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Category: United Kingdom

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: 2025 Presidential Elections in Belarus: joint statement to the OSCE

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    The UK and other members of the Informal Group of Friends of Democratic Belarus deliver a joint statement on elections in Belarus and the deteriorating human rights situation.

    I am delivering this statement on behalf of the following participating States, who are members of the Informal Group of Friends of Democratic Belarus:  Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland,  Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and my own country, Germany.  

    The following participating States are also joining this statement: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia, Liechtenstein, Malta, San Marino, Switzerland and North Macedonia.    

    At Copenhagen in 1990, all OSCE participating States declared that “the will of the people, freely and fairly expressed through periodic and genuine elections, is the basis of the authority and legitimacy of all government”.  

    The presidential elections in Belarus on 26 January fell far short of this shared standard. Instead of reflecting multi-party democracy, accountability of government to the electorate or the free and fair expression of citizens’ will, this election outcome was pre-determined by the Belarusian government. The poll was carried out in a climate of fear and repression where opposition was silenced. Moreover, Belarusians were denied access to information from independent, pluralistic media.  

    Repression intensified in the pre-election period. While some political prisoners have been released, Belarus continues to detain many more. Over 1,250 people remain incarcerated. Many political prisoners face isolation, mistreatment and lack of medical treatment. The UN Committee against Torture reported that torture in these prisons is systemic, habitual, widespread and deliberate with a pattern of impunity for perpetrators. Last year, four political prisoners died behind bars.   

    The arrest and persecution of journalists and media professionals has also reached an all-time high; the Belarusian Association of Journalists notes that 42 media workers were imprisoned in the run up to election day.  

    We deplore Belarus’ involvement and complicity in Russia’s unprovoked, unjustifiable and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine and condemn the serious, ongoing human rights violations committed by the Belarusian authorities. We reiterate our call for the Belarusian authorities to release all political prisoners, immediately and unconditionally, and to ensure their rehabilitation. 

    No election can be considered as free and fair or meeting international standards when it is held in a climate of ongoing repression, marked by continuous pressure on civil society, arbitrary detentions and widespread human rights violations, as well as restrictions of any genuine political participation and a lack of credible opposition candidates.   

    We recall that ODIHR made efforts in recent months to engage with the Belarusian authorities on election observation, in line with Belarus’ commitment at Copenhagen in 1990.     

    The Belarusian authorities’ late invitation – delivered only ten days before the presidential elections – prevented ODIHR’s access to key stages of the election process, making meaningful observation impossible. It stands as further proof that this electoral process lacked transparency and credibility.     

    Sadly, this approach to OSCE commitments is wholly consistent with earlier decisions by Belarus. As well as preventing meaningful observation of these elections, Belarus failed to invite OSCE observation of the February 2024 parliamentary elections. Nor has Belarus made progress on the recommendations of either the 2020 or 2023 Moscow Mechanism reports, or responded meaningfully to the questions raised in the 2024 Vienna Mechanism.  

    Indeed, since the fraudulent presidential election of 2020, Belarusian authorities have engaged in a brutal crackdown on opposition figures, human rights defenders, civil society representatives, journalists, and other citizens who dare voice any opposition or dissent. Human rights defenders report over 70,000 cases of repression since 2020. These range from interrogations, detentions or searches to legislative amendments, labelling and prosecuting some human rights defenders as so-called “extremists” and closing NGOs as well as forced exile and confiscation of property.   

    In the face of this utter disregard of OSCE principles and commitments by the Belarusian authorities, we underscore the right of Belarusians to determine their own future in a genuinely free and fair manner, and to be able to do so without fear, oppression and external interference. In this Council and beyond, we will continue to support the Belarusian people’s hope for a free, democratic and independent Belarus.

    Updates to this page

    Published 31 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: £200 million boost to transform neighbourhood policing

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 3

    Funding to kickstart the delivery of 13,000 more neighbourhood police officers has been doubled to £200 million to make the country’s streets safer.

    Getty Images

    Forces across England and Wales will now be given hugely increased resources to begin their recruitment to boost neighbourhood policing teams, helping to ensure that the government’s target for additional personnel is met by 2029.

    After years of declining officer presence on Britain’s streets, this investment represents a crucial first step in rebuilding neighbourhood policing. This doubled funding – increased from December’s provisional £100 million commitment – reflects the scale of the challenges that many forces face, as well as the government’s determination to address them.

    As part of a wider billion-pound boost to policing, this dedicated funding will strengthen local crime prevention and community safety. One of the government’s key pledges within its Plan for Change is that every neighbourhood will have a named, contactable officer, helping to restore the local knowledge and presence that effective neighbourhood policing demands.

    These extra officers will see a return to the principles of British policing – where officers are part of the communities they serve and are focused on tackling crimes like antisocial behaviour, theft and knife crime that are blighting our communities.

    Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said:

    This major investment marks a turning point for policing in this country. By doubling extra neighbourhood funding to £200 million, we are giving forces across the country what they need to put more officers and PCSOs [police community support officers] where they’re needed most – on our streets and in our town centres.

    Every neighbourhood deserves dedicated officers who know their patch, understand residents’ concerns and can tackle problems before they escalate. This investment, alongside new powers we are bringing into law, will help prevent crime and protect our communities, which is at the heart of our Plan for Change.

    Restoring local policing will not happen overnight, but this funding boost will get more officers into our town centres and rural areas.

    Forces across England and Wales will be able to boost their local policing teams with this investment, scheduled for next financial year. Each force will set out their plans to government by early spring, showing how they’ll use their allocation to increase visible patrols.

    The rebuilding of local, visible policing in all our communities will be supported by the government’s new Police Standards and Performance Improvement Unit and new standards for neighbourhood policing. In addition to thousands more personnel in neighbourhood policing roles, the government will continue to help forces to protect officer numbers.

    Alongside more officers on the ground, the upcoming Crime and Policing Bill will give these officers the tools they need to keep our streets safe, including enhanced powers such as respect orders to tackle antisocial behaviour and shoplifting effectively. This investment, combined with new powers and local control over resources, marks the start of a long-term commitment to restore visible policing across the country.

    Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, National Police Chiefs’ Council Chair, said:

    We welcome the investment in neighbourhood policing, which is a vital part of how we engage with our communities, building trust and confidence locally.

    Working with our communities and partners to problem solve, tackle antisocial behaviour, supporting victims of domestic abuse, and diverting young people from offending are just some examples of the challenging and rewarding work officers do.

    Visibility and engagement with local communities has always been central to the British policing model and police leaders are in agreement that it must always remain at the heart of what we do.

    Neighbourhood Watch CEO John Hayward-Cripps said:

    Neighbourhood Watch is delighted that the government is further increasing the investment in neighbourhood policing.

    With the increased demands on the police, and public confidence at a low point, a focus on neighbourhood policing is key to the police being visible, approachable, and engaging proactively with the public.

    This injection of investment will increase public confidence in the police and enhance feelings of safety within local communities.

    Paul Gerrard, Co-op Director of Campaigns and Public Affairs, said:

    We welcome the government’s commitment to boost neighbourhood police officer numbers to help protect local communities from crime. As a community-based retailer, we all too often see the significant and damaging impact of retail crime and antisocial behaviour in society.

    We know – and have seen the results – that effective partnerships with local policing make a real difference, and I am cautiously optimistic that this latest development along with continued investment in preventative measures and the rising levels of police attendance can start to reverse retail crime levels, and help communities become stronger, more resilient and safer.

    This funding boost comes as the government publishes its final police funding settlement today. Total funding to police forces across the country will be up to £17.5 billion next year, an increase of up to £1.1 billion compared to the 2024 to 2025 police funding settlement. This includes additional funding to support the costs of the pay awards, the increase in the employer national contributions and funding for officer maintenance.

    Updates to this page

    Published 31 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: UK Academics receive Prince Mahidol Award 2024

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Two scientists from the UK received Thailand’s Prince Mahidol Awards for 2024 for long and significant contribution in the field of Public Health and Medicine.

    Today (30 January 2025) two scientists from the UK received Thailand’s Prince Mahidol Awards (PMA) for 2024 for their long and significant contribution in the field of Public Health and Medicine. Dr Jonathan Shepherd, a British surgeon and professor at Cardiff University in Wales, and Dr Tony Hunter (dual US-UK national), a professor of Biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, USA have received the award, following on from  Professor David Mabey, who received the award in 2019 for his work to eradicate trachoma, the most common infectious cause of blindness worldwide.

    The Award Presentation Ceremony was held at Thailand’s Royal Palace. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, as the representative of His Majesty the King, presided over the Presentation Ceremony, in the company of the Privy Council, Bureau of the Royal Household and Cabinet members.

    Dr Shepherd receives the Prince Mahidol Award (PMA) in Public Health for his creation of the ‘Cardiff Model of Violence Prevention’ which is an evidence-based, multisectoral approach to violence prevention which   has been endorsed by the World Health Organisation and integrated into multisectoral approaches to violence prevention from South Africa to Australia. Dr Shepherd’s research and commitment to evidence-based public policy has contributed to the development of ‘What Works Network’. The Network, supported by the UK government, acts as an important interface between research and policymaking, ensuring that policy makers have access to the best evidence.

    Professor Hunter who studied at the University of Cambridge in the UK, receives the Prince Mahidol Award in Medicine for his discovery of tyrosine kinase enzymes and the phosphorylation process, a crucial mechanism that transforms normal cells into cancerous cells. This breakthrough discovery led to the development of targeted cancer treatments and pharmaceutical innovation that can effectively inhibit cancer cells.

    In 2024 the UK and Thailand established a Strategic Partnership, highlighting a shared commitment to advance global health by championing universal access to health care and strengthening partnerships to prevent, detect and respond to global health threats. This includes joint efforts to tackle antimicrobial resistance and infectious disease outbreaks including through the development and application of innovative technology, such as genomics.

    Updates to this page

    Published 31 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Secretary of State: Safeguarding the Union command paper

    Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

    Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn has issued a statement on the Safeguarding the Union command paper, one year after its publication.

    He said: “The Safeguarding the Union command paper that led to the restoration of power-sharing – one year ago today – was the result of painstaking negotiations, hard work and political courage.

    “This UK Government is committed to protecting Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market, and we will continue to make progress in delivering Safeguarding the Union and taking forward the basis on which devolution was restored.

    “I commend all those who are working to make sure Northern Ireland fulfils its full potential; and for our part the Government is committed to working in partnership to deliver for Northern Ireland within our United Kingdom”.

    Updates to this page

    Published 31 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Interview – Doorstop, Melbourne

    Source: Australian Ministers for Education

    MARY DOYLE, MEMBER FOR ASTON: Well hello everyone, and welcome here to Boronia Heights Primary School and where Matt is the, I was about to say Premier. Where Matt is the boss of the school, that’s right. So thank you, and what a warm welcome Matt’s given us here this morning. And I’d like to also welcome Premier Jacinta Allan, Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, and also the State Education Minister, Ben Carroll. Thank you guys for coming here on this very auspicious occasion too, the signing of the agreement that just happened. Now I’d like to introduce our Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese. Thank you.

    ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thanks very much, Mary, and it’s fantastic to be back here in the electorate of Aston that you so ably represent with such passion and commitment. And there’s nowhere that it’s more important to be in Australia than in a school, particularly when we’re talking about education.

    Before speaking about why we’re here today, I do want to address the joint counter terrorism major investigation in Dural in Sydney. The AFP Commissioner and ASIO Director-General are continuing to work with New South Wales Police. It is critical that the police are able to continue to conduct this investigation. It remains an active one. We know that some people are in custody over issues related to this investigation. There’s zero tolerance in Australia for hatred and for antisemitism. And I want any perpetrators to be hunted down and locked up – it’s as simple as that. They have no place in this sort of engagement. It’s designed to create fear and terror in the community, and it will not succeed. Because our community is stronger than the cowards who engage in this sort of activity.

    Can I say about why we’re here today – for Labor, nothing is more important than education. It is in our DNA. And what we are doing today here in Victoria is so important. Working in cooperation with Jacinta Allan and her Government, including Minister Ben Carroll. And I want to give a big thank you to Jacinta and Ben for the leadership that they have shown in bringing this arrangement to a conclusion. Of course, it’s not about politicians and it’s not about government. It’s actually about the kids who we sat down with today. Them being able to have access to the best opportunities in life that come from a great start in life. And a great start in life means best quality public education and it means making sure that no child falls behind.

    What this agreement does is not just inject $2.5 billion of additional funding into Victorian schools, but in addition to that, it’s an agreement, quite frankly, Jacinta and her Government are doing it already, which is how do we address some of the concerns that parents have had over a period of time about things like learning and phonics and the basics of literacy and numeracy? How do we lift people up? What this funding will do is enable for testing to not have to wait for NAPLAN, not have to wait until a child is 8, but make sure that in the early years, if someone needs extra assistance, they can get it. They can get that smaller group tutoring or indeed one on one learning as well. This is so important, that every child has the opportunity to be the best that they can. To lift them up, which is what good quality schools and good quality learning will do. And a shout out as well to our teachers, many of whom are here. They do fantastic work. No one goes into teaching because of the salary that it provides. They go because of the satisfaction that they get from watching a young mind expand and grow and watching people learn. The young people we met in there this morning, were telling myself and the Premier, that the best thing about school is learning. How good is that? To hear that from a six year old really brightens your day because it is so important as we move forward. We have a great partnership with the Allan Government here in Victoria. Fair funding for schools has been talked about for a long period of time. 14 years ago, David Gonski brought down his report. What we’re doing here is actually delivering, doing in the best tradition of Labor Governments, in the best tradition as well of Australia helping out our youngest Australians.

    JACINTA ALLAN, PREMIER OF VICTORIA: Thanks, Prime Minister. Thank you. Well, I’d like to echo the Prime Minister and Mary’s thanks for Boronia Heights Primary School for their really warm welcome to us here this afternoon and thanks to Mat for your leadership of this great school and thanks to the school leaders as well to Zoe and Samuel, Mackenzie and Ryan who have led us around this school so beautifully. And along with Ben and Mary and Jason, I’d also like to acknowledge Jackson Taylor, the local State Member for this fabulous local community.

    And as you can see, this week in Victoria, it’s back to school week. It’s back to school for tens of thousands of students and their families as we gear up for another school year. And I know families just want the very best start in life for their kids. And that best start comes from getting a good, strong education. And that good, strong education can be found in any one of our great government schools here in Victoria. And that’s why, that’s why this agreement that we have signed today – been negotiating for a little while – but signed today, this agreement is about demonstrating that federal Labor governments, state Labor governments are going to continue to back, back the work that principals like Mat do in our great government schools, back teachers, back staff, most importantly back the students as well so that they can get and continue to receive that top quality education. And it was back to school week for my own family as well. And as I dropped my kids off to school this morning in Bendigo, I could see the excitement, I could see the energy and I can see firsthand what a difference Labor governments make when they invest in our government schools. And that’s why this announcement today and this agreement today is just so important. $2.5 billion over the next 10 years of additional funding.

    And I want to thank the Prime Minister, thank Jason and thank Ben for reaching this agreement. Because this is going to go directly to supporting students, supporting teachers, but also those families I talked about earlier who just want the best for their kids, regardless of their background, regardless of what part of the state they’re from, they know they can get that opportunity at our government schools. Also too, I think it’s important to note that this investment comes on top of the existing investment that Victorian Labor Governments have been making in our government schools here in Victoria. $17 billion in new school buildings right across the state. And if I can make the point, since 2018, 50 per cent of all new schools in Australia have been built right here in Victoria. We’ve worked hard to support our teachers and staff with a whole range of initiatives. We’re also supporting the teachers of the future with free uni degrees, supporting that pipeline of teachers for the year ahead. The work that Ben has done on phonics has been so important. We also, though, focus on the whole student as well and the wellbeing and cost of living pressures that we know families are experiencing. And that’s why the rollout of the School Saving Bonus. Ben’s just told me that today it’s just ticked over $100 million has been redeemed through the school saving bonus. That’s $100 million that supported families, $100 million that stayed in families’ pockets because we’ve supported them with some of those essential back to school costs. That’s what Labor Government investment looks like. Teachers, staff, school, buildings and supporting families with those cost of living pressures. And that’s why this agreement is just so important. Because it means for the decade ahead we can continue to plan, continue to support the great work of our schools here in Victoria and continue to support families as they want the best for their kids. So, does Federal and State Labor governments and we’re going to continue to support them every step of the way.

    JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Well, this is a big deal and this is a big day for public schools in Victoria. You want to know what this is about? It’s about the young people sitting behind these desks just out of shot here at the moment. And it’s about those year one students that we saw in the classroom just a moment ago and the ones that will follow them and kids who aren’t even born yet. This is about the future. This is about making sure that every child gets a great start in life, what every parent wants for their child, a great education. And what every Australian child deserves. That’s what this is about. And I tell you what, this is real leadership in action. Prime Minister, this wouldn’t have happened without your leadership and I want to thank you for it. Premier, I want to thank you for your leadership as well. As you said, this is a classic example of two Labor governments working together in the interests of Australian children and the future of our country. You get it. You know how to get things done and you get how important what’s happening in that classroom really is.

    The power of education to change lives, the power of a great education system to change nations. And that’s what this fundamentally is about. And I want to thank my dear friend Ben Carroll, a real reforming Education Minister who’s doing the heavy lifting here in Victoria already. And these reforms will help to fund and resource more of what Ben is already driving here in Victoria. You know, this is $2.5 billion. But more important than that, this is tied to real reform. This is about making sure that kids who fall behind at school when they’re little catch up and keep up and that more kids finish high school. We’ve seen over the last 10 years across the country a decline in the number of kids finishing high school in public schools. We’ve got to turn that around. It’s more important to finish high school today than when we were kids. And if we’re going to turn that around, it means early intervention, it means phonics checks and numeracy checks when kids are little in year one. The sort of things that we were seeing in that classroom a minute ago. And it’s about early intervention, providing more individual support for those children, perhaps out of a classroom of 30 into a classroom of three to help them to catch up and then they keep up, then more kids will finish high school and go on to TAFE if they want, or uni if they want, get the job of their dreams. So, fundamentally, that’s what it’s all about. It’s about making sure that every child in Australia gets a great start in life. What every mum and dad wants and what every Australian child deserves.

    BEN CARROLL, DEPUTY PREMIER OF VICTORIA AND MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thank you to all my colleagues that are here today. I also just want to give a shout out to Justin Mullaly from the Australian Education Union because the Australian Education Union have played a pivotal role in getting us where we are today. And $2.5 billion in Commonwealth additional funding for the State of Victoria, the Education State. We know public education is the most important investment in our future. We also know that 73 per cent of disadvantaged kids are in the public education system and this funding will go straight to them to support them going on to live their dreams and their life of purpose. This is a big day in the Education State. I think Anthony Albanese, today, has got the mantle of the Education Prime Minister. Also Premier Allan, who has led from the front, been with me every day working very hard to get this deal done. And I thank Premier Allan for not only her leadership in the schools agreement, but the work she’s done championing children that focus on early intervention through pre-prep, the Free TAFE, the free university degrees for teachers. This is a game changer for our education system. To Jason Clare, we’ve worked incredibly hard over the journey on this. It’s been a 12 month journey. But I’ve got to say, Jason, we’ve always been on the unity ticket when it comes to what’s best for our kids. World’s best practice in the classroom. And as the Prime Minister and Jason alluded to, the funding is one big important component and it will go to those public school kids. But there’s the other elements to it. There’s bringing in world’s best practice inside the classroom. The phonics literacy checks, the mathematics checks, the support for wellbeing. We are so proud as a Labor Government that every school is getting the mental health support and the nursing program being rolled out. That is so really, really important. I thank Premier Allan, Prime Minister, Jason Clare. For the very first time, Gonski, now, that had that vision of a needs based, sector blind education system is coming true today. No longer will a young child in any part of the State of Victoria start schooling in grade prep and go right through to year 12 without full and fair funding. We have ended that and that is a credit to the Federal Labor Government and the State Labor Government and it shows you great federalism working very well in the national interest and for our future, which is our children. Thank you.

    PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, Ben. We’re happy to take questions.

    JOURNALIST: Can I just ask you about the incident in New South Wales. When were you first briefed on the caravan incident?

    PRIME MINISTER: I get briefed regularly by the national security agencies. We don’t talk about operational matters, obviously, for obvious reasons.

    JOURNALIST: Chris Minns has said when he was briefed, can you say when you were?

    PRIME MINISTER: Well, what I do, is I don’t comment on operational matters. There are two issues that are my priority. The first is making sure that people are kept safe. The second, which is related to that, is making sure that any investigations aren’t undermined and that the police and national security agencies are able to do their work. I get ongoing briefings. Every day I get a national security briefing. And indeed, just this morning, we had a full meeting of the National Security Committee.

    JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just asking you about the Toorak dinner that was on the paper today. Was that a fundraiser for Labor?

    PRIME MINISTER: Well, I have dinner with people. Although it was reported as a lunch, my recollection is it was a dinner. It was nowhere near as long as it’s been reported either, I’ve got to say. But I engage with people. And I’m having a dinner tonight too, and I’ll have lunch at some stage today. That’s what you do. And I had breakfast this morning as well.

    JOURNALIST: So, Prime Minister, back on the caravan. Just following on from what Simon was saying, so, with the timeline of this Premier Minns was saying he was briefed on the 20th, you had a National Cabinet meeting on the 21st to discuss matters to do with antisemitism. So, was this something that was raised at the National Cabinet meeting? And if it wasn’t, isn’t it something that should have been raised, given that all the First Ministers were dealing with their own problems?

    PRIME MINISTER: Well, I’ve been asked this before. And I repeat, I don’t intend to go through operational matters, nor do we go through the detail of what’s discussed at Cabinet meetings or National Cabinet meetings or National Security Committee meetings.

    JOURNALIST: The Opposition Leader says it’s entirely predictable that the nation has seen this escalation in antisemitic incidents. What’s your response to that?

    PRIME MINISTER: This is a time for unity and for the country to come together against these atrocities and these appalling acts. Not a time to look for political partisanship or to make political points. I don’t intend to do so. I intend to do my job, which is to work with the police and national security agencies. I must say they do an extraordinary job. We want people hunted down and put in the clink. That is what we want. And there have been a range of arrests made. Some of those have been made public, were made public on the 21st. I take the advice of the police and national security agencies for when those matters become public so that we ensure that ongoing investigations are not undermined. There is a common sense approach to this and I note that the New South Wales Police Commissioner has made comments on that this morning as well.

    JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, do you have any update on the status of Oscar Jenkins?

    PRIME MINISTER: We continue to request the Russian authorities to provide more information. They have provided information at this point, but we don’t take anything we hear off the Putin regime at face value. So, we want to – we have made it very clear that we think Mr. Jenkins should be released. We don’t think that he should have to suffer from ongoing incarceration and will continue to make representations, but we’ll also continue to work as we will with Ukraine as well, on ascertaining further information.

    JOURNALIST: Are there any certain under which you’d consider a prisoner swap for Oscar Jenkins?

    PRIME MINISTER: No, well, Australia doesn’t have prisoners in those circumstances –

    JOURNALIST: There aren’t a couple of suspected Russian spies in Brisbane?

    PRIME MINISTER: What we want is for Mr Jenkins to be able to return home.

    JOURNALIST: Do you have any message for the Jenkins family?

    PRIME MINISTER: My heart goes out to you. This is a really difficult time for you. And the fact that some information has been made available, will be a difficult time. And we stand with you and we continue to offer every assistance that we can to these families.

    JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, do you intend to fund both Melbourne Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop and the Airport Rail Link?

    PRIME MINISTER: Well, there’s no link between the two things. We have funding available here for Victorian infrastructure. Suburban Rail Loop is an important project for a growing city. And I’ve been in consultation with the Premier. Minister King is looking after infrastructure. But one of the things about our cities and people will see this when Melbourne Metro opened. When I was the Infrastructure Minister some time ago, there was $3 billion from the Commonwealth for Melbourne metro. It was cut by Tony Abbott. For Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, both – all suffered, all three Eastern capitals suffered from a clogging in the centre. Now, the keys to that have been in Sydney, the metro, in Brisbane, the Cross River Rail project and in Melbourne, Melbourne metro. But the next stage is how do you get around this growing city that will be Australia’s largest without having to go into the city and out again? That’s what Suburban Rail Loop is about.

    JOURNALIST: So the $2.2 billion will be given to Victoria before the Federal election? I mean, it was committed at the last election. Will it be handed over to Victoria before?

    PRIME MINISTER: It’s in our Budget and we are working through those issues for early works. Because one of the things about Suburban Rail Loop that I know, as well, is it’s not just about a rail line. It’s about housing and it’s about infrastructure more broadly as well, and about making this great city of Melbourne more liveable, more sustainable and more productive.

    JOURNALIST: Could an airport rail be built sooner?

    PRIME MINISTER: Well, airport rail – I’m not the infrastructure Minister for Victoria.

    JOURNALIST: But you’re in charge of the money. Is it a priority or is SRL, for you?

    PRIME MINISTER: No, it’s not a matter of either or. That’s like saying, is Boronia Heights Public School a priority or is the school down the road a priority? We regard – they’re two very different projects. All of Victorian infrastructure is a priority. I’ll give you the big tip on the difference between us and the former Government. The former Government reduced Victorian infrastructure funding to about eight per cent of the national funding. Under my Government, that won’t happen. Under my Government, Victoria will always get its fair share.

    JOURNALIST: Just on the railway link. Is there currently an additional $2 billion on offer for the Commonwealth to build the airport rail link?

    PRIME MINISTER: I’m not sure what you’re referring to.

    JOURNALIST: Well, previously there’s been $5 billion. (Inaudible). This is a lot of money, and it’s important.

    PRIME MINISTER: Negotiations are taking place.

    JOURNALIST: Is there $2 billion on the table, in addition to the $5 billion from both the Commonwealth and the state that’s been previously committed to?

    PRIME MINISTER: Well, I suggest you ask Minister King. Those discussions take place between, with due respect, as Prime Minister, we run a big Budget across a whole lot of portfolios. I’m here today announcing significant funding for public schools. The Infrastructure Minister deals with state and territory jurisdictions on specifics of the infrastructure program.

    JOURNALIST: Do you think it’s possible to have Suburban Rail Loop work happening in one side of the city and then Melbourne Airport happening at the same time, or would they have to be separate?

    PRIME MINISTER: There’s lots of projects happen across lots of cities. You know, I’m a Canberran these days. There’s a light rail project under construction and there’s roads under construction around Canberra, let alone in a city the size of Melbourne. You need to deal with the growth in the West of this great city and the growth in the East of this great city, and indeed the growth in the North. I note you haven’t mentioned there’s a pretty significant road project here in the North East that has how much Commonwealth funding? That has $5 billion. And I’ve been to that project that’s under construction right now. We will do a range of projects here in Victoria. And can I say this as well, not just in Melbourne, but in regional Victoria as well.

    JOURNALIST: It is a point of quite some contention in Victoria whether we can afford to do both. Are you saying we can afford to do both? Will you tell taxpayers if you’ll prioritise one over the other?

    PRIME MINISTER: I’m saying that Victoria will get its fair share of infrastructure funding from my Government, unlike what the former Government did. That, for reasons unbeknown really, ripped that $3 billion out of Melbourne Metro, ripped money out of Victorian road projects and never put anything back.

    JOURNALIST: Can we return to the caravan and particularly the broader issues of antisemitism? I’m not drawing a direct link here, but there was an interesting speech Richard Marles made at the Sydney Institute the other night, two nights ago. And he said, ‘questioning the right of Israel to exist strikes at the heart of global Jewry. It is antisemitic’. He said, ‘denying Israel’s right to defend itself is an attempt to delegitimise Israel’s existence and has dangerous real world consequences, including here in Australia’. And the reason I ask is I think it talks about the thing that’s been the heart of the pro-Palestinian protest in many forms has been this delegitimisation of Israel. Do you agree that we are seeing the real world consequences of that and somehow this has got to stop because it’s gotten out of control?

    PRIME MINISTER: Well, of course I agree that antisemitism has to stop, full stop. People need to be put, people need to be hunted down as is occurring. People are being arrested, they’re being charged, and they’re in the clink without release, without bail. That is occurring. If you go back to the resolution that was passed with the support of both major parties in the Parliament after the October 7 terrorist atrocities – that spoke about Israel’s right to defend itself, I spoke about that on the Sunday as well. I support what has been Australia’s long standing bipartisan position. The UN decision in 1947 for 1948 wasn’t for the creation of one state, it was for the creation of two – the state of Israel and the state of Palestine. I support a two state solution where both Israelis and Palestinians are able to live in peace and security. Now to do that, in order to achieve that, clearly there needs to be as well some reform on the Palestinian side. Hamas can play no role in any future state. I go back to that resolution which I looked at it the other day. Quite frankly, history treats it well. The fact that the Parliament came together at that time and overwhelmingly, with the exception of the Greens who can speak for themselves, they overwhelmingly, the Parliament passed that resolution. That was a good thing. Thanks very much.

    JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the Labor Party was right there. I mean you make the point, I mean Doc Evatt was right there. Formation of Israel played a crucial path to his role in the UN. The question I had for you, and I was hoping you could answer it, is whether or not this continuing question of Israel’s existence is fuelling antisemitism?

    PRIME MINISTER: We support the right of Israel to exist.

    JOURNALIST: But the question about whether you agree that it’s fuelling antisemitism?

    PRIME MINISTER: That what is? Sorry, you’re not being clear about your question.

    JOURNALIST: The continual questioning of Israel’s right to existence. Whether that fuels antisemitism?

    PRIME MINISTER: Well, I can speak for myself. I think that one of the issues that I certainly always say very clearly is that it is in the interests of Israelis, obviously, that Israel has a right to exist with security. It’s also in the interest of Palestinians that Israel has a right to exist with security as well. You need a solution that stops a cycle of violence. The solution that is being negotiated out, if you actually take a bit of a step back, look at what a solution looks like. And it looks like, as has been advocated by the United States and others such as Antony Blinken, is the creation of is Israel firstly being recognised by countries such as Saudi Arabia and others in the region. It is then Palestine being able to step forward with a path towards security for Palestinians as well. Obviously, the international community has a role to play in that. Thanks very much.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Construction begins on new Port Stephens refuge for women and children escaping domestic violence

    Source: New South Wales Government 2

    Headline: Construction begins on new Port Stephens refuge for women and children escaping domestic violence

    Published: 31 January 2025

    Released by: Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

    The NSW Government is building a safer New South Wales for regional women and children with construction now beginning on a new safe haven in Port Stephens.

    Built under the Core and Cluster program, $7.2 million is being invested in a new six-unit refuge in Port Stephens being developed by Hume Community Housing.

    The Core and Cluster refuge model promotes independent living by providing self-contained accommodation located next to a ‘core’ of support that facilitates access to services such as counselling, legal assistance, education, and employment support.

    Hume Community Housing is a Tier 1 Community Housing Provider with more than 30 years’ experience, providing social and affordable housing and specialist disability accommodation.

    Port Stephens Family and Neighbourhood Services (PSFaNS) has been nominated as the future service provider to deliver tailored support services to victim-survivors at the completed refuge, helping them rebuild their lives and heal from trauma.

    The NSW Government has invested $426.6 million over four years to provide new crisis accommodation across NSW for victim-survivors of domestic and family violence as part of the Core and Cluster program.

    Once all 49 new Core and Cluster refuges are completed, and the replacement of eight existing government-owned women’s refuge buildings are refurbished, they will support more than an additional 2,900 women and children escaping domestic and family violence each year.

    The Minns Labor Government is addressing domestic and family violence at all stages, by investing in primary prevention, early intervention, crisis responses and recovery. Making sure women and children have a safe place to go when they escape abuse is crucial to their recovery and helping them rebuild their lives.

    Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Jodie Harrison said:

    “For women and children escaping abusive and violent homes, having a safe haven is vital to begin recovering, healing and rebuilding their lives.

    “The NSW Government is continuing the roll out of Core and Cluster refuges for domestic violence victim-survivors across the state, with a total of 49 new refuges set to be up and running by 2026.

    “We’re proud to partner with local service providers to ensure that Core and Cluster residents receive tailored support so they can regain their confidence, recover and thrive.”

    Member for Port Stephens Kate Washington said:

    “Domestic and family violence has a devastating impact on the lives of people in Port Stephens and across the state. It must stop.

    “This new Core and Cluster refuge will be life-changing for local women and children, giving them a safe and secure place to begin rebuilding their lives after trauma.

    “For too long, women and children in our community have had to leave behind their jobs, schools, and support networks to find safety. This refuge means they will now have access to the crisis accommodation and support they need, right here in Port Stephens.”

    Brad Braithwaite, CEO of Hume Housing said:

    “Hume Community Housing is proud to be partnering with the Department of Communities and Justice and Port Stephens Family and Neighbourhood Services to deliver this Core and Cluster refuge.

    “Breaking ground today is just the beginning as we look towards providing a safe place for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence.

    “This is central to Hume’s purpose: to create homes and opportunities for people to heal, rebuild and prosper in vibrant and connected communities.”

    Sue Pollock, Manager Port Stephens Family and Neighbourhood Services said:

    “Port Stephens Family and Neighbourhood Services has been providing services to our community for over 35 years.

    “For most of those years women in our community have been advocating for a refuge to be available for women and children living with domestic and family violence.

    “Women in Karuah Aboriginal Community have been working for nearly two years now to make sure that the refuge will be a place of comfort and safety, a place where women and children can breathe and be nurtured by the surroundings. They have been meeting each week designing and sewing the soft furnishings and mapping out the outdoor and living areas. We are grateful for such generosity of spirit.

    “With the hard work and commitment from women in this community, with Hume Community Housing and funding from Department of Communities and Justice, women and children can now know that a place of safety and respite will exist in their community. A place where they can stay close to their supports, their schools, their jobs. Everyone deserves to feel safe and supported and live a life free from violence.”

    Support:

    If you or someone you know are in immediate danger, call the Police on Triple Zero / 000.

    If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic and family violence, call the NSW Domestic Violence Line on 1800 65 64 63 for free counselling and referrals, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

    For confidential advice, support, and referrals, contact 1800 RESPECT or 13 YARN.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: $3 million to support leak detection and water efficiency

    Source: New South Wales Government 2

    Headline: $3 million to support leak detection and water efficiency

    Published: 31 January 2025

    Released by: Minister for Water

    The Minns Labor Government is charging ahead with its commitment to save billions of litres of water by injecting $3 million into round 2 of its innovative Active Leak Detection Project, helping to boost long-term water security for regional towns and cities across New South Wales.

    It forms part of the hugely successful Water Efficiency and Regional Leakage Reduction Program that has secured $11.3 million in further funding, on top of an initial $12.5 million investment, to continue its activities in the regions over the next two years.

    The program has already achieved impressive results between 2022 and 2024, clocking up a staggering 7,500 megalitres (ML) per year in water savings in over 60 regional locations.

    This next round aims to save up to 4,000ML of water per year, or enough to meet the annual water needs of around 20,000 NSW regional households.

    The active leak detection project uses cutting-edge equipment including noise loggers, electronic listening sticks, ground microphones and leak noise correlators to detect leaks within local water networks that will then be repaired by local councils.

    Crews will survey approximately 6,000 kilometres of regional water supply mains across more than 40 high priority areas that are severely impacted during dry months including Warrumbungle Shire, Warren, Moree Plains, Forbes, Cobar, Dubbo and Lithgow.

    The NSW Government is locking in more locations over the coming weeks.

    The next stage of the program will also focus on identifying leaks in residential properties, with homeowners to be notified if issues are found. Work commenced in January and will be rolled out until June 2026.

    The $35.3 million Water Efficiency and Regional Leakage Reduction Program aims to create a more sustainable and resilient water future for country towns and cities across the state.

    For more information, visit the Regional Leakage Reduction Program webpage. 

    NSW Minister for Water Rose Jackson said:

    “Our leak detection program has been smashing it out of the park by recovering a massive 7,500 megalitres of water in regional NSW per year since 2022 that would have otherwise gone to waste.

    “That’s why I am absolutely thrilled to announce that we are rolling the program out to even more locations across the state over the next two years.

    “While water levels are currently stable, the next drought could be just around the corner, so projects like this one are a simple solution to make the most of the water we already have by identifying and fixing leaks across local networks.

    “You’d be amazed at how much town water gets lost every year because of cracks or holes in pipelines, which is why using high-tech equipment to pinpoint these leaks is one of the most effective ways to safeguard our long-term water supply.”  

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Brexit anniversary sparks call for much closer relationship with EU

    Source: Green Party of England and Wales

    On the fifth anniversary of the UK’s exit from the European Union, Green MP Ellie Chowns said:  

    “These five years have seen the economic, social and political costs of leaving the European Union become ever clearer. 

    “Far from ‘taking back control’, we have all lost out. 

    “Young people have been deprived of the chance to easily study and work in the European Union, while small businesses have found it increasingly difficult to export, and the UK is increasingly isolated on the international stage. 

    “No wonder, the proportion of the public believing Brexit to have been the right decision is at its lowest since 2020. (1) 

    “The Green Party is very clear that people and planet would benefit from much closer relationships between our country and the European Union.  

    “We will continue to press the Labour government to be braver and bolder in overcoming the negative impacts of Brexit.  

    “Full membership of the EU remains the best option for the UK, and we are in favour of pursuing a policy to re-join as soon as the political will is present.    

    “Of course, that means building the widespread public support we need before a decision to rejoin is made.  

    “There are win-win first steps that the government should be taking today. For instance, working with the EU on a youth mobility scheme that opens up the European Union to our youngsters. 

    “We should be working with the EU to tackle the twin crises of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss in the face of US President Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement. 

    “We should also rejoin the Customs Union to begin to overcome the obstacles that small businesses have faced in trading with our closest partners since Brexit.  

    “While joining the Single Market would provide benefits in terms of free movement of people, goods, services and capital, membership of the Single Market without membership of the EU would not be an ideal long-term solution because the UK would not be a full partner in decision making processes.  

    “We’ve learned from the divisiveness of Brexit that binary choices push people apart rather than bring people together.   

    “So, we are proposing the use of citizens’ assemblies to support the wider public to make well-informed decisions about complicated political issues such as our future membership of the EU.” 

    Mark Ormiston, a sixth generation managing director of Ormiston Wire that manufactures a high quality products used in suspending lights, art installations, yacht rigging and surgical procedures, said Brexit is making it ever harder to get its components into final products manufactured abroad. 

    Mark Ormiston “We supply components not a final product so if the end product moves offshore, we have to try and supply that export market. With Brexit small exporters are being devastated and we must work very hard to persuade companies to use our quality and expertise.” 

    NOTES TO EDITORS 

    (1) https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-feel-about-brexit-five-years-on 

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: expert reaction to NICE final draft guidance on exagamglogene autotemcel (exa-cel) for severe sickle cell disease

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Scientists comment on final draft guidance from NICE on the use of exagamglogene autotemcel (exa-cel) for severe sickle cell disease. 

    Dr Diana Hernandez, director of immune and advanced therapies at UK stem cell charity Anthony Nolan, said:

    “Today’s decision from NICE to grant access, on the NHS, to the UK’s first ever CRISPR-based therapy for some patients with sickle cell disease, represents a leap forward in the treatment of this debilitating and life-threatening condition. Sickle cell disease is caused by abnormally shaped red blood cells that can block blood vessels, causing fatigue, chronic pain and increased risk of infection. By modifying the DNA of the patient’s own stem cells so they produce healthy red blood cells, the treatment provides a ‘functional cure’ for people who otherwise have limited options.

    “This treatment offers hope to thousands of patients in the UK, the majority of whom are from African and African-Caribbean backgrounds and have experienced years of feeling ignored, and is a glimpse into the exciting possibilities of gene therapies to treat diseases that have previously been considered incurable.”

    Dr Alena Pance, Senior Lecturer in Genetics, University of Hertfordshire, said:

    “Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel) is based on the innovative gene-editing tool CRISPR, which won its inventors the Nobel Prize in 2020

    “This approach is a great medical advancement because gene-editing may represent a possible cure rather than a treatment of this inherited genetic disease and stem cell technology makes it possible to use patient-specific cells which avoid immunological issues.

    “The background is that sickle cell disease is caused by mutation of one of the proteins that form haemoglobin. This is the main component of red blood cells that transports oxygen around the body. In adulthood, it consists of 4 globin proteins, 2 alpha and 2 beta, that form a tetramer with an iron core which binds the oxygen. During development however, the haemoglobin in the foetus is made with gamma globin instead of beta globin. This is because Gamma globin has higher affinity for oxygen, which is less abundant in the womb. At birth, there is a switch that silences Gamma globin which is no longer made and induces Beta globin to be made instead.

    “When Beta globin is mutated long inflexible chains of haemoglobin form, called sickle haemoglobin that leads to a change in the morphology of the red blood cells which also become stiff and get stuck in small capillaries. This causes pain and loss of red blood cells or anaemia, which increases in situations of high need or use of oxygen, such as exercise or high altitude.

    “What this therapy does is to switch off the factor that silences Gamma globin so that it can be produced in the red blood cells and substitute the faulty Beta globin. Because it is a blood disease, the gene-editing can be performed in the stem cells from the bone marrow from which all the cells in the blood originate. This means that the stem cells are extracted from the patient, modified and expanded in the lab and then put back into the patient where they will be able to reconstitute the blood. As a consequence, there is no immunological difference between the modified cells and the patient necessitating immunosuppressing medication for life and once the modified stem cells establish themselves in the bone marrow of the patient, they can repopulate the bone marrow and produce Gamma globin red blood cells technically for ever. An additional advantage this strategy has is that because it does not aim to correct the mutation (fix the faulty beta globin) it can be generally applied not just to sickle cell disease but also to beta-thalassemia. This is because there is a wide range of mutations in the beta globin gene and so fixing it would become patient-specific which would be even more costly and difficult.”

    “There are some set backs to this approach and it is certain that the technology will continue improving, but at this moment in time, it is the greatest advance seen so far in the application of these technologies to health.”

    Prof Ewan Birney, Deputy Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and Director of EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), said:

    “This is an exciting development for practical CRISPR based gene therapy. After impressive clinical trials worldwide, the technology provides a way for certain sickle cell disease individuals to have a far better life. This CRISPR based therapy uses an interesting molecular mechanism, where the gene therapy acts on a different, related gene (fetal haemoglobin), boosting this gene’s expression in adulthood which mitigates the effect of the sickle cell changed adult haemoglobin. The mechanism was discovered by genetic studies in particular from cohorts in Sub-Saharan Africa and people with recent African ancestries.

    “Looking ahead, this technology has the potential to treat many other rare diseases with precise genetic diagnoses.”

     

    Prof Felicity Gavins, Professor of Pharmacology, Brunel University of London, said:

    “The approval of Exa-cel for NHS use in England is a very exciting moment, not only because this marks the first approval of a CRISPR-based gene therapy for SCD in the NHS, but also because it offers a potentially curative treatment for eligible patients. By addressing the genetic cause of SCD, Exa-cel reduces or eliminates vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs), decreases hospitalisations, and improves quality of life.

    “Of the 15,000 people in England with SCD, approximately 1,750 may be eligible for Exa-cel treatment. The therapy works by editing the patient’s BCL11A gene to reactivate fetal haemoglobin production, preventing red blood cells from sickling and blocking blood flow which cause VOCs and disease complications.

    “However, while Exa-cel is a breakthrough, it is not a cure for all SCD patients, and uncertainties remain about its long-term effectiveness, safety and accessibility. It is critical to continue funding research to develop treatment that benefit the broader SCD population and address remaining challenges in care.”

     

    Professor Laurence D. Hurst, Professor of Evolutionary Genetics, The Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath, said:

    “The recommendation of exa-cel (alias Casgevy, alias Exagamglogene autotemcel) by NICE is a potential step change for sufferers (and their carers) of a common genetic disorder, sickle cell disease (SCD) that particularly affects UK individuals with a Caribbean and Black African ancestry. It will come as a very welcome reversal of a prior draft recommendation (March 2024) by many within the at-risk communities. 

    “Part of NICE’s recommendation was based on the observation that the disorder is especially prevent in ethnic minority backgrounds and seeks to redress inequality in health access. This is a good news day for sufferers of severe SCD and for these communities.”

    Why is there a need for a “cure” for sickle cell disease?

    “Current treatments may be considered the equivalent of plastering over a wound repeatedly, rather than getting to the cause of the wound and curing it.

    “SCD patients need regular blood transfusions and with that treatment to absorb excess iron. Some qualify for a drug therapy, Hydroxycarbamide, also used as in cancer chemotherapy, that reduces VOC rates. This increases rate of production of foetal globin and reduces red cell stickiness. There are very few treatments to stop symptoms and what is available often has intolerable side effects. A further issue is that while treatments may reduce VOC frequency they tend to increase pain associated with each VOC. They do not address the underlying cause.” 

    “Stem cell transfusion – the best current “cure” – is potentially different as you are replacing the cells that make red blood cells in the patient with those from a donor who doesn’t have SCD.  However, only 15% of patients have a potential donor and this treatment can lead to immune rejection (graft versus host disease).

    “Exa-cel is potentially a life-long cure – the patients can make their own non SCD inducing blood, thus immune rejection should not be an issue.”

    How does this CRISPR therapy work?

    “For many single gene genetic disorders gene therapy is now being actively researched and, in some cases, making it to clinic.  To date the successful ones, have taken the strategy of adding in a copy of the properly functioning version of the gene (as in recent gene therapies for haemophilia A and B).  Exa-cel is different as it involves “editing” your own DNA, not adding genes. 

    “It relies on the fact that as foetuses our haemoglobin was different. Indeed, foetal haemoglobin is a little better than the adult version at carrying oxygen.  Adult haemoglobin consists of two beta globins and two alpha globins.  In foetuses we use gamma globin instead of beta globin.  Shortly after birth a protein BCL11A helps in the switch from foetal to adult haemoglobin, from gamma to beta.  Exa-cel edits the gene for BCL11A preventing it from being made, and in so doing forces the cells to upregulate gamma globin so making more foetal haemoglobin.

    “It does this by editing a part of the switch that turns the BCL11A gene on in developing blood cells.  This causes BCL11A to not be made which in turn allows gamma globin to be produced, as BCL11A switches gamma globin off.   As such – it is a CRISPR mediated gene edit – it is unlike the standard mode of gene therapy which involves addition of the correct gene. The treatment involve removing relevant cells from the patient, editing in the lab and replacing them into the patient.

    “Given its mode of action it is a potential therapy for any genetic disease involving badly functioning beta-globin, notably sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.

    “Importantly it is also likely that making gamma globin is safe – it is our own protein.  In addition, most of us fail to fully inactivate the foetal/gamma version and so well all have a bit of gamma globin.  Indeed, with conditions like SCD, the higher the level of gamma globin the lesser the symptoms.”

    The therapy is life transforming

    “The evidence for the efficacy and safety of Casgevy for SCD is good, although sample numbers are low. Base line the patients had 2.6 VOCs per year. Of 43 patients 29 were followed long enough. 28 of 29 had no VOCs for at least a year. None were hospitalised.

    “There is a further issue, however, that it can be difficult to collect cells in patients with SCD and some of those not followed up were because the treatment couldn’t be given.

    What is the new decision?

    “This new decision is not a statement about safety and efficacy.  The therapy has been approved for use in the UK (late 2023), EU (spring 2024) and USA (late 2023) on safety and efficacy grounds. What is new is that NICE now recommends funding this with “managed access*” via the NHS as it is deemed adequately cost effective (or rather it was happy with the high level of uncertainty on cost effectiveness given the circumstances).  This is a reversal of its prior draft recommendation in March 2024.

    “It is restricted to those for whom a stem cell transplant donor cannot be found and with severe SCD ie recurrent VOCs meaning 2 or more in the prior 2 years.

    “The defence for the opening of access was based on the health inequalities faced by people with SCD, the technology being innovative and the fact that prior decision had failed to capture the quality of life of the carers.

    “Earlier this year NICE approved the same therapy for beta thalassemia -also owing to beta glogin issues- for a restricted number of patients.”

    What does the treatment cost?

    “The treatment is a one-off procedure. The headline cost per treatment £1,651,000 but the actual cost to the NHS is a commercial secret.”

    What are the uncertainties?

    “There are two main uncertainties:

    “First, being a new treatment how long it will last is unknown. Why the treatment might revert is unclear but only time will tell.

    “The second is whether there are downstream side effects.  CRISPR as an application for example involves send a molecule to cut DNA at a designated site in our DNA.  Sometimes, however, the cuts also happen at sites we didn’t want to have cut. These are so-called “off-target” effects.  The early data from the research team behind found no evidence for such off-target effects but they remain a possibility. More classical forms of gene therapy – involving adding genes to our DNA – have been associated with induction of cancer and so the field is naturally cautious.”

     

    What is SCD?

    “Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease associated with a different form of a gene and its derived protein that make up part of the molecular that transports oxygen from the lungs to the body, heamoglobin, in our red blood cells.  The affected gene/protein is “beta globin”.

    “Sufferers have pain 4 days out of every seven and unpredictable episodes of severe pain, termed vaso-occlusive crises [VOCs] that can require hospitalization.  Over 2 years about 2/3 of sufferers need emergency care 2 to 3 times and about a quarter spend 1-2 weeks in hospital.  Higher rates of both define severe SCD. It causes ongoing anaemia (lack of red blood cells) and widespread organ damage. Even with access to medical support, life expectancy is typically around 50 years.”

    Why is SCD so prevalent in ethnic minorities?

    “Globally locations with endemic malaria have higher rates of the disorder.  This is because individuals with a mix of beta globin genes (we all have two versions, one inherited from mother one from father) are less likely to die young from malaria.  This selection favouring individuals with a mix of beta-globins maintains the two versions of the beta globin gene at relatively high frequencies.  However, it also means that the rate at which individuals will inherit two of the SCD causing version of the gene is also high – if mum and dad were both carriers a quarter of their kids will get SCD.  Having two SCD versions is needed for the full blown SCD. In sub-Saharan Africa up to 1-3% of the population suffer SCD making it a remarkably prevalent genetic disease.”

    Professor David Rees, Professor of Paediatric Sickle Cell Disease, King’s College London, said:

    “It is encouraging that Exa-cel has been approved for use to treat patients with sickle cell disease in England, particularly as it is based on discoveries made at King’s College London by Dr Stephan Menzel and Professor Swee Lay Thein. The treatment uses CRISPR gene editing technology to increase the level of fetal haemoglobin in people with sickle cell disease, which has a major effect in reducing the severity of the condition. The treatment is not curative in the traditional sense of the word, in that the patients still have some features of sickle cell disease, but early studies suggest that successfully treated patients have very few symptoms of the condition, at least in the medium term.

    “Exa-cel has been approved for patients getting episodes of acute pain over the age of 12 years, and potentially more than 5000 people with sickle cell disease may be eligible for this in the UK. However, it is difficult to know how many people will actually benefit, because of the very high cost and potential toxicity of the treatment. Exa-cel treatment still requires very strong chemotherapy, similar to having a bone marrow transplant, which causes problems with reduced fertility and sometimes more serious complications, and it seems likely that it will most benefit patients with severe and progressive problems caused by sickle cell disease.

    “Despite these concerns, the availability of Exa-cel is a major advance and offers a really important new treatment option for some patients with sickle cell disease. Excitingly, advances in gene editing are happening very rapidly at the moment and it seems likely that cheaper, safer and more effective forms of gene editing will emerge for sickle cell disease over the coming years, offering the prospect of a curative treatment which is universally applicable, even in low income countries where the majority of patients live.”

    NICE’s final draft guidance on Exagamglogene autotemcel for treating severe sickle cell disease in people 12 years and over was published at 00:01 UK time on Friday 31 January 2025. 

    Declared interests

    Professor David Rees: “I don’t think I have any significant conflicts of interest.”

    Prof Ewan Birney: No conflict of interest.

    Dr Alena Pance: No conflicts.

    For all other experts, no response to our request for DOIs was received.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Community consultation report on display for Mandalong Road at Morisset

    Source: New South Wales Premiere

    Published: 31 January 2025

    Released by: Minister for Regional Transport and Roads

    The proposed upgrade to Mandalong Road at Morisset, southwest of Newcastle, has taken another step forward with the community consultation report for the preferred design display now published. 

    The Australian Government is investing $56 million and the NSW Government is investing $20 million in upgrades to Mandalong Road.

    The community and key stakeholders were invited to have their say on the preferred design for the proposed upgrade from 26 June to 4 August last year.

    This design includes replacing the existing roundabout at the intersection of Wyee Road and Freemans Drive with traffic lights, a shared path between Ourimbah Street and Gimberts Road, as well as two new bus stops on Dora Street.

    The Gimberts Road/Gateway Boulevard roundabout will now be separately upgraded by a private developer.

    A total of 202 submissions were received during the display period, including 190 survey responses and 12 emails.

    The consultation report includes feedback on the design, operational and network impacts, environmental impacts, project concerns and suggestions.

    Feedback received about the preferred design has been considered as work on the concept design and environmental assessment continues.

    Timing for construction is yet to be confirmed and is dependent on planning approvals and the finalisation of project costings and funding arrangements.

    Consultation will continue with key stakeholders and the community will be kept informed as the project progresses.

    For further information on the community consultation report and the project, visit the website of Transport NSW.

    Quotes attributable to Federal Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Minister Catherine King:

    “Mandalong Road provides a critical link from the M1 Pacific Motorway to Morisset and the southern part of the Lake Macquarie local government area.

    “This upgrade will improve traffic flow and safety for about 17,000 road users daily, while helping meet the future needs of an increased population and employment in the Morisset area.

    “The upgrade will also support retail, industry, commercial and housing growth along the corridor, with potentially upwards of 5,000 new dwellings in the surrounding area.”

    Quotes attributable to NSW Regional Transport and Roads Minister Jenny Aitchison:

    “We know this is an important project for the community with more than 200 submissions received during the consultation period.

    “As part of the survey, respondents were asked to provide feedback on the level of project importance and support of the preferred design.

    “I was pleased to note that 90 per cent of survey respondents believe the project to be very important or important, and more than 80 per cent supported the preferred design.

    “I’m proud to be part of a government getting the work done to improve the daily lives of people living in NSW.”

    Quotes attributable to Federal Member for Hunter Dan Repacholi:

    “These traffic upgrades will be really significant for local and visiting motorists and pedestrians in terms of safety and also minimising delays on their journeys in this part of the lower Hunter.

    “We will continue to engage with the NSW Government, key stakeholders and the community to deliver the best option for traffic and pedestrian movement in Morriset.”

    Quotes attributable to Member for Lake Macquarie Greg Piper:

    “Upgrading Mandalong Road is the most important transport priority in southern Lake Macquarie.

    “Like other frustrated locals, I have been calling for a solution to the traffic and safety issues at Mandalong Road for years.

    “With its strategic position, the Morisset area is poised to experience a surge in people, jobs, homes and industrial and commercial development. Upgrading Mandalong Road, along with other infrastructure and services, is essential to support this growth and help Morisset realise its full potential.”

    Quotes attributable to Duty MLC for Lake Macquarie, Emily Suvaal:

    “This is a key step in the upgrade process and I welcome the work the NSW Government, together with the Commonwealth, is doing to improve traffic conditions for motorists in Lake Macquarie.

    “The much-needed Mandalong Road upgrades will significantly improve local traffic conditions and this next stage of consultation is vital to getting that work done.”

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Off the plan contract laws under review to provide greater certainty to buyers

    Source: New South Wales Premiere

    Published: 31 January 2025

    Released by: Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government

    Developers could face financial penalties for failing to deliver homes and unfairly profiting off buyers under reforms being considered by the NSW Government.

    Feedback is being sought on stronger protections for consumers in off the plan contracts for homes and land in NSW, to guide the delivery of new housing and prevent lengthy delays that leave people out of pocket.

    An off the plan contract is an agreement for the sale and purchase of a property that is yet to be developed or constructed. These contracts can apply to the sale of a proposed lot in a strata or community land scheme or to the sale of land in a conventional subdivision.

    The reforms are being designed to help increase housing supply by providing greater certainty and clearer deadlines for home buyers and to free up land for development faster by removing outdated restrictions on development sites.

    The reforms are intended to help more people achieve the Australian dream of home ownership and build greater confidence in the housing market by improving protections for buyers and preventing developers from delaying homes they have been contracted to deliver.

    About five per cent of 180,000 residential purchases in NSW last financial year were off the plan contracts which allow a buyer to commit to purchasing a property before the complex is built or land is subdivided.

    Potential reforms being released for comment aim to tighten contract rules to give buyers a clearer understanding of when they can expect to move into their new home, reducing uncertainty and the risk of being left behind in the market when a contract is cancelled.

    This could include scrapping the ability for developers to draw the contract out with indefinite sunset clauses which give buyers no clear path forward, or ability to exit the arrangement.

    Other proposed changes the NSW Government is considering include:

    • Making sunset clauses mandatory in contracts so that buyers can withdraw if sunset events do not occur by a set time
    • Requiring developers to disclose the status of the development against construction milestones so buyers have a better understanding of timeframes and potential risks
    • Limiting a developer’s ability to extend sunset dates only for certain reasons beyond the developer’s control such as weather or supply issues, and imposing time limits on extensions
    • Requiring developers to take reasonable steps to meet dates by potentially introducing penalties for inaction.

    The Government is also looking at unlocking potential development sites by making it easier to remove private, outdated agreements from land titles (known as obsolete restrictive covenants) which can limit how land is used or developed.

    Covenants can continue to bind future landowners indefinitely, even if they become outdated – for example, an obsolete covenant may prevent more than one property from being built on the land or ban the use of certain building materials.

    To support the reforms, the Office of the Registrar General has released a discussion paper called ‘Contracts and Covenants: Reforms to support development of land’ outlining the options.

    The community is invited to respond to survey questions or upload a submission on the reform proposals and share their experiences on the NSW Government’s Have Your Say platform.

    The consultation will lay the groundwork for legislation to be developed in 2025.

    The Contracts and Covenants consultation is open until 7 March 2025.

    To have your say, visit: https://www.haveyoursay.nsw.gov.au/offtheplan-contracts-covenants 

    Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government Jihad Dib said:

    “Buying a home is one of the most stressful experiences for an individual, these proposals are designed to provide greater certainty and consistency. This review is about making sure home buyers have the right protections and information they need to make informed decisions.”

    “Off the plan contracts play a crucial role in supporting essential housing supply initiatives in NSW. They allow buyers to purchase property early in the development process, while giving developers the confidence and financial security to build.”

    “We know that most developers do the right thing, but we don’t want situations where businesses try to run down the clock on a contract to sell to a higher bidder or mislead consumers by unfairly changing the goalposts for when they can move into their dream home.”

    “These reforms are designed to provide greater transparency as well as encourage the delivery of new homes. These proposals are about encouraging developers to be upfront about timelines and challenges to assist homeowners.”

    “We encourage people to have their say on these proposals which aim to boost consumer confidence in the off the plan contract process and help NSW achieve our housing targets.”

    Registrar General Danusia Cameron said:

    “Off the plan buyers need more information and support than buyers of established homes because they are not able to inspect a property before committing to buy it.”

    “It is important that the laws governing off the plan contracts also arm buyers with appropriate safeguards, meet the needs of the community and address emerging issues in the sector to ensure there is continued confidence in the process.”  

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Government launches “national conversation” on land use

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 2

    The Government has launched a consultation on a new approach to Land Use empowering decision makers with the toolkit to protect the most productive agricultural land and boost food security.

    • New sophisticated data on how land is used will underpin the Government’s Plan for Change, supporting economic growth through building 1.5 million homes and delivering critical infrastructure, securing clean power, protecting farmland and restoring the natural world.     

    • The consultation will seek views from farmers, landowners, businesses and nature groups across the length and breadth of the country.      

    The Government is today (Friday 31 January) launching a consultation on a new strategic approach to managing land use in England to give decision makers the data they need to protect our most productive agricultural land, boosting Britain’s food security in a time of global uncertainty and a changing climate.   

    This will support the Government’s missions under the Plan for Change, including delivering new housebuilding, energy infrastructure and new towns.    

    Using the most sophisticated land use data ever published, the Land Use Framework will provide the principles, advanced data and tools to support decision-making by local government, landowners, businesses, farmers, and nature groups to make the most of our land. This will help deliver the different objectives we have for England’s finite land, including growing food, building 1.5 million homes this parliament, and restoring nature.      

    As part of a national conversation, there will be workshops across the country, bringing farmers and landowners to the table, to put the insights of the people who manage our landscapes at the centre of our work to develop a final Land Use Framework.     
         
    Protecting UK food security and pursuing our mission for economic growth go hand-in-hand – with the highest quality agricultural land already protected for food production whilst kickstarting the economy by building new housing and rolling out renewable energy to make the UK a clean energy superpower.     

    Local planning will benefit from data outlined in the Land Use Framework, combined with the energy and housing spatial plans and a new food strategy. This will ensure we build 1.5 million new homes over five years, a generation of new towns, and the energy infrastructure needed to achieve Clean Power by 2030, while protecting food security and our natural world.    

    Speaking at the launch at the Royal Geographical Society, the Secretary of State for the Environment Steve Reed will set out how we will protect farmland and unlock growth.   

    He is expected to say:    

    Today is the start of a national conversation to transform how we use land in this country. It’s time for policy to leave the chambers of Westminster and reflect the actual lived experiences of farmers, landowners and planners on the ground.    

    Using the most sophisticated land use data ever published, we will transform how we use our land to deliver on our Plan for Change. That means enabling the protection of prime agricultural land, restore our natural world and drive economic growth.   

    This framework will not tell people what to do.    

    It is about working together to pool our knowledge and resources, to give local and national government, landowners, businesses, farmers and nature groups the data and tools they need to take informed actions that are best for them, best for the land, and best for the country.

    Speaking about farmland, he will go on to say:    

    This Government has a cast-iron commitment to maintain long-term food production.

    The primary purpose of farming will always be to produce food that feeds the nation.

    This framework will give decision makers the toolkit they need to protect our highest quality agricultural land.

    This vision for land is one in which we guarantee our long-term food security and future-proof our farm businesses, support new housebuilding and energy infrastructure, and reduce conflicts that hold up development by creating land with multiple benefits – supporting economic growth on the limited land we have available.       

    The Framework will help farm businesses to maximise the potential of multiple uses of land, supporting long-term food production capacity and unlocking opportunities for businesses to drive private finance into the sector. It will support the need to incentivise multi-functional land use that includes food production.     

    We will also consult on how data can be used in some planning decisions to improve the resilience of our food system to flooding risk. 

    Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner said:

    Today marks an important step forward in our journey to build the 1.5 million new homes that we desperately need.   

    This new approach will make better use of our land and grasp the opportunities to deliver new homes and infrastructure in the areas most in need, achieving win-win results for both development and the environment.          

    Our Plan for Change is going even further to dismantle the barriers holding back growth, so we can raise living standards, get more families onto the property ladder, and deliver a better future for our children and grandchildren.

    Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said:   

    The biggest threat to nature and food security is the climate crisis, which threatens our best farmland, food production and the livelihoods of farmers.  

    As we deliver our mission for the UK to become a clean energy superpower as part of the Plan for Change, we will ensure a proper balance between food security, nature preservation and clean energy.  

    We can roll out renewables in a way that is both positive for our energy security and our environment.

    Sue Pritchard, Chief Executive, Food, Farming and Countryside Commission said:   

    With so many of the government’s missions reliant on good land use decisions, Steve Reed’s announcement today could not be more timely. Setting out clear principles, and working across government departments, we’re pleased to see that the land use consultation focuses on mechanisms for delivery. Our work in Devon and Peterborough and Cambridgeshire proves that farmers and land managers, communities, local authorities, green groups and businesses are keen to work together to help shape a Land Use framework.

    The next stages of development will involve extensive sector engagement in a collaborative process as we design a final Land Use Framework – informed by the views of landowners, businesses, farmers, and nature groups. This evidence will also feed into the wider reform that we are delivering in the sector through the Farming Roadmap and Food Strategy.       

    The consultation will run for 12 weeks with the final Land Use Framework published later in the year. This will deliver a key manifesto commitment as part of our Plan for Change.       

    Notes to editors:          

    Quotes pack:  

    Tim Hopkin, Chief Executive of the Land App:   

    The Land Use Framework offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enhance national resilience, drive sustainable economic growth, and position the UK as a global leader in land management. By uniting all stakeholders with a clear, consistent approach, it ensures taxpayer money is spent efficiently — optimising Defra resources, empowering land managers to deliver impactful outcomes, and securing long-term prosperity in the face of growing climate uncertainty. 

    Lydia Collas, head of natural environment at Green Alliance, said:  

    With weather extremes having a major impact on harvests, it’s an important step to clearly set out how we’ll secure our food supply, tackle climate change, and restore nature in a Land Use Framework. Reforms to farming policy are at a critical stage, and we need a framework to support evidence-based decisions about how the farming budget is spent. This should help direct farm payments to those that have the biggest part to play in restoring nature, while ensuring we continue to produce high-quality food and don’t export more of the environmental costs of what we eat.

    Forestry Commission Chair Sir William Worsley said:  

    There has never been a more crucial time to invest in domestic woodland creation.  

    The Land Use Framework will provide principles that promote this and outline the many benefits of woodland creation, including for climate change mitigation, nature recovery, timber production, water quality and quantity, as well as the multiple social benefits.  

    This will play a key role in meeting statutory tree cover and biodiversity targets as well as helping to address the urgent need for improved timber security.

    Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, said:   

    Too often the health of the natural environment, farming and ambitions for the built environment are presented as competing interests, with protecting Nature portrayed as a barrier to development and food security. The fact is though that we can and must do all these things, and by taking a more strategic view of how we use land, we can deliver against government’s stretching legal targets to halt and reverse nature decline, while also enabling the new homes and infrastructure the country needs, including renewable power and reservoirs, while at the same time protecting food security and building resilience to climate change impacts.   

    The Land Use Framework is a vital step forward, offering opportunities to move beyond tired old binary choices, between housing and greenspace or Nature and food, and onto the more integrated thinking that we must embrace in meeting multiple pressing challenges all at once. This is a key policy that will unlock prospects for the restoration of Nature at larger scale, while at the same time meeting the country’s needs for housing, energy, water and food.

    Alan Lovell, Chair of the Environment Agency, said:    

    The Land Use Framework is hugely welcome as an important tool for making smarter decisions about how we use our land. It starts a vital national conversation about the scale of change needed over time to meet and reconcile environmental goals for water, climate and nature with food production, housing and development.  

    For example, by utilising low-grade agricultural land for natural flood management, we can reduce flood risk, enhance biodiversity, and create more sustainable landscapes. This kind of approach will help us meet the challenges of a changing climate while delivering real benefits for communities and the environment.

    Land in England is precious. We know that the way we use our little island must change to meet the challenges of the nature and climate crisis. For too long, competing land uses have been left to solve the jigsaw puzzle of England, without a picture on the front of the box to guide them. Ministers have an opportunity to ensure that the right players have all the pieces they need to make more space for nature, alongside sustainable food production and green infrastructure.  

    The Land Use Framework can help ensure all new development is wilder by design, expanding space for our wildlife to recover, and building nature into the heart of development. The test will be whether the final framework can actually influence the thousands of daily decisions that matter for nature, from big strategic development plans and Local Plans, right down to individual choices from chicken sheds to targeted incentives for nature-friendly farming.

    Becky Pullinger, head of land use planning at The Wildlife Trusts, says: 

    There’s never been a proper plan for managing the competing demands on land and the way that land is given over for development, for biofuels or for food production is haphazard at best. 

    The only way we’ll tackle climate change, nature loss, health problems and housing shortages is by thinking ahead about what land is used for and how it is used – because we can’t afford to solve one crisis at the expense of another.

    Done well, a Land Use Framework could provide a significant reset opportunity to meet all these challenges and deliver wins for nature recovery, the economy, a nature-friendly food supply and green energy.

    Beccy Speight, RSPB chief executive, said:

    The joined-up approach being taken to create this framework is exactly what’s needed to determine how we make best use of the limited land available in England. Delivering a future that safeguards nature, tackles climate change, ensures food security and resilient farm businesses, and enables sustainable development is the only sensible path. It’s possible to do all of this.

    The last year has seen record levels of flooding impacting farmers and land managers across the country, largely due to extreme weather. To tackle this, we must ensure this framework is aligned with the necessary incentives to support the adoption of more nature-friendly and climate resilient practices. This is only the start of what must be a national conversation, but the ambition to reconcile competing pressures and allow strategic decision making on how land is used will benefit everyone.

    Updates to this page

    Published 31 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Two tailored tax reliefs to help grow the alcohol sector take effect tomorrow

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 3

    A package of support to help the alcohol sector to grow will tomorrow (1 February) take effect.

    • Draught relief increase worth £85m comes into force tomorrow – cutting 1p duty off draft pints
    • Increase to small producer relief to help small breweries innovate will support economic growth
    • Follows announcement of future consultation to improve access to guest beers to support sector growth mission

    Draught relief has increased to knock 1p off duty on draught products whilst small producer relief – a measure to encourage craft brewers to innovate – is becoming more generous.

    Together these tax cuts are worth £85 million and are tailored to support the alcohol sector to innovate and grow.

    The increase to draught relief, first announced at Autumn Budget, will affect around three in five of all alcoholic drinks sold in pubs, and represents the first duty cut on a pint of beer in 10 years.

    This is part of the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change that will rebuild Britain for the future by boosting economic growth.

    Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said:

    Our pubs and brewers are an essential part the fabric of the UK and our brilliant high streets. Through draught relief, small producer relief, and expanding market access for smaller brewers, we will help boost sector growth and deliver our Plan for Change to put more money in working people’s pockets.

    Richard Naisby, Chair of the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) said:

    The Government’s increased investment in Draught Relief means that draught beer sold in our community pubs has a lower rate of alcohol duty than beer sold in supermarkets and should encourage more people to support their local. At the same time by going further on Small Producer Relief, the Government can help small breweries to compete and grow their businesses.

    While these support schemes have kick started innovation and enabled small breweries to set up, many breweries struggle to get access to the vital pubs market so they can expand. The Government’s review will examine ways to address these access issues and ensure that landlords can access the beers their customers want and small breweries can grow.

    Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray visited the Queen Edith pub in Cambridge to welcome the incoming tax relief alongside Andy Slee, Chief Executive of the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) and Richard Naisby, Chair of SIBA and Founder and Managing Director of the Milton Brewery.

    The Minister discussed during his visit in depth various growth measures to help the sector, including an increase in the generosity of small producer relief. This cuts duty for the UK’s smallest, most innovative breweries and cider makers by up to more than 90%, further supporting growth.

    James Murray also discussed how the government will consult in the future to encourage small brewers to retain and expand their access to UK pubs, maximising drinkers’ choice and supporting local economic growth, including through provisions to enable more ‘guest beers’.

    Fees charged by the Spirit Drinks Verification Scheme will be reduced in the future and mandatory duty stamps for spirits will come to an end from 1 May 2025. This will help distilleries, including Scotch whisky makers, badge their products, increasing their chances to sell their products through pubs and supermarkets.

    As announced at the Autumn Budget, alcohol duty has today also been increased in line with inflation. This helps sure up public finances and helps to fund the investment needed to grow the economy and fund public services.

    More information:

    • Draught relief means alcohol duty on draught products below 8.5% ABV will be cut by 1.7% in cash terms (5.1% compared to the baseline RPI uprating). This is the equivalent of a 1p duty reduction on an average 4.58% pint.
    • Small producer relief (SPR) is available for products
    • At the Autumn Budget, the government agreed to achieve parity in SPR discount for draught and non-draught products by increasing the generosity of the relief for non-draught products.

    Updates to this page

    Published 31 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Regulator to investigate two charities over repeated failure to submit accounts

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government Non-Ministerial Departments

    The Charity Commission has launched two separate statutory inquiries into SharedImpact and SharedImpact Foundation (UK) Limited.

    The two charities were set up to improve the financial efficiency and effectiveness of charities by offering grants, financial services and advice. 

    The charities have a trustee in common and both have persistently and repeatedly failed to meet their accounting requirements. 

    SharedImpact and SharedImpact Foundation (UK) Limited were previously placed in the Charity Commission’s double defaulter class inquiry in March 2021. That inquiry investigates charities that have defaulted twice or more over the past 5 years on submitting required accounting information. 

    The Charity Commission has escalated its engagement with the charities to two separate statutory inquiries due to both charities failing to file accounts on time for financial years ending 31 March 2022 and 31 March 2023.  

    The inquiries will examine the administration, governance, and management of the individual charities including:  

    • the trustees’ compliance with their statutory accounting and reporting responsibilities 

    • whether the charities have appropriate and robust financial controls in place 

    • whether the charities are being managed in accordance with their governing document 

    • whether the charities are operating in accordance with their stated objects and for the public benefit

    Additionally, the inquiry into SharedImpact will examine whether the charity has a sufficient number of trustees. 

    The Commission may extend the scope of the inquiries if additional regulatory issues emerge. 

    ENDS 

    Notes to editors 

    1. The Charity Commission is the independent, non-ministerial government department that registers and regulates charities in England and Wales. Its ambition is to be an expert regulator that is fair, balanced, and independent so that charity can thrive. This ambition will help to create and sustain an environment where charities further build public trust and ultimately fulfil their essential role in enhancing lives and strengthening society.

    2. On 22 March 2021, the Commission placed SharedImpact and SharedImpact Foundation (UK) Limited into the ‘Double Defaulter’ inquiry for charities that are in default of their statutory obligations to meet reporting requirements by failing to file their annual documents (annual returns, reports and accounts) for two or more years in the last five years.  

    3. On 13 December 2024, the Charity Commission opened two statutory inquiries into SharedImpact and SharedImpact Foundation (UK) Limited under section 46 of the Charities Act 2011.  

    4. A statutory inquiry is a legal power enabling the Commission to formally investigate matters of regulatory concern within a charity and to use protective powers for the benefit of the charity and its beneficiaries, assets, or reputation. An inquiry will investigate and establish the facts of the case so that the Commission can determine the extent of any misconduct and/or mismanagement; the extent of the risk to the charity, its work, property, beneficiaries, employees or volunteers; and decide what action is needed to resolve the concerns. 

    Press office

    Email pressenquiries@charitycommission.gov.uk

    Out of hours press office contact number: 07785 748787

    Updates to this page

    Published 31 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI: Middlefield Announces Approval of Proposed Changes to Reduce ESG Limitations for Two ETFs

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Middlefield Limited (the “Manager”), the manager of Middlefield Sustainable Global Dividend ETF (TSX:MDIV) and Middlefield Sustainable Infrastructure Dividend ETF (TSX:MINF) (collectively, the “Funds”), is pleased to announce that at the Special Meetings held on January 30, 2025, unitholders voted unanimously in favour of the proposed changes to the Funds. These changes include revising the names, investment objectives, and strategies of the Funds to de-emphasize the environmental, sustainability, and governance (“ESG”) factors associated with the Funds. While the Funds will continue to consider ESG criteria when selecting issuers for their portfolios, they will no longer prioritize these factors over others such as valuation, growth projections, and the quality and track record of the management team. The Manager believes these changes will broaden the investment universe of the Funds, potentially leading to better returns for investors. The Funds will file a Prospectus by April 10, 2025, at which point each of the Funds will revise their name as shown below. There will be no change to the ticker symbols of the Funds.

    Ticker
    Symbol    		 Current Name Revised Name
    MDIV Middlefield Sustainable Global Dividend ETF Middlefield Global Dividend Growers ETF
    MINF Middlefield Sustainable Infrastructure Dividend ETF Middlefield Global Infrastructure Dividend ETF
         

    The Manager notes that similar efforts to de-emphasize ESG factors have been undertaken by many asset management companies, including BlackRock, State Street, JPMorgan, and Pimco. Recent research from Morningstar has shown that more funds are removing rather than adding ESG mandates from their investment practices. On March 7, 2024, the Canadian Securities Administrators introduced three categories of ESG-Related Funds: ESG Objective Funds, ESG Strategy Funds, and ESG Limited Consideration Funds. Each category has distinct expectations regarding the emphasis on ESG factors in investment decisions. The Manager believes that the proposed changes will result in the Funds moving from the ESG Objective Funds category to the ESG Limited Consideration category.

    About Middlefield
    Founded in 1979, Middlefield is a specialist equity income asset manager with offices in Toronto, Canada and London, England. Our investment team utilizes active management to select high-quality, global companies across a variety of sectors and themes. Our product offerings include proven dividend-focused strategies that span real estate, healthcare, innovation, infrastructure, energy, diversified income and more. We offer these solutions in a variety of product types including ETFs, Mutual Funds, Split-Share Funds, Closed-End Funds and Flow-through LPs.

    For further information, please visit our website at www.middlefield.com or contact Nancy Tham in our Sales and Marketing Department at 1.888.890.1868.

    This press release contains forward-looking information. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as “expects”, “is expected”, “anticipates”, “plans”, “estimates” or “intends” (or negative or grammatical variations thereof), or stating that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken, occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. Statements which may constitute forward-looking statements relate to: the proposed timing of the name, objectives and strategies changes and completion thereof; the potential benefits of such changes; and the holding of the unitholder meeting. Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements including as a result of changes in the general economic and political environment, changes in applicable legislation, and the performance of each fund. Additional risks, uncertainties and other factors that could influence actual results are described under “Risk Factors” in the ETFs’ prospectus and other documents filed by the ETFs with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities. The forward-looking information contained in this press release constitutes the ETFs’ current estimate, as of the date of this press release, with respect to the matters covered hereby. Investors and others should not assume that any forward-looking statement contained in this press release represents the ETFs’ estimate as of any date other than the date of this press release.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Brockton Man Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Firearms and Fentanyl Charges

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    Seven firearms; 26 high-capacity magazines, thousands of rounds of ammunition; drugs found during search of defendant’s home

    BOSTON – A Brockton man was sentenced today in federal court in Boston for possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense.

    Shem Khattiya, 39, was sentenced by Senior District Court Judge Patti B. Saris to 10 years in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release. In October 2024, Khattiya pleaded guilty to a two count Superseding Information charging him with possession with intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

    In An investigation into Khattiya began in 2023, and in March 2023, a search was conducted at Khattiya’s Brockton apartment where over 800 grams of fentanyl; at least seven different firearms (most of which were loaded, some were ghost guns and some with serial numbers and some assault rifles); 26 high capacity magazines; thousands of rounds of ammunition; a ghost gun creation kit; triggers; a hydraulic kilogram press; and other items used in the manufacturing of drugs and firearms and distribution of drugs were recovered in his bedroom. It has been determined that “triggers” may qualify as machine guns as the purpose was to convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons.

    United States Attorney Leah B. Foley and Michael J. Krol, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office, the Brockton Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey E. Weinstein of the Criminal Division prosecuted the case.

    This operation is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Strike Force Initiative, which provides for the establishment of permanent multi-agency task force teams that work side-by-side in the same location. This co-located model enables agents from different agencies to collaborate on intelligence-driven, multi-jurisdictional operations to disrupt and dismantle the most significant drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF. 
     

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-Evening Report: 5 years after COVID began, outstanding fines mean marginalised Australians are still paying the highest price

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shelley J. Walker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Justice Health, National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University

    Rob1037/Shutterstock

    January 25 marked five years since the first COVID case was recorded in Australia.

    Many of us have tried to move on quickly from the pandemic, putting lockdowns and restrictions far behind us.

    But for some Australians, this hasn’t been possible. Among the pandemic’s lingering impacts is the burden of outstanding fines, issued for breaking COVID restrictions.

    These often hit disadvantaged groups the hardest, who were more likely to be fined and less able to pay. Five years down the track, marginalised communities are still feeling the impact of these penalties.

    Our new research involved surveys and in-depth interviews with people who used drugs during the pandemic. They reported feeling targeted by police and even harassed while trying to access drug treatments – and years later, many still have fines they’re unable to pay.

    Thousands of unpaid fines

    During the pandemic, police issued millions of dollars’ worth of fines to people who broke restrictions. More than 50,000 fines were issued in Victoria and around 62,000 in New South Wales .

    Fines ranged from A$200 for not wearing a face mask to nearly $5,000 for breaking rules about gatherings.

    Fines were a public health measure aimed at stopping the virus spreading.

    But for some people already struggling with financial and social problems, including those who use drugs, it compounded their difficulties.

    Studies have found some groups were fined much more often than others, including people from Sudanese and South Sudanese backgrounds, Aboriginal people and children experiencing disadvantage.

    While they were intended as public health measures, the fines reveal deeper patterns about targeted policing.

    Following calls by community legal services and human rights groups and updated legal advice, the NSW government withdrew all outstanding COVID fines at the end of 2024.

    This is not the case in Victoria. In June 2023, around 30,000 fines were outstanding in Victoria, and to our knowledge the situation hasn’t changed since then.

    Feeling targeted

    We know that people who use drugs already face increased police scrutiny in general, due to the criminalisation of drug use.

    We conduct two long-term studies with people who use drugs in Victoria, which involves participating in an annual survey.

    During the pandemic we asked additional questions about people’s interactions with police. Between March 2020 and May 2022, 1,130 participants responded to our survey.

    Our new research found one in ten reported being stopped by police.

    A third of these received at least one COVID-related fine – mostly for breaking curfews, failing to wear a face mask or breaching travel restrictions – a rate we calculated as nearly three times higher than the general population.

    However, this is a crude estimate, as accurate data on the numbers of fines in the general population is not publicly available.

    Of those who received fines, most were unemployed, more than a quarter were in unstable housing or homeless, and more than half had been to prison.

    We also did in-depth interviews with 76 participants. Many told us they felt the pandemic gave police an “excuse” to target them, leading to serious and lasting effects on their lives.

    Fined while accessing services

    Interactions with police were described as fraught with discrimination and harassment. Participants reported being stopped, searched and fined while trying to go about their daily lives. This may be partly because their circumstances meant they were more likely to be using public spaces – and therefore were more visible to police.

    Daniel, aged 41, was fined $1,652 for breaching COVID rules he told us he didn’t understand. He said:

    it was so obvious they were looking for drugs – it felt like they were doing everything they could to find a reason to fine us.

    For people who use drugs, accessing harm-reduction services and drug treatment programs (such as methadone to replace opioids) is vital to their health. Some participants told us they were fined while doing so, despite carrying medical exemptions.

    Natasha, aged 39, was homeless. She said she was fined while travelling to a needle and syringe program, despite being within the permitted travel zone.

    Police issued her a fine for leaving the home for non-essential purposes. Natasha found the situation absurd, asking “how can you be (fined for being) outside if you sleep outside?”

    Ryan, aged 45, was fined $1,800 while collecting methadone. He described the encounter as “humiliating” and unnecessary, saying police appeared more interested in finding drugs than enforcing public health measures.

    The financial and emotional toll

    In our study, the financial burden of COVID fines was devastating.

    Most could not afford to pay fines or lacked the confidence to navigate appeals processes to contest them, leading to further entanglement with the criminal legal system.

    For example, Sally, who received multiple fines while collecting her methadone during the pandemic, said:

    at the end of the day, they’re government authority and I’m a nobody – the chances of me winning would be slim to none.

    As a result, unpaid fines for some reportedly led to court orders, some were arrested, and a few even reported serving prison time.

    The emotional toll was equally severe, with feelings of being targeted and harassed by police further eroding their trust in public institutions.

    The Conversation contacted Victoria Police about our study, noting participants thought police were using the pandemic as an excuse to target them.

    In response, a police spokesperson said: “At the time officers were performing duties on behalf of the Chief Health Officer’s direction.”

    The burden can be lifted

    Public health responses should be designed to protect people, not punish them. As we move forward, it is crucial to address the lasting impacts of COVID fines.

    All Australian governments should follow the lead of NSW and waive all remaining fines to alleviate the financial and emotional burden on vulnerable populations.

    *Names have been changed.

    Shelley Walker is the recipient of an ARC Discovery Early Career Award (project number DE240101056) funded by the Australian Government. The study presented in this article was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council NHMRC (#2003255). The SuperMIX and VMAX studies are funded by the NHMRC; #545891, #1126090, #1148170)

    Paul Dietze receives funding from the NHMRC and government and non-government organisations for the conduct of research into the impacts of alcohol and other drug use.

    Lisa Maher 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. 5 years after COVID began, outstanding fines mean marginalised Australians are still paying the highest price – https://theconversation.com/5-years-after-covid-began-outstanding-fines-mean-marginalised-australians-are-still-paying-the-highest-price-247912

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: One of the largest searches for alien life started 30 years ago. Its legacy lives on today

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phil Edwards, Senior Research Scientist, Australia Telescope National Facility Science, CSIRO

    In February 1995, a small research organisation known as the SETI Institute launched what was then the most comprehensive search for an answer to a centuries-old question: are we alone in the universe?

    This Sunday marks the 30th anniversary of the first astronomical observations conducted for the search, named Project Phoenix. These observations were done at the Parkes Observatory on Wiradjuri country in the central west of New South Wales, Australia – home to one of the world’s largest radio telescopes.

    But Project Phoenix was lucky to get off the ground.

    Three years earlier, NASA had commenced an ambitious decade-long, US$100 million Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). However, in 1993, the United States Congress cut all funding for the program because of the growing US budget deficit. Plus, SETI sceptics in Congress derided the program as a far-fetched search for “little green men”.

    Fortunately, the SETI Institute secured enough private donations to revive the project – and Project Phoenix rose from the ashes.

    Listening for radio signals

    If there is life elsewhere, it is natural to assume it evolved over many million years on a planet orbiting a long-lived star similar to our Sun. So SETI searches usually target the nearest Sun-like stars, listening for radio signals that are either being deliberately beamed our way, or are techno-signatures radiating from another planet.

    Techno-signatures are confined to a narrow range of frequencies and produced by the technologies an advanced civilisation like ours might use.

    Astronomers use radio waves as they can penetrate the clouds of gas and dust in our galaxy. They can also travel over large distances without excessive power requirements.

    Murriyang, CSIRO’s 64 metre radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory, has been in operation since 1961.
    It has made a wealth of astronomical discoveries and played a pivotal role in tracking space missions – especially the Apollo 11 moonwalk.

    As the largest single-dish radio telescope in the southern hemisphere, it is also the natural facility to use for SETI targets in the southern skies.

    While Project Phoenix planned to use several large telescopes around the world, these facilities were undergoing major upgrades. So it was at Parkes that the observing program started.

    On February 2 1995, Murriyang pointed towards a carefully chosen star 49 light-years from Earth in the constellation of, naturally, Phoenix. This was the first observation conducted as part of the project.

    The focus cabin of Murriyang, the Parkes telescope, with the Flag of Earth, much favoured by SETI researchers.
    CSIRO Radio Astronomy Image Archive, CC BY-NC

    A logistical and technological success

    Project Phoenix was led by Jill Tarter, a renowned SETI researcher who spent many long nights at Parkes overseeing observations during the 16 weeks dedicated to the search. (Jodie Foster’s character in the 1998 movie Contact was largely based on Jill.)

    The Project Phoenix team brought a trailer full of computers with state-of-the-art touch screen technology to process the data.

    Bogong moths caused some early interruptions to the processing. These large, nocturnal moths were attracted to light from computer screens, flying into them with enough force to change settings.

    Over 16 weeks, the Project Phoenix team observed 209 stars using Murriyang at frequencies between 1,200 and 3,000 mega-hertz. They searched for both continuous and pulsing signals to maximise the chance of finding genuine signals of alien life.

    Jill Tarter in the Parkes telescope control room.
    CSIRO Radio Astronomy Image Archive, CC BY-NC

    Radio telescopes are able to detect the faint radio emissions from distant celestial objects. But they are also sensitive to radio waves produced in modern society (our own techno-signatures) by mobile phones, Bluetooth connections, aircraft radar and GPS satellites.

    These kinds of local interference can mimic the kinds of signal SETI searches are looking for. So distinguishing between the two is crucial.

    To do this, Project Phoenix decided to use a second radio telescope some distance away for an independent check of any signals detected. CSIRO provided access to its 22 metre Mopra radio telescope, about 200 kilometres north of Parkes, to follow up signal candidates in real time.

    Over the 16 weeks, the team detected a total of 148,949 signals at Parkes – roughly 80% of which could be easily dismissed as local signals. The team checked a little over 18,000 signals at both Parkes and Mopra. Only 39 passed all tests and looked like strong SETI candidates. But on closer inspection the team identified them as coming from satellites.

    AS Jill Tarter summarised in an article in 1997:

    Although no evidence for an [extraterrestrial intelligence] signal was found, no mysterious or unexplained signals were left behind and the Australian deployment was a logistical and technological success.

    From left to right: journalist Robyn Williams, Jill Tarter, Australia Telescope National Facility Director, Ron Ekers, and Parkes Observatory Officer-in-Charge, Marcus Price, prior to the start of Project Phoenix.
    CSIRO Radio Astronomy Image Archive, CC BY-NC

    The next generation of radio telescopes

    When Project Phoenix ended in 2004, project manager Peter Backus concluded “we live in a quiet neighbourhood”.

    But efforts are continuing to search for alien life with greater sensitivity, over a wider frequency range, and for more targets.

    Breakthough Listen, another privately funded project, commenced in 2015, again making use of the Parkes telescope among others.

    Breakthrough Listen aims to examine one million of the closest stars and 100 closest galaxies.

    One unexpected signal detected at Parkes in 2019 as part of this project was examined in painstaking detail before it was concluded that it too was a locally generated signal.

    The next generation of radio telescopes will provide a leap in sensitivity compared to facilities today – benefitting from greater collecting area, improved resolution and superior processing capabilities.

    Examples of these next generation radio telescopes include the SKA-Low telescope, under construction in Western Australia, and the SKA-Mid telescope, being built in South Africa. They will be used to answer a wide variety of astronomical questions – including whether there is life beyond Earth.

    As SETI pioneer Frank Drake once noted:

    the most fascinating, interesting thing you could find in the universe is not another kind of star or galaxy … but another kind of life.

    Project Phoenix used Murriyang, the CSIRO Parkes radio-telescope, under contract for the work described in this article. I work for CSIRO, but joined in 2006 after this project had been completed.

    – ref. One of the largest searches for alien life started 30 years ago. Its legacy lives on today – https://theconversation.com/one-of-the-largest-searches-for-alien-life-started-30-years-ago-its-legacy-lives-on-today-247097

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI USA: ICE Boston arrests Salvadoran national charged with raping Massachusetts resident

    Source: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement

    BOSTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement apprehended an illegally present Salvadoran national charged with raping a Massachusetts resident when officers arrested Jose Garcia-Salmeron, 34, in Boston Jan. 22.

    “Jose Garcia-Salmeron is charged with victimizing one of our Massachusetts residents and represents a significant threat to the safety of Massachusetts neighborhoods,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde. “We will not tolerate such threats to our neighbors. ERO Boston will continue to prioritize public safety by targeting, arresting, and removing any illegally present individuals who present such a threat to our New England communities.”

    U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Garcia July 16, 2007, after he illegally entered the United States and issued him a notice to appear before a Department of Justice immigration judge. They then transferred Garcia to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which released him from custody Aug. 31, 2007.

    An immigration judge ordered Garcia removed from the United States to El Salvador on Nov. 11, 2007.

    ERO Boston encountered Garcia July 2, 2024, following his arrest by the Revere Police Department in Massachusetts, and issued an immigration detainer against him with the Nashua Street Jail in Boston.

    The Chelsea District Court arraigned Garcia July 3, 2024, on a charge of rape, which was indicted to Suffolk Superior Court, Boston.

    The Chelsea District Court in Massachusetts,ignored ERO Boston’s immigration detainer and released Garcia from custody July 26, 2024.

    Garcia remains in ERO custody.

    Members of the public with information regarding child sex offenders can report crimes or suspicious activity by dialing the ICE Tip Line at 866-DHS-2-ICE (866-347-2423) or completing the online tip form.

    Learn more about ERO Boston’s mission to increase public safety in our New England communities on X at @EROBoston.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Friday essay: Seize the day – Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway at 100

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Naomi Milthorpe, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Tasmania

    I’m at the park with my daughter, who is jumping in and out of puddles, splashing, shrieking at me (Mum! Look what I can do!), as I read frantically, taking one-handed notes on my phone (Mum! Look at this!). Part of me wishes I could enjoy with her this moment of pleasure in movement. The other, more insistent part is thinking about this essay: where to start, what to say, how to sum up the extraordinary legacy of the book I’m re-reading, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, which this year marks 100 years since its first publication in 1925. How am I supposed to write about this book?

    If you were to read a synopsis, it might seem like a book purely for an academic specialist (which, admittedly, I am). One day in London in June 1923, an ageing rich woman, Clarissa Dalloway, prepares to give a party. Across town, a shell-shocked Great War veteran, Septimus Warren Smith, loses his grip on sanity. Between them oscillate other characters: Clarissa’s former lover Peter Walsh, Clarissa’s husband Richard and daughter Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s tutor Doris Kilman, Septimus’s wife Rezia, and his doctors Holmes and Bradshaw.

    Like that other modernist monument, James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), Mrs Dalloway is explicitly quotidian. It follows ordinary people through ordinary activities on an ordinary day – shopping, walking in the park, riding the bus, going to appointments, mending a dress. As Woolf’s characters go about their day, scenes and impressions are filtered through their individual consciousnesses, threaded together with language, images and memories.

    The novel opens with the famous line “Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself”, a sentence remarkable for its banality, as well as for its commitment to the in medias res plunge into life that Woolf was so keen on. The iconic status of the line is demonstrated by the number of online parodies it inspires, perhaps only surpassed by William Carlos Williams’s poem This Is Just To Say, which has become a verified meme.

    A new seam

    On Good Friday 1924, Woolf wrote on a page of the manuscript she was drafting – then called “The Hours” – that “I will write whatever I want to write.” She could write whatever she wanted to write because she owned her own publishing house, The Hogarth Press. The actual press was in the basement of her suburban Richmond home.

    Mrs Dalloway, first edition dust jacket, with cover art by Vanessa Bell. The Hogarth Press, 1925.
    Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    Mrs Dalloway was the second of Woolf’s novels to be self-published in this way. Being a small-press publisher allowed her to experiment formally in ways that would have been impossible if she was working with a mainstream publisher. In A Writer’s Diary, she describes her process as both exploratory and technical. On August 30, 1923, she wrote: “I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters”. Later, in October 1924: “I practise writing; do my scales”.

    I recently co-hosted a conference here in Hobart, which included a panel on contemporary Tasmanian experimental writing. The writers who spoke that day talked of the struggle to place work that pushed the boundaries of form and genre. A hundred years after Woolf’s efforts to unearth what she called a new “seam”, commercial imperatives continue to constrain writers and their work.

    Despite Woolf’s refusal to compromise with mainstream tastes, Mrs Dalloway was well received. Her contemporaries recognised the novel’s importance immediately. “An intellectual triumph”, proclaimed P.C. Kennedy in the New Statesman; “a cathedral”, pronounced E.M. Forster in the New Criterion.

    It sold moderately well: 1,500 copies within about a month of its publication on May 14 – more than her prior novel, Jacob’s Room, had sold in a year. Her biographer Hermione Lee records that in 1926 income from writing allowed Woolf and her husband Leonard to install a hot water range and toilet at their country home.

    Woolf’s novel was revolutionary for its depiction of same-sex attraction and mental illness, as well as for its challenge to the novel form and representation of time. Clarissa remembers the jolt of desire she felt as an 18-year-old for her friend Sally Seton, who kisses her on the terrace of her house at Bourton:

    the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it – a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they walked (up and down, up and down), she uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling!

    Clarissa, made “virginal” in middle age by illness and marital boredom, is surprised by this irrupting memory. She connects it to her sense of joy in life itself: “the moment of this June morning on which was the pressure of all the other mornings […] collecting the whole of her at one point”.

    Clarissa and Septimus Smith – though they never meet – are shadow versions of each other. Both have beaky noses, thin pale birdlike bodies, and histories of illness.

    Septimus, so capable as a soldier in the Great War, buries the trauma of seeing his commanding officer Evans killed, only to have it resurface in visual and aural hallucinations, of Evans behind the trees, and birds singing in Greek. He perceives, as Clarissa does, the burden of the past upon the present, and he suffers as a result of the coercion of the social system – what Woolf’s narrator ironises as the sister goddesses Conversion and Proportion.

    “Worshipping proportion […] made England prosper”, because proportion forbids despair, illness, and emotional extremes. Conversion, the strong arm of Empire, “offers help, but desires power; smites out of her way roughly the dissentient, the dissatisfied”. Conversion “loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will”. Together, they suck the life from those who cannot or will not comply with them.

    For Septimus, who has witnessed the dreadful disproportion of the war, ordinary social life becomes a torturous pressure cooker, a “gradual drawing together of everything to one centre before his eyes, as if some horror had come almost to the surface and was about to burst into flames”. A reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement emphasised this aspect of its experimentalism:

    Watching Mrs Woolf’s experiment, certainly one of the hardest and very subtly planned, one reckons up its cost. To get the whole value of the present you must enhance it, perhaps, with the past.

    Watching my daughter lark about is shadowed by the two surgeries she had in early childhood to correct her developmental hip dysplasia. I hear her screech with joy in the park, rocketing about freely; I hear her scream in pain in the hospital, encased in plaster from the midsection down. As Woolf knew, the past and the present are experienced within us simultaneously.

    Doubled experience

    “In this book I have almost too many ideas,” Woolf wrote in her diary on June 19, 1923. “I want to give life and death, sanity and insanity; I want to criticise the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense.”

    Woolf’s ideas have inspired scores of interpretations, focusing on time, space, reality, psychology, domesticity, history, sexual relations, politics, fashion, the environment, health and illness. She is now probably the most written-about 20th century English author. I can remember vividly first reading this novel as an undergraduate, after which I devoured Woolf’s revolutionary 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own, which criticised the educational, economic and social constraints that prevented women, in many instances, from writing anything at all.

    Cover of the first edition of A Room of One’s Own (1929).
    Public domain.

    Woolf, of course, could and did write. This was a function, as she knew, of her financial and class privilege. Feminist politics has progressed beyond Woolf, but she laid one of the foundation stones. In her fiction, she modelled a method of writing that critiques patriarchal thinking. She focuses our attention on overlooked individuals and their inner lives, and she splendidly undoes the Victorian conception of plot.

    The same year Woolf published Mrs Dalloway, she also published her important collection of essays, The Common Reader. The first piece in that book, on the medieval letters of the Paston family, describes the illumination cast by these ordinary, non-literary pieces of writing:

    Like all collections of letters, they seem to hint that we need not care overmuch for the fortunes of individuals. The family will go on, whether Sir John lives or dies. It is their method to heap up in mounds of insignificant and often dismal dust the innumerable trivialities of daily life, as it grinds itself out, year after year. And then suddenly they blaze up; the day shines out, complete, alive, before our eyes.

    Mrs Dalloway encompasses this doubled experience of insignificance and blazing life. Woolf writes of the past emerging into the present day and the present’s capacity to reshape the past. In her diary, she called this her “tunnelling process, by which I tell the past in instalments, as I have need of it”.

    In tunnelling through narrative, digging out caves behind her characters, Woolf flung out a lot of what seems to be dust – buying flowers, ogling girls, table manners and weight gain, advertising, letter writing, doctor’s appointments, eating eclairs in a department store cafe. The novel reminds us of these moments’ triviality, and their significance, through repeated reference to the bells and clocks of London striking the hour.

    This is why the opening line – and the novel as a whole – is so remarkable. It catches drops of shimmering reality from moments that can so easily go unremarked. This, Woolf knew, was what writing needed to do: to stop time. As she wrote of the Pastons’ letters: “There is the ancient day, spread out before us, hour by hour.”

    Portrait of Virginia Woolf – Roger Fry (1917)
    Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    Her metaphor shows that Woolf’s thinking about time also had a spatial dimension. These two dimensions of space and time structure Mrs Dalloway’s theme and method, As David Daiches explained in his 1939 book The Novel and the Modern World, Woolf first links a series of different perspectives through a single shared moment in time – marked by the sound of the bells – then switches to an individual perspective, anchored in space, and moves through that individual’s memories.

    Woolf wrote in her diary that “the caves shall connect and each comes to daylight at the present moment.” Daiches diagrammed these relations in time and space as a series of connected trees, arguing that they illustrated the novel’s concern with “the importance of contact and at the same time the necessity of keeping the self inviolable, of the extremes of isolation and domination”.

    A legacy of inspiration

    Since its publication, Mrs Dalloway has continued to inspire. For second-wave feminism, Woolf was a touchstone. Since the 1970s, she has enjoyed an unparalleled position in the history of 20th century letters, inspiring the recovery of other contemporaneous women writers connected with the Bloomsbury group.

    Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, Robin Lippincott’s Mr Dalloway and John Lanchester’s Mr Phillips all appeared in the three years between 1998 and 2000, all of them reflecting Woolf’s legacy, tacitly or explicitly.

    Because of the Oscar-winning film adaptation by Stephen Daldry, Cunningham’s novel is the most recognisable of these three. The Hours revises Mrs Dalloway through the stories of three women: Virginia Woolf herself; Laura Brown, a 1950s housewife who reads Mrs Dalloway; and Clarissa Vaughan, nicknamed Mrs Dalloway by her former lover Richard, for whom she throws a literary party.

    Cunningham’s novel counterpoints, as Woolf did, the work of living with the work of art. The homemaker Laura Brown tries to bake a cake to equal a work of art, hoping “to be as satisfied and as filled with anticipation as a writer putting down the first sentence, a builder beginning to draw the plans.” Later, her delirious dying son Richard regrets what he views as the failure of his art to compete with simply living:

    I wanted to create something alive and shocking enough that it could stand beside a morning in somebody’s life. The most ordinary morning. Imagine trying to do that. What foolishness.

    More recently, Michelle Cahill’s Daisy & Woolf (2023) and Miranda Darling’s Thunderhead (2024) have wrestled with Mrs Dalloway the character, and with Woolf’s legacy. Darling’s novel revives a new “Mrs” Dalloway, Winona, a wealthy Sydney suburban writer, wife and mother, who struggles to break through “to something more real” than the constraint of middle class domestication.

    Cahill’s Daisy & Woolf explores a minor character from Mrs Dalloway, whom Woolf failed to make properly live: Daisy Simmons, Peter Walsh’s Anglo-Indian fiancee. In Woolf’s novel, Daisy exists entirely offstage. She is a romantic memory of Peter’s, “dark, adorably pretty”. Daisy, writes Cahill, is

    trapped in the past, in a moment, a vignette, but not the kind that would enter a room, open a window, to a life inside, a life in the mind, as it does for Clarissa with a squeak of hinges on the very first page of Mrs Dalloway! Not a real girl, Daisy, too arch perhaps, the air not stirring for her, seeing as she has no present tense.

    Cahill’s present-day narrator Mina, writing back to Woolf, sees Daisy as a fully fleshed character: a mixed-race woman living in Calcutta in the twilight of Empire, as the Indian independence movement grows in strength. In recovering Daisy’s rich personal and political history, narrated through letters to Peter, Cahill reclaims interiority for this marginalised character.

    In her 1937 essay Craftsmanship, the BBC broadcast of which is the only surviving recording of her voice, Woolf wrote: “Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations.”

    Mrs Dalloway shows us the ways that words can both connect and sever. Characters pass each other on the street, muse on a shared past, or witness the same event from different vantage points and through different filters of personality and psyche. As Hermione Lee explained, for Woolf “the really important life was ‘within’”.

    Peter remembers Clarissa’s theory of life, which is expounded on top of a bus going down Shaftesbury Avenue:

    She felt herself everywhere; not here here here; […] but everywhere. […] so that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places […] since our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places, after death.

    Late in the book, Septimus’s suicide is reported to Clarissa at the party. “Oh,” she thinks, “in the middle of my party, here’s death”. And in the middle of her party, Clarissa feels not only the disaster of death – “her disaster, her disgrace […] and she forced to stand here in her evening dress” – but the deep pulsing joy of life. “Nothing could be slow enough; nothing last too long.”

    In certain lights – to paraphrase Michael Cunningham – Mrs Dalloway might look like the book of one’s own life, a book that will locate you, parent you, arm you for life’s changes. As an undergraduate, I was mesmerised by Woolf’s language and her grasp on the inner life.

    Though Clarissa Dalloway is 52, Woolf turned 43 the year her novel was published. I’m turning 43 this year, too. Woolf, ravaged by long periods of illness and partially toothless, thought of herself as elderly. I do not, though I am no longer young. But to re-read this novel at this age reminds me to relish these long hours and short years: to sniff flowers, feel the lift of the gusting wind, jump and splash with my children, read the patterns made by the clouds. To seize the day.

    Naomi Milthorpe 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. Friday essay: Seize the day – Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway at 100 – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-seize-the-day-virginia-woolfs-mrs-dalloway-at-100-246331

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Two Men Indicted for COVID Unemployment and Loan Fraud

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    Defendants allegedly received over $43,000 in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance funds

    BOSTON – Two men were arrested for allegedly submitting fraudulent information in an effort to obtain loans through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program.

    Dominik Manigo, 25, of Weymouth, and Nelson Roche Diaz, 28, of Brockton, were indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of wire fraud conspiracy, and on one count each of wire fraud. Manigo and Roche appeared in federal court in Boston on Monday.

    According to the charging documents, in or about May 2020, Manigo and Roche allegedly submitted fraudulent claims for PUA on the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance portal. Further, Manigo and Roche allegedly submitted fraudulent letters claiming the pandemic had impacted their employment at a restaurant in Boston. Manigo and Roche each allegedly received over $43,000 in PUA and related funds.

    The charges of wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy provide for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

    United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Jonathan Mellone, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations, Labor Racketeering and Fraud, Northeast Region; Michael J. Krol, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England; Colonel Geoffrey D. Noble, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox; and Thomas Demeo, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Boston Field Office made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Weymouth Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel R. Feldman of the Narcotics and Money Laundering Unit is prosecuting the case.

    This case is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.

    On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud.  The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts.  For more information on the department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus and https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus/combatingfraud.

    Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline via the https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/webform/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/webform/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form

    The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
     

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Markey, Pressley Bill Renaming Post Office on Dorchester Ave Signed into Law Last Month by President Biden

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts Ed Markey
    Washington (January, 29, 2025) – Today, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) marked the Lunar New Year by celebrating the enactment of their legislation to name the U.S. Postal Service office on Dorchester Avenue in Boston after the late Caroline Chang (1940-2018), a community leader and lifelong AAPI activist in Boston’s Chinatown community. The bill passed the House in February of last year and was signed into law by President Biden in November.
    “I am proud that our legislation to honor community leader, public servant, and activist Caroline Chang is law,” said Senator Markey. “Caroline Chang played an instrumental role in Boston’s Asian American community and her decades of public service to her community will now finally be physically memorialized.”
    “Who we honor in our federal buildings and monuments matters, and I am so thrilled that Caroline Chang is getting the recognition she deserves for her lifelong service to Boston, the Massachusetts 7th, and our Commonwealth,” said Congresswoman Pressley. “I was especially honored to celebrate the Lunar New Year with Caroline’s family and celebrate the enactment of this bill, the very first federal building in the Commonwealth to be named in honor of an AAPI individual. This is a living tribute to her life, values, and incredible impact she’s had on Boston’s Chinatown community and beyond. I’m grateful to Caroline’s family, our community partners, our Senate colleagues, and President Biden for working with us to get this bill over the finish line.”
    “Caroline dedicated her life to ensure all people were treated equally and fairly. Born to an immigrant family, Caroline spoke for those who couldn’t speak for themselves. She saw firsthand, discrimination towards her community and did something about it. She recognized the deficiencies in health care in minority neighborhoods, and did something about it. She recognized shortages in affordable housing, and did something about it. Her career and achievements will forever be remembered through the dedication of this post office in her name,” said Russell Eng, Caroline Chang’s nephew. “Our family is proud of Caroline’s work, and are very grateful to Congresswoman Pressley, her incredible staff, the Massachusetts delegation to Congress and the Senate, President Biden for signing this law, and especially the Asian Community of Massachusetts for nominating her.
    “The Asian American community is forever great full for the work of Caroline Chang in uplifting the needs and rights of the Chinese Immigrant community. She is a pioneer in our community to fight for equal access to government resources for the public good. Many of our non profit community organizations such as South Cove Health Center, Asian American Civil Association, Asian American  Community Development Corporation and Chinese Historical Society are the fruit of Caroline’s work,” said Suzanne Lee, Founder of Chinese Progressive Association. “We are excited to have the Post Office named in honor of her. There’s no better representation of public service than Caroline Chang.”
    There are currently 617 postal facilities in Massachusetts. Of those facilities renamed, only one honors a woman and five honor a person of color. With the enactment of this bill, the USPS office at 25 Dorchester Avenue is now the first federal building in Massachusetts to be named after an AAPI individual.
    Caroline Chang spent her life serving the Boston Chinatown community. Born and raised in Chinatown, Caroline served as an interpreter in her early life for community members seeking medical care. In 1970, Boston Mayor Kevin White appointed Chang as the manager of Chinatown’s Little City Hall, where she advocated on behalf of residents. Chang went on to receive her law degree from Suffolk Law School in 1970 and spent more than 30 years with the United States Department of Health and Human Services as the Regional Manager for the Office for Civil Rights, making her the highest-ranking Asian American in the federal government in New England at the time.
    Throughout her years of public service, Caroline Chang played a founding role in several organizations that continue to serve the Boston Chinatown community, including:
    The South Cove Community Health Center
    The Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC)
    The Chinese Historical Society of New England (CHSNE)
    The Harry H. Dow Memorial Legal Assistance Fund
    The Asian American Civic Association (AACA)
    The Greater Boston Chinese Golden Age Center
    A copy of the bill text can be found here, and Caroline’s biography is available here. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Leader of Brockton-Area Drug Trafficking Organization Pleads Guilty to Fentanyl Conspiracy

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    BOSTON – A Braintree man pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Boston to fentanyl conspiracy charge.

    Jonathan Melendez Decatro, a/k/a “Jacha,” 32, of Braintree, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl. U.S. District Court Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV scheduled sentencing for May 12, 2025. Pursuant to a plea agreement filed in court, Melendez Decatro will face a sentence of 10 years in prison and five years of supervised release. Melendez Decatro was indicted in June 2023.  

    During an investigation that began in 2019, Melendez Decatro was identified as the leader of a large-scale fentanyl and cocaine trafficking organization (DTO) operating in the Brockton area, who sourced drugs directly from Colombia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. On two dates in 2021, packages intended for Melendez Decatro were intercepted by law enforcement and each found to contain a kilogram of cocaine. Additionally, on several dates in the spring of 2023, Melendez Decatro conspired with an individual who resided in the Dominican Republic to distribute in total 1.5 kilograms of fentanyl to another individual in Braintree. It was later determined that the purity of the fentanyl exceeded 50% and also contained xylazine. During of search of Melendez Decatro’s residence, over $10,000 in drug proceeds and clothing worn during the fentanyl transactions were recovered.

    The charge of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances provides for a sentence of at least 10 years and up to life years in prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $10 million. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

    United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Michael J. Krol, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England; Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; and Stephen Belleau, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration, New England Field Division made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Drug Enforcement Administration in Bogota; United States Postal Inspection Service; Massachusetts State Police; and the Brockton Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey E. Weinstein of the Criminal Division is prosecuting the case.

    This operation is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Strike Force Initiative, which provides for the establishment of permanent multi-agency task force teams that work side-by-side in the same location. This co-located model enables agents from different agencies to collaborate on intelligence-driven, multi-jurisdictional operations to disrupt and dismantle the most significant drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF. 
     

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: UK Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance: Statement to the OSCE

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    UK Special Envoy on post-Holocaust issues and Chair of International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Lord Pickles, remarks to OSCE Permanent Council.

    Distinguished friends, your excellencies,

    Today, we gather in the shadow of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Allies and the public had a good idea of the murder of the Jews long before the gates of Auschwitz were opened by Soviet Troops eighty years ago.

    But listening to rumours and reading secret reports does not prepare anyone for the naked brutality. The Nazis and their collaborators are an indelible stain on European Civilisation and on World History.

    We come together to honour the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. But we do not come with clean hands. Many fellow European citizens’ fate was to be shot in ditches, gassed in industrial murder centres or worked to death because World governments turned their backs on the Jews. Migration was restricted, making flight impossible for most. We know the poor results of the Evian Conference encouraged the Nazis into more extreme measures. Appeasement and doing nothing encouraged bullies and fanatics.

    The Nazis did not invent antisemitism, nor did they need to explain it in lands they occupied what antisemitism was.

    As Professor Yehuda Bauer of blessed memory said, “No one comes away clean” from the history of the Holocaust.

    Legislation restricting Jewish employment, property and civil rights was present in countries years before the Second World War. Signs saying, “forbidden for Jews” and “Jews not welcome” were present long before the Nazi occupation. When the Nazis arrived, the restrictions and the notices were quickly adopted.

    While there is no state policy, the signs “Jews not welcome” and “Jew Free Zone” are back on our Streets along with chants and slogans that distort and demean the Holocaust.

    The Holocaust began with words of hatred, laws of exclusion, and acts of humiliation.

    The strength of liberal democracy is tolerance of other people’s views and a willingness to accept some disruption in the interest of free speech.

    Across our member countries, the forces of law and order have floundered against the waves of antisemitism. At times, they seem incapable of identifying breaches. Senior UK police officers saw the slogan “From the River to the Sea” as a harmless folk scene rather than the reality of a chant of ethnic cleansing.

    The risk is that opponents of an open society misread tolerance as weakness and become emboldened to use increasingly extreme language and actions.

    Holocaust distortion has moved from the fringes to mainstream public life.

    Distortion does not deny the Holocaust outright. Instead, it minimises, excuses, or misrepresents it.

    It builds a bridge between mainstream careless indifference and extreme ideologies.

    As the last survivors move from contemporary memory to the pages of history, we are the custodians of the truth.

    The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) is committed to countering distortion. We uphold the truth and protect the facts.

    The OSCE’s mission aligns with this responsibility.

    Both our organisations are in the business of building a safer and more inclusive society.

    To support governments in this vital work, IHRA has developed essential tools, including its internationally recognised definitions on antisemitism and on Holocaust denial and distortion.

    These provide governments, institutions, and educators with a framework for identifying and effectively addressing these issues.

    To combat these scourges, we must be able to recognise them.

    Additionally, the IHRA provides comprehensive recommendations for Holocaust education.

    It also provides guidelines for the preservation and accessibility of archives and memorial sites.

    Together, these tools lay the framework for preserving memory and the truth.

    The UK Presidency of IHRA has pursued a triple-track approach to strengthening archives: including sharing of information between institutions and the public, using personal possessions to tell a story in human form, and preserving the sites of murder and destruction.

    Deniers and distorters can lie and twist. We will preserve the memory of the Holocaust by telling the unvarnished truth. And the truth can never hurt us. Thank you.

    Updates to this page

    Published 30 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Bird flu cases surging in UK but risk to humans remains low

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ed Hutchinson, Professor, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, University of Glasgow

    Avian influenza control zones have been put in place in England, Scotland and Wales to control the virus’s spread among birds. AlanMorris/ Shutterstock

    A human case of bird flu has recently been detected in England. This news comes just days after restrictions were put in place to curb the virus’s spread among wild birds and poultry in England and Scotland.

    Although cases of bird flu are surging among birds in the UK, the risk of the virus spreading to humans still remains extremely low. A bit of context about influenza explains why health protection agencies think this is the case.

    There are many different influenza viruses out there. They’re all related, but each specialises in infecting different types of animals.

    Each winter, humans have to deal with three different types of seasonal influenza virus – H1N1, H3N2 and influenza B viruses. Meanwhile, birds, particularly shore birds and waterfowl, contend with a huge number of their own influenza viruses.

    Most of these avian influenza viruses only afflict birds with minor infections of the airway or gut. But a small set cause more serious illness. These are called highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs).

    Among the HPAIVs, the H5N1 strains stand out. H5N1 bird flu, which is largely a disease of wild birds, has been notorious since the late 1990s for causing major die-offs of poultry worldwide – and for occasionally causing serious illness in humans. Viruses evolve rapidly, and in 2020 H5N1 evolved so it could spread more aggressively in wild birds.

    The resulting outbreak tore through bird populations globally, including devastating die-offs in seabird colonies when the virus arrived in the UK in 2021. As it spread, the virus also caused outbreaks in farmed birds.

    All outbreaks ebb and flow. After mid-2023, cases of H5N1 subsided in the UK. However, the virus never fully disappeared – and in autumn 2024, cases in wild birds started increasing again. It’s very hard to keep wild birds and farmed birds apart, and infections in poultry farms soon followed.

    In the UK, the threat of H5N1 to birds is tracked through ongoing surveillance. In response to these rising cases, avian influenza prevention zones have recently been declared for England, Scotland and now Wales. These restrictions aim to reduce the risk of farmed birds getting infected. Anyone keeping birds in England, Scotland and Wales will be required to take additional measures to prevent their birds being infected – including keeping birds under cover in regions facing the greatest risk.

    Wild birds spread the virus to domestic poultry.
    Andrew M. Allport/ Shutterstock

    These prevention zones are an important intervention. But given the current outbreak’s scale in wild birds, these measures will at best only reduce the ongoing risk to farmed birds, rather than eliminating it.

    What does this outbreak mean for humans?

    Despite the serious problems H5N1 is causing for birds, the risk to humans is still very low. Because each virus is closely adapted to a particular host species, it’s really hard for bird flu to infect a human.

    When infections do occur, this is normally only in people who have close contact with birds – and even then it’s an unusual event. The recent case of bird flu in a poultry worker in England is almost certainly an example of this sort of “spillover” infection.

    It’s good to hear the affected person is currently well and that antiviral drugs – which work against these viruses – have been offered to others who may have been exposed. The control measures announced over the weekend will help reduce the risk of other people who work with poultry getting infected.

    If you don’t have close contact with either wild or farmed birds, your chances of being infected are very low indeed. Still, if you come across any dead birds (particularly waterfowl), it’s important to avoid handling them. Try to prevent pets from scavenging bird carcasses and avoid feeding pets raw bird meat from non-commercial sources. Sightings of dead or sick birds can be reported to health protection agencies.

    Because influenza viruses are killed quickly by heat, there should be no risk to the public from eating properly-cooked eggs or poultry. The UK outbreak may also cause temporary difficulties in accessing free-range eggs and an increase in egg prices – things that have already been seen in the US, which is also experiencing a major H5N1 outbreak.

    Is bird flu a problem anywhere else?

    What’s happening in the UK is just one part of an ongoing global H5N1 outbreak.

    In some regions, strains of the virus have managed to spread beyond wild birds and infect mammals as well. In South America, H5N1 is causing devastating outbreaks in seals and sea lions. In the US, it has managed to adapt to dairy cattle and is being shed in their milk.

    There have also been reported human infections. In the US, numerous farm workers have caught H5N1 from cattle, so far with relatively mild symptoms. There have also been two cases of severe illness in the US and Canada in people who caught a slightly different strain of H5N1 from birds, one of which sadly led to the patient’s death.

    These cases underscore the potential risks of H5N1 infections. But because human infections are so rare, how likely each strain of H5N1 is to cause severe disease in humans is still unclear. We also need to be on the lookout for any signs that any H5N1 strain anywhere might gain the ability to spread between humans. This would be an exceptionally unusual event – but to minimise the risk of future influenza pandemics, it’s crucial situations like this are carefully monitored.

    Nothing has been reported which suggests human-to-human transmission has occurred anywhere during the current outbreak. In the UK we have good surveillance for detecting any signs of this if it did. If wider spread did occur, the reserves of vaccines and antiviral drugs that we have in the UK would give us opportunities to intervene.

    For now, bird flu remains a very real problem, but is primarily a problem for birds. By intervening now to protect farmed birds, we hope that we can keep it that way.

    Ed Hutchinson receives funding from the Wellcome Trust and UKRI, including through the Flu:TrailMap-One Health consortium which is working to respond to the H5N1 outbreak. He has unpaid positions on the board of the European Scientific Working group on Influenza and other respiratory viruses (ESWI) and as a scientific adviser to PinPoint Medical.

    – ref. Bird flu cases surging in UK but risk to humans remains low – https://theconversation.com/bird-flu-cases-surging-in-uk-but-risk-to-humans-remains-low-248350

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Most of Britain’s peat bogs could stop forming new peat as the climate changes – new study

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Ritson, Research Fellow, Geography, University of Manchester

    Joe Dunckley / shutterstock

    By the 2080s, climate change will mean most of Britain’s peatlands could be too dry to form new peat. That’s the stark warning from a new academic study my colleagues and I just published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

    Peat bogs are found in areas where there is lots of rain but poor drainage. These vital ecosystems are relied upon to deliver drinking water, host rare plant and bird life and to mitigate the risk of floods by slowing rainwater as it heads downstream.

    Perhaps most importantly, peatlands also sequester huge amounts of carbon. That’s because peat is made of the remnants of plants accumulated over hundreds or thousands of years. Waterlogged conditions mean the plants don’t fully decompose, so the carbon they’re made of is kept in the ground and isn’t released into the atmosphere. Peat can be several metres deep so all that plant matter adds up – per square metre, a typical British peat bog stores far more carbon than a tropical rainforest.

    As peat needs very wet conditions to form, our study first mapped out the temperature and rainfall conditions under which this has occurred in the UK in the past. We then took the Met Office’s UK climate projections and looked at where these conditions would continue to occur by the 2080s. The results were, quite frankly, shocking.

    Although small pockets of favourable conditions may still be present in Wales, and larger ones in Scotland, the outlook for England is dismal, with barely any areas continuing to be suitable for peat formation due to increasing temperatures and lower summer rainfall.

    UK peatlands. The large red patch at the top of mainland Scotland is the Flow Country.
    James Hutton Institute / Biogeochemistry

    In the “Flow Country” of northern Scotland, a bog so big it has been designated a Unesco world heritage site, the area in which we might expect peatlands to thrive is likely to be reduced by at least 50% even in the best-case climate scenario. This scenario of mild warming is, unfortunately, unlikely to happen. More extreme scenarios of peatland degradation are increasingly realistic.

    We still don’t know exactly what this will mean for the peatlands in places like Exmoor or Dartmoor in southern England, however we do know that life will become more and more challenging for these precious ecosystems. Not experiencing the temperature and rainfall that caused peat formation in the first place could mean they start to emit the carbon currently stored, as this is reliant on them staying wet and boggy.

    Peatlands are naturally resilient and aren’t going to disappear overnight (the Peak District in northern England was heavily degraded for over a century, yet still hosts many metres of peat soils). But conservation and restoration work is going to be ever more necessary if we are to preserve these landscapes as carbon sinks rather than sources.

    More money for conservation

    One ray of light in all this is that the challenging conditions in England could actually unlock more money for conservation efforts. The UK Peatland Code is a climate finance initiative that allows landowners to generate income from peatland restoration by selling carbon credits. The number of credits they can claim is based on the difference in avoided emissions from a “do nothing” scenario in which they do no restoration.

    Our new results show that doing nothing could be even worse than previously thought, meaning more carbon finance may be unlocked. Perversely, bad news for England’s peatlands could bring about the money needed to save them.

    Thankfully, through measures such as the government’s Nature for Climate scheme and ongoing investment in fundamental peatland science, the UK has something of a head start in peatland restoration. Techniques that were once trialled in small areas are now being rolled out across whole landscapes.

    Gully blocking to raise peatland water tables and limit carbon loss, as part of the GGR-Peat project at the National Trust High Peak Estate.
    Jonathan Ritson

    The Great North Bog initiative, as one example, has linked together restoration organisations, researchers and landowners to deliver restoration across four national parks and three national landscapes. This is truly the scale that is needed if the UK is serious about meeting its climate targets.

    More will be required, however, as huge swathes of peatland remain in a degraded state. While bleak messages like those in our new study could lead to resignation about the effects of climate change, there is an alternative way of looking at it: we must show how bad things could get if we don’t do anything, and then see this as a call to action.

    Jonathan Ritson has received funding from charities delivering peatland restoration.

    – ref. Most of Britain’s peat bogs could stop forming new peat as the climate changes – new study – https://theconversation.com/most-of-britains-peat-bogs-could-stop-forming-new-peat-as-the-climate-changes-new-study-248515

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Jersey expat sentenced for importing £350,000 worth of drugs from Spain30 January 2025 ​​A man was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison by the Royal Court on 30 January 2025 in relation to the importation of cannabis and cocaine. On 10 April 2024, 49-year-old Tony SPENCER… Read more

    Source: Channel Islands – Jersey

    30 January 2025

    ​​

    A man was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison by the Royal Court on 30 January 2025 in relation to the importation of cannabis and cocaine. 

    On 10 April 2024, 49-year-old Tony SPENCER was stopped by Customs officers, driving a Jersey-registered vehicle, having arrived on the ferry from St Malo. SPENCER explained to officers that he had moved from Jersey and in 2020 had opened a butcher’s shop in a town outside Malaga, but was looking to relocate to Jersey. 

    A subsequent search of the vehicle revealed a commercial vacuum heat-sealing machine similar to those used in a butcher’s shop. Upon closer examination, it was found to contain nine kilos of cannabis in 100-gram bars and 290 grams of cocaine. In interview with Jersey Customs and Immigration officers, SPENCER admitted placing the heat-sealing machine into his vehicle, but provided no further information. SPENCER initially provided a not guilty plea, which he changed to guilty a month later. 

    JCIS officers examined the electronic devices SPENCER had with him, which showed he had been looking at sites concerning drug sentencing in Jersey and ways to conceal drugs in cars. 

    The maximum street value in Jersey of the nine kilos of cannabis is £279,000 and the 290 grams of cocaine would fetch £71,000. 

    Senior Manager Paul Le Monnier said: “Today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of this attempted importation. It also shows the high level of skill and vigilance our officers have in detecting commercial quantities of controlled drugs and dealing with those responsible.” ​

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Man rescued from a fire in Grouville has died30 January 2025 Statement issued on behalf of the States of Jersey Fire and Rescue Service: We are saddened to share that the man who was rescued from a fire in Grouville on Sunday 19 January 2025 has died. George… Read more

    Source: Channel Islands – Jersey

    30 January 2025

    Statement issued on behalf of the States of Jersey Fire and Rescue Service: 

    We are saddened to share that the man who was rescued from a fire in Grouville on Sunday 19 January 2025 has died. 

    George Michael Monte De Ramos Castrudes, 37, was originally from the Philippines and had been working on a farm in the Island. 

    Our thoughts and sympathies are with his loved ones. 

    The coroner’s department can confirm that it is currently investigating this case as an unexpected death. 

    The family, who are overseas, have been made aware and contact has been made with the Philippines Embassy. 

    An inquest will be opened in due course and preparations are underway to repatriate Mr Castrudes’ body home to the Philippines. 

    The cause of the incident remains under SJFRS investigation.​​

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Momentum Fund – Expression of Interest

    Source: Northern Ireland City of Armagh

    Support for community and voluntary organisations currently working to end violence against women and girls.

    Council is issuing an expression of interest for those community and voluntary organisations who are already involved in the delivery of activity to end violence against women and girls and require support to continue the delivery of their activity until 31st March 2025. This expression of interest allows constituted community and voluntary organisations who are currently delivering activity aligned to the Outcomes of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls strategy to apply for up to a maximum of £5000. This is for delivery taking place February – March 2025 only. Applications for the expression of interest momentum fund delivery February – March 2025 must be submitted via email by the deadline of 12 noon 13th February 2025. For an application form and guidance notes, please email:  

    *protected email*

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Situation in Eastern DRC: UK statement

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    The UK has issued a statement following the occupation of Goma in Eastern DRC by M23 and Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF).

    An FCDO spokesperson said:

    “The UK condemns the occupation of Goma and other territories in eastern DRC by M23 and Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) as an unacceptable breach of DRC’s sovereignty and the UN Charter which poses a fundamental risk to regional stability.

    “The UK calls for the immediate withdrawal of all RDF from Congolese territory. On 26 January, the Foreign Secretary told President Kagame that an attack on Goma would provoke a strong response from the international community. On 29 January, Lord Collins made clear to the Rwandan High Commissioner that Rwanda’s actions in eastern DRC were unacceptable and expressed deep concern at reports of M23 and RDF advancing through South Kivu towards Bukavu.

    “The humanitarian situation, already dire before M23 and RDF’s latest offensive, is now critical. More than 800,000 people in the area who were prioritised for support may no longer receive vital food and nutritional assistance. The UK calls on all parties to immediately cease hostilities, facilitate humanitarian access, and return to inclusive diplomatic talks. Their engagement in good faith in African-led processes will be key. There can be no military solution.

    “The UK is actively considering next steps, alongside international partners, including the possibility of a review of all UK support to Rwanda.”

    Media enquiries

    Email newsdesk@fcdo.gov.uk

    Telephone 020 7008 3100

    Contact the FCDO Communication Team via email (monitored 24 hours a day) in the first instance, and we will respond as soon as possible.

    Updates to this page

    Published 30 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –