    We welcome the government’s support for airport growth and the recognition of the economic and societal benefits that air travel brings to the UK. London and the South East has some of the most complex airspace in the world, and this announcement will help create the conditions for a more modern, efficient, and sustainable airspace system.

    Modernising our airspace is essential to unlocking future growth, reducing delays, cutting emissions, and improving the passenger experience. We look forward to working closely with government, industry partners and local communities to deliver these vital changes.

    Heathrow’s Chief Operating Officer, Javier Echave, said:

    This is an important step to making UK aviation more modern, efficient, and reliable for the millions of people and businesses who rely on available airspace capacity. As the UK’s gateway to growth, we are committed to continue working with the government to unlock the economic benefits of an expanded UK airspace, while cutting carbon and noise impacts.

    Aviation, Europe and technology media enquiries

    Media enquiries 0300 7777 878

    Switchboard 0300 330 3000

    Updates to this page

    Published 2 June 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Telecare users and their loved ones across the UK urged to speak to telecoms providers ahead of switch to digital landlines

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Telecare users and their loved ones across the UK urged to speak to telecoms providers ahead of switch to digital landlines

    The 2 million vulnerable people who rely on lifesaving telecare alarms to call for help have today been urged to get in touch with their landline providers so companies can provide additional support for them during the switch to digital landlines.

    Telecare users and their loved ones urged to speak to telecoms providers ahead of switch to digital landlines.

    • Users of lifesaving alarms encouraged to call their providers to access additional free support with the switchover from copper to digital landlines
    • During the switchover, telecoms companies will send engineers to help customers and test connections of telecare alarms used by 2 million nationwide
    • Comes as BT and Virgin Media launch national awareness campaign, supported by the UK government, to ensure no one gets overlooked during vital digital migration

    The switch from analogue to digital landlines is being rolled out across the country as copper networks become increasingly unreliable and spare parts are no longer available.

    Putting safety at the centre of the switchover, landline companies will send an engineer to carry out the switchover and personally test the telecare alarm, ensuring it continues to work once a household has moved onto the digital network.

    Landline providers will also offer vulnerable customers a free battery back-up device so their landline can continue working in an outage.

    It comes as a major new campaign funded by BT and Virgin Media and backed by the UK government launches today (Monday 2 June), urging the millions of telecare users in the UK– typically elderly and disabled people – as well as their support network to identify themselves so nobody gets overlooked.

    Many local authorities and private telecare operators have already signed data sharing agreements with landline providers to ensure that as many telecare users have been identified as possible. With over two thirds of landlines already migrated, the campaign is the final layer of protection to identify any additional users.  

    Following a fall last year, Ann, who is in her 90s and from Stockport, became reliant on her telecare device. She is backing the campaign after her provider successfully migrated her landline last year. 

    Ann said: 

    The visit with the engineer was most enjoyable and very smooth, they handled everything for me. It’s left me feeling more reassured and confident. It’s also given my daughter Vickey peace of mind, knowing that if I need support, my pendant will work as it should. I’d encourage other people like me who rely on a personal alarm to get in touch with their landline provider for support.

    Telecoms Minister Sir Chris Bryant said:

    We cannot afford to leave anyone behind during the vital transition to digital landlines.

    I have personally set a strict checklist of safeguards for industry to comply with before they migrate any telecare user.

    This industry-led campaign marks a further step towards keeping people safe as we boost the resilience of our networks for the digital age.

    I urge anyone with a telecare alarm – or anyone close to a user of a telecare alarm – to pick up the phone and contact their provider to access the help that’s available.

    Since 2017, UK operators have been carrying out work to retire the decades old copper home phone network and move customers to digital landline services ahead of the analogue switch-off. Analogue landlines are reaching end of service life, becoming increasingly unreliable and spare parts are no longer available. Recent Ofcom data reveals faults rates substantially increased by 45% in 2024.

    The campaign launched today and builds on the voluntary industry charter signed by BT, Virgin Media and other providers and the checklist agreed in November 2024. The checklist commits providers to complete a strict checklist of safeguards before transferring customers from old analogue phone lines onto a digital network, reducing the risk of them being disconnected during the migration. This includes engineer visits and issuing battery backups.

    Minister of State for Care, Stephen Kinnock, said:

    Patient safety is our priority and by supporting this campaign we are making sure that no-one will be put at risk by having to use unreliable devices.

    We are working with communication providers who are delivering the digital phone switchover to make sure no-one falls through the cracks. BT and VMO2 are offering free advice as well as supported installations for vulnerable people.

    Modernising our telecoms infrastructure will make a world of difference for millions of people and help guarantee their safety.

    Claire Gillies, BT Group’s Consumer CEO, said:

    Moving customers onto newer digital services is a necessary step as the reliability of the 40-year-old analogue landline technology is increasingly fragile – therefore the time to act is now. 

    The Digital Switchover project requires team collaboration, so we’ve been working hard with industry partners and are really pleased to have the support of government in helping us raise awareness and drive action. It’s incredibly important that nobody gets left behind, and we encourage telecare users and their carers to contact their provider to ensure a smooth switch.

    Rob Orr, Chief Operations Officer at Virgin Media O2, said:

    This major new campaign marks a significant moment where 2 industry leaders have come together to raise awareness of the digital landline switchover. 

    With traditional analogue landlines becoming less and less reliable, the programme is essential step to safeguard services for the future. Inaction would mean putting services at risk. 

    Our message is clear: if you or someone you know use a telecare alarm, pick up the phone and talk to your provider. Let us know, and we’ll support you every step of the way.

    Amy Low, CEO at AbilityNet, said: 

    As a charity our core aim is empowering older and disabled people to use technology, so we’re fully behind this campaign which will raise further awareness to the most vulnerable, as well as their carers, with an urgent message to act.

    With the digital switchover happening it has never been more important that they contact their provider who can offer tailored support and in-home assistance to ensure everything goes to plan.

    Matthew Evans, Director for Markets and Chief Operating Officer at techUK, said:

    As the current PSTN system becomes increasingly unreliable – with faults rising 45% in 2024 – we need to ensure a swift transition to a digital network fit for the future.

    With many other countries and many millions of UK households having already completed the migration, it is essential to raise awareness and complete this move. We are proud to support VMO2 and BT as well as the UK government as they establish this important campaign and we look forward to continuing to work with the telecoms sector and other parties to ensure the delivery of a safe and sustainable switch.

    Alyson Scurfield, chief executive of telecare advisory body, TSA said:

    Landline phone lines are switching to digital, which could stop telecare alarms working. However, many people, families and carers just aren’t aware of the impact this could have on life-saving telecare. That’s why TSA is supporting this incredibly important national campaign. If you or someone you know uses a telecare alarm, then please call your landline provider. They will make sure your alarm keeps working through the switchover. Please help us spread this message far and wide.

    Notes to editors

    More information on the digital switchover and the new awareness campaign video.

    From today, adverts will appear across TV, newspapers, social media and select radio stations around the country running over the next few months to ensure widespread reach. This is coupled with newly created posters which will be on display in GP surgeries, hospitals, pharmacies and post offices.

    The campaign has been created following extensive research with telecare users and their carers, as well as charities, to ensure the messaging is suitable for healthcare alarm users. The advertising campaign is expected to be seen by 95% of all adults in the UK, including 98% of those over 65.

    In 2023, BT and Virgin Media (and other major communication providers) voluntarily signed up to the government’s Public Switched Telephone Network charter to protect vulnerable people when they are moved onto digital services. In November 2024 the major communication providers agreed a checklist of specific safeguards to protect people during the migration.  

    Since then, both companies, which together make up the vast majority of landline users in the UK, have worked with Ofcom, government and charities to improve their policies and processes. They have developed comprehensive support measures to support vulnerable customers including providing free of charge battery backup solutions to provide connectivity during power outages. 

    To find out more about the support available, customers of all major providers can easily find contact information on the newly created digital landline website: www.digitalphoneswitchover.com.

    BT and Virgin Media landline customers can call on 150 from their home phone.

    DSIT media enquiries

    Email press@dsit.gov.uk

    Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 6pm 020 7215 3000

    Updates to this page

    Published 2 June 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI: TORRAS Personal Cooling with Coolify Series: A Tech-Driven Solution for Comfort, Wellness, and Women’s Health

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    LOS ANGELES, June 01, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As global temperatures continue to rise and daily comfort becomes a growing concern, TORRAS is making waves with its innovative Coolify series—a wearable air conditioner engineered to deliver rapid, personal cooling through cutting-edge semiconductor technology. But beyond its impressive specs and sleek aesthetics, Coolify is also gaining recognition for another powerful role: providing much-needed relief to women experiencing hot flashes and hormonal imbalances, especially during menopause.

    TORRAS, a technology brand known for blending innovation with lifestyle-driven solutions, believes that technology should serve real human needs, and Coolify is a perfect reflection of that mission.

    A Breakthrough in Personal Cooling Technology

    Coolify isn’t just another neck fan—it’s a wearable air conditioning system designed for next-generation, body-centered comfort. At its core lies an advanced semiconductor cooling plate embedded within the collar, capable of dropping the skin temperature on the neck by up to 18°F (10°C) within just 3 seconds. Unlike traditional fans that simply circulate ambient air, Coolify creates a genuine cooling effect that users can feel immediately.

    Engineered with ergonomics in mind, Coolify fits snugly around the neck and targets the sides and back of the neck—areas rich in arteries that play a crucial role in regulating core body temperature. By focusing cooling power on these critical zones, the device ensures rapid and efficient heat relief without compromising comfort.

    Additional features include:

    Three-speed smart temperature controls for customizable comfort
    8-hour battery life for all-day usability
    Ultra-quiet operation for discreet use in workspaces, social settings, or while sleeping
    Lightweight and travel-friendly design with a stylish, minimalist look that complements any outfit

    With its combination of advanced engineering and sleek design, Coolify has quickly become a favorite among tech-savvy consumers and outdoor enthusiasts alike. But some of its most impactful use cases come from a group that isn’t always the center of tech innovation: women in midlife.

    Supporting Women’s Health: A Lifesaver for Hot Flashes and Hormonal Spikes

    For women going through menopause, hot flashes are among the most common and disruptive symptoms. Sudden spikes in body temperature, facial flushing, sweating, and anxiety can make everyday life—whether at home, work, or out in public—uncomfortable and overwhelming. Traditional solutions like hormone therapy or cooling gels are either invasive or short-lived.

    This is where Coolify is quietly changing lives.

    Through direct customer feedback, TORRAS has discovered that a significant portion of Coolify users are women managing menopause-related symptoms. One user shared: “I was waking up drenched and exhausted every night. Coolify changed that. I wear it before bed, and I finally sleep through the night.”

    Another wrote: “It’s discreet and stylish—I can wear it in the office or on walks without drawing attention. Most importantly, I feel like I have control over my body again.”

    Because the neck houses multiple arteries that influence body temperature, cooling this area directly helps reduce hot flash intensity and duration. Unlike fans or ice packs, Coolify is hands-free, consistent, and wearable throughout the day or night.

    By offering a non-invasive, drug-free, and dignified solution for a problem that affects millions of women, TORRAS is proud to be supporting a demographic often overlooked in the tech innovation space.

    Everyday Comfort, Anywhere and Everywhere

    While its impact on women’s wellness is significant, Coolify was also designed for a wide range of everyday scenarios, making it a multi-purpose companion for the modern lifestyle.

    1. Daily Commutes & Urban Life Subways, buses, traffic-filled streets—urban environments can feel stifling in the summer. Coolify ensures personal climate control with a simple press of a button, making rush hour more bearable and sweat-free.
    2. Travel & Theme Parks From family vacations to amusement parks like Disney, Coolify has been praised as the ultimate travel essential. A recent user blog even hailed it as the “best neck fan for Disney,” helping visitors beat the heat while enjoying outdoor attractions.
    3. Outdoor Adventures Whether hiking, biking, or camping, Coolify is a powerful yet compact cooling device for those who love the outdoors. With no external fans to hold and no cords to manage, it allows full freedom of movement while keeping body temperature in check.
    4. Office & Remote Work Environments In offices where thermostats can’t be adjusted or in shared workspaces, Coolify provides personalized cooling without disturbing colleagues. Its low-noise operation makes it perfect for Zoom calls, deep focus sessions, and quiet rooms.
    5. Nighttime Use & Sleep Quality Some users incorporate Coolify into their nighttime routine, using it before sleep or even throughout the night to prevent heat spikes, leading to better rest and reduced sleep disturbances.

    Tech with Purpose: TORRAS’s Vision for Human-Centered Innovation

    More than a cooling gadget, Coolify represents a new frontier of wearable wellness tech. By marrying scientific design with empathy for daily challenges—like menopausal discomfort, urban heat stress, and the need for discreet comfort—TORRAS has crafted a product that is both technically advanced and emotionally intelligent.

    “We didn’t just want to create a product that cools the skin,” says a spokesperson for TORRAS. “We wanted to create a product that elevates how people feel, improves their day-to-day lives, and empowers them to move freely, comfortably, and confidently—no matter the temperature or stage of life.”

    As TORRAS continues to expand its innovation pipeline, the company remains committed to addressing real human needs with high-performance, beautifully designed solutions. Whether you’re managing hormonal transitions, chasing your kids through a summer park, or just trying to stay cool on the subway, Coolify is here to offer a smarter, kinder, cooler experience.

    About TORRAS TORRAS is a global lifestyle technology brand dedicated to enhancing everyday life through smart, human-centric design. From award-winning smartphone accessories to cutting-edge wearable devices, TORRAS blends function and form to create thoughtful solutions for modern living.

    For more information, visit: https://coolify.torraslife.com

    Media Contact

    TORRAS Marketing: marketing@torraslife.com
    TORRAS PR Manager: Ray@torras-global.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI NGOs: Dozens of Palestinians killed at US-Israel backed food distribution sites News Jun 01, 2025

    Source: Doctors Without Borders –

    Dozens of Palestinians were killed and hundreds more injured today as they waited for food at the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centers in Rafah and close to the Netzarim Corridor, according to the Ministry of Health.

    Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams joined the mass casualty response in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Patients told MSF they were shot at from all sides by drones, helicopters, boats, tanks, and Israeli soldiers on the ground.

    “Today’s events have shown once again that this new system of aid delivery is dehumanizing, dangerous, and severely ineffective,” said Claire Manera, MSF emergency coordinator. “It has resulted in preventable deaths and injuries of civilians. Humanitarian aid must be provided only by humanitarian organizations who have the competence and determination to do it safely and effectively.”

    The hospital corridors were filled with patients, but unlike what I have witnessed before, where most of the patients were women and children, today it was mainly men … They looked shattered and distraught after trying to secure food for their children, returning instead injured and empty handed.

    Nour Alsaqqa, MSF communications officer

    MSF teams at Nasser Hospital treated patients with serious injuries today. Some patients in critical condition are still undergoing surgery. With the blood banks almost empty, medical staff themselves have had to donate blood.

    “The hospital corridors were filled with patients, but unlike what I have witnessed before, where most of the patients were women and children, today it was mainly men,” said Nour Alsaqqa, MSF communications officer. “They lay in their beds in the hallways because the rooms are already packed with injured people. They had visible gunshot wounds in their limbs, and their clothes were soaked with blood. They looked shattered and distraught after trying to secure food for their children, returning instead injured and empty handed. Outside, there was shouting, sirens, a constant rush of new arrivals to the emergency room.”

    “Amid the chaos, we received confirmation that a colleague’s brother had been killed while attempting to collect aid from the distribution centre,” she said.

    The plan to militarize aid in Gaza is dehumanizing and ineffective

    Read more

    Mansour Sami Abdi, a father of four, described the chaos: “People fought over five pallets. They told us to take food—then they fired from every direction. I ran 200 meters before realizing I’d been shot. This isn’t aid. It’s a lie. Are we supposed to go get food for our kids and die?”

    “I was shot at 3:10 a.m.,”  says Mohammad Daghmeh, 24, a displaced person in Al-Qarara, Khan Younis. “As we were trapped, I bled constantly until 5:00 a.m. There were many other men with me. One of them tried to get me out. He was shot in the head and died on my chest. We had gone there for nothing but food—just to survive, like everyone else.”

    This is the second time this new system of aid distribution has led to bloodshed. On May 27, during the first afternoon of distribution in Rafah, Israeli forces shot dozens of people as wholly insufficient amounts of basic lifesaving supplies were distributed amid chaos.

    People fought over five pallets. They told us to take food—then they fired from every direction. I ran 200 meters before realizing I’d been shot. This isn’t aid. It’s a lie. Are we supposed to go get food for our kids and die?

    Mansour Sami Abdi, father of four

    As a result of the total siege that was imposed by the Israeli authorities on March 2, 100 percent of Gaza is now at risk of famine, according to the United Nations. Since May 19, the few hundred food trucks brought in—an insufficient fraction of what is needed—have spread despair among the 2 million plus people who have been largely deprived of food, water, and medication for three months now. Totally or partially blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza has aggravated the situation of all Gazans.

    MSF reinforces that, along with displacement orders and bombing campaigns that kill civilians, weaponizing aid in this manner may constitute crimes against humanity. Only a lasting ceasefire and the immediate opening of Gaza’s borders for humanitarian aid—including food, medical supplies, fuel and equipment—can ease this man-made catastrophe.

    MIL OSI NGO –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Call for caution following reports of kidnappings, robberies 

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    The Gauteng Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Community Safety has urgently warned the public to exercise extreme caution when meeting up with strangers through online dating and social media platforms.

    In a statement on Friday, the Portfolio Committee said this follows alarming reports of kidnappings, robberies, and targeted attacks in the Maboneng precinct. This as the committee conducted an unannounced oversight visit to the Jeppe Police Station on Thursday.

    During the visit, Station Management briefed the Committee on a disturbing trend where victims from across Gauteng are lured to Maboneng through hookup apps, only to be kidnapped, robbed, or assaulted.

    “The Committee expressed concern that these crimes follow a similar pattern to the Olorato Mongale murder case, where victims are deceived by strangers they meet in malls or online before being attacked.

    “Of particular concern is the recent arrest of a gang operating in the Maboneng area that specifically targeted members of the LGBTQIA+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual]community. The Committee condemns these crimes in the strongest terms and calls for heightened vigilance from all citizens,” the statement read.

    The Committee welcomed the recent progress in the Olorato Mongale brutal murder case where one of the suspects was killed in a shootout with police in KwaZulu Natal. 

    “While the Committee commends the police for these breakthroughs…justice must be served for Olorato and all victims of these heinous crimes,” the Committee said.

    The Committee also called on citizens to be vigilant as meeting strangers from online platforms carries serious risks.

    “For their safety, the Committee advises the public to avoid meeting strangers from apps in isolated or unfamiliar areas, inform trusted contacts about meetup plans, verify identities through video calls before meeting, and immediately report suspicious activity to the SAPS [South African Police Service],” the Committee said. – SAnews.gov.za

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Collaboration a key cog to solving societal challenges 

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    The church remains a key ally in helping government to tackle challenges such as poverty, gender-based violence, and social fragmentation, said Deputy President Paul Mashatile.

    “Government alone cannot address the multitude of challenges confronting our communities today. From unemployment and substance abuse to crime, poverty, and social fragmentation, these issues require a collective societal response,” he said on Friday.

    Speaking at the gala dinner marking the 150th anniversary of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of South Africa (EPCSA) held at Euphoria Golf Estate in Limpopo, the Deputy President called on faith leaders to strengthen their role in combating gender-based violence and to support vulnerable members of society.

    “The church has a profound moral responsibility to speak out against domestic violence and to promote a culture of mutual respect, dignity, and family cohesion. Through sermons, community outreach, and family counselling, the church can instil values of compassion, responsibility, and peace,” said.

    He also commended the EPCSA for its 150 years of unwavering commitment to faith, social cohesion, nation building and community upliftment.

    In his remarks, he praised the church for its historic and ongoing role in promoting love, justice, and integrity in South Africa.
    “This sesquicentennial celebration is not merely a reflection of the passage of time but a testament to unwavering faith, resilience, and a steadfast commitment to serving both God and the people of South Africa,” the Deputy President said. 

    Founded in 1875 by the Swiss Mission in South Africa, the EPCSA began its journey in Valdezia, Limpopo. Over the years, it has expanded across ethnic and cultural lines, playing a vital role in education, healthcare, and community development.
    Previously known as the Swiss Mission Church and Tsonga Presbyterian Church, the EPCSA has since transcended ethnic boundaries, serving all communities with equal compassion and dedication.

    “The EPCSA’s dedication to education, healthcare, and social justice has left an indelible mark on our nation’s history. By establishing mission stations, schools, and clinics, the church has played a pivotal role in uplifting marginalised communities and fostering social cohesion,” Mashatile said. 

    The Deputy President also highlighted the church’s recent reunification in October 2024 after over three decades of division, calling it “a powerful reminder that, through faith and humility, divisions can be healed, and communities can be strengthened.”

    The Deputy President drew attention to the EPCSA’s ongoing outreach work.

    “The EPCSA’s commitment to addressing societal challenges such as poverty, inequality, and social injustice aligns with our national objectives. Your outreach programs, including food distribution, educational initiatives, and substance abuse counselling, exemplify the church’s proactive approach to community development.”

    The Deputy President also called for ongoing collaboration between government and the faith sector. 

    “Let us continue to work together, government, church, and civil society to build a South Africa that is inclusive, just, and prosperous.

    “Once again, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of South Africa on this momentous occasion. May your legacy of faith and service continue to inspire generations to come”. – SAnews.gov.za

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Police working to arrest suspect in Olorato case

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    Law enforcement will not rest until another suspect in the murder of journalist Olorato Mongale is apprehended, Police Deputy Minister Dr Polly Boshielo said.

    The 30-year-old was killed last Sunday after leaving her Johannesburg home when she went on a date with her alleged killer. Her body was found hours later in Lombardy East, sparking a multi-provincial manhunt for the suspects.

    Speaking at her funeral service held at City Hall in Bloemfontein on Sunday, Dr Boshielo called on the public and for those who know the suspect to advise him to hand himself over to the nearest police station. 

    “We will also not rest until we find Bongani Mthimkhulu. If you know him, advise him to surrender to the nearest police station,” she said.

    The Deputy Minister emphasised that the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) is committed to combating gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF). 

    “The fight against gender-based violence and femicide is a national priority for the South African Police Service, and it is for this very reason that maximum resources are always deployed to investigate GBVF cases and also track down GBVF perpetrators,” she said. 

    Upon learning of the case last Sunday, the SAPS swiftly mobilised resources, including the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Team and the Gauteng Provincial Investigating Unit, to assist the Sandringham police station in tracking down the perpetrator known as “John.” 

    The investigation led authorities to a lodge in Kew, Johannesburg, and subsequently to KwaZulu-Natal, where they discovered a VW Polo vehicle with traces of blood. The vehicle was linked to Philangenkosi Makhanya, who was identified as “John.”

    On Friday morning, police located Makhanya at a block of apartments in Amanzimtoti. When police announced their arrival, he opened fire, and officers returned fire, resulting in his death at the scene. 

    READ | Suspect in Mongale case dies in fire exchange with police 

    In his possession, police found more than 27 ID smart cards belonging to various men and about 20 cellphones.

    Dr. Boshielo revealed that Makhanya and his accomplice, Bongani Mthimkhulu, operated a syndicate targeting women across various malls in the country. 

    “We are still searching for Bongani Mthimkhulu because we have narrowed our investigation and now know that Philangenkosi Makhanya and Bongani Mthimkhulu were working together and they were a syndicate that was targeting women in various malls across the country,” she said.

    The investigation has linked the duo to 22 cases of kidnapping and robbery, with women from across the country positively identifying them as the perpetrators. 

    Highlighting the broader impact of the syndicate’s activities, Boshielo noted that similar cases have been reported in Bloemfontein, Nelspruit, Midrand, Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Lebowakgomo in Limpopo, and Johannesburg.

    Addressing the family at the funeral service, Dr. Boshielo reassured them of the government’s commitment to justice. 

    “To the family, to the mother Poppy, we may not have been able to prevent the death of your child but be rest assured that one of her perpetrators is in permanent custody and will never rise up again to terrorize other women,” she said.

    The Deputy Minister called for collaborative effort to end GBVF.

    “GBVF is a crime that happens behind closed doors between two people that know each other and where we cannot always be as the police. Let’s all stand together and work together to put a stop to GBVF in our country,” the Deputy Minister said. 

    Police clear Fezile Ngubane

    In a statement on Saturday, the SAPS informed the nation that Fezile Ngubane who was initially identified as a suspect in a syndicate targeting young women has been cleared. 

    This as Ngubane’s father handed him over to the KwaMashu police station on Friday when he learnt that his son was sought by police in the Olorato murder case.

    “A multidisciplinary team led by the Deputy Provincial Commissioner for Crime Detection in Gauteng Major General Mbuso Khumalo,the SAPS National Anti-kidnapping task team, KZN and Gauteng Provincial Investigating Unit (PIU)have now cleared Ngubane following a thorough interview and preliminary investigation.

    “According to a preliminary report, Ngubane washes cars for a living and stays in the same neighbourhood as deceased Philangenkosi Makhanya,” said the SAPS.

    Makhanya allegedly identified Ngubane as a soft target and took his ID smart card and used it to Rica SIM cards that Makhanya would use to commit his long list of kidnapping and robbery crimes targeted at young women.
    Ngubane’s ID was found as part of the 27 ID smart cards found in possession of Makhanya.

    “The SAPS has also released the parents of one of the two suspects in the case after their statements were taken down. Police are sitting with at least twenty cases where women have come forward identifying the suspects as those that kidnapped and robbed them.

    The search for Bongani Mthimkulu continues and police once again call on Mthimkhulu to hand himself over at his nearest police station,” the police said on Saturday. –SAnews.gov.za

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: King’s Birthday Honours recognise significant contributions of Māori

    Source: New Zealand Government

    Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka today recognises the significant achievements of the Māori recipients in the King’s Birthday 2025 Honours List, for their dedicated mahi and outstanding contributions across various important areas.

    “The impressive mahi of Māori recipients this year are too numerous to mention. They have been honoured for achievements across many fields, coming from Iwi right across New Zealand – it is my privilege to recognise all of them today and to highlight just some examples,” Mr Potaka says.

    “The King’s Birthday Honours recognise the commitment and the passion that the recipients have shown, along with what has come from their dedication to their work and their causes.

    “Among those recognised are, Mrs Deborah (Debbie) Davis, who has done extensive work to bring so much good, including through He Iwi Kotahi Tātou Trust, the grassroots organisation transforming the community of Moerewa in Northland, along with her husband, Mr Ngahau Davis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Manu, Kohatutaka)

    “Mrs Davis (Ngāti Pāhauwera, Ngāti Kahungunu) has worked, through the Trust since 1987, to address challenges including housing, food security within the community, and youth engagement. Her and her husband’s work helped to provide insulation and heating solutions to more than 12,000 Northland homes since 2008. 

    “They have developed food rescue programmes and have introduced cultural and sports programmes that blend physical activity with the preservation of Māori traditions. They have expanded whānau support services to offer counselling, school programmes, and drug and alcohol programmes. Over the past 15 years, they have been involved in the establishment of a rehabilitative-focused sentencing in Kaikohe, Matariki Court.

    “Hon Dover Samuels is recognised for services as a Member of Parliament and his achievements and what he progressed in that time, including as Minister of Māori Affairs.

    “Mr Samuels (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kura, Ngāti Rēhia) was a Labour MP and MP for Te Tai Tokerau, working across various portfolios, including not least Māori Affairs, where his care and ability made considerable gains that continue to benefit Māori today. He also helped establish Rawene Health Hub for a rural Māori community and led the Rainbow Warrior project to sink the wreckage of the vessel and erect a memorial on Matauri Hill. He is kaumatua of several organisations. 

    “Mrs Elizabeth (Liz) Graham, who has dedicated more than 40 years to her community and to Māori education.

    “Mrs Graham (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Toroiwahi), has contributed to her community in many ways – that includes through the education of our tamariki and to the education sector through many roles across her career, work she continues today as a teacher at Te Aute College. She helped guide her community through the Treaty Settlement process, and her knowledge of traditions, values, and customs, has helped the marae in hosting funerals, weddings, gatherings, and other events for over 20 years.

    “The Honourable Sir Mark Cooper KC, High Court Judge, Court of Appeal Judge and President of the Court of Appeal, who was Chairperson of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes. 

    Sir Mark (Ngāti Mahanga, Waikato-Tainui) chaired 33 public hearings to deliver four reports, all of these under intense time pressure and public scrutiny. The detailed findings and recommendations of those reports helped avoid delay to the Canterbury rebuild and helped provide a resolution to the community.

    Amongst some of his other work has been his leadership in resource management and local government law, and his work that helped integrate various councils into one North Shore-based Council.

    I want to thank all of today’s recipients, those mentioned here and all others who I trust will be celebrated by their people and their communities, and all the people who have worked with them along the way.

    “Ko te amorangi ki mua, ko te hāpai ō ki muri.”

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Statement by IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva on the Passing of Former IMF FDMD Stanley Fischer

    Source: IMF – News in Russian

    Statement by IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva on the Passing of Former IMF FDMD Stanley Fischer

    June 1, 2025

    Washington, DC: Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following statement today after news of the death of Mr. Stanley Fischer, former IMF First Deputy Managing Director:

    “We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our dear friend Stan Fischer, who among many career achievements, served as the First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF between 1994 and 2001. Stan will be remembered for his enormous influence on the economics profession, first as a leading academic and teacher, then as an accomplished policymaker across many prominent posts. During his time at the IMF, he helped lead the Fund’s response to a number of significant challenges, including the Mexican crisis of 1994 and the 1997 Asian financial crisis. To this day, Stan is deeply admired by Fund staff, management and the membership for his intellectual leadership, personal integrity, and dedication to public service. He believed strongly in the Fund’s core mission, as he put it: ‘to promote principles of good economic citizenship, and provide a forum for countries to discuss issues of mutual interest.’

    “As an academic at the University of Chicago and MIT, Stan’s research had a profound effect on the field of macroeconomics, becoming a leading figure in the New Keynesian movement. Stan taught, mentored and influenced many leading policymakers and thought leaders. During his extraordinary policymaking career, he served as Chief Economist of the World Bank before becoming First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF. From 2005 until 2013, he served as Governor of the Bank of Israel, helping to steer the Israeli economy through the global financial crisis. He then became Vice-Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 2014, serving in that role until 2017. As a central banker, he was a staunch proponent of inflation targeting frameworks, transparency, and central bank independence.

    “On behalf of the IMF, I extend my deepest condolences to Mr. Fischer’s three children Michael, David and Jonathan and their families. Stan led a life of exemplary public service, matched only by his innate goodness as a colleague, friend and human being.”

    IMF Communications Department
    MEDIA RELATIONS

    PRESS OFFICER: Brian Walker

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

    https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2025/06/01/pr-25169-statement-by-imf-md-kristalina-georgieva-on-the-passing-of-former-imf-fdmd-stanley-fischer

    MIL OSI

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Road Closed, SH29, Matamata

    Source: New Zealand Police

    State Highway 29 is closed following a crash this morning near Hopkins Road.

    Emergency services were alerted to the two-vehicle crash at around 8.40am.

    One person has received moderate injuries.

    The road is closed due to powerlines on the road. Contractors have been contacted.

    Motorists are advised to follow diversions and expect delays.

    ENDS

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Rep. McCollum to Host Town Hall: Medicaid Matters to Minnesota Families

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Betty McCollum (DFL-Minn)

    SAINT PAUL, Minn. — Congresswoman Betty McCollum will host a Medicaid Town Hall on Saturday, May 31st at 11am. She will be joined by a panel of special guests to discuss the importance of Medicaid for Minnesota seniors, children, and working parents. 

    WHAT: Medicaid Matters to Minnesota Families Town Hall 

    WHEN: Saturday, May 31st, 2025 at 11am

    WHO: Congresswoman Betty McCollum, Dean of the Minnesota Congressional Delegation; John Connolly, Minnesota Department of Human Services, Deputy Commissioner, State Medicaid Director; Barbara Joers, President and CEO Gillette Children’s Hospital; Ryan Hilmoe, Minnesota Nurses Association; Kate Weeks, Assistant Commissioner, Economic Opportunity and Youth Services, Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families; Sumukha Terakanambi, Disability and Healthcare Advocate, Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities; Jessica Francis, Executive Director, Open Cupboard.

    WHERE: Stillwater; Credentialed media will receive location upon RSVP. Editors and Reporters may RSVP by emailing mccollumpress@mail.house.gov with the subject line “Town Hall.”

    RSVP: Residents of Minnesota’s Fourth Congressional District can RSVP here.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Rep. McCollum Opposes Donald Trump’s Tax Scam

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Betty McCollum (DFL-Minn)

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — After beginning debate at 2:45am on Thursday morning, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Republicans’ massive budget reconciliation bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, on a vote of 215-214. All Democrats opposed the legislation. Following the vote, Congresswoman Betty McCollum issued the following statement:

    “The ugly truth of Donald Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is that it strips away healthcare from 20,000 Minnesotans with disabilities, seniors, children, and working parents in Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District – that’s the equivalent of every resident of Stillwater losing their healthcare overnight. The ugly truth is that 45,000 Minnesotans will go hungry without the SNAP food assistance they rely on – the equivalent of every resident of Maplewood going to bed hungry and waking up hungry. The ugly truth is that Donald Trump and his Republican Congressional followers are cutting healthcare and food access for the most vulnerable Minnesotans to give permanent tax breaks to billionaires like Elon Musk and corporations who currently don’t pay their fair share. In fact, some large corporations pay $0 in taxes. In short, the ugly truth about the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is that it’s just another Trump GOP Tax Scam.

    “Under this legislation, the average family earning less than $50,000 would get under $300 in tax cuts in 2027, less than $1 a day, while a wealthy tax filer earning $1,000,000 or more a year would receive about $90,000 in tax breaks. The more the American people learn about this ugly legislation, the more they dislike it, which is why the House Republican majority advanced it through key committees during dead-of-the-night hearings and rushed the floor vote through while most Americans were sleeping.

    “It was easy to vote no on this bill. Leading with my Minnesota values and representing the voice of my community, I will oppose any Republican efforts to cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Veterans’ benefits, and nutrition assistance for Minnesota families, especially when they’re made in service to millionaires and billionaires.”

     

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Scandalous mormons, dystopian Buenos Aires and Nicolas Cage down under: what to watch in June

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claudia Sandberg, Senior Lecturer, Technology in Culture and Society, The University of Melbourne

    As we head into a new month of streaming, here’s a fresh wave of TV ready to challenge, transport and entertain you.

    This month’s picks span genre and geography, from an eerie dystopian Buenos Aires, to a witty, awkward cyborg hero. Reality TV also gets a scandalous twist with the return of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And Deaf President Now! delivers a powerful documentary on a historical milestone for Deaf rights.

    There’s something for every kind of viewer — and every kind of mood.

    The Eternaut

    Netflix

    Argentine sci-fi The Eternaut opens with a group of old friends in Buenos Aires meeting to play the card game truco on a hot summer night – when things suddenly get eerie.

    The power goes out and a poisonous snowfall starts to blanket the city, killing thousands of people instantly. The survivors must get answers, quickly, as they start to grasp the true strength of their invisible enemy.

    Based on Héctor Germán Oesterheld’s 1950s comic of the same name, The Eternaut portrays apocalypse through a deeply local and political lens – and in doing so has struck a chord in Argentina.

    Directed by Bruno Stagnaro and led by Argentine film icon Ricardo Darín, as protagonist Juan Salvo, the series emphasises the power of collective heroism, and subtly critiques the current government’s uncompromising neoliberal approach.

    It also pulses with national pride. Buenos Aires is not glamorized; real neighbourhoods are shown as classic Argentine tango, rock and folk plays in the background. Most importantly, Argentine identity is celebrated through themes of community spirit, grassroots resistance, and ingenuity in times of crisis.

    The Eternaut feels both timely and timeless. Its slogan, “no one survives alone,” resonates for a country that has been long marked by both trauma and resistance efforts.

    Its emotional weight is further deepened by Oesterheld’s legacy, including the tragic disappearance of him and his family members under the military rule of the 1970s.

    With a second season on the way, this series is a powerful ode to Argentina.

    – Claudia Sandberg



    Read more:
    Why Netflix’s The Eternaut is one of the most important shows to come out of Argentina in recent years

    Murderbot

    Apple TV+

    Murderbot, Apple’s adaptation of Martha Wells’ science-fiction novella, All Systems Red (2017) is a satisfying combination of action, sci-fi and comedy. The show centres on a security unit (SecUnit) – an indentured private security cyborg – who secretly cracks the programming of its governing chip, granting itself autonomy.

    Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård), as it dubs itself, is both horrified and fascinated by humans. It’s far more afraid of eye contact, emotions and direct conversation than any physical danger. It’s also obsessed with mainlining media, particularly the ridiculous soap opera The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

    Murderbot is hired, reluctantly, by some hippy scientists from a group of “freehold” planets – ones that exist outside the Corporation Rim – to act as protection on a scientific expedition. It goes quickly awry.

    Wells’ award-winning novella, the first in an equally good series, limits us to the first-person perspective of the sarcastic cyborg. The series expands this frame beautifully, building on the source material’s dry humour to create a world that is both goofy and grounded.

    And while there are serious themes at play, such as the way SecUnits are effectively enslaved, and the violent capitalist dominance of the Corporation Rim, the show is not heavy. Skarsgård offers a pitch-perfect performance of the awkward, anxious robot – its eyes flickering in horror as the scientists try to befriend it.

    The opening minutes of the first episode are clumsy and on-the-nose, but ignore them. This otherwise well-designed and well-directed show cracks along with brisk, highly-entertaining 22-minute episodes.

    – Erin Harrington

    The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, season two

    Disney+

    Season one of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives had us hooked at the end of 2024. Now, the women have returned for an explosive 10-episode second season.

    The reality series follows a group of Mormon women living in Utah. While the title may have you anticipating stories of faith and motherhood, the show is more focused on the personal lives of Mormon mothers who rose to TikTok fame due to scandal and infamy.

    Season one saw the women grapple with balancing traditional Mormon values with their online lives and subsequent businesses (along with the fallout from a “soft-swinging scandal”). Season two further highlights infidelity, jealously and money.

    Old characters are brought back, with finger-pointing ex-husbands and former alienated friends adding to the fray. Police are called, insults are thrown and many of the women delve deeper into their pasts.

    The show flips flops between difficult moments such as processing the death of loved ones and difficult pregnancies, with parties and poorly executed party games. At one point the women play pregnancy roulette (a game no one should recommend), and take pregnancy tests which are anonymously read out to the group. Chaos ensues.

    And after watching, you can search for the TikTok accounts of the stars and watch new drama unfold in real-time – or watch them “correct” and expand on past situations based on their own perspectives – far removed from show’s editors.

    – Edith Jennifer Hill

    Deaf President Now!

    Apple TV+

    Deaf President Now! is a stirring documentary about an iconic student uprising at Gallaudet University, the world’s only Deaf university, in 1988. The film chronicles how Deaf students – tired of being led by hearing leadership – decided to take things in their own hands come the 1988 Gallaudet presidential election.

    With two of the three candidates being Deaf, the appointment of Elisabeth Zinser, a hearing candidate unfamiliar with Deaf culture, sparked outrage. Fuelled by decades of marginalisation, the students barricaded campus gates, burned effigies of Zinser and marched to the Capitol, calling for Deaf leadership in Deaf spaces.

    It worked. The protest forced Zinser’s resignation and ushered in Irving King Jordan, Gallaudet’s first Deaf president.

    The film juxtaposes historic footage with present-day interviews with key leaders of the movement, allowing them to tell their stories their own way. These reflections, delivered in American Sign Language (ASL), underscore how storytelling itself can become an act of resistance for Deaf people.

    At the same time, the documentary wrestles with a paradox. Co-directed by Deaf activist Nyle DiMarco and hearing filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, the film exemplifies how Deaf storytelling still often has hearing involvement, especially when the story is packaged for a mainstream audience.

    Nevertheless, the release of Deaf President Now! couldn’t have been more timely. With disability rights in the United States threatened under Trump, the film is a call to action. It reminds us Deaf culture isn’t just about language: it’s about Pride, self-determination and visibility.

    – Gemma King, Samuel Martin and Sofya Gollan



    Read more:
    Deaf President Now! traces the powerful uprising that led to Deaf rights in the US – now again under threat

    The Surfer

    Stan, from June 15

    In Lorcan Finnegan’s The Surfer, our unnamed protagonist (Nicolas Cage) is returning to his former Australian home from the United States. He is newly divorced, and trying to buy a beachside property to win back his family.

    He takes his teenage son (Finn Little) for a surf near the property, but they are run off by an unfriendly pack of locals.

    Returning alone to the beachside car park to make some calls, he is besieged there by the same gang, and this continues over the next several days. The gang is led by a terrifying middle-aged Andrew Tate-esque influencer, Scally (Julian McMahon), who runs the beach like a combination of a frat bro party and wellness retreat.

    It is impossible to think of an actor other than Cage who could make a character like this so enjoyable to watch. Cage’s distinctively American confidence has no resistance to the terrifying switches of Australian masculinity from friendly to teasing to violent.

    The Surfer is an absolute blast. A lot of the fun is in anticipating each dreadful humiliation – and it somehow turning out worse than you could have expected.

    The Surfer beautifully captures the natural surroundings, stunning views and shimmering heat of Australian coastal summer. At the same time, a confined, semi-urban feature like a beachside car park feels bleak and uninviting.

    As a film setting, it is both a spectacular wide-open vista and stiflingly claustrophobic – a perfect mechanism for The Surfer’s psychological horror.

    – Grace Russell



    Read more:
    Dishevelled, dehydrated delirium: new Aussie film The Surfer, starring Nicolas Cage, is an absolute blast

    Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story

    Netflix

    The story of serial killers, Fred and Rose West, has been highly narrativised since their shocking crimes were discovered in Gloucester in 1994. The horror of the Wests lies in the juxtaposition of their seemingly ordinary suburban family and what was hidden beneath the foundations of their home.

    Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story takes us back to the moment of that revelation via previously unheard interview tapes and recordings of the property search – and of Rose while she was kept in a safe house. Family home videos add to the disturbing sense of the couple’s duplicity.

    Interviews with the family of some of the victims emphasise the ongoing pain caused by the Wests, who preyed on vulnerable young women. Meanwhile, Fred’s interviews reinforce his determination to protect his wife: “I trained Rose to do what I wanted. That is why our marriage worked out so well.”

    Many details of the Wests’ true horror, however, are absent: the incredible torture suffered by the victims; Fred and Rose’s own childhoods of abuse and Fred’s earlier assault of young girls, including his own sister; and any reference to the couple’s surviving children and the extraordinary abuse they suffered.

    The horror of this new documentary is present in the couple’s habitual lies, their casual attitude to violence and murder, and their refusal to take responsibility for their many crimes. Yet it only scratches the surface of the Wests’ true horror story.

    – Jessica Gildersleeve

    The Four Seasons

    Netflix

    The Four Seasons follows three 50-something affluent couples as they holiday together over the course of a year.

    Friends since college, the group’s easy camaraderie is upended by Nick’s (Steve Carroll) bombshell decision to leave his seemingly unsuspecting wife, Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), after 25 years of marriage. The announcement sends shockwaves through the other couples, testing their own relationships.

    Adapted from Alan Alda’s bittersweet 1981 comedy of the same name, the series preserves the film’s narrative conceit, unfolding over four seasonal mini trips. Episode one opens in full spring at Nick and Anne’s bucolic lake house.

    Given the luxury on display, you’d be forgiven for mistaking The Four Seasons as another entry in the “rich-people-behaving-badly” genre. But while there’s plenty of quips and snarky humour, what unfolds is ultimately much kinder – less a scathing indictment of wealth and more a gentle exploration of the banalities of love and middle age.

    The show’s creators make the most of the expanded running time to humanise the sextet. The open marriage between gregarious Italian Claude (Marco Calvini) and husband Danny (a marvellous Colman Domingo) updates the source material without sliding into tokenism or homonormativity.

    The prickly Type-A Kate (Tina Fey) and peacekeeper Jack (Will Forte) provide the series’ beating heart, in a relationship that feels lived-in and familiar.

    Despite its focus on ageing, loss, mortality and grief, The Four Seasons offers comfort viewing at its finest, best enjoyed with a cup of tea and a loved one who’s known you for decades.

    – Rachel Williamson

    Gemma King receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    Claudia Sandberg, Edith Jennifer Hill, Erin Harrington, Grace Russell, Jessica Gildersleeve, Rachel Williamson, Samuel Martin, and Sofya Gollan do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Scandalous mormons, dystopian Buenos Aires and Nicolas Cage down under: what to watch in June – https://theconversation.com/scandalous-mormons-dystopian-buenos-aires-and-nicolas-cage-down-under-what-to-watch-in-june-257549

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: With interest rates on the way down, could house prices boom? Here’s what research suggests

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney

    Jenny Evans/Stringer/Getty

    With the Reserve Bank of Australia easing monetary policy, interest rates are on the way down.

    Already this year, mortgage pre-approvals had begun to rise, suggesting many aspiring home buyers are excited by the prospect of cheaper home loans.

    With further cuts expected before the end of the year, some economists are predicting we could be on the cusp of another house price boom. Lower interest rates enable people to borrow more and potentially spend more on homes, bidding up prices.

    So, how might the Reserve Bank’s actions affect home buying behaviour and the housing market more broadly? Research offers us some clues.

    How rates affect prices

    Research shows that when a central bank lowers its benchmark interest rate, mortgage interest rates usually follow suit.

    We saw this following the Reserve Bank’s May decision to cut rates. Australia’s big four banks immediately announced similar reductions in rates for new and existing borrowers.

    Lower rates reduce the cost of servicing a loan. This is a big deal for Australian home buyers, whose mortgages can be very large.

    With the average house price in Australia now hitting about $1 million, an 80% loan saddles the typical home buyer with $800,000 in debt.

    Back in March, the average interest rate on new mortgages was 6%. For the average million-dollar house, this implies a monthly repayment of around $4,796, using the standard formula for amortising loans.

    After the Reserve Bank cut the cash rate by 0.25 percentage points, this implies a new monthly repayment of $4,669 – $127 less. That’s a small, but surely welcome, relief for mortgage holders.

    Combined with the Reserve Bank’s prior rate cut in February, such borrowers are now saving more than $250 a month relative to the start of the year.

    Everyone can borrow more

    Lower rates can also improve the borrowing capacity of new home buyers.

    Before a bank issues a new mortgage, it weighs the ability of a borrower to service the loan. It does this by considering the amount of income they’ll have left over after meeting typical expenses.

    This is known as a borrower’s “net income surplus”, and the proportion of this that is used to service a loan is known as the “net surplus ratio”.

    The maximum ratio is capped at 90%, but the typical mortgage is lent against a ratio of less than 70%.

    If a household earns $100,000 per year and allocates 25% to expenses, it can afford $4,375 in monthly mortgage repayments at a 70% net surplus ratio.

    Given the previous interest rate of 6%, this maximum monthly repayment implies the household can afford to borrow $680,000. But after a 0.25 percentage point rate cut, this household can now afford a $695,000 home loan.

    And following the 0.50 percentage points of cuts we’ve seen since January, this household’s borrowing capacity is up by $30,000.

    Pulling up the ladder

    For an individual home buyer, this extra borrowing may be enough to secure that dream home. But the rate cut affects everyone at the same time, increasing the borrowing capacity of home buyers all over the country.

    All of this extra mortgage credit feeds housing demand, which is likely to pour more fuel into an already overheated market.

    Indeed, recent research indicates that a 0.25 percentage point cut in the cash rate will likely lead to a 1.5–2% increase in average house prices over the following one to two years.

    That’s an extra $20,000 on the current $1 million average home value.

    Research also suggests the impact of interest rates across local housing markets may be strongest where housing supply is tightest and houses are already more expensive.

    Mortgages get bigger

    While lower rates reduce the cost of a given mortgage, the average mortgage size needs to grow to keep up with higher prices.

    Recall that the monthly payment associated with an 80% loan on a million-dollar home at 6% interest was $4,796. If the interest rate falls by 0.25 percentage points but house prices rise by 2%, the new monthly payment is little changed, at $4,762.

    On top of this, the 20% down payment on that new home will now have increased – by $4,000.

    Rate cuts increase borrowing power, but this can put upward pressure on house prices.
    myphotobank.com.au/Shutterstock

    Is there hope for first home buyers?

    Despite the initial excitement of lower rates, aspiring home buyers may be disappointed to see the price of their dream home climb further out of reach. Some may end up no better off than they had been previously.

    Others might try to snap up a home before lower rates are completely priced in – motivated by a fear-of-missing-out (FOMO). Research suggests it can take a year or more before house prices peak following a rate change.

    And others still may decide to keep renting for the time being. Fortunately for them, recent research shows that changes in interest rates do not materially affect the rents that landlords charge their tenants.

    Finally, one option is holding savings in the stock market while they wait, perhaps diversified via exchange-traded funds, as these assets usually rise in value following an interest rate cut.

    It’s never a good idea to panic. It’s always important to think through your options before diving into the market. And remember, our discussion here is only for general information and is not intended to be financial advice. All investments carry risk.

    James Graham has received research funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and is a member of Sydney YIMBY.

    – ref. With interest rates on the way down, could house prices boom? Here’s what research suggests – https://theconversation.com/with-interest-rates-on-the-way-down-could-house-prices-boom-heres-what-research-suggests-257724

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Police aren’t properly trained for mental health crises – but they’re often the first responders. Here’s what works better

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panos Karanikolas, Research officer, Melbourne Social Equity Institute, The University of Melbourne

    Rosie Marinelli/Shutterstock

    In an emergency, police are often the first called to the scene. But they are rarely equipped to deal with complex mental health crises.

    Following recent parliamentary inquiries and royal commissions there has been a push – led by researchers, advocates and some senior police officials – for a shift to a health-led and paramedic-first response.

    South Australia is one of a number of states trialling a program based on a “co-responder” model. This means trained specialists accompany police to some mental health call-outs in the community.

    So, how do co-responder programs work? And are they effective? Here’s what the evidence says.

    The current situation

    Mental health legislation in all states and territories gives police the power to use “reasonable force” to transport people who “appear to have a mental illness” to hospital to prevent harm.

    In most cases, this involves police taking people experiencing mental health crises to hospital emergency departments, without help from mental health clinicians or paramedics.

    Overburdened emergency departments have long wait times for mental health and are often inadequate at responding to people experiencing distress.

    Those who need mental health support may not need a hospital stay.

    One study found only one in five (23%) of those taken to emergency by police – usually after expressing intention to self-harm – were admitted.

    The strain on police resources is also significant. For example, in New South Wales, police now respond to triple zero calls about mental health crises in the community every nine minutes (in Victoria it’s every ten).

    Criminalising mental health

    The mere presence of police alone can escalate already heightened emotional situations.

    Police frequently lack training in mental health, with combative police culture and the militarisation of police training presenting significant problems.

    Police often acknowledge they are ill-equipped to intervene in a mental health crisis.

    Yet, about one in ten people who access mental health services have previously interacted with police.

    These encounters can be risky and even deadly.

    People who experience mental health issues are over-represented in incidents of police use of force and fatal shootings.

    Police involvement can also lead to the criminalisation of people with mental health issues and disability, as they are more likely to be issued with charges and fines or be arrested.

    Yet the main reason police take people to hospital is for self-harm or suicidal distress, and most are not deemed to be of risk to others.

    What do people with mental health issues want instead?

    In our research, conducted in 2021–2022, we interviewed 20 people across Australia who’d had police intervene when they had a mental health crisis.

    Those we spoke to often had multiple experiences of police call-outs over their lifetime.

    They told us excessive use of force by police had traumatising and long-term effects. Many were subject to pepper spray, tasers, police dogs, batons, handcuffs and restraints, despite not being accused of committing criminal offences.

    For example, Alex*, said:

    I was having an anxiety attack, and they pepper sprayed me. I had bruises all over my hands from the handcuffs they put on really roughly, even though I wasn’t under arrest. Then they took me to hospital.

    In our study, people with mental health issues said they would prefer an ambulance-led response wherever possible, without police attending at all.

    They also wanted to be linked to therapeutic and community-based services, including mental health peer support, housing, disability support and family violence services.

    What are co-responder programs?

    Co-responder programs aim to de-escalate mental health incidents, reduce the number of emergency department presentations and link people experiencing mental health crises with services.

    These programs, such as the one being trialled in South Australia, mean mental health clinicians (for example, social workers, counsellors or psychologists) attend some mental health incidents alongside police.

    Peer-reviewed research shows these kinds of responses can be effective when compared to traditional police-led interventions.

    An evaluation of a co-response program in Victoria found the mental health response was quicker and higher quality than when police attended alone.

    The success of programs in the United States and Canada shows many mental health crises can safely managed without police involvement, for example by addressing issues such as homelessness and addiction with health workers, and reducing the number of arrests.

    Limited by a lack of resources

    While the evidence shows co-responder schemes are valued by people with lived experience, they are often limited by under-resourcing.

    Co-responder programs are not universally available. Often, they do not operate after usual business hours or across regions.

    There is also a lack of long-term evaluations of these programs. This means what we understand about their implementation, design and effectiveness over time can be mixed.

    More broadly, the mental health sector is facing significant and ongoing labour shortages across Australia, posing another resourcing challenge.

    How can responses to mental health crises be improved?

    Last year, the final report from the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System recommended paramedics should act as first responders in mental health crises wherever possible, instead of police, diverting triple zero calls to Ambulance Victoria.

    However that reform has been delayed, with no indication of when it may be implemented.

    A 2023 NSW parliamentary inquiry also remarked on the need to explore reducing police involvement.

    Co-responder and ambluance-first models offer an improvement.

    But our research suggests people with lived experience of mental health issues want more than ambulances replacing the police as crisis responders.

    They need a mental health system that supports them and provides what they needed, when they need it: compassionate, timely and non-coercive responses.

    *Name has been changed.

    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

    Panos Karanikolas is a member of the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC). He received funding for this research from the National Disability Research Partnership as part of a partnership with VMIAC.

    Chris Maylea receives funding from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, and national and state legal aid commissions.

    Hamilton Kennedy 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. Police aren’t properly trained for mental health crises – but they’re often the first responders. Here’s what works better – https://theconversation.com/police-arent-properly-trained-for-mental-health-crises-but-theyre-often-the-first-responders-heres-what-works-better-257641

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Australia’s plan to protect its trade in war is flawed. We can’t do it with nuclear submarines

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Palazzo, Adjunct Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UNSW Canberra, UNSW Sydney

    If war breaks out someday between the United States and China, one of the major concerns for Australia is the impact on its trade.

    Our trade routes are long and exposed. Every year, thousands of merchant ships — bulk carriers, tankers, container ships and other types — visit Australian ports to deliver imported goods and pick up exports for delivery at distant ports.

    When a cargo ship of petroleum leaves the Persian Gulf for refining in East Asia, then sails for Australia, the total trip is approximately 20,000 kilometres. The ship passes through lonely stretches of sea and numerous choke points, such as the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia, often within range of missiles and other weapons.

    Such attacks could come from Chinese ships in the event of a war, or as we’ve seen in the Middle East with the Houthi rebels, they could also come from militants seeking to disrupt global shipping.

    Australia’s current defence strategy cites the security of our “sea lines of communication and maritime trade” as a priority. The aim is to prevent an adversary from cutting off critical supplies to our continent in a war.

    To achieve this, the government has embarked on the lengthy process of expanding the Royal Australian Navy surface and sub-surface fleet, including the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.

    As I explain in my forthcoming book, The Big Fix: Rebuilding Australia’s National Security, the problem with the government’s maritime plan is that it is built on a deeply flawed foundation and cannot deliver what it promises.

    A flawed maritime plan

    Defence documents insist on a need for the Australian Defence Force to be able to project naval power far from Australia’s shores in order to protect the nation’s trade. The presence of these warships would ostensibly deter attacks on our vital shipping.

    However, those who developed the maritime plan do not appear to have considered whether the merchant ships delivering this trade would continue to sail to Australia in the event of a war — presumably with China.

    The reality is that Australia’s A$1.2 trillion of exports and imports are carried in ships owned by non-Australian companies, flying foreign flags and largely crewed by citizens of other countries.

    Decisions about whether to continue sailing to Australia during a conflict would be made in overseas boardrooms and capitals. The Australian government has no leverage to force the owners of these ships to continue to service our continent. Australia’s national interests may well not be the paramount concern.

    Nor does the Australian government have the option to turn to Australian-flagged vessels. Australia’s shipping list contains only a handful of domestically owned and flagged cargo ships available in case of war.

    In fact, the biggest vessel (by length) that the government could take into service is the Spirit of Tasmania IV ferry.

    If all goes according to schedule, at some point in the 2040s, Australia will have at most 26 surface warships and perhaps eight nuclear-powered submarines the navy hopes to acquire through the AUKUS deal.

    Due to training and maintenance requirements, the total number of vessels available at any one time would be more on the order of ten.

    In other words, the government’s future maritime plan — costing hundreds of billion dollars — may result in just ten available ships at any given time to protect the nation’s trade over thousands of kilometres.

    What could work instead

    Fortunately, Australia has other options for safeguarding its trade that don’t necessitate the building of warships.

    Our first investment in security should be diplomatic. The government should prioritise its investment in diplomacy across the region to promote security, including trade security.

    Regional countries are best placed to secure the waterways around Australia, particularly from the most likely future threat: Houthi-like militants.

    The Australian government should also modernise its shipping regulations and include in the budget provisions for war-risk insurance. Such insurance could compensate owners for the potential loss of ships and cargoes as an inducement for them to sail to and from Australia during war.

    The government must also encourage greater investment in our national resilience. Currently, the biggest risk during a conflict is an interruption to the nation’s liquid fuel supply. We must greatly expand our on-shore reserves of fossil fuels in the short term, while initiating a nation-building project to electrify the economy in the long term. Electrification would eliminate a considerable vulnerability to national security.



    Read more:
    Fuel shortages and bare pharmacies: we need to talk about what a possible war with China could look like

    Additionally, the government should identify and subsidise vital industries, such as fertilisers and certain medicines, which are essential to the continued functioning of our society in the event of a war. This would reduce our reliance on imports of critical materials.

    Lastly, Australian industries, with the government’s assistance, should further diversify their trading partners to reduce over-dependence on one or two main destinations.

    Trade is undoubtedly important to Australia and the government is correct to protect it. But it is also true that not all security problems are best answered by the military.

    This is particularly important since the size of our planned fleet is obviously insufficient for the enormous task it will face. Either Australia invests in impossibly large numbers of warships or it takes a different path.

    The art of war requires a balance between the desired ends and the means to achieve them. This simple statement underpins the formation of all good strategy, which a state ignores at its peril.

    Unfortunately, in the case of the nation’s maritime plan, the ends and means are seriously out of whack. Instead of setting itself up for failure, the government needs to put aside its ineffectual maritime plan and choose the means that do align with the ends. Only then will it be possible to protect Australia’s trade.

    Albert Palazzo was the long-serving director of War Studies for the Australian Army.

    – ref. Australia’s plan to protect its trade in war is flawed. We can’t do it with nuclear submarines – https://theconversation.com/australias-plan-to-protect-its-trade-in-war-is-flawed-we-cant-do-it-with-nuclear-submarines-256557

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –