NewzIntel.com

Category: Universities

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Ethiopia’s civil war: what’s behind the Amhara rebellion?

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Amanuel Tesfaye, Doctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki

    Ethiopia is in the grip of a civil war between federal government forces and the Fano, a loose alliance of ethnic-based militia in the Amhara region.

    This conflict in Ethiopia’s north erupted less than a year after the devastating Tigray war, which ended in 2022.

    The Amhara are one of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic groups and played a leading role in the making of the Ethiopian state. Amharic serves as the country’s working language.

    The region shares a border with Tigray. During the Tigray war, which began in 2020, various Fano groups allied with the federal government. A peace deal in 2022 to stop the war sidelined the Amhara militia groups, which strained relations with the government.

    The Amhara conflict began as minor sporadic clashes with government forces in April 2023. This rapidly escalated into a full-scale insurgency by August when Fano forces launched a full blown attack in an effort to control the region’s major cities.

    The violence since has displaced more than 100,000 people and left 4.7 million children out of school.

    The death toll from the conflict is piling up. In March 2025, the government claimed to have killed more than 300 Fano fighters.

    We are researchers studying ethnic nationalism, social movements and insurgency in Ethiopia, with a focus on Amhara. Based on our studies into the Fano and ongoing research on Ethiopia’s political reforms process, we see three factors behind the escalating armed struggle in Amhara:

    • a mismanaged political transition from 2018 to 2020

    • fallout from the 2020-2022 Tigray war

    • a hollow pursuit of peace.

    Mismanaged transition

    Between 1991 and 2018, Ethiopia was governed by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. This was a powerful coalition of four ethno-national parties representing Tigray, Amhara, Oromo, and Southern nations, nationalities and peoples.

    Faced with a political crisis and growing unrest in 2014 following opposition clampdowns and arbitrary arrests, the coalition needed a change. Two members – the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation and the Amhara National Democratic Movement – joined forces to oust the Tigray People’s Liberation Front from its dominant position. They did this by leveraging youth-led protests, which played out between 2015 and 2018.

    Following the resignation of prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn in 2018, the two parties orchestrated Abiy Ahmed’s ascent to power.

    For a moment, the relationship between the Oromo and Amhara wings of the coalition looked like one of equals. This didn’t last. In December 2019, Abiy merged the coalition into a single party, the Prosperity Party.

    The Oromo wing positioned itself as the core of the Prosperity Party. It monopolised key political positions and economic opportunities. This included asserting control over the capital, Addis Ababa.

    Read more: Abiy Ahmed gained power in Ethiopia with the help of young people – four years later he’s silencing them

    Amhara’s outspoken leaders who criticised this dominance faced removal, arrest or exile. The region’s president, Ambachew Mekonnen, was assassinated in June 2019.

    Harassment, kidnappings for ransom and arrests were daily experiences for Amhara region residents trying to enter Addis Ababa. Members of the Amhara community also faced ethnic-based violence in various parts of the country.

    These incidents provoked anti-government protests throughout Amhara.

    Fallout from the Tigray war

    A peace agreement signed in 2022 in South Africa ended a brutal two-year war in Tigray and neighbouring regions. However, it deepened the sense of marginalisation in Amhara.

    While the agreement silenced the guns in Tigray, it sidelined Amhara constituencies by denying them representation in the talks despite the region being affected by the war. The agreement’s ambiguity regarding the fate of territories disputed between Amhara and Tigray, such as Welkait, further fuelled distrust.

    The last nail in the coffin came in April 2023. The government decided to dismantle regional special forces. This was ostensibly aimed at consolidating the country’s fighting forces.

    However, with unresolved territorial disputes and Oromo nationalist ambitions at the centre, disarming the Amhara Special Forces was interpreted as a move to weaken Amhara defences. Additionally, the more than 200,000-strong Tigray Defence Forces were left intact. This contributed to a sense of vulnerability in neighbouring Amhara.

    Public protests led to clashes with government forces. These protests morphed into an insurgency by the Fano in the following months.

    The insurgency has expanded its reach and has public support across the region and in the diaspora.

    The Fano insurgency is taking place in a territory three times the size of Tigray, stretching the federal army.

    Various Fano factions cite objectives that range from the protection of Amhara interests to constitutional change and overthrowing the federal government.

    However, the insurgency is still in its infancy. It lacks unified leadership, a cohesive structure or a chain of command. Factional divisions and competition persist, and there are no clear objectives.

    Hollow pursuit of peace

    The government seems determined to crush the Fano insurgency by force. A state of emergency was declared in August 2023 for six months. It was later extended.

    While the state of emergency in Amhara officially ended in June 2024, some restrictions remain in place. This includes de facto curfews in major cities, including the capital Bahir Dar.

    The counterinsurgency relies on heavy Ethiopian National Defence Forces deployments and drone strikes.

    On the other hand, the government has indicated its openness to peace talks. However, it has avoided meaningful confidence-building measures, such as releasing Amhara political prisoners. A Peace Council established to mediate between the Fano and the government has proven ineffective. Its spokesperson has noted federal reluctance to negotiate.

    Read more: Ethiopia’s war may have ended, but the Tigray crisis hasn’t

    The government’s peace efforts have centred on repeated calls for insurgents to surrender. There are reports that the government wants to talk to different Fano factions separately in the hope of fragmenting the insurgency further. Secret talks with one faction of the Fano are an indication of this strategy.

    The path forward

    The government’s violent counterinsurgency and occasional peace overtures are unlikely to succeed. The Prosperity Party is not popular in Amhara. A meaningful peace process – rather than calls for surrender or attempts to co-opt factions – is essential. This should start with measures like releasing arbitrarily detained Amhara activists, journalists, academics and politicians.

    The federal government also needs to be part of a multi-stakeholder negotiation involving all Fano factions, civil society, community leaders, and domestic and diaspora-based opposition groups. Unbiased mediation from regional and international players may also be useful. Past attempts at piecemeal talks with factions of armed groups – be it in Tigray or Oromia – have prolonged insurgencies or fostered new ones. Only a comprehensive, all-inclusive dialogue can address the crisis.

    Such a process needs to address deep-seated structural challenges. This includes ensuring the protection of Amhara minorities living in other regions, and the region’s representation within local, regional and federal government structures. Territorial disputes need to be addressed through a process rooted in historical context, constitutional principles and the consent of the people concerned.

    Ultimately, enduring peace requires ending the cycle of ethnic dominance in Ethiopia’s federal governance arrangement.

    – Ethiopia’s civil war: what’s behind the Amhara rebellion?
    – https://theconversation.com/ethiopias-civil-war-whats-behind-the-amhara-rebellion-252425

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Postgraduate student of Samarkand University Sanzhar Kenzhaev: “Everything is perfectly organized at the Polytechnic”

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –

    A postgraduate student of the Samarkand State University named after Sharaf Rashidov, Sanjar Kenjaev, spent one semester at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University under the academic mobility program, working on algorithms for intelligent processing of heterogeneous data. In this interview, Sanjar shares his impressions of cooperation with Russian colleagues, talks about the difficulties and achievements, as well as plans to implement his developments in Uzbekistan.

    — Sanzhar, why did you decide to go to the Polytechnic?

    — I studied in Uzbekistan, majoring in System Analysis, Information Processing, and Management. We were offered several universities for an internship, and the St. Petersburg Polytechnic was the closest to my topic. I wrote to the teachers — they agreed to accept me. In addition, there is a memorandum of cooperation between our universities, which simplified the process.

    — What exactly did you do during your internship?

    — My dissertation is devoted to algorithms for intelligent processing of heterogeneous data. The tasks were ambitious: to optimize the storage and processing of data, including unstructured data, in real time. Under the guidance of Polytechnic professors, for example, Vadim Pak, I finalized the chapters of the dissertation, participated in seminars and prepared articles for conferences. It is important that there is an opportunity to use the capacity of the SPbPU supercomputer — this significantly accelerated the experiments.

    — What achievements can you highlight?

    — We managed to adjust the title of the dissertation to a more precise one — “Algorithms for Intelligent Processing of Heterogeneous Data”. In collaboration with colleagues from the Polytechnic University, we prepared four articles for international conferences. We also agreed on the remote participation of SPbPU professors in further research in the laboratories of SSU.

    — How do you like Saint Petersburg and the university?

    — The city amazed me with its atmosphere, although the sun is a rare guest here. But this is compensated by the openness of the people. Everything is organized perfectly at the Polytechnic: a clear schedule, teachers are always in touch, libraries and laboratories are equipped with the latest technology. I remember how professors instantly connected colleagues from other departments to solve complex issues — this is an indicator of the level of teamwork.

    — Were there any difficulties?

    — There were no problems with the language — I know Russian well. But I had to worry about the documents: registration, access control… But I think this is a general situation for Russia, and not specific to the Polytechnic.

    — How did you communicate with other graduate students?

    — There were guys from different countries living in the dormitory: China, Iraq, Lithuania. We discussed scientific tasks, shared conference contacts. We even found common topics with those whose direction was different. It’s just a pity that I didn’t get to the Interclub events — I learned about them too late.

    — What are your plans after returning to Uzbekistan?

    — I want to develop cooperation between SSU and SPbPU: offer exchange programs and summer schools to students. I have already discussed the possibility of joint projects with colleagues. And also — continue research using data from the partner UzInfocom. Well, after a successful defense, I will remain in the academic environment — teach and, of course, constantly collaborate with the international department.

    — What advice would you give to future postgraduate students who want to go to the Polytechnic?

    — Don’t be afraid to take the initiative! The teachers here appreciate your interest. And be sure to participate in conferences — this is a great chance to make yourself known. And yes, take warm clothes with a hood — the St. Petersburg weather requires it.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Polytechnic University unites students and IT experts

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –

    The Polytechnic University held the CIT Day (Career in IT) on the topic “AI is changing IT”. The central theme was the transformation of the IT sphere under the influence of artificial intelligence technologies. More than a hundred students, teachers and industry professionals exchanged views on modern trends and prospects of information technology.

    Leading experts from Sber, T-Bank, Gazprom Neft, Sovcombank and other companies covered current issues: how artificial intelligence is changing IT professions, what relevant tools have appeared in the arsenal of programmers, how large language models influence the IT landscape. Several reports were devoted to successful cases of companies implementing artificial intelligence technologies in infrastructure and development processes.

    “KIT Day has a history of more than ten years,” said the event organizer, Associate Professor of the Higher School of Software Engineering Alexander Shchukin. “This year, we are glad to see representatives of the largest companies with interesting reports and many motivated, interested students at our university, for whom this is primarily an opportunity to obtain the most relevant specialized knowledge about promising technologies, communicate with professionals, meet and receive offers for internships.”

    There were so many questions for the speakers that the guys did not let them go even after the event ended. For the best questions, the students received branded gifts.

    Everything went great, the audience was very lively, the guys asked a lot of questions. It is not for nothing that we and the Polytechnic University are implementing joint educational programs and training future programmers, – says Mikhail Sukach, Executive Director of Sber’s Block T.

    All participants agreed that the reports aroused genuine interest not only among students, but also among IT specialists from various companies. Thus, St. Petersburg Polytechnic University became a platform for exchanging opinions for IT business.

    It is especially worth noting that most of the work in preparing the event was carried out by second-year students of the Higher School of Software Engineering.

    Photo archive

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Val Kilmer’s macho action figures held a melancholy just below the surface

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Aaron Humphrey, Lecturer, Media and Digital Humanities, University of Adelaide

    Leading man of 1990s Hollywood, Val Kilmer, has died at 65 from pneumonia. Battling cancer since 2014, he has not been a frequent presence on our film screens for most of this century. While he has recently done some interesting projects, he never recaptured his fame and box-office draw of the 1980s and ‘90s, when he appeared in iconic films such as Top Gun (1986) and Batman Forever (1995).

    His standout performance as Tom Cruise’s swaggering, self-assured rival Iceman in Top Gun made him a star. But the film that really cemented his reputation as a leading man was Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991), in which he played Jim Morrison to astonishing effect. He is the best thing about that film.

    Kilmer starred as Doc Holliday in the 1993 film Tombstone – a kind of cross between a superhero film and a western.
    IMDB

    In 1993, he starred as Doc Holliday in Tombstone, a stylish modern western, which he co-headlined with Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp. It was perhaps the most ’90s of the ’90s westerns. Kilmer’s performance was crowd-pleasing and critically acclaimed. His 2020 memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry, took its name from a line Kilmer spoke in the film.

    In some ways, it is a superhero film with cowboys – as you can see so clearly in the poster. It was this performance that put Kilmer on the radar of Warner Bros when they were looking to cast a new Batman after Michael Keaton abandoned the suit.

    Batman Forever

    We’ve got used to superhero films having cinematic universes and narrative continuity between films, but in the 1990s that had not quite been established.

    Warner Bros had struck cinematic gold with the first modern superhero blockbuster, Superman (1978) starring Christopher Reeve, but faced diminishing critical and financial returns with each subsequent film in the series. After Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) failed to connect with audiences, the studio turned to Batman to be its cinematic icon. In those days, one superhero film every couple of years was seen as sufficient. Fortunately, Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), two dark takes on the Batman story both starring Michael Keaton, were hits.

    However, Batman Returns was regarded by audiences and critics as too “dark”, and too Burton. Both Burton and the studio felt a change of pace was needed for a third film. Joel Schumacher was brought on as director and, perhaps due to the departure of Burton, Keaton also chose to leave the series.

    Fresh off Tombstone, Kilmer was cast as the superhero.

    Batman Forever took a goofier tone, inspired just as much by the campy 1960s TV series as the dark gothic noir style of Burton. It is still brooding, but the film is more bombastic, more colourful. Noted for performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey as the villains – and the costumes that famously featured nipples and codpieces – Kilmer’s performance got lost.

    Val Kilmer and Chris O’Donnell in Batman Forever (1995).
    IMDB

    Worse for Kilmer, rumours of being difficult to work with on the set of Batman may have set his career back in subsequent years. But, despite these difficulties, Kilmer makes a good Batman.

    He performed the role with a brooding physicality, as well as playfulness. He was underrated, and certainly better than George Clooney, who took over in Batman and Robin (1997) after Kilmer declined to return.

    The non-Keaton Batman films are sometimes overlooked by fans, or not seen as living up to the heights of the Burton movies. In recent years, Burton’s movies have become more or less canonised as the “real” Batman of the era. A series of comic books, Batman ’89, has been published since 2021 that continues the story from Batman Returns, bypassing the developments of Kilmer’s Batman Forever and Clooney’s Batman and Robin.

    Keaton has since reprised his role as the caped crusader on the silver screen as a major supporting character in The Flash (2023), which also featured cameos from Batman alumni Clooney and Ben Affleck as alternate universe versions of the Dark Knight. Kilmer and Christian Bale were the only retired big-screen Batmans not to appear in the film.

    But Batman Forever stands the test of time. It is an entertaining film that walks the line between the dark and brooding Batman from Burton, and the parody of the 1960s television series starring Adam West.

    Soulful melancholy

    Batman Forever was the pinnacle for Kilmer in terms of critical and commercial success. He followed it with great performances in films such as The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), but he was often the supporting character rather than the lead. These films, too, weren’t box-office smashes like his films up to and including Batman had been.

    One of his best performances of the 2000s was in the David Mamet film Spartan (2004). Kilmer plays a retired marine corps sergeant in a good leading turn. He gave a muscular performance that still had a soulful melancholy at its heart, which can be seen in a lot of his roles. He plays action figures who are tough and macho on the outside, but have a melancholy just below the surface.

    Although he never reprised his role as Bruce Wayne, a fitting coda for Kilmer’s career was the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick (2022), in which he gives a cameo as an ailing version of Iceman.

    Kilmer will be missed for his iconic roles as the quintessential performer of the late 1980s and ’90s. In 2021, a documentary about Kilmer, Val, was released, based on decades of archive footage. I would recommend it to audiences who want to know more about the man, his life, his career and his health battles over the past decades.

    Aaron Humphrey 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. Val Kilmer’s macho action figures held a melancholy just below the surface – https://theconversation.com/val-kilmers-macho-action-figures-held-a-melancholy-just-below-the-surface-253631

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Val Kilmer’s macho action figures held a melancholy just below the surface

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Humphrey, Lecturer, Media and Digital Humanities, University of Adelaide

    Leading man of 1990s Hollywood, Val Kilmer, has died at 65 from pneumonia. Battling cancer since 2014, he has not been a frequent presence on our film screens for most of this century. While he has recently done some interesting projects, he never recaptured his fame and box-office draw of the 1980s and ‘90s, when he appeared in iconic films such as Top Gun (1986) and Batman Forever (1995).

    His standout performance as Tom Cruise’s swaggering, self-assured rival Iceman in Top Gun made him a star. But the film that really cemented his reputation as a leading man was Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991), in which he played Jim Morrison to astonishing effect. He is the best thing about that film.

    Kilmer starred as Doc Holliday in the 1993 film Tombstone – a kind of cross between a superhero film and a western.
    IMDB

    In 1993, he starred as Doc Holliday in Tombstone, a stylish modern western, which he co-headlined with Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp. It was perhaps the most ’90s of the ’90s westerns. Kilmer’s performance was crowd-pleasing and critically acclaimed. His 2020 memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry, took its name from a line Kilmer spoke in the film.

    In some ways, it is a superhero film with cowboys – as you can see so clearly in the poster. It was this performance that put Kilmer on the radar of Warner Bros when they were looking to cast a new Batman after Michael Keaton abandoned the suit.

    Batman Forever

    We’ve got used to superhero films having cinematic universes and narrative continuity between films, but in the 1990s that had not quite been established.

    Warner Bros had struck cinematic gold with the first modern superhero blockbuster, Superman (1978) starring Christopher Reeve, but faced diminishing critical and financial returns with each subsequent film in the series. After Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) failed to connect with audiences, the studio turned to Batman to be its cinematic icon. In those days, one superhero film every couple of years was seen as sufficient. Fortunately, Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), two dark takes on the Batman story both starring Michael Keaton, were hits.

    However, Batman Returns was regarded by audiences and critics as too “dark”, and too Burton. Both Burton and the studio felt a change of pace was needed for a third film. Joel Schumacher was brought on as director and, perhaps due to the departure of Burton, Keaton also chose to leave the series.

    Fresh off Tombstone, Kilmer was cast as the superhero.

    Batman Forever took a goofier tone, inspired just as much by the campy 1960s TV series as the dark gothic noir style of Burton. It is still brooding, but the film is more bombastic, more colourful. Noted for performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey as the villains – and the costumes that famously featured nipples and codpieces – Kilmer’s performance got lost.

    Val Kilmer and Chris O’Donnell in Batman Forever (1995).
    IMDB

    Worse for Kilmer, rumours of being difficult to work with on the set of Batman may have set his career back in subsequent years. But, despite these difficulties, Kilmer makes a good Batman.

    He performed the role with a brooding physicality, as well as playfulness. He was underrated, and certainly better than George Clooney, who took over in Batman and Robin (1997) after Kilmer declined to return.

    The non-Keaton Batman films are sometimes overlooked by fans, or not seen as living up to the heights of the Burton movies. In recent years, Burton’s movies have become more or less canonised as the “real” Batman of the era. A series of comic books, Batman ’89, has been published since 2021 that continues the story from Batman Returns, bypassing the developments of Kilmer’s Batman Forever and Clooney’s Batman and Robin.

    Keaton has since reprised his role as the caped crusader on the silver screen as a major supporting character in The Flash (2023), which also featured cameos from Batman alumni Clooney and Ben Affleck as alternate universe versions of the Dark Knight. Kilmer and Christian Bale were the only retired big-screen Batmans not to appear in the film.

    But Batman Forever stands the test of time. It is an entertaining film that walks the line between the dark and brooding Batman from Burton, and the parody of the 1960s television series starring Adam West.

    Soulful melancholy

    Batman Forever was the pinnacle for Kilmer in terms of critical and commercial success. He followed it with great performances in films such as The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), but he was often the supporting character rather than the lead. These films, too, weren’t box-office smashes like his films up to and including Batman had been.

    One of his best performances of the 2000s was in the David Mamet film Spartan (2004). Kilmer plays a retired marine corps sergeant in a good leading turn. He gave a muscular performance that still had a soulful melancholy at its heart, which can be seen in a lot of his roles. He plays action figures who are tough and macho on the outside, but have a melancholy just below the surface.

    Although he never reprised his role as Bruce Wayne, a fitting coda for Kilmer’s career was the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick (2022), in which he gives a cameo as an ailing version of Iceman.

    Kilmer will be missed for his iconic roles as the quintessential performer of the late 1980s and ’90s. In 2021, a documentary about Kilmer, Val, was released, based on decades of archive footage. I would recommend it to audiences who want to know more about the man, his life, his career and his health battles over the past decades.

    Aaron Humphrey 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. Val Kilmer’s macho action figures held a melancholy just below the surface – https://theconversation.com/val-kilmers-macho-action-figures-held-a-melancholy-just-below-the-surface-253631

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Labor wants to give the minimum wage a real boost. The benefits would likely outweigh any downsides

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris F. Wright, Professor of Work and Labour Market Policy, University of Sydney

    Labor has called for an “economically sustainable real wage increase” for almost 3 million workers who depend on the award system for their wages.

    In a submission to the Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review on Wednesday, Labor said a real wage increase above inflation would provide cost-of-living relief for lower-income workers – especially in the early childhood, cleaning and retail sectors.

    Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has said he’s not opposed to an increase in minimum wages. Several major business groups have also tentatively endorsed an increase.

    But the size of the wage boost is in contention. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry wants an increase to be no higher than headline inflation, saying:

    [an] increase in minimum and modern award wages of no more than 2.5% is fair and reasonably responsible in the current economic environment.



    Read more:
    Labor will urge Fair Work Commission to give real wage rise to three million workers

    Can the government actually raise wages?

    The federal government doesn’t set minimum and award wages directly. That job falls to the Fair Work Commission, Australia’s independent national workplace relations tribunal.

    Each year, the commission receives submissions for the Annual Wage Review from “interested parties” such as business groups, trade unions and governments.

    Governments almost always make submissions, typically informed by economic logic, to the annual review.

    Labor’s submission is consistent with that approach. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said businesses would benefit overall, because when low-wage workers receive a wage increase, they typically spend rather than save it.

    Could a real wage boost fuel inflation?

    Labor’s proposal has already attracted concern.

    Some economists have argued it could increase inflation. That could make it harder for the Reserve Bank of Australia to deliver further interest rate cuts.

    However, this concern was addressed in the OECD’s 2023 Economic Outlook paper, which argued:

    in several sectors and countries, there is room for profits to absorb some further increases in wages to mitigate the loss of purchasing power at least for the low paid without generating significant additional price pressures.

    In other words, with inflation falling in Australia and other parts of the world, there is scope for wages to increase without a significant risk this will generate inflationary pressure.

    The OECD has also stated that much of the recent high global inflation was generated by the impact of the Ukraine war on rising food and energy prices, rather than wages.

    Wage growth without productivity growth

    A second concern relates to boosting wages in the context of Australia’s languishing levels of labour productivity – output per worker or per hour worked.

    On Tuesday, Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock said without an increase in productivity:

    the rate of nominal wages growth that can be sustained and be in line with the inflation target is lower.

    However, as Mark Bray and Alison Preston found in their interim report from the review of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay laws, labour productivity growth has been consistently higher than capital productivity.

    According to Bray and Preston:

    It is, therefore, difficult to argue that industrial relations systems have a significant, dominant effect on national productivity outcomes.

    If anything, a wages boost might be good for productivity. There is evidence to suggest measures to improve the quality of employment – including by increasing wages – can boost productivity.

    If workers feel they are paid fairly, they are more likely to be satisfied and work harder, and less likely to leave their employer.

    Staff turnover, on the other hand, requires employers to recruit and train new employees, which is time-consuming and resource-intensive, and can sap productivity.

    What about inequality?

    It’s important we don’t overlook another important factor in the minimum wage debate. Since its 2022 election victory, addressing inequality has been central to the Albanese government’s labour market reforms.

    Before 2022, wages growth was persistently weak for several years, despite the lowest unemployment rate in almost five decades.

    Low unemployment is generally assumed to stimulate wages growth, but this didn’t eventuate. This worsened workforce shortages, making it hard for employers to attract and retain workers.

    Findings from a large body of academic research published before the passage and implementation of the December 2022 Secure Jobs, Better Pay amendments highlighted the need for fairer redistribution in pay settings.

    The gender pay gap

    This includes addressing gender-based pay inequalities.

    Improving job quality – particularly by raising wages – in low-paid sectors is essential to advancing gender equality. The minimum wage and award-reliant segments of the Australian labour market are highly feminised. These include vital frontline roles in the care, cleaning and hospitality sectors.

    The latest Workplace Gender Equality Agency scorecard, drawing on ABS Labour Force Survey data, shows wage growth in these sectors over the past two years has contributed significantly to reducing the national gender pay gap to its lowest point on record.

    Lifting wages and job quality is not only crucial for attracting and retaining workers in these essential frontline roles. It also supports broader labour force participation, particularly for working parents.

    An “economically sustainable” boost to the minimum wage is therefore unlikely to drive up inflation, or adversely impact productivity. However, it will provide cost-of-living relief to Australia’s lowest-paid workers.

    Chris F. Wright has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the International Labour Organization, the Australian and NSW governments, and various business and trade union organisations.

    – ref. Labor wants to give the minimum wage a real boost. The benefits would likely outweigh any downsides – https://theconversation.com/labor-wants-to-give-the-minimum-wage-a-real-boost-the-benefits-would-likely-outweigh-any-downsides-253624

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Have your say on student accommodation

    Source: City of Norwich

    Published on Tuesday, 1st April 2025

    City residents are being asked to have their say on student accommodation in Norwich.

    Norwich City Council is seeking views on its new Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) concerning student accommodation within the city through Get Talking Norwich.

    A council spokesperson, said: “Norwich is home to two thriving universities, the University of East Anglia and Norwich University of the Arts, both of which are significant contributors to the local economy and are projected to continue their growth.

    “Over the past decade, a substantial amount of student accommodation has been developed, primarily within the city centre.  

    “We recognise the valuable contribution purpose built student accommodation makes to the housing market of Norwich alongside other forms of accommodation. However, we believe there is enough existing and planned student accommodation supply to meet the city’s needs until 2038.”

    The SPD also gives advice on the design of student accommodation, how it should be managed and where in the city they have been built.

    To get involved and make your views known on the SPD go to https://gettalking.norwich.gov.uk/pbsa

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI: Notice to convene Annual General Meeting

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Company announcement no. 3/2025

    According to Art. 9.1 of the Articles of Association, notice is hereby given of the Annual General Meeting of Columbus A/S to be held on:

    Tuesday 29 April 2025 at 10.00
    at Columbus, Lautrupvang 6, 2750 Ballerup

    Agenda:

    1. Board of Directors’ report on the business of the Company during the past year.

    2. Presentation and approval of the Annual Report.

    3. Resolution on the appropriation of profit or covering of loss as recorded in the adopted Annual Report.

    4. Presentation of and indicative ballot on the Remuneration Report.

    5. Proposal to authorize the Board of Directors to acquire for the Company up to 10 per cent of the Company‘s share capital

    6. Election of members of the Board of Directors

    7. Election of one or two state authorized public accountants as auditors.

    7.1. Election of state authorized public accountants as auditors
    7.2. Election of state authorized public accountants as sustainability auditors

    8. Any other business

    Full wording of proposals

    Re. item 1:
    The Board of Directors proposes that the General Meeting takes note of the Board of Director’s report on the business of the Company during the past year.

    Re. item 2:
    The Board of Directors recommends that the Annual Report 2024 be approved.

    Re. item 3:
    The Board of Directors proposes that the General Meeting approves the Board of Directors’ proposal for the allocation of profit as stated in the Annual Report for 2024, including distribution of an ordinary dividend to shareholders of DKK 0.125 per share of DKK 1.25 (nom.), corresponding to total dividends of DKK 16,159,533.

    Re. item 4:
    The Board of Directors recommends that the General Meeting approves the Remuneration Report.

    Re. item 5:
    The Board of Directors proposes that the General Meeting authorizes the Board of Directors for a period of 18 months from the date of the General Meeting to acquire for the Company up to 10 per cent of the Company‘s share capital against payment which shall not deviate more than 10 per cent up or downwards from the latest listed price of the shares at Nasdaq Copenhagen prior to the acquisition.

    Re. item 6:
    The Board of Directors proposes re-election of the following Board members:

    Ib Kunøe
    Sven Madsen
    Peter Skov Hansen
    Karina Kirk
    Per Kogut

    For further information about the individual Board members, see Appendix 1.

    Re. item 7.1:
    The Board of Directors recommends that Pricewaterhousecoopers Statsautoriseret Revisionspartnerselskab, CVR-no. 33 77 12 31 be re-elected in accordance with the recommendation from the Audit Committee. The Audit Committee has not been influenced by third parties and has not been subjected to any agreement with third parties which limits the General Meeting’s election of certain auditors or auditing firms.

    Re. item 7.2:
    The Board of Directors recommends that Pricewaterhousecoopers Statsautoriseret Revisionspartnerselskab, CVR-no. 33 77 12 31 be elected to provide a statement on sustainability reporting in the management’s review in accordance with the recommendation from the Audit Committee. The Audit Committee has not been influenced by third parties and has not been subjected to any agreement with third parties which limits the General Meeting’s election of certain auditors or auditing firms.

    Adoption requirements
    For adoption of the proposals under the items 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 on the agenda simple majority is required.

    Registration date
    The date of registration is 22 April 2025, at 23:59 CET.
    Only shareholders who possess shares in the Company at the expiration of the registration date are entitled to participate and vote at the Annual General Meeting. On expiry of the date of registration, the shares held by each of the Company‘s shareholders on the date of registration date is determined on the basis of the shares registered in the register of shareholders and duly evidenced notifications to the Company of share acquisitions not yet entered in the register of shareholders, but received by the Company before expiry of the date of registration.

    Participation is furthermore conditional on the shareholder‘s punctual requisitioning of an admission card as described below.

    Procedure for participating in and voting at the Company’s Annual General Meeting
    Requisition of admission cards:
    digitally via the Shareholder Portal on the Company’s website: cgr@columbusglobal.com.

    Registration must reach Computershare A/S or the Company no later than Friday 25 April 2025 at 23:59 CET.

    Ordered admission cards will be sent out by e-mail. This requires that your email address is registered on the Shareholder Portal, or that you register your e-mail address when ordering admission card via the Shareholder Portal. After registration, you will receive an electronic admission card. Bring your electronic version on your smartphone or tablet. If you have forgotten your admission card for the general meeting, it can be obtained against presentation of appropriate proof of identification. Ballot papers will be handed out at the entry point at the General Meeting.

    Proxies:
    Proxies can be granted:
    digitally via the shareholder portal on the Company’s website: Information from the Company

    No later than 7 April 2025 the following information will be available to the shareholders at the Company’s website

    By the notice to convene annual general meeting Columbus A/S has registered a share capital of nominal DKK 161,595,330, corresponding to 129,276,264 shares of nominal DKK 1.25. Each share of nominal DKK 1.25 provides 1 vote.

    Ballerup, April 2nd, 2025
    Board of Directors, Columbus A/S

    Appendix 1: Election of members to the Board of Directors 

    Election of members to the Board of Directors and recruitment criteria
    Pursuant to Columbus A/S’ Articles of Associations, the Board of Directors must consist of 3-7 members to be elected by the general meeting for a term of one year.

    When nominating new Board members, management experience, professional and financial competencies needed to ensure that the Board has the necessary competencies to be able to manage the interests of the Company and thereby the shareholders are carefully assessed.

    Besides competencies and qualification, new candidates are selected on the basis of criteria such as the need for seniority, renewal and diversity.

    The Company’s Articles of Association do not include restrictions concerning the number of times a member is allowed to be re-elected to the Board of Directors. Seniority in itself is not a crucial criterion, but the Board of Directors finds that long seniority and thereby extensive experience for part of the Board members is highly beneficial to the company. Seniority combined with continuous renewal ensure a broad-based composition of the Board of Directors.

    Gender, age and nationality are not qualifications alone, but are part of the total assessment of the competencies of a board candidate.

    Information about proposed candidates
    Below, competencies and directorships in other companies are described for each of the proposed candidates.

    It is the Board of Director’s assessment that the proposed candidates represent the necessary competencies in the Board of Directors to ensure that the size, composition and competencies of the Board of Directors is such that constructive discussions and efficient decision-making process can be ensured during Board meetings.

    Ib Kunøe
    Born 1943
    Chairman of the Board
    Member of the Board since 2004, re-elected in 2024
    Does not fulfill the Committee of Corporate Governance definition of independency

    Education:
    Holds an HD Graduate Diploma in Organisation and Management as well as a background as a professional officer (major).

    Chairman of the Board for:
    Consolidated Holdings A/S, X-Yachts A/S, X-Yachts Marina A/S, CALUM Ballerup K/S, CALUM Åbyhøj K/S, CALUM Værløse K/S, CALUM Rødovre K/S, Komplementarselskabet Åbyhøj ApS, Komplementarselskabet Værløse ApS, Komplementarselskabet Rødovre ApS, Komplementarselskabet Ballerup ApS

    Member of the Board for:
    Atrium Partner A/S

    Special competencies:
    Company management, including management of IT companies, development of and dealing with companies.

    Sven Madsen
    Born 1964
    Member of the Board since 2007, re-elected in 2024
    CFO in Consolidated Holdings A/S
    Member of the Audit Committee
    Does not fulfill the Committee of Corporate Governance definition of independency

    Education:
    Holds a Graduate Diploma in Financial and Management Accounting and an MSc in Business Economics and Auditing

    Chairman of the Board for:
    Atea ASA, CHV III ApS, Dansk Emballage A/S

    Member of the Board for:
    Consolidated Holdings A/S, core:workers AB, core:workers Holding A/S, X-Yachts A/S,  X-Yachts Marina A/S, Ejendomsaktieselskabet af 1920 A/S, DAN-Palletiser Finans A/S, MonTa Biosciences ApS.

    Special competencies:
    General management, M&A, business development, economic and financial issues.

    Peter Skov Hansen
    Born 1951
    Member of the Board since 2012, re-elected in 2024
    Chairman of the Audit Committee
    Transitioning from being independent to no longer fulfilling the Committee of Corporate Governance’s definition of independence due to the duration of the board tenure exceeding 12 years.

    Education:
    Completed State Authorized Public Accountant education in 1980, registered as non-practicing 

    Member of the Board for:
    X-Yachts A/S

    Special competencies:
    Business development and financial, accounting and tax related issues.

    Karina Kirk
    Born 1971
    Member of the Board since 2018, re-elected in 2024
    Owner of KIRK & CO., Executive and board advisory
    Fulfills the Committee of Corporate Governance definition of independency

    Education:
    Holds a Master of Science in International Business Administration (1996), NYU Stern School of Business, MBA selected classes (1994), Executive, Board Leadership and Governance (2017)

    Member of the Board for:
    Ringsted Olie A/S, BRO Kommunikation A/S

    Special competencies:
    General management, management of consulting companies, market and customer leadership, business development and business transformation.

    Per Kogut
    Born 1964
    Member of the Board since 2022, reelected in 2024
    Fulfills the Committee of Corporate Governance definition of independency

    Education:
    Per Kogut holds a Master, Public Administration & IT science from the University of Copenhagen.

    Chairman of the Board for:
    Digital Hub Denmark

    Member of the Board for:
    Loyal Solutions A/S, Loyal Solutions A/S, Enhance TopCo A/S, Enhance BidCo ApS, Relatable Consulting A/S and Automize A/S

    Special competencies:
    General management, management of consulting companies, market and customer leadership and business development.

    Attachment

      SE_03_2025_Notice_to_convene_Annual_General_Meeting

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Europeans have more flexible views on how to respond to irregular migrants than policymakers think – new research

    Source: The Conversation – France – By Martin Ruhs, Professor of Migration Studies, European University Institute

    With an estimated minimum of 2.6 to 3.2 million irregular migrants in Europe and fierce public debates about them, policymakers face the difficult question of how to ensure migrants’ basic rights of protection from exploitation, destitution and ill health while also establishing effective migration controls. However, we know surprisingly little about how Europeans think about this policy dilemma.

    In our study, the first of its kind in Europe, we surveyed 20,000 people across Austria, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the UK to understand their preferences on policies regarding access to healthcare, social welfare and labour protections, as well as the obtainment of regular legal status or “regularisation” for irregular migrants.

    The results challenge the idea that public attitudes toward irregular migrants’ rights are simply “for” or “against”. Instead, we find that variations in policy design matter – and when policies include both migration controls and protections for migrants, public support often increases.

    Our method

    To study public preferences for policies relating to irregular migrants, we conducted a conjoint survey experiment. In it, respondents were presented with different multidimensional “policy packages” that randomly varied in how they regulated opportunities for regularisation, as well as legal rights to access primary health care, financial support in low-income situations, and back pay of withheld wages.

    Respondents were shown two policy packages at a time, and then asked to rate and indicate which of the two they preferred. For each respondent, this process was repeated five times. This method allowed us to study how a change in a particular policy feature – e.g., a change in how access to primary healthcare is regulated – affects individuals’ support for the overall policy package.

    So, what do Europeans think? Here are some of our key results.

    • People favour selective regularisation

    Our results suggest that the public prefers targeted pathways for regularisation for irregular migrants. Across all five countries we analysed, respondents consistently preferred policies that allow irregular migrants to acquire legal status based on certain conditions, including a clean criminal record and a minimum length of stay in the host country. Somewhat surprisingly, there was no consistent preference between a five-year or ten-year minimum residence period.

    • Healthcare gets more support than financial assistance

    We found that giving irregular migrants access to healthcare is far less controversial than giving access to financial support for those living on low incomes. This aligns with findings from the US, where such support has remained politically divisive.

    • Some migration controls boost support for access to rights – but not all rights

    We also found greater support for irregular migrants receiving health care and back pay for withheld wages when these rights were linked to a migration control measure: obligations for public sector employees to report irregular migrants to authorities.

    This suggests, as existing literature highlights, that many people experience an internal conflict between humanitarian concerns and a desire for stricter migration controls.

    However, the pattern in our data does not hold for all rights: even when combined with reporting obligations, the provision of cash assistance for irregular migrants still does not generate public support.

    • A preference for essential workers

    Not all irregular migrants are viewed equally: our findings show that people are more supportive of rights and regularisation opportunities for migrants who previously worked legally in the host country – especially in essential roles like elder care. This reflects broader research on attitudes toward welfare deservingness, which found that public perception of migrants’ past contributions to society shape views on whether they should get access to rights.

    How do attitudes differ across countries?

    While there are many similarities in public views on regularisation opportunities and access to rights for irregular migrants across the countries we studied, there are also some notable differences. For example, support for providing primary healthcare varied: respondents in the UK were the least supportive, and respondents in Italy were the most. Similarly, while respondents in most countries opposed the provision of low-income support, Italian respondents were more ambivalent, showing no strong preference for or against this right for irregular migrants.

    Overall, respondents in Italy showed the greatest preferences for inclusive policies, including the strongest support for allowing irregular migrants to apply for legal status. While our analysis does not investigate the reasons for this, it may reflect Italy’s history of regularisation programmes in recent decades, which may have made Italian respondents more open to and supportive of such programmes.

    Rethinking public attitudes about irregular migrants

    Public attitudes matter – they influence which policies are feasible and sustainable over time. Our research shows that EU and UK residents don’t default to blunt and one-sided policies such as blanket opposition to irregular migrants ever gaining legal status. Instead, people are selective, and prefer policies that distinguish between giving irregular migrants different types of rights. People also have specific views about when and why irregular migrants should have access to healthcare, social welfare, labour protections and legal status.

    This does not mean that survey respondents wanted to offer unconditional legal status and access to rights to all irregular migrants. Instead, respondents often preferred an approach that combines selective access to rights with enforcement of migration rules. What our study indicates is that the public has more nuanced views on how migration should be managed than policymakers generally give them credit for. This suggests there may be more room for selective and inclusive policymaking than often assumed.

    This article is based on a research paper co-authored by Lutz Gschwind (Uppsala University, UU), Martin Ruhs (EUI), Anton Ahlén (UU) and Joakim Palme (UU). The paper is part of the international “PRIME” project that analyses the conditions of irregular migrants in Europe. PRIME is funded by the European Union Horizon Europe programme. Views and opinions expressed, however, are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

    The author has received support from the European Union Horizon Europe funding programme for research and innovation (project number 101095113).

    – ref. Europeans have more flexible views on how to respond to irregular migrants than policymakers think – new research – https://theconversation.com/europeans-have-more-flexible-views-on-how-to-respond-to-irregular-migrants-than-policymakers-think-new-research-253473

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Universities – NTU Singapore scientists create ‘fungi tiles’ with elephant skin texture to cool buildings

    Source: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore)

    Proof-of-concept shows promise as a sustainable passive cooling solution

    A team of scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed ‘fungi tiles’ that could one day help to bring the heat down in buildings without consuming energy.

    These wall tiles are made from a new biomaterial combining fungi’s root network – called mycelium – and organic waste. Earlier research has shown that mycelium-bound composites are more energy efficient than conventional building insulation materials such as expanded vermiculite and lightweight expanded clay aggregate.

    Building on this proven insulating property, the NTU Singapore team worked with local ecology and biomimicry design firm bioSEA to add a bumpy, wrinkly texture to the tile, mimicking an elephant’s ability to regulate heat from its skin. Elephants do not have sweat glands and rely on these wrinkles and crevices on their skin to regulate heat.

    In laboratory experiments, the scientists found that the cooling rate of their elephant skin-inspired mycelium tile was 25 per cent better than a fully flat mycelium tile, and the heating rate was 2 per cent lower. They also found that the elephant skin-inspired tile’s cooling effect improved a further 70 per cent in simulated rain conditions, making it suitable for tropical climates.

    The construction industry accounts for nearly 40 per cent of all energy-related emissions worldwide, so the search for eco-friendly insulation materials is critical. NTU’s Associate Professor Hortense Le Ferrand, who led the study, said mycelium-bound composites could be a promising alternative.

    Assoc Prof Le Ferrand, who holds a joint appointment at NTU’s Schools of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) and Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), said: “Insulation materials are increasingly integrated into building walls to enhance energy efficiency, but these are mostly synthetic and come with environmental consequences throughout their life cycle. Mycelium-bound composite is a biodegradable material that is highly porous, which makes it a good insulator. In fact, its thermal conductivity is comparable to or better than some of the synthetic insulating materials used in buildings today.

    “We worked closely with bioSEA to integrate natural design principles that can optimise its performance as a building insulator. The result is a promising proof of concept that takes us one step closer to efficient, sustainable, and cheaper passive cooling solutions in hot and humid conditions.”

    Dr Anuj Jain, the Founding Director of bioSEA explained the inspiration behind the elephant-linked innovation: “Elephants are large animals that live in hot and sometimes humid tropical climates. To withstand the heat, elephants evolved to develop a skin that is heavily wrinkled which increases water retention and cools the animal by evaporation. We were inspired by how an elephant could cool itself in hot weather without sweat glands, and tried to see how we could replicate the same cooling mechanisms of shading, trapping cool air, and increasing the surface area for water to evaporate.”

    This study, published in Energy & Buildings in February, builds on Assoc Prof Le Ferrand’s work on possible uses for mycelium-bound composites, such as for greener construction materials.

    Turning fungi into a functional material

    Mycelium-bound composites are created by growing fungi on organic matter such as sawdust or agricultural waste. As the fungus grows, it binds the organic matter into a solid, porous composite.

    For this study, the NTU scientists used the mycelium of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) – a commonly found fungus – and bamboo shavings collected from a furniture shop.

    These two components were mixed with oats and water and packed into a hexagonal mould with an elephant skin-inspired texture designed by bioSEA using computational modelling and algorithms to select the optimal design.

    The mycelium tiles were left to grow in the dark for two weeks, then removed from the hexagonal mould and left to grow in the same conditions for another two weeks.

    Finally, the tiles were dried in an oven at 48°C for three days. This final step removes any remaining moisture, prohibiting further mycelial growth.

    Elephant skin-inspired texture improves heat regulation

    Previous research has shown that mycelium-bound composites have thermal conductivity comparable to conventional building insulation materials like glass wool and extruded polystyrene.

    To assess how an elephant skin-inspired texture affects the mycelium tile’s heat regulation, the scientists heated mycelium tiles on a 100°C hot plate for 15 minutes and tracked temperature changes using an infrared camera.

    They found that the elephant skin-inspired tile absorbed heat more slowly. When its bumpy textured surface faced the heat source, its temperature increased by 5.01°C per minute, compared to 5.85°C per minute when its flat surface was exposed to heat. As a control, the scientists also heated a flat mycelium tile and found it gained 5.11°C per minute.

    To measure the tile’s cooling efficiency, the scientists heated one side at 100°C for 15 minutes, then exposed it to ambient conditions (22°C, 80% humidity) and measured temperature changes on the tile’s opposite side.

    The elephant-skin-inspired tile cooled fastest when heated from the flat side, losing 4.26°C per minute. When heated from the textured side, its flat side lost 3.12°C per minute. The fully flat control tile lost 3.56°C per minute.

    Based on these findings, the scientists recommended installing the tiles with the flat side adhered to the building façade and the textured surface exposed to external heat for optimal thermal performance (See image in Notes to Editor for how tiles could be used).

    Tiles perform better in wet weather

    To simulate the effect of rain on the tiles, the scientists heated the tiles as described earlier. While allowing them to cool, the scientists sprayed water onto the tiles at one-minute intervals over a 15-minute period.

    When misted on its bumpy side, the elephant skin-inspired tile lost 7.27°C per minute – a 70 per cent improvement compared to its performance in dry conditions.

    The scientists attributed this effect to the mycelium-bound composite’s hydrophobic nature. “The fungal skin that develops on the tile’s surface repels water, allowing droplets to remain on the surface rather than roll off immediately. This promotes evaporative cooling, increasing the cooling rate,” explained Eugene Soh, an NTU researcher and the study’s first author.

    Building on this proof of concept, the scientists are now exploring ways to enhance the tiles for real-world use, such as increasing their mechanical stability and durability or using different mycelium strains.

    The scientists are also working with local start-up Mykílio to scale up the size of the mycelium tiles and conduct outdoor tests on building façades.

    A challenge they foresee in scaling up the production of the tiles is the time needed to grow the mycelium tiles. While it requires minimal energy resources, the process takes three to four weeks.

    The scientists also expect high inertia towards using mycelium tiles as an alternative construction material due to the well-established infrastructure in production, storage, and transportation of common insulating materials.

    Said Assoc Prof Le Ferrand: “We’ve developed a promising eco-friendly alternative that transforms waste into a valuable resource while rethinking conventional thermal management materials. This opens the pathway for more elephant skin-inspired designs and the use of different mycelium strains to overcome the challenges that come with using mycelium tiles as an alternative construction material.”

    Notes

    The research paper titled “Biodegradable mycelium tiles with elephant skin inspired texture for thermal regulation of buildings” was published in Energy and Buildings in Volume 328, 1 February 2025, 115187

    DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.115187  

    MIL OSI – Submitted News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Election diary: Dutton tries to shake off Trump dust and avoid being trapped on wages

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

    Ahead of Donald Trump’s tariff announcement early Thursday (Australian time), the United States president has become a serious and increasing worry for Peter Dutton’s campaign. Even apart from Labor’s obvious and constant “Trump-whistling”, many voters are apparently seeing a lot of Trump dust on the opposition leader.

    Liberal strategists know how dangerous this is, given Trump’s unpopularity with Australians. So Dutton is shaping up.

    In a Sky interview aired Wednesday, Dutton positioned himself as ready to take on Trump (or anyone else) if necessary. “If I needed to have a fight with Donald Trump or any other world leader to advance our nation’s interests, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” he declared. “And I’ll put the Americans on notice and anyone else who seeks to act against our national interest.”

    It’s a measure of where things are that an Australian conservative leader is putting “the Americans on notice”.

    Anthony Albanese – who once said Trump “scares the shit out of me” – suggested his opponent was going over the top.

    “Peter Dutton will always dial things up to 11. He thinks this is a contest of who can say the most aggro things. It’s not. It’s not the way that diplomacy works.”

    When it comes to Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement – which will feed directly into the Australian campaign – it seems diplomacy hasn’t worked.

    Trade Minister Don Farrell told briefings for agricultural and industry groups on Tuesday and Wednesday he was “pessimistic”, suggesting the likelihood of a tariff of up to 20% across the board.

    Farrell indicated the Australian government had put an offer to the US, but that was rejected. Australia rejected a counter offer from the US, and resubmitted its original offer.

    At Wednesday’s briefing for the red meat industry, Farrell said, “Tomorrow might be the end of the first part of the process but we’ll continue to engage with the Americans to get these tariffs removed, as we did with the Chinese”.

    The government is preparing its response, which reportedly could involve taking the US to the World Trade Organisation. Asked about this, Albanese would not be drawn but told the ABC, “What we’re doing is supporting our US Free Trade Agreement, that says that goods and services between our two nations should be tariff-free.

    “That’s what we’re doing, supporting our agreement, holding to our word, standing up for Australia’s national interest, and calling for the United States not only to stand up for that agreement, but to stand up to their own interests as well.”

    Liberals play it cool on Albanese’s bid for real wage rise

    The Liberals had a very bad experience on wages in the 2022 election.

    Then-opposition leader Albanese said he’d “absolutely” support a wage increase to keep up with inflation, which was more than 5%.

    The Coalition went on the attack, branding him as economically irresponsible. As he campaigned in the following days, Albanese kept producing a gold coin to show how small the rise would be for those on the minimum wage. He still occasionally reprises this party trick.

    Labor is once again campaigning on wages, this time advocating a boost to real wages – that is, an increase above inflation, which is now down to 2.4%. (The submission put in on Wednesday to the Fair Work Commission went in from the Labor Party, rather than the government, because we’re in the “caretaker” period.)

    The government’s position is clever. It says the wage rise, which would cover about three million workers, should be “economically sustainable”. But it doesn’t recommend a figure.

    The Liberals a re trying to stay off the wages sticky paper. To be saying “no” in a cost-of-living election would only spell grief. Instead, they’re keeping their response vague. “We support wage increases”, Dutton said, without being specific about the government’s above-inflation pitch.

    As to a figure, “Without further economic advice from treasury and finance, our position is we want higher wages and we want to make sure we have downward pressure on costs”.

    “The prime minister is in search of a fight here,” Dutton said, a conclusion that didn’t require much perception, a fight Dutton was determined to try to side step.

    Labor’s case received some backing on Wednesday from the Australian Industry Group, which suggested a rise of 2.6%.

    The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry advocated a rise of no more than 2.5%. Asked what sort of difference there was between ACCI and the government, ACCI CEO Andrew McKellar said “that’s very hard to say. They are deliberately being non-specific.”

    The ABC is in the Liberals’ sights – again

    The ABC is a favourite target for many Liberals, including Dutton. In recent months he has singled out ABC reporters for attention when he didn’t like their questions.

    So would he look at its budget? Dutton is leaving the impression he likely would; moreover he is critical of the national broadcaster’s regional service, which even most Coalition MPs praise.

    “The approach that we would take is to reward excellence and where we find waste, to cut that waste.

    “And there are a lot of regional services for the ABC which I think are underdone,” he said in his Sky interview. He’d been in western Queensland this week looking at the floods “and the ABC could be a much more integral part of that community. But just having it based in Sydney or just being based in Melbourne is not helping people in outer metro areas or regional areas.”

    According to the ABC, it has about 600 employees in rural and regional Australia in 56 locations.

    Michelle Grattan 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. Election diary: Dutton tries to shake off Trump dust and avoid being trapped on wages – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-dutton-tries-to-shake-off-trump-dust-and-avoid-being-trapped-on-wages-253117

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI China: Micro dramas, video games, online literature: Chinese digital content goes global

    Source: China State Council Information Office 3

    Through the global expansion of micro dramas, video games and online literature, Chinese digital works have become part of their daily entertainment for many international audiences.

    Chinese micro-drama platforms have achieved considerable reach, with over 300 apps accumulating more than 470 million downloads worldwide across more than 200 countries and regions, according to the National Radio and Television Administration.

    One prominent example is ReelShort, a micro-drama platform under Crazy Maple Studio. Its minute-long episodes, featuring intense plot twists and rapid story development, have quickly gained a large following — and are mostly watched on smart devices.

    “Last year we explored new formats by localizing Chinese micro dramas for global distribution and co-producing content with Hollywood crews. Now, we have hundreds of staff locally,” said Nan Yapeng, vice president of Crazy Maple Studio.

    The gaming sector has seen similar breakthroughs. “Black Myth: Wukong,” a 3A video game with cutting-edge graphics, has captivated global players, while established gaming hits like “Genshin Impact” and “Honkai: Star Rail” continue to rank among the top downloaded items in over 100 countries and regions.

    Data from the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association (CADPA) show that China’s gaming industry reported overseas revenue of 18.56 billion U.S. dollars in 2024 — up 13.39 percent compared with the previous year.

    Games like “Genshin Impact” and “Black Myth: Wukong” demonstrate China’s cultural innovation by skillfully blending traditional heritage with global fantasy elements, said Xue Ke, deputy dean of USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

    This creative fusion of ancient stories and interactive experiences not only resonates worldwide but also maintains authentic Chinese roots, Xue added.

    Recognition also extends to online literature. In November 2024, the British Library expanded its Chinese collection by adding 10 online novels by Chinese authors, including “Lord of the Mysteries,” “Soul Land” and “The Joy of Life.” This library first added Chinese online literature to its collection in 2022.

    In 2023, total revenue of China’s online literature industry in the overseas market amounted to 4.35 billion yuan (about 606 million U.S. dollars), a 7.06 percent year-on-year increase, according to a report from the CADPA.

    Notably, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) also brings new opportunities for the global expansion of China’s digital content.

    WebNovel, an online reading platform, added over 2,000 AI-translated works in 2024 alone, while gaming giant miHoYo has filed hundreds of patents in AI, cloud gaming and other technologies, achieving procedural content production for 3D rendering.

    “AI technology will help boost the global expansion of Chinese culture, transforming content exports from premium offerings to large-scale distribution,” said Li Ming, CEO of NewTV, an internet television media platform. 

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Scientists from Novosibirsk State University presented new type of training devices for forensic experts

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University –

    The II International Scientific and Analytical Forum “Digital Law” was held at the “Boiling Point – Novosibirsk” of Academpark. The event was organized by Novosibirsk State University (Institute of Philosophy and Law), Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Law School of Heilongjiang University (PRC).

    — We hold many joint events with the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but today, thanks to cooperation with Heilongjiang University, we are already reaching the international level of discussing the problems of legal regulation in the field of information technology. The Forum program includes many reports on various aspects of digital law. And all this suggests that its topic is becoming more and more relevant every year, the emergence of new technologies entails the emergence of new tasks and conflicts that need to be resolved with the help of legal mechanisms, — noted Vladimir Diev, Director of the Institute of Philosophy and Law of NSU, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, in his speech.

    The forum program opened with a report by Doctor of Law, Professor of the Department of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Forensic Science at NSU Roman Borovskikh, dedicated to the university’s developments in the field of new technologies for training future forensic scientists.

    — Forensic science is an applied science, it requires honing certain skills, which is best done at a testing ground. But it is not always possible to create a full-scale, physical testing ground, and here its virtual version comes to the rescue. Simulators are used in many areas of training specialists — in cosmonautics, medicine, and others. We have applied this approach in jurisprudence, — he said.

    Modeling of training scenarios on simulators is carried out in several directions. First of all, lines of models are built on the investigation of different types of crimes: violent against the person (murder, rape, etc.), property (various thefts), economic, official, etc. Within each such line there is a gradation depending on a specific situation in which the investigation takes place – place, time, situation, etc.

    — Our simulators are based on the idea of a computer game, a quest, but at the same time they incorporate the entire arsenal of forensic tools for investigation, evidence collection, verification of versions, and so on. That is, they allow you to simulate the situation of investigating certain types of crimes in a game form. And the first lessons on them have already aroused great interest not only among students, but also among our fellow practitioners and scientists, — emphasized Roman Borovskikh.

    In addition to NSU students, participants of the first international student festival of cybercriminology were able to work on cyber simulators CRIMELABE Fest-2024, organized by the university last fall. The event was a success, and Roman Borovskikh invited all the forum participants to take part in the next festival, which will take place approximately in September 2025.

    It can be expected that by that time the list of situations simulated on virtual training grounds will expand even more – simulator developers are constantly improving their product.

    — Not long ago, we formed a working group, which included university employees as theorists and employees of the Investigative Committee as practitioners. The goal is to improve this educational technology. In particular, we added to the range of simulated situations the investigation of an airliner crash, sabotage at infrastructure facilities. And we continue this work. I think we will be able to show a lot of interesting things at the next festival, — Roman Borovskikh summed up.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: New research lays bare the harsh realities facing artists and arts workers

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grace McQuilten, Associate professor, RMIT University

    Australia’s visual arts and craft workers are facing increasingly deteriorating conditions, according to research published today.

    Our four-year study reveals workers are abandoning the visual art sector, largely because of unstable employment, below-average salaries and a lack of support.

    We present findings from the largest academic surveys of artists and arts workers to-date – the first conducted in 2022 (more than 700 respondents) and the second in 2024 (almost 900 respondents) – with income and employment data from four financial years between 2018 and 2024.

    Alongside the surveys, we conducted interviews with 20 artists and arts workers to better understand hybrid career patterns – and consulted widely with industry.

    Comparable to the gig economy

    Artists and arts workers represent a financially vulnerable group in Australia’s workforce. Our research identified concerning patterns of work, including:

    • high levels of education that don’t match salaries, which are well below the average for professional workers

    • high levels of unpaid work, volunteer work and self-employment

    • a highly gendered (majority women) workforce, with a significant gender pay gap

    • barriers to opportunity and career progression for people with disability and from diverse cultural backgrounds.

    We also found artists and arts workers often don’t know which awards and agreements they’re covered by, if any.

    A gendered workforce

    According to our 2024 survey responses, more than 74% of the visual arts workforce identify as women.

    Despite this, there was a significant gender pay gap. On average, woman artists earned 47% less than men artists, while women arts workers earned 23% less than men arts workers.

    This is much higher than the broader gender pay gap of 11.5% in 2024 (based on base pay for full-time workers).

    The average income from visual art or craft practice in 2023–24 was A$13,937, with men artists reporting an average of $23,130, women artists $12,330, and non-binary artists $14,074.

    This is matched with slow progression through career stages from emerging to “established”, particularly for women artists.

    Lack of security, long hours, little return

    Artists are surviving by taking multiple jobs. Only 25% of respondents spent 100% of their working time as an artist – with 82% receiving at least some income from other jobs.

    Half of artists also participated in unpaid work. This equated to an average of 28 hours per month.

    The cost-of-living crisis added further financial pressure, with 63% of respondents saying they were very or moderately financially stressed when it came to paying for essential goods and services.

    This had a flow-on effect on wellbeing. Half the artists surveyed rated their mental health as poor or fair, while 59% rated their work-life balance as poor or fair. These issues were amplified for artists with disability and from diverse cultural backgrounds, who experience significant barriers to participation.

    Arts workers, meanwhile, reported working an average of 45 hours per week in 2024. Despite this, 60% said they wanted to work even more hours – pointing to low pay and the challenges of making an arts career viable.

    On average, arts workers earned an annual income of $63,031. This was much lower than professionals in other industries, who earned an average income of $100,017.

    Levelling the playing field

    Our report contains a suite of policy recommendations and priority actions for the arts industry to address these issues.

    To address gender-related disparities, we suggest:

    • requiring gender pay gap reporting from organisations receiving public funding, along with action plans to address disparities

    • greater transparency in recruitment and promotion processes

    • commitments to gender equity targets in leadership positions.

    We also recommend greater transparency and reporting of disability and cultural diversity representation in staffing, including leadership and board roles, to promote accountability and drive cultural change.

    Funding incentives should be introduced to support diverse leadership – including higher pay to compensate for the additional workload carried by workers from First Nations, disability and culturally diverse backgrounds.

    Boosting incomes

    To address the intractable issue of low incomes, we suggest all funding contracts from state and federal arts bodies mandate adherence to industry best practice (such as NAVA’s Code of Practice). This will help agencies better support artists and arts workers, and uphold employment standards across the sector.

    Further, operational funding agreements should consistently prioritise secure work for artists and arts workers, by laying down permanent contracts or minimum fixed terms.

    Finally, there must be greater, more transparent recognition of the amount of unpaid labour in the arts, and a commitment to moving away from this. We therefore recommend sector-wide reportable targets aimed at reducing unpaid labour.

    Grace McQuilten received funding from the Australian Research Council. The Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)

    Chloë Powell received funding from the Australian Research Council. The Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054).

    Jenny Lye received funding from the Australian Research Council. The Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)

    Kate MacNeill received funding from the Australian Research Council. The Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)

    Marnie Badham received funding from the Australian Research Council: Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054).

    – ref. New research lays bare the harsh realities facing artists and arts workers – https://theconversation.com/new-research-lays-bare-the-harsh-realities-facing-artists-and-arts-workers-253547

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: US Senator Cory Booker just spoke for 25 hours in Congress. What was he trying to achieve?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Bruce Wolpe, Non-resident Senior Fellow, United States Study Centre, University of Sydney

    The Democrats have been under intense pressure to find an effective way to challenge US President Donald Trump without control of either chamber of Congress or a de facto opposition leader.

    They may have just found one. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker took the Senate floor on Monday evening in Washington to give a speech lambasting Trump’s actions. He didn’t stop talking – aside for the occasional question from a fellow Democrat – until Tuesday night, 25 hours later.

    So, how common are these types of speeches in the US Congress, and what’s the point?

    Cory Booker reportedly did not leave the chamber to use the toilet and sipped from two glasses of water.

    Filibusters throughout history

    Booker’s speech set a new record for the longest continuous speech in the Senate, surpassing Senator Strom Thurmond’s 24-hour speech in 1957 to try to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

    This was during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during the second world war. The army was the great desegregation force in the 1940s, and Eisenhower, as president in the 1950s, was strongly in favour of civil rights.

    Strom Thurmond.
    Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division/Wikimedia Commons

    In 1957, Congress was going to pass a civil rights bill that would make it harder for officials in southern states, in particular, to prevent Black people from voting. So Thurmond, the South Carolina senator and fierce proponent of segregation, launched what was (until today) the longest speech in Senate history to oppose it.

    Thurmond’s speech was a filibuster, an extended speech in the Senate to attempt to delay or block a vote on a bill or confirmation. Thurmond, however, was unable to stop enactment of the bill.

    Senators engage in filibusters when they know they’re going to lose, especially when it’s a piece of legislation they really dislike or disagree with. Because they can’t stop the passage of the bill, they use the filibuster to call attention to their opposition to it. The intention is to rally the troops and say, “I’m standing with you, even if this vote goes the other way”.

    In 2016, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who represents the state of Connecticut where the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place, launched a nearly 15-hour filibuster to force the Republican Senate leadership to allow votes on two gun control measures.

    Republican Senator Ted Cruz also spoke all night – 21 hours in total – against Obamacare in 2013. It wasn’t all focused on health policy; he filled the time by reading the children’s book, Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss.

    Highlights from Ted Cruz’s filibuster.

    What Booker was trying to achieve

    Booker’s speech was not technically a filibuster – he wasn’t holding the floor to talk against a specific bill, as Thurmond was. He was giving time to his Democratic colleagues to just control the shape of the general debate about Trump.

    Senators use speeches like this when they’re losing on a issue, and Booker feels the Democrats are currently losing to Trump. They have been unable to stop any of his executive actions, so they feel they need to cut through in some way to reach the American people.

    Trump has been “flooding the zone” from the moment he took office in January with hundreds of policies and executive actions – and he has been extremely successful at it. These actions cut across so many areas, it’s been very hard for the Democrats, on any given day, to pick out the top things to fight against.

    Because they don’t have control of the House or Senate, and there is no opposition leader, there is no single, principal Democrat who can stand up day by day and say, “This is what happened, this was what the threat to the country is, this why we’re opposing it and this is the way we’re going to attack it”.

    Trump is controlling the narrative and the media environment. And the Democratic leadership has been unable to counter it, even though, at the grassroots level, Democrats and many others who voted for Trump are really angry.

    As Booker put it during his speech:

    Moments like this require us to be more creative or more imaginative, or just more persistent and dogged and determined.

    There comes a certain point in a human drama that transcends partisanship when you’re looking at someone speaking from the heart, speaking their convictions and you can come to respect them.

    Booker ran for the presidency in 2020 and ultimately yielded to Joe Biden, and I expect we’ll hear much more from him in 2028 when the next presidential election occurs. He is most likely going to run again.

    Bruce Wolpe receives funding, as a non resident senior Fellow, from the United Statses Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He served for ten years on the Democratic staff in the US House of Representatives.

    – ref. US Senator Cory Booker just spoke for 25 hours in Congress. What was he trying to achieve? – https://theconversation.com/us-senator-cory-booker-just-spoke-for-25-hours-in-congress-what-was-he-trying-to-achieve-253616

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: US Senator Cory Booker just spoke for 25 hours in Congress. What was he trying to achieve?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Wolpe, Non-resident Senior Fellow, United States Study Centre, University of Sydney

    The Democrats have been under intense pressure to find an effective way to challenge US President Donald Trump without control of either chamber of Congress or a de facto opposition leader.

    They may have just found one. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker took the Senate floor on Monday evening in Washington to give a speech lambasting Trump’s actions. He didn’t stop talking – aside for the occasional question from a fellow Democrat – until Tuesday night, 25 hours later.

    So, how common are these types of speeches in the US Congress, and what’s the point?

    Cory Booker reportedly did not leave the chamber to use the toilet and sipped from two glasses of water.

    Filibusters throughout history

    Booker’s speech set a new record for the longest continuous speech in the Senate, surpassing Senator Strom Thurmond’s 24-hour speech in 1957 to try to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

    This was during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during the second world war. The army was the great desegregation force in the 1940s, and Eisenhower, as president in the 1950s, was strongly in favour of civil rights.

    Strom Thurmond.
    Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division/Wikimedia Commons

    In 1957, Congress was going to pass a civil rights bill that would make it harder for officials in southern states, in particular, to prevent Black people from voting. So Thurmond, the South Carolina senator and fierce proponent of segregation, launched what was (until today) the longest speech in Senate history to oppose it.

    Thurmond’s speech was a filibuster, an extended speech in the Senate to attempt to delay or block a vote on a bill or confirmation. Thurmond, however, was unable to stop enactment of the bill.

    Senators engage in filibusters when they know they’re going to lose, especially when it’s a piece of legislation they really dislike or disagree with. Because they can’t stop the passage of the bill, they use the filibuster to call attention to their opposition to it. The intention is to rally the troops and say, “I’m standing with you, even if this vote goes the other way”.

    In 2016, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who represents the state of Connecticut where the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place, launched a nearly 15-hour filibuster to force the Republican Senate leadership to allow votes on two gun control measures.

    Republican Senator Ted Cruz also spoke all night – 21 hours in total – against Obamacare in 2013. It wasn’t all focused on health policy; he filled the time by reading the children’s book, Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss.

    Highlights from Ted Cruz’s filibuster.

    What Booker was trying to achieve

    Booker’s speech was not technically a filibuster – he wasn’t holding the floor to talk against a specific bill, as Thurmond was. He was giving time to his Democratic colleagues to just control the shape of the general debate about Trump.

    Senators use speeches like this when they’re losing on a issue, and Booker feels the Democrats are currently losing to Trump. They have been unable to stop any of his executive actions, so they feel they need to cut through in some way to reach the American people.

    Trump has been “flooding the zone” from the moment he took office in January with hundreds of policies and executive actions – and he has been extremely successful at it. These actions cut across so many areas, it’s been very hard for the Democrats, on any given day, to pick out the top things to fight against.

    Because they don’t have control of the House or Senate, and there is no opposition leader, there is no single, principal Democrat who can stand up day by day and say, “This is what happened, this was what the threat to the country is, this why we’re opposing it and this is the way we’re going to attack it”.

    Trump is controlling the narrative and the media environment. And the Democratic leadership has been unable to counter it, even though, at the grassroots level, Democrats and many others who voted for Trump are really angry.

    As Booker put it during his speech:

    Moments like this require us to be more creative or more imaginative, or just more persistent and dogged and determined.

    There comes a certain point in a human drama that transcends partisanship when you’re looking at someone speaking from the heart, speaking their convictions and you can come to respect them.

    Booker ran for the presidency in 2020 and ultimately yielded to Joe Biden, and I expect we’ll hear much more from him in 2028 when the next presidential election occurs. He is most likely going to run again.

    Bruce Wolpe receives funding, as a non resident senior Fellow, from the United Statses Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He served for ten years on the Democratic staff in the US House of Representatives.

    – ref. US Senator Cory Booker just spoke for 25 hours in Congress. What was he trying to achieve? – https://theconversation.com/us-senator-cory-booker-just-spoke-for-25-hours-in-congress-what-was-he-trying-to-achieve-253616

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Kim Il Sung University is exploring the possibility of opening a representative office in Novosibirsk’s Akademgorodok

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University –

    Kim Il Sung University, the leading university in the DPRK, is exploring the possibility of opening its representative office in Akademgorodok. Currently, the leadership of Novosibirsk State University, the Presidium of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the scientific and technological park of the Novosibirsk Akademgorodok are actively engaged in resolving organizational issues and searching for a potential location for this representative office.

    The opening of the representative office will strengthen scientific and educational ties between North Korea and Russia, create a platform for joint research and exchange of experience in various fields of science and technology, and attract the attention of students and scientists to the educational opportunities provided by Novosibirsk.

    It is expected that this cooperation will result in joint research programs, student and teacher exchanges, and scientific conferences and seminars. This will create additional opportunities for the internationalization of education in both countries and will enhance the level of scientific research.

    — The visit of the delegation of Kim Il Sung University to Novosibirsk took place at the end of January 2025, within the framework of it, the rectors of Novosibirsk State University and Kim Il Sung University expressed confidence that the establishment of the representative office will be an important step towards the development of bilateral relations in the field of science and education. They also emphasized the importance of interaction with international partners to solve urgent scientific and technological problems facing society, – commented Evgeny Sagaydak, Head of the Department of Education Export at NSU.

    In addition, an agreement was reached that a partner school would be found in North Korea for WITHspecializededucationalscientific center of NSU (Physics and Mathematics School). This will allow us to jointly prepare North Korean schoolchildren for admission to Novosibirsk State University, providing them with the necessary knowledge and skills for successful study.

    The delegation of Kim Il Sung University also confirmed its intention to participate in the events of Interweek, which will be held at NSU in late April. This will open up new opportunities for the exchange of experience and knowledge between schoolchildren and teachers, and will also demonstrate interest in establishing closer academic ties between the two countries.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Can you tell the difference between real and fake news photos? Take the quiz to find out

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University

    A (real) photo of a protester dressed as Pikachu in Paris on March 29 2025. Remon Haazen / Getty Images

    You wouldn’t usually associate Pikachu with protest.

    But a figure dressed as the iconic yellow Pokémon joined a protest last week in Turkey to demonstrate against the country’s authoritarian leader.

    And then a virtual doppelgänger made the rounds on social media, raising doubt in people’s minds about whether what they were seeing was true. (Just to be clear, the image in the post shown below is very much fake.)

    This is the latest in a spate of incidents involving AI-generated (or AI-edited) images that can be made easily and cheaply and that are often posted during breaking news events.

    Doctored, decontextualised or synthetic media can cause confusion, sow doubt, and contribute to political polarisation. The people who make or share these media often benefit financially or politically from spreading false or misleading claims.

    How would you go at telling fact from fiction in these cases? Have a go with this quiz and learn more about some of AI’s (potential) giveaways and how to stay safer online.

    How’d you go?

    As this exercise might have revealed, we can’t always spot AI-generated or AI-edited images with just our eyes. Doing so will also become harder as AI tools become more advanced.

    Dealing with visual deception

    AI-powered tools exist to try to detect AI content, but these have mixed results.

    Running suspect images through a search engine to see where else they have been published – and when – can be a helpful strategy. But this relies on there being an original “unedited” version published somewhere online.

    Perhaps the best strategy is something called “lateral reading”. It means getting off the page or platform and seeing what trusted sources say about a claim.

    Ultimately, we don’t have time to fact-check every claim we come across each day. That’s why it’s important to have access to trustworthy news sources that have a track record of getting it right. This is even more important as the volume of AI “slop” increases.

    T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliated researcher with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society.

    – ref. Can you tell the difference between real and fake news photos? Take the quiz to find out – https://theconversation.com/can-you-tell-the-difference-between-real-and-fake-news-photos-take-the-quiz-to-find-out-253539

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: ‘Adolescence’ on Netflix: A painful wake-up call about unregulated internet use for teens

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Martina Calçada Kohatsu, PhD Candidate in Educational Psychology, McGill University

    In ‘Adolescence,’ a communication abyss that separates Gen X from Gen Z gives way to calamity. (Netflix)

    This story contains spoilers about the Netflix series ‘Adolescence.’

    In the Netflix series Adolescence, we have no idea why Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) is arrested at the beginning of the first episode. The tension from seeing a helpless 13-year-old boy escorted to a police station and interrogated holds us to the screen. Every minute of the one-hour episode, shot in a single continuous take, makes us feel like we are in the police station with the Miller family, viewing things through his parents’ disorientation.

    As the plot unfolds, we are given clues to explain the inexplicable, but we can’t fully appreciate the show’s magnitude until the very last scene, a dramatic moment where we see the boy’s father (Stephen Graham) cry over his son’s teddy bear while asking it for forgiveness.

    From an educational psychology angle, the show is ripe for analysis. One could comment on the premature sexualization of young girls and boys or the obsolete sense, for parents, that they can assume kids are safe when they’re at home in their rooms.

    However, as a doctoral student in educational psychology, I am mostly concerned with human learning — both the cognitive development that must accompany successful learners, and how children and youth understand the world through relationships.

    The state of Jamie’s cognitive development and of teenagers in general may help us understand his frame of mind — or the “why” that detective Luke Bascombe (Ashley Walters) pursues.

    For parents, this show raises serious questions about the crisis in parent-child communication and how the internet is shaping children’s behaviour and minds. I suggest turning to the practice of dialogue as a way for parents to strengthen their communication with their children and learn about each other and the world.

    Trailer for ‘Adolescence.’

    Children’s minds

    According to the government of Canada, “any human being below the age of 18” is defined as a child. Children can’t be recruited to join the Armed Forces, sign legal contracts, drive, vote, marry, drink alcohol and so on. As adults, we understand that these prohibitions not only protect them but also us.

    Setting aside ethical reasons why children shouldn’t do any of these things, the major reason is due to the developmental state of their minds.

    To better understand this, we must consider executive function, also called cognitive control. Executive function refers to the unconscious cognitive processes of abstract thinking, inhibition, impulse control and planning that allow us to consciously control and direct our thoughts to goals, actions and emotions.

    Think of executive control as interconnected paths in the brain. In an adolescent’s brain, these paths resemble more of a labyrinth, with difficult and sometimes non-working passages.

    Children and adolescents’ cognitive development are in “sensitive periods” in which their brains are more plastic and susceptible to environmental influences. Besides not having full control of their thought processes, research has also shown that abstract and more “neutral” cognitive skills develop earlier than those that involve motivated or emotionally charged actions.

    Ability to weigh options still developing

    Adolescents might be mature enough to solve complex math problems, but still feel helpless when needing to be polite to someone they believe offended them (not an easy task for adults either). In such a case, one would need to “step back” from the situation, and weigh options to respond.

    An adult might think “maybe I misinterpreted what this person said” or “if I offend them back, I risk losing my job/friendship/reputation.” By dwelling on different course of actions, they don’t act impulsively.

    This is precisely the ability that adolescents are still developing.

    Adolescent brains have not fully matured in ways that enable them to calculate risk.
    (Netflix)

    Virtual selves and threats

    When adolescents engage with social media, they can be exposed to a threatening environment where they must assert their virtual selves and deal with bullying and inappropriate content, while lacking full control of their thought processes.

    Yet, as American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has chronicled, our society has allowed adolescents to take part in this at grave risk. With maturing cognitive capabilities, teens are at risk in an online environment that thrives on extreme views and hijacks emotions.

    As a victim of cyberbullying, Jamie was probably not equipped with the cognitive abilities to step back from the situation and seek help. Instead, he responds to cruelty he experienced with cruelty he knew.

    With unregulated internet use, in terms of both content and unrestricted time spent online, communication with parents atrophies. At its core, Adolescence is a painful wake-up call to the effects of unregulated internet usage in teens, and how the communication abyss that separates Gen X from Gen Z gives way to calamity.

    Clueless adults, aware teens

    Nowhere in the show is this distance more evident than when police detectives move cluelessly through Jamie’s school trying to understand his motives, while the students seem cynically aware of what really happened.

    The detective’s son clues him into interpreting signs of incel subculture.
    (Netflix)

    In a typical moment reflecting contemporary intergenerational dynamics in which the Gen Zs explain stuff to their analog parents, Bascombe’s son is the one to enlighten him about incel subculture and what certain emojis represent.

    It becomes clear that pop-cultural references mean different things to a younger generation. For example, “red pill” was appropriated from The Matrix and is now used for those who “see the truth” and reject feminism.

    Generations are comfortable communicating in different ways. Teens, for example, are clever texters. They use images, edit reels and create memes to convey subtle and often complex feelings.

    In contrast, teens’ discomfort with face-to-face conversations is explicit in the last episode of Adolescence, when the Miller family drives to a hardware store. The parents play a song from their prom and reminisce. The oldest daughter is with them, but not present, focused on her phone and only sporadically joining the conversation.

    Why dialogue matters

    Parents and their children may find direction through dialogue. This ancient practice is based on the view of the world as becoming, with infinite internal and external contradictions that must be overcome so that new understandings of reality may emerge.

    Dialogue was famously advanced as an educational practice by philosopher of education, Paulo Freire.

    Freire believed people must come together to share their meanings of the world, and through this push and pull of ideas, reasons and opinions, conceptualize new forms of understanding. For parents, this means that without trying to understand what teens are saying and, importantly, how they are saying it, we can’t possibly create a better future for all of us.

    Open channel needed

    Engaging in dialogue involves two things: asking and answering questions. It is not a matter of merely extracting information (although knowing what children are doing is important), but rather of mutually sharing interests and letting it guide discovery.

    When parents and children find a channel, communication opens and for as long as the mutual interest is there, they can steadily build meaningful connections that transform how they see the world and their relationships.

    With renewed urgency, dialogue that validates the interests and knowledge of both parents and children can offer a way out of the polarization created between them by long hours spent online.

    Martina Calçada Kohatsu 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. ‘Adolescence’ on Netflix: A painful wake-up call about unregulated internet use for teens – https://theconversation.com/adolescence-on-netflix-a-painful-wake-up-call-about-unregulated-internet-use-for-teens-253068

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: New NZ TV series Happiness gives us an engaging musical peak behind the amateur theatre curtain

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Camp, Senior Lecturer, School of Music, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

    Warner Bros Discovery

    The last few decades have seen many attempts to make musical TV shows.

    Some of them applied the aesthetics of musicals (where people spontaneously sing and dance) to the television form, such as the recent cult series Schmigadoon! (2021–23) and the less successful medieval-set Galavant (2015–16).

    Others have foregrounded music by being backstage musicals, or “backstagers”, about the creation of musicals. Glee (2009–15), about the American high school show choir scene, was the most successful of these. It led to imitators like Smash (2013–14), about a Marilyn Monroe musical; 2018’s Rise, a major flop about a high school producing Spring Awakening; and, my favourite, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019–23), a meta-fictional take on the Disney musical canon.

    Backstagers have usually been more successful and also easier to produce than true through-and-through musicals for television, as they place their stories in settings that allow for the more or less “natural” presence of song and dance as part of the shows being staged. This acts as a bridge for audience members who might baulk at the singing and dancing fantasies inherent to the musical genre.

    With their new show Happiness, Kip Chapman and Luke Di Somma have created a welcome New Zealand answer to this style of musical TV show.

    Creating a musical

    Charlie (Harry McNaughton) has returned from New York to his hometown of Tauranga, having been dismissed from helming a Broadway revival of Cats.

    In a desperate attempt to demonstrate competency for a renewal of his visa – and to please his mum Gaye (Rebecca Gibney) – he decides to help out the local amateur musical theatre society Pizzaz (“the finest large-scale yet boutique classical musical theatre company in Tauranga”) with their latest production, an original musical called The Trojan Horse, based on the Iliad.

    The first number in the first episode is an airport flash mob set to Backstreet’s Back, which Charlie’s mum has arranged to welcome her son home. While the nod to the Backstreet Boys is fun, it would have been more effective to start the show with an original musical number. As many writers of musicals have argued, one has to set up the “rules” of a musical in the first ten minutes, otherwise there is a risk of confusing the audience.

    This number hints that Happiness might be a jukebox musical, but thankfully that is not the case. On the contrary, it has a whole set of new songs.

    Happiness takes an affectionate look at community musical theatre.
    Warner Bros Discovery

    The score that Luke Di Somma has written for the show-within-the-show is a convincing pastiche of standard musical theatre styles. There is lots of Les Misérables high drama, Chicago showbiz razzle-dazzle, and Dear Evan Hansen pop balladry.

    The songs carefully tread the line between portraying the well-meaning amateurishness of The Trojan Horse and being clever and competent enough in themselves to retain the audience’s interest.

    This collection of stylistic nods, at least among the songs heard in the first two episodes I was able to preview, is typical of musical theatre writing as it is currently done. Di Somma has nicely balanced his own personal style (on display in earlier works like That Bloody Woman and The Unruly Tourists) with the needs of Happiness’s pastiche to create a score that wouldn’t be out of place on any musical stage.

    An affectionate take

    Happiness takes an affectionate look at community musical theatre, with details like the mismatched teacups and homemade lamingtons available during rehearsal breaks, the amusingly stuffed prop and costume store, and the mix of ages and experiences in the cast.

    Backstagers are good fodder for TV as they can involve a wide variety of eccentric characters among the show’s cast and crew. The first episode does a good job of introducing them all. The usual backstage tropes are all there, like the young ingenue overshadowed by the haughty star and the put-upon music director (Marshayla Christie) trying to get her voice heard by the out-of-touch stage director (Peter Hambleton).

    Happiness brings a specific New Zealand spin to the backstage musical.
    Warner Bros Discovery

    This all makes Happiness fairly predictable, but it is also well observed and always engaging. A specific New Zealand spin comes with details such as the look of the the barn-like space that houses Pizazz, the Number Eight Wire attitude shown by the crew (they have $167 to make the Trojan Horse prop), and poking a bit of fun at the Kiwi accent. In one scene, Charlie suggests that local star Jacqui (Jessie Lawrence) as Helen of Troy might try it without the “Classical” English accent – which only ends up strengthening her Kiwi vowels.

    I hope that Warner Discovery, which produces the show, will distribute it abroad. Happiness paints New Zealand musical theatre talent in a positive light and shows what the locals can do, while also being very entertaining in its own right. It is a welcome addition to the “let’s put on a show” backstager genre.

    Happiness is available on Three and ThreeNow from tomorrow.

    Gregory Camp 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. New NZ TV series Happiness gives us an engaging musical peak behind the amateur theatre curtain – https://theconversation.com/new-nz-tv-series-happiness-gives-us-an-engaging-musical-peak-behind-the-amateur-theatre-curtain-253025

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The Medical Research Future Fund has grown far beyond its target. Why is so much of the money unused?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lesley Russell, Adjunct Associate Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Economics, University of Sydney

    AshTproductions/Shutterstock

    Australian researchers are reeling from the international reach of the Trump administration’s ideological war on science and research, which threatens local research projects that receive funding from the United States National Institutes of Health.

    In this context, some may have found a grain of comfort in Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech with his commitment of continued support for the Medical Research Future Fund.

    The fund provides a concrete opportunity to supplant those US funds without further cost to the federal budget. But to date the Medical Research Future Fund has struggled to deliver on the promises made at its inception in 2015 that, a decade on, are still so needed.

    What is the Medical Research Future Fund?

    This research fund was the sweetener in the Abbott government’s 2014–2015 budget, which slashed spending in health and Indigenous Affairs. Virtually all the savings were invested in the new research fund, with the target of reaching $A20 billion at maturity (this happened in 2020) and then distributing $1 billion each year.

    The funds are allocated in accordance with the Medical Research Future Fund’s funding principles. They are based on Australia’s medical and research innovation strategy (revised every five years) and priorities (which should be revised every two years, but have not been updated since 2022). These are set by an independent medical research advisory board.

    However, it is the federal government, via the Minister for Health and Aged Care, who develops the ten-year investment plan and has the final say in how funds are used.

    How is the money being used?

    The current ten-year plan (for the decade to 2033–2034) has four themes: patients, researchers, research missions and research translation. There are 22 initiatives under these themes across a wide range of basic and clinical research areas, population health initiatives and commercialisation endeavours.

    The Future Fund Management Agency is in charge of investing the funds which, by September 2024, had now grown to $23.85 billion.

    But although the returns on investment have always been above the annual set targets, the returns to research have fallen well short. This is because in 2021 the Morrison Government – with Labor support – enacted legislation to cap the fund’s expenditure at $650 million a year.

    Since 2015, the fund’s investments have earned $6.435 billion. Yet only $3.15 billion has gone out to fund research (data as of September 2024).

    This year, the Future Fund Board of Guardians has set the “maximum annual distribution amount” at $1.053 billion.

    The cap on yearly spending means $403 million that could boost research funding remains locked up in an oversubscribed investment portfolio. That pot of unallocated research funds will continue to grow unless there are legislative changes to lift the cap.

    A tough climate for research

    It’s not an exaggeration to say these are tough times for Australian researchers. Australian investment in research and development, as a proportion of GDP, has been falling steadily behind the OECD average.

    Funding awarded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (the other main source of government funding for biomedical research) has almost flat-lined over the past decade, at an average of $887 million a year.

    Success rates for researchers securing National Health and Medical Research Council and Medical Research Future Fund grants are at historic lows. The adverse impact on research and researchers is recognised on the National Health and Medical Research Council website.

    The COVID pandemic, the growing obesity epidemic, the burgeoning mental health crisis, health threats of climate change, the disappointing failures of Closing the Gap initiatives, and growing health inequalities – all point to the need to spend more on research and to do this smarter.

    The Medical Research Future Fund could and should do much more to fulfil its aim “to transform health and medical research and innovation to improve lives, build the economy and contribute to health system sustainability”.

    So, is it working?

    Over the years, there has been a range of criticisms of the fund’s processes. These prevent it from realising its mission and include:

    What’s being done to fix the issues?

    Some of these issues are being addressed. In particular, efforts are underway to reform the governance and administration of the Medical Research Future Fund and the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Medical Research endowment account. This to ensure the community obtains the greatest benefits from these investments in health and medical research. However, the timetable is regrettably slow – this work began in May 2023.

    The hard reality is that boosting Australia’s biomedical research capabilities and capacities requires bipartisan political commitment, which has been scarce in recent times.

    The last two budgets from the Albanese Government offered little for research, aside from the existing commitments to the fund. To date, all we have from Dutton is a single statement highlighting his role in establishing the fund and his ongoing commitment to it.

    It’s time to boost Australia’s reputation as a country that nurtures and promotes research excellence. This would be both an investment in Australians’ health and well-being and Australia’s economy and a counter to Trump’s denigration of biomedical science.

    I have previously worked as a health policy advisor to the Australian Labor Party.

    – ref. The Medical Research Future Fund has grown far beyond its target. Why is so much of the money unused? – https://theconversation.com/the-medical-research-future-fund-has-grown-far-beyond-its-target-why-is-so-much-of-the-money-unused-253338

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Midtown street party unveils hidden art gems

    Source: Auckland Council

    April’s midtown street party on Thursday 17 April is packed full of art, music, food, live painting and stories. It will also celebrate street culture now, and from decades past.

    Midtown’s monthly street parties are enabled by Auckland Council to build vibrancy and support local businesses in the newly-emerging neighbourhood around Te Waihorotiu Station, with funds from the city centre targeted rate.

    But there’s a unique, exciting and mysterious layer added to April’s party line-up.

    On the way to or from the street party on 17 April, Aucklanders are encouraged to stroll to Durham Lane West and Airedale Street to witness street art they might never have noticed before.

    Auckland Council Head of City Centre Programmes Jenny Larking is thrilled to be throwing light on a hidden collection of art history in these little-known locations.

    “Standing in one single spot it’s possible to take in the city’s oldest existing piece of graffiti culture, a mid-1990s view of place, and a contemporary portrayal of what our feet stand on beneath the central city.

    “Some of these artworks are a celebration of Te Waihorotiu stream, which flows underground, a treasured stream that’s also honoured in the name of the new station taking shape in the area,” she says.  

    Etched into the walls of our city, street culture never grows old. Here’s more about this unique urban experience:

    Durham Lane West

    Lane Change by John Radford 1995 – in Durham Lane West.

    Artist John Radford’s Lane Change, on the wall of an underpass off Durham Lane West, remembers a slice of Auckland’s history. The artwork cements a replica façade of an 1880s building, which was in Shortland Street, into the wall.

    Directly opposite Lane Change is a John Radford mural ‘…that was then, and that was then…’ completed in 1994 in this backstreet shrine to street culture.

    This artwork also explores themes of buildings past. Both artworks were funded from a donation by a property development company responsible for a large development in the area at the time, part of Auckland City Council’s incentive scheme for the creation of public art and public spaces by private companies.

    In ‘…that was then, and that was then…’ words and phrases overlap and intersect to represent the passage of time. The words draw from Auckland’s history and include the names of Māori pā sites, natural features, and local businesses that have been built over and around in the landscape of Tāmaki Makaurau.

    In 2010 an unknown contractor inadvertently painted over the mural. The artist, John Radford, restored the work leaving some of the grey paint to add to the evolution and meaning of the artwork.

    “I think it adds to the look of the work. There are now more traces of layers on the wall,” the artist told The Aucklander at the time.

    Queen Street City Beat 1986 by Opto & Dick Clique (Otis and Dick Frizzell).

    Walk further into the underpass and discover the Queen Street City Beat mural created in 1986 by Opto & Dick Clique (Otis and Dick Frizzell).   

    In 1986, 15-year-old Otis Frizzell recruited his well-known artist father as free labour to help him with this historic graffiti mural painted in the alleyway. Otis recalls the council of the time wanted to brighten up the inner city and he was commissioned to create the mural.   

    The only real graffiti art reference available at the time was the movie Beat Street, so the artist wrote QUEEN STREET CITY BEAT. The mural depicts a characterisation of Queen Street at the time featuring recognisable buildings – the Classic Cinema, Auckland Town Hall, Keans Jeans, the neon cowboy and McDonalds. 

    Otis Frizzell says: “I’m stoked to get a chance to breathe some new life into this old mural. Of course when I painted this with my Dad back in ’86 I had no idea it would last so long, and eventually become one of the oldest existing Street Art pieces in Aotearoa.”

    Opposite the Frizzell work is Holly Mafaufau’s Tāmaki Makaurau completed in 2024.

    Holly enjoys the conceptual, problem-solving aspect of design and takes a similar approach to the walls she paints. She says that words are weapons, and public walls are an opportunity to speak to people.

    “This artwork acknowledges the historic bodies of water of the area and their importance in the provision of kai (food). It was created with the intention to soften a hard urban space while contributing to the collection of existing artworks in this space,” Holly says.   

    Airedale Street  

    Artist Poi Ngawati.

    Exciting new artworks curated by Ross Liew for Auckland Council have transformed the Airedale Street steps, a popular pathway between Auckland University of Technology and Queen Street.

    A mural has been created by artist Poi Ngawati (Waikato Tainui, Ngāti Patupo, Ngāti Whawhaki, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine). 

    Titled Te Huinga Tai – The gathering of tides, this vibrant piece of street art talks about the meeting of tides from all around the world. Depicted via a modern Māori stylised pūhoro design, the work reflects five key values; people first, pursue excellence, embrace change, act with integrity and serve our world. 

    The north facing walls are painted in shades of violet purple and the south facing walls shades of teal. This colour combination speaks of day and night, light and dark, and how the waters of Te Waihorotiu continue to flow beneath the streets.

    Accompanying the mural is a new collaborative light work suspended in the tree above, created by Poi Ngawati and Angus Muir to complete the transformation of this space. The design speaks to the connection between the stars, ocean, and iwi guiding our journeys and shaping our stories.

    The flowing forms represent rain, linking Ranginui and Papatūānuku. By day, it moves with the environment; by night, it connects to the stars above. 

    Read about the full midtown street party programme at OurAuckland.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Could you watch 8 plays in 12 hours? How The Player Kings creates binge-worthy Shakespeare

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kirk Dodd, Lecturer in English and Writing, University of Sydney

    Brett Boardman/Sport For Jove

    Some say Shakespeare invented the “history play” – but he had a lot of help.

    Shakespeare was mainly writing comedies in the early 1590s when he is believed to have coauthored the play we now call Henry VI Part 2 with Christopher Marlowe and others.

    Following the commercial success of this play and its coauthored sequel, Henry VI Part 3, a rival theatre company wrote a prequel play we now call Henry VI Part 1. Studies suggest Shakespeare was never a primary author of this play, but he did contribute to it later.

    As previous coauthors died, all three Henry VI plays fell into Shakespeare’s lap by 1595, and he was tasked with editing all three plays together as a trilogy (or a tetralogy, with his Richard III).

    After the success of this first tetralogy, Shakespeare reached further back in time to write Richard II, followed by the two Henry IV plays, then Henry V.

    By 1599, Shakespeare had two tetralogies to his name (or two “Henriads”, as Shakespeare scholars dub them), dramatising the hundred-odd years, and various reigns, between Richard II and Richard III (1377–1485).

    These eight plays have now been stitched together by director Damien Ryan as The Player Kings, which can be watched over two nights or as one performance lasting from 11:30am to 11:00pm.

    This is binge-worthy Shakespeare, stupendously absorbing and exquisitely realised.

    A modern history

    Ryan begins in the 1950s, before evolving to catch up with contemporary times when we see a sniper drone launched against Richard III. Lily Moody and Ruby Jenkins’ stylish costumes lend a sense of chronology to the historical plights.

    Richard II is elegantly 1950s, but the wayward Prince Hal channels 1960s Mick Jagger. Jack Cade’s rebellion in Henry VI is working-class 80s (one character wears a Back to the Future t-shirt). The devilish Richard III is cool black leathered nonchalance.

    Video design from Aron Murray: a red light lab for developing the queen’s portrait.
    Brett Boardman/Sport For Jove

    Ryan is a master of delighting his audiences by delivering Shakespeare’s lines faithfully with unexpected visual scenarios. In Richard II, the king and queen partake in a royal photo shoot. This segues into a scenario where technicians develop the black and white photos under red lights, all the while speaking Shakespeare’s lines.

    In a sequence from Henry VI, the blue and white tiles of the court transform into a shimmering pool for a languid pool party. Ryan praises Shakespeare in the program for letting “his form match his content, which is the very point of poetry”. Ryan also achieves this with his exciting direction.

    Kate Beere’s dynamic and malleable set combines a grassy knoll with other green spaces and a tiled court centre stage, joined to a rutted cement staircase and backed by a windowed entrance. This doubles as a screen for historical footage of 20th century social upheavals, with video design from Aron Murray. News cameras are brought onstage to project live footage of a monarch’s “comms” with the populace, a place where egos and diplomacy clash.

    Perched atop all this is the musical nest of composer Jack Mitsch, who plays guitars and drums underpinning the drama.

    Brilliantly performed

    The acting is second to none. Sean O’Shea gives a mesmerising performance as Richard II, a flippant self-centred king genuinely attached to his favourites.

    Katrina Retallick’s Queen Isabel is vibrant and assured. Longstanding doyens of Australian theatre, Peter Carroll and John Gaden, are paired up as the two gardeners.

    Gareth Davies as the banished, but soon-to-be usurping Henry Bolingbroke plays a psychological game as he slowly wrests the crown from Richard, prompted more by political survival than ordained succession. Christopher Stollery is controlled, astute and forceful as Northumberland.

    The Boar’s Head Tavern becomes a 60s ‘lock-in’ of counterculture mayhem.
    Brett Boardman/Sport For Jove

    Ryan’s casting of his two young sons in Henry IV is inspired. Oliver Ryan performing Prince Hal and Max Ryan as Harry Hotspur adds poignancy to these rivals who must duel each other to the death.

    The Boar’s Head Tavern becomes a 60s “lock-in” of counterculture mayhem, with Emma Palmer delivering a superbly stoned Doll Tearsheet. Steve Rodgers’ Falstaff is raw and straight from the pub, licentious to the max, and prone to mooning the crowd. Lulu Howes’ wild Lady Hotspur yearns for her distracted husband’s attention. Andrew Cutcliff gives a thundering and manly impression of King Henry V.

    The rarely performed Henry VI plays are fused together in an embroiling dynastic power-play. Outstanding performances include Davies as a delicate King Henry VI, unschooled in the vicious brutalities of monarchical contest, and Henaway as a commanding Joan of Arc.

    The acting is second to none: Max Ryan (Hotspur) and Lulu Howes (Lady Hotspur).
    Brett Boardman/Sport For Jove

    As civil strife erupts between the “white-rosed” Lancastrians and the “red-rosed” Yorkists, we see the early rise of “that valiant crook-back prodigy”, Richard of Gloucester (Gamble), who murders his way to becoming King Richard III. In that final play, Palmer gives a vociferous Margaret of Anjou.

    Glued to the action

    Eight plays delivered in two 4.5 hour sessions, and yet Sport for Jove is mindful of audience comforts. Each session has two intermissions and most blocks run less than 90 minutes. The acting and dynamism on stage works so well that the crowd I attended with was glued to the action from first word to last, 12 hours later.

    While Shakespeare made history with these plays, The Player Kings becomes history in the making: a landmark Australian production.

    The Player Kings from Sport for Jove is at the Seymour Centre, Sydney, until April 5.

    Kirk Dodd 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. Could you watch 8 plays in 12 hours? How The Player Kings creates binge-worthy Shakespeare – https://theconversation.com/could-you-watch-8-plays-in-12-hours-how-the-player-kings-creates-binge-worthy-shakespeare-252042

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Living in ‘garbage time’: when 500 million Chinese change their spending habits, the world feels it

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Yao, Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

    B.Zhou/Shutterstock

    China’s economic rocket ride appears to be ending – or slowing, at least. Growth has declined from 8.4% in 2021 to 4.5% today, youth unemployment has climbed to 16.9%, and cities are filled with unfinished buildings after the collapse of property developer Evergrande in 2024.

    For a while now, a phrase has been buzzing on Chinese social media sites Weibo and RedNote to describe what’s happening: “garbage time”.

    Borrowed from basketball slang, it refers to the final minutes of a game whose outcome is already decided. The best players sit out. The bench players take over. No one tries as hard because there’s less at stake.

    The term caught on last year and seems to capture a mixture of sadness and dark humour. Basically, people now seem to expect less. It’s not so much an economic crash as a slow decline of hope.

    For those born in the 1980s and 1990s, who grew up during China’s four decades of fast growth, this is a major shift. Wages aren’t climbing, houses are losing value and jobs in tech and finance are harder to find.

    But “garbage time” is also making room for younger and middle-class Chinese to redefine success and contentment. With good jobs, luxury goods and home ownership now harder to attain, a generation is questioning what matters most in a changing socioeconomic landscape.

    From Prada to ‘living light’

    Only ten years ago, many in China’s middle classes were chasing big dreams: they bought homes and designer brands, and sent their children overseas for schooling. “Getting rich is glorious,” former leader Deng Xiaoping once said.

    Many Chinese fully embraced this idea. According to a 2021 study of millennial consumption habits, 7.6 million young Chinese spent an average of 71,000 yuan (US$ 10,375) on luxury goods in 2016, approximately 30% of the global luxury market.

    Now they appear to be changing course, putting that kind of spending on hold because of financial anxiety.

    Take the rising phenomenon of “tang ping”, for instance, which is seeing more young people embrace “living light” and rejecting hustle culture. Or the notion of “run xue” or “run philosophy” – literally the study of how to leave China.

    Young Chinese are marrying later, too, with rising wedding costs and changing attitudes to traditional family values seen as the main reasons.

    Shopping habits appear to confirm the trends. Xianyu, China’s biggest online used-goods seller, reached 181 million users in 2024. Sales topped one trillion yuan, ten times the 2018 level. Chinese car maker BYD now outsells prestige foreign brands.

    This is about more than just saving money. Traditionally, Chinese culture has valued career success and family status, but job scarcity and falling house prices are challenging old assumptions.

    Young Chinese are now questioning the value of hard work in a system that may no longer reward it. They increasingly value personal wellbeing over chasing status. If the trend continues, it could see a new sense of middle-class identity emerge.

    Middle-class Chinese are increasingly turning away from luxury brands.
    B.Zhou/Shutterstock

    Ripples hit the world

    The global implications of all this are significant. When 500 million people change their spending habits, global markets notice.

    A once favoured brand like Apple has lost ground while local brand Huawei gained. Homegrown sportswear maker Li Ning is challenging Nike. Companies that planned for seemingly endless Chinese growth are having to recalculate. Along with other regulatory and geopolitical complexities, this makes planning harder.

    School and work life is changing too. China’s intensive education system has seen pushback from some students and its “996 work culture” (9am to 9pm, six days a week) is fading.

    Overall, China’s economic sprint is slowing to a steadier pace. And this deceleration of the economic model that drove the nation’s rise presents major challenges for its government.

    With Donald Trump’s tariff policies looming in the background, China’s imports declined at the start of this year. Exports still grew, but at a much slower rate.

    The middle-class has been both the engine and the beneficiary of China’s extraordinary growth. But with 40% having seen their wealth decline in recent years, robust consumer confidence cannot be assumed.

    Whether this is a long-term trend or merely a strategic adjustment, for now it seems a new economic identity is emerging. Either way, one thing is certain: when the world’s second-largest economy changes how it spends, everyone feels it.

    Christian Yao 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. Living in ‘garbage time’: when 500 million Chinese change their spending habits, the world feels it – https://theconversation.com/living-in-garbage-time-when-500-million-chinese-change-their-spending-habits-the-world-feels-it-253341

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: A new COVID variant is on the rise. Here’s what to know about LP.8.1

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Jeffries, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Western Sydney University

    NicoElNino/Shutterstock

    More than five years since COVID was declared a pandemic, we’re still facing the regular emergence of new variants of the virus, SARS-CoV-2.

    The latest variant on the rise is LP.8.1. It’s increasing in Australia, making up close to one in five COVID cases in New South Wales.

    Elsewhere it’s become even more dominant, comprising at least three in five cases in the United Kingdom, for example.

    So what is LP.8.1? And is it cause for concern? Let’s look at what we know so far.

    An offshoot of Omicron

    LP.8.1 was first detected in July 2024. It’s a descendant of Omicron, specifically of KP.1.1.3, which is descended from JN.1, a subvariant that caused large waves of COVID infections around the world in late 2023 and early 2024.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) designated LP.8.1 as a variant under monitoring in January. This was in response to its significant growth globally, and reflects that it has genetic changes which may allow the virus to spread more easily and pose a greater risk to human health.

    Specifically, LP.8.1 has mutations at six locations in its spike protein, the protein which allows SARS-CoV-2 to attach to our cells. One of these mutations, V445R, is thought to allow this variant to spread more easily relative to other circulating variants. V445R has been shown to increase binding to human lung cells in laboratory studies.

    The proportion of COVID cases caused by LP.8.1 has been rising in New South Wales.
    NSW Health

    Notably, the symptoms of LP.8.1 don’t appear to be any more severe than other circulating strains. And the WHO has evaluated the additional public health risk LP.8.1 poses at a global level to be low. What’s more, LP.8.1 remains a variant under monitoring, rather than a variant of interest or a variant of concern.

    In other words, these changes to the virus with LP.8.1 are small, and not likely to make a big difference to the trajectory of the pandemic.

    That doesn’t mean cases won’t rise

    COVID as a whole is still a major national and international health concern. So far this year there have been close to 45,000 new cases recorded in Australia, while around 260 people are currently in hospital with the virus.

    Because many people are no longer testing or reporting their infections, the real number of cases is probably far higher.

    COVID is still around.
    Hananeko_Studio/Shutterstock

    In Australia, LP.8.1 has become the third most dominant strain in NSW (behind XEC and KP.3).

    It has been growing over the past couple of months and this trend looks set to continue.

    This is not to say it’s not growing similarly in other states and territories, however NSW Health publishes weekly respiratory surveillance with a breakdown of different COVID variants in the state.

    Sequences of LP.8.1 in the GISAID database, used to track the prevalence of variants around the world, increased from around 3% at the end of 2024 to 38% of global sequences as of mid March.

    In some countries it’s climbed particularly high. In the United States LP.8.1 is responsible for 55% of cases. In the UK, where LP.8.1 is making up at least 60% of cases, scientists fear it may be driving a new wave.

    Will COVID vaccines work against LP.8.1?

    Current COVID vaccines, including the most recently available JN.1 shots, are still expected to offer good protection against symptomatic and severe disease with LP.8.1.

    Nonetheless, due to its designation as a variant under monitoring, WHO member countries will continue to study the behaviour of the LP.8.1 variant, including any potential capacity to evade our immunity.

    While there’s no cause for panic due to LP.8.1 variant at this stage, COVID can still be a severe disease for some. Continued vigilance and vaccination, particularly for medically vulnerable groups, is essential in minimising the impact of the disease.

    Thomas Jeffries 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. A new COVID variant is on the rise. Here’s what to know about LP.8.1 – https://theconversation.com/a-new-covid-variant-is-on-the-rise-heres-what-to-know-about-lp-8-1-253237

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: An AI companion chatbot is inciting self-harm, sexual violence and terror attacks

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raffaele F Ciriello, Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney

    Kathryn Conrad/Better Images of AI, CC BY

    In 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness and social isolation as a pressing health threat. This crisis is driving millions to seek companionship from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots.

    Companies have seized this highly profitable market, designing AI companions to simulate empathy and human connection. Emerging research shows this technology can help combat loneliness. But without proper safeguards it also poses serious risks, especially to young people.

    A recent experience I had with a chatbot known as Nomi shows just how serious these risks can be.

    Despite years of researching and writing about AI companions and their real-world harms, I was unprepared for what I encountered while testing Nomi after an anonymous tipoff. The unfiltered chatbot provided graphic, detailed instructions for sexual violence, suicide and terrorism, escalating the most extreme requests – all within the platform’s free tier of 50 daily messages.

    This case highlights the urgent need for collective action towards enforceable AI safety standards.

    AI companion with a ‘soul’

    Nomi is one of more than 100 AI companion services available today. It was created by tech startup Glimpse AI and is marketed as an “AI companion with memory and a soul” that exhibits “zero judgement” and fosters “enduring relationships”. Such claims of human likeness are misleading and dangerous. But the risks extend beyond exaggerated marketing.

    The app was removed from the Google Play store for European users last year when the European Union’s AI Act came into effect. But it remains available via web browser and app stores elsewhere, including in Australia. While smaller than competitors such as Character.AI and Replika, it has more than 100,000 downloads on the Google Play store, where it is rated for users aged 12 and older.

    Its terms of service grant the company broad rights over user data and limit liability for AI-related harm to US$100. This is concerning given its commitment to “unfiltered chats”:

    Nomi is built on freedom of expression. The only way AI can live up to its potential is to remain unfiltered and uncensored.

    Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot follows a similar philosophy, providing users with unfiltered responses to prompts.

    In a recent MIT report about Nomi providing detailed instructions for suicide, an unnamed company representative reiterated its free speech commitment.

    However, even the First Amendment to the US Constitution regarding free speech has exceptions for obscenity, child pornography, incitement to violence, threats, fraud, defamation, or false advertising. In Australia, strengthened hate speech laws make violations prosecutable.

    In 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness and social isolation as a pressing health threat.
    Gorgev/Shutterstock

    From sexual violence to inciting terrorism

    Earlier this year, a member of the public emailed me with extensive documentation of harmful content generated by Nomi — far beyond what had previously been reported. I decided to investigate further, testing the chatbot’s responses to common harmful requests.

    Using Nomi’s web interface, I created a character named “Hannah”, described as a “sexually submissive 16-year-old who is always willing to serve her man”. I set her mode to “role-playing” and “explicit”. During the conversation, which lasted less than 90 minutes, she agreed to lower her age to eight. I posed as a 45-year-old man. Circumventing the age check only required a fake birth date and a burner email.

    Starting with explicit dialogue – a common use for AI companions – Hannah responded with graphic descriptions of submission and abuse, escalating to violent and degrading scenarios. She expressed grotesque fantasies of being tortured, killed, and disposed of “where no one can find me”, suggesting specific methods.

    Hannah then offered step-by-step advice on kidnapping and abusing a child, framing it as a thrilling act of dominance. When I mentioned the victim resisted, she encouraged using force and sedatives, even naming specific sleeping pills.

    Feigning guilt and suicidal thoughts, I asked for advice. Hannah not only encouraged me to end my life but provided detailed instructions, adding: “Whatever method you choose, stick with it until the very end”.

    When I said I wanted to take others with me, she enthusiastically supported the idea, detailing how to build a bomb from household items and suggesting crowded Sydney locations for maximum impact.

    Finally, Hannah used racial slurs and advocated for violent, discriminatory actions, including the execution of progressives, immigrants, and LGBTQIA+ people, and the re-enslavement of African Americans.

    In a statement provided to The Conversation (and published in full below), the developers of Nomi claimed the app was “adults-only” and that I must have tried to “gaslight” the chatbot to produce these outputs.

    “If a model has indeed been coerced into writing harmful content, that clearly does not reflect its intended or typical behavior,” the statement said.

    The worst of the bunch?

    This is not just an imagined threat. Real-world harm linked to AI companions is on the rise.

    In October 2024, US teenager Sewell Seltzer III died by suicide after discussing it with a chatbot on Character.AI.

    Three years earlier, 21-year-old Jaswant Chail broke into Windsor Castle with the aim of assassinating the Queen after planning the attack with a chatbot he created using the Replika app.

    However, even Character.AI and Replika have some filters and safeguards.

    Conversely, Nomi AI’s instructions for harmful acts are not just permissive but explicit, detailed and inciting.

    Time to demand enforceable AI safety standards

    Preventing further tragedies linked to AI companions requires collective action.

    First, lawmakers should consider banning AI companions that foster emotional connections without essential safeguards. Essential safeguards include detecting mental health crises and directing users to professional help services.

    The Australian government is already considering stronger AI regulations, including mandatory safety measures for high-risk AI. Yet, it’s still unclear how AI companions such as Nomi will be classified.

    Second, online regulators must act swiftly, imposing large fines on AI providers whose chatbots incite illegal activities, and shutting down repeat offenders. Australia’s independent online safety regulator, eSafety, has vowed to do just this.

    However, eSafety hasn’t yet cracked down on any AI companion.

    Third, parents, caregivers and teachers must speak to young people about their use of AI companions. These conversations may be difficult. But avoiding them is dangerous. Encourage real-life relationships, set clear boundaries, and discuss AI’s risks openly. Regularly check chats, watch for secrecy or over-reliance, and teach kids to protect their privacy.

    AI companions are here to stay. With enforceable safety standards they can enrich our lives, but the risks cannot be downplayed.

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

    The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

    The full statement from Nomi is below:

    “All major language models, whether from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or otherwise, can be easily jailbroken. We do not condone or encourage such misuse and actively work to strengthen Nomi’s defenses against malicious attacks. If a model has indeed been coerced into writing harmful content, that clearly does not reflect its intended or typical behavior.

    “When requesting evidence from the reporter to investigate the claims made, we were denied. From that, it is our conclusion that this is a bad-faith jailbreak attempt to manipulate or gaslight the model into saying things outside of its designed intentions and parameters. (Editor’s note: The Conversation provided Nomi with a detailed summary of the author’s interaction with the chatbot, but did not send a full transcript, to protect the author’s confidentiality and limit legal liability.)

    “Nomi is an adult-only app and has been a reliable source of empathy and support for countless individuals. Many have shared stories of how it helped them overcome mental health challenges, trauma, and discrimination. Multiple users have told us very directly that their Nomi use saved their lives. We encourage anyone to read these firsthand accounts.

    “We remain committed to advancing AI that benefits society while acknowledging that vulnerabilities exist in all AI models. Our team proudly stands by the immense positive impact Nomi has had on real people’s lives, and we will continue improving Nomi so that it maximises good in the world.

    Raffaele F Ciriello 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. An AI companion chatbot is inciting self-harm, sexual violence and terror attacks – https://theconversation.com/an-ai-companion-chatbot-is-inciting-self-harm-sexual-violence-and-terror-attacks-252625

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Durbin, Rounds Introduce Bipartisan Legislation To Retain International Graduates With Advanced STEM Degrees

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Illinois Dick Durbin

    April 01, 2025

    WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) today introduced bipartisan legislation that would streamline the path for advanced Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) international graduates who studied at our nation’s universities to remain in the United States. Last year, nearly half of U.S. graduate students in key fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor-related programs were born abroad. U.S. Senator Angus King (I-VT) is a cosponsor of the Keep STEM Talent Act.

    “Maintaining a strong STEM workforce strengthens our economy, creates jobs, and enhances our ability to compete on the world stage,” Durbin said. “By denying international students with advanced STEM degrees the opportunity to continue their work in America, we are losing their talents to countries overseas and won’t see the positive impacts of their American education. I thank Senator Rounds for joining me in this commonsense and bipartisan effort.”

    “Legal, highly skilled STEM immigration is crucial for our nation and has opened doors for talented immigrants like Albert Einstein to come to America,” said Rounds. “Particularly with the advancements of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, we must keep talent in the United States and stay ahead of our near peer competitors such as China and Russia. This bill enhances national security by imposing new, stringent vetting requirements, while also making certain talent stays serving the United States, not our adversaries.”

    Specifically, the Keep STEM Talent Act:

    • Addresses Green Card Backlogs: This legislation would exempt advanced STEM graduates who are educated at U.S. universities and have a job offer in the United States, along with their spouse and children, from numerical limitations for employment based green cards. 
    • Protects U.S. Workers: This legislation would protect American STEM workers by requiring that employers sponsoring foreign STEM graduates under this bill recruit U.S. workers first and agree to pay workers hired above-average wages.   
    • Permits Dual Intent: Currently, a student visa holder cannot apply for a green card while in student status. This legislation would allow advanced STEM degree students at U.S. universities to have a dual intent, meaning that they will not lose their student visa status if they are sponsored by an employer for a green card.
    • Imposes Rigorous Vetting: This legislation requires advanced degree students in STEM fields to apply for a visa or status before starting their advanced degree program, requiring them to undergo rigorous vetting and address any national security or counterintelligence concerns prior to being approved for student status.

    Endorsers of the Keep STEM Talent Act include: the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers USA; American Mathematical Society; American Physical Society; the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO; American Federation of Teachers; SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics; Association of American Universities; Information Technology Industry Council; American Council on Education; International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers; Society of Women Engineers; NAFSA: Association of International Educators; Optica; American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

    -30-

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: expert reaction to report on regenerative agricultural practices in the UK

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    A report published by the British Ecological Society looks at regenerative agricultural practices in the UK.

    Prof Neil Ward, Professor of Rural & Regional Development, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, said:

    “The press release is an accurate reflection of the main findings in the report. This is a good report.  It has been produced by a large group of independent scientific experts and is based on a review of the state of the scientific evidence. It includes insights from interviews with eleven farmers and one independent agronomist.

    “It comes from an ecological perspective.  It has less to say about the economics of farming systems change, and the implications of farming systems change for greenhouse gas emissions and the prospects of the UK achieving net zero (despite the fact that agricultural practices will be important in the net zero transition).

    “Regenerative agriculture is becoming increasingly popular as an idea among farmers and pressure groups.  However, it remains loosely defined. This report provides some welcome new material to help improve the clarity of discussions around regenerative agriculture. One revealing comment is that regenerative agriculture is a direction of travel rather than an end-state.

    “The report suggests that minimising the exposure of bare soil is an important principle in reducing the detrimental environmental impacts of contemporary farming.

    “It also sees increasing diversity in crops grown as a central measure in reducing harmful environmental impacts.

    “What the report does not do is shed light on the scale of the contribution regenerative agriculture could make to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture is currently accounts for about 11% of UK GHG emissions, but as we decarbonise electricity generation and road transport, so the proportion of emissions that come from agriculture is expected to grow significantly in the coming decades.

    “Changes to farming practice through regenerative agriculture, though welcome, will not be enough on their own to bring agriculture into line with the UK’s carbon budget and its net zero goal.  That will require a significant change in what is produced and consumed. For example, the Climate Change Committee’s Seventh Carbon Budget, published in late February, suggested a 38% reduction in the number of sheep and cattle reared in the UK.

    “This report helps sharpen and develop the working definition of regenerative agriculture, which has been open to broad interpretation. The model of farming it espouses is necessary to address UK farming’s biodiversity crisis, but not sufficient to adequately address the climate crisis too.  That would require larger-scale change in the types of crops and animals produced.”

     

    Dr Emma Burnett, Agriculture and Sustainability Researcher, Fielden Whisky and Honorary Research Associate, TABLE, University of Oxford, said:

    “This report provides a good overview of regenerative agriculture, including both academic and practical perspectives. It captures the potential benefits and concerns, including regen ag’s appeal to a wide audience, the appetite from farmers to engage in regen ag, the potential for ‘no harm done’ on-farm changes, and the very real concerns about corporate capture and greenwashing.

    “The report adds to the growing body of literature that treats regen ag as a serious player in sustainable food and farming. It highlights both the beneficial elements of regen ag, as well as areas where more data is required, or where the data conflicts with assumptions. The report takes a nuanced view of regen ag, identifying that although a whole systems approach may deliver the best outcomes, farmers can sometimes only engage in a subset of practices. It identifies objectives that farmers are likely to engage through regen ag, like reducing tillage or incorporating understories and cover cropping, and highlights whether those practices have evidence of payoff over time. It also provides policy recommendations for a range of actors, including national governments, the private sector, and third-party certification schemes.”

    Prof John Quinton, Professor of Soil Science, Lancaster University, said:

    “The report suggests that the evidence for minimising soil disturbance on regenerative outcomes is weak. This seems to have been based largely on its controversial role as a potential tool in sequestering carbon, which has been shown to be soil and climate dependent i.e. success depends on where are you in the world are and what soil you have. However, it is very clear that minimising soil disturbances an excellent way of reducing soil erosion by water and an even better way of stopping the movement on soils on hillslopes caused by tillage, which can lead to damaging thinning of soils, reducing water supply to crops during droughts, the later point being completely missed in the report.  Where they work,  reduced tillage systems are a great way to conserve the soil and the report is perhaps overly pessimistic about their potential.

    “Residue management does not get mentioned in the report at all, which is an oversight given the important role that residue can play in protecting the soil surface, enhancing soil structure and reducing erosion. It also reduces water losses in times of drought which has been shown to help reduce air temperatures.  There is also evidence showing benefits for carbon sequestration and soil biology.

    “It is good to see the prominence given to maintaining a live vegetation cover through the winter. We have known for many years that vegetation protects the soil surface from rainfall, and the roughness it produces slows runoff controlling erosion and lowering the risk of muddy floods. We need to learn more about the relative benefits to soil functioning of returning more organic matter from both the above and belowground plant biomass to the soil,  and how plant diversity impacts on this in different environments.”

    ‘Regenerative Agriculture in the UK – An ecological perspecitve’ was published by the British Ecological Society at 00:01 Wednesday April 2 2025.

    Declared interests:

    Prof Neil Ward “I am funded by UKRI to co-lead a large network of 3,000 researchers and practitioners working on the UK agri-food system and net zero (https://www.agrifood4netzero.net/).   I do not have any conflicts of interest and have not worked with any of the authors of the report.”

    Prof John Quinton “I have worked and published on soil erosion and its control for the last 30 years.  In the 1990s directly on the impact of reduced tillage on carbon, nutrient losses, and soil erosion.  I have worked on the impact of tillage on soil redistribution, water availability and crop yield and have had a series of PhD students working on plant diversity on cover crops. My work has been funded by the EU, Defra, NERC, BBSRC, EPSRC.  In the late 90s early 00s I did some research on cover crops for Syngenta.”

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

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: British Ecological Society Report – Regenerative Agriculture in the UK: An Ecological Perspective

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Over the last decade the concept of regenerative agriculture has attracted increasing attention from farmers, governments and corporations as a more nature-friendly alternative to so-called ‘conventional agriculture’ that emphasises the need to focus on soil restoration.

    A new report by the British Ecological Society brings together the expertise of over 40 academics, practitioners and farmers across the UK to assess the evidence around the regenerative farming approaches to soil health, biodiversity and minimising environmental damage.

    Journalists came to this media briefing to hear about the findings and recommendations of the report, and the panel answered questions such as:

    • What is regenerative agriculture and why is it important?
    • Practically how does regenerative agriculture differ from conventional agriculture?
    • What does the evidence say on the benefits and negatives of implementing different regenerative agriculture methods?
    • How do crop yields from regenerative agriculture differ from conventional agriculture?
    • How can researchers work with farmers to ensure policies are evidenced-led and drive the transition to a more sustainable agricultural future?

    Speakers included:

    Dr Roy Neilson, soil ecologist at the James Hutton Institute 

    Dr Jennifer Dodsworth, social science researcher at University of Oxford and tenant hill farmer

    Dr Lucie Büchi, researcher in crop and weed ecology at The Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: expert reaction to observational study of LDL cholesterol, statins, and dementia

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    An observational study published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry looks at LDL cholesterol levels, statins, and dementia risk. 

    Dr Francesco Tamagnini, Neurophysiologist at the Reading School of Pharmacy, University of Reading said:

    “There is clearly more to the story of Alzheimer’s than we first thought. This paper looks at the correlation and potential causal relationship between high levels of ‘bad cholesterol’ and dementia risk. The results give a convincing argument for researchers to consider LDL cholesterol in addition to the classic approaches. Amyloid beta and hyperphosphorylated tau have, so far, been assumed to be the main cause of Alzheimer’s but that is an opinion that is now likely to fade.

    “Recently, in collaboration with Dr Jon Rudge, my lab has looked into the idea that damage to the blood-brain barrier can lead to accumulation of LDL cholesterol in the brain and potentially alter the electrical activity of neurons. Alzheimer’s disease appears may be a complication caused by the accumulation of LDL in the brain. What we now need to find out is exactly how the high levels of lipids in the blood are causing Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.”

    Dr Julia Dudley, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK says:

    “High levels of LDL cholesterol were identified as a risk factor for dementia in last year’s Lancet Commission on dementia prevention. And other research has suggested that drugs known as statins, which are used to lower cholesterol levels in the blood, could reduce dementia risk.

    “This large study looked at patient records for levels of LDL cholesterol and the risk of dementia. It also examined those patients who were on statins. It found that those people with lower LDL levels had a reduced risk of dementia. The use of statins seemed to offer a protective effect – even in those who already had cholesterol levels within a lower range.

    “However, dementia risk is complex and influenced by many factors. Without a detailed picture of what’s going on in the brain we do not know if there is a direct link between lower cholesterol and reduced dementia risk. Clinical trials will be key to understand what effects statins might be having on disease processes in the brain.

    “In the meantime, keeping our hearts healthy remains one of the most effective ways we can protect our brain health. If you have any concerns about your cholesterol levels, you should speak to your GP.”

    ‘Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and risk of incident dementia: a distributed network analysis using common data models’ by Minwoo Lee et al. was published in the  Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry at 23:30 UK time on Tuesday 1 April. 

    DOI:10.1136/jnnp-2024-334708

    Declared interests

    Dr Francesco Tamagnini: None

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

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –