NewzIntel.com

Category: Universities

  • MIL-OSI Global: How viruses blur the boundaries of life

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Heshmat Borhani, Lecturer in Bioinformatics, University of Nottingham

    Cryptographer/Shutterstock

    When people talk about the coronavirus, they sometimes describe this invisible entity as if it has a personality and even a conscience. If you ask a biology or medical student what a virus is, they will tell you that a virus is not a living organism, or at most that it exists at the border between living and dead – a kind of walking dead.

    For biologists who specialise in virology, however, this view is not clear-cut. Scientists still disagree on whether viruses are truly alive or not.

    What scientists can agree on is that a virus adapts to new conditions, evolves and sometimes harms humans. It is also an infectious agent that can only replicate within a host organism such as bacteria, plants or animals.

    The boundary between being alive and dead is a concept with no specific criteria. So to help you think about whether viruses are alive, I will talk you through some of the different definitions of life in science.

    Throughout history, scientists have debated the definition of life and researchers from different fields still disagree. This debate shapes scientific understanding and influences public health decisions – for example, defining whether viruses are “alive” affects how we design vaccines and strategies to stop their spread.

    Biologists may refer you to Erwin Schrödinger’s definition of life. Schrödinger was an Austrian Nobel-prize winning physicist who published a book in 1944 called What is Life? He was one of the first scientists to try to define life and is perhaps better known in popular culture for his “Schrödinger’s cat” thought experiment.

    He proposed that life is a form of negative “entropy”, a scientific concept that explains how disordered something is. A physical system will always increase in entropy/disorder unless we insert energy to change this process. Schrödinger thought living things create and maintain order by using energy.

    For example, a messy bedroom doesn’t clean itself, but a person can tidy it. Organisms do something similar at the molecular level. DNA is highly structured, allowing it to store genetic information. Proteins fold into specific shapes to function properly. In contrast, after an organism dies, its molecules break down, increasing disorder.

    Schrödinger later revised his view – around the 1950s – suggesting that life depends on free energy. Free energy is the energy that drives chemical reactions in living things. This marked a shift from focusing on order (negative entropy) to emphasising energy as essential for life.

    The coronavirus took on a personality for many people.
    creativeneko/Shutterstock

    In the mid-20th century, scientists switched from defining life to describing its key characteristics. Studying organisms such as bacteria, plants and animals, they identified common traits, setting a precedent still followed today.

    Rather than seeking a single definition, researchers classify entities based on these traits. To decide whether a virus is alive, researchers assess how well it meets these criteria.

    According to biology, the smallest unit of life is the cell. A cell is an independent unit which makes functional molecules (such as proteins and enzymes). Cells can use their own molecules to replicate genetic material independently. A virus also has genetic material but needs to use the host cell’s enzymes to make functional molecules or replicate its genetic material.

    Put simply, a virus does not replicate or function independently. So by the biological definition, a virus cannot be categorised as a living organism.

    But from a genetic and evolutionary point of view a living organism is defined by its ability to reproduce. A person who does not have children is still considered to be alive as they are part of the gene pool and descended from people who did have children. From this view a virus is alive, since it can produce similar offspring.

    Some scientists also focus on metabolism and energy production as criteria for life. Metabolism includes catabolism (breaking down molecules like sugars during digestion) and anabolism (building molecules like muscle tissue), linking energy and material. These reactions require molecular structures to generate or use energy – structures viruses lack.

    Does that mean viruses aren’t alive? An amoeba, for instance, uses nutrients and enzymes to sustain itself, while viruses rely entirely on a host. From this perspective, viruses don’t meet the metabolic criteria for life. However, some argue that since viruses hijack a host’s metabolism to replicate, they show life-like behaviour.

    If we consider nutrients to be sources of free energy, a cell uses energy from the environment to build what it needs. As the cell absorbs energy from the environment, it builds and maintains its internal structures – like proteins and membranes.

    It also releases a byproduct – carbon dioxide – that contributes to disorder in the external environment. Viruses also do this. They make their structures by using the external environment, a host cell in this case. The viruses’ byproducts may be what makes us sick.

    As we explore the complexities of biology, it becomes clear that defining life itself is anything but straightforward. Viruses display both life-like and non-living traits, which influences how we approach treatments like antiviral drugs designed to block their replication inside host cells.

    Heshmat Borhani 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. How viruses blur the boundaries of life – https://theconversation.com/how-viruses-blur-the-boundaries-of-life-230802

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Who really killed Canada’s carbon tax? Friends and foes alike

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ryan M. Katz-Rosene, Associate Professor, School of Political Studies, with Cross-Appointment to Geography, Environment and Geomatics, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

    In his very first act as prime minister, Mark Carney did what critics had long demanded — he axed the federal carbon tax. Yet while Carney was the one who dealt the final blow, there were many who aided and abetted in its death.

    Since it was first proposed nearly a decade ago, the Liberal government’s keystone climate policy, the consumer carbon tax, became the target of both legal and political attacks. Nevertheless, these attacks were held at bay thanks in part to the 2021 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of carbon pricing and the Liberals’ success in maintaining power.

    The axing of the consumer carbon tax marks a major turning point in Canadian climate policy. It shifts the discussion from the effects of the fuel charge on household budgets to how to best compel large industrial emitters to reduce their climate impact in a swiftly evolving global trade context.



    Read more:
    The carbon tax needs fixing, not axing — Canada needs a progressive carbon tax

    The Liberals now propose instead a system of financial incentives for household-level purchases, while expanding the existing industrial pricing mechanism and potentially applying a carbon adjustment levy on imports from countries with lax environmental standards.

    The Conservatives, on the other hand, are vowing to do away with the industrial carbon pricing system, promoting clean tech innovation and manufacturing through financial incentives at the producer level, and offering greater autonomy to the provinces to set their own climate policies.

    Cost-effective, regressive

    The death of the consumer carbon tax serves as a predictable political tragedy in the Shakespearean sense of the word: widely regarded by scholars and other experts as a cost-effective and non-regressive tool to further reduce the carbon emissions, the tax ultimately fell to relentless populist attacks when its original proponents and supporters caved to this pressure.

    It’s useful to break down the various layers of support for — and opposition to — the tax to examine the role each played in its death.



    Read more:
    What the Supreme Court ruling on national carbon pricing means for the fight against climate change

    The most obvious contributors involved the political opponents of the Liberal Party and critics of former prime minister Justin Trudeau. This included not only the federal Conservative Party and provincial Conservative premiers, but also the rising anti-Trudeau populism that manifested early on, even before the tax’s introduction.

    These sentiments were seen in the Canadian Yellow Vests movement; “Wexit” and subsequently the so-called Freedom Convoy, which started as an anti-COVID-19 vaccine, anti-lockdown movement but morphed into a “carbon tax convoy” in the post-lockdown years.

    The role of inflation

    These populist movements were in part nourished by the Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre after he became leader in 2022, and helped drive further support for the party in the years to follow.

    Circumstantial factors — such as the global inflation crisis — played a key role too. By 2023, Poilievre capitalized on the first annual carbon tax rate increase to associate it with ongoing inflation, launching the widely popular “Axe the Tax” campaign.

    This campaign, bolstered by a significant amount of misinformation, played a significant role in driving popular discontent with the policy.



    Read more:
    The Canada Carbon Rebate is still widely misunderstood — here’s why

    Former allies

    In responding to this rising popular discontent, some of the federal Liberals’ allies and original supporters of carbon pricing also played a role in further weakening the policy.

    For instance, sympathetic provincial premiers who in principle supported federal climate policy began to distance themselves from the carbon tax. In 2024, Manitoba’s NDP Premier Wab Kinew, British Columbia’s NDP Premier David Eby, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Liberal Premier Andrew Furey and New Brunswick’s Liberal Premier Susan Holt all made public comments seeking an end (or an alternative) to the carbon levy.

    Yet the most significant loss of support from a former ally came when NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh withdrew the federal NDP from the supply-and-confidence agreement it made with the Liberals, citing concerns that the carbon tax was placing a burden on everyday working Canadians.

    This withdrawal of support put the government on track for either a non-confidence vote or prorogation, which in turn fuelled an even further slide in voter support for the carbon tax.



    Read more:
    What does the end of the Liberal-NDP agreement mean for Canadians?

    Party leadership

    It was the Liberal Party’s own inside leadership circle that dealt the final blows to the tax.

    Chrystia Freeland’s surprise resignation late in 2024 hastened Trudeau’s political downfall earlier this year. Both leading candidates to replace Trudeau — including Freeland herself and the eventual winner, Carney — centred their campaigns around bringing an end to the tax, noting how the policy was too divisive.

    Yet the Liberal leadership also made several strategic missteps in recent years that contributed to the demise of the tax.

    For one, the party’s 2023 exemption for heating oil undermined the credibility of the policy and gave rise to charges of regional favouritism. Similarly, the party’s consistently poor communications around the carbon tax rebate — including difficulties in properly labelling the reimbursement cheques sent to Canadians — was yet another self-inflicted wound.

    Policy death

    Six years after its introduction, the federal consumer carbon tax was scrapped — ironically by the very party that had championed it for years.

    Yet the list of those who aided and abetted includes a secondary group of previous allies and other entities who in recent years publicly turned their backs on the carbon tax. That eroded public support for a policy that was already facing concerted attacks from Conservative political opponents and growing anti-Trudeau populism.

    While the tax could conceivably be replaced by an equally effective tool, its repeal increases uncertainty about Canada’s ability to meet its already faltering international commitments to support climate change mitigation.

    Ryan M. Katz-Rosene receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. Who really killed Canada’s carbon tax? Friends and foes alike – https://theconversation.com/who-really-killed-canadas-carbon-tax-friends-and-foes-alike-252364

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Nuclear war threat: why Africa’s pushing for a complete ban

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Olamide Samuel, Track II Diplomat and Expert in Nuclear Politics, University of Leicester

    At a time of heightened geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine, intensified by strategic dynamics involving the US, Nato and Russia over Europe’s security, nuclear weapons are back on the agenda.

    In recent times, Russia has openly threatened to use nuclear weapons. The UK and France are considering ways to rapidly increase their nuclear weapons stockpiles.

    Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, South Korea and Japan are now seeking nuclear weapons capabilities.

    Even a limited nuclear war in Europe would lead to catastrophic global climatic effects. Huge amounts of debris thrown high into the atmosphere would block sunlight, causing global temperatures to drop sharply. It would be much harder to grow food around the world.

    This would severely threaten Africa’s food security, exacerbating mass migration, disrupting supply chains and potentially collapsing public order systems.

    How should African countries respond to this growing threat?

    Based on my experience in nuclear non-proliferation and politics, I argue that African leaders need to proactively confront the risks, while there is still time.

    All African states, except for South Sudan, abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is an international agreement which limits the spread of nuclear weapons. And 43 African states have gone further to join the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Pelindaba). This was negotiated in the belief that it would “protect African states against possible nuclear attacks on their territories”.

    As conflict and uncertainty pushes many western leaders to support the madness of nuclear weapons proliferation, African leaders are in a unique position to push back against this.

    Africa’s strength in numbers in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the Nuclear Ban Treaty, is a vehicle the continent can use to address nuclear weapons risks, head-on.

    Global divide

    On one side, nuclear-armed states cling to deterrence for their national security. They insist that possessing nuclear arsenals keeps them safe.

    At present, there are nine nuclear-armed states: the US, Russia, the UK, China, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. These countries possess around 12,331 nuclear warheads (as of 2025).

    The use of only 10% of these weapons could disrupt the global climate and threaten the lives of up to 2 billion people.

    On the other side, African countries and other non-nuclear-weapon states such as Ireland, Austria, New Zealand and Mexico highlight how deterrence creates unacceptable risks for the entire international community.

    This global majority – the 93 countries that have signed the Nuclear Ban Treaty and 73 that are party to it – argue that real safety comes from eliminating nuclear threats.

    The Nuclear Ban Treaty became international law on 22 January 2021. It is the first instance of international law challenging the legality and morality of nuclear deterrence.

    Since 2022, states parties to the Nuclear Ban Treaty have held formal meetings to address current nuclear risks. In March 2025, at their third meeting, 17 African states officially recognised nuclear deterrence as a critical security concern. They called on nuclear armed states to end deterrence.

    The deterioration of the international security environment is so palpable that there has been a noticeable shift in nuclear ban states’ perception of nuclear threats. Nuclear disarmament is no longer just a humanitarian or moral concern to these states, it is now a national security concern.

    South Africa warned that

    any use of nuclear weapons would result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would have a global impact.

    Ghana likewise stressed that Africa is not immune to nuclear war’s fallout:

    Africa, despite its geographic distance from the immediate hotspots of nuclear conflict, is not immune to the repercussions of nuclear weapons.

    Africa bears a unique historical connection to nuclear issues. Nuclear testing in the Sahara Desert in the 1960s, when France detonated nuclear bombs in Algeria, had devastating consequences. Widespread radioactive contamination harmed local communities, caused long-lasting health problems, displaced populations, and left large areas environmentally damaged and unsafe for generations.

    For its part, Nigeria recalled that Africa had “long acknowledged the existential threat nuclear weapons posed to human existence.”

    The meeting determined that it is unacceptable that states parties are exposed to nuclear risks, “created without their control and without accountability”. It stressed that eliminating nuclear risks “is a prime and legitimate concern and national responsibility” of states.

    Next steps

    Delegates effectively asked whether their own national security concerns had less value than those of nuclear-armed states. I think this is a valid question.

    Africa’s leaders and their allies in the Nuclear Ban Treaty are reframing what “national security” means in the nuclear age.

    Rather than accepting a world perpetually held hostage by the madness of nuclear deterrence, they are asserting that the security of nations – and of peoples – is best served by dismantling this threat to humanity.

    They are prioritising human life, development and international law over the threat of overwhelming force.

    The outcome of this contest will have profound implications, not just for Africa but for the entire globe.

    Olamide Samuel is affiliated with the Open Nuclear Network.

    – ref. Nuclear war threat: why Africa’s pushing for a complete ban – https://theconversation.com/nuclear-war-threat-why-africas-pushing-for-a-complete-ban-253171

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Nuclear war threat: why Africa’s pushing for a complete ban

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Olamide Samuel, Track II Diplomat and Expert in Nuclear Politics, University of Leicester

    At a time of heightened geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine, intensified by strategic dynamics involving the US, Nato and Russia over Europe’s security, nuclear weapons are back on the agenda.

    In recent times, Russia has openly threatened to use nuclear weapons. The UK and France are considering ways to rapidly increase their nuclear weapons stockpiles.

    Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, South Korea and Japan are now seeking nuclear weapons capabilities.

    Even a limited nuclear war in Europe would lead to catastrophic global climatic effects. Huge amounts of debris thrown high into the atmosphere would block sunlight, causing global temperatures to drop sharply. It would be much harder to grow food around the world.

    This would severely threaten Africa’s food security, exacerbating mass migration, disrupting supply chains and potentially collapsing public order systems.

    How should African countries respond to this growing threat?

    Based on my experience in nuclear non-proliferation and politics, I argue that African leaders need to proactively confront the risks, while there is still time.

    All African states, except for South Sudan, abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is an international agreement which limits the spread of nuclear weapons. And 43 African states have gone further to join the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Pelindaba). This was negotiated in the belief that it would “protect African states against possible nuclear attacks on their territories”.

    As conflict and uncertainty pushes many western leaders to support the madness of nuclear weapons proliferation, African leaders are in a unique position to push back against this.

    Africa’s strength in numbers in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the Nuclear Ban Treaty, is a vehicle the continent can use to address nuclear weapons risks, head-on.

    Global divide

    On one side, nuclear-armed states cling to deterrence for their national security. They insist that possessing nuclear arsenals keeps them safe.

    At present, there are nine nuclear-armed states: the US, Russia, the UK, China, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. These countries possess around 12,331 nuclear warheads (as of 2025).

    The use of only 10% of these weapons could disrupt the global climate and threaten the lives of up to 2 billion people.

    On the other side, African countries and other non-nuclear-weapon states such as Ireland, Austria, New Zealand and Mexico highlight how deterrence creates unacceptable risks for the entire international community.

    This global majority – the 93 countries that have signed the Nuclear Ban Treaty and 73 that are party to it – argue that real safety comes from eliminating nuclear threats.

    The Nuclear Ban Treaty became international law on 22 January 2021. It is the first instance of international law challenging the legality and morality of nuclear deterrence.

    Since 2022, states parties to the Nuclear Ban Treaty have held formal meetings to address current nuclear risks. In March 2025, at their third meeting, 17 African states officially recognised nuclear deterrence as a critical security concern. They called on nuclear armed states to end deterrence.

    The deterioration of the international security environment is so palpable that there has been a noticeable shift in nuclear ban states’ perception of nuclear threats. Nuclear disarmament is no longer just a humanitarian or moral concern to these states, it is now a national security concern.

    South Africa warned that

    any use of nuclear weapons would result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would have a global impact.

    Ghana likewise stressed that Africa is not immune to nuclear war’s fallout:

    Africa, despite its geographic distance from the immediate hotspots of nuclear conflict, is not immune to the repercussions of nuclear weapons.

    Africa bears a unique historical connection to nuclear issues. Nuclear testing in the Sahara Desert in the 1960s, when France detonated nuclear bombs in Algeria, had devastating consequences. Widespread radioactive contamination harmed local communities, caused long-lasting health problems, displaced populations, and left large areas environmentally damaged and unsafe for generations.

    For its part, Nigeria recalled that Africa had “long acknowledged the existential threat nuclear weapons posed to human existence.”

    The meeting determined that it is unacceptable that states parties are exposed to nuclear risks, “created without their control and without accountability”. It stressed that eliminating nuclear risks “is a prime and legitimate concern and national responsibility” of states.

    Next steps

    Delegates effectively asked whether their own national security concerns had less value than those of nuclear-armed states. I think this is a valid question.

    Africa’s leaders and their allies in the Nuclear Ban Treaty are reframing what “national security” means in the nuclear age.

    Rather than accepting a world perpetually held hostage by the madness of nuclear deterrence, they are asserting that the security of nations – and of peoples – is best served by dismantling this threat to humanity.

    They are prioritising human life, development and international law over the threat of overwhelming force.

    The outcome of this contest will have profound implications, not just for Africa but for the entire globe.

    – Nuclear war threat: why Africa’s pushing for a complete ban
    – https://theconversation.com/nuclear-war-threat-why-africas-pushing-for-a-complete-ban-253171

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Parliamentary secretary’s statement on Transgender Day of Visibility

    Source: Government of Canada regional news

    Jennifer Blatherwick, parliamentary secretary for gender equity, has released the following statement in honour of Transgender Day of Visibility:

    “Every year on March 31, B.C. celebrates Transgender Day of Visibility and the achievements and contributions of transgender, gender-diverse, and Two-Spirit people.

    “This day of recognition was started in 2010 by Rachel Crandall-Crocker to shift the focus away from the violence and the devastating impacts of transphobia on trans people’s lives and to uplift the many positive stories about the trans community.

    “It is important to recognize the contributions of transgender, gender-diverse, and Two-Spirit people. That’s why today, we recognize the more than 18,000 British Columbians who identify as transgender, gender-diverse, or Two-Spirit. They are our friends, family members, neighbours and colleagues, and today we celebrate them.

    “Transgender Day of Visibility is important because everyone benefits when we can all be our most authentic selves and be seen and loved for who we really are. B.C. is a diverse province and visibility matters, because everyone has the right to see themselves represented in our communities and our society. 

    “The University of Victoria hosts the world’s largest Transgender Archives, which span more than 120 years of records, including materials in 15 languages, from 23 countries and six continents. The Transgender Archives play an important role in preserving and highlighting trans history, and are a reminder that transgender, gender-diverse, and Two-Spirit people have always been here, and will always continue to be.

    “On this Transgender Day of Visibility, I invite all British Columbians to join me in celebrating and uplifting the transgender, gender-diverse, and Two-Spirit people from our communities, and working hard every day to make sure that transphobia, discrimination, and hate have no place in B.C.”

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Rep. Young Kim’s Record Ranked Among Most Effective in Congress

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Young Kim (CA-39)

    Washington, DC – The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) announced the release of the Legislative Effectiveness Scores (LES) for the 118th Congress (2023-25). 

    Rep. Young Kim (CA-40)’s record was ranked among the most effective, with her score being 8th highest among House Republicans and 10th highest in the House of Representatives.  

    Her score was the highest of all representatives and senators from California.  

    “Representing my community is not a job I take lightly. I am thrilled my record of effectiveness shows my commitment to getting things done,” said Rep. Young Kim. “I am just getting started and remain willing to work with whoever wants to work with me to deliver results and improve the lives of the American people.” 

    In the 117th Congress, Rep. Kim’s LES was the highest of House Republican freshmen and was one of ten whose was “exceeding expectations.” She has also been named a Common Ground Champion, ranked most bipartisan freshman by the Lugar Center and McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and according to data by Quorum Analytics, and she received the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Legislative Action Award.    

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Africa’s data workers are being exploited by foreign tech firms – 4 ways to protect them

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Mohammad Amir Anwar, Senior Lecturer in African Studies and International Development, University of Edinburgh

    Data workers in Africa often have a hard time. They face job insecurities – including temporary contracts, low pay, arbitrary dismissal and worker surveillance – and alarming physical and psychological health risks. The consequences of their work can include exhaustion, burnout, mental health strain, chronic stress, vertigo and weakening of eyesight.

    Data work includes text prediction, image and video annotation, speech to text validation and content moderation.

    The world of data work is built on labour arbitrage – exploiting the fact that workers earn less and have less protection in some countries than in others.

    Large technology firms often outsource this work to the global south, including African countries like Kenya, Uganda and Madagascar, and also India and Venezuela. The result is complex production networks that are generally opaque and shrouded in secrecy.

    Workers and researchers have issued many warnings about data workers’ health. Despite numerous court cases in multiple jurisdictions, nothing much has been done to address these issues either by tech companies or by regulators.

    Read more: For workers in Africa, the digital economy isn’t all it’s made out to be

    Still, the news of the death of a Nigerian content moderator, Ladi Anzaki Olubunmi, who was found dead in her apartment in Nairobi, Kenya on 7 March 2025, came as a shock. While the circumstances of her death are still unclear, it has renewed calls for wider systemic change. Her death has sparked condemnation from the Kenyan Union of Gig Workers, which demanded an investigation.

    Since 2015, we have been studying the central role of African data workers in building and maintaining artificial intelligence (AI) systems, acting as “data janitors”. Our research found that companies rarely acknowledge the use of human workers in AI value chains, thus they remain “hidden” from the public eye. In other words, the world of AI is built on the toil of human workers most people are unaware of.

    In this article, we outline key steps needed to protect these data workers in Africa. They include business process outsourcing regulations, ensuring quality rather than quantity of jobs, and providing social protection. There is also a need to name and shame companies that maltreat data workers.

    Data work needs tighter regulation.

    Read more: Digital labour platforms subject global South workers to ‘algorithmic insecurity’

    Regulation

    Business process outsourcing is the practice of procuring various processes or operations from external suppliers or vendors. Firms that do this are sometimes trying to evade local regulations (like minimum wages) and responsibility towards workers’ welfare (via sub-contracting and the use of temporary employment agencies).

    This is happening in Africa as some data training firms and digital labour platforms circumvent local labour laws.

    But there is more to the story.

    Data work is also seen by lawmakers and practitioners as a solution to the rampant unemployment and informality across Africa. African governments have actively created regulatory environments that enable these practices to thrive, despite adverse outcomes for workers.

    Nonetheless, new regulations have been proposed lately, like the Kenyan government’s Business Law (Amendment) Bill, 2024 targeting the wider business process outsourcing and IT-enabled services sector. Particularly, it makes business process outsourcing firms responsible for any claim raised by employees. It ensures some accountability for firms bringing data work to Africa.

    Other governments should follow with similar measures ensuring worker rights are enforceable. Some data workers are hired on contracts as short as five days and get paid less than the local minimum wage. Firms found violating labour standards should be penalised.

    In fact, there is an urgent need to create regional or continent-wide regulatory frameworks covering the business process outsourcing sector, limiting the space for firms to exploit workers.

    It’s possible, however, that jobs might be lost as firms relocate to places with favourable laws, an everyday reality in the outsourcing networks.

    Read more: Most call centre jobs are a dead end for South Africa’s youth

    Quality, not quantity

    African governments should prioritise the quality of jobs and not quantity. Policymakers should think about wider national economic development plans, particularly structural diversification and upgrading of their economies.

    Historically, these strategies have resulted in success in some states, addressing social and economic issues such as unemployment, poverty and inequality.

    Another option for African governments is to enhance social protection among data workers. Financing this is a serious issue, so proper taxation and compliance among workers and employers is urgently needed.

    Finally, there is a role for naming and shaming firms that treat their data workers poorly. There is evidence that such efforts improve compliance and firms’ behaviour.

    Read more: Digital trade protocol for Africa: why it matters, what’s in it and what’s still missing

    Worker movements

    African data workers have taken risks in openly speaking about their experiences. But these kinds of approaches work well when combined with collective bargaining.

    Workers have historically won their labour and civil rights after long and hard-fought struggles. There is a long history of African worker movements and trade unions resisting the apartheid and colonial regimes across the continent.

    While the freedom of association is enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and most governments have legislation committed to collective bargaining, it is rarely implemented in the new outsourcing sectors, particularly data work.

    It is also difficult to organise workers in the industry, because of the high churn rate. For instance, data training firms like Sama offer short-term contracts to employees, often as short as five days.

    Some firms are hostile to workers’ organising activities.

    But numerous data worker-led associations have emerged in Africa recently, some led by the co-authors of this article. Techworker Community Africa, African Tech Workers Rising, African Content Moderators Unions and Data Labelers Association are among them.

    These initiatives are crucial to ensure workers have decent remuneration, work-life balance, adequate working hours, protection against arbitrary dismissal, safe working environments, and contributions towards their health and welfare.

    Several high-profile court cases are currently being pursued by African data workers against Meta and Sama. There is precedent. In 2021. Meta was ordered by a Californian court to pay US$85 million to 10,000 content moderators.

    AI-dependent tools such as ChatGPT or driverless cars would not exist without African data workers. They are tired of being “hidden”. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.

    Mophat Okinyi, Kauna Malgwi, Sonia Kgomo and Richard Mathenge co-authored this article.

    – Africa’s data workers are being exploited by foreign tech firms – 4 ways to protect them
    – https://theconversation.com/africas-data-workers-are-being-exploited-by-foreign-tech-firms-4-ways-to-protect-them-252957

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Africa’s data workers are being exploited by foreign tech firms – 4 ways to protect them

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Mohammad Amir Anwar, Senior Lecturer in African Studies and International Development, University of Edinburgh

    Data workers in Africa often have a hard time. They face job insecurities – including temporary contracts, low pay, arbitrary dismissal and worker surveillance – and alarming physical and psychological health risks. The consequences of their work can include exhaustion, burnout, mental health strain, chronic stress, vertigo and weakening of eyesight.

    Data work includes text prediction, image and video annotation, speech to text validation and content moderation.

    The world of data work is built on labour arbitrage – exploiting the fact that workers earn less and have less protection in some countries than in others.

    Large technology firms often outsource this work to the global south, including African countries like Kenya, Uganda and Madagascar, and also India and Venezuela. The result is complex production networks that are generally opaque and shrouded in secrecy.

    Workers and researchers have issued many warnings about data workers’ health. Despite numerous court cases in multiple jurisdictions, nothing much has been done to address these issues either by tech companies or by regulators.



    Read more:
    For workers in Africa, the digital economy isn’t all it’s made out to be

    Still, the news of the death of a Nigerian content moderator, Ladi Anzaki Olubunmi, who was found dead in her apartment in Nairobi, Kenya on 7 March 2025, came as a shock. While the circumstances of her death are still unclear, it has renewed calls for wider systemic change. Her death has sparked condemnation from the Kenyan Union of Gig Workers, which demanded an investigation.

    Since 2015, we have been studying the central role of African data workers in building and maintaining artificial intelligence (AI) systems, acting as “data janitors”. Our research found that companies rarely acknowledge the use of human workers in AI value chains, thus they remain “hidden” from the public eye. In other words, the world of AI is built on the toil of human workers most people are unaware of.

    In this article, we outline key steps needed to protect these data workers in Africa. They include business process outsourcing regulations, ensuring quality rather than quantity of jobs, and providing social protection. There is also a need to name and shame companies that maltreat data workers.

    Data work needs tighter regulation.



    Read more:
    Digital labour platforms subject global South workers to ‘algorithmic insecurity’

    Regulation

    Business process outsourcing is the practice of procuring various processes or operations from external suppliers or vendors. Firms that do this are sometimes trying to evade local regulations (like minimum wages) and responsibility towards workers’ welfare (via sub-contracting and the use of temporary employment agencies).

    This is happening in Africa as some data training firms and digital labour platforms circumvent local labour laws.

    But there is more to the story.

    Data work is also seen by lawmakers and practitioners as a solution to the rampant unemployment and informality across Africa. African governments have actively created regulatory environments that enable these practices to thrive, despite adverse outcomes for workers.

    Nonetheless, new regulations have been proposed lately, like the Kenyan government’s Business Law (Amendment) Bill, 2024 targeting the wider business process outsourcing and IT-enabled services sector. Particularly, it makes business process outsourcing firms responsible for any claim raised by employees. It ensures some accountability for firms bringing data work to Africa.

    Other governments should follow with similar measures ensuring worker rights are enforceable. Some data workers are hired on contracts as short as five days and get paid less than the local minimum wage. Firms found violating labour standards should be penalised.

    In fact, there is an urgent need to create regional or continent-wide regulatory frameworks covering the business process outsourcing sector, limiting the space for firms to exploit workers.

    It’s possible, however, that jobs might be lost as firms relocate to places with favourable laws, an everyday reality in the outsourcing networks.



    Read more:
    Most call centre jobs are a dead end for South Africa’s youth

    Quality, not quantity

    African governments should prioritise the quality of jobs and not quantity. Policymakers should think about wider national economic development plans, particularly structural diversification and upgrading of their economies.

    Historically, these strategies have resulted in success in some states, addressing social and economic issues such as unemployment, poverty and inequality.

    Another option for African governments is to enhance social protection among data workers. Financing this is a serious issue, so proper taxation and compliance among workers and employers is urgently needed.

    Finally, there is a role for naming and shaming firms that treat their data workers poorly. There is evidence that such efforts improve compliance and firms’ behaviour.



    Read more:
    Digital trade protocol for Africa: why it matters, what’s in it and what’s still missing

    Worker movements

    African data workers have taken risks in openly speaking about their experiences. But these kinds of approaches work well when combined with collective bargaining.

    Workers have historically won their labour and civil rights after long and hard-fought struggles. There is a long history of African worker movements and trade unions resisting the apartheid and colonial regimes across the continent.

    While the freedom of association is enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and most governments have legislation committed to collective bargaining, it is rarely implemented in the new outsourcing sectors, particularly data work.

    It is also difficult to organise workers in the industry, because of the high churn rate. For instance, data training firms like Sama offer short-term contracts to employees, often as short as five days.

    Some firms are hostile to workers’ organising activities.

    But numerous data worker-led associations have emerged in Africa recently, some led by the co-authors of this article. Techworker Community Africa, African Tech Workers Rising, African Content Moderators Unions and Data Labelers Association are among them.

    These initiatives are crucial to ensure workers have decent remuneration, work-life balance, adequate working hours, protection against arbitrary dismissal, safe working environments, and contributions towards their health and welfare.

    Several high-profile court cases are currently being pursued by African data workers against Meta and Sama. There is precedent. In 2021. Meta was ordered by a Californian court to pay US$85 million to 10,000 content moderators.

    AI-dependent tools such as ChatGPT or driverless cars would not exist without African data workers. They are tired of being “hidden”. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.

    Mophat Okinyi, Kauna Malgwi, Sonia Kgomo and Richard Mathenge co-authored this article.

    Mohammad Amir Anwar receives funding from United Kingdom Research and Innovation, Royal Society of Edinburgh, and British Academy.

    – ref. Africa’s data workers are being exploited by foreign tech firms – 4 ways to protect them – https://theconversation.com/africas-data-workers-are-being-exploited-by-foreign-tech-firms-4-ways-to-protect-them-252957

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Lectures on the “star” graduating class of 1885 were held at SPbGASU

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering –

    Within the framework of the V National (All-Russian) scientific and practical conference with international participation “Reconstruction and restoration of architectural heritage” (RRAN-2025), a lecture block “On the 140th anniversary of the “star graduation” was held. Its initiators were Associate Professor of the Department of Urban Development of SPbGASU, PhD in Architecture Svetlana Levoshko, PhD in Philosophy, independent researcher Elena Travina and Director of the Historical and Information Center of SPbGASU Elena Klimenko.

    The reason to celebrate this date is truly loud: in 1885, the Institute of Civil Engineers (IGI, now SPbGASU) graduated a galaxy of architects and engineers who became world-class professionals and made a huge contribution to the development of our country. Among them are the director of IGI, architect, statesman Vasily Kosyakov (1862-1921), civil engineer Gavriil Baranovsky (1860-1920), architect Nikolay Sokolov (1859-1906). As the researchers who spoke emphasized, new details are still being revealed in the biographies and professional activities of these outstanding individuals.

    Professor of the Department of Urban Development of SPbGASU Sergey Semenov called holding such meetings a good idea, since the accumulation and preservation of information is of great value. It is no coincidence that during the Great Patriotic War, the Nazi troops primarily sought to destroy museums, libraries and educational institutions, including our university.

    “Graduates who have become outstanding engineers and architects confirm the highest level of training of specialists at our university at all times. The basic knowledge base was mastered by students even with low academic performance. Thus, Mikhail Eisenstein, the father of the famous director, worked as the chief architect of Riga and built several streets, some buildings of which are recognized as cultural heritage sites. The best graduates are a good example for students,” noted Sergey Semenov.

    Moderator of the lecture block Svetlana Levoshko clarified that the discussion will be about “star” graduates who have made a great contribution to the development of the industry and the country.

    The Kosyakovs’ example: talent and hard work lead to success

    Doctor of Art History, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, Professor of the Faculty of Arts of Moscow State University, graduate of the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineering (now St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering) in 1983. Sergei Savelyev initially wrote three books about Nikolai Vladimirovich Sultanov (1850–1908), Director of the Institute of Civil Engineers (1895–1903), Russian architect, civil engineer, art historian and architectural historian, restorer, teacher, and full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

    “Vasily Antonovich Kosyakov was a student of Nikolay Vladimirovich Sultanov and a graduate of the IGI architectural and construction school, the largest in Europe at the time, comparable to German and French schools. Only thanks to such a powerful school did Kosyakov develop into a major architect and statesman: he was an elected director of the IGI and held many other posts, including a member of the economic administration of the Holy Synod. At the end of his life, he became an architect of the Imperial Court, that is, he reached heights in his professional service activities. This indicates that talented people had every opportunity for development in the Russian Empire. Vasily Kosyakov was of humble origin – his father was a master of the kitchen workshop, in other words, a cook. During his years of study at the IGI, Kosyakov wrote a petition for a scholarship and even received a certificate of poverty. In essence, a person who had neither a status nor a financial starting point, reached heights solely due to his talent and hard work. For today’s students, this is a great example,” noted Sergey Savelyev.

    He added that Vasily Kosyakov is inseparable from the work of his two brothers Vladimir and Georgy. Georgy studied at the Academy of Arts, in the workshop of L. N. Benois and was an excellent artist, watercolourist, member of the society of architects and artists, artists of watercolour painting, participated in exhibitions. The ornamentation in Vasily Kosyakov’s projects appears precisely thanks to him. Their joint famous work of architecture is the Naval Cathedral in Kronstadt. Vladimir Kosyakov also studied at the IGI and was a remarkable architect and artist.

    “The example of the Kosyakov brothers is relevant for today’s students: you need to do graphics, draw, despite the computer programs. Each of the brothers had a certain professional profile. Vasily could do everything: he is a universal specialist in organizing construction. Georgy is a master of watercolors, an architect and artist. Vladimir was also involved in organizing construction work, a school for foremen for construction work, that is, he worked as a foreman. The qualifications of builders at that time were at a very high level largely due to the fact that the architectural community took the training of construction workers into its own hands,” explained Sergei Savelyev.

    He emphasized that the Kosyakovs’ theme is inexhaustible. In the course of the research, it is possible to discover more and more new materials, since their activity falls on the “silver age”: the heyday of Russian literature and fine arts, painting and architecture of the late 19th – early 20th centuries. And these people constituted one of the important pages of the IGI school. Many beautiful churches, public buildings, engineering structures were built. By 1917, the IGI architectural and construction school was on the rise. Today, it continues the traditions and serves as a magnificent foundation for new achievements.

    Engineer Baranovsky and architect Sokolov

    Elena Travina recalled that civil engineer Gavriil Vasilyevich Baranovsky (1860–1920) is known for his buildings, which became “postcard views” of St. Petersburg. His creative path began in 1881 in the building of the Construction School/Institute of Civil Engineers.

    “The engineer made a decent career, having risen to the rank of actual state councilor and sitting on all sorts of commissions and committees. But what do we know about the man Gavriil Baranovsky: his family, youth, friends, hobbies? Over more than ten years of research, we managed to find photographs, documents, projects that were previously unknown and not introduced into scientific circulation. They allowed us to imagine the image of Baranovsky – a son, husband, father, friend, a man who completely devoted himself to his favorite business – architecture, but at the same time a versatile personality. His son characterized his father as a mathematician, philologist, artist, lawyer and philosopher. Without all this knowledge, Gavriil Baranovsky would not have been able to publish the magazine “Builder”, create the seven-volume “Architectural Encyclopedia of the Late 19th – Early 20th Century”, work on the legal subtleties of the Construction Code and write the philosophical treatise “World Matter and Its Derivatives. Geometric Manifestation of the Ontological Problem”, explained Elena Travina.

    On July 30, 1920, his funeral service was held in the Dukhovskaya Church in the village of Kellomäki (now the village of Komarovo in the Kurortny District of St. Petersburg). In 2020, a cenotaph was erected in his memory at the local cemetery (designed by architect R. M. Dayanov).

    Let us recall some of Baranovsky’s famous works: the Eliseev Brothers Trading Company building on Nevsky Prospect and the Moscow Eliseevsky store on Tverskaya (together with V. V. Voeikov and M. M. Peretyatkovich).

    Doctor of Architecture, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of History of Architecture, Art and Architectural Restoration at the Southern Federal University Anna Ivanova-Ilyicheva spoke about the architect Nikolai Matveevich Sokolov (1859–1906). Sokolov worked as the chief architect of Rostov-on-Don and left behind a rich architectural heritage.

    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: HSE and Gorki Leninskiye Museum-Reserve Sign Cooperation Agreement

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –

    The main objectives are joint scientific research and project activities, assistance in training scientific and pedagogical personnel and advanced training of specialists in the humanities. The document was signed by the dean Faculty of Humanities HSE University Felix Azhimov and Director of the Gorki Leninskiye Museum-Reserve Evgeny Saramud.

    During the interaction, students and postgraduates of the faculty will have the opportunity to undergo practical training and internships at the museum in their field, and for research staff, the agreement provides for the holding of joint events – seminars, conferences, round tables, master classes, symposiums.

    “This agreement will create a platform for deep and meaningful research, and will also provide students with a unique opportunity to apply the theoretical knowledge they have acquired in practice through direct interaction with the country’s cultural and historical heritage,” said the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at HSE.

    “Our cooperation with the Faculty of Humanities of the Higher School of Economics will open up significant prospects for the development of educational and scientific initiatives. I am sure that we will implement many joint projects, actively exchange knowledge and new educational formats that will contribute to the progress of science and museum activities,” said Yevgeny Saramud, Director of the Gorki Leninskiye Museum-Reserve.

    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: RateUniversity Hosts Free First-Time Homebuyer Education Event in Boston

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    BOSTON, March 31, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Rate, a leader in fintech mortgage solutions, reinforces its dedication to expanding homeownership access by hosting RateUniversity Boston, a free first-time homebuyer education event on Saturday, April 26, 2025, from 10 AM to 1 PM at Roxbury Community College, Building 3.

    Visit Rate.com to Register Today

    RateUniversity is more than just a financial literacy event—it’s a unique, interactive experience designed to bridge the financial knowledge gap that affects adults from all backgrounds. While many financial workshops focus on underserved communities, RateUniversity recognizes that a lack of financial education is a widespread issue, even among college graduates and working professionals. The program is structured to provide practical, strategic knowledge about credit, mortgages, and financial tools that empower individuals to build wealth through homeownership.

    “RateUniversity is not just another financial workshop. It’s about filling the massive knowledge gap for so many adults, regardless of their background or education level,” said Shant Banosian, President of Rate Mortgage. “Most people graduate high school, college, and even advanced degree programs. But, they never learn how credit works, how to leverage a mortgage, or how financial products can be a tool for building wealth. That’s a huge problem. RateUniversity is designed to change that by making financial education accessible, engaging, and directly applicable to people’s lives. We want to give people the knowledge they need to make informed decisions, take control of their financial future, and ultimately, build generational wealth.”

    Originally launched in Chicago, RateUniversity continues to expand into new cities, bringing financial education to diverse communities in an engaging, culturally relevant, and interactive format. Attendees of the Boston event will participate in bilingual workshops in English and Spanish, covering essential financial topics such as building credit, understanding mortgage options, and accessing specialized affordable lending programs. Bilingual loan officers will be available for one-on-one consultations, answering questions and assisting with pre-approvals.

    RateUniversity attendees can expect:

    • Free educational workshops in English and Spanish
    • One-on-one consultations with bilingual loan officers
    • Expert guidance on homebuying programs and financial planning
    • Access to nonprofit resources focused on homebuyer assistance and grants
    • Networking opportunities with real estate professionals and community partners
    • Complimentary food and refreshments

    In addition, attendees who complete the program and proceed with a home purchase will be eligible for a $500 closing cost credit.

    “At Rate, we are committed to making financial wellness an integral part of homeownership,” said Arlyn Kalinski, SVP of Fair & Equitable Lending Strategies for Rate. “RateUniversity isn’t just about learning the basics of credit and mortgage lending—it’s about empowering people with the tools and strategies they need to build a stronger financial future. By delivering expert guidance in multiple languages and partnering with community organizations, we’re creating real opportunities for more families to achieve homeownership.”

    Media Availability

    The Rate team will be available for media interviews. Please contact press@rate.com for direct coordination.

    For more information or to register for RateUniversity, visit rate.com/rateuniversity.

    About Rate

    Rate Companies is a leader in mortgage lending and digital financial services. Headquartered in Chicago, Rate has over 850 branches across all 50 states and Washington D.C. Since its launch in 2000, Rate has helped more than 2 million homeowners with home purchase loans and refinances. The company has cemented itself as an industry leader by introducing innovative technology, offering low rates, and delivering unparalleled customer service.

    Honors and awards include Best Mortgage Lender for First-Time Homebuyers by NerdWallet for 2023; HousingWire’s Tech100 award for the company’s industry-leading FlashClose℠ digital mortgage platform in 2020, MyAccount in 2022, and Language Access Program in 2023; the most Scotsman Guide Top Originators for 11 consecutive years; Chicago Agent Magazine’s Lender of the Year for seven consecutive years; and Chicago Tribune’s Top Workplaces list for seven straight years.

    Visit rate.com for more information.

    Media Contact

    press@rate.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI USA: An Interview with Foreign Law Intern at the Law Library of Congress, Yuri Rattanaboonsen

    Source: US Global Legal Monitor

    Today’s blog post is an interview with a foreign law intern at the Law Library of Congress, Panicha Rattanaboonsen. She works with foreign law specialist Sayuri Umeda in the Global Legal Research Directorate. 

    Describe your background.

    My name is Panicha Rattanaboonsen, also known as Yuri. I am originally from Thailand and come from an overseas Chinese family. I moved to Bangkok during high school, where I attended Triam Udom Suksa School. I am fluent in Thai and English and have basic proficiency in Mandarin and Lao.

    What is your academic/professional history?

    Currently, I am an LL.M. candidate in the Environmental and Energy Law program at Georgetown University Law Center. Before pursuing my graduate studies, I had experience in the public sector at the national level in Thailand, contributing to policies and measures addressing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting energy innovation. I also worked as a legal analyst and adviser, focusing on renewable energy projects and energy policy.

    My professional background includes my role as a business tax associate, where I provided strategic tax advisory services to international clients, and my internship in the legal department of a big consulting firm, as well as my experience in arbitration and mediation at the Thai Arbitration Center, where I gained expertise in resolving complex domestic and international disputes.

    How do you describe your job to other people?

    I am a foreign law intern at the Global Legal Research Directorate of the Law Library of Congress. I conduct legal research and analysis on Thailand’s legal framework, including monitoring global legal articles and assessing Thai laws and regulations updates. Additionally, I have contributed to legal reports that will be published by the Law Library, such as Thailand: Civic Space Legal Framework, which examines legal policies affecting civic engagement and is set to be published at a later date.

    Why did you want to work at the Library of Congress?

    The Library of Congress houses one of the world’s most extensive and valuable collections of legal resources. Contributing to the development of reports and articles that serve organizations, scholars, and policymakers is a unique and meaningful opportunity. Moreover, working on the legislative research for Congress provides me with invaluable life experience.

    What is the most interesting fact that you’ve learned about the Library?

    I was fascinated to learn that the Law Library of Congress holds one of the world’s largest collections of legal materials. I was particularly intrigued to discover that Thai legal books and collections are also preserved there.

    What’s something that most of your co-workers don’t know about you?

    Beyond my work in law and policy, I am also interested in finance and investment. I am currently pursuing a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification.

    Subscribe to In Custodia Legis – it’s free! – to receive interesting posts drawn from the Law Library of Congress’s vast collections and our staff’s expertise in U.S., foreign, and international law.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: NATO reaffirms its commitment to Western Balkans stability, as Secretary General Rutte wraps up visits to Sarajevo and Pristina

    Source: NATO

    On 10 and 11 March 2025, NATO’s Secretary General, Mark Rutte, visited Sarajevo and Pristina. In Sarajevo, he met high-level officials from Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the Chair and members of the Presidency, the Chair of the Council of Ministers, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defence, and the Acting Minister of Security, as well as with the Commander of NATO Headquarters Sarajevo, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Commander of the EUFOR mission. The Secretary General also engaged with students at the University of Sarajevo.

    During his visit, Mr. Rutte highlighted that “NATO remains firmly committed to the stability of this region and to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” He added that “the Dayton Peace Agreement is the cornerstone of peace in this country and must be respected; and we support the Office of the High Representative; any actions that undermine Dayton, the constitutional order, or national institutions are unacceptable; inflammatory rhetoric and actions are dangerous; they pose a direct threat to Bosnia and Herzegovina stability and security.” The NATO Secretary General also underscored the need for political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina “to do their share” and “take responsibility” for the progress and stability of their country. He made it clear that “this is not 1992” and that NATO and its international partners are present and engaged in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and “will not allow a security vacuum to emerge.” Finally, he emphasised that the Alliance stands committed to its cooperation with Bosnia and Herzegovina. “We already have a solid partnership, and we are prepared to build on NATO’s long-standing support to a unified BiH Armed Forces and to defence and security reforms, through our Headquarters in Sarajevo, our newly established Political Cell, and our Defence Capacity Building Package,” he said. 

    In Pristina, the Secretary General led a visit of the North Atlantic Council and troop contributing partners to the NATO-led KFOR mission and the NATO Advisory and Liaison Team. Together with the NATO Deputy Secretary General, Ms Radmila Shekerinska, and the Chair of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, they met with the leadership and personnel of KFOR and the NATO Advisory and Liaison Team (NALT). They also had an exchange of views with the Heads of Mission of the European Union, the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of Mission of UNMIK, and the Acting Head of Mission of the OSCE. Furthermore, the Secretary General met with representatives of the Institutions in Kosovo, for bilateral discussions.

    “NATO has supported peace and stability in the Western Balkans region for thirty years; our commitment remains strong today, spearheaded by KFOR, which is our longest and currently largest mission. Under the excellent leadership of Major General Enrico Barduani, our KFOR troops work relentlessly to ensure a safe and secure environment for all people and communities living in Kosovo, in line with KFOR’s long-standing UN mandate; and the NATO Advisory and Liaison Team continues to support the security organisations in Kosovo, through capacity-building, education and training coordination; a secure Western Balkans region means more security across the whole Euro-Atlantic area,” Secretary General Rutte said. “NATO will continue to play its part, in close coordination with the Kosovo Police and the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, in our respective roles as security responders,” he added. “The solution leading to long-lasting peace is political; NATO will continue to fully support the normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, led by the European Union; this is the only way to solve pending issues, and secure a stable future, ensuring that the rights of all communities are respected and safeguarded; to move the Dialogue forward, both sides must show flexibility, make the necessary compromises, and focus on the long-term gains,” he pointed out.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Global: 23% of South Africa’s children suffer from severe hunger: we tested some solutions – experts

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Leila Patel, Professor of Social Development Studies, University of Johannesburg

    A 2024 Unicef report found that 23% of South African children experience severe food poverty, eating less than two of the recommended five food groups per day. Unemployment, food insecurity, limited access to basic services and a lack of knowledge about nutrition all contribute to this. The lead researcher of this multidisciplinary study, Leila Patel, and collaborating researchers Matshidiso Sello and Sadiyya Haffejee suggest ways to tackle this dire situation.

    What’s in place to protect children from poverty?

    Since a call for prioritising the needs of children was adopted by the Mandela government in 1994, much progress has been made in expanding access to education, to immunisations, other primary healthcare services and social grants. Just over 13 million children now receive a child support grant. This has reduced child hunger rates from the high levels seen during the apartheid and immediate post-apartheid eras.

    But the grant doesn’t get to all the children who qualify for it. Around 17.5% of eligible children still don’t receive it. Reasons include a lack of proper documentation, lack of awareness of eligibility criteria and insufficient outreach by government agencies to reach vulnerable populations.

    Also, the grant isn’t close enough to the food poverty line, which is R796 (about US$43) per month per person based on the daily energy intake that a person needs. From 1 April 2025, the child support grant will increase to R560 (about US$30) per month per child.

    Secondly, although school feeding schemes are in place, many children fall outside the net. Close to 10 million children in low income communities in South Africa have access to a school lunch via the National School Nutrition Programme. This programme is an excellent intervention which improves the health of children. However, in 2024, about a quarter of the children who are eligible did not receive school meals. Some of the reasons are procurement issues, funding delays, problems with provisioning, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, when school feeding ceased. Uptake has recovered to some extent but there is a need to improve the quality and effectiveness of the school feeding programme to improve nutritional outcomes.

    You designed a system to help alleviate child poverty: what did it involve?

    The South African Research Chairs Initiative and the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg implemented a study to strengthen social and care systems across health, education and social development. The project, which was started in 2020, involved tracking early grade learners and their caregivers in Johannesburg over a three-year period, looking at their health, material circumstances, food security, educational performance and mental health. Our research revealed a concerning picture of child hunger in Johannesburg, Africa’s wealthiest city.

    The number of children in our study who went to bed hungry in the past week decreased from 13.7% in 2020 to 4.9% in 2022. Zero hunger was achieved in 2021 but it increased again in 2022 due to broader economic pressures like rising food prices and unemployment. While stunting rates showed a slight downward trend over the three years (from 13.5% in 2020 to 11.1% in 2022), we observed worrying increases in wasting, a severe form of malnutrition (from 5.6% in 2020 to 20.3% in 2022), and underweight (from 5.6% in 2020 to 11.4% in 2022).

    Increases in wasting may be due to the COVID-19 pandemic and slow economic recovery. Nevertheless, the fluctuating figures underscore the complex interplay of factors contributing to severe child hunger.

    The teams who worked on the project – called the Community of Practice intervention – set about creating a tighter, more supportive net around children experiencing severe and moderate risk. This integrated approach brought together government agencies, NGOs, schools, social workers, families and community leaders, to build sustainable solutions for child wellbeing.

    The focus was on strengthening existing systems and fostering collaboration to ensure that children’s needs were identified and addressed effectively. On average, 157 children were reached each year over a three year period.



    Read more:
    COVID-19 has hurt some more than others: South Africa needs policies that reflect this

    What did you find?

    Several promising practices emerged from the collaborations, demonstrating the potential for positive change. These included:

    • Strengthening school nutrition programmes by improving the quality and consistency of meals received and providing nutrition education through radio and WhatsApp messaging. More children had access to school meals.

    • Tailored interventions: The team conducted screenings to assess the needs of children and their families. Children requiring specific interventions were referred to appropriate services such as child protection services and grants. Caregivers facing mental health challenges were connected to psychosocial support services, and families experiencing hunger were provided with food parcels by NGOs. Providing food top-ups for children resulted in zero hunger in the second year of the pandemic.

    The number of children experiencing learning and social and emotional difficulties decreased between 2020 and 2022. Access to food and nutrition improved, higher vaccination rates were achieved and caregivers were more responsive to their health needs.

    What does this tell you about what needs to change?

    A significant barrier in addressing severe child poverty is the fragmentation of services across the Departments of Health, Basic Education and Social Development. Since the departments run standalone programmes, the synergies between the different social systems are not optimised. Children and their families who need additional support are often referred to the appropriate services, but there is poor follow-up.

    The Integrated School Health Policy of 2012 makes provision for better coordination between these departments. But implementation has been uneven and poor in some instances. Improving and strengthening these inter-connected social systems of service provision across government departments is critical to improving child food poverty outcomes.

    While managing food inflation, economic growth, job creation, and reduced inequality are important longer-term goals, immediate interventions are essential to address severe child food poverty. Failure to do so will compromise school progression and delay their overall health and social wellbeing. Simply improving economic indicators will not automatically translate to food on the table for every child; targeted interventions are vital.

    Ending severe child hunger in South Africa demands a comprehensive and coordinated response, involving government, NGOs, community organisations, schools, and families themselves.

    Leila Patel receives funding from the National Research Foundation for the Communities of Practice (CoP) study for social systems strengthening for better child wellbeing outcomes.

    Matshidiso Valeria Sello receives funding from the Centre of Excellence in Human Development for a project on Household Economic Shocks.

    Sadiyya Haffejee receives funding from the National Research Foundation.

    – ref. 23% of South Africa’s children suffer from severe hunger: we tested some solutions – experts – https://theconversation.com/23-of-south-africas-children-suffer-from-severe-hunger-we-tested-some-solutions-experts-252566

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: 23% of South Africa’s children suffer from severe hunger: we tested some solutions – experts

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Leila Patel, Professor of Social Development Studies, University of Johannesburg

    A 2024 Unicef report found that 23% of South African children experience severe food poverty, eating less than two of the recommended five food groups per day. Unemployment, food insecurity, limited access to basic services and a lack of knowledge about nutrition all contribute to this. The lead researcher of this multidisciplinary study, Leila Patel, and collaborating researchers Matshidiso Sello and Sadiyya Haffejee suggest ways to tackle this dire situation.

    What’s in place to protect children from poverty?

    Since a call for prioritising the needs of children was adopted by the Mandela government in 1994, much progress has been made in expanding access to education, to immunisations, other primary healthcare services and social grants. Just over 13 million children now receive a child support grant. This has reduced child hunger rates from the high levels seen during the apartheid and immediate post-apartheid eras.

    But the grant doesn’t get to all the children who qualify for it. Around 17.5% of eligible children still don’t receive it. Reasons include a lack of proper documentation, lack of awareness of eligibility criteria and insufficient outreach by government agencies to reach vulnerable populations.

    Also, the grant isn’t close enough to the food poverty line, which is R796 (about US$43) per month per person based on the daily energy intake that a person needs. From 1 April 2025, the child support grant will increase to R560 (about US$30) per month per child.

    Secondly, although school feeding schemes are in place, many children fall outside the net. Close to 10 million children in low income communities in South Africa have access to a school lunch via the National School Nutrition Programme. This programme is an excellent intervention which improves the health of children. However, in 2024, about a quarter of the children who are eligible did not receive school meals. Some of the reasons are procurement issues, funding delays, problems with provisioning, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, when school feeding ceased. Uptake has recovered to some extent but there is a need to improve the quality and effectiveness of the school feeding programme to improve nutritional outcomes.

    You designed a system to help alleviate child poverty: what did it involve?

    The South African Research Chairs Initiative and the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg implemented a study to strengthen social and care systems across health, education and social development. The project, which was started in 2020, involved tracking early grade learners and their caregivers in Johannesburg over a three-year period, looking at their health, material circumstances, food security, educational performance and mental health. Our research revealed a concerning picture of child hunger in Johannesburg, Africa’s wealthiest city.

    The number of children in our study who went to bed hungry in the past week decreased from 13.7% in 2020 to 4.9% in 2022. Zero hunger was achieved in 2021 but it increased again in 2022 due to broader economic pressures like rising food prices and unemployment. While stunting rates showed a slight downward trend over the three years (from 13.5% in 2020 to 11.1% in 2022), we observed worrying increases in wasting, a severe form of malnutrition (from 5.6% in 2020 to 20.3% in 2022), and underweight (from 5.6% in 2020 to 11.4% in 2022).

    Increases in wasting may be due to the COVID-19 pandemic and slow economic recovery. Nevertheless, the fluctuating figures underscore the complex interplay of factors contributing to severe child hunger.

    The teams who worked on the project – called the Community of Practice intervention – set about creating a tighter, more supportive net around children experiencing severe and moderate risk. This integrated approach brought together government agencies, NGOs, schools, social workers, families and community leaders, to build sustainable solutions for child wellbeing.

    The focus was on strengthening existing systems and fostering collaboration to ensure that children’s needs were identified and addressed effectively. On average, 157 children were reached each year over a three year period.

    Read more: COVID-19 has hurt some more than others: South Africa needs policies that reflect this

    What did you find?

    Several promising practices emerged from the collaborations, demonstrating the potential for positive change. These included:

    • Strengthening school nutrition programmes by improving the quality and consistency of meals received and providing nutrition education through radio and WhatsApp messaging. More children had access to school meals.

    • Tailored interventions: The team conducted screenings to assess the needs of children and their families. Children requiring specific interventions were referred to appropriate services such as child protection services and grants. Caregivers facing mental health challenges were connected to psychosocial support services, and families experiencing hunger were provided with food parcels by NGOs. Providing food top-ups for children resulted in zero hunger in the second year of the pandemic.

    The number of children experiencing learning and social and emotional difficulties decreased between 2020 and 2022. Access to food and nutrition improved, higher vaccination rates were achieved and caregivers were more responsive to their health needs.

    What does this tell you about what needs to change?

    A significant barrier in addressing severe child poverty is the fragmentation of services across the Departments of Health, Basic Education and Social Development. Since the departments run standalone programmes, the synergies between the different social systems are not optimised. Children and their families who need additional support are often referred to the appropriate services, but there is poor follow-up.

    The Integrated School Health Policy of 2012 makes provision for better coordination between these departments. But implementation has been uneven and poor in some instances. Improving and strengthening these inter-connected social systems of service provision across government departments is critical to improving child food poverty outcomes.

    While managing food inflation, economic growth, job creation, and reduced inequality are important longer-term goals, immediate interventions are essential to address severe child food poverty. Failure to do so will compromise school progression and delay their overall health and social wellbeing. Simply improving economic indicators will not automatically translate to food on the table for every child; targeted interventions are vital.

    Ending severe child hunger in South Africa demands a comprehensive and coordinated response, involving government, NGOs, community organisations, schools, and families themselves.

    – 23% of South Africa’s children suffer from severe hunger: we tested some solutions – experts
    – https://theconversation.com/23-of-south-africas-children-suffer-from-severe-hunger-we-tested-some-solutions-experts-252566

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI: Justin Sun: Forbes Cover Marks New Beginning, Vows 40-Year Commitment to Crypto Industry

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    SINGAPORE, March 31, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Justin Sun, Global Advisor of HTX and Founder of TRON, has been featured on the Forbes Digital Assets Daily Cover, which lauds him as a “Crypto Billionaire Who Helped The Trumps Make $400 Million.” This marks a historic moment as Sun becomes the second Chinese entrepreneur—after Jack Ma—to be featured on Forbes’ English digital asset spotlight. On the evening of March 28, Sun joined a live broadcast session hosted by HTX titled “Justin Sun Featured on Forbes! Another Legendary Moment for Crypto?” to share his thoughts and experiences. The livestream also featured Molly, Spokesperson of HTX, along with several well-known Chinese crypto influencers and representatives from leading industry media.

    Showcasing Chinese Leadership on the Global Crypto Stage

    Sun views this recognition as an opportunity to represent both himself and the broader crypto industry on the global stage. “This helps the public better understand who I am, what the crypto industry stands for, and can potentially reshape public perception,” said Sun. “It’s also a great opportunity for the industry’s growth in China. We can now prove to the world that the crypto sector can represent Chinese voices and interests on a global level.”

    “This is definitely a milestone, but it’s just the beginning,” he added. Prior to him, only CZ, Brian Armstrong, and SBF had received this level of recognition. “This validates the achievements we’ve made in the industry, and also enhances the visibility and reputation of brands like HTX and TRON. In the business world, Forbes’ endorsement brings credibility and trust to our work.”

    Forbes Recognition to Accelerate HTX’s Global Expansion

    The three previously recognized crypto leaders corresponded to Binance, Coinbase, and FTX. Now, Sun represents HTX. “Not long ago, Forbes named HTX one of the world’s most trustworthy crypto exchanges. This, along with the latest feature, strongly supports our global expansion,” said Sun. “Since rebranding to HTX, our platform has become easier for international users to recognize and connect with. I’m very optimistic about HTX’s next phase of growth.”

    Sun has also praised HTX on social media, citing steady trading volume increases, successful asset launches, and over $100 million in net inflows for three consecutive months. “Based on current liquidity levels, HTX ranks around sixth globally,” he said. “With sustained effort, we have a real opportunity to return to the global top three.”

    A Vision to Build the Industry for the Next 40 Years

    March 28 also marks the 10th anniversary of Jack Ma’s Lakeside University. As an alumnus, Sun noted: “The biggest difference is, when Jack Ma appeared on Forbes, Alibaba was already a household name. But blockchain is still in its early stages. Out of 7 billion people worldwide, TRON has only 300 million users—we’re still early.”

    Looking ahead, Sun remains ambitious. “I believe I can contribute to the industry for at least another 40 years. I entered the crypto space in 2012—it’s been just 13 years. If given three times more time, I’m confident I can help elevate the industry to new heights.”

    About HTX

    Founded in 2013, HTX has evolved from a virtual asset exchange into a comprehensive ecosystem of blockchain businesses that span digital asset trading, financial derivatives, research, investments, incubation, and other businesses.

    As a world-leading gateway to Web3, HTX harbors global capabilities that enable it to provide users with safe and reliable services. Adhering to the growth strategy of “Global Expansion, Thriving Ecosystem, Wealth Effect, Security & Compliance,” HTX is dedicated to providing quality services and values to virtual asset enthusiasts worldwide.

    To learn more about HTX, please visit HTX Square or https://www.htx.com/, and follow HTX on X, Telegram, and Discord.

    For further inquiries, please contact:
    Ruder Finn Asia
    glo-media@htx-inc.com.

    Disclaimer: This press release is provided by HTX. The statements, views, and opinions expressed in this content are solely those of the content provider and do not necessarily reflect the views of this media platform or its publisher. We do not endorse, verify, or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information presented. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, or trading advice. Investing in crypto and mining related opportunities involves significant risks, including the potential loss of capital. Readers are strongly encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. However, due to the inherently speculative nature of the blockchain sector–including cryptocurrency, NFTs, and mining–complete accuracy cannot always be guaranteed. Neither the media platform nor the publisher shall be held responsible for any fraudulent activities, misrepresentations, or financial losses arising from the content of this press release.Speculate only with funds that you can afford to lose.Neither the media platform nor the publisher shall be held responsible for any fraudulent activities, misrepresentations, or financial losses arising from the content of this press release. In the event of any legal claims or charges against this article, we accept no liability or responsibility.

    Legal Disclaimer: This media platform provides the content of this article on an “as-is” basis, without any warranties or representations of any kind, express or implied. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information presented herein. Any concerns, complaints, or copyright issues related to this article should be directed to the content provider mentioned above.

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3f568896-43a1-4685-898f-04524880fc09

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Professor Galina Tokunova awarded the title of “Honored Worker of Higher Education”

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering –

    By decree of the President of Russia, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Management of SPbGASU Galina Tokunova was awarded the honorary title of “Honored Worker of Higher Education of the Russian Federation”.

    Galina Fedorovna is a Doctor of Economics, author and co-author of more than 100 published scientific and educational works, including three monographs, 93 scientific articles and three educational and methodological manuals.

    We congratulate Galina Fedorovna on being awarded the honorary title and wish her further success in her scientific and teaching activities.

    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: Massive cuts to Health and Human Services’ workforce signal a dramatic shift in US health policy

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Simon F. Haeder, Associate Professor of Public Health, Texas A&M University

    The new plan will shrink the Health and Human Services workforce from more than 82,000 to 62,000 employees. Sarah Stierch via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

    On March 27, 2025, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced plans to dramatically transform the department. HHS is the umbrella agency responsible for pandemic preparedness, biomedical research, food safety and many other health-related activities.

    In a video posted that afternoon, Kennedy said the cuts and reorganization to HHS aim to “streamline our agency” and “radically improve our quality of service” by eliminating rampant waste and inefficiency. “No American is going to be left behind,” the health secretary told the nation.

    As a scholar of U.S. health and public health policy, I have written about administrative burdens that prevent many Americans from accessing benefits to which they are entitled, including those provided by HHS, like Medicaid.

    Few experts would deny that the federal bureaucracy can be inefficient and siloed. This includes HHS, and calls to restructure the agency are nothing new

    Combined with previous reductions, these cuts may achieve some limited short-term savings. However, the proposed changes dramatically alter U.S. health policy and research, and they may endanger important benefits and protections for many Americans. They may also have severe consequences for scientific progress. And as some policy experts have suggested, the poorly targeted cuts may increase inefficiencies and waste down the line.

    Health and science in a big-budget agency

    HHS is tasked with providing a variety of public health and social services as well as fostering scientific advancement.

    Originally established as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1953, HHS has seen substantial growth and transformation over time. Today, HHS is home to 28 divisions. Some of these are well known to many Americans, such as the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Others, such as the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the Administration for Community Living, may fly under the radar for most people.

    HHS oversees Medicare, through which 68 million Americans, primarily adults age 65 and older, receive health insurance benefits.
    Richard Bailey/Corbis Documentary via Getty Images

    With an annual budget of roughly US$1.8 trillion, HHS is one of the largest federal spenders, accounting for more than 1 in 5 dollars of the federal budget.

    Under the Biden administration, HHS’s budget increased by almost 40%, with a 17% increase in staffing. However, 85% of that money is spent on 79 million Medicaid and 68 million Medicare beneficiaries. Put differently, most of HHS’ spending goes directly to many Americans in the form of health benefits.

    A new direction for Health and Human Services

    From a policy perspective, the changes initiated at HHS by the second-term Trump administration are far-reaching. They involve both staffing cuts and substantial reorganization.

    Prior to the March 27 announcement, the administration had already cut thousands of positions from HHS by letting go probationary employees and offering buyouts for employees to voluntarily leave.

    Now, HHS is slated to lose another 10,000 workers. The latest cuts focus most heavily on a handful of agencies. The FDA will lose an additional 3,500 employees, and the NIH will lose 1,200. The CDC, where cuts are steepest, will lose 2,400 positions.

    In all, the moves will reduce the HHS workforce by about 25%, from more than 82,000 to 62,000. These changes will provide savings of about $1.8 billion, or 0.1% of the HHS budget.

    Along with these cuts comes a major reorganization that will eliminate 13 out of 28 offices and agencies, close five of the 10 regional offices, reshuffle existing divisions and establish a new division called the Administration for a Healthy America.

    In his latest message, Kennedy noted that this HHS transformation would return the agency to its core mission: to “enhance the health and well-being of all Americans”. He also announced his intention to refocus HHS on his Make America Healthy Again priorities, which involve reducing chronic illness “by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water and the elimination of environmental toxins.”

    How HHS’ new reality will affect Americans

    Kennedy has said the HHS overhaul will not affect services to Americans. Given the magnitude of the cuts, this seems unlikely.

    HHS reaches into the lives of all Americans. Many have family members on Medicaid or Medicare, or know individuals with disabilities or those dealing with substance use disorder. Disasters may strike anywhere. Bird flu and measles outbreaks are unfolding in many parts of the country. Everyone relies on access to safe foods, drugs and vaccines.

    The plan to restructure HHS will trim its budget by 0.1%.

    In his announcement, the health secretary highlighted cuts to HHS support functions, such as information technology and human resources, as a way to reduce redundancies and inefficiencies. But scaling down and reorganizing these capacities will inevitably have implications for how well HHS employees will be able to fulfill their duties – at least temporarily. Kennedy acknowledged this as a “painful period” for HHS.

    However, large-scale reductions and reorganizations inevitably lead to more systemic disruptions, delays and denials. It seems implausible that Americans seeking access to health care, help with HIV prevention or early education benefits such as Head Start, which are also administered by HHS, will not be affected. This is particularly the case when conceived rapidly and without transparent long-term planning.

    These new cuts are also further exacerbated by the administration’s previous slashes to public health funding for state and local governments. Given the crucial functions of HHS – from health coverage for vulnerable populations to pandemic preparedness and response – the American Public Health Association predicts the cuts will result in a rise in rates of disease and death.

    Already, previous cuts at the FDA – the agency responsible for safe foods and drugs – have led to delays in product reviews.

    Overall, the likelihood of increasing access challenges for people seeking services or support as well as fewer protections and longer wait times seems high.

    A fundamental reshaping of American public health

    The HHS restructuring should be viewed in a broader context. Since coming to office, the Trump administration has aggressively sought to reshape the U.S. public health agenda. This has included vast cuts to research funding as well as funding for state and local governments. The most recent cuts at HHS fit into the mold of rolling back protections and reshaping science.

    The Trump administration has already announced plans to curtail the Affordable Care Act and roll back regulations that address everything from clean water to safe vaccines. State programs focused on health disparities have also been targeted.

    HHS-funded research has also been scaled back dramatically, with a long list of projects terminated in research areas touching on health disparities, women’s and LGBTQ-related health issues, COVID-19 and long COVID, vaccine hesitancy and more.

    The HHS reorganization also revamps two bodies within HHS, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, that are instrumental in improving U.S. health care and providing policy research. This change further diminishes the likelihood that health policy will be based on scientific evidence and raises the risk for more politicized decision-making about health.

    More cuts are likely still to come. Medicaid, the program providing health coverage for low-income Americans, will be a particular target. The House of Representatives passed a budget resolution on Feb. 25 that allows up to $880 billion in cuts to the program.

    All told, plans already announced and those expected to emerge in the future dramatically alter U.S. health policy and roll back substantial protections for Americans.

    A vision for deregulation

    Regulation has emerged as the most prolific source of policymaking over the last five decades, particularly for health policy. Given its vast responsibilities, HHS is one of the federal government’s most prolific regulators. Vast cuts to the HHS workforce will likely curtail this capability, resulting in fewer regulatory protections for Americans.

    At the same time, with fewer experienced administrators on staff, industry influence over regulatory decisions will likely only grow stronger. HHS will simply lack the substance and procedural expertise to act independently. More industry influence and fewer independent regulators to counter it will also further reduce attention to disparities and underserved populations.

    Ultimately, the Trump administration’s efforts may lead to a vastly different federal health policy – with fewer benefits, services and protections – than what Americans have become accustomed to in modern times.

    Dr. Simon F. Haeder has previously received funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) .

    – ref. Massive cuts to Health and Human Services’ workforce signal a dramatic shift in US health policy – https://theconversation.com/massive-cuts-to-health-and-human-services-workforce-signal-a-dramatic-shift-in-us-health-policy-253316

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador sparks legal questions likely to reach the Supreme Court

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jennifer Selin, Associate Professor of Law, Arizona State University

    Prisoners stand in a cell as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26, 2025. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

    A federal appeals court on March 26, 2025, upheld a temporary block on President Donald Trump’s deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants, including alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

    The court was skeptical of Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to defend the deportations. The act, passed in 1798, gives the president the power to detain and remove people from the United States in times of war.

    On March 28, Trump asked the Supreme Court for permission under the act to resume deporting Venezuelans to El Salvador while legal battles continue.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi previously said the deportations are necessary as part of “modern-day warfare” against narco-terrorists.

    Nanya Gupta, policy director of the American Immigration Council, is among experts who note that the Trump administration’s evidence against the migrants, which relied in part on the immigrants’ tattoos and deleted social media pictures, is “flimsy.”

    Those who are challenging Trump’s actions in court say the administration has violated constitutional principles of due process. That’s because it gave the migrants no opportunity to refute the government’s claims that they were gang members.

    But what is due process? And how does the government balance this important right against national security?

    As a constitutional law professor who studies government institutions, I recognize the delicate balance government must strike in protecting civil rights and liberties while allowing presidential administrations to preserve national security and foreign policy interests.

    Ultimately, the U.S. Constitution’s framers left it to the courts to determine this balance.

    Due process explained

    The phrase “due process of law” goes back to at least 1215. That’s when England’s Magna Carta established the principle that government is not above the law.

    This principle guided the framers of the U.S. Constitution. The Fifth Amendment and 14th Amendment, for example, prohibit federal and state governments from depriving people of their “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

    But what constitutes due process has varied over time.

    Government officials see the limits of their power from one lens. People affected by the exercise of that power view it differently.

    To combat this problem, the Constitution’s framers placed the judiciary in charge of determining what due process means and when people’s due process rights have been violated.

    Court decisions on the issue traditionally weigh the government’s interests in taking specific actions against claims that those actions violate people’s civil rights and liberties.

    Even when the law authorizes the president to detain people, historically the Supreme Court has held that those people should receive notice of the reason for their detention, and they should have a fair opportunity to rebut the government’s claims.

    When the high court, for example, heard cases about the rights of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay by President George W. Bush after 9/11, it ruled that principles of due process apply to noncitizens and even those whom the government designates as enemy combatants.

    One of the important considerations in legal analysis of the procedures the government must follow when depriving people of their liberty is the risk that the government will make a mistake in its decision-making.

    For example, some representatives of the deported Venezuelan migrants argue that they have been falsely accused of having ties to Tren de Aragua based on their country of origin and tattoos. They claim that without more investigation, including an opportunity for the migrants to present their evidence refuting the government’s claims, there is a large risk that government will mistakenly deport people.

    When can the president avoid due process?

    In some cases, the president can skirt traditional due process considerations in pursuit of broader policy concerns.

    As put by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in his initial order blocking the deportations, the president’s action in this area implicate “a host of complicated legal issues, including fundamental and sensitive questions about the often-circumscribed extent of judicial power in matters of foreign policy and national security.”

    Before Trump took executive action using the Alien Enemies Act, the measure had only been used three times – all during times of war.

    The act was part of a series of four laws passed in 1798 known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws, among other things, gave the president the power to deport any noncitizen thought to be dangerous.

    A woman holds a sign during a rally on March 18, 2025, in Caracas, Venezuela, to protest the deportation from the U.S. of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang, who were transferred to an El Salvador prison.
    AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos

    President Thomas Jefferson allowed most of the acts to expire. But Jefferson and subsequent presidents kept in place the provisions that empowered the president to detain or deport noncitizens in times of war, “invasion” or “predatory incursion” by foreign powers.

    Today, the law authorizes the president to apprehend and remove people over the age of 14 that the administration determines to be “alien enemies.” However, it places procedural requirements on the president.

    Notably, the president’s ability to act requires a declared war against or an “invasion or predatory excursion” by a foreign nation. In such an event, the president must issue a proclamation saying he plans on using the act against perceived enemies.

    To justify the Venezuelan deportations, Trump issued a proclamation on March 15 claiming Tren de Aragua is perpetrating and threatening an invasion against the U.S.

    But the act also says people considered alien enemies must be given reasonable time to settle their affairs and voluntarily depart from the country. And it gives the courts power to regulate whether such persons even fall within the definition of “alien enemies.”

    The Venezuelan migrants claim Trump has violated these parts of the act.

    The current fight

    This is where things become complicated.

    All parties in the case acknowledge that the Alien Enemies Act grants the president authority to act. However, the argument is whether the government has given people the opportunity to challenge the government’s decision to classify them as “alien enemies.”

    Trump claims Tren de Aragua is a foreign terrorist organization engaged in warfare against the U.S. in the form of narco-terrorism – the use of drug trade to influence government operations.

    His administration argues that it doesn’t have to tell migrants it considers them alien enemies. And the administration says it’s not required to give them time to ask the courts to step in before they are deported.

    In a March 24 hearing on the issue, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Patricia A. Millet noted that during World War II, even the “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act.”

    The dispute has prompted international questions about the legality of the U.S. government’s deportation procedures and its treatment of the migrants.

    And Democratic members of Congress have called for an investigation into the administration’s deportation practices.

    The case will most likely head to the Supreme Court to determine what due process means and when the president can act in the name of national security to limit people’s due process rights. That’s just as the framers of the Constitution intended.

    Jennifer L. Selin has received funding and/or support for her research on the executive branch from the Administrative Conference of the United States. The views in this piece are those of the author and do not represent the position of the Administrative Conference or the federal government.

    – ref. Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador sparks legal questions likely to reach the Supreme Court – https://theconversation.com/trumps-use-of-the-alien-enemies-act-to-deport-venezuelans-to-el-salvador-sparks-legal-questions-likely-to-reach-the-supreme-court-253011

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Jets from powerful black holes can point astronomers toward where − and where not − to look for life in the universe

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By David Garofalo, Professor of Physics, Kennesaw State University

    Black holes, like the one in this illustration, can spray powerful jets. S. Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF), CC BY-SA

    One of the most powerful objects in the universe is a radio quasar – a spinning black hole spraying out highly energetic particles. Come too close to one, and you’d get sucked in by its gravitational pull, or burn up from the intense heat surrounding it. But ironically, studying black holes and their jets can give researchers insight into where potentially habitable worlds might be in the universe.

    As an astrophysicist, I’ve spent two decades modeling how black holes spin, how that creates jets, and how they affect the environment of space around them.

    What are black holes?

    Black holes are massive, astrophysical objects that use gravity to pull surrounding objects into them. Active black holes have a pancake-shaped structure around them called an accretion disk, which contains hot, electrically charged gas.

    The plasma that makes up the accretion disk comes from farther out in the galaxy. When two galaxies collide and merge, gas is funneled into the central region of that merger. Some of that gas ends up getting close to the newly merged black hole and forms the accretion disk.

    There is one supermassive black hole at the heart of every massive galaxy.

    Black holes and their disks can rotate, and when they do, they drag space and time with them – a concept that’s mind-boggling and very hard to grasp conceptually. But black holes are important to study because they produce enormous amounts of energy that can influence galaxies.

    How energetic a black hole is depends on different factors, such as the mass of the black hole, whether it rotates rapidly, and whether lots of material falls onto it. Mergers fuel the most energetic black holes, but not all black holes are fed by gas from a merger. In spiral galaxies, for example, less gas tends to fall into the center, and the central black hole tends to have less energy.

    One of the ways they generate energy is through what scientists call “jets” of highly energetic particles. A black hole can pull in magnetic fields and energetic particles surrounding it, and then as the black hole rotates, the magnetic fields twist into a jet that sprays out highly energetic particles.

    Magnetic fields twist around the black hole as it rotates to store energy – kind of like when you pull and twist a rubber band. When you release the rubber band, it snaps forward. Similarly, the magnetic fields release their energy by producing these jets.

    The accretion disk around a black hole can form a jet of hot, energetic particles surrounded by magnetic field lines.
    NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI), CC BY

    These jets can speed up or suppress the formation of stars in a galaxy, depending on how the energy is released into the black hole’s host galaxy.

    Rotating black holes

    Some black holes, however, rotate in a different direction than the accretion disk around them. This phenomenon is called counterrotation, and some studies my colleagues and I have conducted suggest that it’s a key feature governing the behavior of one of the most powerful kinds of objects in the universe: the radio quasar.

    Radio quasars are the subclass of black holes that produce the most powerful energy and jets.

    You can imagine the black hole as a rotating sphere, and the accretion disk as a disk with a hole in the center. The black hole sits in that center hole and rotates one way, while the accretion disk rotates the other way.

    This counterrotation forces the black hole to spin down and eventually up again in the other direction, called corotation. Imagine a basketball that spins one way, but you keep tapping it to rotate in the other. The tapping will spin the basketball down. If you continue to tap in the opposite direction, it will eventually spin up and rotate in the other direction. The accretion disk does the same thing.

    Since the jets tap into the black hole’s rotational energy, they are powerful only when the black hole is spinning rapidly. The change from counterrotation to corotation takes at least 100 million years. Many initially counterrotating black holes take billions of years to become rapidly spinning corotating black holes.

    So, these black holes would produce powerful jets both early and later in their lifetimes, with an interlude in the middle where the jets are either weak or nonexistent.

    When the black hole spins in counterrotation with respect to its accretion disk, that motion produces strong jets that push molecules in the surrounding gas close together, which leads to the formation of stars.

    But later, in corotation, the jet tilts. This tilt makes it so that the jet impinges directly on the gas, heating it up and inhibiting star formation. In addition to that, the jet also sprays X-rays across the galaxy. Cosmic X-rays are bad for life because they can harm organic tissue.

    For life to thrive, it most likely needs a planet with a habitable ecosystem, and clouds of hot gas saturated with X-rays don’t contain such planets. So, astronomers can instead look for galaxies without a tilted jet coming from its black hole. This idea is key to understanding where intelligence could potentially have emerged and matured in the universe.

    Black holes as a guide

    By early 2022, I had built a black hole model to use as a guide. It could point out environments with the right kind of black holes to produce the greatest number of planets without spraying them with X-rays. Life in such environments could emerge to its full potential.

    Looking at black holes and their role in star formation could help scientists predict when and where life was most likely to form.

    Where are such conditions present? The answer is low-density environments where galaxies had merged about 11 billion years ago.

    These environments had black holes whose powerful jets enhanced the rate of star formation, but they never experienced a bout of tilted jets in corotation. In short, my model suggested that theoretically, the most advanced extraterrestrial civilization would have likely emerged on the cosmic scene far away and billions of years ago.

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

    – ref. Jets from powerful black holes can point astronomers toward where − and where not − to look for life in the universe – https://theconversation.com/jets-from-powerful-black-holes-can-point-astronomers-toward-where-and-where-not-to-look-for-life-in-the-universe-251560

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: SPbGASU entered the premier league of the National Aggregated Rating for the second year in a row

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering –

    Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering has strengthened its position and re-entered the Premier League National Aggregate Rating 2025.

    The rating is being published for the seventh time and has effectively become a single scale for assessing Russian universities, helping applicants, experts, and the educational institutions themselves navigate the diversity of higher education in the country. The rating also contributes to the development of the universities themselves, expanding the range of opportunities to determine their strengths, identify weaknesses, and develop programs that will allow them to remain competitive in the rapidly changing world of education.

    Portal Best-Ded.ru continues to improve, making the research results available to a wider audience. Thanks to the mobile version of the site, all interested parties, including applicants, parents, teachers and university representatives, can now get acquainted with the rating and its data.

    In 2025, NAR included 708 universities, which, according to the rules and criteria of the ranking, are divided into 10 leagues. The most prestigious is the Premier League, the “green zone” of the ranking.

    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 USA: Crystal Visions

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    In 2022, a multi-institutional team of American scientists traveled to Tokyo to take a spin on a high-powered X-ray laser. 

    Led by UConn chemistry assistant professor J. Nathan “Nate” Hohman, they hoped to use the machine’s unique capabilities to study new materials whose molecular structure had never been understood before. The team had been awarded 60 hours of highly coveted “beam time” on the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free-electron LAser X-FEL laser (referred to as SACLA). 

    “They were going to let us squirt through the nozzle anything we wanted,” Hohman says, “as long as we told them the name of the chemical first.”

    The research team included five scientists working in chemical synthesis, X-ray crystallography, and AI-powered data interpretation – all prepared for the scientific equivalent of an ultramarathon. Once the machine powered on, they needed to work continuously until the 60 hours had elapsed.  

    “If we ran out of stuff to shoot, we were going to be wasting those precious photons,” Hohman explains. So, the team brought as many samples of new materials as they could.  

    David Moreau and a SACLA scientist working with the machine. (Courtesy of Phil MacDonald)

    Working in round-the-clock shifts, they carefully prepared their samples and loaded them into the machine. SACLA shot jets of their crystalline molecular samples into a chamber where they were struck by an intense beam of X-ray light.  

    Like prisms throwing rainbows, these crystal samples diffracted the light, each into its own signature pattern. By analyzing the light pattern, the scientists could determine the precise molecular makeup of the crystals they were studying. 

    By the end of their three-day journey with SACLA, the researchers had solved the structures of four materials – and have gone on to solve more than 50 in eight more experiments around the world over the last two years.  

    This scientific breakthrough is chronicled in the new short documentary “BEAMTIME: Crystal Hitters,” co-directed by Jonathan Turton and Phil MacDonald. 

    [embedded content]

    Small Scale, Huge Payoff

    High-profile projects like this are nothing new to Hohman, whose research has been sponsored by the US Department of Energy for its potential to unlock new, better sources of energy.  

    Hohman doesn’t work on the quantum technology side of things – using new materials to assemble devices like quantum computers and lasers – but the semiconductors he studies are integral to this process. 

    “Every new technology has a new material at its core,” he says. 

    Hohman’s specialty is self-assembly. His work revolves around understanding the geometry of molecules, planning how they crystallize, and using that to influence their properties. The materials he’s interested in tend to form crystals at the microscopic level, thousands of times smaller than grains of sand. 

    Understanding the structure of these crystals – what’s known as “solving” the crystal structure – is the key to understanding how these materials can be used in technological applications spanning energy production, quantum computing, and beyond.  

    A famous example of crystallography is Rosalind Franklin’s discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. Since no microscope was powerful enough to allow her to literally see the double-helix, Franklin relied on X-ray crystallography to mathematically solve the structure. 

    For this project, Hohman deployed a unique approach called small-molecule serial femtosecond crystallography, or smSFX. 

    “Our collaboration led the first-ever use of serial crystallography to fully solve true unknown crystal structures of small-molecule systems,” Hohman says. “This solved a huge problem in our field – before, if you were making materials that formed small crystals, then you couldn’t easily solve the crystal structure.” 

    Before using this technique, Hohman jokes, “life with my tiny crystals was mostly just despair.” 

    The materials he was interested in studying – known as MOChas, or metal–organic chacogenolates – would form crystals that were simply too small to solve using conventional methods. They possessed interesting properties, like luminescence, that seemed potentially useful in applications like solar cells or LEDs; but without understanding their molecular structure, scientists couldn’t figure out how to harness these properties. 

    “You can control all the photonic, electronic, and quantum properties of systems synthetically in the laboratory by editing a molecule or changing the design of that molecule,” Hohman says. “But if you don’t know what the structure of something is, then all you have is a little pile of stuff that sort of glows when you shine a UV light on it.” 

    The team’s “big breakthrough” was using smSFX to solve the structures of very small molecules. They are hopeful that this will pave the way for developing new materials for green energy and climate change mitigation technologies. Some of the materials they solved show potential for applications like solar power and carbon sequestration.  

    More broadly, the smSFX technique could be used in future trials to analyze all manner of new materials, from quantum semiconductors to cancer treatments. 

    Hohman is now turning his focus to publishing the library of materials solved on this trip.  

    “The materials are really quite cutting-edge; it’s hard to say exactly what they will be used for,” Hohman says. “The scientific community, collectively, is just starting to discover this stuff.” But he notes that the materials his group has solved may offer “a lot of material advantages” for quantum information science. 

    The Tokyo Shift

    Clockwise from center: Vanessa Oklejas, Nate Hohman, Aaron Brewster, Maggie Willson, and Masha Aleksich share a meal in Tokyo. (Courtesy of Phil MacDonald)

    Hohman was joined on the 2022 trip to SACLA by colleagues from various institutions, including Aaron Brewster, Daniel Paley, and David Mittan-Moreau of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Elyse Schriber, a then-graduate student researcher in Hohman’s lab who is now a project scientist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; and Vanessa Oklejas, who has moved to a new role at Lockheed Martin. 

    Three current members of Hohman’s lab were also on the team: Maggie Willson, Patience Kotei, and Masha Aleksich, now third- and fourth-year doctoral students. 

    For Willson, who received her bachelor’s degree at the University of Central Oklahoma, it was her first time traveling out of the country. 

    “That whole trip was very surreal for me,” she says. “I had graduated the May before that trip, so I hadn’t even started grad school yet.” 

    As Hohman tells it, one of the first things he asked Willson to do after accepting her into his lab was “hop on a plane to Japan.” Thankfully, she rose to the occasion – and gained experience that proved pivotal in her career path. 

    “After this trip, I have done seven more of these experiments (in CA, the UK, and another in Japan) and have dedicated the majority of my work here in grad school to these types of crystallography experiments,” Willson says. “Before graduate school, I was planning on becoming a professor at a primarily undergraduate institution in order to focus on teaching, but I am now working towards a career at a synchrotron or an X-ray free electron laser in order to do these types of experiments for other research groups.” 

    For Kotei, who received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Kwame Nkruma University of Science and Technology in Ghana, the trip was similarly propulsive. 

    “My graduate research primarily focuses on serial crystallography, and my visit to SACLA broadened my perspective on ultrafast dynamics and advanced structural characterization techniques,” says Kotei. “Experiencing world-class research infrastructure firsthand reinforced my motivation to pursue high-impact research. Currently, I am in discussions with leading scientists and experts at SACLA regarding potential research opportunities after completing my degree.” 

    Aleksich, a fourth-year chemistry PhD candidate specifically focusing on MOChas, credits the trip to Tokyo with shifting her goals and her understanding of herself as a scientist. 

    “Having the opportunity to conduct research at this level as a second-year graduate student really grew my confidence and took off any limitations I have had about the caliber of research I would be able to work on in my lifetime,” she says. “Growing up, of course I looked up to the greats like Marie Curie and Rosalind Franklin, but I figured that I was not qualified to truly advance the scientific field. But this experience showed me that if an idea is there, and it’s able to be well communicated, then people are interested in funding it. And for every one great scientist we remember, there were hundreds who helped along the way.” 

    “BEAMTIME: Crystal Hitters” is available to stream on YouTube.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: UK nuclear deterrent: the mutual defense agreement is at risk in a Trumpian age

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Becky Alexis-Martin, Peace Studies and International Development, University of Bradford

    Keir Starmer aboard one of the UK’s Vanguard class submarines. CC BY-NC-ND

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently boarded one of the UK’s four nuclear-armed submarines for a photo call as part of his attempts to demonstrate the UK’s defence capabilities as tensions with Russia continue.

    However, Starmer faces a problem. The submarine, and the rest of the UK’s nuclear fleet, is heavily reliant on the US as an operating partner. And at a time when the US becomes an increasingly unreliable partner under the leadership of an entirely transactional president, this is not ideal. The US can, if it chooses, effectively switch off the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

    British and US nuclear history is irrevocably interwoven. The US and UK cooperated on the Manhattan project, under the 1943 Quebec agreements and the 1944 Hyde Park aide memoire. This work generated the world’s first nuclear weapons, which were deployed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

    It also led to the first rupture. In 1946, the US classified UK citizens as “foreign” and prevented them from engaging in secret nuclear work. Collaboration with the UK immediately ceased.

    The UK decided to develop its own arsenal of nuclear weapons. The successful detonation of the “Grapple Y” hydrogen bomb in April 1958 cemented its position as a thermonuclear power.

    In the meantime, however, Russia’s launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 had demonstrated the lethal reach of Soviet nuclear technology. This brought the US and UK back together as nuclear partners.

    Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.

    Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.

    Talks on how to counter the Russian threat became the foundation of an atomic partnership that endures to the present day. This mutual defence agreement, signed in 1958, has provided the UK with affordable access to the latest nuclear technology and a reliable western ally. The treaty has been amended and adapted over time to reflect changes in the US-UK working relationship and the two are now so entangled that it is very hard to leave the co-dependent relationship.

    Both sides have benefited from security and protection, especially during the cold war. However, Trump’s new “special relationship” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin has reconfigured the global order of geopolitics.

    Serious concerns are now being raised about the UK’s nuclear capacity, given the unpredictability and potential unreliability of the new US administration. Trump could ignore or threaten to terminate the agreement in a show of power or contempt.

    The UK’s nuclear subs

    The UK’s Trident nuclear deterrence programme consists of four Vanguard nuclear-powered and armed submarines. The UK has some autonomy, as it is operationally independent and controls the decision to launch.

    However, it remains dependent on the US because the nuclear technologies at the heart of the Trident system are US designed and leased by Lockheed Martin – and there is no suitable alternative. The Trident system therefore relies on the US for support and maintenance.

    The UK is currently in the process of upgrading the current system. But its options seem limited. If the US were to renege on its commitments, the UK would either have to produce its own weapons domestically, collaborate with France or Europe or disarm. Each scenario creates new issues for the UK. Manufacturing nuclear weapons from scratch in the UK, for example, would be a costly and protracted activity.

    Technical collaboration with France seems the most plausible back-up option at the moment. The two countries already have a nuclear collaboration treaty in place. France has taken a similar submarine-based approach to deterrence as the UK and French president Emmanuel Macron has suggested its deterrent could be used to protect other European countries. Another alternative would be to spread the cost across Europe and create a European deterrence – but both strategies just re-embed the UK’s current nuclear reliance.

    The UK is reliant on others for its nuclear deterrent.
    Number 10/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

    While these weapons may deter a hostile nuclear strike, they have failed to prevent broader acts of aggression. Nuclear weapons have not been used in warfare for 80 years. Perhaps it is time to completely and permanently unshackle the UK from nuclear deterrence, and consider alternative forms of defence.

    The UK’s nuclear arsenal is expensive to maintain. The cost of replacing Trident is £205 billion. In 2023, the Ministry of Defence reported that the anticipated costs for supporting the nuclear deterrent would exceed its budget by £7.9 billion over the next ten years. This funding could be channelled into more pressing security threats, such as cybersecurity, terrorism or climate change.

    Nuclear weapons will become strategically redundant if the UK cannot act independently. As Nato and the US dominate the global nuclear stage, the UK’s capacity to respond has become contested. The time has come to decide whether the US is really our friend – or a new foe.

    Becky Alexis-Martin 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. UK nuclear deterrent: the mutual defense agreement is at risk in a Trumpian age – https://theconversation.com/uk-nuclear-deterrent-the-mutual-defense-agreement-is-at-risk-in-a-trumpian-age-252674

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Donald Trump likes tariffs, but they damage the economies of everyone involved

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Muhammad Ali Nasir, Associate Professor in Economics, University of Leeds

    Donald Trump is calling April 2 2025 “Liberation Day”. For the rest of the world it will just be the day when they discover the details of his latest round of tariffs.

    Those tariffs have already become the stand out economic feature of Trump’s second term in the White House. And frankly, it’s been hard to keep track.

    There have been tariffs imposed and then lifted, tariffs with exemptions, tariffs on metal and tariffs on wood. Now Trump has announced a 25% tariff on all imported cars to take effect on April 2, when he also plans to reveal his “reciprocal tariffs” on other trading partners.

    Trump thinks the US has been “ripped off for decades by nearly every country on Earth”. He also counts “tariff” as his favourite word, and a tool which is “”very powerful, both economically and in getting everything else you want”.

    Whether or not the president gets everything he wants remains to be seen. But the frequent changes in tariff policies over the past few weeks have definitely created uncertainty in trade with the US, which research shows can be harmful in itself.

    And the evidence clearly shows that the reasons for the US trade deficit are more to do with domestic issues such as productivity and fiscal discipline than international trade.

    So what are the possible outcomes if Trump continues to pursue this policy?

    The worst case

    Our analysis shows that in the worst-case scenario, non-reciprocated tariffs on Canada and Mexico could result in a significant fall in GDP for all three countries. Canada would be the worst affected (a dip of 16.5%) followed by Mexico (6.6%). GDP in the US would fall by 0.19%.

    Canada is particularly dependent on selling its oil and gas – and the US is heavily reliant on its northern neighbour for its fuel supply. In 2024, total trade between the two nations reached US$762.1 billion (£589 billion).

    The impact on Mexico would also be devastating. Over 40% of the country’s GDP is derived from exports – and 80% of those exports go to the US.

    High tariffs and subsequent retaliations would quickly reduce the confidence of companies on both sides. Costs passed on to consumers would reduce demand and then profits, forming a vicious cycle of economic recession. Trade protectionism could then rise further, potentially even turning a recession into a depression

    Middle ground

    We also found that even if the economic effects of tariffs were less severe, no nation involved would manage to achieve GDP growth. And Canada and Mexico would still suffer the most.

    In this situation, some kind of stalemate could emerge, where tariffs lead to rising inflation, reducing the political appetite for escalation. Trade friction would likely continue until 2026, when a renegotiation of the trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada is due to take place.

    Best case

    Even under the best-case scenario, with reduced economic impact, GDP for all three countries still falls. Put simply, imposing tariffs creates no winners.

    Since the tariff has been seen as a bargaining chip, the best option for Canada and Mexico will be to enter trade negotiations with the US, aiming for a balanced trade policy that is beneficial to all parties.



    Read more:
    Donald Trump is planning more trade barriers if he becomes president – but they didn’t work last time

    In the meantime, they should cooperate with other economies affected by US tariffs – such as the EU and China – in the hope that this encourages Trump to make concessions.

    All three countries could then revert to their original low-tariff levels before the trade war. This constitutes the optimal scenario within our projected framework – and could be what happens eventually.

    US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has said that Trump’s second favourite word is “reciprocal”. If that’s true, then it is possible that the Trump administration has the overall intention of cooling down the intensity of this trade war ahead of negotiating a new version of its trade deal with Canada and Mexico – and a new one with China too.

    The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Donald Trump likes tariffs, but they damage the economies of everyone involved – https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-likes-tariffs-but-they-damage-the-economies-of-everyone-involved-252322

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Autistic stimming explained – and why stopping it can lead to burnout

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aimee Grant, Senior Lecturer in Public Health and Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow, Swansea University

    Many autistic people use everyday objects in repetitive ways. engagestock/Shutterstock

    Stimming – short for “self-stimulatory behaviour” – is a form of self-soothing commonly seen in autistic people. It can involve repetitive movements, sounds, or actions and is commonly regarded in medical literature as part of “rigid and repetitive behaviour”.

    This type of framing tends to cast stimming in a negative light, leading health professionals, teachers and even parents to try to stop it. But stimming is a vital self-protective strategy for autistic people, and suppressing it can have serious consequences.

    While stimming isn’t unique to autism, autistic people tend to stim more frequently and sometimes in more noticeable ways. It often involves physical movements such as hand-flapping, rocking, spinning or tiptoeing. Many autistic people also use different objects in repetitive ways, such as lining them up in patterns or keeping their hands busy with everyday items or stim toys.

    But stimming goes beyond movement – it can involve any of the senses. Some people stim through sound, repeating words or phrases because they are satisfying to say or hear. Others engage in “scripting,” like having conversations that follow a set pattern or re-watching favourite films for the comfort of predictability. Oral stims, such as chewing on pens, clothing or “chewllery” are also common.

    When considered in this broader sense, many people – autistic or not – have at least one form of stimming. Yet autistic children are often encouraged to stop theirs, with alternatives like keeping their hands in their pockets suggested instead. These substitutes don’t offer the same sensory input, however, and can make self-regulation more difficult.

    Many autistic adults report having lost their natural stims over time. This is either through conscious suppression or because they were conditioned to stop in childhood. Some still suppress stimming out of fear of negative reactions from others, despite it being beneficial to their wellbeing. There is also evidence that some autistic people are discouraged from stimming in the workplace.

    Masking

    The exact mechanisms behind stimming aren’t fully understood yet. But it is widely acknowledged that it provides soothing sensory input, helping autistic people cope with overwhelming environments. Suppressing stimming is uncomfortable and is one aspect of “masking”, which is the conscious or unconscious act of not doing natural autistic traits to avoid negative social consequences.

    Masking is particularly common among autistic women and has been linked to increased anxiety, burnout and even suicide. It can also affect education, work, relationships and overall quality of life.

    It’s crucial for society – especially parents, teachers and employers – to become more accepting of stimming. Research shows that greater understanding leads to greater acceptance.

    The only instances where intervention might be necessary are when stimming is self-injurious or poses a risk to others, in which case a safer alternative stim should be encouraged. Otherwise, the best response is simple – let people stim freely. And if you’re autistic, research shows you can use it to bond with other autistic people.

    So, if you see an autistic child or adult stimming, there’s no need to comment or intervene. My mum used to say that “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” – that principle that applies here too.

    Aimee Grant receives funding from receives funding from UKRI, the Wellcome Trust and the Morgan Advanced Studies Institute. She is a non-executive director of Disability Wales.

    – ref. Autistic stimming explained – and why stopping it can lead to burnout – https://theconversation.com/autistic-stimming-explained-and-why-stopping-it-can-lead-to-burnout-252088

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Climate change isn’t fair but Tony Juniper’s new book explains how a green transition could be ‘just’

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alix Dietzel, Senior Lecturer in Climate Justice, University of Bristol

    Tony Juniper. Jason Bye, CC BY-NC-ND

    Inequality – between the rich and poor or between the powerful and the weak – is the main factor stalling action on environmental problems including biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change, according to British environmentalist Tony Juniper.

    In his new book, Just Earth: How a Fairer World Will Save the Planet, he argues that “if we want to build a secure future, both environmental priorities and social justice must be pursued together”. Much of this is about how decisions are made: “Disadvantaged groups rarely have a say, while those deciding on policy continue to comprise a narrow social segment.”

    It is interesting to see Juniper’s views on the topic of a just transition, given his decades of experience. Juniper has served as the executive director of environmental charity Friends of the Earth, he was a Green party parliamentary candidate in the 2011 general election and previously led The Wildlife Trusts. He is currently chair of Natural England, the official government organisation working for the conservation and restoration of the natural environment.

    His views on this subject certainly matter. His key message that social justice is at the heart of solving environmental problems helps to explain why we have collectively failed to address these.

    This injustice is an issue that has been raised for decades by those most affected by environmental issues, those who work in the environment sector and academics like me who focus on environmental justice.

    The UK environment sector, for example, is notoriously one of the least diverse, with only 3.5% of those working in environmental jobs identifying as an ethnic minority. In addition, the climate change movement is sometimes portrayed by the media as a middle-class preoccupation. Research shows a tendency for mainstream media to position environmentalism as a position of the wealthy. That’s reflected by the use of distancing terminology such as “middle-class tree huggers”.

    However, 39% of UK working class voters experience climate anxiety. That’s only slightly below the 42% of middle-class voters.

    Levels of climate concern have stayed high throughout both the COVID-19 pandemic and cost of living crises, while support for government action on climate mitigation policies, such as decreased meat consumption and flying, has remained steady.

    At the global level, there have always been tensions between developed and developing countries in terms of what is “fair”. Entrenched power dynamics ensure that developed countries have historically won out when deciding what a fair future looks like.

    Most recently, those tensions have been evident in the lack of clarity around how loss and damage will be funded and managed – who will pay out when an island disappears, or a village becomes inhabitable to due drought, for example? There’s also much debate around how a new finance goal should be defined, with huge disagreements between the developed and developing countries.

    As Juniper explains, not only is it unclear what fairness means at global negotiations, there is clear evidence that these tend to favour the more powerful countries, such as the US or members of the EU, and create an unjust regime. Steven Vanderheiden, one of the earliest climate justice philosophers, claims that developing nations are usually offered a “take it or leave it” deal, such as the new finance goal of US$300 billion (£232 billion) or about half of what developing countries were asking for, once developed nations have made decisions without them.

    A fairer vision

    In response to these inequalities and ongoing tensions, Juniper sets out a vision for a fairer, greener society – also known as a just transition.

    A just transition is hard to define. It was once a relatively well demarcated and clearly grounded concept associated with worker’s rights.

    Over time, it has become an increasingly all-encompassing policy objective, untethered from any specific policies, political objectives or priorities. Indeed, while there are certainly overlaps between the different visions of a just transition, significant aspects directly contradict one another.

    Just Earth by Tony Juniper is out now.
    CC BY-NC-ND

    Many of the messages in Juniper’s book have been shouted by those less privileged for decades. By using his platform to amplify the importance of climate justice, he is striving to make a difference. However, the voices of those from affected communities in developing countries, the working class in richer countries, and women (who will be hardest hit by climate change) are somewhat absent.

    Juniper neatly encompasses 40-plus years of global negotiations on climate change and biodiversity, reflecting on core issues blocking progress, such as populism and fossil fuel interests. Getting your head around negotiations is a complex task – and it’s one that Juniper executes very well.

    Juniper also discusses rising inequality, especially post-COVID, and the intersecting relationship between affluence and environmental destruction, with the richest consuming far more than the poorest and the top 10% wealthiest individuals having emitting more greenhouse gases than the poorest 50%.

    He sets out the impacts of consumption, particularly of the wealthiest, and the unfairness of those being hit hardest consuming the least. He carefully dissects why indefinite growth of GDP can no longer be taken as a given.

    Then he sets out his vision for a just transition with a ten-point agenda, including new measures of progress. He suggests focusing on wellbeing and sustainable consumption, not GDP.

    He highlights the importance of financing the future and raising the transition war chest – that involves carbon tax regimes and additional public resources for environmental protection to build climate resilience. He advises switching subsidies to green energy rather than fossil fuels, and also advocates for the use of ecocide law to protect future generations.

    While progress is possible, Juniper is a realist. He outlines how much our culture needs to shift away from consumption, competition, devaluing nature, and towards a fairer society for all. As he puts it: “We have nowhere else to go. There is just Earth.”

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Alix Dietzel 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. Climate change isn’t fair but Tony Juniper’s new book explains how a green transition could be ‘just’ – https://theconversation.com/climate-change-isnt-fair-but-tony-junipers-new-book-explains-how-a-green-transition-could-be-just-250671

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How viruses blur the the boundaries of life

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Heshmat Borhani, Lecturer in in Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Nottingham

    Cryptographer/Shutterstock

    When people talk about the coronavirus, they sometimes describe this invisible entity as if it has a personality and even a conscience. If you ask a biology or medical student what a virus is, they will tell you that a virus is not a living organism, or at most that it exists at the border between living and dead – a kind of walking dead.

    For biologists who specialise in virology, however, this view is not clear-cut. Scientists still disagree on whether viruses are truly alive or not.

    What scientists can agree on is that a virus adapts to new conditions, evolves and sometimes harms humans. It is also an infectious agent that can only replicate within a host organism such as bacteria, plants or animals.

    The boundary between being alive and dead is a concept with no specific criteria. So to help you think about whether viruses are alive, I will talk you through some of the different definitions of life in science.

    Throughout history, scientists have debated the definition of life and researchers from different fields still disagree. This debate shapes scientific understanding and influences public health decisions – for example, defining whether viruses are “alive” affects how we design vaccines and strategies to stop their spread.

    Biologists may refer you to Erwin Schrödinger’s definition of life. Schrödinger was an Austrian Nobel-prize winning physicist who published a book in 1944 called What is Life? He was one of the first scientists to try to define life and is perhaps better known in popular culture for his “Schrödinger’s cat” thought experiment.

    He proposed that life is a form of negative “entropy”, a scientific concept that explains how disordered something is. A physical system will always increase in entropy/disorder unless we insert energy to change this process. Schrödinger thought living things create and maintain order by using energy.

    For example, a messy bedroom doesn’t clean itself, but a person can tidy it. Organisms do something similar at the molecular level. DNA is highly structured, allowing it to store genetic information. Proteins fold into specific shapes to function properly. In contrast, after an organism dies, its molecules break down, increasing disorder.

    Schrödinger later revised his view – around the 1950s – suggesting that life depends on free energy. Free energy is the energy that drives chemical reactions in living things. This marked a shift from focusing on order (negative entropy) to emphasising energy as essential for life.

    The coronavirus took on a personality for many people.
    creativeneko/Shutterstock

    In the mid-20th century, scientists switched from defining life to describing its key characteristics. Studying organisms such as bacteria, plants and animals, they identified common traits, setting a precedent still followed today.

    Rather than seeking a single definition, researchers classify entities based on these traits. To decide whether a virus is alive, researchers assess how well it meets these criteria.

    According to biology, the smallest unit of life is the cell. A cell is an independent unit which makes functional molecules (such as proteins and enzymes). Cells can use their own molecules to replicate genetic material independently. A virus also has genetic material but needs to use the host cell’s enzymes to make functional molecules or replicate its genetic material.

    Put simply, a virus does not replicate or function independently. So by the biological definition, a virus cannot be categorised as a living organism.

    But from a genetic and evolutionary point of view a living organism is defined by its ability to reproduce. A person who does not have children is still considered to be alive as they are part of the gene pool and descended from people who did have children. From this view a virus is alive, since it can produce similar offspring.

    Some scientists also focus on metabolism and energy production as criteria for life. Metabolism includes catabolism (breaking down molecules like sugars during digestion) and anabolism (building molecules like muscle tissue), linking energy and material. These reactions require molecular structures to generate or use energy – structures viruses lack.

    Does that mean viruses aren’t alive? An amoeba, for instance, uses nutrients and enzymes to sustain itself, while viruses rely entirely on a host. From this perspective, viruses don’t meet the metabolic criteria for life. However, some argue that since viruses hijack a host’s metabolism to replicate, they show life-like behaviour.

    If we consider nutrients to be sources of free energy, a cell uses energy from the environment to build what it needs. As the cell absorbs energy from the environment, it builds and maintains its internal structures – like proteins and membranes.

    It also releases a byproduct – carbon dioxide – that contributes to disorder in the external environment. Viruses also do this. They make their structures by using the external environment, a host cell in this case. The viruses’ byproducts may be what makes us sick.

    As we explore the complexities of biology, it becomes clear that defining life itself is anything but straightforward. Viruses display both life-like and non-living traits, which influences how we approach treatments like antiviral drugs designed to block their replication inside host cells.

    Heshmat Borhani 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. How viruses blur the the boundaries of life – https://theconversation.com/how-viruses-blur-the-the-boundaries-of-life-230802

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: UK adults dial up importance of mobile phones

    Source: Anglia Ruskin University

    A new survey reveals that the UK public considers the mobile phone to be the second most important invention of all time, with the majority of people admitting they couldn’t live without theirs.

    The poll, carried out on behalf of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) by OnePoll, surveyed 2,000 UK adults between 19-24 March and coincides with the launch of the Connecting Worlds research hub at ARU, to highlight the university’s groundbreaking research and innovation, and make it more accessible to the public.

    The survey found that 52% of respondents view their mobile phones as indispensable, with this figure rising to 65% among those under 45.

    When asked to name the most important invention ever, the wheel topped the list at 31%, ahead of the mobile phone at 15%. Interestingly, among the under-45s, the mobile phone was the clear winner at 26%, rising to 33% among people aged 18-24.

    Early research into mobile phone technology was led by researchers at the Chelmer Institute in Essex, which later became Anglia Ruskin University, and these pioneering prototypes were featured in the 1970s on popular TV shows such as Blue Peter and Tomorrow’s World.

    When questioned about the most significant scientific discovery ever made, a third of those surveyed said electricity (33%), followed by penicillin, the first antibiotic (26%), and then DNA, the genetic code of living organisms (16%).

    Looking to the future, just over a third of people (34%) believe that finding a cure for cancer will be the biggest scientific breakthrough to occur over the next century. More “out of this world” breakthroughs such as colonising Mars and discovering alien life were selected by only 4% and 5% of people, respectively.

    At ARU, senior researchers are leading important research into different new cancer treatments, including for breast cancer and bowel cancer, and are also instrumental in work to provide cancer screenings for homeless people.

    Despite the impactful work being carried out at universities, the survey revealed that 43% of people were unaware that most UK universities engage in important, life-changing research alongside providing undergraduate and postgraduate education to students.

    “Crucially, our survey found that a high proportion of people aren’t aware of the twin roles of most UK universities – research and education. Our new Connecting Worlds research hub highlights that ARU, like many universities in the UK, carries out world-class research that benefits all parts of society.

    “It’s really important for us that our research activities are of the highest quality and contribute to knowledge and understanding in the academic literature. However, just as important for us is that we can continue to work in collaboration with partners, funders, policy makers, industry and civic leaders to undertake research which will have real and positive impact on the everyday experiences of individuals, communities, the professions and industry both locally and globally.

    “At ARU, this ranges from developing new treatments for cataracts, to helping to save the UK from future food shortages, to highlighting discrimination in the labour market and working to revive endangered languages. We encourage everyone to explore the innovative work being carried at ARU.”

    Professor Yvonne Barnett, Deputy Vice Chancellor at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU)

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Our early human ancestors were surprisingly slow

    Source: Anglia Ruskin University

    Computer simulated anatomy, used in the study, of the lower limb of Australopithecus afarensis. Bates et al.

    By Tom O’Mahoney, Anglia Ruskin University

    Imagine the scene, around 3 million years ago in what is now east Africa. By the side of a river, an injured antelope keels over and draws its last breath. The carcass is soon set on by hyenas, who tussle with a crocodile. The crocodile surfaces and grabs part of the animal.

    The hyenas win and the crocodile retreats with only a leg. After having their fill, the hyenas slope off. Some funny-looking apes approach, walking upright. They have what appear to be stones with sharp edges in their hands. They hurriedly cut off some scraps of meat and start chewing at them.

    Their squabbling attracts the attention of a nearby Homotherium (an extinct, scimitar-toothed big cat) who creeps up and suddenly breaks cover. Will these strange apes survive the encounter? Can they run fast enough, and far enough?

    Our team’s research modelled the anatomy of these early humans, Australopithecus afarensis, to find out how well they could run. Australopithecus afarensis is one of the best-known early human ancestors dating from 2.9-3.9 million years ago.

    The partially complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton Lucy, or Dinkʼinesh (Amharic: ድንቅ ነሽ, lit.“you are marvellous”) is globally iconic as a representation of early bipedalism (the ability to walk on two legs). Found in the Afar Depression in north east Ethiopia, this discovery received worldwide attention when it was made in 1974. It was evidence that brain expansion evolved after human ancestors started walking on two legs, as scientists had long believed.

    Reconstruction of the fossil skeleton of Lucy the Australopithecus afarensis. Wikimedia/Author 120, CC BY-SA

    Some researchers have also linked Australopithecine anatomy to an, as yet unknown, knuckle-walking common ancestor of humans, gorillas and chimpanzees. This hypothesis has since been refuted.

    Scientists now believe that knuckle-walking probably evolved several times in apes, as the style of walking and internal architecture of ape hands and elbows are subtly different from each other. Researchers also think that the anatomy we see in hominins reflects an adaptation for upright movement in trees in a distant ancestor.

    Early bipeds, such as Ardipithecus kadabba which looked a bit like a gorilla, lived in Africa between 5.8 and 5.2 million years ago. They lived in mosaic habitats (a mixture of open and wooded landscapes) so some adaptation to moving in trees would make sense.

    Until recently, scientists thought that only animals of the genus Homo, which emerged around 2 million years ago, made stone tools. The discovery of cut-marked bones in Dikika, Ethiopia (in 2009) dated at 3.4 million years, and in 2011 of stone tools at Lomekwi, Kenya from 3.3 million years ago, changed scientists’ ideas of how much access Australopithecus had to meat.

    The debate is now more a matter of whether Australopithecus regularly killed animals themselves, or if they were eating from carcasses after other predators (secondary access).

    For primary access and regular kills, they needed to be able to do two things. Run fast (bursts of speed to outpace an unaware animal), and run for long amounts of time (to wear down a prey animal).

    This is the endurance running hypothesis. The emergence of this behaviour is thought to coincide with more modern anatomy, such as seen in Homo erectus, who lived from around 2 million years ago to around 1 million years ago. The best way to test if Australopithecus was capable of endurance running at what we consider “modern” speeds is to reconstruct the skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis and simulate how they may have moved.

    To try and answer this question, my team reconstructed the complete skeleton of Lucy, using 3D modelling. Where parts were missing, we estimated these using scaled versions of other Australopithecus skeletons. Since Lucy is closely related to chimpanzees as well, we also morphed Australopith and modern human and chimpanzee skeletal material, using an analytical technique called geometric morphometrics.

    We then started putting muscles onto the bones of the pelvis and lower limbs of Australopithecus and a modern human model, using the open source software Gaitsym. Muscles and other soft tissues are not preserved in fossils so we varied the muscle properties from chimpanzee-like to human-like, producing a range of estimates for running speed and economy.

    We also ran multiple simulations where we added and removed a long Achilles tendon, which chimpanzees don’t have, as it is thought to affect running speed and energy use by enhancing recovery.

    This was a team effort, with reconstructions across multiple labs. The simulations were run on the high performance computing facilities at the University of Liverpool.

    These simulations revealed that Lucy wasn’t as good at running as modern humans. The top speed our simulations could produce was 11mph, with a minimum of about 3.35mph. Elite sprinters, however, can reach peak speeds of more than 20mph. Even non-elite sprinters can reach around 17.6mph.

    We also found that the metabolic cost of transport (how much energy it takes to move) was between 1.7 and 2.9 times higher in Lucy than in a modern human. The more “ape like” you make the muscle architecture and the shorter you make the Achilles tendon, the higher this cost is.

    It appears that modern human limb proportions, combined with key changes in architecture of the calf muscle (such as relatively short fibres and large cross sectional areas), plus a long Achilles tendon, enabled much faster running in the genus Homo.

    This means that it was probably not physiologically possible for Australopithecus afarensis to engage in persistence hunting, unlike later species of the genus Homo species.

    Going back to our story at the start, it is likely the Australopithecines in this group wouldn’t have escaped the big cat. They simply couldn’t run fast enough, or for long enough.

    Tom O’Mahoney, Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    The opinions expressed in VIEWPOINT articles are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARU.

    If you wish to republish this article, please follow these guidelines: https://theconversation.com/uk/republishing-guidelines

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: CAMHS Annual Report 2024 published31 March 2025 The Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service, CAMHS, Annual Report 2024 has been published and can be viewed here. Minister for Children and Families, Connétable Richard Vibert said: “I… Read more

    Source: Channel Islands – Jersey

    31 March 2025

    The Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service, CAMHS, Annual Report 2024 has been published and can be viewed here. 

    Minister for Children and Families, Connétable Richard Vibert said: “I am pleased to present the 2024 CAMHS Annual Report. As Minister for Children and Families, I remain committed to ensuring that Children and Young People in Jersey are supported to enjoy the best mental health and wellbeing.

    “The Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) continues to be extremely busy and in-demand. The statistical performance compared with UK data is pleasing, and progress described in JCC inspection reports also shows a clearly improving and evolving service. 

    “I hope, as an island, we continue to work collectively to create an environment where every child and young person feels empowered to seek help, share their experiences, and know they are not alone. Together, we will continue to work hard to build a healthier, more resilient future for all.” 

    Key highlights within the report: 

    • The team has expanded and now includes 75 full-time members of staff 
    • The Duty and Assessment team will be fully operating as an 8am to 8pm, seven days a week service from April 2025 
    • Total of 1145 referrals in 2024, with 934 new referrals 
    • The CAMHS target for the completion of routine referrals is 36 days from the date received. Despite the significant volume of referrals, initial assessments of routine referrals were completed on average in 31 days 
    • In 2025, for the first time local staff will be part of the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology through Southampton University 
    • The Experience of Service Questionnaire (ESQ) had 218 responses (97 from parents / carers and 121 from children and young people), an increase from 181 in 2023. Responses in each category were extremely positive.​

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –