I was extremely sad to hear of Val’s sudden and unexpected death and my thoughts are with her family and friends.
It was a privilege to get to know Val, both as a friend and colleague. What struck me from the very beginning was her intelligence, her wit but, most of all, her warmth and kindness. Even in the heat of political debate she would always remain calm, constructive and respectful of other people’s views.
Prior to becoming a councillor, her roles in education and library services over many years gave her a long-lasting passion for reading, something that she loved to share with others – helping them to discover the wonderful world of books and libraries.
Alongside this, she campaigned tirelessly for the Labour Party, as she did for the rights of workers, women and single parents. She spent thousands of hours knocking on doors and speaking to local residents – and I know that being elected as councillor for Fountainbridge and Craiglockhart in 2022 filled her with huge pride, something that stayed with her throughout.
She brought the same determination to her role as Chair of the Council’s Joint Consultative Committee and I know she was held in the highest regard by the Trade Unions, who recognised a lifetime of activism and support.
Val’s other great passion for theatre, and the arts more generally, made her the perfect choice for Culture and Communities Convener, a role that she approached with vigour and enthusiasm. She was never happier than when she’d managed to find a way of reaching consensus with all parties and I know that she was trusted and admired by colleagues from across the chamber.
She was also a great champion of the festivals, and of the benefits they bring to our city’s reputation, but – in typically balanced fashion – an equally fierce defender of our parks and greenspaces and the huge enjoyment they bring to our residents.
Val is a great loss to the council, to her colleagues and to the city. We will miss her immensely.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime Alerts (b)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Kansas City, Mo., woman plead guilty in federal court today to a fraud scheme in which she embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from her employer.
Jennifer L. Cabral, 51, plead guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lajuana Counts to one count of bank fraud and one count of money laundering.
By pleading guilty today, Cabral admitted that she stole approximately $306,034.28 from her employer’s bank account and used those funds for her personal benefit and use. As part of the scheme, Cabral accessed her employer’s accounting software and directed payments to her own personal bank accounts through the employer’s online account at a local financial institution. Cabral used those funds for various personal benefits including vehicle payments toward the purchase of her car, which was forfeited as part of the plea agreement.
Under federal statutes, Cabral is subject to a sentence of up to 30 years in federal prison without parole on the bank fraud count and up to 20 years’ imprisonment on the money laundering count. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Rudolph R. Rhodes IV. It was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Grandview, Mo. Police Department.
Environment Agency officers, together with West Yorkshire Police, have been undertaking site checks at the Mineral Processing Ltd site.
Environment Agency and West Yorkshire Police Officers
The Environment Agency joined forces with the police this week to carry out checks outside a waste site that is subject to a suspension notice in West Yorkshire.
The suspension notice served on Mineral Processing Ltd in South Elmsall means the environmental permit does not currently authorise waste being brought on to the site.
The notice also requires the staged removal of waste that had been brought onto the site by the operator in breach of its environmental permit conditions.
The breaches of the environmental permit result in an increased risk of pollution, including the potential for odour, which has been impacting on the local community over recent months.
This week Environment Agency officers, together with West Yorkshire Police, followed up on concerns raised by the community about vehicles still arriving at the site while the suspension notice is in force.
The operation was to monitor vehicle movements to and from the site. While none arrived while partners were present, the Environment Agency will continue to act upon the information it receives.
The notice does not prevent non-waste products being imported.
An Environment Agency spokesperson said:
We understand the impact the odour from this site is having on the community and our increased regulatory response continues.
This includes ongoing odour monitoring and regular site inspections, as well as action to proactively monitor vehicle movements at the site while the suspension notice is in force.
During our inspections of the site breaches of the environmental permit conditions and suspension notice have been identified, and we are assessing all our enforcement options.
Mineral Processing Ltd has appealed the suspension notice via the Planning Inspectorate. The appeal decision has not been issued to date. The suspension notice remains in force while the Environment Agency waits for this decision.
If an operator does not comply with a suspension notice then it is committing an offence. This is the case even if it has submitted an appeal against the notice.
To build a detailed picture of air quality around the site the Environment Agency is using a handheld gas analyser, which monitors for hydrogen sulphide, and installed a Mobile Monitoring facility (MMF) nearby, which will be in situ for four months.
It’s also working with Wakefield Council – which is responsible for making sure planning conditions are complied with – to ensure that joint regulatory powers are used to bring about improvements.
Odour issues should be reported to the Environment Agency’s 24-hour Incident hotline on 0800 807060. To protect the safety and wellbeing of the public and ensure timely capture of information, any other information relating to the site should be reported to Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or via or via or via crimestoppers-org.uk using the “Environmental Crime” tag.
PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the “Code”)
(b)Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a): The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named.
N/A
(c)Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates: Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree
ADVANCED MEDICAL SOLUTIONS GROUP PLC
(d)If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree:
N/A
(e)Date position held/dealing undertaken: For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure
16 APRIL 2025
(f)In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer? If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state “N/A”
N/A
2.POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.
(a)Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)
Class of relevant security:
5p ORDINARY
Interests
Short positions
Number
%
Number
%
(1)Relevant securities owned and/or controlled:
11,861,426
5.4391
(2)Cash-settled derivatives:
(3)Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:
TOTAL:
11,861,426
5.4391
All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.
Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).
(b)Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors’ and other employee options)
Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists:
Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:
3.DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.
The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.
(a)Purchases and sales
Class of relevant security
Purchase/sale
Number of securities
Price per unit
5p ORDINARY
SALE
515
182.8p
5p ORDINARY
SALE
85
183p
5p ORDINARY
SALE
2,845
183.25p
5p ORDINARY
SALE
5,000
183.65p
5p ORDINARY
SALE
2,005
184p
5p ORDINARY
SALE
10,000
184.4p
5p ORDINARY
SALE
1,296
184.4008p
5p ORDINARY
SALE
339
185p
5p ORDINARY
SALE
346
185.2p
5p ORDINARY
SALE
2,755
185.501p
5p ORDINARY
PURCHASE
469
183.6p
5p ORDINARY
PURCHASE
131
183.8p
5p ORDINARY
PURCHASE
5,000
184.15p
5p ORDINARY
PURCHASE
10,000
184.7p
5p ORDINARY
PURCHASE
1,296
184.7992p
5p ORDINARY
PURCHASE
2,755
185.8995p
5p ORDINARY
PURCHASE
690
186p
(b)Cash-settled derivative transactions
Class of relevant security
Product description e.g. CFD
Nature of dealing e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position
(d)Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)
Class of relevant security
Nature of dealing e.g. subscription, conversion
Details
Price per unit (if applicable)
NONE
4.OTHER INFORMATION
(a)Indemnity and other dealing arrangements
Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer: Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(b)Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives
Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to: (i)the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or (ii)the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced: If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(c)Attachments
Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached?
NO
Date of disclosure:
17 APRIL 2025
Contact name:
MARK ELLIOTT
Telephone number:
01253 376539
Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.
The Panel’s Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code’s disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.
PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the “Code”)
(b)Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a): The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named.
N/A
(c)Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates: Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree
ALLIANCE PHARMA PLC
(d)If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree:
N/A
(e)Date position held/dealing undertaken: For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure
16 APRIL 2025
(f)In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer? If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state “N/A”
N/A
2.POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.
(a)Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)
Class of relevant security:
1p ORDINARY
Interests
Short positions
Number
%
Number
%
(1)Relevant securities owned and/or controlled:
11,985,055
2.2171
(2)Cash-settled derivatives:
(3)Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:
TOTAL:
11,985,055
2.2171
All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.
Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).
(b)Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors’ and other employee options)
Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists:
Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:
3.DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.
The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.
(a)Purchases and sales
Class of relevant security
Purchase/sale
Number of securities
Price per unit
1p ORDINARY
SALE
8,000
64.225p
(b)Cash-settled derivative transactions
Class of relevant security
Product description e.g. CFD
Nature of dealing e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position
(d)Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)
Class of relevant security
Nature of dealing e.g. subscription, conversion
Details
Price per unit (if applicable)
NONE
4.OTHER INFORMATION
(a)Indemnity and other dealing arrangements
Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer: Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(b)Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives
Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to: (i)the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or (ii)the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced: If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(c)Attachments
Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached?
NO
Date of disclosure:
17 APRIL 2025
Contact name:
MARK ELLIOTT
Telephone number:
01253 376539
Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.
The Panel’s Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code’s disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.
PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the “Code”)
(b)Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a): The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named.
N/A
(c)Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates: Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree
SCIENCE IN SPORT PLC
(d)If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree:
N/A
(e)Date position held/dealing undertaken: For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure
16 APRIL 2025
(f)In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer? If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state “N/A”
N/A
2.POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.
(a)Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)
Class of relevant security:
10p ORDINARY
Interests
Short positions
Number
%
Number
%
(1)Relevant securities owned and/or controlled:
4,804,589
2.0685
(2)Cash-settled derivatives:
(3)Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:
TOTAL:
4,804,589
2.0685
All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.
Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).
(b)Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors’ and other employee options)
Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists:
Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:
3.DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.
The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.
(a)Purchases and sales
Class of relevant security
Purchase/sale
Number of securities
Price per unit
None
(b)Cash-settled derivative transactions
Class of relevant security
Product description e.g. CFD
Nature of dealing e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position
(d)Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)
Class of relevant security
Nature of dealing e.g. subscription, conversion
Details
Price per unit (if applicable)
NONE
4.OTHER INFORMATION
(a)Indemnity and other dealing arrangements
Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer: Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(b)Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives
Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to: (i)the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or (ii)the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced: If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
NONE
(c)Attachments
Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached?
NO
Date of disclosure:
17 APRIL 2025
Contact name:
MARK ELLIOTT
Telephone number:
01253 376539
Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.
The Panel’s Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code’s disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.
PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the “Code”)
1.KEY INFORMATION
(a)Full name of discloser:
Rathbones Group Plc
(b)Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a): The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named.
(c)Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates: Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree
Primary Health Properties Plc
(d)If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree:
(e)Date position held/dealing undertaken: For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure
16/04/2025
(f)In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer? If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state “N/A”
Yes – Assura Plc
2.POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.
(a)Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)
Class of relevant security:
12.5p Ord
Interests
Short positions
Number
%
Number
%
(1)Relevant securities owned and/or controlled:
72,334,242
5.41%
(2)Cash-settled derivatives:
(3)Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:
TOTAL:
72,334,242
5.41%
All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.
Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).
(b)Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors’ and other employee options)
Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists:
Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:
3.DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE
Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.
The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.
(a)Purchases and sales
Class of relevant security
Purchase/sale
Number of securities
Price per unit
12.5p Ordinary Shares
Sale
27,500
98.96
12.5p Ordinary Shares
Sale
2,640
98.86
12.5p Ordinary Shares
Sale
48,000
99.0235
12.5p Ordinary Shares
Sale
1,500
99.1473
12.5p Ordinary Shares
Purchase
8,100
99.0499
12.5p Ordinary Shares
Purchase
15,000
99.3307
(b)Cash-settled derivative transactions
Class of relevant security
Product description e.g. CFD
Nature of dealing e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position
(d)Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)
Class of relevant security
Nature of dealing e.g. subscription, conversion
Details
Price per unit (if applicable)
12.5p Ordinary Shares
Transfer out
60,000
4.OTHER INFORMATION
(a)Indemnity and other dealing arrangements
Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer: Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
None
(b)Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives
Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to: (i)the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or (ii)the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced: If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state “none”
None
(c)Attachments
Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached?
No
Date of disclosure:
17/04/2025
Contact name:
Jamie Alderson – Compliance Department
Telephone number:
0151 243 7053
Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.
The Panel’s Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code’s disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.
The first government-set energy efficiency standards for appliances were issued by California in 1974. They were initially for refrigerators, the household appliance that used the most energy. Subsequently, several other household appliances were added. During the next decade, more states issued standards, as saving energy would help avoid the costs of constructing new power plants.
The proliferation of state standards led the federal government to prohibit states from issuing appliance efficiency standards once the federal government had done so. The first federal standards, in 1987, applied to 13 household products, including refrigerators.
Electric meters like these at a Mississippi apartment complex keep track of how much – or how little – electricity residents use. AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
Broad application
Federal data indicates that 40% of total U.S. energy consumption – and 28% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions – is attributable to household and industrial appliances, such as heating and cooling systems, refrigerators, lighting and various kinds of equipment, such as computers, printers and electric motors.
Appliance energy efficiency standards now in place are cumulatively expected by the Department of Energy to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 2 billion metric tons over 30 years. That’s as much carbon dioxide as 15 million gas-powered cars would emit in that same period.
Many federal standards, including on light bulbs, electric motors and commercial heating and cooling equipment, have been based on those previously adopted by one or more states. Federal law permits states to issue standards for products that the federal government has not yet regulated: As of 2024, 18 states had set efficiency rules for a total of 22 types of appliances, including computers and televisions.
Additional benefits
These appliance standards have reduced American energy use, including electricity. The existing national standards are projected to reduce overall national energy consumption by 10% between 2025 and 2035.
Those standards also improve public health, because there is less need to build new fossil-fuel power plants or operate existing ones. As a result, power generators have been able to reduce their emissions of dangerous pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury.
Making appliances more energy efficient has proved popular. A national survey released by the Consumer Federation of America in 2018 found that 71% of Americans “support the idea that the government should set and update energy efficiency standards for appliances.” Significantly, 72% of those surveyed named lowering electrical bills and 57% stated that avoiding construction of new power plants to keep electricity rates from rising were important reasons to increase appliance efficiency.
From 1987 through 2007, more than three-quarters of national appliance energy efficiency standards were passed into law by Congress, with the rest created by administrative processes under existing laws. These legal standards received bipartisan support and were signed into law by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
But more recently, partisanship has affected the setting of standards. Since 2008, whether standards improve or remain unchanged has depended on whether Democrats or Republicans occupied the White House.
And in early April 2025, Republicans in Congress used their legislative authority to overturn the regulations for natural gas water heaters. But most of the federal standards – and all of the state ones – remain in effect, at least for now.
David J. Vogel 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.
Ocala, Florida – United States Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announces that Davonta McCrorey (25, Baltimore) has pleaded guilty to three counts of assaulting federal correctional officers. McCrorey faces up to eight years’ imprisonment on each count. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to court records, in March 2024, McCrorey was an inmate at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County. On March 16, 2024, McCrorey aggressively charged out of his cell and struck two federal correctional officers in the face multiple times, causing injuries. McCrorey then resisted other correctional officers who attempted to restrain him by verbally threatening them with violence and biting one of them on the hand.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Hannah Nowalk Watson.
Despite the challenges faced by local democratic activists, Thailand has often been an oasis of relative liberalism compared with neighbouring countries such as Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
Westerners, in particular, have been largely welcomed and provided with a measure of protection from harassment by the authorities. Thailand’s economy is extremely dependent on foreign tourism. Many Westerners also work in a variety of industries, including as academics at public and private universities.
That arrangement now seems under pressure. Earlier this month, Paul Chambers, an American political science lecturer at Naresuan University, was arrested on charges of violating the Computer Crimes Act and the lèse-majesté law under Section 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code for allegedly insulting the monarchy.
Chambers’ visa has been revoked and he now faces a potential punishment of 15 years in jail.
The lèse-majesté law has become a common tool for silencing Thai activists. At least 272 people have been charged under the law since pro-democracy protests broke out in 2020, according to rights groups.
Its use against foreigners has, until now, been limited. No foreign academic has ever been charged with it. Because of the law, however, most academics in Thailand usually tread carefully in their critiques of the monarchy.
The decision to charge a foreign academic, therefore, suggests a hardening of views on dissent by conservative forces in the country. It represents a further deterioration in Thailand’s democratic credentials and provides little optimism for reform under the present government.
Thailand’s democratic deficit
Several other recent actions have also sparked concerns about democratic backsliding.
Following a visit by Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to China in February, the government violated domestic and international law by forcibly returning 40 Uyghurs to China.
The Uyghurs had fled China a decade earlier to escape repression in the western Xinjiang region and had been held in detention in Thailand ever since. They now potentially face worse treatment by the Chinese authorities.
Then, in early April, Thailand welcomed the head of the Myanmar junta to a regional summit in Bangkok after a devastating earthquake struck his war-ravaged country.
Min Aung Hlaing has been shunned internationally since the junta launched a coup against the democratically elected government in Myanmar in 2021, sparking a devastating civil war. He has only visited Russia and China since then.
In addition, the military continues to dominate politics in Thailand. After a progressive party, Move Forward, won the 2023 parliamentary elections by committing to amend the lèse-majesté law, the military, the unelected Senate and other conservative forces in the country ignored the will of the people and denied its charismatic leader the prime ministership.
The party was then forcibly dissolved by the Constitutional Court and its leader banned from politics for ten years.
In February, Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission criminally indicted 44 politicians from Move Forward for sponsoring a bill in parliament to reform the lèse-majesté law. They face lifetime bans from politics if they are found guilty of breaching “ethical standards”.
Even the powerful former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, whose daughter is also the current prime minister, is not immune from the lèse-majesté law.
He was indicted last year for allegedly insulting the monarchy almost two decades ago. His case is due to be heard in July.
This continued undermining of democratic norms is chipping away at Thailand’s international reputation. The country is now classified as a “flawed democracy” in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, with its ranking falling two years in a row.
The lèse-majesté law has always represented something of a challenge to academic freedom in Thailand, as well as freedom of speech more generally. Campaigners against the law have paid a heavy price.
The US State Department has provided a statement of support for Chambers, urging the Thai government to “ensure that laws are not used to stifle permitted expression”. However, given the Trump administration’s attacks on US universities at the moment, this demand rings somewhat hollow.
Academic freedom is a hallmark of democracies compared with authoritarian regimes. With the US no longer so concerned with protecting academic freedom at home, there is little stopping flawed democracies around the world from stepping up pressure on academics to toe the line.
The undermining of democracy in the US is already having palpable impacts on democratic regression around the world.
With little international pressure to adhere to democratic norms, the current Thai government has taken a significant and deleterious step in arresting a foreign academic.
In the future, universities in Thailand, as in the US, will find it harder to attract international talent. Universities – and the broader society – in both countries will be worse off for it.
Adam Simpson 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.
First Driver to Win NASCAR Cup Race, IndyCar Race, USAC Triple Crown Championship and NHRA Pro Event
American Rebel Light Beer Sponsorship of Tony Stewart Racing Drivers Tony Stewart and Matt Hagan Celebrate Stewart Win and Head to Charlotte for American Rebel Light NHRA 4-Wide Nationals April 25 – 27 at zMAX Dragway at Charlotte Motor Speedway
Nashville, TN, April 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — American Rebel Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: AREB) (“American Rebel” or the “Company”), creator of American Rebel Beer (americanrebelbeer.com) and a designer, manufacturer, and marketer of branded safes, personal security and self-defense products and apparel (americanrebel.com), would like to congratulate Tony Stewart on his history-making victory in the NHRA Top Fuel Dragster (nhra.com) this past weekend at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Tony is the first driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race, an IndyCar race, a USAC Triple Crown Championship and an NHRA Pro Event. The American Rebel Light Beer sponsorship of Tony Stewart Racing (tsrnitro.com) drivers Tony Stewart and Matt Hagan proudly celebrate the Stewart win as this history-making victory draws tremendous attention to the American Rebel Light sponsorship. The Stewart victory is also very emotional for the American Rebel team as we know how much this victory means to Tony and Leah personally.
“I haven’t been around the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series very long, but I realized it takes a lot to win one of these Top Fuel races,” said Tony Stewart. “In my career, I’ve never had to wait over a year to win a race. We always figured it out pretty quickly and we won. We needed this win. It’s been so stressful for everyone since Leah (Pruett – Stewart’s wife) nearly won the World Top Fuel Championship in 2023 when it came down to the final round of the whole season.”
Tony Stewart replaced Leah Pruett as the driver of the Tony Stewart Racing NHRA Top Fuel Dragster at the beginning of the 2024 season. Tony and Leah were married in 2021 and Leah asked Tony to drive her car in the Top Fuel series as the couple set out to start a family. Tony drove in the Top Alcohol series, a tier below Top Fuel, in 2023.
“When your wife wants to try to start a family and wants you to driver her car, what are you going to say?” continued Stewart. “We had a lot of changes for the team because my body weight is different. Car tubing is different, and it just takes time. It was frustrating as we just couldn’t get on a path to make consistent gains last year. Two years ago, I won my first NHRA national event in the Top Alcohol Dragster here at Las Vegas with McPhillips Racing, and now I win my first Top Fuel national event at the Strip. It’s pretty damn cool. I’ve been a motorsports fan my whole life, and I think we made racing history with the Top Fuel win. I’m not sure if there has ever been a driver to win a NASCAR Cup race, an IndyCar race, the USAC Triple Crown championship and an NHRA Pro event (Top Fuel). To do it with our team and our family was very emotional. When Leah brought Dom (their newborn son) up on stage in victory lane, my heart stopped. I got so emotional there. That is a feeling I have never had in my life before. The Four Wide setup is the equalizer for me. I’m used to racing with many cars around me. It’s tough for the guys who are not used to four cars racing at once. We can’t get to Charlotte fast enough with the next four-wide setup. I love the format.”
The next event on the NHRA Misson Foods Drag Racing Series schedule is the American Rebel Light NHRA 4-Wide Nationals April 25 – 27 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“I couldn’t be happier for Tony and Leah as I know how much the victory in Las Vegas means to them both,” said American Rebel CEO Andy Ross. “Our relationship started out as a sponsorship, turned into a friendship and now it’s family. Tony, Matt and Leah have been a big part of our incredible success opening up distributors for American Rebel Light Beer across the country. Various consultants told me opening up distributors was next to impossible, but American Rebel has proven them wrong because we have a real 12-year organic story of how we got here, and Tony, Matt and Leah’s support have poured patriotic fuel all over the fire we had already started. I can’t thank them enough for everything they’ve done.”
American Rebel is an associate sponsor on the Tony Stewart driven Top Fuel Dragster and the Matt Hagan driven Funny Car for all 20 races of the NHRA Mission Foods 2025 season as well as the primary sponsor of the Matt Hagan Funny Car for five races, including the American Rebel Light NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the primary sponsor of the Tony Stewart Top Fuel Dragster for one race during the 2025 season. Being a sponsor provides opportunities for vast exposure during the race broadcasts on Fox Sports, Fox Sports 1 (FS1) and Fox Sports 2 (FS2). Ratings for NHRA telecasts are very strong and visibility continues to expand through additional streaming options through NHRA.tv.
In addition to the strong television viewership of NHRA racing, NHRA has unveiled exciting opportunities for digital media and content creators for the 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season. Aiming to change the way influencers, content creators and digital media members experience drag racing, NHRA is working to expand its reach across social media platforms with its Cornwell Tools Burnout Box Content Creator Zone. This expansion and emphasis in the digital media space will significantly benefit American Rebel.
American Rebel has also benefitted from the relationship with Tony Stewart Racing through the social media reach of Tony Stewart, Matt Hagan and Leah Pruett. Tony Stewart has nearly 750,000 followers on X (@TonyStewart) and over 250,000 followers on Instagram (@tsrsmoke). Matt Hagan has nearly 150,000 followers on Instagram (@matthagan_fc) and Leah Pruett has nearly 400,000 followers on Instagram (@leah.pruett).
“Tony, Matt and Leah are such an important part of our story,” said Andy Ross. “Tony is a legendary NASCAR driver who may be the most versatile race car driver in history, having also driven in NASCAR, IndyCar, USAC, NHRA and just about anything with wheels. And Matt has 52 NHRA national event wins and is one of only four legendary Funny Car drivers to win four championships (John Force, Don Prudhomme and Kenny Bernstein are the others) and Leah has kicked in doors as a Top Fuel driver and she continues to provide unparalleled support for American Rebel at the track and on social media. Our distributors love our connection with Tony Stewart Racing as American Rebel Light Beer connects with our customers through this sponsorship.”
It’s been said that Andy Ross wrote the most on-brand drag racing song ever with his “Nitro Lightning” that he wrote for Matt Hagan. The song gets played at the track nearly every race weekend and even has been referenced on the Fox broadcasts. Andy has performed concerts at the Texas Motorplex and the Bradenton Motorsports Park after race events and is scheduled to perform this year at the American Rebel Light NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in Concord, NC.
“What’s more American Rebel than rock ‘n’ roll and drag racing? I love victory lane and bringing the party,” said Andy Ross. “Drag racing fans are the perfect demo for American Rebel Beer and we’re looking forward to continuing this relationship a long time.”
Primary sponsorship dates for American Rebel Beer on the Matt Hagan Funny Car are April 25 – 27 at the American Rebel Light NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in Concord, NC; June 20 – 22 at the Virginia NHRA Nationals at North Dinwiddle, VA; August 14 – 17 at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, MN; September 26 – 28 at the NHRA Midwest Nationals near St. Louis, MO; and October 30 – November 2 at the NHRA Nevada Nationals in Las Vegas, NV. American Rebel Beer will also be a primary sponsor for the Tony Stewart Top Fuel Dragster on September 26 – 28 at the NHRA Midwest Nationals near St. Louis, MO.
About American Rebel Light Beer
Produced in partnership with AlcSource, American Rebel Light Beer (americanrebelbeer.com) is a domestic premium light lager celebrated for its exceptional quality and patriotic values. It stands out as America’s Patriotic, God-Fearing, Constitution-Loving, National Anthem-Singing, Stand Your Ground Beer.
American Rebel Light is a Premium Domestic Light Lager Beer – All Natural, Crisp, Clean and Bold Taste with a Lighter Feel. With approximately 100 calories, 3.2 carbohydrates, and 4.3% alcoholic content per 12 oz serving, American Rebel Light Beer delivers a lighter option for those who love great beer but prefer a more balanced lifestyle. It’s all natural with no added supplements and importantly does not use corn, rice, or other sweeteners typically found in mass produced beers.
About Tony Stewart Racing
Headquartered in Brownsburg, Indiana, Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Nitro fields two entries in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series. After more than four decades of racing around in circles, Tony Stewart embarked on a straight and narrow path, albeit more than 300 mph. The championship-winning racecar driver who has successfully transitioned to being a championship-winner team owner, formed the TSR nitro team in 2021, with 2022 marking the team’s first season in competition. Matt Hagan pilots the Funny Car and Tony Stewart took over driving duties in 2024 for wife Leah Pruett in the Top Fuel dragster as they started a family. Hagan is a four-time Funny Car champion (2011, 2014, 2020 and 2023) from Christiansburg, Virginia. Stewart hails from Columbus, Indiana and earned his first Top Fuel victory at the 2025 NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas. He also won the 2024 NHRA Rookie of the Year title. Stewart finished second in the 2023 Top Alcohol Dragster championship standings.
About American Rebel Holdings, Inc.
American Rebel Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: AREB) has operated primarily as a designer, manufacturer and marketer of branded safes and personal security and self-defense products and has recently transitioned into the beverage industry through the introduction of American Rebel Beer. The Company also designs and produces branded apparel and accessories. To learn more, visit americanrebelbeer.com or americanrebel.com. For investor information, visit americanrebelbeer.com/investor-relations.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. American Rebel Holdings, Inc., (NASDAQ: AREB; AREBW) (the “Company,” “American Rebel,” “we,” “our” or “us”) desires to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is including this cautionary statement in connection with this safe harbor legislation. The words “forecasts” “believe,” “may,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “should,” “plan,” “could,” “target,” “potential,” “is likely,” “expect” and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements primarily on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, and financial needs. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from those in the forward-looking statements include benefits of a launch party, actual launch timing and availability of American Rebel Beer, success and availability of the promotional activities, our ability to effectively execute our business plan, and the Risk Factors contained within our filings with the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024. Any forward-looking statement made by us herein speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.
FREMONT, Calif., April 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Enovix Corporation (Nasdaq: ENVX), a global high-performance battery company, announced the appointment of Ryan Benton as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Mr. Benton brings over three decades of financial leadership experience. He previously held key roles at ASM International and served as CFO for multiple public companies including Silvaco and Exar Corporation.
Enovix CEO Dr. Raj Talluri added, “Ryan’s experience and transparent communication style make him an ideal leader for our finance organization and a strong voice in conveying our strategy to investors. As we get closer to achieving our top objective of commencing smartphone battery mass production, customer demand is solidifying, and we expect to see an important consumer product launch by the end of the year.”
Chairman T.J. Rodgers said, “Ryan Benton is the best CFO candidate I’ve interviewed in a couple of years. He understands that investor candor is the best course, even if you have some disappointment to report. For example, he would have said about our recent Korean acquisition: We bought the second half of a well-run Korean company (Routejade) for a great price, and they will make our anode and cathode electrode sheets much cheaper and with higher quality than our current suppliers. With the turmoil in tariffs right now, we have a very competent Korean supplier that is capable of adding millions in profitable revenue — an unexpected bonus.”
“I am thrilled to join Enovix,” said CFO Ryan Benton. “AI is transforming the consumer electronics industry and putting immense pressure on battery suppliers. Enovix is poised to rise to this challenge with its breakthrough architecture for silicon-anode batteries, semiconductor manufacturing culture and deep customer relationships.”
Ryan’s first public appearance as Enovix CFO will be during the company’s first quarter 2025 earnings call on Wednesday, April 30, after the close of the market. To join the call, participants must use the following link to register: https://enovix-q1-2025.open-exchange.net/. This link will also be available via the Investor Relations section of Enovix’s website at https://ir.enovix.com. Investors may also submit questions on the registration page that they would like addressed on the call by Enovix management. Mr. Benton will also represent Enovix at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference in Boston on May 14 and the William Blair Growth Stock Conference in Chicago on June 4.
About Enovix Enovix is on a mission to deliver high-performance batteries that unlock the full potential of technology products. Everything from IoT, mobile, and computing devices, to vehicles and headsets, needs a better battery. The company has developed an innovative, materials-agnostic approach to building a higher performing battery without compromising safety, and it partners with OEMs worldwide to usher in a new era of user experiences.
Enovix is headquartered in Silicon Valley with facilities in India, Korea and Malaysia. For more information visit www.enovix.com and follow the Company on LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, including but not limited to statements regarding the Company’s future performance, market opportunities driven by artificial intelligence, growth strategy, anticipated product launches and customer product commercialization plans, cost and quality improvements from supply chain initiatives, and the impact of executive leadership. These statements are based on current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Factors that may cause such differences include, among others, those described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent annual and quarterly reports. Enovix undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.
Investor Contact: Enovix Corporation Robert Lahey Email: ir@enovix.com
Media Contact: Bateman Agency for Enovix Kaelyn Attridge Email: enovix@bateman.agency
ESCONDIDO, Calif., April 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — One Stop Systems, Inc. (“We”, “OSS” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: OSS), a leader in rugged Enterprise Class compute for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and sensor processing at the edge, today issued a shareholder letter, which reviews the progress it made in 2024 and the Company’s expectations for 2025.
Dear Fellow Shareholders
We are excited to share the progress we made in 2024 and the opportunities ahead to profitably grow our business and create significant value for our shareholders. 2024 was a transformative year for OSS. We successfully executed a strategic transition that not only reshaped our business, but we also believe positioned us at the forefront of one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing markets—high-performance edge compute (HPeC) for AI, machine learning (ML), autonomy, and sensor fusion at the edge.
Our ability to adapt and innovate fueled sequential revenue growth for every quarter of 2024, expanded our order volumes, and strengthened our sales pipeline. As demand for intelligent, real-time processing continues to grow across industries—from defense to aerospace to industrial and commercial applications—OSS is well positioned to capitalize on these powerful market trends.
Since joining in June 2023, I have talked about a multi-year strategy aimed at producing significant growth within our OSS segment. Our efforts have been focused on three phases. During 2023 we successfully executed our first phase and strengthened our foundation by adding new management and board talent, and pivoting our strategy to pursue higher-margin, higher-growth opportunities across defense and commercial markets. These efforts developed a comprehensive go-to-market strategy, rebuilt our sales pipeline to over $1 billion, and reduced our exposure to legacy low margin, non-core markets.
With a proper foundation in place to support a larger business, throughout 2024 we executed against our second phase of transformation aimed at converting our pipeline to orders and increasing our competitive position more broadly across defense markets.
Looking at the progress of our second phase, during 2024 we created a new customer funded development revenue stream to provide more integrated solutions to our customers and establish OSS as a platform incumbent on large, multi-year programs. We believe these efforts will provide meaningful benefits to our business over the long term by contributing a higher mix of predictable recurring revenue and multi-year backlogs.
Customer funded development revenue grew by 118% in 2024 to $3.7 million. While still small numbers, this growth highlights our initial efforts to pursue programs that establish OSS in an incumbent position on key military and commercial applications. Development relationships are expected to take one to two years before leading to production orders. As a result, we expect certain development programs that we worked on during 2024 to transition to orders and sales in 2025. This includes commercial applications in datacenter, healthcare, and aerospace markets, combined with multiple opportunities across the U.S. Department of Defense.
Throughout 2024, we also experienced greater adoption within our OSS segment from both defense and commercial end markets. We continue to experience high levels of interest in our solutions and increasing requests for information, proposals and white papers, as customers look for technology partners like OSS to support their expanding and highly specialized needs. These trends helped grow our customer base and broaden our customer concentration during the year.
OSS segment growth in our defense market was from new and existing programs. We experienced demand from several programs within the U.S. Army, a renewal for the U.S. Navy P-8 program, a new HPeC solution for a U.S. intelligence agency and a new design win with a leading defense contractor in Asia for an autonomous maritime application.
Within the defense market, we continue to work on a rugged 360-degree Situational Awareness system for the U.S. Army. If the Army chooses to fund and field this system across one or multiple combat vehicles, we estimate the value of such an opportunity could exceed $200 million in production orders over a three-to-five-year period with additional opportunities for follow on logistics, support and tech refresh options
In our commercial end market, we experienced customer demand for our solutions from several sectors, including motorsport, autonomous trucking, commercial aerospace, and, importantly, the datacenter markets. We are pursuing a potential $200 million multi-year pipeline opportunity to provide our solutions within the composable infrastructure/datacenter market. In 2024, we announced an initial contract for 100 units with a datacenter customer. We expect our best-in-class solution will expand to multiple customers in 2025, leading to increased revenue potential for 2025 and beyond.
While the U.S. Army Situational Awareness or composable infrastructure/datacenter opportunities remain subject to fielding and funding decisions, they represent transformative opportunities that we are pursuing to significantly transform our OSS segment
Finally, after a weaker economy in Europe in 2024, our Bressner segment is off to a good start in 2025 with anticipated rising demand throughout the year. Our embedded position remains strong with our customers, and the programs we have pursued are aligned with our customers’ priorities. As a result, we currently expect the 2025 annual book-to-bill ratio for our OSS segment to be on the order of 1.2x. We believe a higher expected book-to-bill for 2025, on a base of higher annual revenue, showcases accelerating momentum underway for our HPeC and enterprise class compute solutions.
We anticipate consolidated revenue of $59 to $61 million for the full year of 2025. This includes expected OSS segment revenue of approximately $30 million, representing over 20% year-over-year growth in the OSS segment. In addition, the Company expects to be EBITDA break-even for the full year of 2025. It is important to note that we expect revenue and profitability to improve at a higher rate in the second half of 2025 based on current trends and our expanding sales pipeline.
Our solutions remain in demand and our opportunities across our commercial and defense markets are only increasing, despite recent economic and trade policies that have increased the level of global economic uncertainty over the near term. We are monitoring the potential impact tariffs may have on our supply chain. In addition, we are beginning to see opportunities emerge as certain of our product lines, specifically in our commercial markets, have the potential to be more competitive against foreign competition.
As we enter the third year of our transformation, we are proud of our team and what we have accomplished so far and are excited to enter this next phase of accelerating growth and improving profitability.
We believe the investments we made in 2023 and 2024 have established a solid foundation for scaling our business and capturing transformative revenue opportunities. We believe we have the right products, the right team, and the right strategy to meet the increasing demand for rugged, enterprise-class computing solutions across defense and commercial markets.
On behalf of the OSS team and Board of Directors, we extend my sincere appreciation to our employees for their dedication, our customers for their trust, and our shareholders for their continued support. Our commitment remains steadfast: to deliver innovative solutions, drive sustainable growth, and enhance shareholder value.
Respectfully,
Mike Knowles President and CEO
Ken Potashner Chairman
About One Stop Systems One Stop Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: OSS) is a leader in AI enabled solutions for the demanding ‘edge’. OSS designs and manufactures Enterprise Class compute and storage products that enable rugged AI, sensor fusion and autonomous capabilities without compromise. These hardware and software platforms bring the latest data center performance to harsh and challenging applications, whether they are on land, sea or in the air.
OSS products include ruggedized servers, compute accelerators, flash storage arrays, and storage acceleration software. These specialized compact products are used across multiple industries and applications, including autonomous trucking and farming, as well as aircraft, drones, ships and vehicles within the defense industry.
OSS solutions address the entire AI workflow, from high-speed data acquisition to deep learning, training and large-scale inference, and have delivered many industry firsts for industrial OEM and government customers.
As the fastest growing segment of the multi-billion-dollar edge computing market, AI enabled solutions require-and OSS delivers-the highest level of performance in the most challenging environments without compromise.
OSS products are available directly or through global distributors. For more information, go to www.onestopsystems.com. You can also follow OSS on X, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Statements OSS cautions you that statements in this press release that are not a description of historical facts are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding OSS’ expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future, and can be identified by forward-looking words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “continue,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “should,” “will” and “would” or similar words. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding future financial and operating results, OSS’ plans, objectives, expectations and intentions, and other statements that are not historical facts. These statements are based on OSS’ current beliefs and expectations. The inclusion of forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by OSS or its partners that any of our plans or expectations will be achieved, including but not limited to, our ability to expand our product offerings and further penetrate our target markets, future demand for AI/ML integrations, and our business strategies. Actual results may differ from those set forth in this press release due to the risk and uncertainties inherent in our business, including risks described in our prior press releases and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including under the heading “Risk Factors” in our latest Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent filings with the SEC. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, and the company undertakes no obligation to revise or update this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement, which is made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Media Contacts: Robert Kalebaugh One Stop Systems, Inc. Tel (858) 518-6154 Email contact
Investor Relations: Andrew Berger Managing Director SM Berger & Company, Inc. Tel (216) 464-6400 Email contact
Geopolitical tensions and domestic challenges are accelerating China’s push toward technological self-sufficiency. As US sanctions intensify, China is doubling down on innovation across artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, robotics, and 5G. Strategic investments in critical minerals, digital infrastructure, and automation are positioning China to lead the next industrial revolution, reshaping global supply chains and creating a parallel tech ecosystem independent of Western influence, observes GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
GlobalData’s latest Strategic Intelligence report, “China Tech,” discusses the issue of whether China will lead the world into the Fourth Industrial Revolution by 2030, spurred towards greater self-reliance by the imposition of increasingly stringent US tariffs and sanctions. It looks at how things may play out for China in 14 of the key next-generation technology markets, namely semiconductors, 5G, robotics, consumer electronics, electric vehicles and energy storage, space technology, military technology, high-performance computing, biotechnology, alternative energy, autonomous vehicles, AI, smart cities, and internet platforms
Isabel Al-Dhahir, Principal Analyst, Strategic Intelligence at GlobalData, comments: “One of China’s most prescient early moves was its upstream investment in mining and processing various critical minerals. This strategic decision has allowed the country to secure a pivotal position in global supply chains. China has seen consolidation of its midstream and downstream capabilities through investment into end-use products and the build-out of digital infrastructure to support the evolution of emerging technologies”.
Beyond the influence of US restrictions, China’s technological landscape has been significantly molded by internal factors, particularly its aging demographics and contracting workforce. In response, China has championed using robots to mitigate the impact of these demographic challenges. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) reports that, as of 2023, China boasts 470 robots per 10,000 workers—a figure that has doubled since 2019, placing it third in the global rankings, just behind South Korea and Singapore. Both of these nations are similarly grappling with the implications of aging populations.
Al-Dhahir continues: “AI and robotics are central to China’s growth strategy. China is the world’s manufacturing hub but faces rising labor costs and a shrinking labor force. Japan dominates the robotics supply-side market. However, China has articulated objectives to strengthen its home-grown R&D.”
Another item high on China’s agenda is the further development and deployment of 5G networks and, by the late decade, the creation of almost zero-latency 6G wireless networks. This vision includes deploying a vast number of connected devices enhanced by real-time sensor data, leading to the creation of ultra-smart cities and digital ecosystems.
Al-Dhahir concludes: “China is engaged in every significant technological frontier of the 21st century. The attempts to impede its advancement have, paradoxically, only hastened its progress. For some time, China has sought to expand its influence across developing markets, financing infrastructure projects and making recipient countries dependent on its technologies. This trend will likely continue, with further fragmentation of global supply chains and even the creation of separate technospheres with competing standards.”
Proposed investment in the future of Dundee City Council’s waste and recycling operations is set to go before councillors.
Three reports are to be considered by the next meeting of the Fair Work, Economic Growth and Infrastructure Committee.
A sourcing strategy is being put forward for the procurement process to purchase wheeled bins, euro containers, skips and specialist containers for neighbourhood recycling points for the next year.
Costs of £150,000 are outlined, with approval sought to proceed through the Scotland Excel procurement service.
Councillors will hear that the annual purchase is required for new build properties and new commercial customers amongst others, as well as replacing damaged items.
Another report focusing on recycling presents a sourcing strategy for the procurement process for the treatment of mixed scrap metal, mixed recycling: metals, plastics and cartons, as well as paper and cardboard.
Current contracts for the three areas of recycling total around £470,000.
New contracts would start later in 2025 and would involve the reprocessing of over 7,500 tonnes of material a year.
Meanwhile, the committee is being asked to approve the purchase of specialist equipment for Baldovie Household Waste Recycling Centre.
The £99,722 cost will be covered by money received from the Scottish Government’s Recycling Improvement Fund, which is being used to maximise reuse, recycling and carry out site upgrades at the city’s two recycling centres.
The roll packer will be used for compacting waste and recycling contained in open skips. High compaction will be possible, and this will result in fewer vehicle and skip movements, leading to better operational efficiency.
Committee convener Cllr Steven Rome said: “These reports show our commitment to improve our recycling and reuse rates and make it easier for more people to play a part in our recycling effort.”
Climate, Environment & Biodiversity Convener Cllr Heather Anderson said: “As a council, we have declared a climate emergency with waste being one of the key themes within that declaration and the subsequent Dundee Climate Action Plan.
“To make a real impact, it is important that we continue to improve the reduction, reuse and recycling of waste and resources in the city. So, it is vitally important that we keep investing for the future.”
AUSTIN, Texas, April 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Electrify Expo, North America’s largest electric vehicle (EV) and technology festival, is seeing major shifts in e-bike consumer trends as it gears up for another record-breaking year. With e-bike adoption accelerating even amidst a volatile market, the festival’s position as the intersection between a demo experience and a sales transaction, Electrify Expo is in a unique position to forecast important shifts and trends that can help E-bike manufacturers, dealers and retailers adapt to changing market conditions.
Garnering over 100,000 thousand e-bike demo rides in 2024, brands that exhibit at Electrify Expo experience real-time feedback and sales tractions unlike anywhere else.
“As the largest electric vehicle festival in North America, we’re seeing firsthand how consumer behavior is shaping the future of e-bikes,” said BJ Birtwell, Founder and CEO of Electrify Expo. “Each season, Electrify Expo drives thousands of e-bike sales in the U.S. because we provide consumers with an immersive, hands-on demo experience that directly influences their purchase decisions.”
Fat Tire E-Bikes are Leading the Charge Fat tire e-bikes have surged in popularity, appealing to riders looking for versatility and stability. These models are particularly well-suited for all-terrain adventures, including sand, snow, gravel and rough trails. Consumers are drawn to their ability to handle diverse conditions while providing a smoother and more comfortable ride. At Electrify Expo, these bikes have consistently attracted large crowds, with many first-time buyers opting for fat tire models due to their durability and ease of use.
Cargo Bikes Replacing Cars For Some Shoppers With Short Commutes More urban commuters are making the switch from traditional vehicles to cargo e-bikes, a trend that continues to grow among Electrify Expo attendees. These bikes are becoming an essential transportation solution for families and city dwellers looking to reduce car dependency. Whether used for school drop-offs, grocery runs, or short commutes, cargo e-bikes offer a practical, eco-friendly and cost-effective alternative to cars. With the rise of bike-friendly infrastructure in cities, this category is expected to see even greater adoption into 2025.
Class 2 E-Bikes are in High Demand Consumers are increasingly seeking e-bikes that offer more than just pedal assist, fueling the demand for Class 2 e-bikes equipped with throttle control. These bikes provide riders with the flexibility to either pedal or engage the throttle for an effortless ride. Particularly popular among first-time buyers, Class 2 e-bikes appeal to those who want a more accessible and user-friendly option. Electrify Expo has seen a noticeable uptick in test rides and purchases of Class 2 models, demonstrating their growing market dominance.
The $1,500 – $3,000 Price Sweet Spot Affordability remains a key factor in consumer purchasing decisions, and the $1,000 – $3,000 price range has become the sweet spot for first-time e-bike buyers. This segment balances cost with high-quality components, offering consumers reliability without breaking the bank. At Electrify Expo, this price range has consistently driven strong sales, as many attendees prefer to test ride multiple models before making a purchase. With ongoing advancements in battery technology and motor efficiency, brands operating in this space are expected to see continued growth into 2025.
“We started GhostCat Bikes with a simple goal: to deliver high-performance e-bikes at a best-value price point—between $2,000 and $3,000—without compromising on performance, quality or customer service,” said Kevin Michaud, founder of GhostCat. “We’re proud to open the door to a broader market, making premium e-biking accessible for more people to enjoy.”
Market Consolidation in the E-Bike Industry The e-bike market is experiencing a wave of consolidation, with larger brands acquiring smaller competitors and increasing their market share. As the industry matures, dominant players are emerging, leading to a more streamlined market with fewer but stronger competitors. This trend is creating opportunities for well-established brands to expand their reach while making it more challenging for smaller startups to compete. Electrify Expo provides a crucial platform for both emerging and established brands to showcase their products and gain visibility in an evolving industry.
Electrify Expo invites e-bike manufacturers, retailers, and industry innovators to demonstrate their latest products at upcoming events. Don’t miss the chance to be part of the movement that’s electrifying the future of mobility.
Media interested in attending may request credentials by emailing ee@skyya.com.
About Electrify Expo Electrify Expo is North America’s largest electric vehicle (EV) and technology festival, where consumers come to shop and experience all things electric. The festival showcases the industry’s leading brands and exciting startups through hands-on activations, demos and experiences spanning EVs, micromobility, solar energy, charging solutions, powersports, automotive aftermarket, and connected home technology, providing attendees with immersive learning opportunities and memorable interactions. From high-powered demo courses to engaging education zones, Electrify Expo offers a unique festival vibe for consumers to reshape what they think they know about EVs. In 2025, Electrify Expo’s nationwide tour will visit Orlando, Phoenix, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. To stay up to date on the latest news and announcements from Electrify Expo, visit www.electrifyexpo.com and follow on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
OGDEN, Utah, April 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — TAB Bank closed a $4 million asset-based lending (ABL) and $2.5 million equipment loan with HydroEdge Solutions, a leading water transfer and fluid management services provider for the energy industry. This capital will allow HydroEdge Solutions to expand its operations, furthering its commitment to efficiency, safety and sustainability.
HydroEdge Solutions, based in Canonsburg, PA, specializes in delivering fluid management solutions, ensuring the seamless transfer of fluids from the source to the destination without leaks, interruptions or incidents. The company’s services include automation, trucking and water transfer with a focus on safety and environmental responsibility.
“We are excited to partner with HydroEdge Solutions in providing tailored financial solutions to support its growth,” said Bill Bahls, Vice President of Business Development at TAB Bank. “TAB Bank specializes in supporting innovative companies like HydroEdge with a combination of working capital and equipment financing. The right balance of financing types allows companies to acquire the necessary equipment while maintaining the liquidity they need for operational and scalable growth.”
TAB Bank structured the deal as an accounts receivable (AR)-only ABL facility, with an initial funding of $4.4 million—comprised of both ABL and new equipment funding lines. This working capital and equipment financing will support HydroEdge Solutions’ growth trajectory, strengthening operational stability and supporting expansion.
“We have really enjoyed working with the team from TAB Bank,” said John Folino, CFO of Myers Water Transfer, LLC dba HydroEdge Solutions. “They have been instrumental in crafting a credit solution unique to our company’s needs that will prove to be vital as we scale. We look forward to continuing to work with them in the months and years to come as a trusted financial partner.”
TAB Bank offers customized financial solutions to small and midsized businesses across various industries, specializing in asset-based lending, equipment financing and working capital solutions. By partnering with companies like HydroEdge Solutions, TAB Bank reaffirms its mission—building value by providing bold financial solutions that lift and empower.
About TAB Bank At TAB Bank, our mission is to unlock dreams with bold financial solutions that empower individuals and businesses nationwide. We are committed to making financial success accessible to everyone through our innovative banking products. Our dedication drives us to continuously improve, ensuring that we meet the evolving needs of our clients with excellence and agility. For over 25 years, we have remained steadfast in offering tailored, technology-enabled solutions designed to simplify and enhance the banking experience.
For more information about how we can help you achieve your financial dreams, visit www.TABBank.com.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Press release
UK backs businesses to trade carbon credits and unlock finance
British businesses and organisations better supported to trade carbon credits as part of new work to establish the UK as the global hub for green finance.
Britain is back in the business of climate leadership, leading a new growth market and cementing UK as the green finance capital of the world
voluntary carbon and nature markets to unlock new revenue streams for UK businesses delivering on Plan for Change
UK work will boost opportunities for businesses at home and abroad to unlock private finance for the climate crisis
British businesses and organisations will be better supported to trade carbon credits as part of new work to establish the UK as the global hub for green finance – driving growth and investment while tackling the climate crisis through the Plan for Change.
Today the government has launched plans to strengthen voluntary carbon and nature markets which can help leverage the finance needed to address the scale of the climate emergency whilst diversifying revenue streams for British businesses.
These markets support the trading of carbon credits, where a business can reduce their emissions by investing in environmentally friendly projects such as deploying electric vehicles, reducing deforestation, removing carbon dioxide through carbon dioxide or planting trees.
Currently these markets are not realising their full potential, with a lack of clarity among businesses and organisations on how they can be used, and some poor practice impacting their effectiveness in delivering meaningful climate action and economic growth. There have been widespread calls from businesses and organisations for greater clarity in how to use these markets as part of their plans to reach net zero.
In response, the UK is establishing a global framework to build trust and confidence in carbon and nature credit trading, with a set of principles to guide and support businesses on how to use carbon credits that provide environmental benefits. This includes making clear what a good credit is, ensuring they are delivering environmental benefits and encouraging businesses to fully disclose what they are being used for in annual sustainability reporting.
These markets are estimated to be worth up to $250 billion by 2050 for carbon markets, and $69 billion for nature markets, under the right conditions. By increasing confidence in these markets, British businesses – including farmers and land managers – will be well positioned to seize the economic rewards by creating new revenue streams and investment opportunities.
These plans will further strengthen the UK as the green finance capital of the world – leading the way in a new growth market, unlocking private finance for climate change and backing businesses on the clean energy transition.
Positive climate action can lead to significant growth opportunities for UK businesses with the UK seeing £43.7 billion of private investment into UK’s clean energy industries since July. Recent figures from the CBI shows that the net zero economy grew 3 times faster than the economy as a whole last year, with employment in the sector up by over 10%.
Climate Minister Kerry McCarthy said:
Building up trust in carbon and nature markets is crucial to their success in driving meaningful climate action and real, lasting change for the environment.
The UK is determined to spearhead global efforts to raise integrity in these markets so they can channel the finance needed to tackle the climate crisis and speed up the global clean energy transition.
These principles will cement the UK as the global hub for green finance and carbon markets. This is an opportunity to deliver on the climate crisis and drive investment and growth in the UK as part of our Plan for Change.
Nature Minister Mary Creagh said:
Nature underpins everything. Voluntary carbon and nature markets will be an important tool to crowd in private finance to protect our precious peatlands, important habitats and rare species.
It is why increasing trust in these markets will ensure that they benefit both people and our planet, ensuring money flows towards genuine environmental improvement projects and creates new sources of finance for farmers and land managers in the UK.
Carbon credits are tradable units that represent the reduction or removal of greenhouse gases emissions from the atmosphere. One credit typically represents one metric tonne of CO2 or its equivalent. Companies or individuals purchase these credits from project developers who have generated them through activities like reforestation, cleaner energy, or other emission reduction projects. By buying the credits, they are financing projects that would not otherwise happen, in addition to steps that they are taking to reduce their own emissions.
Businesses need clarity and confidence to invest in voluntary carbon and nature markets that help meet global climate goals. This consultation from the UK government plays a vital role in delivering this.
VCMI welcomes the proposal to recognise our Claims Code as international best practice, as well as the global leadership shown by the UK’s proposal to incentivise greater action by companies to address their unabated Scope 3 emissions through the inclusion of our forthcoming Scope 3 Action Code of Practice. The Code of Practice will enable companies to go further, faster and with integrity on climate action.
The proposals in the consultation align with the UK government’s new approach to ensure regulation supports growth. The consultation explores the recommendation in the recently published Corry Review to launch a Nature Market Accelerator to bring coherence to nature markets and accelerate investment.
The consultation will be live for 12 weeks, seeking responses from industry organisations and the public:
Onel Masardule, Co-Chair, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Engagement Forum, Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) said:
For the voluntary carbon market to succeed, it must respect the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and make us true partners – rather than just stakeholders – in the market. ICVCM’s The Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) define what high integrity carbon credits should look like: ensuring that new carbon projects have robust social and environmental safeguards, operate with the free, prior and informed consent and are transparent about how they share benefits. I welcome the UK government’s proposal to endorse the use of CCP-labelled credits and encourage other governments to do the same. This will provide clarity on what high integrity means to enable the market to scale to accelerate climate action and deliver positive environmental and social outcomes at the local level.
Notes to editors
The 6 integrity principles being consulted on are:
suppliers should ensure credits meet recognised high integrity criteria that ensure credits deliver environmental benefits
buyers should measure and disclose the planned use of credits as part of sustainability reporting
users should consider how credits feed into wider transition plans that align with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement
claims involving the use of credits should accurately communicate an organisation or product’s overall environmental impact, including by using appropriate and accurate terminology
market participants should cooperate with others to support the growth of high integrity markets
credits should only be used in addition to ambitious climate action within value chains
Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –
The program of the visit of the representative delegation of the Republic of Tatarstan to the Polytechnic included the signing of several cooperation agreements. The rais of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov and the vice-governor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Knyaginin participated in the solemn ceremony.
The cooperation between the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Tatarstan and Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University will contribute to the effective development of higher education in both subjects of the Federation, the training of highly qualified specialists, continuous professional development of workers, and the integration of professional education and science. The basis for achieving these goals should be joint relevant scientific, technical, educational, innovative, investment, production, and socio-economic projects and programs. The document was signed by the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Tatarstan Ilsur Khadiullin and the Rector of SPbPU Andrey Rudskoy.
The agreement provides for the unification of the partners’ efforts for the comprehensive development of a system for training scientific and engineering personnel, the involvement of students and young scientists in real scientific research and experimental design developments, and the creation of a new material base for the implementation of educational programs and scientific research projects.
Other areas of cooperation include: modernization of the education system, improvement of the quality of educational services, advanced training of managers and teaching staff of educational institutions of the Republic of Tatarstan; popularization of science, development of scientific and technical creativity of young people, etc.
Innopolis University has also joined the cooperation with the Polytechnic University. Having signed the agreement, SPbPU Rector Andrey Rudskoy and Innopolis University Director Iskander Bariyev expressed their desire for strategic interaction between the universities in the field of methodological, educational and scientific activities. The agreement provides for the modernization of current educational programs and the development of new ones, including online ones. An important part of the cooperation will be joint scientific research, including the creation of a specialized laboratory for the development of composite materials for robotic systems and unmanned aircraft. Other areas of cooperation include: organizing academic mobility for teachers and students; popularization of scientific research; joint design, technological and experimental work in the field of robotics and mechatronics, the search for and design of new materials with specified properties, additive technologies, artificial intelligence; participation in the audit of Russian companies and enterprises, including an assessment of the level of their digital maturity, robotics and digital transformation; organization and holding of conferences, meetings, exhibitions and other events on current issues of industrial robotics, etc.
Almetyevsk State Technological University “Higher School of Oil” has signed an agreement with the Polytechnic University to work together on innovative methods of engineering education, conduct scientific research and implement scientific, educational and creative projects, including within the framework of the federal project “Advanced Engineering Schools”. The document was signed by Andrey Rudskoy and Rector Alexander Dyakonov.
Kazan National Research Technical University named after A. N. Tupolev-KAI has become a strategic partner of Polytechnic University. The agreement signed by Acting Rector Kirill Okhotkin and Rector of SPbPU Andrey Rudskoy provides for joint activities in scientific, educational, research and innovation spheres and support for large-scale scientific and industrial projects, including within the framework of advanced engineering schools. The partners agreed to use their scientific infrastructure and combine competencies to implement joint projects in such priority areas as: composite material structures; additive, laser and plasma technologies; information and control systems; radio photonics; quantum technologies; electromagnetic compatibility; microelectronics; digital modeling of elements of manned and unmanned transport systems; artificial intelligence.
“We have very close ties with the Republic of Tatarstan through the Academy of Sciences,” commented Vladimir Knyagin, Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg. “For our St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Tatar colleagues are not only partners, but also, in many cases, cooperators in research. There is an exchange of personnel, research topics, and knowledge. And the fact that today we have the head of the republic testifies to the official recognition of the importance of such interaction.”
After the signing ceremony, another ceremonial procedure took place — the awarding of representatives of the Polytechnic University. For fruitful cooperation and significant contribution to strengthening the socio-economic potential of the Republic of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov presented medals “100 years of the formation of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic” to Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation Alexey Borovkov, Director of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Transport Anatoly Popovich and Academic Secretary of SPbPU Dmitry Karpov.
During the visit, the delegation of Tatarstan visited several specialized scientific and production sites of the Polytechnic University. Thus, in the Laboratory of Light Materials and Structures, the guests got acquainted with the technologies of additive electric arc growth and friction stir welding. Director of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Transport Anatoly Popovich presented the competencies of SPbPU in the field of large-scale 3D metal printing, spoke about the equipment used, and demonstrated product samples. The partners also saw the advanced developments of the Polytechnic University in the field of additive laser technologies, visitedNetwork engineering center and other workshops.
In the experimental design bureau of the Advanced Engineering School of SPbPU “Digital Engineering” (OKB PISH), guests from Tatarstan got acquainted with breakthrough developments and research in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), aircraft manufacturing, engine and rocket engineering, as well as robotics, implemented using approaches to systemic digital engineering based on the Digital Platform for the Development and Application of Digital Twins CML-Bench®.
Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation of SPbPU, Head of the Advanced Engineering School of SPbPU “Digital Engineering” Alexey Borovkov presented to the guests a line of multifunctional devices – a family of electric unmanned aerial vehicles “Snegir”: the “Snegir-1” model and its improved version VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing – vertical takeoff and landing) “Snegir-1.5”. Alexey Ivanovich emphasized that the development of the UAV “Snegir-1.5” was carried out using virtual test benches and testing grounds, as well as using the domestic Digital platform CML-Bench®, which made it possible to optimize the design methods of unmanned aircraft systems and their components. The project is being implemented within the framework of the federal initiative “Development, standardization and serial production of unmanned aircraft systems and components” of the national project “Unmanned aircraft systems”, which was launched in accordance with the Strategy for the development of unmanned aviation of the Russian Federation until 2030 and for the future until 2035.
Alexey Borovkov noted that leading specialists of the Advanced Engineering School of SPbPU “Digital Engineering” are developing technologies and a demonstrator of a software package for the automated design of electric propeller-motor groups of unmanned aerial vehicles, and demonstrated the results of the development and manufacture of a prototype of the CML_03 electric motor for unmanned aerial vehicles with improved technical characteristics. The development is based on multi-criteria optimization methods and interdisciplinary calculation methods.
Speaking about the promising projects of the SPbPU Ecosystem of Technological Development, Aleksey Borovkov focused on the strategic tasks planned and already implemented jointly with the partner of the SPbPU – the scientific institution “Engineering and Design Center for Support of Operation of Space Technology” to create tooling kits and quality control for the manufacture of tank structures of the Angara family of launch vehicles using advanced technologies. In addition, the vice-rector announced the start of a project to create a prototype of the CML-Aeroplane, where the key task is multi-criteria optimization of the design taking into account aerodynamics, flight dynamics, strength, fuel efficiency and cost.
As part of the project activities of the structural divisions of the SPbPU Technological Development Ecosystem, a scientific and technological reserve has been formed that allows us to carry out cross-industry technology transfer and accelerate the design of complex and new products thanks to the CML-Bench® Digital Platform, which stores information on solving similar problems, concluded Alexey Ivanovich.
The guests were interested in the activities of the Student Design Bureau (SDB), which operates within the structure of the SPbPU Advanced Engineering School Design Bureau. SDB is a unique educational and practical platform where students, under the guidance of university teachers and specialists from industrial partners, acquire basic engineering competencies through participation in real R&D, and also have the opportunity to implement their own initiatives in the field of technological creativity. As an example, Alexey Borovkov cited the development of the SPbPU Advanced Engineering School student team CML®-Bots – the combat robot “Laska”. This project became the winner of the International Robot Fighting Championship in India in April 2025 and a number of Russian student competitions earlier.
“The Battle of Robots is a prestigious championship where engineers compete in creating the most effective combat vehicles,” noted Alexey Ivanovich. “Our students not only achieve victories, but also constantly improve the design, deepening their knowledge in robotics, mechanics and physics. The acquired skills allow them to find non-standard, interdisciplinary solutions to complex engineering problems, which is extremely important for future professional activities.”
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Sadly, a 27-year-old woman has died and a 32-year-old man is in a serious condition after a two-vehicle crash on Johnston Road St Leonards, in Launceston this evening.The crash occurred on Johnston Road, St Leonards about 5.20pm. The woman was the driver and the man a passenger of a Mazda sedan which collided with a Subaru wagon. Luckily the sole female driver of the Subaru was not physically injured in the crash.Upon police arrival, CPR was provided to the woman however sadly, she died at the scene. Our thoughts are with the woman’s family and loved ones at this difficult time.The man was flown to the Royal Hobart Hospital in a serious condition.Police and emergency services remain on the scene, with Johnston Road remaining closed to allow crash scene investigations to be conducted.Police are calling for witnesses to the crash to come forward.Anyone with dash cam footage or information should contact Police on 131444 or report anonymously to Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or crimestopperstas.com.auA report will be prepared for the Coroner.
Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services
The Northern Territory Police Force has arrested five adults and seized a large quantity of kava in the East Arnhem Region.
On Wednesday 16 April 2025, police received intelligence of a large quantity of kava expected to be transported to Ramingining and Gapuwiyak.
Dog Operations Unit (DOU) coordinated a response, creating a cordoned area to intercept the alleged offenders along the Stuart Highway. They subsequently evaded police and returned in the direction of Katherine.
Additional resources were then deployed from Katherine including, the DOU with Patrol Dog Boss and Drug Dog Rambo and their handlers, Specialist Response Division, Territory Safety Division, and the National Substance Abuse Intelligence Desk.
Two vehicles were apprehended on the Stuart Highway and officers conducted a lawful search, locating several bottles of spirits, 250g of cannabis and 121kg of Kava.
Two females and three males, aged between 47 and 59, were charged with:
Possess commercial quantity kava
Supply commercial quantity kava
Supply dangerous drug, schedule 2 to indigenous community
Senior Sergeant Meacham King said, “This operation demonstrates the ongoing commitment of the DOU in disrupting the flow of destructive substances into vulnerable communities.
“We will continue to target individuals who facilitate the illegal supply of regulated substances.
“This was an excellent collaboration between all our divisions, and I would like to thank all the officers involved in the swift action and apprehensions.”
A scrub jay perches on a branch near the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 22, 2020. Kennedy shares space with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to more than 65 amphibian and reptile, 25 mammal, 117 fish, and 330 bird species. At the time this photo was taken, the NASA “meatball” logo – in the background here – on the Vehicle Assembly Building was being repainted. This iconic building is where the Artemis launch vehicles are stacked and processed in preparation for future missions to the Moon. Image credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky
Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
Hong Kong updates methodology for compiling greenhouse gas emission inventory and releases emission inventory for 2023 Since 2013, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has been compiling its GHG emission inventory based on the Global Warming Potential (GWP) values provided in the Second Assessment Report (AR2) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). As decided by the UNFCCC at the 27th Conference of the Parties in 2022, GWP values set out in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) shall be used to calculate GHG emission inventory by no later than the end of 2024.
In compliance with the requirement of the UNFCCC, the Government has used the AR5’s GWP values to compile the 2023 GHG emission inventory and update previous GHG emission figures to reflect annual variations and long-term trends.
Based on the calculation using AR5’s GWP values, Hong Kong’s total GHG emissions in 2023 amounted to approximately 34.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e), representing a decrease of about 20 per cent compared to 2005 levels and a decrease of about 25 percent from the peak emissions in 2014. The per capita GHG emissions in 2023 reached a new low since 1990, at approximately 4.58 tonnes CO2-e. It is nearly 30 per cent lower than those in 2005 and 2014, and is about a quarter of that of the United States and 60 per cent of that of the European Union. The carbon intensity was about 0.012 kilograms of CO2-e per Hong Kong dollar of GDP, representing a decrease of about 46 per cent compared to 2005.
The three main sources of GHG emissions in Hong Kong remain to be electricity generation (61 per cent), transport (18 per cent), and waste management (8 per cent). With the gradual replacement of coal with natural gas and zero-carbon energy for electricity generation, popularisation of electric vehicles, decrease in municipal solid waste quantity and increase in landfill gas recovery and utilisation (for energy production) in Hong Kong, GHG emissions from electricity generation, transport, and waste management have declined by approximately about 32 per cent, 7 per cent, and 10 per cent, respectively, compared to 2014.
To align with the country’s “dual carbon” target to achieve the peak of carbon emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060, the Government will continue to implement the four major decarbonisation strategies, namely, net-zero electricity generation, energy saving and green buildings, green transport and waste reduction, outlined in Hong Kong’s Climate Action Plan 2050, to reduce Hong Kong’s carbon emissions by half from the 2005 levels before 2035 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2050.
Headline: MGCS Project Company GmbH (MPC) established in Cologne
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Monday, 14 April 2025 – The next step has now been taken in the Franco-German armaments project Main Ground Combat System (MGCS). On the basis of the approval by the German Federal Cartel Office, KNDS Deutschland, KNDS France, Rheinmetall Landsysteme and Thales legally incorporated the ‘MGCS Project Company GmbH (MPC)’ on 10 April 2025 in Cologne. Dipl. Ing. Dipl. Wirt. Ing. and Colonel (G.S. German Armed Forces Reserve) Stefan Gramolla was appointed managing director.
The founding of the company marks a further significant step in the MGCS project. After the upcoming negotiation of a contract with the Federal Office for Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support of the Bundeswehr (BAAINBw), which is acting on behalf of the two nations through a Franco-German Combined Project Team (CPT), this project company will be responsible for implementing the next phase of the MGCS programme as the industrial prime contractor. In particular, it will consolidate the concept and the main technological pillars of the system.
Launched at the initiative of the French and German governments, the MGCS project aims to replace the Leopard 2 and Leclerc main battle tanks with a multi-platform ground combat system by 2040.
About KNDS:
KNDS is the result of the association of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) and Nexter, two of the leading European manufacturers of military land systems based in Germany and France.
KNDS forms a Group of more than 10,000 employees, with a 2024 turnover of 3.8 billion euro, an order backlog of around 23.5 billion euro and incoming orders of 11.2 billion euro. The range of its products includes main battle tanks, armored vehicles, artillery systems, weapons systems, ammunition, robotics, military bridges, customer services, battle management systems, training solutions, protection solutions and a wide range of equipment.
The formation of KNDS represents the beginning of consolidation in land defense systems industry in Europe. The strategic alliance between KMW (now KNDS Deutschland) and Nexter (now KNDS France) enhances both groups’ competitiveness and international positions, as well as their ability to meet the needs of their respective national army. In addition, it offers to its European and NATO customers the opportunity of increased standardization and interoperability for their defense equipment, with a dependable industrial base.
Rheinmetall AG of Duesseldorf, a listed company, is a leading international defence contractor and a driver of future-oriented technological and industrial innovation in civil markets. With over 31,000 employees and 171 sites worldwide, Rheinmetall generated sales of €9.8 billion in 2024. With its technologies, products and systems, the company creates the indispensable basis for peace, freedom and sustainable development: security. Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH is part of the Rheinmetall Division Vehicle Systems Europe and is one of the leading land system manufacturers.
Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.
The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies.
Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.
Source: International Monetary Fund – IMF (video statements)
The Data for Decisions Fund—or D4D—is the IMF’s main multi-partner vehicle for providing statistics training and technical assistance to developing economies, especially low- and lower middle-income countries as well as fragile and conflict-affected states. The 2025 Spring Meetings mark the launch of phase II of the fund, with potentially additional contributions. This high-level event, featuring IMF’s Deputy Managing Director Bo Li, showcases the success and impact of capacity development under D4D phase I and highlights the new areas and innovative approaches to be introduced under phase II. Speakers will include high-level representatives of the beneficiary and donor countries.
Details 2025-04-15 President Lai meets delegation led by Tuvalu Deputy Prime Minister Panapasi Nelesone On the afternoon of April 15, President Lai Ching-te met with a delegation led by Tuvalu Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economic Development Panapasi Nelesone and his wife. In remarks, President Lai thanked Tuvalu for its staunch and long-term backing of Taiwan’s international participation. The president said he looks forward to our nations deepening bilateral ties in such areas as agriculture, medicine, education, and information and communications technology and working together toward greater peace, prosperity, and development in the Pacific region. A translation of President Lai’s remarks follows: I extend a very warm welcome to Deputy Prime Minister Nelesone and Madame Corinna Ituaso Laafai as they lead this delegation to Taiwan. Our distinguished guests are the first delegation from Tuvalu that I have received at the Presidential Office this year. During my visit to Tuvalu last year, I met and exchanged views with Deputy Prime Minister Nelesone and the ministers present. I am delighted to meet you again today and thank you once again for the hospitality you accorded my delegation. The culture of Tuvalu and the warmth of its people are not easily forgotten. Tuvalu’s support for Taiwan has also touched us deeply. I want to take this opportunity to thank Tuvalu for staunchly backing Taiwan’s international participation over the past several decades. Our two countries have supported each other like family and have together made contributions in the international arena. Last Tuesday, I received the credentials of Ambassador Lily Tangisia Faavae and expressed my hope for Taiwan and Tuvalu continuing to deepen bilateral relations. This visit by Deputy Prime Minister Nelesone is an important step in that regard. Our two countries will be signing a labor cooperation agreement and an agreement concerning the recognition of training and certification of seafarers. This will expand bilateral cooperation at multiple levels and bring our relations even closer. Taiwan and Tuvalu are maritime nations and share the values of democracy and freedom. Our two countries have stood shoulder to shoulder to protect marine resources and address the challenges posed by climate change and authoritarianism, and we aspire to work toward greater peace, prosperity, and development in the Pacific region. Our nations have produced fruitful results in such areas as agriculture, medicine, education, and information and communications technology. I anticipate that, with the support of Deputy Prime Minister Nelesone and our distinguished guests, we can continue to employ a more diverse range of strategies to begin a new chapter in our diplomatic partnership. Together, we can make even greater and more concrete contributions to regional development. Deputy Prime Minister Nelesone then delivered remarks, first thanking President Lai for his kind words of welcome and the warm hospitality extended to his delegation. On behalf of the government and people of Tuvalu, he conveyed their gratitude to the president and the people of Taiwan for the generous support, as well as for the enduring friendship we share. He said that Taiwan’s steadfast commitment to our bilateral relationship has been instrumental in advancing our shared values of democracy, resilience, and sustainable development. From vital development assistance to cooperation in health, education, and climate change resilience, he added, Taiwan’s contributions have made a significant impact on the lives of the people of Tuvalu. For Taiwan’s recent generous donation of shoes for Tuvaluan primary school students, Deputy Prime Minister Nelesone expressed thanks to President Lai. He commented that these gifts, which underscore a deep commitment to the welfare of their youth, transcend mere material support; they are symbols of care, friendship, and hope for the future generations. Noting that our bilateral relationship is built on mutual respect, shared values, and a common vision for sustainable development in the Pacific, he expressed confidence that this partnership will continue to flourish and will serve as a beacon of cooperation and solidarity within our region. The delegation also included Tuvalu Minister of Foreign Affairs, Labour, and Trade Paulson Panapa; Minister of Public Works, Infrastructure Development and Water Ampelosa Tehulu, and was accompanied to the Presidential Office by Tuvalu Ambassador Faavae.
Details 2025-04-10 President Lai pens Bloomberg News article on Taiwan’s response to US reciprocal tariffs On April 10, an article penned by President Lai Ching-te entitled “Taiwan Has a Roadmap for Deeper US Trade Ties” was published by Bloomberg News, explaining to a global audience Taiwan’s strategy on trade with the United States, as well as how Taiwan will engage in dialogue with the aim of removing bilateral trade barriers, increasing investment between Taiwan and the US, and reducing tariffs to zero. The following is the full text of President Lai’s article: Last month, the first of Taiwan’s 66 new F-16Vs rolled off the assembly line in Greenville, South Carolina. Signed during President Donald Trump’s first term, the $8 billion deal stands as a testament to American ingenuity and leadership in advanced manufacturing. Beyond its economic impact – creating thousands of well-paying jobs across the US – it strengthens the foundations of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. This deal is emblematic of the close interests shared between Taiwan and the US. Our bond is forged by an unwavering belief in freedom and liberty. For decades, our two countries have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in deterring communist expansionism. Even as Beijing intensifies its air force and naval exercises in our vicinity, we remain resolute. Taiwan will always be a bastion of democracy and peace in the region. This partnership extends well beyond the security realm. Though home to just 23 million people, Taiwan has in recent years become a significant investor in America. TSMC recently announced it will raise its total investment in the US to $165 billion – an initiative that will create 40,000 construction jobs and tens of thousands more in advanced chip manufacturing and R&D. This investment will bolster the emergence of a new high-tech cluster in Arizona. Taiwan is committed to strengthening bilateral cooperation in manufacturing and innovation. As a trade-dependent economy, our long-term success is built on trade relationships that are fair, reciprocal and mutually beneficial. Encouraging Taiwanese businesses to expand their global footprint, particularly in the US, is a vital part of this strategy. Deepening commercial ties between Taiwanese and American firms is another. These core principles will guide our response to President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. First, we will seek to restart trade negotiations with a common objective of reducing all tariffs between Taiwan and the US. While Taiwan already maintains low tariffs, with an average nominal rate of 6%, we are willing to further cut this rate to zero on the basis of reciprocity with the US. By removing the last vestiges to free and fair trade, we seek to encourage greater trade and investment flows between our two countries. Second, Taiwan will rapidly expand procurement of American goods. Over the past five years, rising demand for semiconductors and AI-related components has increased our trade surplus. In response to these market trends, Taiwan will seek to narrow the trade imbalance through the procurement of energy, agriculture and other industrial goods from the US. These efforts will create thousands of new jobs across multiple sectors. We’ll also pursue additional arms procurements that are vital to our self-defense and contribute to peace and stability over the Taiwan Strait. During President Trump’s first term, we secured $18 billion in arms deals, including advanced fighter jets, tanks and anti-ship missiles. Future purchases, which are not reflected in trade balances, build on our economic and security partnership while being essential to Taiwan’s “Peace Through Strength” approach. Third, new investments will be made across the US. Already, Taiwanese firms support 400,000 jobs throughout all 50 states. Beyond TSMC, we also see emerging opportunities in electronics, ICT, energy and petrochemicals. We will establish a cross-agency “US Investment Team” to support bilateral trade and investment – and we hope that efforts will be reciprocated by the Trump administration. Fourth, we are committed to removing non-tariff trade barriers. Taiwan will take concrete steps to resolve persistent issues that have long impeded trade negotiations. And finally, we will strongly address US concerns over export controls and improper transshipment of low-cost goods through Taiwan. These steps form the basis of a comprehensive roadmap for how Taiwan will navigate the shifting trade landscape, transforming challenges in the Taiwan-US economic relationship into new opportunities for growth, resilience and strategic alignment. At a time of growing global uncertainty, underpinned by growing Chinese assertiveness, closer trade ties are more than sound economics; they are a critical pillar of regional security. Our approach is long-term and principled, grounded in a lasting commitment to our friendship with the US, a firm belief in the benefits of fair and reciprocal trade, and an unwavering dedication to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. We are confident that our shared economic and security interests will not only overcome turbulence in the international trade environment – they will define the future of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Details 2025-04-08 President Lai receives credentials from new Tuvalu Ambassador Lily Tangisia Faavae On the morning of April 8, President Lai Ching-te received the credentials of new Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Tuvalu to the Republic of China (Taiwan) Lily Tangisia Faavae. In remarks, President Lai welcomed the ambassador to her new post and thanked Tuvalu for its long-term support for Taiwan’s international participation. The president also noted that joint efforts between our two countries have produced fruitful results in such areas as medicine and public health, agricultural and fisheries technology, and information and communications technology. He expressed his hope that we will continue to deepen our bilateral relations so as to generate even greater well-being for our peoples and promote peace, stability, and prosperity in the Pacific region. A translation of President Lai’s remarks follows: It is a great pleasure today to receive the credentials of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Tuvalu Lily Tangisia Faavae. On behalf of the Republic of China (Taiwan), I extend my warmest welcome to you. Last year, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and Tuvalu celebrated 45 years of diplomatic relations. Prime Minister Feleti Teo visited Taiwan in May last year for the inauguration of myself and Vice President Bi-khim Hsiao and again in October for our National Day celebrations. When I visited Tuvalu last December, I was warmly received by the government and people of Tuvalu, and I deeply felt that our two countries were like family. Ambassador Faavae’s posting to Taiwan demonstrates the importance Prime Minister Teo places on our ties. Widely recognized for her exceptional talent, Ambassador Faavae is an outstanding official with extensive experience in public service. Moreover, during her term as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, she voiced support for Taiwan at the World Health Assembly. I believe that with her assistance, our two nations will further advance cooperation and exchanges. I want to thank the government of Tuvalu for long supporting Taiwan’s international participation. Furthermore, joint efforts between our two countries have produced fruitful results in such areas as medicine and public health, agricultural and fisheries technology, and information and communications technology. Last year, Prime Minister Teo and I signed a joint communiqué on advancing the comprehensive partnership between Taiwan and Tuvalu. Going forward, we will stand together in tackling the challenges we face, including climate change and expanding authoritarianism. And we will continue to deepen our bilateral relations so as to generate even greater well-being for our peoples and promote peace, stability, and prosperity in the Pacific region. Once again, I warmly welcome Ambassador Faavae to her new post in Taiwan. Please convey warmest regards from Taiwan to Prime Minister Teo and all of our friends in Tuvalu. I wish you all the best in work and life during your term in Taiwan. Ambassador Faavae then delivered remarks, saying that it is a great honor and privilege to meet with President Lai today as the new Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Tuvalu to Taiwan, and to present to him her letter of credence. She then extended, on behalf of the government and people of Tuvalu, her warmest greetings and deep respect to the president and people of Taiwan. The letter of credence, she noted, signifies the trust and confidence that her government and governor-general have placed in her to represent their nation and to foster and strengthen the bonds of friendship and cooperation between our countries. Ambassador Faavae said that our two countries have enjoyed a longstanding relationship of 45 years based on mutual respect, cooperation, and shared values. She added that we have collaborated, and continue to do so, in such fields as education, health, climate change adaptation and sea level rise mitigation, agriculture, clean energy, and internet connectivity. Ambassador Faavae pointed out that Tuvalu remains committed to deepening ties with Taiwan and that it values people-to-people connections and our shared Austronesian heritage. She noted that the people of Tuvalu, a small developing nation, have greatly benefited from Taiwan’s advanced technical expertise and diverse financial assistance. She said she believes Tuvalu and Taiwan share a common interest and are united in our efforts and commitment to upholding democracy, peace, stability, and prosperity for our people and making the world better and safer. Ambassador Faavae stated that as ambassador of Tuvalu to Taiwan, she pledges to work diligently and respectfully to enhance our bilateral relations, promote mutual understanding, and facilitate collaboration in areas of shared concern. The ambassador said she looks forward to collaborating closely with the Taiwan government and other stakeholders to achieve our common objectives and to continue building a more prosperous and harmonious future for our nations. In closing, she thanked President Lai for the opportunity to serve and to further the enduring friendship between our two countries.
Details 2025-03-28 President Lai meets British Office Taipei Representative Ruth Bradley-Jones On the afternoon of March 28, President Lai Ching-te met with British Office Taipei Representative Ruth Bradley-Jones. In remarks, President Lai welcomed Representative Bradley-Jones as she takes up her post in Taiwan, and thanked the United Kingdom government and parliament for demonstrating staunch support for Taiwan. The president indicated that Taiwan and the UK enjoy close economic and trade ties, and our industries complement each other well, with great potential for collaboration in such fields as semiconductors, AI, unmanned vehicles, and medium- and low-orbit satellites. He stated that he looks forward to expanding exchanges with the UK across all domains so as to enhance democratic and economic resilience, jointly advancing the prosperous development of the Indo-Pacific region and economic security around the world. A translation of President Lai’s remarks follows: It is a pleasure to meet Representative Bradley-Jones here at the Presidential Office for this exchange. I understand that she has proactively called at many government agencies since taking up her post last month. On behalf of the people of Taiwan, I extend a warm welcome. Taiwan and the UK are partners that share the values of freedom and democracy. In recent years, our bilateral relations have continued to deepen. With the efforts of Representative Bradley-Jones and our respective governments, I look forward to the expansion of dialogue and cooperation between Taiwan and the UK. This will further elevate our bilateral ties. Especially in the face of expanding authoritarianism, the UK is not only playing an important role in crafting a unified European response; it is also demonstrating staunch support for Taiwan through various channels. For example, joint statements released after the Australia-UK ministerial consultations, as well as the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting, underlined a high level of concern for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. The UK government has publicly expressed support for Taiwan’s international participation on multiple occasions. And last November, the UK House of Commons passed a motion clearly asserting that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 does not mention Taiwan. These actions attest to the UK’s belief in supporting democracy and peace, and have further solidified our countries’ friendship. I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to the UK government and parliament. Currently, the UK is Taiwan’s fourth largest trading partner in Europe and second largest source of investment from Europe. We enjoy close economic and trade ties, and our industries complement each other well. There is also great potential for collaboration in such fields as semiconductors, AI, unmanned vehicles, and medium- and low-orbit satellites. We look forward to expanding exchanges with the UK across all domains so as to enhance democratic and economic resilience. We also hope the UK will continue to support Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership so that together, we can work with more like-minded partners, jointly advancing the prosperous development of the Indo-Pacific region and economic security around the world. Once again, I welcome Representative Bradley-Jones to Taiwan and wish her all the best with her work. I anticipate that Taiwan-UK relations will continue to steadily advance through our joint efforts. Representative Bradley-Jones then delivered remarks, first saying in Mandarin that she is honored to meet with President Lai to discuss topics of mutual concern and jointly deepen Taiwan-UK relations, promoting mutual understanding, respect, and cooperation. She went on to say that she came to Taiwan last August to study Mandarin, and began her post as British Office Taipei representative in February this year, noting that every day she learns more about and gains a deeper understanding of Taiwan. Last year, she said, she visited Tainan and Wanli, and found Tainan’s wetlands and the scenery in Wanli very impressive. She added that she has also tried many different Taiwanese foods, and is looking forward to experiencing even more of Taiwan’s local culture and customs over the next four years. Continuing her remarks in English, Representative Bradley-Jones stated that since taking up her post, she has borne witness to the strength of the relationship between Taiwan and the UK and the potential for it to continue to grow. She said that on trade and investment, there is significant complementarity between Taiwan’s Five Trusted Industry Sectors and the UK’s Industrial Strategy, particularly in areas such as digital technologies, advanced manufacturing, and clean energy. Both governments are also together supporting Taiwan and UK businesses through our Enhanced Trade Partnership and annual trade talks, she said. Representative Bradley-Jones went on to say that on science and technology, Taiwan and the UK can and should do more together. She noted that the UK has the third largest tech sector in the world and is valued at over US$1.1 trillion, while Taiwan is the center of the semiconductor and AI hardware world. Given our complementary strengths, especially in areas such as semiconductors, space, and communications technology, she said, the UK has stepped up its level of activity in Taiwan, including by regularly hosting a UK Pavilion at SEMICON and funding 18 joint R&D programs through our new collaborative R&D fund, and looks forward to doing more together in the future. In support of Taiwan’s whole-of-society resilience, the representative said, the UK is supporting valuable exchanges, co-hosting GCTF (Global Cooperation and Training Framework) workshops, sharing lessons on financial sector resilience, and reaching out to mayors and community leaders across Taiwan. From financial resilience to cyber resilience, she said, the UK’s public sector and private industries have plenty to share and learn. Representative Bradley-Jones stated that on people-to-people links, parliamentarians, civil society, and academics are continuing to deepen contact, and that she is particularly excited by a new smart parliament partnership agreed upon by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and the UK’s Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which aims to facilitate cross-party, cross-society, and cross-border exchanges on issues such as democratic governance, AI, inclusive policy-making, and public safety. The representative indicated that the examples she mentioned just scratch the surface of the full potential of the Taiwan-UK relationship. She said that the UK’s longstanding policy remains unchanged, and fundamentally, that is because we share a common set of values and interests. We are together focused on how to make our societies safer and more prosperous tomorrow than they are today, she said, and as like-minded democracies, innovative economies, and practical partners, the sincere and pragmatic cooperation between Taiwan and the UK is bringing material benefits to the prosperity and well-being of our people every day.
Details 2025-03-21 President Lai meets Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy On the morning of March 21, President Lai Ching-te met with a delegation led by Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy. In remarks, President Lai said that Alaska has long been an important trading partner of Taiwan, and that we have built a solid foundation for cooperation in such fields as energy, fisheries, and tourism. The president expressed hope that Taiwan and Alaska will have more frequent engagement and exchanges so that our relations can continue to grow to create prosperous development for both sides. A translation of President Lai’s remarks follows: On behalf of the people of Taiwan, I extend my sincerest welcome to our guests. This is Governor Dunleavy’s first visit to Taiwan, and last night, we both attended the Hsieh Nien Fan (謝年飯) banquet hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan. I am delighted to have this opportunity to meet with Governor Dunleavy today at the Presidential Office for further dialogue. Alaska has long been an important trading partner of Taiwan. Our sister-state relationship was established in 1988, and we have built a solid foundation for cooperation in such fields as energy, fisheries, and tourism. Currently, Taiwan is Alaska’s eighth largest export market and ninth largest source of imports. This goes to show just how close our trade and economic ties are and how much potential there is for further growth. As I said in my remarks at last night’s Hsieh Nien Fan banquet, Taiwan is interested in buying Alaskan natural gas. I am sure that Governor Dunleavy’s visit will help us explore even more opportunities for cooperation and continue to deepen Taiwan-United States relations. In the face of such challenges as expanding authoritarianism, climate change, and pandemics, we look forward to strengthening collaboration between Taiwan and the US. By drawing on our strengths, we can jointly build non-red supply chains to bolster our economic resilience and drive the advancement of global technology. I want to thank the US government for reiterating the importance it attaches to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and its opposition to any attempt to change the status quo by force or coercion. These statements backing Taiwan help in maintaining stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the Indo-Pacific region. Once again, I thank Governor Dunleavy for traveling such a long way to Taiwan. We hope to see more frequent engagement and exchanges between Taiwan and Alaska so that our relations can continue to grow, and we can create prosperous development for both sides. Governor Dunleavy then delivered remarks, saying that their trip to visit friends in Taiwan has been fantastic, thanking President Lai for the invitation to meet, and thanking all the staff. Governor Dunleavy said that as the pandemic was raging, the world went from “before COVID” to “after COVID.” Before COVID, he said, the world relied on a number of systems that were in place for decades after World War II involving supply chains, alliances, sources of energy, trading partners, and friends. He went on to say that as we go beyond COVID, we are reestablishing and reevaluating who our friends are, where we are going to get our energy, and who our trading partners are going to be. The governor said that we are creating a new world for the next 50 years with the new administration in Washington, and this is an opportunity for us to reevaluate and reinvest with our friends for the next 50 years in each other, our futures, and our security. Governor Dunleavy stated that one thing is for certain: that Taiwan is a friend of the US and a friend of Alaska, and has been for many, many decades. He said that it is their hope in this trip and subsequent trips to establish an even tighter bond among their friends in Taiwan, the US, and Alaska. The governor also said that we have much in common in that we are members of the Pacific family, are democracies, and believe in freedom, free speech, and capitalism. He indicated that he has much optimism for the future, and that as we reestablish relationships throughout the world, energy is going to be the key and the basis for our economic development, our national security, and our friendship. Governor Dunleavy said that he believes this trip is going to lay the groundwork for a fantastic future between Taiwan, Alaska, and the US, and that with President Lai’s support as well as the support of the US administration, we can work together to build even better relationships.
Details 2025-04-06 President Lai delivers remarks on US tariff policy response On April 6, President Lai Ching-te delivered recorded remarks regarding the impact of the 32 percent tariff that the United States government recently imposed on imports from Taiwan in the name of reciprocity. In his remarks, President Lai explained that the government will adopt five response strategies, including making every effort to improve reciprocal tariff rates through negotiations, adopting a support plan for affected domestic industries, adopting medium- and long-term economic development plans, forming new “Taiwan plus the US” arrangements, and launching industry listening tours. The president emphasized that as we face this latest challenge, the government and civil society will work hand in hand, and expressed hope that all parties, both ruling and opposition, will support the measures that the Executive Yuan will take to open up a broader path for Taiwan’s economy. A translation of President Lai’s remarks follows: My fellow citizens, good evening. The US government recently announced higher tariffs on countries around the world in the name of reciprocity, including imposing a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan. This is bound to have a major impact on our nation. Various countries have already responded, and some have even adopted retaliatory measures. Tremendous changes in the global economy are expected. Taiwan is an export-led economy, and in facing future challenges there will inevitably be difficulties, so we must proceed carefully to turn danger into safety. During this time, I want to express gratitude to all sectors of society for providing valuable opinions, which the government regards highly, and will use as a reference to make policy decisions. However, if we calmly and carefully analyze Taiwan’s trade with the US, we find that last year Taiwan’s exports to the US were valued at US$111.4 billion, accounting for 23.4 percent of total export value, with the other 75-plus percent of products sold worldwide to countries other than the US. Of products sold to the US, competitive ICT products and electronic components accounted for 65.4 percent. This shows that Taiwan’s economy does still have considerable resilience. As long as our response strategies are appropriate, and the public and private sectors join forces, we can reduce impacts. Please do not panic. To address the reciprocal tariffs by the US, Taiwan has no plans to adopt retaliatory tariffs. There will be no change in corporate investment commitments to the US, as long as they are consistent with national interests. But we must ensure the US clearly understands Taiwan’s contributions to US economic development. More importantly, we must actively seek to understand changes in the global economic situation, strengthen Taiwan-US industry cooperation, elevate the status of Taiwan industries in global supply chains, and with safeguarding the continued development of Taiwan’s economy as our goal, adopt the following five strategies to respond. Strategy one: Make every effort to improve reciprocal tariff rates through negotiations using the following five methods: 1. Taiwan has already formed a negotiation team led by Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君). The team includes members from the National Security Council, the Office of Trade Negotiations, and relevant Executive Yuan ministries and agencies, as well as academia and industry. Like the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, negotiations on tariffs can start from Taiwan-US bilateral zero-tariff treatment. 2. To expand purchases from the US and thereby reduce the trade deficit, the Executive Yuan has already completed an inventory regarding large-scale procurement plans for agricultural, industrial, petroleum, and natural gas products, and the Ministry of National Defense has also proposed a military procurement list. All procurement plans will be actively pursued. 3. Expand investments in the US. Taiwan’s cumulative investment in the US already exceeds US$100 billion, creating approximately 400,000 jobs. In the future, in addition to increased investment in the US by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, other industries such as electronics, ICT, petrochemicals, and natural gas can all increase their US investments, deepening Taiwan-US industry cooperation. Taiwan’s government has helped form a “Taiwan investment in the US” team, and hopes that the US will reciprocate by forming a “US investment in Taiwan” team to bring about closer Taiwan-US trade cooperation, jointly creating a future economic golden age. 4. We must eliminate non-tariff barriers to trade. Non-tariff barriers are an indicator by which the US assesses whether a trading partner is trading fairly with the US. Therefore, we will proactively resolve longstanding non-tariff barriers so that negotiations can proceed more smoothly. 5. We must resolve two issues that have been matters of longstanding concern to the US. One regards high-tech export controls, and the other regards illegal transshipment of dumped goods, otherwise referred to as “origin washing.” Strategy two: We must adopt a plan for supporting our industries. For industries that will be affected by the tariffs, and especially traditional industries as well as micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises, we will provide timely and needed support and assistance. Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and his administrative team recently announced a package of 20 specific measures designed to address nine areas. Moving forward, the support we provide to different industries will depend on how they are affected by the tariffs, will take into account the particular features of each industry, and will help each industry innovate, upgrade, and transform. Strategy three: We must adopt medium- and long-term economic development plans. At this point in time, our government must simultaneously adopt new strategies for economic and industrial development. This is also the fundamental path to solutions for future economic challenges. The government will proactively cooperate with friends and allies, develop a diverse range of markets, and achieve closer integration of entities in the upper, middle, and lower reaches of industrial supply chains. This course of action will make Taiwan’s industrial ecosystem more complete, and will help Taiwanese industries upgrade and transform. We must also make good use of the competitive advantages we possess in such areas as semiconductor manufacturing, integrated chip design, ICT, and smart manufacturing to build Taiwan into an AI island, and promote relevant applications for food, clothing, housing, and transportation, as well as military, security and surveillance, next-generation communications, and the medical and health and wellness industries as we advance toward a smarter, more sustainable, and more prosperous new Taiwan. Strategy four: “Taiwan plus one,” i.e., new “Taiwan plus the US” arrangements: While staying firmly rooted in Taiwan, our enterprises are expanding their global presence and marketing worldwide. This has been our national economic development strategy, and the most important aspect is maintaining a solid base here in Taiwan. We absolutely must maintain a solid footing, and cannot allow the present strife to cause us to waver. Therefore, our government will incentivize investments, carry out deregulation, and continue to improve Taiwan’s investment climate by actively resolving problems involving access to water, electricity, land, human resources, and professional talent. This will enable corporations to stay in Taiwan and continue investing here. In addition, we must also help the overseas manufacturing facilities of offshore Taiwanese businesses to make necessary adjustments to support our “Taiwan plus one” policy, in that our national economic development strategy will be adjusted as follows: to stay firmly rooted in Taiwan while expanding our global presence, strengthening US ties, and marketing worldwide. We intend to make use of the new state of supply chains to strengthen cooperation between Taiwanese and US industries, and gain further access to US markets. Strategy five: Launch industry listening tours: All industrial firms, regardless of sector or size, will be affected to some degree once the US reciprocal tariffs go into effect. The administrative teams led by myself and Premier Cho will hear out industry concerns so that we can quickly resolve problems and make sure policies meet actual needs. My fellow citizens, over the past half-century and more, Taiwan has been through two energy crises, the Asian financial crisis, the global financial crisis, and pandemics. We have been able to not only withstand one test after another, but even turn crises into opportunities. The Taiwanese economy has emerged from these crises stronger and more resilient than ever. As we face this latest challenge, the government and civil society will work hand in hand, and I hope that all parties in the legislature, both ruling and opposition, will support the measures that the Executive Yuan will take to open up a broader path for Taiwan’s economy. Let us join together and give it our all. Thank you.
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At about 09:53 on 23 April 2024, a train travelling at 104 mph (167 km/h) came very close to striking a track worker who was crossing an underbridge at Chiltern Green, between Harpenden and Luton Airport Parkway stations. The track worker was just stepping off the bridge, from an area where there was very limited space between the bridge parapet and train, when the train passed them. Upon seeing the track worker on the bridge, the driver sounded the train’s horn and then made an emergency brake application. Once the train stopped, the driver reported the incident to the signaller, unsure as to whether the train had struck the track worker.
At the time of the incident, the track worker, who was a tester carrying out telecommunications cable testing, was walking to rejoin their group after a welfare break. RAIB found that the tester walked over the bridge because they were unaware of any other way to walk back to the rest of the group and because the person in charge had not arranged for the tester to safely leave and rejoin the group when taking a break.
The person in charge had previously taken the tester over the bridge using an informal and potentially unsafe system of work, using a route to the site of work which was not the one the project engineer planning the work had intended the group to use. This happened because the staff involved were unfamiliar with one of the locations, the person in charge had a very limited role when the work was planned and had not been briefed beforehand, and the documents issued to the person in charge did not give a clear description of the way the team was expected to walk to the site of work.
RAIB found that the tester had crossed the bridge without an effective safe system of work in place despite being aware of the risks in doing so. However, the tester’s personal track safety competency, and the associated rules for walking alone on or near the line, did not prohibit them from crossing a structure with restricted clearance. RAIB also identified that the bridge was not signed as a limited clearance structure, which was a possible factor.
An underlying factor was that the overall methodology followed for planning the work did not provide the person in charge with clear information about how to carry out the walking element of the work. A possible underlying factor was that, although Network Rail had recorded the bridge as having restricted clearance, it and many other structures on the railway between London and Bedford were not fitted with the required signage to warn staff of this hazard.
RAIB also observed that:
Historically, the rail industry has fitted limited clearance signage to structures with restricted clearance if they can be crossed safely while trains are running by using one of the warning safe systems of work, which are now much less commonly used.
Network Rail’s record of its warning signage assets on its East Midlands route is incomplete, and it has no inspection or maintenance regime for this signage.
After the incident, the track workers walked over the bridge again while trains were still running, without an adequate safe system of work in place.
Since the incident, changes to the rules were published to prohibit personal track safety competency holders from crossing a bridge with restricted clearance unless an appropriate safe system of work is in place.
Recommendations
As a result of the investigation, RAIB has made four recommendations. The first is for Keltbray Infrastructure Services Limited to review and amend how it plans work on or near the line, so its staff can better understand how to manage and carry out the work they need to deliver. The second is for the Rail Safety and Standards Board to follow the relevant rail industry processes to review and amend as necessary the rail industry standard requirements for warning signage at structures with restricted clearance. The third is for Network Rail to record its lineside signage assets, determine what inspection and maintenance regime is required for these assets, and then schedule these activities to be done. The fourth, also addressed to Network Rail, is to reduce the risks to railway staff due to warning signage not being fitted to structures with restricted clearance.
RAIB has also identified four learning points. The first reminds staff involved in planning or carrying out work on or near the line of the importance of coming to a clear understanding about how the planned activities, including the walking elements, should be executed. The second highlights the importance of providing information that clearly identifies the access points to be used if the planned activity involves staff going to more than one access point and different sites of work. The third highlights the importance of not going into any area where there is reduced space between a structure and the nearest running rail of an open line. The fourth highlights the importance of track workers, who are involved in a near miss incident with a train, understanding how they will safely exit the railway, and seeking assistance from the signaller if required.
Notes to editors
The sole purpose of RAIB investigations is to prevent future accidents and incidents and improve railway safety. RAIB does not establish blame, liability or carry out prosecutions.
RAIB operates, as far as possible, in an open and transparent manner. While our investigations are completely independent of the railway industry, we do maintain close liaison with railway companies and if we discover matters that may affect the safety of the railway, we make sure that information about them is circulated to the right people as soon as possible, and certainly long before publication of our final report.
Operation Gomorrah may have been the most cynical event of World War Two (WW2). Not only did the name fully convey the intent of the war crimes about to be committed, it, also represented the single biggest 24-hour murder toll for the European war that I have come across.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
On the night of 27 July 1943, the RAF murdered 35,000, mostly working-class civilian residents living in the most densely populated part of Hamburg; a planned firebombing which started a sequence of events – a holocaust if not The Holocaust – that ended in Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. (Note The bombing of Hamburg foreshadowed the horrors of Hiroshima, National Geographic, 23 July 2021.) A holocaust is a “destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war” (Oxford Dictionary). [In The Holocaust, 31,000 Jews were shot dead in Kyiv in a single day in 1941; the worst single day of The Holocaust, I understand.]
Hamburg was, literally, a dry run for what came later; the aim was to maximise the number of barbecued civilians by, among other things, choosing perfect weather conditions for an experiment in incendiary murder. (Yes, I am literally using inflammatory language.) While the total death toll of the week-long operation has been estimated to be over 40,000, the toll arising from the night of 27/28 July 1943 represents about 85% of the total.
The Gomorrah chapter of Peter Hitchens’ The Phoney Victory, 2018, gives a documented account of the moral duplicity surrounding Churchill’s bombing campaign. For a full story of the Allies’ firestorm holocaust, see Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb, 2022, by James M Scott. (John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, is a survivor of the Tokyo episode, the raid that killed more people – over 100,000 – than any other in a single arsonous assault.)
Sodom and Gomorrah
These twin ‘cities of the plain’, which, if they ever existed, are now either under the Dead Sea or east of there, in modern Jordan. The key chapter in the bible (Genesis, ch.19) mainly emphasises Sodom, though Gomorrah was reputedly as ‘sinful’. The biblical story is ghastly, in its misogyny as well as its extollation of extermination of ‘others’.
Genesis (ch.19) tells us, when Lot (Abraham’s nephew) found himself, in Sodom, hosting two Angels/men, ‘the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.”‘ The secret to understanding this is the biblical meaning of the word ‘know’; in this case the events took place in Sodom, and the guests had the appearance of ‘men’.
Lot replies: ‘”I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men …”.’ While the men of Sodom did not take up the offer – they favoured Lot himself – the angel-men saved Lot and his family. Then ‘When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.”‘ …
‘When they had brought [the four of] them outside, [the angel-men] said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.” … Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.’ …
After the three survivors settled in a cave: ‘the firstborn [daughter] said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the world. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.” … ‘Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.’ (Thus, the East Bank [of the River Jordan] was repopulated!!)
Hamburg came to be equated with biblical Sodom, as deserving victims for a particularly barbaric form of mass murder. Neither Churchill, nor his bomber commander Arthur Harris, could know that only 35,000 Hamburgers would die as a result of that night’s operation. There is reason to believe that Churchill and his savants were looking for many more than hundreds of thousands of Germans to be ‘de-housed’ over the incendiary bombing campaign. (Dehousing was the euphemism used by Churchill’s men; compare with ‘resettlement’ for the trip that the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto made to Treblinka.)
Hamburg and the Gomorrah holocaust
Why Hamburg? Basically, because it was there. Though it was/is a large industrial and mercantile port city, the terror target was workers, not the works which employed them. The National Geographic article notes, with gallows-humour irony: “After noticing that Brits whose homes were struck by bombs were less likely to show up to work, analysts determined that destroying Germany’s largest cities and towns would likely cripple Germany’s war efforts.” Hamburg was close to England, and could be reached without flying over occupied land. And Hamburg was defended by a radar system of sorts, though not as sophisticated as British radar. The first British bombing raid on Hamburg was very much a technology test-run; refer The Woman Whose Invention Helped Win a War – and Still Baffles Weathermen, Irena Fischer-Hwang, 28 November 2018, Smithsonian Magazine. The second British raid on Hamburg was the real thing, a particularly dry run to really get the Gomorrah holocaust underway.
Hitchens (p.178) says: “Winston Churchill speculated in a letter of 8 July I940 to his friend and Minister of Aircraft Production, the press magnate Lord (Max) Beaverbrook, that an ‘absolutely devastating exterminating [my emphasis] attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland would help to bring Hitler down’. Arthur Harris, later the chief of RAF Bomber Command, realised the significance of these extraordinary words … he kept a copy of this letter.”
Hitchens (p.181) citing Bishop Bell speaking in February 1944 in the House of Lords: “Hamburg has a population of between one and two million people. It contains targets of immense military and industrial importance. It also happens to be the most democratic town in Germany where the Anti-Nazi opposition was strongest. … Practically all the buildings, cultural, military, residential, industrial, religious – including the famous University Library with its 800,000 volumes, of which three-quarters have perished – were razed to the ground.” While dead and dazed people may have low morale, and therefore have an arguable incentive to wage a civil war against their own government, they – especially the dead – are uniquely unable to overthrow a ruthlessly militarised government.
We might note Hamburg’s anthropological links to England. At a time of high racial – indeed racist – sensibilities, Anglo-Saxon supremacy was a very real thing. The area of Germany around Hamburg is the ‘Hawaiki’ of the Anglo-Saxon people; Lower Saxony is the ancestral motherland of the English. The class-consciousness and revengeful bloodlust of the English political class outweighed their ethnic consciousness. This was not true for the German Nazis, for whom the English were racial equals; Hitler and his crew really did not want to kill English people. Nazi Germany wanted the United Kingdom to become a neutral country, as Ireland was, and as the United States was before December 1941. Nazi Germany’s policy was to enslave, resettle, and murder Slavs and Jews and Gypsies; not to kill or dehouse Englishmen and their families.
The ‘elephant in the room’ was Josef Stalin.
Hitchens (p.191): “There is little doubt that much of the bombing of Germany was done to please and appease Josef Stalin. Stalin jeered at Churchill for his failure to open a Second Front and to fight Hitler’s armies in Europe, and ceaselessly pressed him to open such a front – something Churchill was politically and militarily reluctant to do. Bombing Germany, though it did not satisfy Stalin’s demands for an invasion, at least reassured him that we were doing something, and so lessened his pressure to open a second front.”
Hitchens (p.198): “Overy [in The Bombing War 2014] recounts how on 28 March 1945 Winston Churchill, clearly growing sick of the violence he had unleashed as victory approached and the excuses for it grew thinner, referred (in a memorandum) to Harris’s bombing tactics using these exact words. He urged, none too soon, that attacks turn instead to oil and transport. Harris paid no attention, and right up until 24th April 1945, his bombers continued to drop incendiaries and high explosives on German cities, turning many thousands of civilians into corpses.” [Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945, and VE Day was 8 May.]
Point of Interest: Churchill contested three elections, all after VE Day, all using Great Britain’s ‘first-past-the-post’ plurality system. He won just one of those three, though even then – in 1951 – his party got fewer votes than a Labour Party seeking re-election at a time of great difficulty for left-wing parties worldwide. Churchill’s Conservative Party got way-fewer votes than Labour in 1945 and 1950. The pressure on Prime Minister Clement Attlee to call the UK snap election of 1951 (one-third of the way through the term of his elected Labour government) can be understood as a successful example of political cunning on the part of the British establishment; literally a King’s coup.
A Scale of ‘Evil’?
While I generally hesitate to use the word ‘evil’, it may still be useful to grade very powerful people on a zero-to-ten scale of malevolence. On zero we might have the pacifist version of Jesus. On ten would be some very powerful person who actively sought nuclear ‘Armageddon’ (which would destroy life, not just humanity). After recently reading some quite difficult literature about World War Two, this is where I would place five powerful leaders:
9: Josef Stalin
8: Adolf Hitler
7: Benito Mussolini, Winston Churchill
6: Harry Truman
I need to read more about Truman; though, his legacy seems to have been airbrushed much as Churchill’s has been, and I might decide to upgrade him to a 7.
I would also note that these leaders had their close and powerful henchmen, whose ‘evilness’ can also be rated on such a scale, for example:
9.5: Lavrenty Beria
9: Josef Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler
Overall regimes can be better or worse than their leaders. I would rate both Stalin’s ‘Communists’ and Hitler’s ‘Nazis’ as both 8.5. Thus, Stalin’s regime was not quite as bad as its two most notorious figures. And Hitler’s regime was even worse than Hitler; that’s certainly not being kind to Hitler! (Stalin’s atrocities, the equal of Hitlers, were mostly committed in peacetime; the vast majority of Hitler’s were committed in wartime.)
‘Favourites’ as intimate (though not necessarily sexual) friends of powerful leaders
Churchill’s regime was not as bad as Churchill. Though Churchill had two favourites, both active members of his regime – especially his ‘Kitchen Cabinet’ – who were worse than him (possibly worse in one case, and definitely worse in the other). The ‘possibly worse’ one was Brendan Bracken, Minister for Information. Bracken, the prototype for ‘Big Brother’ in George Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four, was Churchill’s Goebbels. Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ was a conflation of the Ministry of Information and Orwell’s wartime employer, the BBC. (Born in Ireland, Bracken was sometimes rumoured to have been Churchill’s ‘love child’, though that supposition is most likely untrue.) Surprisingly little has been written about BB.
The ‘definitely worse’ favourite was German born (Baden Baden) and educated (Darmstadt and Berlin) scientist, Frederick A Lindemann; who was granted the title Lord Cherwell in 1941. He built his career in Britain at Oxford University, becoming Professor of Physics there in 1919. He also became a bit of a wartime ‘test pilot’, managing to establish his loyalty to the United Kingdom. His close friendship with Churchill lasted decades, beginning in 1921.
Frederick Lindemann, aka Lord Cherwell
In my assessment, Lindemann is the closest individual yet to a ten-out-of-ten on the above-suggested scale of malevolence. Let’s say that, if World War Three comes and someone like Lindemann has as much access to the levers of power as Lindemann actually had, then the world would be a goner. (In Lindemann’s defence, it has been noted that he was fond of children and animals. Likewise, another man; one with a famous moustache.)
Frederick Lindemann exerted a beguiling influence over Churchill. When Churchill was not in power, in the 1930s, Lindemann ran a private think-tank for Churchill. In the 1930s he allegedly undermined the scientific development of radar, which proved critical to the defence of Britain from Luftwaffe attacks; indeed, Lindemann seems to have shown a lack of interest in military defence; his thing was the elimination or dehumanisation of ‘others’. Lindemann “was one of the first to urge the importance of atom bomb research” (Where to Read about Professor Lindemann, The Churchill Project, 6 May 2015); indeed “Following his 1945 return to the Clarendon Laboratory, Lindemann created the [United Kingdom] Atomic Energy Authority”, Wikipedia.)
I will illustrate the Lindemann problem with quotes from these three sources; some may argue that I have made a biased selection, but so be it:
Mukerjee: “Known as the Prof to admirers (because of his academic credentials and his brilliance) and as Baron Berlin to detractors (thanks to his German accent and aristocratic tastes), Lindeman was responsible for the government’s scientific decisions.”
Mukerjee: “Lindemann attended meetings of the War Cabinet, accompanied the prime minister on conferences abroad, and sent him an average of one missive a day. He saw Churchill almost daily for the duration of the war and wielded more influence than any other civilian adviser.”
Gladwell: “I think that’s the crucial fact about Lindemann. One time he’s asked for his definition of morality and he answers, ‘I define a moral action as one that brings advantage to my friends.’ … The man who defined a moral action as ‘One that brings advantage to my friends,’ was best friends with Winston Churchill.”
Gladwell: “Lindemann becomes a kind of gatekeeper to Churchill’s mind.”
Mukerjee: “On most matters Lindemann’s and Churchill’s opinions converged; and when they did not, the scientist worked ceaselessly to change his friend’s mind.”
Mukerjee: “The mission of the S branch [Churchill’s nearest equivalent to DOGE] was to provide rationales for whichever course the prime minister, as interpreted by the Prof, wished to follow.”
Mukerjee: “Department heads ‘began to realize that, like it or not, the Prof was the man whom Churchill trusted most, and that all their refutations, aspersions, innuendos or attempts at exposure would not shift Churchill from his undeviating loyalty to the Prof by one hair’s breadth,’ wrote [economist] Harrod. So it was that the Prof would pronounce judgment on the best use of shipping space, the profligacy of the army, the inadequacy of British supplies, the optimal size of the mustard gas stockpile, the necessity of bombing German houses – and, when the time came, the pointlessness of sending famine relief to Bengal.”
Gladwell: “An argument took place at the highest reaches of British government. The question was what was the best use of the royal air force against the Germans? … One school of thought says, ‘Let’s use our bombers to support military activities, protecting ships against German U-boats, destroying German factories.’ The other school of thought argues that bombing ought to serve a bigger, strategic purpose. In other words, ‘Let’s use bombing to break the will of the German people, let’s make their lives so miserable that they give up.’”
Wikipedia: On dehousing, Lindemann says “bombing must be directed to working class houses. Middle class houses have too much space round them, so are bound to waste bombs”.
Gladwell on Lindemann’s dishonesty: “Lindemann’s memo to Churchill. It’s very matter of fact; it’s all about what the data says except for one thing. That’s not what the data says. The Birmingham-Hull study reached the exact opposite conclusion [about working-class morale] that Lindemann did.”
Gladwell: “Other experts [eg Henry Tizard] in the government, critics of strategic bombing, point out immediately that Lindemann’s numbers are ridiculous, five or six times too high, based on obvious errors.” [Hitchens (p.205) claims that the numbers of civilian casualties were only ten percent of what Lindemann had promised. If you multiply by ten the number of civilians – mostly workers, their families, slaves, and refugees – killed in the totality of the Gomorrah holocaust, you get a number bigger than deaths in The Holocaust; this would be a measure of Lindemann’s intent.]
Gladwell: “One of Lindemann’s friends said, ‘He would not shrink from using an argument which he knew to be wrong if, by so doing, he could tie up one of his professional opponents.’ Lindemann wanted strategic bombing, so Churchill went ahead and ordered the bombing of German cities.”
Gladwell: “Most historians agree that strategic bombing was a disaster. 160,000 US and English airmen and hundreds of thousands of German civilians were killed in those bombing campaigns. Many of Europe’s most beautiful cities were destroyed and German morale didn’t crack; the Germans fought to the bitter end. After the war, the Nobel Prize winning physicist Patrick Blackett wrote a devastating essay where he said that the war could have been won six months or even a year earlier, if only the British had used their bombers more intelligently.” [Note that the whole Gomorrah holocaust killed more Japanese civilians than German civilians; as noted in Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb, the Hamburg dry run led more-or-less directly to the fire-bombings of almost every urban centre in Japan.]
Mukerjee: “‘Love me, love my dog, and if you don’t love my dog you damn well can’t love me,’ muttered a furious Churchill in 1941, after a member of the House of Commons had raised questions about the Prof’s influence.” [Gladwell: that “row occurred in 1942 and it occurred over strategic bombing”.]
Mukerjee: “Cherwell believed that a small circle of the intelligent and the aristocratic should run the world. ‘Those who succeed in getting what everyone wants must be the ablest,’ he asserted. The Prof regarded the masses as ‘very stupid,’ considered Australians to be inferior to Britons, advocated ‘harshness’ toward homosexuals, and thought criminals should be treated cruelly because ‘the amount of pleasure derived by other people from the knowledge that a malefactor is being punished far exceeds in sum total the amount of pain inflicted on a malefactor by his punishment.’” [Enjoyment arising from the punishment of the wretched outweighs the suffering of those wretched!]
Mukerjee: “Eugenic ideas also feature in a lecture that Lord Cherwell (then known as Professor Lindemann) had delivered more than once, probably in the early 1930s. He had detailed a science-based solution to a challenge that occupied many an intellect of the time: preserving for eternity the hegemony of the superior classes.”
Mukerjee: “New technologies such as surgery, mind control, and drug and hormone manipulations would one day allow humans to be fine-tuned for specific tasks. … ‘Somebody must perform dull, dreary tasks, tend machines, count units in repetition work; is it not incumbent on us, if we have the means, to produce individuals without a distaste for such work, types that are as happy in their monotonous occupation as a cow chewing the cud?’ Lindemann asked. Science could yield a race of humans blessed with ‘the mental make-up of the worker bee.’ This subclass would do all the unpleasant work and not once think of revolution or of voting rights: ‘Placid content rules in the bee-hive or ant-heap.’ The outcome would be a perfectly peaceable and stable society, ‘led by supermen and served by helots.’”
Mukerjee: “At least no one would demand votes on behalf of an ape. … To consolidate the rule of supermen – to perpetuate the British Empire – one need only remove the ability of slaves to see themselves as slaves.”
Gladwell: “How can you have a real debate against Churchill’s best friend? Friendship comes first.”
Gladwell: “The US starts sending over so many ships that, by late 1943 when the famine in Bengal is at its height, there’s actually a surplus of boats on the allied side. In fact, in 1943, the British actually start shipping wheat from Australia up through the Indian Ocean, just not to India. … British ships full of grain are sailing right past India on the way to the Middle East to be stored for some future, hypothetical need. They might even stop and refuel in Mumbai, but nothing leaves the ship. … Why is Lindemann [as Paymaster General] refusing to help? It doesn’t even make illogical sense. Indian soldiers, hundreds of thousands of them, are fighting the Germans in the Middle East and Africa. When other countries like Canada and the United States offered to send food to India, the British say, ‘We don’t want it.’ They turn down help. Lindemann seems completely unmoved by India’s plight.”
Gladwell: “Black people, according to a friend, filled him with a physical revulsion which he was unable to control. But I’m not sure that we’re seeing Lindemann here; I think we’re seeing Churchill. Churchill is the one with an issue about India. He’s obsessed with India. In the years leading up to the war, Gandhi is building his independence movement within India and Churchill hates Gandhi. Churchill is furious about the fact that Britain has to buy raw materials from India, meaning that the master is running up a debt with its supposed subject. … Why was Lindemann so adamant that England could not help India? Because Churchill was adamant that England could not help India and Lindemann was a loyal friend.”
CP Snow (1960), cited by Gladwell: “The Lindemann-Churchill relation is the most fascinating example of court politics that we’re likely to see.” [hmmm!]
Gladwell: “The best guess of how many died in the Bengal famine of 1943 is three million people. Three million. After the war, the British government held a formal inquiry into what happened, but the investigation was forbidden to consider, and I’m quoting, ‘Her Majesty’s government’s decision in regard to shipping of imports.’ In other words, they were asked to investigate the cause of the famine without investigating the cause of the famine.”
Hitchens (p.197): “Gas attacks were contemplated by Winston Churchill. … Overy writes ‘The RAF staff thought that incendiary and high-explosive raids were more strategically efficient [than gas or germ warfare], in that they destroyed property and equipment and not just people, but in any of these cases – blown apart, burnt alive or asphyxiated – deliberate damage to civilian populations was now taken for granted. This paved the way for the possibility of using atomic weapons on German targets in 1945’.”
It also paved the way for the potentially devastating anthrax attacks on Germany which would have taken place in 1944 had the American-led D-day offensive been unsuccessful; contamination from such attacks would have rendered parts of Germany uninhabitable for a human lifetime. (See my Invoking Munich, ‘Appeasement’, and the ‘Lessons of History’ 13 March 2025, which mentions both the Bengal famine and the anthrax program as well as the Hamburg holocaust.) The anthrax program bears the hallmark of Lindemann; the abandoned anthrax operation was dubbed Operation Vegetarian, in part a likely reference to Lindemann’s famed dietary obsessions.
Hitchens (pp.200-201): “It is surprising that Sir Max Hasting’s Bomber Command (first published in 1979) has not begun to change opinions. … Sir Max deserves much credit for the chapter in which he describes the indefensible destruction of the city of Darmstadt [south of Frankfurt] on 11 September 1944 (it was not, in any significant way, a military target). Hastings: ‘The first terrible discoveries were made: cellars crammed with suffocated bodies – worse still, with amorphous heaps of melted and charred humanity’.” (Lindemann went to school in Darmstadt. Victims most likely included his former classmates, teachers and their families.)
Hitchens (p.206), on the battle between Frederick Lindemann and Henry Tizard (the scientist who stood up to Lindeman, and paid a price): “Why is the only considerable account of this battle trapped inside [a] small, obscure volume that the reader must retrieve from deep in a few impenetrable scholarly libraries? Why is it not taught in schools? Why has nobody written a play about it? I suspect it is because this story, if well known, would undermine the shallow, nonsensical cult of Winston Churchill as the infallible Great Leader, a cult to which, surely, an adult country no longer needs to cling.”
Hitchens (p.205): “Tizard said that Lindemann’s estimate of the possible destruction was five times too high. He was supported by Patrick Blackett, a former naval officer who had become a noted physicist high in the scientific councils of the day. He would later win the Nobel Prize in Physics, and be ennobled as Lord Blackett. Blackett independently advised that Lindemann’s estimate was six times too high. ‘Both were slightly out. But they were nothing like as wrong as Lindemann was. Lindemann’s estimate of destruction was in fact ten times too high, as the postwar bombing survey revealed.” [The actual destruction of German cities was only one-tenth of what Lindemann had hoped and argued would be the case. Given the actual hundreds of thousands of barbecued German civilians, Lindemann had been arguing for millions.]
CP Snow (1960), cited by Hitchens (p.205): “It is possible, I suppose, that some time in the future people living in a more benevolent age than ours may turn over the official records and notice that men like us, well-educated by the standards of the day, men fairly kindly by the standards of the day, and often possessed of strong human feelings, made the kind of calculation I have just been describing. … Will they think that we resigned our humanity? They will have the right.” [Strikingly, although the post-war years have generally been regarded as ‘more benevolent’, the Gomorrah holocaust continues to ‘fly under the radar’. Indeed, so much so that Churchill’s speeches have been nominated as part of New Zealand’s schools’ draft English curriculum! (And that matter of Churchill was not raised by the New Zealand media; they were more interested in the ‘controversial’ possibility that Shakespeare might be compulsory.)]
Winston Churchill was not a nice man. His ‘favourite’ – Frederick Lindemann – was rather less nice.
Lessons
War itself is the problem, and the first casualty of war is truth. Drumbeating for war is cheap, and sabres are easily rattled. We stumble into wars without having any realistic idea how they might end; casual war becomes forever war. Wars involve multiple nasty people from the outset, and other similarly nasty people come to the fore during war, sometimes completely behind the scenes.
War changes much but solves little. World War Two was the first war in which civilians were targeted on an industrial scale. It ended, in Europe at least, in a Pyrrhic manner, with Josef Stalin’s USSR as the annihilist of Nazi Germany.
War in the modern age of globalisation means this and more. In a twenty-first century World War, while targeted civilians will be high on the murder list, the biggest death-counts are likely to be of untargeted civilians – residents of semi-belligerent and non-belligerent countries – and of completely guiltless non-human life forms.
If the Americans hadn’t successfully prosecuted D-Day (Operation Overlord) in 1944, I believe that Winston Churchill would have used the RAF to unleash his anthrax bombs. The Scottish island of Gruinard is only now becoming habitable, after eighty years of anthrax contamination. Imagine parts of Germany becoming uninhabitable – for nearly a century – had Operation Vegetarian been executed.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Students of SPbGASU in the construction laboratory of Henan Urban Engineering University
As part of the academic mobility program, 37 students of the St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering are undergoing an internship at the Henan University of Urban Development (PRC). The visit, organized in accordance with the cooperation agreement between the two universities, will last from April 1 to 25.
The program includes a variety of activities that will immerse you in Chinese culture and introduce you to the Chinese construction industry.
Sabrinahon Solehzoda, a second-year Master’s student in the Faculty of Civil Engineering, shared her impressions of the internship: “We live and study on the campus of Henan University of Urban Planning. The campus is the first thing that struck us in Pingdingshan, where the university is located. It is like a separate city, but only for students, where there is everything you need for life. We visited many sights: Chaiya Shan Mountain, Yao Shan Mountain, the Big Buddha, the Museum of Architecture. We also had a trip to another city – Wuhan, where we saw the sights and visited Wuhan University of Technology, presented our university, told about St. Petersburg. We were given books about architecture and construction in the PRC. In China, all the people are very kind and responsive: in the first days, when we still did not understand anything, not a single passerby refused to help.”
Ekaterina Tsygankova, a first-year student of the Master’s program in the Faculty of Civil Engineering, also spoke about how the trip was going: “We visited various laboratories and workshops, and saw how TIM technologies work in China. During practical classes, we were able to use construction equipment, which significantly broadened our horizons and allowed us to compare it with what is used in Russia. We were able to get acquainted with the specifics of the educational process in Chinese universities. In addition to the Henan University of Urban Development, we visited the Wuhan Institute of Technology and Pingdingshan University. We had a unique opportunity to visit a Chinese construction site and observe the work.
In addition, we were able to take part in the Russian-Chinese drawing and watercolour competition. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate our creative abilities, exchange cultural experiences and meet talented students from China. We listened to lectures on our specialty, took courses on Chinese culture and language learning. This allowed us to better adapt to the new environment and quickly make friends. In addition, we visited temples and monasteries, climbed mountains, visited museums and even tried on national costumes. Each day of the program was memorable and eventful.”
According to Ekaterina, the trip was an unforgettable experience for her. The knowledge and connections she gained will help her build a career in the construction 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.
A New South Wales Senate inquiry into public toilets is underway, looking into the provision, design and maintenance of public toilets across the state.
Whenever I mention this inquiry, however, everyone nervously laughs and the conversation moves on. It’s not something people feel comfortable talking about.
Yet, a public toilet goes to the heart of what a city provides for its inhabitants and visitors. It is a critically important piece of public infrastructure that sets the tone for public behaviour, expectations and conduct.
And we could be doing so much better with our public toilets.
An important first impression
Public toilets communicate social values. They show how we provide for our citizens and what we expect of them in return.
A public toilet is often the first thing someone new to a place sees and wants; it creates an important first impression.
As communication theorist Paul Watzlawick said, “One cannot not communicate.” Infrastructure is no exception.
So public toilets play an important social role and, through their design, help communicate and shape relationships between citizens.
As one person’s submission put it: ‘It’s important that public toilets don’t look like prisons’. ThatHolisticMom888/Shutterstock
They not only provide relief for our urgent bodily needs; in them, we are equal humans. External hierarchies are largely removed.
Their appearance and design influences whether we feel cared for, trusted and appreciated, seen and acknowledged.
This is reflected in what members of the public have said to the current NSW senate inquiry. One submission, for instance, noted:
It’s important that public toilets don’t look like prisons.
If they are perceived as such, then the message is we can’t be trusted. We are assumed to damage or destroy them and behave like criminals.
Access to adequate public toilets is a basic right. But they are also used to administer medication, breastfeed, care for children, access drinking water and find a quiet place to rest. Public toilets are often the only private space in public.
So, how can a communal space like the public bathroom evolve accordingly? One issue emerging in several inquiry submissions so far is the issue of public toilets being routinely locked at night.
We don’t have a curfew, we are aloud (sic) out at night. If you don’t want people pissing in the street, then leave them open.
Cost is the greatest concern. Councils know how much their toilet blocks cost, but not how many people use them.
A submission from Blacktown City Council states their 218 public toilets cost more than A$15 million annually, involving six staff and three vehicles to service these facilities.
This equals more than $68,800 per toilet per year.
On the other hand, good public toilets could help grow the economy. A submission by Guide Dogs Australia quotes Deloitte Access Economics estimates that inclusive public spaces could add $12.7 billion to Australia’s economy annually and boost GDP by about $1.2 billion through increased workforce participation.
And a submission by Bathurst Regional Access Committees notes:
The disability tourism trade is worth well over $8 billion dollars annually. Tourism is what keeps many regions alive.
Decent and accessible toilets may even help attract more people to a local area, activating public spaces and building community.
Flipping the toilet script
We need to flip the way we think about public toilets and those who clean them.
They must radiate thoughtful care, pride, civic engagement and delight.
Australian urban designer David Engwicht’s community consultation approach to public space provides a great blueprint. He advocates recognising that place making is similar to home making; it can create memorable and potentially transformative experiences. It can help bring us into the present, creating a feeling of rootedness and connection.
This stunning public toilet in Tokyo was designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. Tada Images/Shutterstock
The toilet can transcend its shameful, dirty, grimy image and last resort status. It can become a privilege to maintain, clean and keep in pristine condition for the public good.
The public toilet could become a valuable asset, an attraction, a sought after destination, a jewel in the crown of the government’s public offering.
They could be pieces of enchanting infrastructure sponsors line up to support.
In this project, 17 toilets were designed by world-leading Japanese architects and designers and their cleaners’ uniforms by a famous fashion designer.
The toilets were equipped with custom high quality toilet paper, cleaned three times a day, and given their own stunning interactive website.
German filmmaker Wim Wenders even made a feature film, Perfect Days, about a man who cleans these toilets.
Credit: The Match Factory/YouTube.
These toilets, sponsored by the non-profit Nippon Foundation in collaboration with Shibuya City government and Shibuya Tourism Association, represent a highly innovative approach.
Here, the public toilet is celebrated as an international attraction, while providing an excellent service to the public.
Christian Tietz 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.
