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Category: Universities

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Capitalism and democracy are weakening – reviving the idea of ‘calling’ can help to repair them

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Valerie L. Myers, Organizational Psychologist and Lecturer in Management and Organizations, University of Michigan

    Ask someone what a calling is, and they’ll probably say something like “doing work you love.” But as a management professor who has spent two decades researching the history and impact of calling, I’ve found it’s much more than personal fulfillment.

    The concept of calling has deep roots. In the 1500s, theologian Martin Luther asserted that any legitimate work – not just work in ministry – could have sacred significance and social value, and could therefore be considered a calling. In this early form, calling wasn’t merely a vocation or passion; it was a way of living and working that built character, competence and social trust.

    That’s because calling is an ethical system – a set of thoughts and actions aimed at producing “good work” that is both morally grounded and quality-focused. As such, it’s not just a feel-good idea.

    Today, we know that calling can strengthen social trust by reinforcing its key elements: confidence in product quality, stable institutions, adherence to rules and laws, and relationships.

    Social trust is crucial for capitalism and vibrant democracies. And when those systems weaken, as they are now, it’s calling – not cunning or charisma – that can help repair them.

    Although calling’s original meaning has faded, I contend that it’s worth reviving. That robust spirit of work still has practical value today, especially since social trust has been declining for decades.

    History’s warning lights are flashing

    We’ve been here before – in the late 19th century, when the U.S. entered its first Gilded Age. Innovation surged, but so did corruption and inequality as lax regulations enabled tycoons to accumulate extraordinary wealth. Rapid social change sparked conflict. Meanwhile, rising authoritarianism, shifting national alliances and economic jolts unsettled the world. Sound familiar?

    Today, in the U.S., trust in institutions has reached an all-time low, while measures of corruption and inequality are up. Meanwhile, American workers are increasingly disengaged at work, a problem that costs US$438 billion annually. America’s fractured and flawed democracy ranks 28th globally, having fallen 11 slots in less than 15 years.

    These aren’t just economic or political failures – they’re signs of a moral breakdown.

    Over a century ago, sociologist Max Weber warned that if capitalism lost its moral footing, it would cannibalize itself. He predicted the rise of “specialists without spirit,” people who are technically brilliant but ethically empty. The result: resurgence of a cruel, callous form of capitalism called moral menace.

    Moral menaces and moral muses

    Some leaders act as moral menaces, which law professor James Q. Whitman describes as an efficient but exploitative form of capitalism. Moral menaces extract value and treat people callously, which erodes trust that sustains markets and society. In contrast, others are what I call “moral muses” – leaders who are examples of a calling in action. They’re not saints or celebrities, but people who combine skill, care and moral courage to build trust and transform systems from within. President Franklin Roosevelt and Yvonne Chouinard are two examples.

    When President Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933, amid the Great Depression, an aide told Roosevelt if he was successful, he’d become America’s greatest president. Roosevelt replied, “If I fail, I shall be the last one.” He succeeded by restoring trust. Through New Deal policies, Roosevelt enhanced institutional trust, which stabilized democracy and helped rescue capitalism from its excesses. Today, the U.S. remains highly innovative, competitive and wealthy, in part because of moral muses like Roosevelt.

    Or take Yvon Chouinard, the founder of clothing label Patagonia, who built a billion-dollar company while building trust around a moral mission. He urged customers not to buy more gear, but instead to repair their old products to curb consumer waste. Chouinard filed over 70 lawsuits to protect public land, and he gave away his company to climate-change nonprofits in 2022, declaring, “Earth is now our only shareholder.” Relatedly, Patagonia’s employee turnover is far lower than the industry standard, reporting shows. Why? Because people trust leaders who live their values.

    History shows that such leaders aren’t born; they are trained.

    MBAs and the calling to leadership

    For 15 years, I’ve taught an MBA module named “The Calling to Leadership.” Students study moral muses like Roosevelt and Chouinard – not for their fame, but for how they live their callings to cultivate talent and trust, and transform systems.

    Students learn to identify moral injuries that lead to disengagement, identify trust gaps, reflect on their own moral core, and practice ethical decision-making. They also engage in reflective practices that sharpen their ethical judgment, which is essential to creating moral markets.

    As Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the founder of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, put it: “At its best, the basis of capitalism is a dual moral and market imperative.”

    Democracy and capitalism won’t be strengthened by charisma, cunning or exploitative ambition, but by people who answer a deeper calling to do “good work”: work that builds trust and strengthens the social fabric. History shows that real progress has often been guided by the slumbering ideals of calling. In this age of disengagement and distrust, those ideals aren’t just worth reviving – they’re essential.

    In my view, calling isn’t a luxury; it’s a leadership imperative. To fulfill yours, don’t ask, “Is this my dream job?” Ask, “Will my actions build trust?” If not, change course. If yes, keep going. That’s how to heal institutions and improve systems, and how ordinary people can become the quiet force behind meaningful, lasting transformation.

    Valerie L. Myers 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. Capitalism and democracy are weakening – reviving the idea of ‘calling’ can help to repair them – https://theconversation.com/capitalism-and-democracy-are-weakening-reviving-the-idea-of-calling-can-help-to-repair-them-257091

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Employers are failing to insure the working class – Medicaid cuts would leave them even more vulnerable

    Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Sumit Agarwal, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan

    The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.8 million Americans across the U.S. would lose their coverage through Medicaid – the public program that provides health insurance to low-income families and individuals – under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act making its way through Congress.

    That includes 248,000 to 414,000 of my fellow residents of Michigan based on the House Reconciliation Bill in early June 2025. There are similarly deep projected cuts within the Senate version of the legislation.

    Many of these people are working Americans who would lose Medicaid because of the onerous paperwork involved with the proposed work requirements.

    They wouldn’t be able to get coverage in the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces after losing Medicaid. Premiums and out-of-pocket costs are likely to be too high for those making less than 100% to 138% of the federal poverty level who do not qualify for health insurance marketplace subsidies. Funding for this program is also under threat.

    And despite being employed, they also wouldn’t be able to get health insurance through their employers because it is either too expensive or not offered to them. Researchers estimate that coverage losses would lead to thousands of medically preventable deaths across the country because people would be unable to access health care without insurance.

    I am a physician, health economist and policy researcher who has cared for patients on Medicaid and written about health care in the U.S. for over eight years. I think it’s important to understand the role of Medicaid within the broader insurance landscape. Medicaid has become a crucial source of health coverage for low-wage workers.

    A brief history of Medicaid expansion.

    Michigan removed work requirements from Medicaid

    A few years ago, Michigan was slated to institute Medicaid work requirements, but the courts blocked the implementation of that policy in 2020. It would have cost upward of US$70 million due to software upgrades, staff training, and outreach to Michigan residents enrolled in the Medicaid program, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

    Had it gone into effect, 100,000 state residents were expected to lose coverage within the first year.

    The state took the formal step of eliminating work requirements from its statutes earlier this year in recognition of implementation costs being too high and mounting evidence against the policy’s effectiveness.

    When Arkansas instituted Medicaid work requirements in 2018, there was no increase in employment, but within months, thousands of people enrolled in the program lost their coverage. The reason? Many people were subjected to paperwork and red tape, but there weren’t actually that many people who would fail to meet the criteria of the work requirements. It is a recipe for widespread coverage losses without meeting any of the policy’s purported goals.

    Work requirements, far from incentivizing work, paradoxically remove working people from Medicaid with nowhere else to go for insurance.

    Shortcomings of employer-sponsored insurance

    Nearly half of Americans get their health insurance through their employers.

    In contrast to a universal system that covers everyone from cradle to grave, an employer-first system leaves huge swaths of the population uninsured. This includes tens of millions of working Americans who are unable to get health insurance through their employers, especially low-income workers who are less likely to even get the choice of coverage from their employers.

    Over 80% of managers and professionals have employer-sponsored health coverage, but only 50% to 70% of blue-collar workers in service jobs, farming, construction, manufacturing and transportation can say the same.

    There are some legal requirements mandating employers to provide health insurance to their employees, but the reality of low-wage work means many do not fall under these legal protections.

    For example, employers are allowed to incorporate a waiting period of up to 90 days before health coverage begins. The legal requirement also applies only to full-time workers. Health coverage can thus remain out of reach for seasonal and temporary workers, part-time employees and gig workers.

    Even if an employer offers health insurance to their low-wage employees, those workers may forego it because the premiums and deductibles are too high to make it worth earning less take-home pay.

    To make matters worse, layoffs are more common for low-wage workers, leaving them with limited options for health insurance during job transitions. And many employers have increasingly shed low-wage staff, such as drivers and cleaning staff, from their employment rolls and contracted that work out. Known as the fissuring of the workplace, it allows employers of predominately high-income employees to continue offering generous benefits while leaving no such commitment to low-wage workers employed as contractors.

    Medicaid fills in gaps

    Low-income workers without access to employer-sponsored insurance had virtually no options for health insurance in the years before key parts of the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2014.

    Research my co-authors and I conducted showed that blue-collar workers have since gained health insurance coverage, cutting the uninsured rate by a third thanks to the expansion of Medicaid eligibility and subsidies in the health insurance marketplaces. This means low-income workers can more consistently see doctors, get preventive care and fill prescriptions.

    Further evidence from Michigan’s experience has shown that Medicaid can help the people it covers do a better job at work by addressing health impairments. It can also improve their financial well-being, including fewer problems with debt, fewer bankruptcies, higher credit scores and fewer evictions.

    Premiums and cost sharing in Medicaid are minimal compared with employer-sponsored insurance, making it a more realistic and accessible option for low-income workers. And because Medicaid is not tied directly to employment, it can promote job mobility, allowing workers to maintain coverage within or between jobs without having to go through the bureaucratic complexity of certifying work.

    Of course, Medicaid has its own shortcomings. Payment rates to providers are low relative to other insurers, access to doctors can be limited, and the program varies significantly by state. But these weaknesses stem largely from underfunding and political hostility – not from any intrinsic flaw in the model. If anything, Medicaid’s success in covering low-income workers and containing per-enrollee costs points to its potential as a broader foundation for health coverage.

    The current employer-based system, which is propped up by an enormous and regressive tax break for employer-sponsored insurance premiums, favors high-income earners and contributes to wage stagnation. In my view, which is shared by other health economists, a more public, universal model could better cover Americans regardless of how someone earns a living.

    Over the past six decades, Medicaid has quietly stepped into the breach left by employer-sponsored insurance. Medicaid started as a welfare program for the needy in the 1960s, but it has evolved and adapted to fill the needs of a country whose health care system leaves far too many uninsured.

    Sumit Agarwal 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. Employers are failing to insure the working class – Medicaid cuts would leave them even more vulnerable – https://theconversation.com/employers-are-failing-to-insure-the-working-class-medicaid-cuts-would-leave-them-even-more-vulnerable-259256

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Russia is paying schoolgirls to have babies. Why is pronatalism on the rise around the world?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jennifer Mathers, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, Aberystwyth University

    In some parts of Russia, schoolgirls who become pregnant are being paid more than 100,000 roubles (nearly £900) for giving birth and raising their babies.

    This new measure, introduced in the past few months across ten regions, is part of Russia’s new demographic strategy, widening the policy adopted in March 2025 which only applied to adult women. It is designed to address the dramatic decline in the country’s birthrate.

    In 2023 the number of births in Russia per woman was 1.41 – substantially below 2.05, which is the level required to maintain a population at its current size.

    Paying teenage girls to have babies while they are still in school is controversial in Russia. According to a recent survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, 43% of Russians approve of the policy, while 40% are opposed to it. But it indicates the high priority that the state places on increasing the number of children being born.

    Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, regards a large population as one of the markers of a flourishing great power, along with control over a vast (and growing) territory and a powerful military. Paradoxically, though, his efforts to increase the physical size of Russia by attacking Ukraine and illegally annexing its territory have also been disastrous in terms of shrinking Russia’s population.

    The number of Russian soldiers killed in the war has reached 250,000 by some estimates, while the war sparked an exodus of hundreds of thousands of some of the most highly educated Russians. Many of them are young men fleeing military service who could have been fathers to the next generation of Russian citizens.

    But while Russia’s demographic situation is extreme, declining birth rates are now a global trend. It is estimated that by 2050 more than three quarters of the world’s countries will have such low fertility rates that they will not be able to sustain their populations.

    It’s not only Russia

    Putin is not the only world leader to introduce policies designed to encourage women to have more babies. Viktor Orban’s government in Hungary is offering a range of incentives, such as generous tax breaks and subsidised mortgages, to those who have three or more children.

    Poland makes a monthly payment of 500 złoty (£101) per child to families with two or more children. But there’s some evidence this has not prompted higher-income Polish women to have more children, as they might have to sacrifice higher earnings and career advancement to have another child.

    In the United States, Donald Trump is proposing to pay women US$5,000 (£3,682) to have a baby, tied to a wider Maga movement push, supported by Elon Musk and others, to encourage women to have larger families.

    Reversing demographic trends is complex, because the reasons that individuals and couples have for becoming parents are also complex. Personal preferences and aspirations, beliefs about their ability to provide for children, as well as societal norms and cultural and religious values all play a part in these decisions.

    As a result, the impact of “pronatalist” policies has been mixed. No country has found an easy way to reverse declining birth rates.

    One country seeking to address population decline with policies, other than encouraging women to have more babies is Spain, which now allows an easier pathway to citizenship for migrants, including those who entered the country illegally. Madrid’s embrace of immigrants is being credited for its current economic boom.

    The US is seeing a pronatalist movement become more vocal.

    Looking for particular types of families

    But governments that adopt pronatalist policies tend to be concerned, not simply with increasing the total number of people living and working in their countries, but with encouraging certain kinds of people to reproduce. In other words, there is often an ideological dimension to these practices.

    Incentives for pregnancy, childbirth and large families are typically targeted at those whom the state regards as its most desirable citizens. These people may be desirable citizens due to their race, ethnicity, language, religion, sexual orientation or some other identity or combination of identities.



    Read more:
    Putin forced to send wounded back to fight and offer huge military salaries as Russia suffers a million casualties

    For instance, the Spanish bid to increase the population by increasing immigration offers mostly Spanish speakers from Catholic countries in Latin America jobs while opportunities to remain in, or move to, the country does appear to be extended to migrants from Africa. Meanwhile, Hungary’s incentives to families are only available to heterosexual couples who earn high incomes.

    Elon Musk believes people need to have more children.

    The emphasis on increasing the proportion of the most desirable citizens is why the Trump administration sees no contradiction in calling for more babies to be born in the US, while ordering the arrest and deportation of hundreds of alleged illegal migrants, attempting to reverse the constitutional guarantee of US citizenship for anyone born in the country and even attempting to withdraw citizenship from some Americans.

    Which mothers do they want?

    The success or failure of governments and societies that promote pronatalism hinges on their ability to persuade people – and especially women – to embrace parenthood. Along with financial incentives and other tangible rewards for having babies, some states offer praise and recognition for the mothers of large families.

    Putin’s reintroduction of the Stalin-era motherhood medal for women with ten or more children is one example. Sometimes the recognition comes from society, such as the current American fascination with “trad wives” – women who become social media influencers by turning their backs on careers in favour of raising large numbers of children and living socially conservative lifestyles.

    The mirror image of this celebration of motherhood is the implicit or explicit criticism of women who delay childbirth or reject it altogether. Russia’s parliament passed a law in 2024 to ban the promotion of childlessness, or “child-free propaganda”. This legislation joins other measures such as restrictions on abortions in private clinics, together with public condemnation of women who choose to study at university and pursue careers rather than prioritise marriage and child-rearing.

    The world’s most prosperous states would be embracing immigration if pronatalist policies were driven solely by the need to ensure a sufficient workforce to support the economy and society. Instead, these attempts are often bound up with efforts to restrict or dictate the choices that citizens – and especially women – make about their personal lives, and to create a population dominated by the types of the people they favour.

    Jennifer Mathers 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. Russia is paying schoolgirls to have babies. Why is pronatalism on the rise around the world? – https://theconversation.com/russia-is-paying-schoolgirls-to-have-babies-why-is-pronatalism-on-the-rise-around-the-world-258979

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Conservatives notch 2 victories in their fight to deny Planned Parenthood federal funding through Medicaid

    Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Rachel Rebouché, Professor of Law, Temple University

    Conservatives have won two important battles in their decades-long campaign against Planned Parenthood, a network of affiliated clinics that are the largest provider of reproductive health services in the U.S.

    One of these victories was a U.S. Supreme Court ruling handed down on June 26, 2025. The other is a provision in the multitrilion-dollar tax-and-spending package President Donald Trump has made his top legislative priority. Both follow the same strategy: depriving Planned Parenthood – and all other providers of abortion care – from getting reimbursed by Medicaid, the government health insurance program that mainly covers low-income adults and children, as well as people with disabilities.

    Because Medicaid covers nearly 80 million Americans, this bill, and the Supreme Court’s decision, will sever federal support for health care that has nothing to do with abortion, such as annual exams, birth control and prenatal care. Abortions account for 3% of all of Planned Parenthood’s services.

    As a scholar of reproductive rights, I have studied how abortion politics shape the broader provision of reproductive health care.

    I see in both the legislation and the court’s ruling a culmination of a strategy to defund Planned Parenthood that was in full swing by 2007, toward the end of the George W. Bush administration. This campaign hinges on a strategy of insisting that federal and state dollars are supporting abortion care when they do not.

    A clinic escort assists a patient at a Planned Parenthood health center in Philadelphia in 2022.
    Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

    Congress and the Supreme Court

    Trump’s package of tax breaks, spending increases and safety net changes passed in the House and the Senate by razor-thin margins.

    One of the bill’s provisions will make it impossible for patients with Medicaid coverage to get any health care services at clinics like Planned Parenthood.

    The provision will last only for a year.

    The House approved the same version of the package that the Senate had passed a week after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot be sued by patients if they make it impossible for Planned Parenthood clinics to be reimbursed by Medicaid.

    The case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, arose when a South Carolina woman wanted to get gynecological care at her local Planned Parenthood clinic. The rationale South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster gave for the state’s policy was that Planned Parenthood is an abortion provider.

    South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster stands outside the Supreme Court building in Washington in April 2025 and speaks about his state’s legal dispute regarding Medicaid funding for health care at Planned Parenthood clinics.
    Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

    Medicaid and abortion

    To be clear, neither the legal dispute nor the provision in the legislative package had anything to do with the use of federal or state dollars to fund abortion.

    Although Planned Parenthood offers abortion where and when it is legal, this provision and the court’s decision concern Medicaid reimbursement for all other services. Abortion care is not covered by Medicaid under federal law except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the pregnant patient’s life.

    Medicaid patients instead have relied on their plan at Planned Parenthood clinics when they get annual exams, prenatal care, mental health support, birth control, treatment for sexually transmitted infections, cervical cancer screenings and fertility referrals.

    None of those services will be covered by Medicaid for a year. Patients will have to find another health care provider – as long as one is available.

    While that provision is in effect, Medicaid won’t be allowed to reimburse Planned Parenthood for any services, mirroring what states just won the right to do in the Supreme Court ruling – but at the national level.

    Although the bill blocks Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for only 12 months, the ruling lets states exclude any provider from its Medicaid program because they also provide abortions.

    In other words, people who rely on Medicaid funding will lose access to all of those essential services not just at Planned Parenthood but potentially at any other providers that also offer abortion care.

    Given the number of states that ban almost all abortion, I have no doubt that more states will do that, especially if this Medicaid funding provision expires after a year without being renewed.

    Abortion-rights demonstrators holds a sign in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington as the Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic case is heard on April 2, 2025.
    Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

    Roots of this defunding strategy

    Politicians began to call for defunding Planned Parenthood about 20 years ago, following efforts by anti-abortion activists to discredit the organization altogether.

    U.S. Rep. Mike Pence introduced the first federal legislation aimed at “defunding” Planned Parenthood in 2007. It failed to muster enough support in Congress to become law. States such as Texas then started down that path.

    The first national legislative success came in 2015. Both houses of Congress passed a budget reconciliation measure with a provision to defund Planned Parenthood that year, but President Barack Obama vetoed it. Republicans had threatened to shut down the government over those demands. A year later, the GOP included a call to defund Planned Parenthood in its presidential campaign platform.

    Before Obama left office, his administration passed a rule in December 2016 protecting federal funds for family planning for health care facilities that also provided abortion. The Trump administration rolled back that rule in 2017.

    The Trump administration relied on an argument that any support for a health care provider that offers patients abortion services, no matter how segregated the sources of funding, is tantamount to subsidizing abortion.

    What to expect next

    Nationally, 16 million women of reproductive age rely on Medicaid, and 1 in 5 women will visit a Planned Parenthood clinic for health care at least once in their lives. Those clinics depend on Medicaid reimbursement to offer an array of reproductive health care services, such as prenatal care, that are not tied to abortion.

    If Planned Parenthood clinics can’t bill Medicaid for those services, many will close. Planned Parenthood estimates that it could see almost 200 closures – 90% of them in states where abortion is legal. That means over 1 million low-income people risk losing access to their health care provider.

    And once clinics close, they may never reopen, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, recently predicted.

    Should the number of Planned Parenthood clinics plummet, it will threaten access to contraceptives, which are all the more important in preventing unwanted pregnancies for people living in states that have banned abortion. Researchers have repeatedly found that unwanted pregnancies, when people are denied access to abortion services, are correlated with increased debt, missed educational and employment opportunities, mental health problems, and diminished care for a family’s older children.

    In addition, pregnant patients and new parents may have more limited options for prenatal and postnatal care. That could cause the country’s already-high rates of maternal and infant mortality to increase.

    Rachel Rebouché 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. Conservatives notch 2 victories in their fight to deny Planned Parenthood federal funding through Medicaid – https://theconversation.com/conservatives-notch-2-victories-in-their-fight-to-deny-planned-parenthood-federal-funding-through-medicaid-260233

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: How the myth of ‘Blitz spirit’ defined and divided London after 7/7

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Darren Kelsey, Reader in Media and Collective Psychology, Newcastle University

    The “Blitz spirit” is one of Britain’s most enduring national myths – the stories we tell ourselves about who we were, and who we still believe we are today. Growing up among football fans, I heard constant nostalgic refrains about England and Germany, wartime bravery and national pride.

    Chants about “two world wars and one World Cup” or “ten German bombers in the air” were cultural rituals, flexes of a shared memory that many had never experienced themselves.

    Blitz spirit refers to the resilience, unity and stoic determination of civilians during the German bombing raids (the Blitz) of the second world war. It has reemerged time and again, symbolising a collective pride in facing adversity with courage, humour and a “keep calm and carry on” attitude.

    After the July 7 bombings in 2005, which killed 52 people and injured more than 700, I noticed how quickly the Blitz spirit reappeared. British newspapers reached into the past and pulled the myth forward.

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    The Independent on July 8 said, “London can take it, and it can do so because its stoicism is laced as it always has been with humour.” The Daily Mail evoked images of “London during the Blitz… with everyone dancing through the bombs”.

    Tony Parsons opened his Daily Mirror column with “07/07 war on Britain: We can take it; if these murderous bastards go on for a thousand years, the people of our islands will never be cowed”, alongside an image of St Paul’s Cathedral during the Blitz.

    The spirit of working-class wartime London was, ironically, even applied to bankers and City traders who “kept the economy alive” after the attacks. A July 8 Times article claimed: “A Dunkirk spirit spread through London’s financial districts as Canary Wharf and City workers vowed they would not be deterred.”

    The use of river transport to evacuate workers reinforced the analogy. The Times described how “bankers and lawyers in London’s riverside Canary Wharf complex experienced their own version of the Dunkirk-style evacuations”, assisted by a “flotilla of leisure vessels and little ships”.

    I was fascinated: why this story, and why now? That question became the heart of a book I published in 2015 – one that explored how a myth born in 1940 was reborn in 2005, repurposed for a very different London.

    What I found was that the “Blitz spirit” wasn’t a lie, but it was a myth in the academic sense: a simplified, selective story built from the most comforting parts of the past.

    Wartime Britain was not uniformly united, stoic and proud. There were deep class divides. Looting occurred. Morale was rock-bottom in many cities and communities. Evacuees weren’t always welcomed with open arms. Government censorship and transnational propaganda masked social unrest.

    Understandably, these messy realities were left out of the postwar narrative. But what happens when we bring that myth into the present?

    The myth of the ‘Blitz spirit’

    Londoners did come together after the 7/7 bombings – there were undoubtedly examples of communities and strangers supporting each other and maintaining a sense of resilience that enabled them to continue their lives undeterred.

    But it was not one single unified message. Hate crimes against British Muslim communities in the weeks after the 2005 attacks exposed cracks in the narrative of national unity.

    Some used the Blitz spirit to support Tony Blair and George W. Bush, casting them as Churchillian leaders standing firm against a new fascism in the form of global terrorism. For others, the same figures represented a betrayal of British values.

    They were evoked instead to shame Blair and Bush. The Express made its feelings clear when it said: “It was throw up time when Blair was compared to Churchill by some commentators. What an insult!”

    The Blitz spirit also became a weapon in anti-immigration discourse. Some argued that Britain, unlike in 1940, had become a “soft touch” – compromised by EU human rights laws, welfare handouts and multiculturalism. The underlying message: today’s London could never be as brave or unified as wartime London.

    Writing in The Sun, Richard Littlejohn said: “War office memo. Anyone caught fighting on the beaches will be prosecuted for hate crimes.”

    An article in the Express condemning human rights laws said: “What a good thing these people weren’t running things when Hitler was doing his worst. Would the second world war have been more easily won if we had spent more time talking about freedom of speech than bombing Nazi Germany?”

    Multicultural resilience

    And yet, another narrative emerged – one that saw London’s multicultural identity as a strength, not a weakness. Here, the Blitz spirit wasn’t just a historical relic, but a kind of transcendental force. The city’s soul, it was said, remained resilient – passed down across generations, regardless of race, class or religion. For some, this was proof that Britain had evolved and still held fast to its best values.

    A letter to the Daily Mirror (July 17) invoked the Blitz spirit through a cross-cultural lens: “Colour, creed and cultures forgotten, black helping white and vice versa… We stood firm in the Blitz and we’ll do so again, going about our business as usual.”

    The Sunday Times quoted Michael Portillo, who framed London’s resilience as multicultural continuity: “Fewer than half the names of those killed on the 7th look Anglo-Saxon… Today’s Londoners come in all colours and from every cultural background. Yet they have inherited the city’s historic attitudes of nonchalance, bloody-mindedness and defiance.”

    The Blitz spirit, as my research revealed, is not a single story. It is a narrative tool used for many different – often opposing – purposes. It can bring people together, or be used to divide. It can inspire pride, or be weaponised in fear.

    National myths don’t just reflect who we were – they shape who we think we are. They’re never neutral. They’re always curated, always contested. If we want to be genuinely proud of our country – and we should – then we also have to be honest about the stories we cling to. We must ask: what’s left out, and who decides?

    Darren Kelsey 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 the myth of ‘Blitz spirit’ defined and divided London after 7/7 – https://theconversation.com/how-the-myth-of-blitz-spirit-defined-and-divided-london-after-7-7-259948

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: A surprisingly effective way to save the capercaillie: keep its predators well-fed – new research

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Chris Sutherland, Reader in Statistical Ecology, University of St Andrews

    A male capercaillie showing off its colours. Rolands Linejs/Shutterstock

    Conserving species can be a complicated affair. Take this dilemma.

    After being hunted to near extinction, numbers of a native predator are recovering and eating more of an endangered prey species, whose own numbers are declining as a result. Should conservationists accept that some successes mean losing other species, or reinstate lethal control of this predator in perpetuity?

    Or perhaps there is a third option that involves new means of managing species in the face of new conditions. This issue is playing out globally, as land managers grapple with predators such as wolves and lynx reclaiming their historic ranges.

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    In the ancient Caledonian pine forests of Scotland there are fewer than 500 capercaillie remaining. This grouse is beset by multiple threats, not least shifts in spring weather caused by climate change that are driving its Europe-wide decline, relating to changes in when chicks are reared and available nutrition.

    Additionally, and in common with other ground-nesting birds, capercaillie lose eggs and chicks to carnivores. As such, the recovery of the pine marten (a relative of weasels and otters) from its own near extinction in Scotland is contributing to the decline of capercaillie.

    A capercaillie cock displaying for a hen.
    Jack Bamber

    Internationally, little has been achieved to slow the heating of Earth’s climate, and decades of dedicated conservation efforts have not arrested the decline of capercaillie. Extinction will follow unless new solutions are found.

    Killing pine martens, the capercaillie’s predators, might offer short-term relief, but it is socially and politically contested and scientific evidence on its effectiveness is meagre. Most importantly, it risks undermining the recovery of species conservationists have worked hard to restore. Instead, the challenge is to reduce the effects of predators, not their numbers, and encourage coexistence between species.

    We have tried one such method in Scotland – with incredibly positive results.

    A non-lethal alternative for controlling predators

    Our idea is simple: predators have to be efficient, so when given access to a free meal, they are less likely to hunt for harder-to-find prey like capercaillie nests.

    Taking the bait: a pine marten eating carrion.
    Jack Bamber

    Satiated predators are less likely to kill and eat prey that is of concern to conservationists. This is called diversionary feeding: giving predators something easy to eat at critical times, such as during the time when capercaillie build their ground nests and rear chicks between April and July.

    To test this idea we systematically dumped deer carrion across 600 square kilometres of the Cairngorms national park in north-eastern Scotland, during eight weeks in which capercaillie are laying and incubating eggs. This area is home to the last Scottish stronghold of capercaillie. We also made artificial nests across the same area that contained chicken eggs, to represent capercaillie eggs.

    Through this landscape-scale experiment, we showed that the predation rate of pine marten on artificial nests fell from 53% to 22% with diversionary feeding. This decrease from a 50% chance of a nest being eaten by a pine marten, to 20%, is a massive increase in nest survival.

    A capercaillie brood, with chicks and hen highlighted.
    Jack Bamber

    This was a strong indication that the method worked. But we were unsure whether the effect seen in artificial nests translated to real capercaillies, and the number of chicks surviving to independence.

    Counting chicks in forests with dense vegetation is difficult, and land managers are increasingly reluctant to use trained dogs. Our innovation was to count capercaillie chicks using camera traps (motion-activated cameras which can take videos and photos) at dust baths, which are clear patches of ground where chicks and hens gather to preen.

    We deployed camera traps across the landscape in areas with and without diversionary feeding and measured whether a female capercaillie had chicks or not, and how many she had. Chicks are fragile and many die early in life. The number of chicks in a brood declined at the same rate in the fed and unfed areas.

    However, in areas where predators received diversionary feeding, 85% of the hens we detected had chicks compared to just 37% where predators were unfed. That sizeable difference mirrored the improvement seen in artificial nest survival.

    Fewer nests being predated led to more hens with broods, such that by the end of the summer, we observed a staggering 130% increase in the number of chicks per hen in fed areas – 1.9 chicks per hen were seen compared to half that in unfed areas.

    So, does diversionary feeding provide a non-lethal alternative to managing conservation conflict and promoting coexistence? Our work suggests it does.

    A mature capercaillie brood.
    Jack Bamber

    Diversionary feeding is now a key element of the capercaillie emergency plan, which is the Scottish government’s main programme for recovering the species. Diversionary feeding will probably be adopted across all estates with capercaillie breeding records in the Cairngorms national park by 2026.

    This rapid implementation of scientific evidence is a direct result of working closely, from conception, with wildlife managers and policy makers. For capercaillie, diversionary feeding has real potential to make a difference, a glimmer of hope in their plight (some nicer weather in spring might help too).

    More broadly, for conservationists, land managers, gamekeepers, farmers, researchers and anyone else involved in managing wildlife, this work is testament to the fact that, with the right evidence and a willingness to adapt, we can move beyond the binaries of killing or not killing. Instead, finding smarter ways to promote the coexistence of native predators and native prey.

    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 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Jack Anthony Bamber received funding from the SUPER DTP.

    Xavier Lambin would like to credit the academic contribution of Kenny Kortland, environment policy advisor for Scottish Forestry.

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

    – ref. A surprisingly effective way to save the capercaillie: keep its predators well-fed – new research – https://theconversation.com/a-surprisingly-effective-way-to-save-the-capercaillie-keep-its-predators-well-fed-new-research-259925

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Fun with fossils: South African kids learn a whole lot more about human evolution from museum workshops

    Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Shaw Badenhorst, Associate Professor in Zooarchaeology, University of the Witwatersrand

    ‘Find the fossil sites’ interactive display, Maropeng exhibition, Cradle of Humankind. flowcomm, CC BY

    South Africa has one of the world’s richest fossil records of hominins (humans and their fossil ancestors). But many misconceptions still exist regarding human evolution, and school textbooks contain inaccuracies.

    South Africans still have some of the lowest rates of acceptance of human evolution, mostly due to conflicting religious views. Religion and the non-acceptance of evolution hinders the understanding of evolution by teachers and learners.

    It doesn’t help that school subjects (evolution being one of them) are often taught in unengaging ways, rather than interactive methods.

    Many studies have shown that collaborations between schools and informal science learning centres, such as natural history museums, can have a positive effect on school learners. Inquiry-based activities at museums have been shown to help learners gain knowledge and meaning about the past. Museum visits foster “thinking skills” through guided conversation and questions asked by educators and learners. New information is gained through reasoning, inference and deduction, which enhance learning.



    Read more:
    Evolution revolution: how a Cape Town museum exhibit is rewriting the story of humankind

    In 2018, a team of researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand launched workshops on human evolution for grade 12 learners (in the final year of secondary school) in South Africa’s Gauteng province. The aim was to stimulate interest in the palaeosciences and improve learner performance. We worked with learners from 13 schools in the area. The workshops were conducted at the museum of the university’s Evolutionary Studies Institute.

    From tests before and after the workshops, we found that they improved the learners’ understanding and acceptance of concepts related to evolution. More teacher training and school visits to museums and exhibitions could build on this success.

    Workshops on human evolution

    Our human evolution workshops were conducted with well-resourced and historically disadvantaged schools attending. The grade 12 learners, aged 17 and 18 years, visited the fossil preparatory laboratory, searched for clues in the museum while answering a worksheet, and did activities on human evolution using inquiry-based approaches.



    Read more:
    What it’s like curating ancient fossils: a palaeontologist shares her story

    These activities included measuring and describing skulls of apes and hominins, comparing hip bones to see whether the creature was able to walk upright on two legs, investigating stone tools, and drawing a phylogenetic tree (a diagram showing how species are descended from each other). Due to financial constraints, some of the workshops were held at the schools themselves.

    The 687 learners wrote a test before and after the workshop to test their knowledge of hominin evolution. Their scores increased from an average of 39% to 61%.

    The location of the workshops (either at the museum or at the school) did not affect the scores, suggesting that workshops can be scaled to reduce costs. Feedback from interviews indicated that learners regarded the workshops as beneficial, enabling them to learn new facts and gain a deeper understanding of human evolution. Teachers echoed the same view.

    One learner said:

    It was pretty enjoyable, and informative and interesting. Especially the part when we asked questions and we actually got answered. It helped us to understand the knowledge more.

    Another said:

    It is always better to physically see things as compared to seeing a picture of it, it is easier to understand it this way.

    A teacher commented that learners

    could literally see exactly what is happening and it is not just talk, they can touch it and they can take part in the experiment, which is not something they are exposed to at school.

    It was apparent that learners understood human evolution better after the workshops. In the preliminary exam paper of Gauteng province, learners who attended the workshops scored nearly double (average 41%) the score of schools that did not attend (average 21%). While the scores are still low, and there is still much room for improvement, the results suggest that a short, hands-on workshop can make a major difference to learners.

    The workshop also increased the acceptance of evolution from 41% to 51%. (It was not the purpose of the workshops to increase acceptance, but rather to improve understanding of the topic.)

    Why the workshops worked

    In our view, the workshops were successful because they used inquiry-based learning, learners working in groups using problem solving and physical handling of fossil casts. This enabled active participation in the learning process.



    Read more:
    It’s time to celebrate Africa’s forgotten fossil hunters

    With this approach, learners took ownership of the learning process and it developed their curiosity, interest and a desire to learn. The guidance of a subject expert during the workshops enhanced the quality of the workshops and the learning experience. It’s clear that visits to places like natural history museums created connections which helped with understanding concepts such as human evolution in the classroom, and developing an enjoyment of learning.

    What’s next

    We recommend that teachers receive training in human evolution and how to teach this topic. Common misconceptions of teachers can be identified through surveys, and intervention training must be planned around these misconceptions. The Gauteng Department of Education has a free professional development programme offering training to teachers (not publicly available), which can be used for this purpose.



    Read more:
    Species without boundaries: a new way to map our origins

    Various institutions in Gauteng offer exhibitions on human evolution and fossils, including the University of the Witwatersrand, the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, Maropeng Cradle of Humankind, Sterkfontein Caves and the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre. The provincial education department must promote school visits to these places. Human evolution can be one of the most rewarding topics for learners, especially in a country where the fossil record is right on the doorstep.

    It’s vital for grade 12 learners in South Africa to have a solid understanding of human evolution – it fosters critical thinking about science, identity and our shared African origins. This knowledge not only deepens their appreciation of the continent’s fossil heritage, but also counters misinformation with evidence-based insight.

    This article was prepared with Grizelda van Wyk and in memory of Ian J. McKay.

    Shaw Badenhorst works for the University of the Witwatersrand. He receives funding from GENUS, the National Research Foundation and the Palaeontological Scientific Trust.

    – ref. Fun with fossils: South African kids learn a whole lot more about human evolution from museum workshops – https://theconversation.com/fun-with-fossils-south-african-kids-learn-a-whole-lot-more-about-human-evolution-from-museum-workshops-259319

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: The ‘Mind’ diet is good for cognitive health – here’s what foods you should put on your plate

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aisling Pigott, Lecturer, Dietetics, Cardiff Metropolitan University

    The ‘Mind’ diet is very similar to the Mediterranean diet, but emphasises consuming nutrients that benefit the brain. Svetlana Khutornaia/ Shutterstock

    There’s long been evidence that what we eat can affect our risk of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline as we age. But can any one diet actually keep the brain strong and lower dementia risk? Evidence suggests the so-called “Mind diet” might.

    The Mind diet (which stands for the Mediterranean-Dash intervention for neurocognitive delay) combines the well-established Mediterranean diet with the “Dash” diet (dietary approaches to stop hypertension). However, it also includes some specific dietary modifications based on their benefits to cognitive health.

    Both the Mediterranean diet and Dash diet are based on traditional eating patterns from countries which border the Mediterranean sea.

    Both emphasise eating plenty of plant-based foods (such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds), low-fat dairy products (such as milk and yoghurts) and lean proteins including fish and chicken. Both diets include very little red and processed meats. The Dash diet, however, places greater emphasis on consuming low-sodium foods, less added sugar and fewer saturated and trans-fats to reduce blood pressure.

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    Both diets are well-researched and shown to be effective in preventing lifestyle-related diseases – including cardiovascular disease and hypertension. They’re also shown to help protect the brain’s neurons from damage and benefit cognitive health.

    The Mind diet follows many of the core tenets of both diets but places greater emphasis on consuming more foods that contain nutrients which promote brain health and prevent cognitive decline, including:

    Numerous studies have been conducted on the Mind diet, and the evidence for this dietary approach’s brain health benefit is pretty convincing.

    For instance, one study asked 906 older adults about their usual diet — giving them a “Mind score” based on the number of foods and nutrients they regularly consumed that are linked with lower dementia risk. The researchers found a link between people who had a higher Mind diet score and slower cognitive decline when followed up almost five years later.

    Another study of 581 participants found that people who had closely followed either the Mind diet or the Mediterranean diet for at least a decade had fewer signs of amyloid plaques in their brain when examined post-mortem. Amyloid plaques are a key hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. Higher intake of leafy greens appeared to the most important dietary component.

    A systematic review of 13 studies on the Mind diet has also found a positive association between adherence to the Mind diet and cognitive performance and function in older people. One paper included in the review even demonstrated a 53% reduction in Alzheimer’s disease risk in those that adhered to the diet.

    The Mind diet encourages eating berries, which contain a plant compound thought to be beneficial for the brain.
    etorres/ Shutterstock

    It’s important to note that most of this research is based on observational studies and food frequency questionnaires, which have their limitations in research due to reliabiltiy and participant bias. Only one randomised control trial was included in the review. It found that women who were randomly assigned to follow the Mind diet over a control diet for a short period of time showed a slight improvement in memory and attention.

    Research in this field is ongoing, so hopefully we’ll soon have a better understanding of the diet’s benefits – and know exactly why it’s so beneficial.

    Mind your diet

    UK public health guidance recommends people follow a balanced diet to maintain good overall health. But the Mind diet offers a more targeted approach for those hoping to look after their cognitive health.

    While public health guidance encourages people to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables daily, the Mind diet would recommend choosing leafy green vegetables (such as spinach and kale) and berries for their cognitive benefits.

    Similarly, while UK guidance says to choose unsaturated fats over saturated ones, the Mind diet explicitly recommends that these fats come from olive oil. This is due to the potential neuroprotective effects of the fats found in olive oil.

    If you want to protect your cognitive function as you age, here are some other small, simple swaps you can make each day to more closely follow the Mind diet:

    • upgrade your meals by sprinkling nuts and seeds on cereals, salads or yoghurts to increase fibre and healthy fats
    • eat the rainbow of fruit and vegetables, aiming to fill half your plate with these foods
    • canned and frozen foods are just as nutrient-rich as fresh fruits and vegetables
    • bake or airfry vegetables and meats instead of frying to reduce fat intake
    • opt for poly-unsaturated fats and oils in salads and dressings – such as olive oil
    • bulk out meat or meat alternatives with pulses, legumes chickpeas or beans. These can easily be added into dishes such as spaghetti bolognese, chilli, shepherd’s pie or curry
    • use tinned salmon, mackerel or sardines in salads or as protein sources for meal planning.

    These small changes can have a meaningful impact on your overall health – including your brain’s health. With growing evidence linking diet to cognitive function, even little changes to your eating habits may help protect your mind as you age.

    Aisling Pigott receives funding from Health and Care Research Wales

    Sophie Davies 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. The ‘Mind’ diet is good for cognitive health – here’s what foods you should put on your plate – https://theconversation.com/the-mind-diet-is-good-for-cognitive-health-heres-what-foods-you-should-put-on-your-plate-259106

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Ageing isn’t the same everywhere – why inflammation may be a lifestyle problem

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Samuel J. White, Associate Professor & Head of Projects, York St John University

    The Orang Asli age differently. Azami Adiputera/Shutterstock.com

    For years, scientists have believed that inflammation inevitably increases with age, quietly fuelling diseases like heart disease, dementia and diabetes. But a new study of Indigenous populations challenges that idea and could reshape how we think about ageing itself.

    For decades, scientists have identified chronic low-level inflammation – called “inflammaging” – as one of the primary drivers of age-related diseases. Think of it as your body’s immune system stuck in overdrive – constantly fighting battles that don’t exist, gradually wearing down organs and systems.

    But inflammaging might not be a universal feature of ageing after all. Instead, it could be a byproduct of how we live in modern society.

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    The research, published in Nature Aging, compared patterns of inflammation in four very different communities around the world. Two groups were from modern, industrialised societies – older adults living in Italy and Singapore.

    The other two were Indigenous communities who live more traditional lifestyles: the Tsimane people of the Bolivian Amazon and the Orang Asli in the forests of Malaysia.

    The researchers analysed blood samples from more than 2,800 people, looking at a wide range of inflammatory molecules, known as cytokines. Their goal was to find out whether a pattern seen in earlier studies – where certain signs of inflammation rise with age and are linked to disease – also appears in other parts of the world.

    The answer, it turns out, is both yes and no.

    Among the Italian and Singaporean participants, the researchers found a fairly consistent inflammaging pattern. As people aged, levels of inflammatory markers in the blood, such as C-reactive protein and tumour necrosis factor, rose together. Higher levels were linked to a greater risk of chronic diseases including kidney disease and heart disease.

    But in the Tsimane and Orang Asli populations, the inflammaging pattern was absent. The same inflammatory molecules did not rise consistently with age, and they were not strongly linked to age-related diseases.

    In fact, among the Tsimane, who face high rates of infections from parasites and other pathogens, inflammation levels were often elevated. Yet this did not lead to the same rates of chronic diseases that are common in industrialised nations.

    Despite high inflammatory markers, the Tsimane experience very low rates of conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and dementia.

    Inflammaging may not be universal

    These results raise important questions. One possibility is that inflammaging, at least as measured through these blood signals, is not a universal biological feature of ageing. Instead, it may arise in societies marked by high-calorie diets, low physical activity and reduced exposure to infections.

    In other words, chronic inflammation linked to ageing and disease might not simply result from an inevitable biological process, but rather from a mismatch between our ancient physiology and the modern environment.

    The study suggests that in communities with more traditional lifestyles – where people are more active, eat differently and are exposed to more infections – the immune system may work in a different way. In these groups, higher levels of inflammation might be a normal, healthy response to their environment, rather than a sign that the body is breaking down with age.

    Another possibility is that inflammaging may still occur in all humans, but it might appear in different ways that are not captured by measuring inflammatory molecules in the blood. It could be happening at a cellular or tissue level, where it remains invisible to the blood tests used in this research.

    Chronic low-level inflammation may be a lifestyle problem.
    Nattakorn_Maneerat/Shutterstock.com

    Why this matters

    If these findings are confirmed, they could have significant consequences.

    First, they challenge how we diagnose and treat chronic inflammation in ageing. Biomarkers used to define inflammaging in European or Asian populations might not apply in other settings, or even among all groups within industrialised nations.

    Second, they suggest that lifestyle interventions aimed at lowering chronic inflammation, such as exercise, changes in diet, or drugs targeting specific inflammatory molecules, might have different effects in different populations. What works for people living in cities might be unnecessary, or even ineffective, in those living traditional lifestyles.

    Finally, this research serves as an important reminder that much of our knowledge about human health and ageing comes from studies conducted in wealthy, industrialised nations. Findings from these groups cannot automatically be assumed to apply worldwide.

    The researchers are clear: this study is just the beginning. They urge scientists to dig deeper, using new tools that can detect inflammation not just in the blood, but within tissues and cells where the real story of ageing may be unfolding. Just as important, they call for more inclusive research that spans the full range of human experience, not just the wealthy, urbanised corners of the world.

    At the very least, this study offers an important lesson. What we thought was a universal truth about the biology of ageing might instead be a local story, shaped by our environment, lifestyle and the way we live.

    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. Ageing isn’t the same everywhere – why inflammation may be a lifestyle problem – https://theconversation.com/ageing-isnt-the-same-everywhere-why-inflammation-may-be-a-lifestyle-problem-260322

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: I survived the 7/7 London bombings, but as a British Muslim I still grew up being called a terrorist

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Neema Begum, Assistant Professor in British Politics, University of Nottingham

    Twenty years ago, I was walking through central London with my history teacher when a bus exploded behind us. We were in London for an awards ceremony at Westminster where I was to pick up the award for best opposition speaker in the Youth Parliament competition.

    We had arrived at Euston station and all local transport had been cancelled. At this point, we heard that there’d been a bomb scare.

    We bought a map at the station and set off to walk to Westminster when the number 30 bus exploded on Tavistock Square. It was the loudest sound I’d ever heard. People were running and screaming. We ran too and took shelter in a nearby park.

    We later learned that four bombs had been detonated on London’s transport system. The attack, carried out by British-born Islamist extremists on July 7 2005, claimed the lives of 52 people and injured hundreds. My teacher and I were far enough away from the bus to be physically unhurt.

    Four years on from the attacks on 9/11, this was a time when, in the minds of many, Muslims were already associated with terrorism. Despite going to a state school where the pupils were predominantly Muslim, we were called terrorists in the playground.

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    In the aftermath of 7/7, there was no space for Muslim survivors like me. No headlines about our fear, our trauma or our belonging – only suspicion. While I was lucky to walk away physically unscathed, I carried a different kind of wound: being part of a community that was treated with collective blame.

    My academic research focuses on ethnic minority voting behaviour, political participation and representation in Britain. The events of 7/7 marked a critical moment in how British Muslims are still viewed as inherently suspect today.

    Over the last 25 years, Muslim communities have been viewed as places where terrorism is fostered. Following 7/7, British Muslims were viewed as a security threat by politicians, the media and many non-Muslims.

    One stark example was the implementation of the Prevent counter-terrorism programme after 7/7. Prevent has contributed to increased surveillance and marginalisation of Muslim communities in the UK.

    Fear of Muslims and especially “home-grown terrorists” has meant that Muslims are made to feel that they must condemn terrorist acts. Despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of Muslims in the UK identify as British and are proud to be British citizens, British Muslims often feel they must prove their “Britishness” and distance themselves from stereotypes of Muslims as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers.

    Post-7/7 arguments that British Muslims were at odds with “British values” and fears that Britain was sleepwalking into segregation have persisted in politics and the media. Negative portrayals of Islam and Muslims in media, including stigmatising, offensive and biased news reports have not helped.

    In 2013, a device exploded outside the mosque I attended as a child, carried out by an extreme right-wing white supremacist. In 2025, hate crimes against Muslims have reached record levels.

    Stereotypes of Muslims in politics

    Twenty years after the London bombings, there are more Muslim voices in politics and media, and a greater awareness of Islamophobia. The idea that London could have a Muslim mayor, as it does today with Sadiq Khan, may have been unthinkable in the immediate aftermath of 7/7.

    But the fear that gripped the country in 2005 never disappeared, it just changed shape. Today it shows up in political attacks and increases in anti-Muslim hate crimes in the context of the war in Gaza. It also shows up in attacks on the religious freedoms of British Muslims – like calls for a burka ban – under the guise of “British values”.

    While there are more Muslims in politics at every level, they are not exempt from stereotypes. In my research on ethnic minority local councillors, I’ve found Muslim women councillors were often stereotyped as submissive and oppressed in white council spaces.

    A hijab-wearing Muslim woman councillor received comments that she wasn’t “westernised enough” and that she needed to be “more modernised”. Another Muslim woman councillor had a white male journalist remark that she was “very confident” in a way she felt was derisive.

    Working against ingrained stereotypes of how a Muslim woman would behave, these councillors often faced a double burden: having to constantly prove their “modernity” and competence while simultaneously navigating accusations of being either too passive or too assertive – never quite fitting the narrow expectations imposed upon them.

    The 7/7 memorial in London’s Hyde Park.
    Chris Dorney/Shutterstock

    In research on ethnic minority voting behaviour in the EU referendum, I found that campaign groups for Brexit such as Muslims for Britain drew on “good Muslim” narratives to buttress their claims to Britishness. For example, they have referred to the sacrifices Muslim soldiers made for Britain in the two world wars, to position British Muslims – particularly those with south Asian heritage – as established and loyal members of the nation.

    Even as a survivor of terrorism, I – like many British Muslims – am constantly made to prove my distance from it. I have particularly noticed this as a woman of Bangladeshi heritage, sharing a surname with Shamima Begum, who joined Islamic State as a teenager and had her UK citizenship stripped.

    Begum is also my mother’s name, my classmates’ name, and shared by many British Bengali women. It belongs to Nadiya Hussain (née Begum), winner of The Great British Bake Off and Halima Begum, chief executive of Oxfam. Behind every headline are real, complex communities still hoping to be seen beyond the shadow of suspicion.

    Neema Begum receives funding from the British Academy.

    – ref. I survived the 7/7 London bombings, but as a British Muslim I still grew up being called a terrorist – https://theconversation.com/i-survived-the-7-7-london-bombings-but-as-a-british-muslim-i-still-grew-up-being-called-a-terrorist-259316

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Agatha Christie’s mid-century ‘manosphere’ reveals a different kind of dysfunctional male

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gill Plain, Professor of English Literature and Popular Culture, University of St Andrews

    This piece contains spoilers for Towards Zero.

    Agatha Christie, a middle-class English crime writer who preferred to be known as a housewife, is the world’s bestselling novelist. Since her death in 1976, her work has been translated into over 100 languages and adapted for cinema, TV and even video games.

    Her writing is characterised by its cheerful readability and ruthless dissection of hypocrisy, greed and respectability. Christie is fascinated by power and its abuse, and explores this through the skilful deployment of recognisable character types. The suspects in her books are not just there for the puzzle – they also exemplify the attitudes, ideals and assumptions that shaped 20th-century British society.

    If we want to know about the mid-century “manosphere”, then, there is no better place to look than in the fiction of Agatha Christie. What did masculinity mean to this writer, and would we recognise it in the gender types and ideals of today? Some answers might be found through the recent BBC adaptation of Towards Zero, which confronts viewers with a range of dysfunctional male types.

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    Chief among these is Thomas Royde, a neurotic twitching figure driven to breakdown by the shame of having his word doubted. Gaslit by his pathologically perfect cousin Nevile, Thomas has been dispatched to the colonies, where he has compounded his injuries through financial failure. Broke and broken, the adaptation imagines him returning to the family home with trauma quite literally written on his body.

    This is not the Thomas Royde of Christie’s original 1944 novel. That figure was stoic, silent and perfectly capable of managing his failure to live up to the spectacular masculinity of cousin Nevile. Christie’s Thomas may have regretted his romantic losses and physical limitations, but the idea of exposing his pain in public would have horrified him.

    This is not a case of repression; rather it speaks to a world in which pain is respected, but simply not discussed. Thomas’s friends, we are told, “had learned to gauge his reactions correctly from the quality of his silences”. The stoical man of few words is a recurrent type within Christie’s fiction. It’s a mode of masculinity of which she approves – even while poking fun at it – and one recognised by her mid-20th century audience.

    These are men who embody ideal British middle-class values: steady, reliable, resilient, modest, good humoured and infinitely sensible. They find their fictional reward in happy unions, sometimes with sensible women, sometimes with bright young things who benefit from their calm assurance.

    Christie also depicted more dangerous male types – attractive adventurers who might be courageous, or reckless and deadly. These charismatic figures present a troubling mode of masculinity in her fiction, from the effortlessly charming Ralph in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), to Michael Rogers, the all too persuasive narrator of Endless Night (1967).

    Superficially, these two types of men might be mapped onto Christie’s own experiences. Her autobiography suggests that she was irresistibly drawn to something strange and inscrutable in her first husband, Archie. By contrast, her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, brought friendship and shared interests.

    Yet while it’s possible to see biographical resonances in these types, it is equally important to recognise them as part of a middle-class world view that set limits on acceptable masculinities. In my book, Agatha Christie: A Very Short Introduction, I explore these limits, examining a cultural climate riven with contradictions.

    A different time

    Mid-20th century culture insisted that men be articulate when discussing public matters – science, politics, sport – but those who extended this to the emotions were not to be trusted. They were seen to be glib, foolish or possibly dangerous.

    British masculinity acts rather than talks and does a decent job of work. As a result, work itself is a vital dimension of man-making in Christie’s novels, and in the fiction of contemporaries like Nigel Balchin, Hammond Innes and Nevil Shute.

    These writers witnessed the conflicting pressures on men, expected to be both soldiers and citizens, capable of combat and domestic breadwinning. They saw the damage caused by war, unemployment and the loss of father figures. But the answer wasn’t talking. Rather, the best medicine for wounded masculinity was the self-respect that comes with doing a good day’s work.

    This ideology still resonates within understandings of “healthy” masculinity, but there are limits to the problems that can be solved through a companionable post-work pint. Which brings us back to the BBC’s Towards Zero. Contemporary adaptations often speak to the preoccupations of their moment, and the plot is driven by one man’s all-consuming hatred of his ex-wife.

    With apologies for plot spoilers, perfect Nevile turns out to be a perfect misogynist, scheming against the woman who has – to his mind – humiliated him. But the world of his hatred is a long way from the online “manosphere” of our contemporary age.

    Quite aside from the technological gulf separating the eras, Christie does not imagine misogyny as an abusive mass phenomenon, a set of echo chambers which figure men as the victims of feminism. Rather, Nevile, like all Christie’s murderers, kills for reasons that can clearly be defined, detected and articulated: he is an isolated madman, not a cultural phenomenon.

    Towards Zero’s topicality – its preoccupation with celebrity, resentment of women and a manipulative gaslighting villain – does much to explain its adaptation, but it does not account for the radical revision of Thomas Royde. Is it an indication that stoicism is out of fashion? Or simply a desire to convert Christie’s cool-tempered fictions into melodramas appropriate for a social-media age?

    Whatever the thinking, there is a familiar consolation for Thomas’s pain. He might not get the girl of his dreams, but he does get something better: a steady, reliable woman whose modest virtues illustrate that, in Christie’s world, “ideal masculinity” is unexpectedly non-binary. Women can be just as stoic, reserved and resilient as men.

    Christie’s “manosphere”, then, has its share of haters, but they are isolated figures forced to disguise their resentments. They also, frequently, meet untimely ends – another reason why Christie remains a bestseller to this day.

    This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

    Gill Plain 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. Agatha Christie’s mid-century ‘manosphere’ reveals a different kind of dysfunctional male – https://theconversation.com/agatha-christies-mid-century-manosphere-reveals-a-different-kind-of-dysfunctional-male-254726

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: How Donald Trump’s economic policies, including uncertainty around tariffs, are damaging the US economy

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Whittaker, Senior Teaching Fellow in Economics, Lancaster University

    Donald Trump set a deadline of July 9 2025 for trade deals to be made before he hits some of the world’s biggest economies with his controversial tariffs. It’s impossible to predict what will happen on the day, but it is already clear that his economic policies are damaging American interests.

    Just look at the state of US government debt for example. Currently it stands at US$36 trillion (£26 trillion). And with total economic output (GDP) worth US$29 trillion per year, that debt is 123% of GDP, the highest it has been since 1946.

    Government debts are alarmingly high in other countries too (the UK’s is at 104% of GDP, with France at 116% and China at 113%), but the US is towards the top of the range.

    The recently passed budget reconciliation bill (what Trump calls the “big beautiful bill”) is projected to add US$3 trillion to that debt over the next decade. With these sorts of numbers, there is little prospect of putting US debt on a downward track.

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    In 2024, the US government had to borrow an additional US$1.8 trillion to cover spending not supported by tax revenue (the budget deficit). This is equivalent to 6.2% of GDP, a number that is officially predicted to rise to 7.3% during the next 30 years.

    The predictable consequence of this fiscal profligacy and the chaotic tariff programme is the high rates of interest that the US government is having to pay for its borrowing.

    For instance, the interest rate on ten-year US government debt (otherwise known as its yield) has risen from 0.5% in mid-2020 to 4.3% now. And as government debt yields rise, so do interest rates on mortgages and corporate borrowing.

    The power of the dollar

    For decades, the United States has enjoyed a high level of trust in the strength, openness and stability of its economy.

    As a result, US bonds or “treasuries”, the financial assets that the government sells to raise money for public spending, have long been considered safe investments by financial institutions around the world. And the US dollar has been the dominant currency for international payments and debts.

    Sometimes referred to as “exorbitant privilege”, this status of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency brings big advantages. It benefits US consumers by making imported goods cheaper (albeit contributing to the trade deficits (when US imports to a country are worth more than its exports) which bother the president so much).

    It also means the US government can borrow a lot of money before doubts arise about its ability to repay. Investors will generally buy as many bonds as the US govt needs to issue to pay for its spending.

    The dominance of the dollar in international transactions also brings political power, such as the ability to exclude Russia from major global payment systems.

    But this privilege is being eroded by the US president’s tariff agenda. Economic motives aside, it is the way they are being applied – their size and the unpredictability – that is really sapping investor confidence.

    It’s costly to adjust trading patterns and supply chains in response to tariffs. So when the scope of future tariffs is unknown, the rational response is to stop investing while awaiting greater certainty.

    The dollar has lost 8% in value since the beginning of the year, reflecting investor doubts about the US economy, and making imports even more expensive.

    Financial markets are vulnerable

    But perhaps the biggest danger to US financial markets is a sudden rise in yields on government debt. No investor wants to be left holding a bond when its yield rises because – as with all fixed-interest debt – the rise in yield causes the bond’s market value to fall. This is because new bonds are issued with a higher yield, making existing bonds less attractive and less valuable.

    A bond holder expecting a rise in yield therefore has an incentive to sell it before the rise occurs. But the rise in yield can become self-reinforcing if the scramble to sell becomes a stampede.

    Indeed, there was a jump in US yields after the increases in trade tariffs announced on “liberation day” in early April, with the yield on ten-year treasuries rising by 0.5% in just four days.

    Damaged dollar?
    Dilok Klaisataporn/Shutterstock

    Fortunately, this rise was halted on April 10 when the tariffs were abruptly paused, allegedly in response to the fall in bond prices and an accompanying fall in share prices. The opinion of a senior central banker, that financial markets had been close to “meltdown”, was one of several such warnings.

    The dollar is unlikely to be quickly dislodged from its pedestal as the world’s reserve currency, as the alternatives are not attractive. The euro is not suitable because it is the currency of 20 EU countries, each with its own separate government debt. Nor is the Chinese yuan a likely contender, given the Chinese government involvement in managing the yuan exchange rate.

    But since March, foreign central banks have been selling off US treasuries, often choosing to hold gold instead.

    On Trump’s watch, the reputation of the US dollar as the ultimate safe asset has been tarnished, leaving the financial system more vulnerable – and borrowing more expensive.

    John Whittaker 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 Donald Trump’s economic policies, including uncertainty around tariffs, are damaging the US economy – https://theconversation.com/how-donald-trumps-economic-policies-including-uncertainty-around-tariffs-are-damaging-the-us-economy-259809

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Underwater lake heatwaves are on the rise, threatening aquatic life

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Iestyn Woolway, Reader and NERC Independent Research Fellow, Bangor University

    A view of Lake Superior, one of the Great Lakes. Travis J. Camp/Shutterstock

    Lakes are essential to ecosystems, providing freshwater, supporting biodiversity and offering crucial habitat for fish and other aquatic species.

    But a recent study by my colleagues and I shows that lakes around the world are warming, not just at the surface, but deep below as well. Subsurface heatwaves in lakes, defined as extreme periods of high water temperature below the surface, are increasing in frequency, duration and intensity.

    These hidden extremes could have serious consequences for lake ecosystems. Despite that, the issue remains largely unmonitored and poorly understood.

    Lake heatwaves are similar to those in the atmosphere or ocean. They are prolonged periods of excessive warmth. Most research to date has focused on surface temperatures, where climate change has already caused more frequent and intense heatwaves over recent decades.

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    These surface events can disrupt the chemical and physical balance of lakes, damage food webs and, in some cases, cause mass fish die-offs.

    Aquatic species respond to surface heatwaves in different ways. Some benefit if the warming expands their preferred temperature range. But many others, particularly those already living near their thermal limits, face significant stress.

    In lakes that stratify during summer – where warm surface water sits above a cooler bottom layer – some species seek refuge from the heat by migrating to deeper water. But what happens when that deeper refuge is no longer cool?

    A closer look beneath the surface

    To investigate, we analysed temperature data from tens of thousands of lakes worldwide. These included one-dimensional lake models, high-resolution simulations for the Great Lakes of North America, and local models calibrated to specific lake conditions.

    By analysing how temperature varies with depth and time, we identified when and where subsurface waters crossed extreme heat thresholds.

    We defined subsurface heatwaves as periods when temperatures at particular depths exceeded their typical seasonal range. We also tracked how these events have changed since 1980, and how they might evolve under different emissions scenarios by the end of this century.

    Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes.
    Craig Sterken/Shutterstock

    Subsurface heatwaves are already common and they’re becoming more so.

    Since 1980, bottom heatwaves (those occurring at the deepest parts of lakes) have increased by an average of more than seven days per decade in frequency, more than two days per decade in duration and they have risen by around 0.2C per decade.

    Although these deep-water events tend to be slightly less intense than surface ones, they often last longer.

    We also found a rise in “vertically compounding” heatwaves. This is when extreme temperatures happen simultaneously at the surface and bottom of a lake.

    These doubled-up events are now happening more than three days per decade more frequently. When they strike, aquatic species can be left with no place to escape the heat.

    Even more concerning, the deep-water refuges that once offered shelter during surface heatwaves are shrinking or disappearing altogether. In some lakes, the distance fish need to travel to find cooler water has increased by nearly a metre per decade.

    Our simulations suggest that these trends will intensify, especially under high-emission scenarios. By the end of this century, some bottom heatwaves could last for months, with temperature extremes not seen in the historical record.

    Why this matters

    Lake ecosystems rely on thermal structure. When extreme heat reaches deeper into the water column, it can trigger cascading ecological effects, from shifting fish habitats and altering species distribution, to increased nutrient cycling and algal blooms. It could even affect the release of greenhouse gases like methane from lake bed sediments.

    Subsurface heatwaves pose a particular risk to bottom-dwelling species, which may be less mobile or already adapted to cold, stable conditions. The loss of thermal refuges during surface heatwaves also jeopardises species that would otherwise escape to deeper waters.

    By ignoring what’s happening below the surface, we risk underestimating the true ecological effects of climate change on freshwater systems.

    Our study highlights the urgent need to expand lake monitoring efforts to include subsurface temperatures. While satellites have transformed our understanding of surface warming, they can’t capture what’s happening below.

    Future research should examine how different species respond to these deep-water and vertically compounding heatwaves. It should explore how changes in lake thermal structure affect different processes like nutrient cycling and methane production.

    For conservation planners, that means incorporating subsurface heatwaves into risk assessments and habitat models. For climate modellers, it means better representing vertical processes in lakes within global Earth system models.

    As lakes continue to warm, managing and understanding these hidden heat extremes will be critical to protecting biodiversity and the vital ecosystem services lakes provide.

    Iestyn Woolway receives funding from UKRI NERC.

    – ref. Underwater lake heatwaves are on the rise, threatening aquatic life – https://theconversation.com/underwater-lake-heatwaves-are-on-the-rise-threatening-aquatic-life-258885

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: From glass and steel to rare earth metals, new materials have changed society throughout history

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Peter Mullner, Distinguished Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, Boise State University

    Steel played a large role in the Industrial Revolution. Monty Rakusen/DigitalVision via Getty Images

    Many modern devices – from cellphones and computers to electric vehicles and wind turbines – rely on strong magnets made from a type of minerals called rare earths. As the systems and infrastructure used in daily life have turned digital and the United States has moved toward renewable energy, accessing these minerals has become critical – and the markets for these elements have grown rapidly.

    Modern society now uses rare earth magnets in everything from national defense, where magnet-based systems are integral to missile guidance and aircraft, to the clean energy transition, which depends on wind turbines and electric vehicles.

    The rapid growth of the rare earth metal trade and its effects on society isn’t the only case study of its kind. Throughout history, materials have quietly shaped the trajectory of human civilization. They form the tools people use, the buildings they inhabit, the devices that mediate their relationships and the systems that structure economies. Newly discovered materials can set off ripple effects that shape industries, shift geopolitical balances and transform people’s daily habits.

    Materials science is the study of the atomic structure, properties, processing and performance of materials. In many ways, materials science is a discipline of immense social consequence.

    As a materials scientist, I’m interested in what can happen when new materials become available. Glass, steel and rare earth magnets are all examples of how innovation in materials science has driven technological change and, as a result, shaped global economies, politics and the environment.

    How innovation shapes society: Pressures from societal and political interests (orange arrows) drive the creation of new materials and the technologies that such materials enable (center). The ripple effects resulting from people using these technologies change the entire fabric of society (blue arrows).
    Peter Mullner

    Glass lenses and the scientific revolution

    In the early 13th century, after the sacking of Constantinople, some excellent Byzantine glassmakers left their homes to settle in Venice – at the time a powerful economic and political center. The local nobility welcomed the glassmakers’ beautiful wares. However, to prevent the glass furnaces from causing fires, the nobles exiled the glassmakers – under penalty of death – to the island of Murano.

    Murano became a center for glass craftsmanship. In the 15th century, the glassmaker Angelo Barovier experimented with adding the ash from burned plants, which contained a chemical substance called potash, to the glass.

    The potash reduced the melting temperature and made liquid glass more fluid. It also eliminated bubbles in the glass and improved optical clarity. This transparent glass was later used in magnifying lenses and spectacles.

    Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, completed in 1455, made reading more accessible to people across Europe. With it came a need for reading glasses, which grew popular among scholars, merchants and clergy – enough that spectacle-making became an established profession.

    By the early 17th century, glass lenses evolved into compound optical devices. Galileo Galilei pointed a telescope toward celestial bodies, while Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered microbial life with a microscope.

    The glass lens of the Vera Rubin Observatory, which surveys the night sky.
    Large Synoptic Survey Telescope/Vera Rubin Observatory, CC BY

    Lens-based instruments have been transformative. Telescopes have redefined long-standing cosmological views. Microscopes have opened entirely new fields in biology and medicine.

    These changes marked the dawn of empirical science, where observation and measurement drove the creation of knowledge. Today, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory continue those early telescopes’ legacies of knowledge creation.

    Steel and empires

    In the late 18th and 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution created demand for stronger, more reliable materials for machines, railroads, ships and infrastructure. The material that emerged was steel, which is strong, durable and cheap. Steel is a mixture of mostly iron, with small amounts of carbon and other elements added.

    Countries with large-scale steel manufacturing once had outsized economic and political power and influence over geopolitical decisions. For example, the British Parliament intended to prevent the colonies from exporting finished steel with the iron act of 1750. They wanted the colonies’ raw iron as supply for their steel industry in England.

    Benjamin Huntsman invented a smelting process using 3-foot tall ceramic vessels, called crucibles, in 18th-century Sheffield. Huntsman’s crucible process produced higher-quality steel for tools and weapons.

    One hundred years later, Henry Bessemer developed the oxygen-blowing steelmaking process, which drastically increased production speed and lowered costs. In the United States, figures such as Andrew Carnegie created a vast industry based on Bessemer’s process.

    The widespread availability of steel transformed how societies built, traveled and defended themselves. Skyscrapers and transit systems made of steel allowed cities to grow, steel-built battleships and tanks empowered militaries, and cars containing steel became staples in consumer life.

    White-hot steel pouring out of an electric arc furnace in Brackenridge, Penn.
    Alfred T. Palmer/U.S. Library of Congress

    Control over steel resources and infrastructure made steel a foundation of national power. China’s 21st-century rise to steel dominance is a continuation of this pattern. From 1995 to 2015, China’s contribution to the world steel production increased from about 10% to more than 50%. The White House responded in 2018 with massive tariffs on Chinese steel.

    Rare earth metals and global trade

    Early in the 21st century, the advance of digital technologies and the transition to an economy based on renewable energies created a demand for rare earth elements.

    Offshore turbines use several tons of rare earth magnets to transform wind into electricity.
    Hans Hillewaert/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    Rare earth elements are 17 chemically very similar elements, including neodymium, dysprosium, samarium and others. They occur in nature in bundles and are the ingredients that make magnets super strong and useful. They are necessary for highly efficient electric motors, wind turbines and electronic devices.

    Because of their chemical similarity, separating and purifying rare earth elements involves complex and expensive processes.

    China controls the majority of global rare earth processing capacity. Political tensions between countries, especially around trade tariffs and strategic competition, can risk shortages or disruptions in the supply chain.

    The rare earth metals case illustrates how a single category of materials can shape trade policy, industrial planning and even diplomatic alliances.

    Mining rare earth elements has allowed for the widespread adoption of many modern technologies.
    Peggy Greb, USDA

    Technological transformation begins with societal pressure. New materials create opportunities for scientific and engineering breakthroughs. Once a material proves useful, it quickly becomes woven into the fabric of daily life and broader systems. With each innovation, the material world subtly reorganizes the social world — redefining what is possible, desirable and normal.

    Understanding how societies respond to new innovations in materials science can help today’s engineers and scientists solve crises in sustainability and security. Every technical decision is, in some ways, a cultural one, and every material has a story that extends far beyond its molecular structure.

    The National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, NASA, and other national and regional agencies have funded former research of Peter Mullner.

    – ref. From glass and steel to rare earth metals, new materials have changed society throughout history – https://theconversation.com/from-glass-and-steel-to-rare-earth-metals-new-materials-have-changed-society-throughout-history-258244

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Elon Musk says he may launch his own party: but US history tells us that’s not a recipe for success

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Nottingham Trent University

    To paraphrase a very old joke, how do you make a small fortune in America? Start with a large fortune and fund a third political party. American political history is littered with the wrecks of challengers who thought they could break the two-party system and failed.

    This makes Elon Musk’s tease that he may launch his own new political party as an act of defiance following his falling out with Donald Trump even more intriguing.

    What do we mean by a two-party system though? Since the 1860s, the Democrats and Republicans have dominated the US political landscape, holding the presidency, Congress and the vast majority of elected positions. Attempts at third parties have usually floundered at the ballot box.

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    Some have lasted only for a few electoral cycles, including the Progressive Party in the 1910s and the Citizens Party of the 1980s, while others like the Libertarian Party and Green Party have lasted decades and, in some cases, managed some electoral success at the local level.

    But this is where an important distinction has to be made between third parties and third-party candidates. Because the US system is so personality-driven rather than party focused compared to Europe, quite often third parties have been built around a single person.

    A good example is the previously mentioned Progressive Party. It was founded in 1912 by former president Theodore Roosevelt after he split from the Republicans. Without him it quickly faded away.

    The Reform Party was created by billionaire Ross Perot in 1995 after he managed to get 18.9% of the vote in the 1992 presidential election. While it continued without him for some years, it was a shell of its former self. Other parties like the Socialist, Libertarian and Green parties have sprung from more organic movements and thus have been more successful at a local or state level.

    When you look at recent polling though, it seems strange that the two parties continue to dominate. Public dissatisfaction with politics as usual seems at an all-time high. In a recent Pew Research poll when asked whether “I often wish there were more political parties to choose from” describes their views, 37% of respondents answered: “Very well” and 31% answered: “Somewhat well”.

    In another poll, 25% of respondents said that neither of the two main parties represented their interests.

    So if there is an appetite for some sort of change, why have so few challengers succeeded? The two main parties seem entrenched to the point where it resembles a cartel.

    Odds stacked against third-party insurgency

    The first and arguably most important reason is the electoral system. First past the post does not guarantee a two-party system (look at Britain, for instance). But political scientist Maurice Duverger argued that it does mean that the two main parties have a significant advantage. There are prizes for coming first and second, nothing for third place.

    Equally, many of the big prizes in American politics such as the presidency and state governorships are indivisible and cannot be shared. So it has become received wisdom that voting for anyone other than Democrats or Republicans is a wasted vote.

    In these cases, people either vote for what they perceive to be the lesser of two evils or stay at home, rather than voting for a candidate with no chance or that they may not support.

    The other multi-billion dollar elephant in the room is money. The sheer cost of running for elections in recent years means that any third party is unlikely to be able to raise the funds to be truly competitive. At the last election, the Democrats and Republicans spent hundreds of millions of dollars (which isn’t even counting all of the super-PAC money spent on their behalf).

    Whenever billionaires like Perot have attempted to self-fund a party, they have left themselves open to the accusation that it’s a vanity project, or lacks true mass appeal.

    There is also the fact that to run successfully you must have media coverage. The media tends to focus almost exclusively on the two main parties. This creates a “chicken and egg” situation where you need success to help raise money and media coverage, but it’s difficult to be successful without first having money and media coverage.

    The final reasons are that of the open primary and ideological flexibility of the main parties. Donald Trump briefly considered running as president for the Reform Party back in 2000. In 2016, the open primary system that both main parties use meant that he could impose himself on the Republican Party despite most of the party elite despising him.

    Why bother starting your own party when you can run for one that already exists? It could now be argued that the Republicans have effectively become the Trump or Maga party, although whether this will survive his presidency is open to debate.

    Money, money, money

    Elon Musk has, for the moment, money to burn. Whether he’s willing to invest in the long term to turn this into more than a vanity project remains to be seen.

    He also has charisma and a national platform to amplify his voice like few others. But, having been born outside America, he can’t run for president.

    If he’s serious about electoral success, he’d have to find someone to run, and that would mean, effectively, they’d lead his party. Musk’s public persona suggests that he does not play well with others.

    Founding a third party isn’t impossible, but unless there is a political earthquake it seems difficult to see how one could succeed.

    Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton 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. Elon Musk says he may launch his own party: but US history tells us that’s not a recipe for success – https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-says-he-may-launch-his-own-party-but-us-history-tells-us-thats-not-a-recipe-for-success-260480

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: War, politics and religion shape wildlife evolution in cities

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Elizabeth Carlen, Living Earth Collaborative Postdoctoral Fellow, Washington University in St. Louis

    A Buddhist monk in Hong Kong releases fish and chants prayers during a ceremony to free the spirits of tsunami victims. Samantha Sin/AFP via Getty Images

    People often consider evolution to be a process that occurs in nature in the background of human society. But evolution is not separate from human beings. In fact, human cultural practices can influence evolution in wildlife. This influence is highly pronounced in cities, where people drastically alter landscapes to meet their own needs.

    Human actions can affect wildlife evolution in a number of ways. If people fragment habitat, separated wildlife populations can evolve to be more and more different from each other. If people change certain local conditions, it can pressure organisms in new ways that mean different genes are favored by natural selection and passed on to offspring – another form of evolution that can be driven by what people do.

    In a recent review, evolutionary biologists Marta Szulkin, Colin Garroway and I, in collaboration with scientists spread across five continents, explored how cultural processes – including religion, politics and war – shape urban evolution. We reviewed dozens of empirical studies about urban wildlife around the globe. Our work highlights which human cultural practices have and continue to shape the evolutionary trajectory of wild animals and plants.

    Religious practices

    If you’ve traveled internationally, you may have noticed the menu at any one McDonald’s restaurant is shaped by the local culture of its location. In the United Arab Emirates, McDonald’s serves an entirely halal menu. Vegetarian items are common and no beef is served in Indian McDonald’s. And in the United States, McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish is especially popular during Lent when observant Catholics don’t consume meat on Fridays.

    Similarly, ecosystems of cities are shaped by local cultural practices. Because all wildlife are connected to the environment, cultural practices that alter the landscape shape the evolution of urban organisms.

    Populations of fire salamanders have different genes depending on which side of city walls in Oviedo, Spain, they live on.
    Patrice Skrzynski via Getty Images

    For example, in Oviedo, Spain, people constructed walls around religious buildings between the 12th and 16th centuries. This division of the city led to different populations of fire salamanders inside and outside the walls. Because salamanders can’t scale these walls, those on opposite sides became isolated from each other and unable to pass genes back and forth. In a process that scientists call genetic drift, over time salamanders on the two sides became genetically distinct − evidence of the two populations evolving independently.

    Imagine dumping out a handful of M&Ms. Just by chance, some colors might be overrepresented and others might be missing. In the same way, genes that are overrepresented on one side of the wall can be in low numbers or missing on the other side. That’s genetic drift.

    Introducing non-native wildlife is another way people can alter urban ecosystems and evolutionary processes. For example, prayer animal release is a practice that started in the fifth or sixth century in some sects of Buddhism. Practitioners who strive to cause no harm to any living creature release captive animals, which benefits the animal and is meant to improve the karma of the person who released it.

    However, these animals are often captured from the wild or come from the pet trade, thereby introducing non-native wildlife into the urban ecosystem. Non-natives may compete with local species and contribute to the local extinction of native wildlife. Capturing animals nearby has downsides, too. It can diminish local populations, since many die traveling to the release ceremony. The genetic diversity of these local populations in turn decreases, reducing the population’s ability to survive.

    More than a thousand sparrows killed by peasants in 1958 are displayed on a cart near Beijing, China.
    Sovphoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

    Influence of politics

    Politically motivated campaigns have shaped wildlife in various ways.

    Starting in 1958, for instance, the Chinese Communist Party led a movement to eliminate four species that were considered pests: rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows. While the first three are commonly considered pests around the world, sparrows made the list because they were “public animals of capitalism” due to their fondness for grain. The extermination campaign ended up decimating the sparrow population and damaging the entire ecosystem. With sparrows no longer hunting and eating insects, crop pests such as locusts thrived, leading to crop destruction and famine.

    In the United States, racial politics may be shaping evolutionary processes in wildlife.
    For instance, American highways traverse cities according to political agendas and have often dismantled poor neighborhoods of color to make way for multilane thoroughfares. These highways can change how animals are able to disperse and commingle. For example, they prevent bobcats and coyotes from traveling throughout Los Angeles, leading to similar patterns of population differentiation as seen in fire salamanders in Spain.

    Wildlife during and after war

    Human religious and political agendas often lead to armed conflict. Wars are known to dramatically alter the environment, as seen in current conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.

    The Russia-Ukraine war affected migration of greater spotted eagles.
    Nimit Virdi via Getty Images

    While documenting evolutionary changes to urban wildlife is secondary to keeping people safe during wartime, a handful of studies on wildlife have come out of active war zones. For example, the current Russia-Ukraine war affected the migration of greater spotted eagles. They made large diversions around the active war zone, arriving later than usual at their breeding grounds. The longer route increased the energy the eagles used during migration and likely influenced their fitness during breeding.

    Wars limit access to resources for people living in active war zones. The lack of energy to heat homes in Ukraine during the winter has led urban residents to harvest wood from nearby forests. This harvesting will have long-term consequences on forest dynamics, likely altering future evolutionary potential.

    A similar example is famine that occurred during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s civil wars (1996-1997, 1998-2003) and led to an increase in bushmeat consumption. This wildlife hunting is known to reduce primate population sizes, making them more susceptible to local extinction.

    Even after war, landscapes experience consequences.

    For example, the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea is a 160-mile (250-kilometer) barrier, established in 1953, separating the two countries. Heavily fortified with razor wire and landmines, the demilitarized zone has become a de facto nature sanctuary supporting thousands of species, including dozens of endangered species.

    The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War led to the establishment of the European Green Belt, which runs along the same path as the Iron Curtain. This protected ecological network is over 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) long, allowing wildlife to move freely across 24 countries in Europe. Like the Korean DMZ, the European Green Belt allows for wildlife to move, breed and exchange genes, despite political boundaries. Politics has removed human influence from these spaces, allowing them to be a safe haven for wildlife.

    While researchers have documented a number of examples of wildlife evolving in response to human history and cultural practices, there’s plenty more to uncover. Cultures differ around the world, meaning each city has its own set of variables that shape the evolutionary processes of wildlife. Understanding how these human cultural practices shape evolutionary patterns will allow people to better design cities that support both humans and the wildlife that call these places home.

    Ideas for this article were developed as part of a NSF funded Research Coordination Network (DEB 1840663). Elizabeth Carlen was funded by the Living Earth Collaborative.

    – ref. War, politics and religion shape wildlife evolution in cities – https://theconversation.com/war-politics-and-religion-shape-wildlife-evolution-in-cities-260184

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Astronomers have discovered another puzzling interstellar object − this third one is big, bright and fast

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Darryl Z. Seligman, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University

    The Haleakala Observatory, left, houses one telescope for the ATLAS system. That system first spotted the object 3I/ATLAS, which isn’t visible in this image. AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson

    Astronomers manning an asteroid warning system caught a glimpse of a large, bright object zipping through the solar system late on July 1, 2025. The object’s potentially interstellar origins excited scientists across the globe, and the next morning, the European Space Agency confirmed that this object, first named A11pl3Z and then designated 3I/ATLAS, is the third ever found from outside our solar system.

    Current measurements estimate that 3I/ATLAS is about 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide, and while its path won’t take it close to Earth, it could hold clues about the nature of a previous interstellar object and about planet formation in solar systems beyond ours.

    On July 2 at 3 p.m. EDT, Mary Magnuson, an associate science editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke to Darryl Z. Seligman, an astrophysicist at Michigan State University who has been studying 3I/ATLAS since its discovery.

    What makes 3I/ATLAS different from its predecessors?

    We have discovered two interstellar objects so far, ’Oumuamua and Comet 2I/Borisov. ’Oumuamua had no dust tail and a significant nongravitational acceleration, which led to a wide variety of hypotheses regarding its origin. 2I/Borisov was very clearly a comet, though it has a somewhat unique composition compared to comets in our solar system.

    All of our preparation for the next interstellar object was preparing for something that looked like a ’Oumuamua, or something that looked like Borisov. And this thing doesn’t look like either of them, which is crazy and exciting.

    This object is shockingly bright, and it’s very far away from the Earth. It is significantly bigger than both of the interstellar objects we’ve seen – it is orders of magnitude larger than ’Oumuamua.

    For some context, ’Oumuamua was discovered when it was very close to the Earth, but this new object is so large and bright that our telescopes can see it, even though it is still much farther away. This means observatories and telescopes will be able to observe it for much longer than we could for the two previous objects.

    It’s huge and it’s much farther away, but it is also much faster.

    When I went to bed last night, I saw an alert about this object, but nobody knew what was going on yet. I have a few collaborators who figure out the orbits of things in the solar system, and I expected to wake up to them saying something like “yeah, this isn’t actually interstellar.” Because a lot of times you think you may have found something interesting, but as more data comes in, it becomes less interesting.

    Then, when I woke up at 1 a.m., my colleagues who are experts on orbits were saying things like “no, this is definitely interstellar. This is for real.”

    How can astronomers tell if something is an interstellar object?

    The eccentricity of the object’s orbit is how you know that it’s interstellar. The eccentricity refers to how noncircular an orbit is. So an eccentricity of zero is a pure circle, and as the eccentricity increases, it becomes what’s known as an ellipse – a stretched out circle.

    A hyperbolic orbit isn’t a closed loop, as this rendering of ‘Oumuamua’s trajectory shows. All the planets have oval-shaped elliptical orbits, which close in a loop. The interstellar object instead passes through but doesn’t come back around.
    Tomruen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    And then once you get past an eccentricity of one, you go from an ellipse to a hyperbolic orbit, and that is unbound. So while an elliptical orbit is stretched out, it still orbits and comes back around. An object with a hyperbolic orbit comes through and it leaves, but it never comes back. That type of orbit tells you that it didn’t come from this solar system.

    When researchers are collecting data, they’re getting points of light on the sky, and they don’t know how far away they are. It’s not like they see them and can just tell, “oh, that’s eccentric.” What they’re seeing is how far away the object is compared with other stars in the background, what its position is and how fast it’s moving. And then from that data, they try to fit the orbit.

    This object is moving fast for how far away it is, and that’s what’s telling us that it could be hyperbolic. If something is moving fast enough, it’ll escape from the solar system. So a hyperbolic, unbound object inherently has to be moving faster.

    This is a real-time process. My collaborators have preexisting software, which will, every night, get new observations of all the small bodies and objects in the solar system. It will figure out and update what the orbits are in real time. We’re getting data points, and with more data we can refine which orbit fits the points best.

    What can scientists learn from an interstellar object?

    Objects like this are pristine, primordial remnants from the planet formation process in other planetary systems. The small bodies in our solar system have taught us quite a lot about how the planets in the solar system formed and evolved. This could be a new window into understanding planet formation throughout the galaxy.

    As we’re looking through the incoming data, we’re trying to figure out whether it’s a comet. In the next couple of weeks, there will likely be way more information available to say if it has a cometary tail like Borisov, or if it has an acceleration that’s not due to a gravitational pull, like ’Oumuamua.

    If it is a comet, researchers really want to figure out whether it’s icy. If it contains ices, that tells you a ton about it. The chemistry of these small bodies is the most important aspect when it comes to understanding planet formation, because the chemical composition tells you about the conditions the object’s solar system was in when the object formed.

    For example, if the object has a lot of ices in it, you would know that wherever it came from, it didn’t spend much time near a star, because those ices would have melted. If it has a lot of ice in it, that could tell you that it formed really far away from a star and then got ejected by something massive, such as a planet the size of Jupiter or Neptune.

    Fundamentally, this object could tell astronomers more about a population of objects that we don’t fully understand, or about the conditions in another solar system.

    We’ve had a couple of hours to get some preliminary observations. I suspect that practically every telescope is going to be looking at this object for the next couple of nights, so we’ll get much more information about it very soon.

    Darryl Z. Seligman is supported by an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship under award AST-2303553. This research award is partially funded by a generous gift of Charles Simonyi to the NSF Division of Astronomical Sciences. The award is made in recognition of significant contributions to Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

    – ref. Astronomers have discovered another puzzling interstellar object − this third one is big, bright and fast – https://theconversation.com/astronomers-have-discovered-another-puzzling-interstellar-object-this-third-one-is-big-bright-and-fast-260391

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: In Dialogue with Haiti, Experts of the Human Rights Committee Welcome Efforts to Establish a New Constitution, Raise Questions on Measures to Combat Gang-Related Gender-Based Violence and Lynchings

    Source: United Nations – Geneva

    The Human Rights Committee today concluded its consideration of the second periodic report of Haiti on how it implements the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights . Committee Experts appreciated the referendum to establish a new national Constitution, while raising questions as to how the State was tackling the high level of violence against women and girls perpetuated by gang members and lynchings carried out by citizens, against a backdrop of distrust in the police.

    One Committee Expert said they saw the referendum to establish a new Constitution in a positive light, as an attempt to reestablish the institutionality of the country.

    Another Expert said that the scale of violence against women and girls was reportedly considerable, with sexual violence, including rape of children as young as five years old, gang rape, and forced prostitution, used as a weapon of control by gangs. According to reports, the judiciary were not sensitive to cases of gender-based violence and victims were hesitant to report cases. What measures were taken to encourage women to file complaints? Was there a fund to help survivors of violence? How were they supported by State services?

    Lynchings continued to be regular and numerous, another Expert said, citing reports of more than 500 cases in 2023. These were often the work of self-defence groups in or around Port-au-Prince, who did not trust the police, mainly due to corruption. Was this violence investigated, including when the police were accused of supporting or encouraging it? Had the perpetrators of lynchings, stonings and mutilations been prosecuted and punished proportionately? How could trust be restored between the police and the civilian population?

    Pedrica Saint Jean, Minister for the Status of Women and Women’s Rights and head of the delegation, introducing the report, said from 2020 to 2025, Haiti was confronted with repeated political crises, marked by lockdown operations and successive protests. The COVID-19 pandemic, frequent floods and the earthquake of 14 August 2021, which devastated part of the Great South region, were additional challenges faced by the country. This complex situation was further aggravated by the assassination of the Haitian President on 6 July 2021.

    Ms. Saint Jean said an agreement for a peaceful transition was reached on 3 April 2024, establishing a transition period with a nine-member Transitional Presidential Council and a Prime Minister, with the aim of restoring security, continuing constitutional reform, and organising democratic elections.

    The delegation said several strategies had been undertaken to combat gender-based violence, including a national strategy that spanned from 2017 to 2024. An assessment of the strategy was almost completed. A gender-based violence cell had been established to train police officers to take the needs of female victims of violence into account. The Office to Combat Gender-Based Violence streamlined services for victims, enabling them to receive legal, psychosocial and medical assistance in one place. In areas with armed gangs, women were typically the primary victims. Violence was used as a weapon of repression.

    The delegation also said the Government had always condemned lynchings, which were not part of the country’s culture. Incidents needed to be reported at a police station so perpetrators could be incarcerated and tried for their crimes. The community police were carrying out an awareness raising campaign to progressively build trust with the general population. Training sessions were being organised for police officers, with a view to protecting the population. When complaints were made against the police force, the national inspector for the police carried out investigations and measures were taken as necessary.

    In concluding remarks, Ms. Saint Jean thanked the Committee for the kindness it had shown to the Haitian delegation, and the Experts for their insights. Haiti had taken due note of all recommendations and was determined to take further steps to develop effective, concrete responses to the Committee’s concerns relating to the implementation of the Covenant. Everybody was working to see the day when Haiti could leave the crisis behind.

    Changrok Soh, Committee Chairperson, in concluding remarks, said the Committee acknowledged the profound political, economic and humanitarian challenges facing Haiti, which had hampered efforts to protect human rights. Haiti was encouraged to take this opportunity to advance necessary reforms to ensure that the rights enshrined in the Covenant were fully recognised for all Haitians.

    The delegation of Haiti was made up of representatives of the Ministry for the Status of Women and Women’s Rights; the Ministry of Justice and Public Security; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of Social Affairs and Work; the Cabinet; the Government of Port-au-Prince; the Prime Minister’s Office; the Haitian National Police; the Anti-Violence Unit; and the Permanent Mission of Haiti to the United Nations Office at Geneva. Some members of the delegation were unable to attend the meeting in person due to travel restrictions.

    The Human Rights Committee’s one hundred and forty-fourth session is being held from 23 June to 17 July 2025. All the documents relating to the Committee’s work, including reports submitted by States parties, can be found on the session’s webpage . Meeting summary releases can be found here . The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings can be accessed via the UN Web TV webpage .

    The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m., Monday 7 July to begin its consideration of the fourth periodic report of Viet Nam (CCPR/C/VNM/4). 

    Report

    The Committee has before it the second periodic report of Haiti (CCPR/C/HTI/2).

    Presentation of Report

    PEDRICA SAINT JEAN, Minister for the Status of Women and Women’s Rights and head of the delegation , said between 2020 to 2025, Haiti had experienced both positive and negative developments. From a positive perspective, the Government had multiplied efforts in many areas to improve the rule of law and respect for human rights. However, the country had been plagued by unprecedent insecurity that required the intervention of a foreign force, through the deployment of the Multinational Security Support Mission on October 2, 2024. This force intervened in the context of an agreement signed between Haiti and Kenya on police and security cooperation in March 2024, following the adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2699.

    From 2020 to 2025, Haiti was confronted with repeated political crises, marked by lockdown operations and successive protests which accompanied them. The COVID-19 pandemic, frequent floods and the earthquake of 14 August 2021, which devastated part of the Great South region, were additional challenges faced by the country. This complex situation was further aggravated by the assassination of the Haitian President on 6 July 2021.

    An agreement for a peaceful transition was reached on 3 April 2024, establishing a transition period with a nine-member Transitional Presidential Council and a Prime Minister, with the aim of restoring security, continuing constitutional reform, and organising democratic presidential elections. The Council was also tasked with economic and judicial reforms and combating corruption. The agreement provided for the establishment of three key bodies, including the Body for the Control of Government Action, in charge of controlling the acts of the Executive, since Parliament was currently non-existent; the National Security Council, to respond to the various aspects of the country’s security crisis; and the National Conference, accompanied by a steering committee. The Government had already established the National Security Council and the National Conference and its steering committee. The referendum decree, resulting from the work of the National Conference and the steering committee, would allow Haiti to have a new Constitution. Currently, efforts were underway to strengthen the capacities of the Haitian National Police and the Armed Forces of Haiti, which had a budget increase of 11 per cent in 2024-2025. An agreement was concluded with Colombia to monitor the Haitian coast, to curb the illicit trafficking of firearms.

    The Government had attached great importance to the judicial reform already initiated by its predecessors. Six new Courts of First Instance and the corresponding Public Prosecutor’s Offices were created between September 2024 and April 2025. The law of 10 September 2018 created the National Council for Legal Assistance and established legal aid offices in 18 jurisdictions in Haiti, aiming to provide free legal assistance to those who were financially struggling. The Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure had previously been criticised by civil society in 2020. Following the revision of the two texts by a special commission, they were adopted on 24 June 2025. This marked an important step in the fight against insecurity, corruption and impunity.

    Two other important decrees had been adopted in the context of judicial reform. The first, adopted on 16 April 2025, which created two specialised judicial poles: one for the repression of complex financial crimes and offences and the other for the repression of mass crimes and sexual violence. The second decree of 4 May 2023 sanctioned money laundering, terrorist financing and the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Haiti.

    Despite Government efforts, due to the deteriorating security situation, the majority of prisons in Port-au-Prince had been vandalised, leading to the uncontrolled release of a number of detainees. The Government had been forced to relocate several jurisdictions to allow the resumption of judicial activities in minimum security conditions and the normal application of appropriate sentences and sanctions.

    The Haitian State aimed to follow up on complaints against police officers for excessive use of force, and it organised human rights training sessions for police personnel. However, it was regrettable that, despite the Government’s efforts, some citizens, driven by anger at the atrocities committed by criminal groups, resorted to extreme methods, including the lynching of captured gang members, instead of handing them over to the authorities. The Government recognised the severity of these acts and strongly condemned all forms of mob justice.

    The crisis in the country led to an increase in gender-based violence, particularly for displaced persons in camps. The Haitian State was working to protect and facilitate access to justice for survivors of violence, including through the creation of the Office for Combatting Gender-Based Violence as well as the organization of training adapted to the needs of survivors for police officers and judges. Medical, legal and psychosocial assistance were also offered to women and girls at internal displacement camps.

    Article 262 of the Penal Code, adopted by decree on 23 June 2025, punished the perpetrators of acts of torture and barbarism, with sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years in prison. Prison overcrowding remained a major problem, especially with the destruction of the main prisons in March 2024. Instructions had been issued to the Public Prosecutor’s Offices and Courts of First Instance to carry out regular criminal hearings, with the aim of relieving overcrowding in the prisons in provincial cities.

    The Transitional Presidential Council was making every effort to organise general elections in 2025 and to install a President elected on 7 February 2026. Despite its efforts, the Haitian State was aware that the implementation of the provisions of the Covenant had not yet reached a satisfactory level. However, Haiti pledged to do everything in its power to implement the provisions on the Covenant.

    Questions by Committee Experts

    A Committee Expert acknowledged how difficult it was for the State party to participate in person in the dialogue and expressed gratitude to the delegation in Geneva. The Committee was aware of the grave humanitarian crisis suffered by Haiti for decades, compounded with the assassination of the President in 2021. In that context, the Committee noted an increase in widespread human rights violations and growing control of armed gangs in significant parts of Port-au-Prince, leaving the population more vulnerable to violence and human rights abuses, and leading to the displacement of more than one million people.

    Were courts in Haiti directly applying the Covenant? Could examples be provided? Were courses on international human rights law and the Covenant provided in training to judges? The Committee had been informed of situations where civil servants had opposed the execution of orders handed down by judges to free individuals. Could this be explained? What role did these civil servants play in the judicial system? Had steps been taken to ratify the Optional Protocol of the Covenant on individual communications? In May 2025, a bill of law was presented on the development of a new constitution, with a decree adopted to hold a referendum on the issue. Was this bill in line with the rights enshrined in the Covenant? Was it realistic to carry out a referendum in the context of violence? When was the state of emergency ordered? Was it still in force? Which articles of the Covenant were suspended?

    Did the current budget of the Office for Citizen Protection allow it to carry out its functions and extend its activities to the most remote parts of the country? Were there plans to expand the powers of the Office to allow it to consider human rights violations that had their origin in the acts of private entities?

    What steps had been taken to end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons? Were there laws in place to punish acts of discrimination against these groups? Had the State taken actions been to allow these people to carry out public demonstrations and to protect them? Had it adopted measures to change discriminatory cultural attitudes in Haitian society, to end stigmatisation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons? 

    Another Expert said despite the crisis in the country, Haiti remained bound by its international obligations. The dialogue would address problems such as insecurity, the deep humanitarian crisis that the population was experiencing, the endemic violence of gangs, the forced displacement of the population, the dysfunction of the justice system, chronic impunity and serious challenges to the rule of law. All these problems were linked to corruption. The report published in 2023 by the United Nations Expert on Human Rights in Haiti stated that corruption in Haiti was “public enemy number one” and found that more than 90 per cent of Haitian civil servants did not comply with the national anti-corruption law. The Anti-Corruption Unit and the Central Financial Intelligence Unit, which were suspected of lacking independence, had brought nearly 100 major cases of corruption to justice, but these had not led to any convictions.

    Did the State plan to set up a financial prosecutor’s office or judges specialised in the fight against corruption? Could more information be provided on the decree adopted on the creation of financial judicial units? What measures were being taken to support the work of the Anti-Corruption Unit and the Central Financial Intelligence Unit and to ensure that the cases referred were followed up independently?

    Haiti had expressed its commitment to ensuring accountability for the serious violations committed during Jean-Claude Duvalier’s presidency. However, a case assessing these violations had been in the courts of cassation since 2014, and there had not been any progress. What explained the delay? Could the delegation enlighten the Committee on the situation of Jean Gabriel Robert, who was convicted in absentia in the case of the “Raboteau massacre”?

    Information showed that the scale of violence against women and girls was considerable, with sexual violence, including rape, which was sometimes perpetrated against children as young as five years old; gang rape; and forced prostitution, used as a weapon of control by gangs. According to reports, the judiciary were not sensitive to cases of gender-based violence and victims were hesitant to report cases. What measures were taken to encourage women to file complaints? Was there a fund to help survivors of violence? How were they supported by State services?

    According to information received by the Committee, lynchings continued to be regular and numerous, with more than 500 in 2023. These were often the work of self-defence groups in or around Port-au-Prince, who did not trust the police, mainly due to corruption. In addition, the 2024 report of the United Nations Expert on Human Rights in Haiti noted that police were passive, and it appeared that some murders were encouraged, supported or facilitated by the police forces. Was this violence investigated, including when the police were accused of supporting or encouraging it? Had the perpetrators of lynchings, stonings and mutilations been prosecuted and punished proportionately? How could trust be restored between the police and the civilian population?

    Another Expert said specific steps had not been taken to combat impunity. What hope existed, looking forward to the immediate and long-term future, regarding a reversal of the situation? There were several cases in which there had been impunity for human rights violations. Attacks against the population in the La Saline suburb in 2018 had not been condemned by the Government and no steps had been taken to provide support to victims. What measures had been taken against the involvement of political agents in these cases? Why was the La Saline case withdrawn from the original judge?

    Data showed that 28 percent of civil servants in Haiti were women. In 2019 a strategy was presented to ensure equality for women by 2030. What progress had been made? How would the State party solve the problem of the low rate of political representation of women in Haiti?

    What actions were being taken to guaranteed women’s access to health care, in situations where criminal groups took control of health centres? How was access to medicines ensured?

    Another Expert asked what Haiti’s prospects were looking forward? What urgent measures were envisaged to protect women and girls in areas under gang control? What mechanisms had been established to guarantee security and safety for survivors of sexual violence, and to encourage the reporting of cases? Could Haiti provide updated information on the draft law preventing violence against women and girls? Was there a timeline for its adoption? What had been done to bolster the amount of medical, legal and psychosocial services for survivors, particularly in areas under gang control? What measures were envisaged to protect the right to life of those in extreme poverty? Was there an intersectional strategy to prevent avoidable deaths linked to poverty?

    What measures were taken to protect civilians living in areas under the control of armed gangs? What had been the result of the assistance from Kenya? Was it meeting the challenges? What guarantees existed when it came to the investigation of its own officers by the Haitian police? How was it ensured that the police did not carry out disproportionate use of force during protests? How was action being bolstered in areas under gang control?

    Was there a road map regarding ratification of the Covenant’s Second Optional Protocol concerning the death penalty? How did the State party intend to ensure that those who had served their sentence were properly released? Had the system for monitoring judicial cases been reactivated? What efforts were underway to improve detention conditions? Were construction projects for new prisons still planned? How many women had access to shelters in the last three years? What measures were envisaged to guarantee all police stations should have trained personnel, particularly in areas most affected by police insecurity?

    Responses by the Delegation

    PEDRICA SAINT JEAN, Minister for the Status of Women and Women’s Rights and head of the delegation , said the Government had priorities outlined in the April 2024 agreement on the peaceful transition, including combatting insecurity, conducting the referendum and bringing the country to elections to appoint a robust Government. To combat insecurity, the budget allocated to the police and armed forces had been increased, allowing them to better contain the problems they were confronting. The police, the Haitian armed forces, and the security mission needed to work together to combat insecurity to allow for the milestone referendum to be held. Nine electoral commissioners were currently out in the field assessing the requirements. Haiti was not waiting for the security issues to subside before moving to the referendum.

    Haiti was doing its utmost to implement its commitments under the Covenant through a raft of measures. Six new courtrooms had been established in the country, allowing proximity between those needing to access the justice system and the infrastructure in place. Bureaus had been established to work on specific criminal areas, including mass crimes which had remained unpunished. For some time, courts had not been operational because they were in the hands of gangs. Two bureaus would be responsible for crimes of sexual violence, and another was responsible for financial crimes. Some 34 new judges and prosecutors had been appointed to support the justice system.

    The method of choosing judges for the Anti-Corruption Unit had not hindered its independence. Cases were currently going ahead at the Court of First Instance. Three prisons had been built to international standards, with one dedicated to female inmates. Institutional measures had been put in place to freeze the funds of certain agencies which were found to be corrupt but had impunity from the Anti-Corruption Unit, and those responsible were being brought before the court.

    The Government of Haiti had always condemned lynchings, which were not part of the country’s culture. Incidents needed to be reported at a police station so perpetrators could be incarcerated and tried for their crimes.

    The delegation said several assessment missions had been established to gain an understanding of the situation of detention centres and propose tangible solutions. One of the main challenges was the provision of food, due to lack of access to main roads. To address this situation, the Justice Ministry sought to ensure that providers of food should be placed directly in situ. In the last few months, prisons had greater autonomy and managed their needs themselves, providing a better and tailored approach to local realities.

    Haiti had done a lot to combat gender-based violence. This phenomenon was topical in Haiti, particularly when it came to displaced women. Several strategies had been undertaken to combat gender-based violence, including a national strategy that spanned from 2017 to 2024. An assessment of the strategy was almost completed. A gender-based violence cell had been established within the police, to train police officers to take the needs of female victims of violence into account. The Office to Combat Gender-Based Violence streamlined services for victims, enabling them to receive legal, psychosocial and medical assistance in one place. Psychosocial support services had been set up for women victims in internal displacement camps. Several initiatives had been adopted to bolster protections for minors, including host families and prevention and readaptation programmes for children recruited by armed games. Training and awareness raising sessions were organised for judges.

    In areas with armed gangs, women were typically the primary victims. The number of victims was increasing, particularly against younger women, but violence by armed gangs was also affecting children and the elderly. Violence was used as a weapon of repression. There were still people in Haiti who did not want to report. During times of political turbulence, the phenomenon of violence against women was heightened. There was a need for awareness raising to eradicate the phenomenon. Women should not be used as an instrument to place pressure on the Government.

    Incest had never been part of Haitian culture, but it did not mean this phenomenon did not exist. When incest occurred, people usually preferred to solve the issue in the family. Attention needed to be paid to the phenomenon of incest involving displaced people. The State sanctioned based on the relevant 2006 decree and used case law when dealing with these offences. It was important to continue legislating to bring tangible solutions to this phenomenon.

    For 15 years, judges had been receiving training on the Covenant from the Government and the Haitian police.

    Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons had been looked down on in Haiti; they were formerly not given the right to complain. While progress was not significant, these people were now considered to be fully fledged citizens who needed to be protected by the State and to enjoy their full human rights.

    Quotas had been implemented calling for at least 30 per cent of decision-making posts to be held by women. This issue had been poorly addressed. In the new Constitution, the State was advocating for parity. Until there was a critical mass of women in decision-making posts, the problems they faced would persist. A series of consultations had been launched with officials to create incentive measures to promote equality regarding candidate lists.

    The law on the organization of the Ministry on the Status of Women had not properly been reformed, which was why the Ministry had difficulties in playing its primary role. The Ministry submitted a law on its reorganization to ensure it could achieve its goals. By the start of next year, the State would launch its first national action plan covering the participation of women in restoring peace and security in Haiti. Work was being done with survivors in internal displacement camps to transform them into fully-fledged actors. Women, including young girls and survivors of violence in these camps, had been appointed as peace ambassadors, to sensitise the message of peace throughout Haiti.

    Haiti was relying on the work of the Multinational Security Support Mission and the international community to help the police and armed forces overcome the corruption and security issues in the country.

    Follow-up Questions by Committee Experts

    A Committee Expert asked follow-up questions, including on the functions to be undertaken by the bureaus on mass crimes, sexual crimes and financial crimes. This was a fantastic idea, but the bureaus needed to have the resources to operate properly. Other questions were asked on measures planned to restore the trust between the police and the justice system; lynchings committed by the police force; steps to tackle the circulation of weapons; and the mandate of the Office for Citizens’ Protection.

    An Expert said they saw the referendum to establish a new Constitution in a positive light, as an attempt to reestablish the institutionality of the country. Who drafted this bill? Did it go through various sectors, with participation from civil society? What did the “green and red zones” mean? Were green zones under Government control? Did red zones mean there was no State control? What happened if there was a referendum in the red zones?

    More questions were asked on how the long tradition of impunity could be alleviated; alternative measures to detention; detention beyond the lengths of sentences; efforts to prevent discrimination against women; and access to voluntary interruption of pregnancy. What was the Government’s perception of the processes involving the participation of the international community that aimed to improve the situation for the population of Haiti?

    According to information received by the Committee, around 40 per cent of births enjoyed the proper medical support. How did midwives treat risky pregnancies? Did the State intend to include the ratification of the Second Optional Protocol in the planned reform of the draft Constitution?

    Responses by the Delegation

    The delegation said the death penalty was abolished in Haiti through a decree adopted in 1987.

    Regarding the red and green zones, there were currently zones under gang control, where the State was doing everything possible to convert them to green zones. Green zones were placed where the State could provide appropriate services to the population. The police were trying to gain access to the red zones to bring about peace and security. Progress had been made in penetrating many of the red zones; it was expected that there would be further progress in this area.

    The referendum was a compulsory, milestone measure to lay the groundwork for national elections and allow the population to get their new Constitution. All different sectors of society had been consulted in the drafting of the new Constitution.

    Haiti had implemented measures that aimed to provide a structure to prevent the free circulation of weapons, including weapons of mass destruction.

    The delegation said there was a legal bureau on mass crimes and sexual violence in Port-au-Prince and another on financial crimes. The bureaus were comprised of 10 judges who worked with the police and financial oversight and regulatory bodies. Their operations were ensured by donors from the international community and the State.

    The community police were carrying out an awareness raising campaign to progressively build trust with the general population. Training sessions were being organised for police officers, with a view to protecting the population. When complaints were made against the police force, the national inspector for the police carried out investigations and measures were taken as necessary.

    Haiti had a plan to set up scanners at customs to prevent the flow of illegal weapons into the country. Controls at the border with the Dominican Republic and checks of containers coming from the United Staes had been strengthened, and strict checks were being conducted on private vehicles, including motorbikes. Authorities had also suspended land imports from the Dominican Republic, ensuring seizures of illegal imports. Despite this, Haiti was facing increased criminal activity and corruption, with the need for increased international support to reduce the weapons flow into Haiti.

    Green zones were safe zones while red zones were ones where there was a heightened risk.

    A draft of the new Constitution had been shared across different sectors to receive their inputs, which had been sent to the Committee responsible for the drafting of the new Constitution.

    Haitian midwives played a key role in early detection of illnesses and in responding to complications during birth. They carried out post monitoring operatives in rural areas, while caesarean procedures were performed by obstetric doctors.

    Questions by Committee Experts

    A Committee Expert asked if there were obstacles preventing Haiti from ratifying the Covenant’s Second Optional Protocol? Murderous attacks by gangs against ambulances had been reported, and health staff had fled the country. Did the Government have any plans to confront these problems? Haiti had an astonishing overcrowding rate in its prisons, at allegedly over 300 per cent. There was a lack of access to the appellate procedure for all inmates and for persons with disabilities. How did Haiti plan to resolve this problem?

    Another Expert appreciated Haiti’s delegation comprised of high-level women. It was reported that police agents or persons acting with their complicity tortured inmates on a daily basis in prisons and police custody facilities. Why had the perpetrators of cases of torture not been prosecuted and brought to justice? Had there been capacity building of law enforcement in the area of torture? Why had the State not ratified the Convention against Torture?

    Reports received by the Committee stated that forced evictions had become widespread since the earthquake in 2010, but this was denied by the State. It was alleged that these evictions affected a wide number of families and were not addressed by the State. What information was available about three resident families who had not taken up possession of reconstructed homes? Which Government civil servants were responsible for these families’ forced evictions? How had the Government taken steps to prosecute those involved?

    Hurricane Matthew had affected more than 2.6 million people, including 600,000 children; what measures had been taken to protect them? Could information be provided on the distribution of financial aid and the resources used to reconstruct infrastructure following this natural disaster? During the imposed state of emergency, was it only economic rights which were affected? What solutions were available for those still awaiting assistance from the damage 10 years ago? What resources had been allocated to address housing issues?

    A Committee Expert asked about the implementation of the National Plan to Combat Child Labour, adopted in 2019; what was the duration of the plan? Was it still in force or had a new plan been adopted? Could data on the number of children exploited and those in situations of begging be provided? What work had been done specifically on the exploitation of children by the Committee to Combat Human Trafficking?

    Various reports had documented violence against children, who were recruited and used by the gangs and injured or killed as a result. An even more severe impact was felt by children with disabilities. The Secretary-General’s report had outlined 383 grave violations against children in 2024. In December 2024, the gangs had committed a high number of abductions, including of 17 girls and 10 boys. What measures had been taken by the State to combat these grave violations? To help minors, child soldiers and victims of armed groups, a Commission had been created to support the creation of a national network of shelters and rehabilitation centres. How did the State ensure that the Commission had the human and financial resources necessary to support its functions? What did its work consist of? Was the National Committee for Combatting Human Trafficking able to carry out its functions? What measures had been adopted along the Dominican-Haitian border to prevent trafficking of children who were then sold in the Dominican Republic?

    It was understood that a commission to implement criminal reform was created in July 2024. What were the main reforms being carried out? What measures had been adopted to deal with the firebomb attacks on judges? How was the safety and security of judges being ensured? What was the current situation of the National Council for Legal Assistance? Regarding the appointment of judges in the Cassation Council, how was it ensured that the involvement of the Senate did not affect the Council’s independence? What role did the Council play in combatting corruption in the judicial sphere?

    Another Committee Expert said people who were displaced often lost their identification documents. What was the State party doing to resolve this issue? Two journalists reporting on insecurity in Haiti had been executed in 2022. The Committee had also received information that five journalists were murdered in 2024, with no investigations carried out. Gang violence had also led to the closure and restriction of media, including the suspension of popular programmes on suspicion of serving as platforms for gangs. Journalists had also been threatened by gangs. How could elections take place if the State could not facilitate the free circulation of ideas? How did Haiti intend to combat impunity surrounding executions or ill-treatment of journalists? What was done to protect human rights defenders? How was it ensured that social media platforms were regulated?

    In March 2025, anti-Government protests were held to decry the security context and inaction by the State. What measures had been taken to establish the responsibility of police directly involved in the use of force in suppressing peaceful demonstrations? What had been done to guarantee the work of non-governmental organizations in full security and free from harassment?

    Responses by the Delegation

    The delegation said overcrowding in prisons remained a major issue for the Government which it was working to address. Instructions had been issued to the prosecution offices and tribunals of the Courts of First Instance to encourage the holding of more criminal sessions, including sessions in which a jury was not present, with a view to relieving overcrowding in provincial prisons. In 2023 and2024, this occurred in 14 jurisdictions, leading to 159 convictions. In 2024, the total number of people detained in the country was around 12,000. The State had managed to capture around 12 prisoners who had escaped. The drop in the number of detainees in 2025 was explained primarily due to the escapes that followed the armed attacks carried out against certain penitentiary infrastructure. Courts had been actively engaged to implement non-custodial measures when appropriate, as a means of alleviating prison overcrowding. The Government recognised the need to prevent arbitrary arrests. Men, women and children were placed in different prisons. Despite the State’s efforts, there was only one police officer per every 14 detainees.

    The Government remained committed to improving prison conditions, despite security constraints. The mortality rate had dropped between 2024 and 2025 thanks to coordinated action to provide medical care and humanitarian aid. Healthcare services had been established in several penitentiaries. In 2017, a Presidential Commission was established to shed light on deaths in the Port-au-Prince prison. It highlighted aggravating factors including severe overcrowding, insufficient hygiene and a lack of medical support, among others. Measures were implemented to improve nutrition, detention conditions and investigate causes of deaths.

    The internal regulations of the penitentiary administration outlawed all forms of torture and inhumane treatment. Finances had been provided to the National Anti-Trafficking Committee to support the implementation of its national action plan. A protocol had been signed to guarantee legal aid to victims of trafficking. Some 100 students from the University of Haiti had received training on the issue of human trafficking. Several human traffickers had been prosecuted, however following the mass escapes in March 2024, a number of these traffickers were unfortunately able to escape.

    The Constitution guaranteed that judges could not be dismissed. In the judicial hierarchy in Haiti, the Constitution had the highest ranking, followed by international conventions. In Haiti, the Constitution outlawed the death penalty in all areas, meaning there was no need to fear its reinstation. The ratification of the Second Optional Protocol could be discussed when the legislature was functional.

    Families who were forcibly evicted due to the development of road infrastructure or for airport security purposes had a right to fixed compensation, as well as the right to appeal decisions blocking their access to redress.

    A State project had been launched to combat domestic labour by children, in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The project had been launched in 16 regions in the country and included a concrete list of jobs banned for children. Twenty-three surveys of young people had been conducted, allowing them to express themselves on themes including domestic labour, birth registration, violence against children, and education. A social protection project ensured monetary transfers for children under the age of five, pregnant women and persons with disabilities. The project was financed by the World Bank and allowed vulnerable families to provide care to their children. Around 25,000 homes received regular monetary transfers to the value of 40 United States dollars per month.

    A professional training programme had been launched in conjunction with the International Labour Organization, allowing for the training of more than 800 vulnerable teenagers in various technical and farming activities. Some 9,200 children had received support for school re-enrolment. Four thousand vulnerable homes at risk of family separation received monetary transfers to support income-generating activities, as well as financial education. A pilot programme had been launched in targeted communes with the United Nations Children’s Fund, which had developed a foster programme for children taken out of situations of domesticity to support their reintegration.

    Legal assistance officers had been established in 12 jurisdictions and the rollout was ongoing. A decision would be made on the draft Constitution based on a participatory process. A Commission had been established to follow up on gender-based violence cases in the country.

    Steps had been taken to prevent the phenomenon of forced evictions, but results were still limited. The Government had not been encouraging forced evictions and had taken new steps to support victims. Demolished homes had been rebuilt and several previous owners had already taken ownership of their new homes. Authorities ensured that no one living in camps or informal housing was evicted without a humane alternative provided.

    The Haitian State reiterated its commitment to freedom of the press and its respect for the work of human rights defenders. Efforts were made to ensure journalists could freely conduct their work, including by strengthening protection mechanisms. Haitian authorities reaffirmed their desire to shed light on the murders of several journalists, which were currently at being investigated by the Public Prosecutor.

    The courts did not all apply the Covenant in the same way, but it was often evoked in individual cases. Alternative measures to prison were allowed for in the new Criminal Code, which had been adopted in June 2025. Judges were equipped with armed vehicles and would have security details at their disposal for their personal safety. The police force was taking steps to bolster security in zones with a heightened level of insecurity and ensure that the referendum could take place. The Government was engaged in an intense campaign to fight the armed violence being perpetrated by gangs.

    Follow-up Questions by Committee Experts

    Committee Experts asked follow-up questions regarding identification papers, which more than 70 per cent of the population did not have, as well as the role of the Government Commissioners within the courts of justice.

    A Committee Expert expressed hope that the programme being laid out by the State for elections would bring about the enjoyment of rights by the population. It seemed impossible to bring this about given the current insecurity in Haiti. Was the State in a position to achieve peace given the current context? The context in Haiti required international, shared responsibility, with involvement from all States parties.

    Closing Statements

    PEDRICA SAINT JEAN, Minister for the Status of Women and Women’s Rights and head of the delegation , thanked the Committee for the kindness it had shown to the Haitian delegation, and the Experts for their insights. Haiti had taken due note of all recommendations and was determined to take further steps to develop effective, concrete responses to the Committee’s concerns relating to the implementation of the Covenant. One day, in the not-too-distant future, the country would exit the crisis. Everybody was working to see the day when Haiti could leave the crisis behind. Despite the efforts it had made, the Haitian State was aware that the implementation of the Covenant and progress in bolstering of the rule of law had not yet reached a satisfactory level. Haiti had a massive raft of problems to resolve, including travel restrictions, which had prevented some members of the delegation from traveling to Geneva. The State of Haiti was committed to doing its utmost to implement the provisions of the Covenant.

    CHANGROK SOH, Committee Chairperson, expressed sincere gratitude to all who had contributed to the dialogue. The Committee acknowledged the profound political, economic and humanitarian challenges facing Haiti, which had hampered efforts to protect human rights. The Committee underscored the importance of continued diligence and commitment to the rights enshrined in the Covenant, especially in times of crisis. During the dialogue, the Committee had raised serious issues regarding the right to life, gang violence, lynchings, protection of vulnerable populations, corruption, protection of journalists and the need to combat impunity, among other concerns. Despite these challenges, the Committee appreciated the State party’s willingness to engage in dialogue. Haiti was encouraged to take this opportunity to advance necessary reforms to ensure that the rights enshrined in the Covenant were fully recognised for all Haitians.

    ___________

    Produced by the United Nations Information Service in Geneva for use of the media; 
    not an official record. English and French versions of our releases are different as they are the product of two separate coverage teams that work independently. 

    CCPR25.015E

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Dmitry Chernyshenko: 540 thousand applicants have already submitted about 4 million applications as part of the admission campaign for the 2025/2026 academic year

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

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

    Dmitry Chernyshenko during a visit to the Siberian Federal University. Left: Governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai Mikhail Kotyukov, Acting Rector of SFU Maxim Rumyantsev and Deputy Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Afanasyev

    July 4, 2025

    Dmitry Chernyshenko during a visit to the Siberian Federal University. On the left is the Governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai Mikhail Kotyukov, on the right is the Acting Rector of SFU Maxim Rumyantsev

    July 4, 2025

    Dmitry Chernyshenko during a visit to the Siberian Federal University. On the right is the Governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai Mikhail Kotyukov, on the left is the acting rector of SFU Maxim Rumyantsev

    July 4, 2025

    Dmitry Chernyshenko: 540 thousand applicants have already submitted about 4 million applications as part of the admission campaign for the 2025/2026 academic year

    July 4, 2025

    Previous news Next news

    Dmitry Chernyshenko during a visit to the Siberian Federal University. Left: Governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai Mikhail Kotyukov, Acting Rector of SFU Maxim Rumyantsev and Deputy Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Afanasyev

    During a visit to the Siberian Federal University (SFU), Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Chernyshenko discussed the progress of the admissions campaign at SFU and other Russian universities. The event took place as part of the Deputy Prime Minister’s working visit to Krasnoyarsk Krai.

    To ensure continuous monitoring and control of the admissions campaign, a dashboard has been deployed on the platform of the Coordination Center of the Government of the Russian Federation. It can be used to track the progress of the admissions campaign in each subject, educational organization, including in individual areas of training and specialties. The panel allows you to identify deviations in the processing of applicants’ applications and promptly respond to them.

    “The admissions campaign is an important and responsible period not only for applicants, but for the entire country. The achievement of technological leadership, a national goal set by President Vladimir Putin, depends on the choice of applicants and the quality of their preparation. In total, almost 620 thousand budget places are available for higher education programs this academic year. About 540 thousand applicants have already submitted almost 4 million applications within the framework of competitive groups, of which more than 3 million – through the super service “Online University Admission”, – said Dmitry Chernyshenko.

    About 73% of the total number of budget places are allocated to regional universities.

    Among the most popular areas are computer science and computing, education and pedagogical sciences, and clinical medicine.

    In Krasnoyarsk Krai, applicants have already submitted almost 70 thousand applications to universities within the framework of competitive groups, including more than 61.2 thousand using the super service “Online University Admission”.

    The Deputy Prime Minister noted the active participation of the Siberian Federal University in government support measures, including those implemented under the national project “Youth and Children”.

    Governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai Mikhail Kotyukov noted that SFU is one of the leading universities in Russia: “Siberian Federal University is developing quite dynamically today. The university is of interest to applicants not only from Krasnoyarsk Krai, but also from neighboring regions. Quite a lot of foreigners come. We carefully preserve the legacy of the Universiade, all the facilities are working, all the facilities are involved. Moreover, we are already forming the next development plans.”

    Currently, SFU has about 27 thousand students, 83.4% of whom are full-time students. For the 2025/2026 academic year, Siberian Federal University has allocated more than 5.5 thousand budget places for higher education programs. As part of the current admissions campaign at SFU, applicants have already submitted over 30 thousand applications within competitive groups, including almost 25.5 thousand using the super service “Online University Admission”. Among the most popular areas of training among applicants are computer science and computer engineering; applied geology, mining, oil and gas engineering and geodesy; education and pedagogical sciences; mechanical engineering.

    The event was also attended by the Governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai Mikhail Kotyukov, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Dmitry Afanasyev, and Acting Rector of the Siberian Federal University Maxim Rumyantsev.

    Dmitry Chernyshenko also assessed the infrastructure of SFU, in particular the classrooms and the urban farming laboratory of the Institute of Gastronomy. This is one of 20 educational institutes that are part of the university structure; it was founded as a joint project of the Siberian Federal University and the Krasnoyarsk restaurant group. The Institute of Gastronomy trains specialists in the restaurant business and hospitality industry.

    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: “A GUU diploma is your victory”: 1886 specialists are ready to work

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –

    On July 4, 2025, the State University of Management triumphantly held a graduation ceremony dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

    The negative weather forecast, fortunately, did not come true, and the clouds that flew in only made the day not too stuffy. Free water and drinks also contributed to the comfort of the graduates. It was not even necessary to stand on the square, this time there were many seats. The usual photo booths were working, as well as an innovation – 3D photos for the GUU graduates’ museum.

    At the special awards ceremony, the graduates were greeted by the rector of the State University of Management, Vladimir Stroyev.

    “Our dear students, their parents, friends, welcome to our not quite ordinary graduation, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory. Victories are not only the deeds of days gone by, but also your triumphant mood today. The student years you spent at GUU will be some of the best years of your life. Yes, the sessions were different, but I am sure that you will remember this time with pleasure. For better or for worse, but now you are not GUU students, but graduates. I am sure that we will be proud of you for many years to come,” the rector congratulated.

    Special awards were presented by outstanding graduates and honorary guests of the university.

    Senator of the Russian Federation from the Legislative Assembly of the Rostov Region Vasily Golubev recalled that he entered the Moscow Engineering and Economics Institute under the rector Olimpiada Kozlova and lived in a newly built dormitory, and recently organized a meeting of graduates at the State University of Management and felt like a student again. The senator also advised graduates to periodically return to the university to recharge with its energy. “Do not forget the rule of mountain climbers – they do not climb quickly, but confidently. It is you who will have to ensure that Russia achieves technological leadership in the world, it is you who will have to manage the authorities and the country as a whole. It is no coincidence that the main topic today is victory. We need it,” Vasily Golubev urged and presented awards for significant achievements for the benefit of the university Primus inter pares, of which this time there were not 7, according to the number of institutes, but 8, which corresponded to the 80th anniversary of the Victory.

    Awards were given to: Victoria Igorevna Kostikova – IEF; Yupatova Varvara Ilyinichna – ISUiP; Sereda Irina Leonidovna – IOM; Babich Alina Maksimovna – IUPSiBK; Olga Vadimovna Plesskaya – IIS; Kuimova Maria Leonidovna – IM; Shubina Sofya Kirillovna – Fine Arts;

    Primus inter pares “Infinity” – Burlakova Valeria – IM.

    State Duma Deputy Biysultan Khamzaev noted the beauty, brightness and intelligence of the graduates. “You have a powerful name for your university – the State University of Management. Find the character in yourself to be useful to your family and country. Return to your native university, help and support, this is the tradition of our education – the best education in the world,” said Biysultan Khamzaev and presented awards for academic success.

    Awards were given to: Langeman Irina Igorevna – IEF; Gubchak Milena Vladislavovna – ISUiP; Pavelev Ilya Dmitrievich – IOM; Minazhetdinova Dilyara Ilyasovna – IUPSiBK; Neretina Oksana Andreevna – IIS.

    Deputy Head of the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science Svetlana Kochetova called the graduates colleagues and suggested that all those who lived in the dormitory will definitely not forget this fun time. The honorary guest separately wished health to the teachers and asked the graduates not to forget them. Svetlana Kochetova presented awards for achievements in career guidance.

    Awards were given to: Stefania Dmitrievna Dukhnovskaya – IEF; Kuzmina Ksenia Dmitrievna – ISUiP; Nikita Konstantinovich Rasskazov – IOM; IUPSiBK Morozova Sofya Aleksandrovna – IUPSiBK; Musina Alfiya Farkhitdinovna – IIS.

    Deputy Head of the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science Evgeny Semchenko congratulated the graduates of 1999 on one of the most important days of their lives. “At one time, living with my wife in the dormitory of the State University of Management, we often heard calls for freebies in the windows. Now I will tell you: after graduation, there will be no more freebies. I wish you to continue your education in a master’s degree, postgraduate study, get a second higher education in order to benefit the country,” Evgeny Semchenko addressed the graduates of 2025 and presented awards for scientific achievements.

    Awards were given to: Popova Yulia Alekseevna – IEF; Zhuk Alexandra Petrovna – ISUiP; Grishkina Anna Vyacheslavovna – IOM; Lanenkina Elizaveta Aleksandrovna – IUPSiBK; Potalainen Ilya Sergeevich – IIS; Petrova Anna Dmitrievna – IM.

    The Executive Secretary of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Sergey Pospelov reported that he graduated from the State University of Management 23 years ago, thanked the parents of the graduates for their patience and endurance, telling the heroes of the occasion that now it is their turn to help their parents. “The University is with you forever. And your merits will always be the merits of the University, so stay in touch with it.” Sergey Pospelov presented awards for sports achievements.

    Awards were given to: Vladimir Alekseevich Simonenko – IEF; Elizarov Artyom Denisovich – IGUiP; Novikov Makar Konstantinovich – IOM; Larin Andrey Evgenievich – IUPSiBK; Karpov Danila Sergeevich – IIS.

    Vice President of the Novard Group of Companies Sergey Sarkisov noted that on such a day, graduates are happy and a little sad at the same time. “No matter how life and career turn out, you must remember that your success in the future is a fusion of your experience and new knowledge. I wish you always to be accompanied by a desire for something new. Success to everyone!”, wished Sergey Sarkisov and presented awards for active social life.

    Awards were given to: Daria Aleksandrovna Kudryavtseva – IEF; Lavrova Ekaterina Igorevna – ISUiP; Arbuzova Polina Alekseevna – IOM; Blbulyan David Spartakovich – IUPSiBK; Kalugin Mikhail Dmitrievich – IIS; Sokolova Larisa Pavlovna – IM.

    Deputy Head of the Federal Treasury Department for Moscow Elena Egorushkova thanked GUU for the opportunity to congratulate the graduates, wished them all the best and emphasized that the most important things are yet to come. The honorary guest presented awards for achievements in cultural life.

    Awards were given to: Kristina Romanovna Danilenko – IEF; Naydenova Daria Aleksandrovna – ISUiP; Yavorskaya Polina Igorevna – IOM; Bchemyan Maria Karenovna – IUPSiBK; Volkova Alexandra Ilyinichna – IIS; Aklieva Natalya Sergeevna – IM.

    General Director of FKK GROUP LLC Vladislav Fadeev recalled that 23 years ago he stood in the same crowd of graduates and asked them not to forget the reckless student life. “Hold on to each other, don’t lose this thread. Year after year you will meet less and less often, families and concerns will appear, but try to do it anyway. Bon voyage!” Vladislav Fadeev said and presented awards for covering public life.

    Awards were given to: Ksenia Andreevna Pavlenko – IEF; Fedun Anastasia Stepanovna – IUPSiBK; Fomenko Victoria Sergeevna – IM; Bandorin Alexander Sergeevich – Fine Arts; Yakovlev Danila Sergeevich – IOM.

    It is interesting that Danila Yakovlev, as the winner of the All-Russian competition of final qualifying works in the format “Startup as a Diploma” with the project “Innovative Glass Pebbles”

    Later, 9 masters of State University of Management also received special awards: Ivan Alekseevich Ignatov – ISUiP; Levshov Ivan Vadimovich – IOM; Nikitina Anna Sergeevna – ISUiP; Rudskaya Irina Aleksandrovna – IIS; Ambaryan Lika Alikovna – IEF; Volkova Elizaveta Alekseevna – IUPSiBK; Kotenko Marina Igorevna – IOM; Yashkov Ivan Dmitrievich – IUPSiBK; Pridanov Egor Dmitrievich – IIS.

    In total, 1886 people graduated from the State University of Management in the completed academic year, 785 of whom graduated with honors! 1886 graduates. Symbolic, considering that this is the year of birth of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, whose name our university bore for many years.

    Congratulations to all graduates on this important life victory! Remember the inspiration you are feeling now, and remember today in moments of trial. You have already endured at least 4 years of exams, project work, lectures, lack of sleep – now you are capable of everything! And now just enjoy, be inspired by today’s victory. And as almost all the honored guests asked, do not forget your native university, now you are not students of GUU, from now on you are friends of GUU. Congratulations!

    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 Canada: Western Canada’s first menopause clinic supports more people in B.C.

    Source: Government of Canada regional news

    Women and gender-diverse people who are experiencing complex menopause symptoms can now access specialized care at BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre’s new Complex Menopause Clinic, a first of its kind in Western Canada.

    “Women and gender-diverse people face unique health challenges that are often overlooked – and menopause is one of them,” said Josie Osborne, Minister of Health. “This new clinic will strengthen the continuum of care for people navigating complex menopause and is another step we’re taking to build a health-care system that’s compassionate, equitable and is there for people through every stage of life.”

    The clinic provides both in-person and virtual care to patients and enhances existing BC Women’s Hospital-led programs related to complex menopause, such as bone, breast and heart health services. The Complex Menopause Clinic offers a range of services, including specialist consultation, counselling, medication management and referrals to other services. Since opening, the clinic has delivered approximately 150 care appointments to eligible patients whose complex menopause symptoms could not be managed otherwise.

    “Menopause is a normal stage in life that is not aways talked about and many people are expected to endure it quietly,” said Jennifer Blatherwick, parliamentary secretary for gender equity. “This new clinic is here to change that. It offers a supportive space for specialized menopause care and is a step toward advancing more compassionate care.”

    Approximately 85% of people experience bothersome or debilitating symptoms during their menopause, such as hot flashes, poor sleep, mental-health concerns and joint pain. Additionally, people who experience premature menopause and those with spinal cord injuries and other chronic diseases and conditions, require clinical expertise that are unavailable in other settings. These specialized services are offered at this clinic.

    In partnership with the Women’s Health Research Institute and the University of British Columbia, the clinic will embed research throughout its services to increase understanding of people’s experiences through menopause and drive new, evidence-based health solutions. The data collected will be used to inform and improve care for women and gender-diverse people during the menopause transition.

    This builds on work government is doing to support women and gender-diverse people through menopause and strengthen B.C.’s universal health-care system. Starting in March 2026, the Province will enhance menopause care by providing free public coverage of hormone replacement therapy to treat menopausal symptoms. This is a significant step toward improving health care for women and gender-diverse people throughout their lifetimes.

    BC Women’s Health Foundation has provided critical funding to establish a professorship within the clinic. This experienced clinician will lead both research and care delivery. Alongside its founding donors, the foundation has also supported the launch and ongoing operations of the clinic. Through ongoing fundraising, BC Women’s Health Foundation will continue to advance the delivery of menopause care.

    Quotes:

    Dr. Stephanie Rhone, senior medical director, BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre –

    “Symptoms of menopause have significant health, social and economic impacts across society. Unmanaged symptoms of menopause cost the Canadian economy an estimated $3.5 billion per year. We are confident the clinic will not only improve the quality of life of patients, but will add to growing research and evidence to improve menopause care, as well as increasing expertise in menopause and midlife care, across the province.

    Cally Wesson, president and CEO, BC Women’s Health Foundation –

    “We are deeply grateful to our founding donors whose visionary support made the Complex Menopause Clinic a reality. Their generosity exemplifies the power of philanthropy to spark meaningful change and launch vital new programs that fill critical gaps in women’s health care. This clinic is a testament to what we can achieve when our community comes together to prioritize women’s health.”

    Lori Brotto, executive director, Women’s Health Research Institute –

    “The Women’s Health Research Institute is proud to support groundbreaking research in the new Menopause and Midlife Health Program at BC Women’s Hospital. Research on menopause is essential to advancing safe, evidence-based care for the millions of Canadian women experiencing menopause-related symptoms. By investing in innovative research, we are ensuring that discoveries translate directly into better care for women in British Columbia, across Canada and around the world.”

    Shirely Weir, advocate and founder of the website and community Menopause Chicks-

    “Today’s announcement of the Complex Menopause Clinic is an important step forward in closing one of the many gaps in women’s health. It offers a soft landing for people with complicated health histories – people whose journeys are layered, and who, until now, may have felt like they’d exhausted all opportunities to feel well, and reached a dead end. Women’s mid-life health is complex, and that’s why this clinic is so meaningful for people whose health stories don’t fit neatly into a single silo or the standard care model.”

    Quick Facts:

    • Referral to the menopause clinic is required from health-care providers.
    • Individuals who do not have a primary care provider can get a referral from an urgent and primary care clinic or a walk-in clinic.
    • BC Women’s Hospital reviews each referral carefully, contacts eligible patients directly to book an appointment and triages patients so those at highest risk are seen earliest.

    Learn More:

    To know more about the Complex Menopause Clinic, visit:
    http://www.bcwomens.ca/our-services/gynecology/complex-menopause-clinic

    To learn more about what the Province is doing to support women and gender-diverse people, visit:
    https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2025PREM0011-000167

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: EDB’s first Digital Education Week launches International Summit on Use of AI in Learning and Teaching Languages and Other Subjects (with photos)

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region – 4

    ​Digital Education Week 2025 (DEW) is a landmark event promoting the development of digital education by the Education Bureau (EDB). A flagship event of the first DEW, the International Summit on the Use of AI in Learning and Teaching Languages and Other Subjects (AIinLT), was officially launched today (July 4). The AIinLT is co-organised by the EDB, the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) Department of English and Communication and the Hong Kong Education City (EdCity), providing a valuable and practical platform for teachers, researchers, and others in the education sector to learn and share insights regarding the use of AI in their respective fields of education.

    Officiating at the opening ceremony, the Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin, said that the country placed great importance on advancing digital education. The EDB also implements digital education through four major focus areas, namely:

    1. enhancing students’ digital literacy and skills to prepare them as responsible citizens and lifelong learners;
    2. strengthening professional training in digital education for teachers and encouraging schools to leverage innovative technologies;
    3. optimising digital education infrastructure and fostering personalized learning; and
    4. expanding cross-border and international collaboration to enhance synergy and promote high-quality digital education development.

    Dr Choi also called for collaboration among all stakeholders – including the Government, educational institutions, educators, and the community – to optimise resources, share best practices, and maximise the impact of digital education. She also emphasised the irreplaceable role of human connections in learning, encouraging attendees to harness AI wisely to empower individuals, strengthen communities and build a smarter, more connected world of learning.

    At the ceremony, the Chairperson of SCOLAR, Dr Anissa Chan, said that SCOLAR is committed to embracing technological advancements in language education. She noted that this commitment was what inspired SCOLAR to organise, finance and host the AIinLT, which is one of the first international events in Hong Kong focusing on the use of AI in education. The AIinLT serves as a collaborative platform for innovation and exploration.

    Dr Chan also spoke on the transformative potential of AI in personalising learning and enhancing language acquisition. She stressed the importance of guiding technological development through effective strategies, ethical considerations, and a learner-centred approach. She encouraged participants to shape the future of smart language learning, ensuring that AI serves as an enabler in education rather than a replacement for human interaction.

    In his welcome remarks, the President of PolyU, Professor Teng Jinguang, echoed Dr Choi and said that the city of Hong Kong is uniquely positioned to be a global leader in AI-powered education and technology-driven learning, given its world-class education system, renowned universities, and its development into an international innovation and technology centre and international hub for post-secondary education.  

    He added that PolyU has been promoting the development of AI in education. PolyU was a forerunner university to introduce compulsory AI education for undergraduates back in 2022, and established this year the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, the PolyU Academy for Artificial Intelligence as well as the Language Education Institute. All these efforts underscore PolyU’s far-sightedness and leadership in AI-empowered education and research. He expects that this event will spark meaningful ideas and collaborations that will help reshape AI in education in Hong Kong.

    In his address, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hong Kong Education City, Mr Armstrong Lee, emphasised EdCity’s unwavering commitment to fostering cross-sector collaboration aimed at establishing a robust AI education ecosystem that propels the advancement of digital education. To expedite the digital transformation of educational practices, EdCity is developing the “EdMarket,” an innovative super-shelf for electronic teaching tools. This platform will feature a diverse array of high-quality global educational resources, including pioneering AI teaching tools designed to enrich and inspire transformative teaching and learning methodologies.

    The AIinLT is taking place at PolyU for four consecutive days starting from today. The AIinLT on the first two days feature keynote speeches, a panel discussion, paper presentations, and teaching demonstrations. The following two days will include a post-summit workshop series covering a wide range of topics, along with a technology showcase where leading EdTech providers will demonstrate the latest AI hardware and software solutions, offering educators firsthand exposure to cutting edge-innovations. For details of the AIinLT, please visit the event website (events.polyu.edu.hk/aiinlt/home).

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Rosneft Oil Company Shareholders Meeting Adopts Resolutions on All Matters on the Agenda

    Source: Rosneft – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    The shareholders approved the payment of dividends for 2024 in the amount of 14.68 roubles per share. July 20, 2025 was set as the dividend record date.

    The shareholders have also elected a new Board of Directors consisting of 11 members:

    • Andrey I. Akimov – Chairman of the Management Board, Gazprombank (Joint-Stock Company);
    • Pedro A. Aquino, Jr. – Chief Executive Officer of OIL & PETROLEUM HOLDINGS INTERNATIONAL RESOURCES LIMITED, Independent Director (Republic of the Philippines);
    • Faizal Alsuwaidi – Representative of Qatar Investment Authority (the State of Qatar);
    • Hamad Rashid Al-Mohannadi – Representative of Qatar Investment Authority (the State of Qatar);
    • Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada – Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Doha University of Science and Technology, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nesma Infrastructure & Technology, Member of the Advisory Committee of the Governing Body of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Independent Director (the State of Qatar);
    • Viktor G. Martynov – Rector of Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas (National Research University), Independent Director;
    • Alexander D. Nekipelov – Director of Moscow School of Economics at the Lomonosov Moscow State University,  Independent Director;
    • Alexander V. Novak – Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation;
    • Maxim S. Oreshkin – Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation;
    • Govind Kottis Satish – Managing Director of VALUE PROLIFIC CONSULTING SERVICES PRIVATE LIMITED, Independent Director (Republic of India);
    • Igor I. Sechin – Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Management Board of Rosneft Oil Company.

    The Meeting of Shareholders has also approved the Annual Report and Financial Statements, and decided to elect an Audit Commission consisting of five members.

    Department of Information and Advertising
    Rosneft Oil Company
    July 4, 2025

    These materials contain statements regarding future events and expectations that are forward-looking estimates. Any statement in these materials that is not historical information is a forward-looking statement that involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the expected results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We assume no obligation to adjust the data contained herein to reflect actual results, changes in underlying assumptions or factors affecting the forward-looking statements.

    Please note; this information is the raw content received directly from the information source. This is exactly what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: AI educational summit launched

    Source: Hong Kong Information Services

    A flagship event of the first ​Digital Education Week, the International Summit on the Use of AI in Learning & Teaching Languages & Other Subjects (AIinLT), was launched today.

    The AIinLT is co-organised by the Education Bureau, the Standing Committee on Language Education & Research, Polytechnic University (PolyU) Department of English & Communication and Hong Kong Education City, providing a valuable and practical platform for teachers, researchers, and others in the education sector to learn and share insights regarding the use of AI (artificial intelligence) in their respective fields of education.

    Officiating at the opening ceremony, Secretary for Education Choi Yuk-lin said that the country placed great importance on advancing digital education.

    She noted that the bureau implements digital education through four major focus areas, including enhancing students’ digital literacy and skills; strengthening professional training in digital education for teachers; optimising digital education infrastructure; and expanding cross-boundary and international collaboration.

    Ms Choi also called for collaboration among all stakeholders, such as the Government, educational institutions, educators, and the community, to optimise resources, share best practices, and maximise the impact of digital education.

    She also emphasised the irreplaceable role of human connections in learning, encouraging attendees to harness AI wisely to empower individuals, strengthen communities and build a smarter, more connected world of learning.

    The AIinLT is taking place at PolyU for four consecutive days starting today. The first two days feature keynote speeches, a panel discussion, paper presentations and teaching demonstrations.

    The following two days will include a post-summit workshop series covering a wide range of topics, along with a technology showcase where leading EdTech providers will demonstrate the latest AI hardware and software solutions, offering educators firsthand exposure to cutting edge-innovations.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: From motherhood to Masters – Chima champions lifelong learning and career growth Studying for a masters degree while caring for three children has given Chima Omojowolo the confidence to relaunch her own career after time out to raise her family.

    Source: University of Aberdeen

    Chima Omojowolo

    Studying for a masters degree while caring for three children has given Chima Omojowolo the confidence to relaunch her own career after time out to raise her family.
    She will graduate with an MSc in International Human Resource Management after one busy year juggling reading, coursework and assignments with school pick-ups and other family responsibilities – and now hopes to help and inspire others to grow their careers.
    Chima moved to Aberdeen from France when her husband transferred to a job in the Granite City.
    She decided to undertake further study to enable her to progress her own HR career following a break for motherhood and was drawn to the course because it offered a broad skill set and practical knowledge to ease her return.
    Chima said: “Knowing the programme was comprehensive and flexible gave me confidence that I could update my skills while still managing my home responsibilities.
    “My student journey at the University was both challenging and rewarding. Adjusting to a new environment while caring for my three children and family was difficult at first.
    “However, I gradually found my stride and even excelled academically, ultimately achieving a Distinction in my degree.”
    Chima loved the opportunity to collaborate with classmates on group assignments and presentations and quickly fitted into life both on campus and in Aberdeen.
    “I loved exploring the city with my family – from peaceful walks along the beach to discovering restaurants and children parks, Aberdeen quickly felt like home,” she added.
    “The balance of academic life and family moments in such a welcoming city made my time here truly memorable and special.”
    With her degree in hand Chima now plans to resume her career in the field of human resources, specifically focusing on training and development.
    She added: “I am passionate about helping employees grow, so I am aiming for a role where I can design and lead effective training programmes within an organisation. Ultimately, I hope to make a positive impact in the workplace by fostering continuous learning and development for others, just as I have done for myself.”

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Province Achieves Highest Ever Volumes for Diagnostic Medical Imaging Services

    Source: Government of Canada regional news

    Released on July 4, 2025

    Over 250,000 Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans were performed in Saskatchewan in 2024-25, the highest volumes ever performed in Saskatchewan in a single year. 

    In 2024-25, a total of 187,163 CT exams and 63,299 MRI exams were performed in Saskatchewan, a 9 per cent increase or 20,000 more exams over the previous year. These scans were provided to more than 206,000 patients across the province.

    The additional investment in medical imaging capacity has also resulted in positive impacts to wait times for these important diagnostic procedures. According to the latest report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Saskatchewan had the lowest 90th percentile CT scan wait time of any province and the third lowest wait time for MRI.

    “Saskatchewan’s steady investment in enhancing this critical service area is resulting in positive outcomes for patient care, with the highest-ever volumes of MRIs and CT scans performed and faster access to these important diagnostic tests,” Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said. “Investing in additional imaging capacity and capital equipment has increased access and reduced wait times for these procedures.”

    Since 2016, Saskatchewan invested in multiple initiatives to improve access such as:

    • expanding CT service to smaller city centres like Estevan and Melfort and MRI Services in Moose Jaw;
    • introducing community-based CT and MRI services in Regina and Saskatoon which has provided tens of thousands of CT and MRI exams to patients;
    • funding for medical imaging equipment replacements including six CT scanners and one MRI over the past five years;
    • a new mobile MRI scanner in 2024 at Regina General Hospital; 
    • operational funding to support the Swoop Portable MRI scanner donated by the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital Foundation; and
    • passing Patients’ Choice legislation allowing private-pay MRI and CT service in 2016.

    “Passing legislation for private-pay MRI and CT services has contributed to health system capacity,” Cockrill said. “This unique-to-Saskatchewan, two-for-one policy approach requires private providers to perform a second scan at no charge for a patient on the public waitlist. This policy has provided more than 20,900 additional MRI scans and over 1,700 additional CT scans to patients at no extra cost to the public system due to this innovative two-for-one provision.”

    The province is working to expand access to CT, MRI and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) procedures across the province with an increase of $6 million in the 2025-26 Budget. This will support more than 10,000 additional diagnostic imaging procedures over the coming year. 

    “As we enhance the investment in medical imaging services, the Saskatchewan Health Authority remains focused on providing timely access to high quality care as close to home as possible for people across Saskatchewan,” Medical imaging Executive Director Richard Dagenais said. “None of this work would be possible without the vital support and investments from the Ministry of Health and our valued Foundation partners. We are only able to provide timely access to medical imaging through the exceptional commitment of our team of technologists, nurses, radiologists, and others, who work tirelessly every day to provide high-quality care to patients across the province.”

    To supplement this increased volume and ensure continued reliability of medical imaging services, the province is also providing over $10 million in capital funding this year for the replacement or retrofit of medical imaging equipment. 

    Planned upgrades include replacement of an MRI and CT scanner at Regina General Hospital; replacement of a CT scanner and retrofit of an MRI scanner at Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon; and replacement of medical imaging equipment in several rural health facilities.

    To learn more about Saskatchewan’s Medical Imaging wait times, visit:
    saskatchewan.ca/residents/health/accessing-health-care-services/medical-imaging/medical-imaging-wait-times.

    -30-

    For more information, contact:

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Young HSE scientist receives RAS gold medal

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

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

    The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) has summed up the results of the annual competition for young scientists. Gold medals are awarded to research and inventions that are of great importance for the development of science. One of the winners of the award was Denis Bodrov, a postgraduate student at the International Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics and a research fellow International Laboratory of Elementary Particle Physics MIEM HSE University. Denis Bodrov told Vyshka.Glavnoe about his work, the competition, and his victory.

    About the project

    – Our work is devoted to the study of the properties of weak interaction, in particular, responsible for violation of symmetry, which was necessary for the appearance of an excess of matter, which allowed us to appear with you. The most thoroughly the structure of weak interaction has been studied in the decay of Muon. According to the existing generally accepted theory, the standard model (cm), this particle is identical to the electron, but it is harder and decays. Muon and Electron have an even heavier counterpart-Tau-Rlepton. In our work, we conduct a study of its collapse into Muon to obtain new information about the structure of weak interaction. In cm, this structure should be the same in the decays of Muon and Tau-Reton, and our task was to check if this was really so. To do this, we have developed a method that allows you to measure the polarization of the subsidiary of Muon. In specialized installations on the study of the decay of Muon, this was done before us, but the methods used there do not work in accelerating experiments on electron-poster colliders, where information about the polarization of Muon allows you to study other particles that decay on it, such as Tau-Rettleon. According to our estimates, in the already working experiment Belle II and in the experiments of the future it will be possible to achieve a high accuracy comparable to the work received in the work of studying the decay of Muon. In addition, we have applied the developed method for analyzing the data of the already completed Belle experiment and first measured one of the parameters of interest to us, albeit with the still insufficient accuracy, which is associated with the technical restrictions on the experiment of the past.

    The target audience of our work is primarily the scientific community, as is usually the case in studies of fundamental issues of the structure of the universe. The goal of all elementary particle physics in recent decades is to search for new physics (NP), which will be beyond the Standard Model. One can search for its obvious manifestation by detecting new particles, or one can accurately measure the parameters of the SM, where any deviation from the predicted values serves as an indication of NP. The second option is the general goal of our work.

    About the RAS competition and victory

    — A work or a series of works is nominated for participation in this competition; this can be done by members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientific organizations, councils, etc. In our case, the work was nominated by the National Research University Higher School of Economics. I believe that the merit of our victory is primarily due to my scientific supervisor Pavel Nikolaevich Pakhlov. I am generally lucky to work under his supervision. Participation in the competition was his initiative.

    We submitted a series of works to the competition that took more than five years to complete and included the development of a new method, an assessment of its sensitivity for several present and future experiments, and its implementation on already selected experimental data. This is a very large amount of work, and it was quite difficult to win.

    About HSE postgraduate studies

    — When I was still a master’s student at MIPT, our research team at HSE opened the International Laboratory of Elementary Particle Physics, so it was logical to go here for graduate school. Fortunately, before that, the Higher School of Economics had opened Faculty of Physics, many of whose teachers also lecture or lectured at the Phystech, so there were no questions about the quality of education. An additional motivation was the “Academic Postgraduate Studies” program. Unfortunately, at the time of my admission, our laboratory did not have its own postgraduate program, and the Physics Department did not have our direction, so I had to go to theoretical physics as the closest direction. Yes, I had to study subjects that were, to put it mildly, distant from the main topic of my research. Nevertheless, many of them turned out to be interesting and expanded my horizons in other areas of physics. In general, my studies in the HSE postgraduate program are going quite smoothly. Now our laboratory already has several HSE postgraduate students, and recently our own postgraduate program was opened, so in the future everything should get even better.

    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: Pride of the University: The Polytechnic University awarded its best graduates

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

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

    At the beginning of July, the atmosphere at the Polytechnic University is especially enthusiastic, happy and at the same time a little sad. Graduates walk around the campus in their robes, celebrate the end of exams and defenses, say goodbye to their beloved university and teachers, proudly receive their diplomas and prepare for a new wonderful life. One of the most solemn events in the series of graduation ceremonies is the honoring of gold medalists, those who have studied only excellently all these years and have distinguished themselves in scientific and social activities.

    This year, the award ceremony for the best graduates of the Master’s and Specialist’s programs of 2025 was held in the meeting room of the Academic Council. The medals “Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University” were presented to the students by the rector of SPbPU, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Rudskoy and the president and chairman of the board of directors of the RBI Group, a graduate of the Faculty of Economics in 1994, Honorary Professor of SPbPU Eduard Tiktinsky.

    Before the ceremony, Andrey Rudskoy thanked the directors of the institutes and the parents of the graduates and said a few parting words: Dear guys! I sincerely wish that you honorably bear the high title of the engineering special forces of our university. You cannot waste a second now, you need to continue to study, deepen your knowledge. This will be repaid a hundredfold later. I want all future great achievements to bear your names. Of course, you are entering graduate school without competition, this happens once in a lifetime, you cannot lose the pace of learning. It is very important for each of you to make the right settings in your head now. An internal trigger must be triggered – the desire to study and achieve something in this life. Stay with us, we will be happy to see you with your graduate student certificates. Honor, dignity, pride in the fact that you studied here, for the fact that you are members of the Polytechnic family, you must carry throughout your life and prove every day your right to be a member of this great family.

    Eduard Tiktinsky thanked for the honor of speaking at the award ceremony for the golden graduates and supported the words of the SPbPU rector in his parting words: The education that the Polytechnic University provides is not just knowledge of scientific principles, it is the development of the convolutions of the brain. The world is changing rapidly, and you will have to constantly learn. And the fact that you were able to pass the most difficult course of the Polytechnic University at the highest level gives you great opportunities. Communication, outlook, and various experiences that you received at the university will give you a lot in life. Follow your dream, you have talent and opportunities. Do not be afraid to try, the main thing is not to stand still. There is really a huge demand for you. The country needs technological startups, it needs innovative activity. You are engineers, on the one hand, and on the other hand, people with great potential and energy, capable of achieving results. I believe that you will remember this day for the rest of your life, and our wishes will become the foundation for the next breakthrough. I believe that each of you has the opportunity to succeed and I urge you not to miss your chance.

    And here is the culmination of the ceremony — the presentation of medals, commemorative plaques, gifts and flowers. Based on the results of successful defenses of final qualification works in June 2025, in accordance with the recommendations of the directorates of the institutes and based on the decision of the Academic Council of SPbPU, 23 graduates — straight A students are nominated for awards, including eight people from the Institute of Industrial Management, Economics and Trade, four from the Institute of Power Engineering, three from the Civil Engineering Institute, two from the Institute of Biomedical Systems and Biotechnology and the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications, one from the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Transport, the Humanitarian Institute, the Institute of Computer Science and Cybersecurity, the Physics and Mechanical Engineering Institute.

    Among the 23 best graduates of 2025, 20 people completed their master’s degree and three completed their specialist’s degree; three graduates entered the 1st year of the bachelor’s degree at SPbPU in 2019 after graduating from the Natural Science Lyceum of the Polytechnic University (Svyatoslav Drozdov, PhysMech, Andrey Klinovitsky, IMMiT and Kristina Rodionova, IBSiB); 16 people graduated from high school or gymnasium with a medal, receiving a certificate of secondary education “with honors”.

    The first award was presented to a graduate of the Institute of Energy Alexander Abubakirov, which represented Polytechnic on June 25 in the Peter and Paul Fortress at the XXIII ceremonial honoring the best graduates of St. Petersburg universities. It was Alexander who was given the honorary right to fire the midday shot from the cannon of the Naryshkin Bastion.

    Also at the Institute of Energy, Pavel Volkov was awarded gold medals, Mikhail Chuprynenko and Andrey Florinsky.

    The best graduate of IMMiT was Andrey Klinovitsky, who came to the Polytechnic in 2019 after successfully graduating from the Natural Sciences Lyceum. Andrey shared that he chose the Lyceum at the time because he considered it one of the strongest schools in St. Petersburg with in-depth training in technical disciplines, and also closely connected with the Polytechnic University, which helped him immerse himself in the university environment in advance.

    “After graduating from the Lyceum, choosing the Polytechnic was easy — I already knew what to prepare for at the university and saw further opportunities for development,” Andrey said. “At ENL, we had electives in engineering creativity, where we designed and assembled robots, so I enrolled in the Mechatronics and Robotics program. It was not easy to study excellently for all six years, but the main thing for this is discipline and meeting deadlines. It is important to distribute the workload and not put off tasks until the last minute. At the same time, I had time for student activities and hobbies. For example, my friends and I founded a student association in robotics, participated in and won more than ten all-Russian competitions and competitions in robotics.”

    Yes, Andrey is well known to our readerspublications about the activities of the student association he leads “PolyRoboTech” and about the successes of his team in competitions. In addition, in 2023, he, like Alexander Abubakirov, was gold medalist of the “I am a professional” Olympiad.

    The best graduate of IBSiB Kristina Rodionova also came to the Polytechnic after the Natural Science Lyceum. In 2019, she graduated with a gold medal and, having now received a gold medal from SPbPU, confirmed the high quality of training of ENL graduates.

    “Most of all, in the natural-scientific lyceum, I was attracted to the fact that the training format there is not at all school, but student: instead of lessons-couples, at the end of each semester, oral exams in physics and mathematics are passed, there is even a division into lecture and practical classes, just like at a university,” Christina shared her memories. – Many of my classmates after the end of the Lyceum went to Polytech. I entered the direction of “Biotechnical Systems and Technologies” by the Institute of Biomedical Systems and Biotechnology. And my expectations were justified: I was lucky to study in the direction that brings pleasure. Although studying was very hard, especially in the first semester: in addition to the basic physics, higher mathematics and chemistry for all students, we also had medical subjects – anatomy, physiology, and histology. All this was very difficult to combine. How many tears were spilled over a textbook on anatomy! But after the second year it became much easier. Then in summer practice I began research work in the scientific laboratory. From that moment I have been in love with science: for four years, students managed to work in three laboratories, take part in writing articles, in conferences, in grants. My involvement in scientific life, as well as the mentoring of colleagues, in many ways helped to easily master academic disciplines. I am still very grateful to my first scientific mentor Anton Sergeyevich Shabunin, also once a graduate of the Polytechnic, for help in taking the first steps in a scientific career and transferred invaluable experience. Now I work in my specialty simultaneously in two laboratories, since I have not yet decided what is more interesting to me: tissue engineering or virology and immunology. ”

    We have already talked about the second best graduate of IBSiB, Daria Melentyeva we talked about this in detail in our special project “Persona”By the way, it was Dasha who gave a speech and took the oath on behalf of all the first-year students six years ago. at the ceremonial assembly in honor of SPbPU Knowledge Day.

    The best graduate of the IKNK, Alexander Khrustalev, in 2019 was also one of those first-year students who scored the highest number of points for the entrance exams.

    “Then I was glad that I managed to enter the university, now I am glad that I managed to graduate,” Alexander shared. “The first years were difficult, then grades stopped worrying me so much, and studying in specialized subjects became much easier. The patience and professionalism of our teachers helped me in my studies. Fortunately, all our teachers taught their courses wonderfully, thank you very much to them.”

    PhysMech graduate Svyatoslav Drozdov successfully graduated from the Polytechnic University’s Natural Sciences Lyceum in 2019 and says that his studies at ENL left him with “exceptionally positive impressions.”

    “And since I had a very good opinion of the Lyceum, I chose the Polytechnic as an organization associated with it,” Svyatoslav explained the reason for entering SPbPU. When asked whether it was difficult to study for six years with excellent grades, he answered scientifically: “The main difficulty in studying for 5.0 is precisely that you need to pay attention to everything, maximizing the probability of a specific outcome of the session (all A’s). With the same expenditure of resources, it would be much easier to count on an average score of 4.9. Therefore, sometimes there was a feeling of playing roulette, when you understand that any exam and an unsuccessful question on it can ruin a series of previously received grades. In my studies, the desire to understand what I do not understand, interest and sports excitement helped – will I be able to pass everything with excellent marks?”

    The Civil Engineering Institute was represented at the award ceremony by Daria Denisenko, Yulia Matveeva and Lyudmila Morshchakova.

    IPMEiT has been producing the most gold medalists for several years now. In 2025, these are Eldar Asadullaev, Anastasia Maykova, Marina Malashenko, Vadim Savekin, Daniil Tyurin, Ekaterina Fedorakhina, Nikita Sharikov, Maria Odesskaya.

    Adelina Borozdina became the best graduate at the Humanitarian Institute.

    At the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications, Nikita Ivanov and The Manh Do from Vietnam received gold medals.

    From 2003 to 2025, 970 best graduates of the Polytechnic University were awarded SPbPU gold medals based on the results of winter and summer defenses of their final qualifying works. The largest number of gold medalists graduated from SPbPU in 2013 — 68 graduates. The smallest number — 19 graduates — in 2016 and 2023.

    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: Graduation of Master’s students in urban planning: from Yakutia to Afghanistan

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Master’s students-graduates

    The composition of graduates of the Department of Urban Development, who presented their master’s theses for defense on June 10, turned out to be surprisingly broad in geographical terms. On this day, 15 master’s students defended their theses, including several foreigners – Akbarmirzo Soliev and Aliye Ganieva (Uzbekistan), Akhmad Oryakhel (Afghanistan), Gantuya Batbold (Mongolia), as well as representatives of various regions of Russia: for example, Kazbek Tkhvostov – from North Ossetia, Timir Solovyov – from Yakutia, Leyla Dadaeva – from St. Petersburg, and Anzhelika Gasparyan – a native of Kuzbass.

    All of them prepared diploma projects on topics that were interesting and relevant for their countries and regions. The exception was Akbarmirzo Soliev, who took on the landscape and urban development modernization of the Green Belt of Glory memorial complex – a system of monuments to the defenders of Leningrad, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Akbarmirzo chose this topic at the suggestion of his academic supervisor, Associate Professor Svetlana Levoshko, and defended his project with excellent marks.

    Gantuya Batbold defended her thesis on the topic of “Urban development of transboundary territories of Siberia and Mongolia”. According to her bachelor’s degree in her native Mongolia, Gantuya is an environmental engineer, so she had to master a lot of new disciplines in her master’s program. Afghan Ahmad Oryakhel himself formulated the topic of the thesis “Urban development of the territories of the Khashmatkhan transport corridor in Kabul”. In addition to its relevant and deeply developed content, the work is distinguished by a high level of architectural graphics. The academic supervisor of both master’s students is Associate Professor Pavel Skryabin. According to the master’s students, the most difficult thing was to master the Russian language.

    “I am returning to my native Darkhan, the second largest city in Mongolia, known as an important industrial and educational center. I want to establish myself as a professional in the Darkhan municipality. It seems to me to be a key institution of urban governance, directly influencing the life and well-being of every citizen. My work will focus on issues of urban development and improvement of the urban environment. I will try to actively participate in the development and implementation of projects aimed at improving the quality of life of citizens, modernizing infrastructure and creating comfortable public spaces, contributing to the harmonious development of Darkhan, helping to transform it into an even more attractive and functional urban center for all its residents,” said Gantuya Batbold.

    Ahmad Oryakhel also plans to return to his homeland and pursue a career in the Kabul Municipality in his area of expertise. “I intend to work in the Urban Development Department, where architects participate in planning new districts, rebuilding urban infrastructure, and developing design solutions aimed at improving the urban environment. I believe that my knowledge and skills can be especially useful in the process of rebuilding and developing the city. The municipality is interested in young professionals with international education, and I hope to contribute to the implementation of projects related to sustainable development and modern architecture in Kabul,” Ahmad shared.

    Kazbek Tkhvostov, who completed his master’s degree with honors, received the highest mark for his work “Formation of a system of multifunctional public spaces in small towns and rural settlements of the Republic of North Ossetia – Alania”. His supervisor is Associate Professor Marina Kook. In addition, the state examination committee recommended Kazbek’s work for participation in the XXXIV Review-competition of diploma works of the Interregional Public Organization for the Promotion of Architectural Education (MOOSAO) and for implementation. Graduates of the Department of Urban Planning of 2024, his classmates and fellow countrymen Artur Ramonov and Zara Khadartseva came to support the master’s student at his defense. For now, Kazbek plans to stay in St. Petersburg, but does not rule out professional activity in North Ossetia.

    It is gratifying that the Department of Urban Planning trains highly professional specialists who work all over the world.

    Presentation by Kazbek Tkhostov

    Presentation by Ahmad Oryakhel

    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: Water potential, climate adaptation and student mobility: HSE projects at the forum of strong ideas

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

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

    Photo: Igor Rodin / Roscongress Foundation

    The forum “Strong Ideas for a New Time” has concluded in Moscow. HSE researchers presented their projects in various fields. One of them, “Water Potential of Russia,” was among the top 10 and was presented by the head of the Scientific and educational laboratory of climate change economics HSE University Igor Makarov at a plenary session with the participation of President Vladimir Putin.

    The forum “Strong Ideas for a New Time” was organized by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) and the Roscongress Foundation, co-organized by VEB.RF. This year, the forum received more than 35 thousand initiatives, including from employees of the Higher School of Economics. The authors of the best ideas, Russian President Vladimir Putin, ASI head Svetlana Chupsheva and VEB.RF chairman, chairman of the ASI expert council Igor Shuvalov took part in the plenary session on July 3 at the Russia National Center.

    At the plenary session, Igor Makarov, Head of the Scientific and Educational Laboratory of Climate Change Economics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, spoke about his idea, which will allow Russia to become a water superpower.

    More than one billion people in the world live in areas that suffer from water shortages, and by the middle of the 21st century this will be two-thirds of the population, Igor Makarov noted in his speech. “Russia has 20% of the world’s reserves of this strategic asset and has every opportunity to become a water superpower of the 21st century,” he believes. But for this, according to the scientist, a comprehensive strategy for using competitive advantages associated with the availability of fresh water and its rational use is needed. The strategy may consist of four points. First, the development of a mechanism for assessing the real cost of water and the introduction of an assessment of the “water footprint” of products.

    “We must know how much water we spend on the production of a particular product,” says Igor Makarov. Secondly, creating incentives for rational water use, introducing water consumption standards. Thirdly, developing new developments and technologies in the field of water conservation and water purification. “Technologies are already appearing that not only use water without harming its quality, but even improve it: they return water to the reservoir cleaner than it was when it was taken,” explains Igor Makarov. The fourth point of the strategy could be the creation of mechanisms for joint investment in water management by the state, enterprises and citizens. “Such an approach could become the basis for water to become a new investment-attractive segment of the economy,” says Igor Makarov.

    Vladimir Putin supported the HSE project, noting that although, according to international experts, Russia is one of the countries that has more water than it consumes, it is necessary to approach its use rationally. According to the president, when implementing the programs that will arise on the basis of the proposals made by the scientist, it is necessary to take into account the balance of water consumption.

    “Because if we use this resource for industrial development, this is what we are talking about, then we must proceed from the fact that 50% of the total volume of water consumption goes specifically to industry. If we take these 50% as 100, 75% is energy. We just have to keep this in mind. For agriculture, let’s say, in my opinion, only 2%,” Vladimir Putin noted. He also emphasized that “we must be very careful when making any large-scale decisions.”

    “We have huge amounts of fresh water, and the coastal zone creates unique opportunities for development… Together with the agency and the expert council, we will try to formulate this topic so that it sounds like an economy around water. There is currently a great demand for such questions – these are completely new aspects that have not been considered before, especially in terms of supporting and developing family businesses, which is certainly important and in demand,” said Igor Shuvalov.

    Another HSE project, the creation of the National Climate Adaptation System, was included in the top 100 of the forum. The authors of the idea are employees Faculty of Geography and Geoinformation Technologies HSE University: Dean of the Faculty, Director Center for Digital Technologies for Natural and Climate Projects Nikolay Kurichev, who presented the idea at the forum, and Tatyana Aniskina, director Geodata Center.

    Geographers from the National Research University Higher School of Economics propose creating an integrated national system for managing adaptation to climate change based on microdata. It is possible to launch such a system on the basis of the multi-level digital platform “Natural and Climate Risks and Adaptation to Climate Change”. HSE.Glavnoe will tell more about this project in one of its next publications.

    The top 300 included the initiative of students of the GosVyshka platform, “A comprehensive program of academic and project-based student mobility for regional development.” “Today, it is sometimes easier for a student to go on an exchange to another country than to a Russian region,” says Maria Matveeva, head of the project “GosVyshka”, who presented the idea at the forum. “In Russia, there are formats for short-term student trips, such as expeditions and student tourism. But to get a full-fledged transformative experience, a student must stay in another region for at least 4-6 months, and, unfortunately, at the moment this is quite difficult.”

    In order to form a unified educational space in Russia, the authors of the idea proposed a program with four tracks: academic (a student from an average regional university goes to a highly selective university to gain knowledge), scientific (theoretical research due to the specifics of the host region, for example, studying volcanoes in Kamchatka), social (in combination with the service learning program, work on NPO projects), and managerial (work on the tasks of executive authorities and senior officials of the regions in the format of workshops based at the State Higher School of Economics).

    “We thank ASI for supporting our project and hope for further assistance in its implementation. In addition, we are looking for regional partners to receive project assignments for students within the framework of mobility programs,” said Maria Matveeva.

    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 –