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MIL-OSI Russia: Financial news: Bank of Russia survey program for the second half of 2025

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: Central Bank of Russia (2) –

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.

Categories24-7, Central Bank of Russia, Mil-SOSI, Russian Banks, Russian Economy, Russian Finance, Russian Language, Russian economy, Russian banks

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Item No.	start date	End date	Name of the survey	Description of the survey	Survey instruments1	The structural division of the Bank of Russia responsible for conducting the survey, contact information for survey questions
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1	July	July	Research into IT service providers.	The survey is conducted to study the quality of financial institutions’ management of the risk of outsourcing information technology and cloud services as of 01.07.2025.	Data submission deadline: no later than 21.07.2025 Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Information Security Department: Igor Vyacheslavovich Ozhered – Head of Department, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-65-69), e-mail: Celebration@kbr.ru; Mikhailovskaya Anastasia Sergeevna – consultant, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-64-37), e-mail: Mas@kbr.ru
2	July	July	Survey of financial market participants as part of the assessment of the “digital maturity” of the “Financial Services” industry.	The survey is conducted to assess the “digital maturity” of the “Financial Services” industry of financial market participants for the first half of 2025.	Data submission deadline: 28.07.2025 Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of financial technologies: credit organizations: Chazhengin Daniil Aleksandrovich – leading expert, tel.: (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 7-67-57), e-mail: Chazhenginda@kbr.ru; Viktorov Evgeniy Vyacheslavovich – expert of the 1st category, tel: (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 7-66-01), e-mail: Viktorovev@kbr.ru; Insurance Market Department: insurance organizations: Shagramanov Sergey Mikhailovich – head of department, tel.: (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 7-43-97), e-mail: Shagramanovsm@kbr.ru; Department of Investment Financial Intermediaries: non-state pension funds, management companies and professional participants in the securities market: Kravchenko Ishira Akhmedovna – chief expert, tel.: (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-69-89), e-mail: Kravchenko@kbr.ru; Tsrnobrnya Olga Vyacheslavovna – chief expert, tel.: (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-69-84), e-mail: Tsrnobrnyov@kbr.ru
3	July	July	A survey of the level of implementation and use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the financial market.	The survey is conducted to assess the level of implementation and use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the financial market.	Data submission deadline: 15.07.2025 Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Strategic Development of the Financial Market: Sadovskaya Tatyana Evgenievna – consultant, tel. 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 7-38-08), e-mail: Sadovskayate@kbr.ru; Department of Financial Technologies: Dmitry Vladislavovich Fedorov – Head of Department, tel. 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 7-31-73), e-mail: Fedorovdv@kbr.ru
4	July	July	A survey of trends in the segment of loans issued by microfinance organizations to small and medium-sized businesses.	The survey is conducted with the aim of studying the development of the small and medium-sized business loan segment.	Data provision period: 14 working days from the date the questionnaire is sent to the organization. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Non-bank Lending: Elizaveta Yuryevna Shtykova – leading expert, tel. 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-16-36), e-mail: Shtykovayu@kbr.ru
5	July	August	Survey of development trends in the pawnshop market	The survey is conducted with the aim of studying the development of the pawnshop market in the first half of 2025.	Data provision period: 14 working days from the date the questionnaire is sent to the organization. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Non-bank Lending: Elizaveta Yuryevna Shtykova – leading expert, tel. 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-16-36), e-mail: Shtykovayu@kbr.ru
6	July	August	Housing market survey.	The survey is conducted in order to obtain a more accurate assessment of the difference in prices between the primary and secondary housing markets, taking into account the region of location and the year the house was built for the period from 01.01.2021 to 30.06.2025.	Data submission deadline: 01.08.2025 Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in CSV file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Financial Stability: Margarita Olegovna Selezneva – Chief Economist, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-55-98), e-mail: Seleznevamo@kbr.ru
7	July	October	A survey of microfinance organizations on the volume of consumer loans (credits) secured by a pledge of a motor vehicle and loans granted to individuals for purposes not related to their entrepreneurial activities, the borrowers’ obligations for which are secured by a mortgage.	The survey is conducted with the aim of collecting information from microfinance organizations on the volume of consumer loans (credits) secured by a pledge of a motor vehicle and loans granted to individuals for purposes not related to their entrepreneurial activities, the borrowers’ obligations for which are secured by a mortgage, for the third quarter of 2025.	Data submission deadline: no later than 14.10.2025 Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Financial Stability: Irina Sergeevna Petukhova – leading economist, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-74-06), e-mail: Petukhova@kbr.ru; Khodjaeva Anastasia Petrovna – consultant, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-72-80), e-mail: Khojaevaap@kbr.ru
8	July	October	Survey “Customer Complaints Information”.	The survey is being conducted with the aim of analyzing complaints received directly by organizations supervised by the Bank of Russia for the second and third quarters of 2025.	Data submission deadline: for the second quarter of 2025 – July 2025; for the third quarter of 2025 – October 2025. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts. A letter from the Bank of Russia containing additional information is sent to survey participants before the start of the next reporting period.	Service for the Protection of Consumer Rights and Ensuring Accessibility of Financial Services: Vasily Evgenievich Zuev — head of the expert group, for technical support: e-mail: It_Appels@kbr.ru; for questions on methodological support: e-mail: method_appeals@cbr.ru
9	July	November	Cost of cross-border transfers by individuals from the Russian Federation.	The survey is conducted with the aim of achieving the sustainable development goals for the period up to 2030 (Sustainable Development Goals), adopted by UN Resolution No. 68/261 (indicator 10.c.1 of goal 10 “Reducing inequality within and among countries”) for the second and third quarters of 2025.	Data submission deadline: for the second quarter of 2025 – no later than 15.08.2025; for the third quarter of 2025 – no later than 15.11.2025. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Statistics: Elena Vyacheslavovna Rozhkova – Chief Economist, tel.: (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-71-67), e-mail: Rozhkovaev@kbr.ru
10	July	November	Survey of partner financing activities.	The survey is conducted to study the activities of participants in the partnership financing experiment for the second and third quarters of 2025.	Data provision period: 20 working days from the date the questionnaire is sent to the organization. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Non-bank Lending: Misnik Anastasia Romanovna – economic adviser, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 7-43-26), e-mail: Misnikar@kbr.ru
11	July	December	Survey of the implementation by credit institutions of the requirements of the Federal Law of 30.12.2004 No. 214-FZ “On participation in shared construction of apartment buildings and other real estate objects and on amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation.”	The survey is conducted for the purpose of operational monitoring of the functioning of developer accounts and escrow accounts issued to developers of loans using escrow accounts.	Data provision deadline: Section 1 information collection ceased on 01.08.2024. Sections 2, 3 monthly no later than the sixth working day of the month following the reporting month. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of banking regulation and analytics: Akimov Alexander Nikolaevich – head of department, tel.: 8 (495) 957-81-13, e-mail: Akimovan@kbr.ru; Puzin Aleksey Mikhailovich – consultant, tel.: 8 (495) 957-83-07, e-mail: Puzinami@kbr.ru; Karelina Inna Igorevna – leading economist, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-30-63), e-mail: Karelinai@kbr.ru
12	July	December	Inspection of bank accounts of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs.	The survey is conducted with the aim of analyzing current trends in the development of the deposit market, in particular, attracting funds to current accounts of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, and the cost of attracting them.	Deadline for providing data: monthly, no later than the 23rd day of the month following the month being surveyed. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Statistics: Krylova Darya Olegovna – Head of Department, tel.: 8 (495) 957-89-65, e-mail: Doroshdu@kbr.ru; Fomicheva Ekaterina Yurievna – chief economist, tel.: 8 (495) 315-76-81, e-mail: RIZ1@kbr.ru; Morozova Arina Olegovna – chief economist, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-58-77), e-mail: Morozovao@kbr.ru
13	July	December	A survey of the expenses of financial institutions on software and services required for its use at significant critical information infrastructure facilities of the Russian Federation that they own.	The survey is conducted with the aim of qualitatively assessing the expenses of financial institutions on software and services necessary for its use at their significant critical information infrastructure facilities of the Russian Federation for the second and third quarters of 2025.	Deadline for submitting data: no later than the 20th day of the month following the reporting quarter. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Information Security Department: Bondarev Alexander Vladimirovich – Leading Engineer, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-68-90), e-mail: Bondarevav@kbr.ru
14	July	December	Examination of concluded agreements for receiving credit (borrowed) funds without the voluntary consent of the client.	The survey is conducted with the aim of collecting information on concluded agreements for receiving credit (borrowed) funds without the voluntary consent of the client for the second and third quarters of 2025.	Deadline for submitting data: no later than the fifteenth working day of the month following the reporting quarter. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Information Security Department: Egor Romanovich Sokrut – Lead Engineer, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-29-05), e-mail: TRASTER@Kbr.ru
15	July	December	Survey of loans granted to individuals in rubles using bank cards.	The survey is conducted with the aim of analyzing interest rates on loans granted to individuals without collateral using an electronic means of payment (bank cards), taking into account the interest-free grace period.	Deadline for providing data: monthly, no later than the 12th working day of the month following the month being surveyed. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Statistics: Krylova Darya Olegovna – Head of Department, tel.: 8 (495) 957-89-65, e-mail: Doroshdu@kbr.ru; Morozova Arina Olegovna – chief economist, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-58-77), e-mail: Morozovao@kbr.ru; Fomicheva Ekaterina Yurievna – chief economist, tel.: 8 (495) 315-76-81, (ext. 5-76-81), e-mail: RIZ1@kbr.ru
16	July	December	Monitoring the leasing market and assessing its key risks.	The survey is conducted to analyze the volume of the leasing market and its key risks for the second and third quarters of 2025.	Data submission deadline: for Q2 2025 – September 2025; for Q3 2025 – December 2025. Survey form Survey participants Information is provided by e-mail in MS Excel file format.	Department of Financial Stability: Vlada Valerievna Monastyreva – Leading Economist, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-55-71), e-mail: Monastyrevavv@kbr.ru
17	July	December	Survey of deposits of individuals and the conditions for their attraction by credit institutions.	The survey is conducted with the aim of analyzing bank offers for deposits, deposits of individuals, indicating the maximum range of additional parameters that influence the increase in the base rate (minimum guaranteed rate) for a banking product, and their subsequent comparison with the actual level of the cost of attracting deposits.	Deadline for providing data: monthly, no later than the 23rd day of the month following the month being surveyed. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Statistics: Krylova Darya Olegovna – Head of Department, tel.: 8 (495) 957-89-65, e-mail: Doroshdu@kbr.ru; Fomicheva Ekaterina Yurievna – chief economist, tel.: 8 (495) 315-76-81, e-mail: RIZ1@kbr.ru; Morozova Arina Olegovna – Chief, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-58-77), e-mail: Morozovao@kbr.ru
18	July	December	Information on the assignment of rights of claim (cession) and the issue of securities (securitization) secured by claims on consumer loans granted to resident individuals.	The survey is conducted with the aim of analyzing the portfolio of consumer loans, the rights to claim which were assigned to legal entities (including credit institutions), including with subsequent securitization, for the correct assessment of the dynamics of the total consumer portfolio of credit institutions.	Deadline for providing data: monthly, no later than the 16th working day of the month following the month being surveyed. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Statistics: Krylova Darya Olegovna – Head of Department, tel.: 8 (495) 957-89-65, e-mail: Doroshdu@kbr.ru; Morozova Arina Olegovna – chief economist, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-58-77), e-mail: Morozovao@kbr.ru; Fomicheva Ekaterina Yurievna – chief economist, tel.: 8 (495) 315-76-81, e-mail: RIZ1@kbr.ru
19	July	December	Changes in the bank’s credit policy.	The survey is conducted with the aim of qualitatively assessing changes in the parameters of banks’ credit policy, the reasons for these changes for an in-depth analysis of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, and identifying factors influencing lending volumes for the second and third quarters of 2025.	Data submission deadline: last working day of the reporting quarter. For the largest multi-branch banks, the questionnaire may be submitted at a later date. The questionnaire is published on the official website of the Bank of Russia at: http: //kbr.ru/stastiki/dkp/bank_landing_Terms/ in the section “Monetary policy”, “Statistics”, “Terms of bank lending”. Survey participants Information is provided by e-mail in MS Excel file format.	Department of Monetary Policy: employee responsible for methodological support of the survey: Egorov Aleksey Vladimirovich – economic adviser, tel.: 8 (495) 957-88-91, e-mail: Egorovav@kbr.ru; Main Directorate of the Bank of Russia for the Central Federal District: employee responsible for conducting the survey: Veronika Eldarovna Islyamova – consultant, tel.: 8 (495) 950-20-72, e-mail: SVP1@kbr.ru
20	July	December	Lessee risk assessment.	The survey is conducted with the aim of quantitatively assessing the risks of lessees for the second and third quarters of 2025.	Data submission deadline: for Q2 2025 – September 2025; for Q3 2025 – December 2025. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Financial Stability: Vlada Valerievna Monastyreva – Leading Economist, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-55-71), e-mail: Monastyrevavv@kbr.ru
21	July	December	Monitoring of individuals’ loan debt.	Monitoring underwriting standards and credit quality of portfolios of banks specializing in lending to individuals for the purpose of assessing systemic credit risks of the banking sector in the second and third quarters of 2025.	Data submission deadline: for the second quarter of 2025 – 01.08.2025; for the third quarter of 2025 – 01.11.2025. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Financial Stability: Ivanova Elizaveta Dmitrievna – economist of the 2nd category, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-77-47), e-mail: Ivanovad@kbr.ru
22	July	December	Survey of planned indicators of credit institutions.	The survey is being conducted with the aim of improving the quality of operational forecasts and internal analytical models of the Bank of Russia.	Data submission deadline: no later than 25 working days following the reporting quarter. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel and Word file formats using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of banking regulation and analytics: Popov Maxim Andreevich – head of department, tel.: 8 (800) 250-40-88, (ext. 2-15-66), e-mail: Poppyma01@kbr.ru; Shterts Ruslan Sergeevich – consultant, tel.: 8 (800) 250-40-88, (ext. 2-15-86), e-mail: Sertsrs@kbr.ru
23	July	December	Survey on received subsidies to compensate for lost income on loans under government support programs.	The survey is conducted in order to identify, as part of the credit institution’s income, subsidies received to compensate for lost income on preferential loans issued for purposes determined by state support programs (quarterly data for the period: Q1 2020 – Q4 2024; monthly data for the period: January – December 2025).	Deadline for providing data: monthly, no later than the eighth working day of the month following the month being surveyed. Survey form Survey participants Information is provided by e-mail in the form of a scanned copy, MS Excel file format, or through the personal account of the information exchange participant.	Department of Statistics: Kolesnikova Tatyana Alekseevna – Head of Department, tel.: (495) 987-71-35, e-mail: Kolesnikova@kbr.ru; Khizhnyak Anton Vitalievich – Head of Department, tel.: 8 (495) 771-42-71, e-mail: Hizhnyakav@kbr.ru
24	August	September	Survey of individuals receiving/sending cross-border money transfers.	The survey is conducted with the aim of analyzing information on received/sent cross-border money transfers of individuals.	Deadline for providing data: no later than 40 calendar days after sending the questionnaire to the organization. Survey form Survey participants Information is provided by e-mail in the form of a scanned copy, MS Excel file format, or through the personal account of the information exchange participant.	Department of Statistics: Elena Vyacheslavovna Rozhkova – Chief Economist, tel.: (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-71-67), e-mail: Rozhkovaev@kbr.ru
25	September	October	A survey of the personnel needs of financial sector organizations for information security specialists.	The survey is being conducted with the aim of studying the personnel needs of financial sector organizations for information security specialists.	Deadline for providing data: no later than 30 calendar days from the date the questionnaire is sent to the organization. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Information Security Department: Elena Ivanovna Stavitskaya — consultant, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-69-43), e-mail: Stavitskaya@kbr.ru; Terekhov Sergey Vasilievich – chief engineer, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-28-76), e-mail: Terekhovsv@kbr.ru
26	October	October	Survey of satisfaction of credit institutions with the quality of cash.	The survey is conducted to assess the satisfaction of credit institutions with the quality of cash.	Data submission deadline: 15.10.2025 Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in Word file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Cash Circulation Department: Natalya Andreevna Mavrushina — Head of Department, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-86-70), e-mail: MNA7@kbr.ru; Dzhabrailov Adil Millat ogly – leading economist, tel: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 1-86-88), e-mail: Dzhabrailovam@kbr.ru
27	October	October	Investigation of cash withdrawal transactions without the client’s voluntary consent using ATMs.	The survey is conducted with the aim of studying operations on issuing cash by credit institutions without the voluntary consent of the client using ATMs (data for September 2025 will be presented in the third quarter of 2025).	Deadline for submitting data: no later than the fifteenth working day of the month following the reporting quarter. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Information Security Department: Egor Romanovich Sokrut – Lead Engineer, tel.: 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-29-05), e-mail: TRASTER@Kbr.ru
28	October	November	A survey of development trends in the market of consumer credit cooperatives.	The survey is conducted with the aim of studying the development of the consumer credit cooperative market for the first to third quarters of 2025.	Data provision period: 14 working days from the date the questionnaire is sent to the organization. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Non-bank Lending: Elizaveta Yuryevna Shtykova – leading expert, tel. 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-16-36), e-mail: Shtykovayu@kbr.ru
29	October	November	A survey of development trends in the market of agricultural credit consumer cooperatives.	The survey is conducted with the aim of studying the development of the agricultural credit consumer cooperative market for the first to third quarters of 2025.	Data provision period: 14 working days from the date the questionnaire is sent to the organization. Survey form Survey participants The information is presented in MS Excel file format using the functionality of personal accounts.	Department of Non-bank Lending: Elizaveta Yuryevna Shtykova – leading expert, tel. 8 (495) 771-99-99, (ext. 2-16-36), e-mail: Shtykovayu@kbr.ru

MIL OSI Russia News –

July 1, 2025

MIL-OSI USA: Congressional Delegation Requests Documents and Demands Answers on Detention of Georgetown Scholar Badar Khan Suri
Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Don Beyer (D-VA)

U.S. Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) and 21 additional Members of Congress demanded relevant documentation and information related to the arrest and detention of Georgetown postdoctoral fellow Dr. Badar Khan Suri. In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, lawmakers sought urgent clarification regarding the justification for Dr. Khan Suri’s arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on March 17, 2025, and his subsequent detention. The lawmakers also requested the disclosure of key documents and evidence substantiating the federal government’s claims and actions, citing serious concerns about due process violations and the misuse of immigration authorities.

The documents and key information requested by the lawmakers include:
- The full and complete March 15^th State Department memo, including all attachments, that describe Secretary Rubio’s finding that Dr. Khan Suri’s presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious foreign policy consequences for the United States and would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.
- Dr. Khan Suri’s I-213 Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien from the Department of Homeland Security, including details about Dr. Khan Suri’s apprehension, criminal history, prior immigration encounters, and other relevant information that supports potential grounds for deportation or inadmissibility.
- Any and all evidence in the Department of Homeland Security’s possession related to the activities referred to in a X (formerly Twitter) post from DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, stating that “Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. Khan Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”
- The Department of Homeland Security’s documented reasons for Dr. Badar Khan Suri’s transfer to the Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, TX.
- Any information provided from outside groups such as Canary Mission.
Dr. Badar Khan Suri is a legally admitted visiting scholar with no prior criminal record, was never charged with a crime, and the obscure immigration provision with which he was charged is not a ground for mandatory detention. The Administration has made no credible argument to support his arrest or detention. However, Dr. Khan Suri was held in ICE custody at the Prairieland Detention Center, where he was deemed a high-risk custody detainee requiring maximum security control and supervision until his court-ordered release on May 14, 2025. The circumstances surrounding his arrest and detention violate Dr. Khan Suri’s constitutional rights, including his First Amendment and due process rights.

Full text of the letter follows below, and a signed copy is available here.

***

Dear Secretary Rubio and Secretary Noem:

We write to request key information and documents pertaining to the case of Georgetown postdoctoral fellow Dr. Badar Khan Suri, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on March 17th. Specifically we seek the following: from the State Department, the attachments cited in the March 15th memo issued by the Secretary presenting the finding that Dr. Khan Suri’s presence and activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest, including “Tab 1- DHS Letter on Badar Khan Suri” and “Tab 2- HSI Subject Profile of Badar Khan Suri” and the time and content of the notice provided to relevant Congressional committees; and from the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. Khan Suri’s I-213, his Notice of Custody Determination, the documented reasons for the detainee transfer, context pertaining to Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin’s March 19th comments as well as context pertaining to how Dr. Khan Suri was identified by DHS.

Dr. Badar Khan Suri held J-1 visa status as a visiting scholar and postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. He was duly admitted to the United States on this visa in December 2022. He is married to a U.S. citizen, with whom he has three children: a nine-year-old son and five-year-old twins—a boy and a girl. At the time of his arrest, he was teaching a course as an adjunct professor on Majoritarianism & Minority Rights in South Asia at Georgetown University. He has spent his life studying peace and conflict resolution and hopes to become a university professor and embark on a career in academia and teaching. Dr. Khan Suri and his wife moved to the United States because it ensures religious freedom for all, and they wanted to raise their children in a society that values religious tolerance.

Dr. Khan Suri was charged with removability under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) § 237(a)(4)(C)(i) and detained pursuant to INA § 236(a). Masked and physically unidentifiable Homeland Security agents arrested Suri at approximately 9:30 p.m. in Arlington, Virginia on the evening of March 17, 2025 pursuant to a Warrant for Arrest of Alien, Form I-200. The Constitution establishes due process rights for “all ‘persons’ within the United States, including [noncitizens], whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.” The government has not disclosed information to support that the detention of Mr. Suri was justified. It has not demonstrated that Mr. Suri—a husband to a U.S. citizen, a father of three young children, and with no criminal history—needed to be detained. An ICE officer involved in his booking stated that they knew he was not a criminal and did not do anything wrong.

The law limits the government’s authority to deport people under INA § 237(a)(4)(C)(i) and imposes key requirements in such instances. The Executive Branch does not have the authority to deny visas to foreigners solely because of the foreigner’s political beliefs or because of their anticipated speech in the United States. When Congress passed the Moynihan Amendment in 1987, the Senate Committee warned that “[f]or many years the United States has embarrassed itself by excluding prominent foreigners from visiting the United States solely because of their political beliefs…individuals had done no more than exercise rights to freedom of expression and association…constitutionally protected for all U.S. citizens.” The Secretary’s authority to determine that entry would compromise foreign policy interests should be used “sparingly and not merely because there is a likelihood that an alien will make critical remarks about the United States or its policies, and that the “compelling foreign policy interest” standard should be applied strictly.

If a reasoning has been made on foreign policy grounds, the Secretary of State cannot exclude or condition entry based on a noncitizen’s “past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States,” unless the Secretary personally certifies to Congress that admitting the individual would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest. Therefore, we request the full and complete March 15th memo, including all attachments that describe Secretary Rubio’s finding that Dr. Khan Suri’s presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious foreign policy consequences for the United States and would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest. We also require the notice (including when it was provided and justification therein) provided to the Chairs of the Committees on the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives and of the Committees on the Judiciary and Foreign Relations of the Senate.

Department policy also requires additional procedures for detainees in custody of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE Policy 11022.1, “Detainee Transfers,” prohibits the transfer of individuals from one Field Office’s area of responsibility to another if, inter alia, they have immediate family, an attorney of record, pending or ongoing removal proceedings within the area, or if they have been granted bond or requested a bond hearing, unless a Field Office Director or their designee deems the transfer necessary for one of the seven specific reasons identified in the policy. The policy states that “[t]he Immigration Officer will conduct a review to determine whether any of these factors exist. Before a transfer is made in a case where one or more of these factors exist, the transfer must be approved at the Assistant Field Office Director level or higher, and the reasons for the transfer must be documented in the detainee’s A-File. The policy also states that ICE is required to notify the attorney of record that the individual “is being transferred and include the reason for the transfer and the name, location, and telephone number of the new facility as soon as practicable on the day of the transfer, but in no circumstances later than twenty-four (24) hours after the transfer occurs.” Please provide the documented reasons for the transfer of Dr. Khan Suri.

Additionally, ICE Directive 11064.3, “Interests of Noncitizen Parents and Legal Guardians of Minor Children or Incapacitated Adults” requires the Field Office Director to refrain from transferring detained noncitizens outside of the Field Office’s area of responsibility where their child or children are located unless dictated by exceptional circumstances or court order. Even when transfer is dictated, the Field Office Director must place the noncitizen as close as practicable to the minor child or children. At the time of his transfer to Louisiana and then Texas, Dr. Khan Suri had a wife and three young children, and an attorney of record, in Virginia. Please share the justification provided either by exceptional circumstances or the court order provided for the transfers to Louisiana and Texas as well as the justification for how Texas was determined to be as close as practicable.

On March 19, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs McLaughlin posted on X that “Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. Khan Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.” Please share any and all evidence, if you possess it, to the activities referred to in this post, accompanied by clarification of which activities were used as supporting information for his detention and under what grounds it was included.

In addition, as part of Dr. Khan Suri’s detention, he was issued a Notice of Custody Determination and an I-213. Please provide those documents in full. In each of these requests for documentation, we ask that you also provide assurance of authentication for each document. In the event that documentation does not exist and therefore cannot be produced, please indicate as such. In the event that documentation contains classified information, please indicate and provide a vehicle through which Members and Congressional staff with appropriate security clearance can view such information in a congressional SCIF.

Lastly, it would appear as if DHS targeted Dr. Khan Suri because of his identification by Canary Mission, a group that is involved in a McCarthyistic doxxing campaign towards individuals and their associates that champion pro-Palestinian viewpoints. In another recent case, a district court judge found DHS and DOS acted on a tweet from Betar and pressure from Canary Mission to strip someone of a student visa. Please share if information identified by or communication by/with Betar, Canary Mission, Middle East Forum, or another outside group was used as evidence or support in the case of Dr. Khan Suri. If yes, what steps were taken to authenticate their evidence.

Dr. Khan Suri is a scholar on conflict resolution who has no criminal record, and the Administration has made no credible argument to support his arrest and detention. His arrest and detention appear to violate Dr. Khan Suri’s constitutional rights, including the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Administration must explain and document its actions in this case, which appear to have flagrantly abused and possibly violated statutory authorities, and which have hitherto been carried out with a disturbing lack of transparency to the public.

The Administration has done nothing to demonstrate its claims that Dr. Badar Khan Suri is a threat to the public, or to justify holding him with minimal outside contact 1,300 miles away from his wife and young children. This situation is intolerable, and demands urgent and speedy remedy, and we therefore request a response no later than July 11, 2025.

Sincerely,

MIL OSI USA News –
July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Wyoming Kicks Off America’s 250th withStatehood Day Celebration at the Wyoming Capitol Square

Source: US State of Wyoming

June 13, 2025—Cheyenne, Wyo. – On July 10, from Noon to 8 p.m. the Capitol Square will kick off a year of celebration in advance of commemorating America’s 250th anniversary next July. The July 10 celebration coincides with Wyoming statehood day and launches monthly events at the Capitol leading up to the grand celebration of America’s semi-quincentennial on July 4, 2026.

The July 10 festivities will include guided tours of the Capitol, Wyoming history talks, live entertainment, military vehicle displays, food trucks, and activities for children. All events are free and open to the public.

Bring your own picnic blanket or lawn chair to relax and enjoy the entertainment on the north side of the Capitol grounds. This special day offers a meaningful and memorable experience for all ages, celebrating Wyoming’s statehood and its role in our nation’s 250-year history. More details and a full schedule are available at Wyoming’s Kickoff to America’s 250th | Wyoming 250.

Event Program (Subject to change)

July 10, 2025: Noon to 8 p.m.

Food Trucks Open at Noon

Location: 26th Street

Enjoy a variety of local food trucks and vendors throughout the day, featuring Mad Flavors, Queso’s Kitchen, Ranch Eats, The Florista (coffee), Fritzzeria (pizza), and Paul Paul’s, serving Asian, Cajun, and soul food, and Sprosty’s Frostys (popsicles).

Interactive History and Educational Discovery for Kids

Location: Capitol Extension Rooms W53 and 54 and Capitol Classroom

Presented by the Wyoming State Museum and the Wyoming Veterans Commission, these interactive exhibits feature military uniforms and a collection of touchable historical artifacts for children and families to explore.

Military Vehicle Display

Location: 26th Street

Presented by the Wyoming Air National Guard and Wyoming Veterans Commission, a variety of historic and modern military vehicles will be on display.

Wyoming History & Military Talks: Stories of Strength & Legacy

Discover Wyoming’s rich history through engaging talks throughout the day on the following topics: Wyoming’s Suffrage Story from 1869-1920, The Wyoming State Flag and the Women Who Made it Fly, Buffalo Soldiers, The Johnson County War, Wyoming Girl Guards, 148th Field Artillery & George Ostrom, Camp Douglas POW Camp, Cheyenne B-17 Modification Center and Mountain Men. Presented in partnership with the Wyoming Veterans Commission, Wyoming State Museum, and WyoHistory. See Wyoming’s Kickoff to America’s 250th | Wyoming 250 for specific times.

Guided Capitol Tours

Explore the rich history and architecture of the Wyoming Capitol. Reserve your spot for a guided tour here: wyoming250.com/guided-capitol-tour-signup.

Ribbon Cutting of Exhibits | 2 p.m.

Join us as we unveil new exhibits detailing Wyoming’s early history and statehood. Visit Suffrage Hall in the west wing on the first level of the Capitol to learn about the citizens who fought for women’s right to vote and hold office.

Afternoon with Esther | 3 p.m.

A League of Her Own, sponsored by the Cheyenne League of Women Voters, presents a captivating short performance featuring Wyoming’s suffragists in conversation with Esther Hobart Morris.

Liberty Bell Rededication | Wyoming State Museum | 4 p.m.

The Wyoming Liberty Bell has been newly refurbished and is now on display. Come see this iconic replica of American history.

University of Wyoming Brass Quintet | 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. | North Capitol Grounds

Experience the energy and brilliance of these talented musicians as they deliver a selection of bold and captivating brass performances.

Music by Jason Buchanan | 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. | North Capitol Grounds

Come and listen as this talented Wyoming artist showcases a remarkable collection of original music, seamlessly blending soulful vocals with authentic folk elements and deeply reflective lyrics.

MIL OSI USA News –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Security and trade at heart of Foreign Secretary visit to Ankara
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 3

Press release

Security and trade at heart of Foreign Secretary visit to Ankara

UK visit to Turkey to bolster defence and security ties
David Lammy will visit Ankara to underscore close trade and security links between UK and Turkey during first bilateral visit to the country.

Foreign Secretary to meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan to discuss the situation in the Middle East and Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.

Visit comes as negotiations begin over new free trade agreement to supercharge UK-Turkey trade and deliver growth through the Plan for Change.

The UK’s deep security and trade links with Turkey are set to be further strengthened as the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, visits Ankara today [Monday 30 June].

In his first bilateral visit to the country, the Foreign Secretary will seek to advance UK-Turkish efforts on shared priorities, including joint work on regional security and the deepening of UK-Turkey trade and defence ties.

While in Ankara, the Foreign Secretary will meet Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to discuss stability in the Middle East and efforts to secure a just, lasting peace in Ukraine following Russia’s illegal invasion. As close NATO allies, the UK and Turkey are working together to push for diplomatic solutions and an end to ongoing violence which threatens regional and global security.

As set out in the recent National Security Strategy, security and defence collaboration with Turkey is imperative to UK security interests. This includes joint work on the prospective export of Eurofighter Typhoons to Turkey, and the government is clear that welcoming Turkey as a Typhoon operator will build on the bonds of friendship developed over many decades between key NATO Allies.

Our cooperation with Turkey also delivers our security objectives of tackling global challenges such as terrorism, serious organised crime and irregular migration.

The strengthening of the UK-Turkey trading relationship will also be a key priority for the Foreign Secretary, with his visit coming as the UK and Turkey begin negotiations over a new Free Trade Agreement (FTA) designed to unlock more opportunities for British and Turkish businesses.

UK-Turkey trade was worth almost £28 billion in 2024 and directly supports tens of thousands of UK jobs – furthering strengthening this relationship is a priority for the Foreign Secretary and will help to stimulate UK economic growth, a key part of the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change.

Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, said:

In an increasingly volatile world, the UK and Turkey remain the closest of friends and partners as we work together to find peaceful solutions to conflict in the Middle East and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Ours is a relationship which delivers directly for Turkish and British citizens at home – trade between our nations is responsible for thousands of jobs, while our security and defence links help keep our people safe.

During his visit, the Foreign Secretary will see a range of Turkish produced armoured vehicles built using UK-made safety equipment and engines at the Nurol Makina factory.

Later, at Ankara Airport, he will meet with Country President Simon Ward from aerospace company, Airbus, to mark a recent deal between Airbus and Turkish cargo airline MNG Airlines for commercial aircraft containing British-made Rolls Royce engines, worth hundreds of millions to the UK and Turkish economies.

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Published 30 June 2025
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Union solidarity runs solid in Asher family

Source: US International Brotherhood of Boilermakers

I know for a fact, after being in a union, I would never want to leave the union or go to another job.

Chasity Asher, L-106

Joe Asher from Local 106 (Cincinnati, Ohio) is sandwiched between two generations of family with union pride, his United Mine Workers Association father and his daughter, Chasity Asher, the newest union member in the family. For Asher and his daughter, being stanchly union is all in the family.

Joe Asher’s father worked union during his son’s formative years, and it made a lifelong impact. Joe Asher has been working union his whole life and has spent the last 26 years in the fabrication shop at Enerfab and at Brighton Tru-Edge represented by the Boilermakers. He has been offered a promotion into management more than once, but he’s turned the offer down every time because he “wanted to work union.”

So, when his daughter, who was in nursing school during the COVID pandemic, decided nursing wasn’t the route she wanted to go, and after subsequent jobs at FedEx and as a tow truck driver didn’t quite meet expectations, he suggested applying at his workplace. Brighton Tru-Edge fabricates cold head end caps for pressure vessels.

“My dad never wanted me to work in a man’s shop. In a man’s line of work,” Chasity Asher said. “I think he realized that after I couldn’t find a decent job with insurance and benefits and pay, he finally came around and suggested I come and work where he’s at and see how it goes.”

It’s going well. Really well. It’s going so well that other young women have applied and gotten jobs at Brighten Tru-Edge. And they’re excelling, according to Joe Asher.

“When I first got hired, I was a material handler,” Chastity Asher said. “Driving the forklift, making sure people had materials they needed.”

But after a month, a position in X-ray came up and she put her name in for it and landed a position in NDT radiographic testing.

Joe Asher, the lead over the entire weld department and NDT at Brighton Tru-Edge, has three women on his team working in cutting, welding and non-destructive testing. Two other women work in the shop forming, but he doesn’t oversee them. He’s impressed with the work ethic and skillsets of the women.

“We now have women in place everywhere, so we could make a head 100% by women,” he said. “I think more women getting into Brighton Tru-Edge has brought it to the forefront. There’s no difference between men and women working here. It takes a different breed of man, just as it takes a different breed of woman to do this.”

Brighton Tru-Edge recently honored the women working for them during Women in Construction Week. For Chasity Asher, she’s excited to go to work for the company every morning she rolls out of bed.

“I used to want to call off work a lot,” she said. “There was no motivation in past jobs. Now, I wake up every day and enjoy what I do. The company I work for goes above and beyond to make sure we’re taken care of.”

She also enjoys working in non-destructive testing. She first assesses all the heads that need to be tested for the day, making sure no marks will come up on an X-ray. Then she loads the heads into a machine and uses kilovoltage and milliamperage radiation to take the image of the head and ensure there are no weld defects.

“I have to be that person who says we’re putting out the door what we say we are,” she said. She takes that job seriously, and like her dad, she is resolutely union.

“I know for a fact, after being in a union, I would never want to leave the union or go to another job,” she said. “I hope I can retire from here in 45 years. I feel women being in a man’s field have broken the generational curse that women can’t do a man’s job. Women deserve the job just as much as a man.”

International Vice President of the Great Lakes Dan Sulivan completely agrees. “Throughout my career as a Boilermaker, it’s become clear to me that women are more than capable of succeeding in this male-dominated industry—and those who choose this path often stand out and shine.”

MIL OSI USA News –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: AFRICA/KENYA – “Let us continue the dialogue with young people instead of blaming the bishops”

Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

Nairobi (Agenzia Fides) – “We want to ask everybody — the government, the leaders, and the political spheres — to look at the fact that we are taking care of the dignity of the young people,”said Archbishop Philip Arnold Subira Anyolo of Nairobi yesterday, Sunday, June 29, in a statement regarding the accusations made by the Minister of the Interior Kipchumba Murkomen against Catholic and non-Catholic religious leaders, whom the minister accuses of siding with the “anarchists” and failing to condemn the violence during the “Generation Z” protests on June 25 in memory of the victims of last year’s demonstrations against the Finance Bill (see Fides, 21, 25 and 26 June 2024).At least 16 people were killed in clashes with police during this year’s protests (see Fides, 26/6/2025). In his statement, the Archbishop of Nairobi emphasized that the Church cares about the lives of all people: “Life is never to be sacrificed for anything else, but to be given the future, for the prosperity of the nation and for the prosperity of human beings.”Archbishop Anyolo therefore reiterated his call to listen to young people: “we have to agree — all of us together — the leaders in government, the church, and the parents, all of us who take care of the young people, we need to listen to them and understand them and help them grow and mature”.Members of the Anglican Church also responded to the Minister of the Interior. “Give top priority to the economic well-being of the people. The cost of living is unbearable for many families. Young people are unemployed. Parents cannot pay school fees. Businesses are struggling. These are not just statistics; they are stories of real suffering. Government must listen, act, and respond quickly,” emphasized the Anglican Bishop of Nyahururu, Samson Gachathi.”I know that there will be no bishop or church member, neither Catholic nor Anglican, who will come out to defend the police. Nobody will speak about how the police were injured,”the Minister of the Interior declared, reiterating that nine police stations were attacked, five of which were set on fire. Dozens of police, government, and civilian vehicles were also damaged. The Ministry of Agriculture also claimed that more than 7,354 bags of fertilizer worth approximately $230,000 were stolen from a national warehouse in Meru County, about 200 kilometers east of Nairobi, taking advantage of the chaos of the demonstrations that turned violent. The theft was described by Kenyan authorities as a “direct attack on Kenya’s food security.” (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 30/6/2025)
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MIL OSI Europe News –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: AFRICA/KENYA – “Let us continue the dialogue with young people instead of blaming the bishops”

Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

Nairobi (Agenzia Fides) – “We want to ask everybody — the government, the leaders, and the political spheres — to look at the fact that we are taking care of the dignity of the young people,”said Archbishop Philip Arnold Subira Anyolo of Nairobi yesterday, Sunday, June 29, in a statement regarding the accusations made by the Minister of the Interior Kipchumba Murkomen against Catholic and non-Catholic religious leaders, whom the minister accuses of siding with the “anarchists” and failing to condemn the violence during the “Generation Z” protests on June 25 in memory of the victims of last year’s demonstrations against the Finance Bill (see Fides, 21, 25 and 26 June 2024).At least 16 people were killed in clashes with police during this year’s protests (see Fides, 26/6/2025). In his statement, the Archbishop of Nairobi emphasized that the Church cares about the lives of all people: “Life is never to be sacrificed for anything else, but to be given the future, for the prosperity of the nation and for the prosperity of human beings.”Archbishop Anyolo therefore reiterated his call to listen to young people: “we have to agree — all of us together — the leaders in government, the church, and the parents, all of us who take care of the young people, we need to listen to them and understand them and help them grow and mature”.Members of the Anglican Church also responded to the Minister of the Interior. “Give top priority to the economic well-being of the people. The cost of living is unbearable for many families. Young people are unemployed. Parents cannot pay school fees. Businesses are struggling. These are not just statistics; they are stories of real suffering. Government must listen, act, and respond quickly,” emphasized the Anglican Bishop of Nyahururu, Samson Gachathi.”I know that there will be no bishop or church member, neither Catholic nor Anglican, who will come out to defend the police. Nobody will speak about how the police were injured,”the Minister of the Interior declared, reiterating that nine police stations were attacked, five of which were set on fire. Dozens of police, government, and civilian vehicles were also damaged. The Ministry of Agriculture also claimed that more than 7,354 bags of fertilizer worth approximately $230,000 were stolen from a national warehouse in Meru County, about 200 kilometers east of Nairobi, taking advantage of the chaos of the demonstrations that turned violent. The theft was described by Kenyan authorities as a “direct attack on Kenya’s food security.” (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 30/6/2025)
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MIL OSI Europe News –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI: CBAK Energy Forms Strategic Partnership with Anker Innovations to Establish Battery Cell Manufacturing Facility in Malaysia, with Potential Orders Valued at Up to US$357 Million

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

DALIAN, China, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — CBAK Energy Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBAT) (“CBAK Energy” or the “Company”), a leading manufacturer of lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries and comprehensive electric energy solutions in China, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, China BAK Asia Holdings Limited (“China BAK”), has entered into a significant strategic partnership (the “Partnership”) with Anker Innovations Technology Co., Ltd. (Shenzhen Stock Exchange: 300866, “Anker Innovations”), a global leader in intelligent hardware and one of CBAK Energy’s largest customers. As part of this Partnership, CBAK Energy will establish a new battery cell manufacturing facility in Malaysia (the “Malaysian Project”), with construction beginning immediately. The facility is expected to commence mass production of the Company’s flagship LFP cylindrical battery models, 32140 and 40135, by the end of 2025.

In recognition of CBAK Energy’s commitment to expanding its global manufacturing presence, Anker Innovations and CBAK Energy have established a long-term cooperation framework, with potential orders valued at approximately US$357 million. Both parties have also expressed a strong mutual intent to collaborate closely on the Malaysian Project. Since 2022, Anker Innovations has steadily increased its procurement of battery cells from CBAK Energy, becoming the Company’s largest customer. The majority of these purchases have centered around the Model 32140 LFP cylindrical batteries, which power Anker’s high-demand portable energy storage products—particularly in the U.S. market. The new Partnership marks a deepening of this long-term collaboration.

CBAK Energy has completed the registration of its Malaysian entity and expects to begin facility renovation as early as next month.
Zhiguang Hu, Chief Executive Officer of CBAK Energy, commented, “We are thrilled to enter into this strategic partnership with Anker Innovations, a highly respected and globally recognized brand. This long-term order commitment, along with substantial prepayments, reflects Anker’s strong confidence in our technical capabilities, product performance, and manufacturing quality. We are fully committed to allocating all necessary internal resources to ensure the successful launch of the Malaysian Project and the fulfillment of this transformative order.”

About CBAK Energy
CBAK Energy Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBAT) is a leading high-tech enterprise in China engaged in the development, manufacturing, and sales of new energy high power lithium batteries and raw materials for use in manufacturing high power lithium batteries. The applications of the Company’s products and solutions include electric vehicles, light electric vehicles, electric tools, energy storage, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), and other high-power applications. In January 2006, CBAK Energy became the first lithium battery manufacturer in China listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. CBAK Energy has multiple operating subsidiaries in Dalian, Nanjing and Shaoxing, as well as a large-scale R&D and production base in Dalian.
For more information, please visit ir.cbak.com.cn.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position, strategy and plans, and our expectations for future operations, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. We have attempted to identify forward-looking statements by terminology including “anticipates,” “believes,” “can,” “continue,” “could,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “may,” “plans,” “potential,” “predicts,” “should,” or “will” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Our actual results may differ materially or perhaps significantly from those discussed herein, or implied by, these forward-looking statements.
The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, other than as required by applicable law.

For further inquiries, please contact:
In China:
CBAK Energy Technology, Inc.
Investor Relations Department
Email: ir@cbak.com.cn

The MIL Network –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI: CBAK Energy Forms Strategic Partnership with Anker Innovations to Establish Battery Cell Manufacturing Facility in Malaysia, with Potential Orders Valued at Up to US$357 Million

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

DALIAN, China, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — CBAK Energy Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBAT) (“CBAK Energy” or the “Company”), a leading manufacturer of lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries and comprehensive electric energy solutions in China, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, China BAK Asia Holdings Limited (“China BAK”), has entered into a significant strategic partnership (the “Partnership”) with Anker Innovations Technology Co., Ltd. (Shenzhen Stock Exchange: 300866, “Anker Innovations”), a global leader in intelligent hardware and one of CBAK Energy’s largest customers. As part of this Partnership, CBAK Energy will establish a new battery cell manufacturing facility in Malaysia (the “Malaysian Project”), with construction beginning immediately. The facility is expected to commence mass production of the Company’s flagship LFP cylindrical battery models, 32140 and 40135, by the end of 2025.

In recognition of CBAK Energy’s commitment to expanding its global manufacturing presence, Anker Innovations and CBAK Energy have established a long-term cooperation framework, with potential orders valued at approximately US$357 million. Both parties have also expressed a strong mutual intent to collaborate closely on the Malaysian Project. Since 2022, Anker Innovations has steadily increased its procurement of battery cells from CBAK Energy, becoming the Company’s largest customer. The majority of these purchases have centered around the Model 32140 LFP cylindrical batteries, which power Anker’s high-demand portable energy storage products—particularly in the U.S. market. The new Partnership marks a deepening of this long-term collaboration.

CBAK Energy has completed the registration of its Malaysian entity and expects to begin facility renovation as early as next month.
Zhiguang Hu, Chief Executive Officer of CBAK Energy, commented, “We are thrilled to enter into this strategic partnership with Anker Innovations, a highly respected and globally recognized brand. This long-term order commitment, along with substantial prepayments, reflects Anker’s strong confidence in our technical capabilities, product performance, and manufacturing quality. We are fully committed to allocating all necessary internal resources to ensure the successful launch of the Malaysian Project and the fulfillment of this transformative order.”

About CBAK Energy
CBAK Energy Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBAT) is a leading high-tech enterprise in China engaged in the development, manufacturing, and sales of new energy high power lithium batteries and raw materials for use in manufacturing high power lithium batteries. The applications of the Company’s products and solutions include electric vehicles, light electric vehicles, electric tools, energy storage, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), and other high-power applications. In January 2006, CBAK Energy became the first lithium battery manufacturer in China listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. CBAK Energy has multiple operating subsidiaries in Dalian, Nanjing and Shaoxing, as well as a large-scale R&D and production base in Dalian.
For more information, please visit ir.cbak.com.cn.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position, strategy and plans, and our expectations for future operations, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. We have attempted to identify forward-looking statements by terminology including “anticipates,” “believes,” “can,” “continue,” “could,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “may,” “plans,” “potential,” “predicts,” “should,” or “will” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Our actual results may differ materially or perhaps significantly from those discussed herein, or implied by, these forward-looking statements.
The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, other than as required by applicable law.

For further inquiries, please contact:
In China:
CBAK Energy Technology, Inc.
Investor Relations Department
Email: ir@cbak.com.cn

The MIL Network –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI: Hyra Network Honored as “Technology Startup of the Year” at the 2025 Globee® Awards

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The digital economy has witnessed transformative platforms that fundamentally changed resource sharing: Grab revolutionized transportation, Airbnb transformed hospitality, and Shein disrupted supply chains. Now, a Vietnamese technology company is redefining the next frontier-computational power sharing itself.

Hyra Network has been officially named “Technology Startup of the Year” at the prestigious 2025 Globee® Awards for Technology, marking a watershed moment for decentralized artificial intelligence infrastructure. This recognition validates an ambitious vision that could reshape how the world builds, owns, and benefits from AI technology.

(Official winner list available at: globeeawards.com/2025-winners-technology)

The Vision Behind Innovation

This breakthrough platform is researched and developed by Hyra Tek JCS (Vietnam) and operated by Hyra Tek Smart Solution L.L.C (UAE). Hyra Network’s mission is to democratize computational power by activating billions of idle devices and transforming everyday users into AI infrastructure providers.

Hyra Network serves as the flagship platform alongside Hyra AI, creating an unprecedented model where computational resources are shared across distributed networks rather than concentrated in centralized data centers. If ride-sharing optimizes vehicle utilization and home-sharing maximizes property efficiency, then computational sharing unlocks vast processing power lying dormant in smartphones, computers, and IoT devices globally.

Global Recognition for Excellence

The Globee® Awards represent the technology sector’s highest honor, with winners selected by over 100 seasoned professionals including C-suite executives, venture capitalists, and industry analysts.

“This honor transcends our company – it validates the entire movement toward democratized AI infrastructure,” said Mr. Jonh Tran, Founder of Hyra Network. “We’re witnessing global acknowledgment that the future of AI belongs not to centralized monopolies, but to communities that collectively own and benefit from these powerful technologies.”

The decentralized AI infrastructure and compute resource-sharing model of Hyra Network

Pioneering Community-Powered AI

At its core, Hyra Tek’s innovation centers on Hyra AI, one of the world’s first Train-to-Earn platforms. This system allows users to convert personal devices into active AI training nodes, earning rewards while contributing to advanced model development. The Layer-3 blockchain architecture supports high-throughput, low-latency workloads, enabling scalable AI training and inference at the network’s edge.

The economic model creates a virtuous cycle: participants provide computational resources, earn tangible rewards, and simultaneously advance AI capabilities that benefit the broader ecosystem.

Global Impact

Today, the Hyra ecosystem spans more than 205 countries, powering a global network of approximately 2.5 million connected devices, including 700,000 active online nodes and over 1 million KYC-verified users. With strong community engagement across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa, Hyra delivers more than 360,000 teraflops of distributed computing power and supports a growing base of enterprise clients – now serving over 10 paying customers. This real-world adoption reaffirms Hyra’s core belief: that distributed, permissionless infrastructure can drive meaningful innovation while remaining truly open and accessible to all.

As artificial intelligence and DePIN technologies gain momentum, Hyra positions itself at the technological vanguard, architecting the foundation for a more equitable, intelligent, and inclusive AI future.

Media Contact

Jess Dao – Brand Manager
pr@hyra.network
Office No. C1804-166 – Mulk Nakheel Celik Building, Business Bay, Dubai, UAE

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c68cfcf1-94ef-429d-a06b-2b7c914137de
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/aba5b027-80ec-4494-8ce1-41c720be04e8
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/05a2242b-5102-458c-ba09-cde359f246cd

The MIL Network –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI: Hyra Network Honored as “Technology Startup of the Year” at the 2025 Globee® Awards

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The digital economy has witnessed transformative platforms that fundamentally changed resource sharing: Grab revolutionized transportation, Airbnb transformed hospitality, and Shein disrupted supply chains. Now, a Vietnamese technology company is redefining the next frontier-computational power sharing itself.

Hyra Network has been officially named “Technology Startup of the Year” at the prestigious 2025 Globee® Awards for Technology, marking a watershed moment for decentralized artificial intelligence infrastructure. This recognition validates an ambitious vision that could reshape how the world builds, owns, and benefits from AI technology.

(Official winner list available at: globeeawards.com/2025-winners-technology)

The Vision Behind Innovation

This breakthrough platform is researched and developed by Hyra Tek JCS (Vietnam) and operated by Hyra Tek Smart Solution L.L.C (UAE). Hyra Network’s mission is to democratize computational power by activating billions of idle devices and transforming everyday users into AI infrastructure providers.

Hyra Network serves as the flagship platform alongside Hyra AI, creating an unprecedented model where computational resources are shared across distributed networks rather than concentrated in centralized data centers. If ride-sharing optimizes vehicle utilization and home-sharing maximizes property efficiency, then computational sharing unlocks vast processing power lying dormant in smartphones, computers, and IoT devices globally.

Global Recognition for Excellence

The Globee® Awards represent the technology sector’s highest honor, with winners selected by over 100 seasoned professionals including C-suite executives, venture capitalists, and industry analysts.

“This honor transcends our company – it validates the entire movement toward democratized AI infrastructure,” said Mr. Jonh Tran, Founder of Hyra Network. “We’re witnessing global acknowledgment that the future of AI belongs not to centralized monopolies, but to communities that collectively own and benefit from these powerful technologies.”

The decentralized AI infrastructure and compute resource-sharing model of Hyra Network

Pioneering Community-Powered AI

At its core, Hyra Tek’s innovation centers on Hyra AI, one of the world’s first Train-to-Earn platforms. This system allows users to convert personal devices into active AI training nodes, earning rewards while contributing to advanced model development. The Layer-3 blockchain architecture supports high-throughput, low-latency workloads, enabling scalable AI training and inference at the network’s edge.

The economic model creates a virtuous cycle: participants provide computational resources, earn tangible rewards, and simultaneously advance AI capabilities that benefit the broader ecosystem.

Global Impact

Today, the Hyra ecosystem spans more than 205 countries, powering a global network of approximately 2.5 million connected devices, including 700,000 active online nodes and over 1 million KYC-verified users. With strong community engagement across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa, Hyra delivers more than 360,000 teraflops of distributed computing power and supports a growing base of enterprise clients – now serving over 10 paying customers. This real-world adoption reaffirms Hyra’s core belief: that distributed, permissionless infrastructure can drive meaningful innovation while remaining truly open and accessible to all.

As artificial intelligence and DePIN technologies gain momentum, Hyra positions itself at the technological vanguard, architecting the foundation for a more equitable, intelligent, and inclusive AI future.

Media Contact

Jess Dao – Brand Manager
pr@hyra.network
Office No. C1804-166 – Mulk Nakheel Celik Building, Business Bay, Dubai, UAE

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c68cfcf1-94ef-429d-a06b-2b7c914137de
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/aba5b027-80ec-4494-8ce1-41c720be04e8
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/05a2242b-5102-458c-ba09-cde359f246cd

The MIL Network –

July 1, 2025

MIL-OSI: Parker to Acquire Curtis Instruments, Expanding Electrification Offering

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

Enhances Electrification Capabilities with Complementary Technologies for In-Plant Material Handling and Off-Highway Market Applications
Adds Suite of Control Solutions to Pair with Parker’s Electric Motor and Motion Control Portfolio for Electric and Hybrid Solutions

CLEVELAND, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Parker Hannifin Corporation (NYSE:PH), the global leader in motion and control technologies, today announced that it has agreed to acquire Curtis Instruments, Inc. from Rehlko, for approximately $1 billion in cash. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of applicable regulatory approvals, and is expected to close by the end of calendar year 2025.

Curtis designs and manufactures motor speed controllers, instrumentation, power conversion and input devices that complement Parker’s strength in electric vehicle motors, hydraulic and electrification technologies. Curtis expects calendar year 2025 sales of approximately $320 million.

“This transaction is aligned with the long-term electrification secular trend and meets our disciplined financial criteria for acquisitions designed to create shareholder value,” said Jenny Parmentier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Curtis adds complementary technologies to our existing industrial electrification platform, better positioning us to serve our customers as they continue the adoption of more electric and hybrid solutions. We anticipate a smooth closing and look forward to welcoming the Curtis team. Using our proven business system, The Win Strategy™, we believe we can deliver strong operational synergies, creating shareholder value.”

Rehlko and its financial sponsor Platinum Equity praised the deal and the synergy between Parker and Curtis.

“Rehlko is proud of the legacy and performance of Curtis as a high-performing, innovation-driven business,” said Brian Melka, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rehlko. “Parker is an exceptional company and we are confident Curtis will thrive from Parker’s increased scale, focus, and investment.”

“We have great respect for Curtis, its leadership team and its innovative products, and we are confident that Parker Hannifin is the right home for the business going forward,” said Platinum Equity Co-President Jacob Kotzubei and Managing Director Matthew Louie in a joint statement.

Advisors
Guggenheim Securities, LLC is serving as financial advisor, Jones Day is serving as principal deal counsel, and Eversheds Sutherland is serving as European legal counsel to Parker. BofA Securities, Inc. and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC are serving as financial advisors and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP is serving as legal counsel to Rehlko.

About Parker Hannifin

Parker Hannifin is a Fortune 250 global leader in motion and control technologies. For more than a century the company has been enabling engineering breakthroughs that lead to a better tomorrow. Parker has increased its annual dividend per share paid to shareholders for 69 consecutive fiscal years, among the top five longest-running dividend-increase records in the S&P 500 index. Learn more at www.parker.com or @parkerhannifin.

Forward-Looking Statements

Forward-looking statements contained in this and other written and oral reports are made based on known events and circumstances at the time of release, and as such, are subject in the future to unforeseen uncertainties and risks. Often but not always, these statements may be identified from the use of forward looking terminology such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “may,” “should,” “could,” “expects,” “targets,” “is likely,” “will,” or the negative of these terms and similar expressions, and may also include statements regarding future performance, orders, earnings projections, events or developments. Parker cautions readers not to place undue reliance on these statements. It is possible that the future performance may differ materially from expectations, including those based on past performance.

Among other factors that may affect future performance are: changes in business relationships with and orders by or from major customers, suppliers or distributors, including delays or cancellations in shipments; disputes regarding contract terms, changes in contract costs and revenue estimates for new development programs; changes in product mix; ability to identify acceptable strategic acquisition targets; uncertainties surrounding timing, successful completion or integration of acquisitions and similar transactions, including the acquisition of Curtis Instruments, Inc.; ability to successfully divest businesses planned for divestiture and realize the anticipated benefits of such divestitures; the determination and ability to successfully undertake business realignment activities and the expected costs, including cost savings, thereof; ability to implement successfully business and operating initiatives, including the timing, price and execution of share repurchases and other capital initiatives; availability, cost increases of or other limitations on our access to raw materials, component products and/or commodities if associated costs cannot be recovered in product pricing; ability to manage costs related to insurance and employee retirement and health care benefits; legal and regulatory developments and other government actions, including related to environmental protection, and associated compliance costs; supply chain and labor disruptions, including as a result of tariffs and labor shortages; threats associated with international conflicts and cybersecurity risks and risks associated with protecting our intellectual property; uncertainties surrounding the ultimate resolution of outstanding legal proceedings, including the outcome of any appeals; effects on market conditions, including sales and pricing, resulting from global reactions to U.S. trade policies; manufacturing activity, air travel trends, currency exchange rates, difficulties entering new markets and economic conditions such as inflation, deflation, interest rates and credit availability; inability to obtain, or meet conditions imposed for, required governmental and regulatory approvals; changes in the tax laws in the United States and foreign jurisdictions and judicial or regulatory interpretations thereof; and large scale disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, industrial accidents and pandemics. Readers should also consider forward looking statements in light of risk factors discussed in Parker’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024 and other periodic filings made with the SEC.

Contact:	Media –
	Aidan Gormley – Director, Global Communications and Branding	216-896-3258
	aidan.gormley@parker.com

	Financial Analysts –
	Jeff Miller – Vice President, Investor Relations	216-896-2708
	jeffrey.miller@parker.com

The MIL Network –

July 1, 2025

MIL-OSI: Texas Payday Loans with No Credit Check & Fast Approval – Wizzay Expands Access with New Launch
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

New York City, NY, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Wizzay—an online lending platform—has now started providing electronic payday loans as well as installment loan solutions to customers throughout Texas. The platform allows borrowers to electronically submit a secure loan application and, if qualified, be deposited funds directly into their accounts. The service is intended to offer temporary monetary relief without a visit to a storefront lender.

By bringing together technology-powered processing and a network of regulated lending partners, Wizzay offers access to both short-term payday loans and longer-term installment loans. The site supports various loan sizes and term lengths. Wizzay conducts business under the guidelines provided by Texas financial regulation and the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner.

This release represents Wizzay’s entry into the Texas consumer loan market, with the goal to provide residents more convenience when it comes to obtaining short-term financial relief.

<<< Designed for Texans with low or bad credit—start now >>>

Wizzay Payday Loan in Texas – Fast, Simple, and Fully Online

Wizzay’s Texas payday loan product is designed to make the experience of obtaining a loan online. The loan application takes a few minutes to fill out with a web browser or handheld device. The process saves the inconvenience of stopping by a physical office and cuts back on paperwork by bringing necessary documents onto a digital stage.

The most important components of this efficient process are:
- An encrypted online application that works on mobile and desktop platforms
- Automated identity verification and data analysis
- A user interface presenting loan conditions before borrower commitment
These functionalities are designed to make the lending process easier and limit administrative hurdles. Wizzay does not necessitate customers to pay a visit to a physical branch, distinguishing it from conventional brick-and-mortar payday loan providers involving paperwork and person-to-person interactions.

How Wizzay Offers a Legal and Secure Payday Loan Alternative in Texas

Wizzay acts as a virtual intermediary, matching borrowers with licensed lending partners that operate within the structure of Texas payday lending laws. Rather than directly issuing loans, Wizzay grants access to lenders that possess the requisite licenses and conform to the law set forth by the Texas Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner.

Regulatory protections include:
- Licensing of lenders
- Fee disclosure and repayment dates prior to loan agreement
- Maximum cap on fees to avoid uncontrolled cost increase
By forwarding applications solely to licensed lending partners, Wizzay guarantees adherence to the State of Texas regulations that control short-term loans. Wizzay also makes available documents explaining the terms of lending clearly and contains provisions for references to lender duties and borrower protections.

<<< Apply in minutes and get closer to the cash you need >>>

Wizzay Loans in Texas – Get the Money You Need Without the Hassle

Wizzay’s loan products provide flexibility for a variety of consumer needs, ranging from small emergency cash to higher and more elastic borrowing. Loan values usually range from $100 to $5,000, subject to borrower qualification and lender policies.

Key features are:
- No need to go to a physical office
- Electronic documentation verification and identity validation
- Same-day or next-day direct deposit within standard processing times
- Clear fee schedules presented before acceptance of the loan
Although the process is made to be simple, Wizzay keeps a distinct line between itself and the true lending institutions. Loan offers, having been approved, are offered directly from participating lenders, and borrowers agree to terms before taking money.

Wizzay and the Installment Loan Advantage for Texas Borrowers

Installment loans are different from one-time payment payday loans in providing repayment in multiple periodic installments—usually monthly—until the loan amount and fees paid are completely discharged. Wizzay’s collaboration with licensed lenders makes such possibilities for Texas consumers.

The benefits of installment loans are:
- Ordered repayment schedules coinciding with earnings
- Distribution of repayment that can be simpler to cope with than lump sum repayment
- Potentially reduced total fees compared with one-time payday loans of equivalent amounts
Borrowers who have limited savings or who require payment flexibility can prefer installment loan options. Wizzay’s function is to match applicants with lenders that provide installment loans in terms suitable to the financial position of the borrower.

<<< Begin your request and see how fast Wizzay can help >>>

Wizzay’s Privacy Promise: A Safe Online Loan with No Credit Check & Guaranteed Approval

Wizzay protects borrower information with industry-standard 256-bit SSL encryption and secure data transfer protocols. Sensitive financial and personal information is encrypted in transit and at rest, with access controls preventing unauthorized access.

Some elements of Wizzay’s privacy presentation:
- Secure form submission performed over encrypted channels
- Disclosure of data use restricted to underwriting and lender matching
- Disclosure of sharing data only with approved partners
In most instances, lenders on the Wizzay network conduct a soft credit check—one that won’t affect the applicant’s credit score—or emphasize capacity to repay more than credit history. Depending on lender practices, some customers apply for a payday loan in Texas with little consideration of credit history.

Apply Online for a Wizzay Payday Loan in Minutes

The process is streamlined for speed and convenience:
- Fill out a brief online application
- Covers personal identification, income, and bank details
- Identity verification and initial assessment
- Internal systems check information and determine eligibility
- Loan match
- Wizzay directs the application to one or more affiliated lenders
- Offer review
- Borrowers are presented with full disclosure of loan terms, charges, and due dates
- Fund disbursement
- Funds are sent by direct deposit on approval
The platform suggests the typical time frame for deposit—usually in one business day—though actual timing can be subject to banking procedures and lender-specific protocols. No signature or physical documentation is needed.

<<< Instant approval options made simple—check your eligibility >>>

Wizzay Lends to Texans with All Credit Types – Including Bad Credit Loans

Wizzay’s platform does not automatically rule out applicants with lower credit scores. Rather, it seeks to match borrowers with lenders reviewed on more comprehensive criteria such as:
- Income and employment verification
- Existing debt obligations
- Bank account activity
Although the process is not guaranteed loan approval, subprime or poor credit borrowers can also apply. Network lenders may provide bad credit loans—loans for people with lower scores—although terms can differ, and fees can be higher to account for greater risk.

Wizzay’s consumer notices remind applicants to think about their repayment ability and, where relevant, to obtain credit counseling before applying for any loan.

Understanding Loan Terms with Wizzay – Know Before You Sign

Prior to agreeing to loan terms, Wizzay makes certain that the following information is clearly posted:
- Loan amount
- Repayment date(s)
- Total fees and financing cost
- APR or equivalent cost-of-credit number
Loan applicants are provided the ability to compare and view loan deals prior to accepting one. Wizzay makes information on applicable documents, such as payment schedules, due dates, and customer service contact details for the lenders, easily accessible.

Glad tidings in these regards should serve to minimize uncertainty and enable loan applicants to gauge if a loan is within their financial means.

Wizzay Payday Loans – Fast Cash Solutions by the Next Business Day

Wizzay’s platform is designed to facilitate short-term cash requirements by allowing:
- Rapid electronic submission
- Instant assessment
- Rapid deposit turnaround times—usually next business day, depending on banking procedures
This setup is designed to meet circumstances like unexpected car repairs, urgent medical expenses, or other urgent payments that demand quick funding. Wizzay aims to simplify the process without needing actual physical visits and an extensive amount of paperwork.

<<< Emergency funds could be just a few steps away >>>

Why Wizzay Is a Trusted Direct Lender in Texas

Although Wizzay itself is not a lender, it works in association with licensed lenders in Texas. The use of the term “direct lender” in this case means the partner lenders who are responsible for underwriting, funding, and loan servicing.

Since Wizzay is an intermediary:
- It streamlines the loan process through a single online application
- Presents verified borrower information to licensed Texas-regulated lenders
- Guarantees offers come from lenders with proper authorization
By directing borrower applications to lender partners in one place, Wizzay helps create a streamlined, open digital lending environment.

Wizzay Supports Flexible Repayment – Even with a Debit Card or Checking Account

Wizzay’s network of lenders typically accommodates repayment with standard financial instruments:
- Checking account ACH transactions in sync with borrower payroll cycles
- Debit card payment arrangements based on the ability of lenders
- Repayment periods are organized depending on loan type:
- Payday loans can be repaid in full on the lender’s following payday
- Installment loans might permit payments weekly or monthly
Borrowers are provided with documents detailing repayment amounts, dates, and methods with freedom to schedule payments as appropriate for their budget.

<<< Submit your loan request safely and securely online >>>

Who Wizzay Loans Are For – Loan Options for Every Texas Resident

Wizzay’s service is accessible to adults living in Texas with active checking accounts and proven income. Amongst those who can be helped:
- Employees requiring money before payday
- People with unexpected expenses like doctor bills or car repairs
- Those with consistent income but thin wallets
- Non-prime credit candidates seeking short-term loans
Through the ease of access to multiple financing products through one application, Wizzay provides transparency of loan choices instead of customizing one product for all consumers.

Key Disclosures from Wizzay – What You Need to Know Before You Borrow

Wizzay contains informative statements to help borrowers make better decisions:
- Borrowers are urged to compare offers thoroughly and know cost structures
- Applicants with continuing credit difficulties should think about credit counseling prior to engaging in any loan transaction
- Wizzay does not prefer one lending program over another; presentations are unbiased and factual
- Loan fees—fees and timing—are compliant with regulatory limits in Texas and are disclosed prior to acceptance
These revelations indicate an attempt towards transparent lending and borrower awareness.

Wizzay Expands Loan Services in Texas

Wizzay now extends its service coverage to 254 Texas counties. Furthermore, the platform also connects users with a larger number of lender partners providing:
- More loan amount options
- Launch of longer-term installment plans
- Specialized lending terms to meet different borrower profiles
This business growth allows residents across Texas—urban, suburban, and rural—to obtain loan information online with uniform underwriting and approval criteria.

<<< No credit check needed—discover your available options today >>>

Wizzay Updates Its Loan Platform for Faster Instant Approval Loans in Texas

Wizzay has made IT and operational improvements that help streamline borrower wait times. These are the following platform improvements:
- Simplified data entry forms
- Rationalized identity and bank verification routines
- Accelerated loan matching through enhanced algorithms
- Improved mobile responsiveness
Based on internal reports, these adjustments have lowered median turnaround time from application to funding when lenders fund, though actual times may still vary with lender processing speed and banking partners.

Wizzay Payday Loans Are Not Title Loans – Know the Difference

Wizzay’s payday loan model differs from title loan features in a number of important aspects:
- No vehicle title or other asset needed as collateral
- Income and account verification-only unsecured loan contracts
- Repayment in the form of bank withdrawal instead of lien enforcement
Title loans involve risk of forfeiture of assets upon default, while Wizzay’s partner lenders utilize banking-based repayment systems and debt collection in compliance with Texas law.

Wizzay Offers Installment Loans in Texas with Transparent Repayment Terms

Installment loan offers through Wizzay’s network involve:
- Explicitly structured payment schedules
- Fixed payments per interval
- Longer payback horizons for several weeks or months
Loan agreements specify:
- Due and issue dates
- Amount to be repaid
- Single disclosure of related finance charges
This type of product provides a compromise option for customers who cannot make a lump sum payment and can possibly assist in synchronizing repayment more closely with income frequency.

<<< Relief is closer than you think—explore your Wizzay options >>>

Final Word: Wizzay Leads the Way in Ethical Payday Lending in Texas

Wizzay’s Texas online lending market entrée stands out with its regulation-friendly strategy, safe digital protocols, and focus on borrower comprehension. Through eschewing feature-filled sales stories and concentrating on operational clarity, the site enacts:
- Safe handling of data procedures
- Competing loan programs (short-term and installment)
- Plain and required disclosures of costs, terms, and repayment
- Tools and resources meant to promote financial responsibility
This press release provides true facts regarding Wizzay’s presence and services in Texas, its business model, and borrower alternatives, without promotional assertions or evaluative phrases.

Media Details:
https://www.wizzay.com
support@Wizzay.com
Customer Acquisition LLC, Springates Building, Lower Government Road, Charlestown,

Attachment

The MIL Network –
July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI: Texas Payday Loans with No Credit Check & Fast Approval – Wizzay Expands Access with New Launch
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

New York City, NY, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Wizzay—an online lending platform—has now started providing electronic payday loans as well as installment loan solutions to customers throughout Texas. The platform allows borrowers to electronically submit a secure loan application and, if qualified, be deposited funds directly into their accounts. The service is intended to offer temporary monetary relief without a visit to a storefront lender.

By bringing together technology-powered processing and a network of regulated lending partners, Wizzay offers access to both short-term payday loans and longer-term installment loans. The site supports various loan sizes and term lengths. Wizzay conducts business under the guidelines provided by Texas financial regulation and the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner.

This release represents Wizzay’s entry into the Texas consumer loan market, with the goal to provide residents more convenience when it comes to obtaining short-term financial relief.

<<< Designed for Texans with low or bad credit—start now >>>

Wizzay Payday Loan in Texas – Fast, Simple, and Fully Online

Wizzay’s Texas payday loan product is designed to make the experience of obtaining a loan online. The loan application takes a few minutes to fill out with a web browser or handheld device. The process saves the inconvenience of stopping by a physical office and cuts back on paperwork by bringing necessary documents onto a digital stage.

The most important components of this efficient process are:
- An encrypted online application that works on mobile and desktop platforms
- Automated identity verification and data analysis
- A user interface presenting loan conditions before borrower commitment
These functionalities are designed to make the lending process easier and limit administrative hurdles. Wizzay does not necessitate customers to pay a visit to a physical branch, distinguishing it from conventional brick-and-mortar payday loan providers involving paperwork and person-to-person interactions.

How Wizzay Offers a Legal and Secure Payday Loan Alternative in Texas

Wizzay acts as a virtual intermediary, matching borrowers with licensed lending partners that operate within the structure of Texas payday lending laws. Rather than directly issuing loans, Wizzay grants access to lenders that possess the requisite licenses and conform to the law set forth by the Texas Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner.

Regulatory protections include:
- Licensing of lenders
- Fee disclosure and repayment dates prior to loan agreement
- Maximum cap on fees to avoid uncontrolled cost increase
By forwarding applications solely to licensed lending partners, Wizzay guarantees adherence to the State of Texas regulations that control short-term loans. Wizzay also makes available documents explaining the terms of lending clearly and contains provisions for references to lender duties and borrower protections.

<<< Apply in minutes and get closer to the cash you need >>>

Wizzay Loans in Texas – Get the Money You Need Without the Hassle

Wizzay’s loan products provide flexibility for a variety of consumer needs, ranging from small emergency cash to higher and more elastic borrowing. Loan values usually range from $100 to $5,000, subject to borrower qualification and lender policies.

Key features are:
- No need to go to a physical office
- Electronic documentation verification and identity validation
- Same-day or next-day direct deposit within standard processing times
- Clear fee schedules presented before acceptance of the loan
Although the process is made to be simple, Wizzay keeps a distinct line between itself and the true lending institutions. Loan offers, having been approved, are offered directly from participating lenders, and borrowers agree to terms before taking money.

Wizzay and the Installment Loan Advantage for Texas Borrowers

Installment loans are different from one-time payment payday loans in providing repayment in multiple periodic installments—usually monthly—until the loan amount and fees paid are completely discharged. Wizzay’s collaboration with licensed lenders makes such possibilities for Texas consumers.

The benefits of installment loans are:
- Ordered repayment schedules coinciding with earnings
- Distribution of repayment that can be simpler to cope with than lump sum repayment
- Potentially reduced total fees compared with one-time payday loans of equivalent amounts
Borrowers who have limited savings or who require payment flexibility can prefer installment loan options. Wizzay’s function is to match applicants with lenders that provide installment loans in terms suitable to the financial position of the borrower.

<<< Begin your request and see how fast Wizzay can help >>>

Wizzay’s Privacy Promise: A Safe Online Loan with No Credit Check & Guaranteed Approval

Wizzay protects borrower information with industry-standard 256-bit SSL encryption and secure data transfer protocols. Sensitive financial and personal information is encrypted in transit and at rest, with access controls preventing unauthorized access.

Some elements of Wizzay’s privacy presentation:
- Secure form submission performed over encrypted channels
- Disclosure of data use restricted to underwriting and lender matching
- Disclosure of sharing data only with approved partners
In most instances, lenders on the Wizzay network conduct a soft credit check—one that won’t affect the applicant’s credit score—or emphasize capacity to repay more than credit history. Depending on lender practices, some customers apply for a payday loan in Texas with little consideration of credit history.

Apply Online for a Wizzay Payday Loan in Minutes

The process is streamlined for speed and convenience:
- Fill out a brief online application
- Covers personal identification, income, and bank details
- Identity verification and initial assessment
- Internal systems check information and determine eligibility
- Loan match
- Wizzay directs the application to one or more affiliated lenders
- Offer review
- Borrowers are presented with full disclosure of loan terms, charges, and due dates
- Fund disbursement
- Funds are sent by direct deposit on approval
The platform suggests the typical time frame for deposit—usually in one business day—though actual timing can be subject to banking procedures and lender-specific protocols. No signature or physical documentation is needed.

<<< Instant approval options made simple—check your eligibility >>>

Wizzay Lends to Texans with All Credit Types – Including Bad Credit Loans

Wizzay’s platform does not automatically rule out applicants with lower credit scores. Rather, it seeks to match borrowers with lenders reviewed on more comprehensive criteria such as:
- Income and employment verification
- Existing debt obligations
- Bank account activity
Although the process is not guaranteed loan approval, subprime or poor credit borrowers can also apply. Network lenders may provide bad credit loans—loans for people with lower scores—although terms can differ, and fees can be higher to account for greater risk.

Wizzay’s consumer notices remind applicants to think about their repayment ability and, where relevant, to obtain credit counseling before applying for any loan.

Understanding Loan Terms with Wizzay – Know Before You Sign

Prior to agreeing to loan terms, Wizzay makes certain that the following information is clearly posted:
- Loan amount
- Repayment date(s)
- Total fees and financing cost
- APR or equivalent cost-of-credit number
Loan applicants are provided the ability to compare and view loan deals prior to accepting one. Wizzay makes information on applicable documents, such as payment schedules, due dates, and customer service contact details for the lenders, easily accessible.

Glad tidings in these regards should serve to minimize uncertainty and enable loan applicants to gauge if a loan is within their financial means.

Wizzay Payday Loans – Fast Cash Solutions by the Next Business Day

Wizzay’s platform is designed to facilitate short-term cash requirements by allowing:
- Rapid electronic submission
- Instant assessment
- Rapid deposit turnaround times—usually next business day, depending on banking procedures
This setup is designed to meet circumstances like unexpected car repairs, urgent medical expenses, or other urgent payments that demand quick funding. Wizzay aims to simplify the process without needing actual physical visits and an extensive amount of paperwork.

<<< Emergency funds could be just a few steps away >>>

Why Wizzay Is a Trusted Direct Lender in Texas

Although Wizzay itself is not a lender, it works in association with licensed lenders in Texas. The use of the term “direct lender” in this case means the partner lenders who are responsible for underwriting, funding, and loan servicing.

Since Wizzay is an intermediary:
- It streamlines the loan process through a single online application
- Presents verified borrower information to licensed Texas-regulated lenders
- Guarantees offers come from lenders with proper authorization
By directing borrower applications to lender partners in one place, Wizzay helps create a streamlined, open digital lending environment.

Wizzay Supports Flexible Repayment – Even with a Debit Card or Checking Account

Wizzay’s network of lenders typically accommodates repayment with standard financial instruments:
- Checking account ACH transactions in sync with borrower payroll cycles
- Debit card payment arrangements based on the ability of lenders
- Repayment periods are organized depending on loan type:
- Payday loans can be repaid in full on the lender’s following payday
- Installment loans might permit payments weekly or monthly
Borrowers are provided with documents detailing repayment amounts, dates, and methods with freedom to schedule payments as appropriate for their budget.

<<< Submit your loan request safely and securely online >>>

Who Wizzay Loans Are For – Loan Options for Every Texas Resident

Wizzay’s service is accessible to adults living in Texas with active checking accounts and proven income. Amongst those who can be helped:
- Employees requiring money before payday
- People with unexpected expenses like doctor bills or car repairs
- Those with consistent income but thin wallets
- Non-prime credit candidates seeking short-term loans
Through the ease of access to multiple financing products through one application, Wizzay provides transparency of loan choices instead of customizing one product for all consumers.

Key Disclosures from Wizzay – What You Need to Know Before You Borrow

Wizzay contains informative statements to help borrowers make better decisions:
- Borrowers are urged to compare offers thoroughly and know cost structures
- Applicants with continuing credit difficulties should think about credit counseling prior to engaging in any loan transaction
- Wizzay does not prefer one lending program over another; presentations are unbiased and factual
- Loan fees—fees and timing—are compliant with regulatory limits in Texas and are disclosed prior to acceptance
These revelations indicate an attempt towards transparent lending and borrower awareness.

Wizzay Expands Loan Services in Texas

Wizzay now extends its service coverage to 254 Texas counties. Furthermore, the platform also connects users with a larger number of lender partners providing:
- More loan amount options
- Launch of longer-term installment plans
- Specialized lending terms to meet different borrower profiles
This business growth allows residents across Texas—urban, suburban, and rural—to obtain loan information online with uniform underwriting and approval criteria.

<<< No credit check needed—discover your available options today >>>

Wizzay Updates Its Loan Platform for Faster Instant Approval Loans in Texas

Wizzay has made IT and operational improvements that help streamline borrower wait times. These are the following platform improvements:
- Simplified data entry forms
- Rationalized identity and bank verification routines
- Accelerated loan matching through enhanced algorithms
- Improved mobile responsiveness
Based on internal reports, these adjustments have lowered median turnaround time from application to funding when lenders fund, though actual times may still vary with lender processing speed and banking partners.

Wizzay Payday Loans Are Not Title Loans – Know the Difference

Wizzay’s payday loan model differs from title loan features in a number of important aspects:
- No vehicle title or other asset needed as collateral
- Income and account verification-only unsecured loan contracts
- Repayment in the form of bank withdrawal instead of lien enforcement
Title loans involve risk of forfeiture of assets upon default, while Wizzay’s partner lenders utilize banking-based repayment systems and debt collection in compliance with Texas law.

Wizzay Offers Installment Loans in Texas with Transparent Repayment Terms

Installment loan offers through Wizzay’s network involve:
- Explicitly structured payment schedules
- Fixed payments per interval
- Longer payback horizons for several weeks or months
Loan agreements specify:
- Due and issue dates
- Amount to be repaid
- Single disclosure of related finance charges
This type of product provides a compromise option for customers who cannot make a lump sum payment and can possibly assist in synchronizing repayment more closely with income frequency.

<<< Relief is closer than you think—explore your Wizzay options >>>

Final Word: Wizzay Leads the Way in Ethical Payday Lending in Texas

Wizzay’s Texas online lending market entrée stands out with its regulation-friendly strategy, safe digital protocols, and focus on borrower comprehension. Through eschewing feature-filled sales stories and concentrating on operational clarity, the site enacts:
- Safe handling of data procedures
- Competing loan programs (short-term and installment)
- Plain and required disclosures of costs, terms, and repayment
- Tools and resources meant to promote financial responsibility
This press release provides true facts regarding Wizzay’s presence and services in Texas, its business model, and borrower alternatives, without promotional assertions or evaluative phrases.

Media Details:
https://www.wizzay.com
support@Wizzay.com
Customer Acquisition LLC, Springates Building, Lower Government Road, Charlestown,

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The MIL Network –
July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI United Nations: IOM Welcomes DRC–Rwanda Peace Agreement as Milestone Toward Lasting Stability

Source: International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Geneva/Nairobi, 30 June 2025 – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) welcomes the signing of a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Rwanda, brokered by the United States, the African Union, and the State of Qatar. The agreement represents a critical step toward ending decades of violence and displacement in the region and comes at a symbolic moment as the DRC marks 65 years of independence.

“This agreement offers a rare and vital opportunity to chart a new course for peace and security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” said IOM Director General Amy Pope. “But peace must be felt on the ground. It must mean safety for families who have fled their homes, support for communities that have opened their doors to the displaced, and a future for young people who have known nothing but conflict. We call on the international community to seize this moment not just to support the political process, but to invest in the humanitarian and recovery efforts that will make peace real for millions of people.”

Across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, millions continue to bear the brunt of one of the world’s most persistent and complex crises. In the eastern provinces alone, more than 700,000 people have been displaced since the start of 2024, forced to flee their homes as violence intensifies. Families have been uprooted multiple times, often with little more than what they can carry, seeking safety in overcrowded shelters, informal sites, or host communities that are already under strain.

IOM teams have been delivering lifesaving assistance across the country, providing emergency shelter, health care, protection services, and mental health and psychosocial support to those most affected by the violence. Support is also being extended to host communities, many of whom are facing immense pressure as they take in those who have been forced to flee.

While the peace agreement marks a hopeful turning point, the road to lasting stability will be long and complex. Years of conflict have left deep scars and humanitarian needs remain staggering. The peace agreement must now be matched by meaningful action on the ground.

IOM reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Organization stands ready to work alongside national authorities, regional bodies, and international partners to ensure that this agreement translates into real and lasting progress, restoring dignity, rebuilding lives, and helping communities recover from the impacts of violence and displacement.

For more information, please visit IOM’s Media Centre.

MIL OSI United Nations News –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI: NextNRG Signs LOI to Acquire ReFuel Mobile, Preparing for International Expansion with Canadian Mobile Fueling Leader

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

Acquisition adds profitable, high-growth platform serving Ontario’s commercial and industrial sectors while expanding NextNRG’s mobile fueling operations into Canada

ReFuel Mobile ranked #36 on Globe and Mail’s fastest-growing companies with 1,166% three-year revenue growth

MIAMI, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NextNRG, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXXT), a pioneer in AI-driven energy innovation transforming how energy is produced, managed, and delivered through its Next Utility Operating System®, smart microgrids, wireless EV charging, and mobile fuel delivery, today announced it has signed a letter of intent to acquire ReFuel Mobile (“ReFuel”) (2583231 Ontario Inc.), a leading Canadian mobile fueling company.

This acquisition marks NextNRG’s entry into international markets through the addition of an established, profitable operation in Canada’s largest province. ReFuel, founded in 2016 and based in Ontario, Canada, specializes in direct-to-vehicle and direct-to-equipment fuel delivery, serving commercial and industrial clients across transportation, construction, logistics, telecom, municipalities, dealerships, and industrial fleet sectors.

ReFuel has demonstrated an exceptional growth trajectory, ranking #36 on the Globe and Mail’s list of Canada’s fastest-growing companies with a remarkable 1,166% three-year revenue growth. The company is currently profitable, showcasing the strength of its monthly recurring business model and contract-based operations with minimal customer churn.

Under the terms of the non-binding letter of intent, NextNRG will acquire 100% of ReFuel’s stock payable in cash or NextNRG restricted common stock at NextNRG’s discretion. The transaction includes retention of all current employees and management during a transitional period. Closing is expected by August 1, 2025, subject to completion of due diligence, audited financial statements, and execution of a definitive agreement.

“This strategic acquisition marks an important milestone as we extend NextNRG’s mobile fueling leadership into international markets,” said Michael D. Farkas, Founder and CEO of NextNRG. “ReFuel’s proven track record of profitable growth, exceptional customer retention, and established market presence in Ontario positions us to capitalize on expanding opportunities across Canada. Their technology-driven approach and operational excellence align perfectly with our strategy of scaling AI-optimized energy solutions globally. The combination of this strategic addition with our accelerating organic growth gives us confidence that forward 12-month revenues of $100 million should be achievable.”

The acquisition builds on NextNRG’s recent domestic expansion across six U.S. states with its fleet of 144 active fuel delivery trucks, and follows the company’s strategic partnership with Hudson Sustainable Group and inclusion in the Russell 2000® and Russell 3000® indexes. ReFuel’s proprietary AWS-hosted software platform for operations and customer scheduling will integrate with NextNRG’s existing technology infrastructure to enhance service delivery and operational efficiency.

ReFuel currently serves the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Hamilton, Oakville, London, and Kitchener markets with plans to expand into additional Ontario regions including Ottawa and Kingston, as well as Quebec markets including Montreal. The company holds TSSA certification and maintains full compliance with federal and provincial fuel handling and safety regulations. Refuel’s customers include: Napa Auto Parts, Autos Canada, Magil Construction, and Fanshawe College.

“We’re excited to join the NextNRG family and leverage their resources and technology to accelerate our expansion plans,” said Ashraf Ghadban, Co-Founder and CEO of ReFuel Mobile, who plans to stay on and assist with the transition. “This transaction will enable Refuel to enhance its service offerings, expand its geographic reach, and continue delivering exceptional value to its growing customer base across Canada.”

The acquisition is expected to immediately contribute to NextNRG’s recurring revenue base while providing a strategic platform for further expansion across Canada and potential entry into additional international markets. ReFuel’s focus on innovation includes plans to expand into biofuels and bulk DEF solutions, aligning with NextNRG’s commitment to advancing sustainable energy adoption.

NextNRG has demonstrated strong momentum, with preliminary May 2025 revenue of $6.6 million representing 148% year-over-year growth and marking the company’s fifth consecutive record month. Year-to-date revenue through May reached approximately $28.89 million, already surpassing full-year 2024 revenue of approximately $27 million. The addition of ReFuel’s established Canadian operations is expected to further strengthen NextNRG’s position as a leader in the on-demand fueling industry while supporting the company’s long-term strategy of building integrated energy ecosystems globally.

About ReFuel Mobile

Founded in 2016 with the mission to simplify and modernize on-demand fuel delivery, ReFuel Mobile serves commercial and industrial clients across Ontario, Canada. The company specializes in direct-to-vehicle and direct-to-equipment fuel delivery, offering convenient, cost-effective, and reliable solutions to businesses across dealerships, transportation, logistics, construction, telecom, and energy sectors. With a focus on innovation, ReFuel Mobile is modernizing traditional fueling through a mobile-first, efficient model backed by strong operational execution and proprietary technology. The company was ranked #36 on the Globe and Mail’s list of Canada’s fastest-growing companies with 1,166% three-year revenue growth.

About NextNRG, Inc.

NextNRG Inc. (NextNRG) is Powering What’s Next by implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into renewable energy, next-generation energy infrastructure, battery storage, wireless electric vehicle (EV) charging and on-demand mobile fuel delivery to create an integrated ecosystem.

At the core of NextNRG’s strategy is its Next Utility Operating System®, which leverages AI and ML to help make existing utilities’ energy management as efficient as possible; and the deployment of NextNRG smart microgrids, which utilize AI-driven energy management alongside solar power and battery storage to enhance energy efficiency, reduce costs and improve grid resiliency. These microgrids are designed to serve commercial properties, healthcare campuses, universities, parking garages, rural and tribal lands, recreational facilities, and government properties, expanding energy accessibility while supporting decarbonization initiatives.

NextNRG continues to expand its growing fleet of fuel delivery trucks and national footprint, including the acquisition of Yoshi Mobility’s fuel division and Shell Oil’s trucks, further solidifying its position as a leader in the on-demand fueling industry. NextNRG is also integrating sustainable energy solutions into its mobile fueling operations. The company hopes to be an integral part of assisting its fleet customers in their transition to EV, providing fuel delivery while advancing efficient energy adoption. The transition process is expected to include the deployment of NextNRG’s innovative wireless EV charging solutions.

To find out more visit: www.nextnrg.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statement describing NextNRG’s goals, expectations, financial or other projections, intentions, or beliefs is a forward-looking statement and should be considered an at-risk statement. Words such as “expect,” “intends,” “will,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those related to NextNRG’s business and macroeconomic and geopolitical events. These and other risks are described in NextNRG’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. NextNRG’s forward-looking statements involve assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove correct, could cause its results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although NextNRG’s forward-looking statements reflect the good faith judgment of its management, these statements are based only on facts and factors currently known by NextNRG. Except as required by law, NextNRG undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements for any reason. As a result, you are cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements.

Investor Relations Contact:

NextNRG, Inc.
Sharon Cohen
SCohen@nextnrg.com

The MIL Network –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI: Chang Robotics Fund Deploys First Round of Capital

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Chang Robotics Fund, a venture capital firm founded by Matthew Chang and a team of seasoned experts in automation, manufacturing, and finance, is thrilled to announce its initial capital deployment. With a mission to reinvigorate American manufacturing and automation, the Fund is now fully operational and actively investing in U.S.-based innovations.

The Fund’s inaugural cohort, The First Five, includes Kodiak Technologies, Curabotics, Green Corridors, GO-Eco, and OXOS Medical. Each company represents a significant step forward in transforming America’s construction, healthcare, and sustainability endeavors.

While the Fund ultimately aims to raise $50 million to invest in at least 15 visionary companies, this initial deployment of capital provides the necessary momentum to begin making impactful investments. The window remains open for additional accredited investors to join and participate in this groundbreaking journey.

“The First Five are more than just portfolio companies— they represent the ‘tip of the iceberg’ for the very best innovations for 2025. We’re investing in a future where American-made once again means world-class,” said Matthew Chang, Founder and General Partner.

The First Five Deployments

Kodiak Technologies is at the forefront of innovation, having developed the world’s most powerful electric snow removal vehicle, which also serves as a mobile power plant to support airports. These next-generation electric vehicles combine unmatched durability, high performance, and cutting-edge technology to deliver powerful snow removal while reducing environmental impact.

Curabotics is a robotics, automation, and engineering company dedicated to designing solutions that enhance hospital operational efficiency and alleviate the burden on medical professionals. Their most recent deployment of Nurse-Assist bots in a top hospital alleviated 15% of the average nurse’s daily workload spent on non-clinical tasks.

Green Corridors – Recently featured in The Wall Street Journal – is a high-speed, autonomous freight system that reroutes cargo off congested roads onto elevated guideways, combining robotic automation with national security-grade scanning to deliver faster, cleaner, and more secure logistics.

GO-Eco is a sustainable materials startup founded through a collaboration between Chang Robotics and Northwestern University. The company focuses on replacing harmful “forever chemicals” like PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in food packaging with a compostable, graphene oxide-based coating.

OXOS Medical is a medical technology company, specializing in portable, AI-enhanced X-ray imaging systems designed to bring radiographic diagnostics directly to the point of care. OXOS aims to enable faster decisions, reduce radiation exposure, and improve care where it matters most.

This is Only the Beginning

This first capital deployment is only the beginning. It is not too late for accredited investors to take advantage of this opportunity. The Fund remains open to new capital, and the mission to reshape American industry is still unfolding.

About the Chang Robotics Fund

The Chang Robotics Fund is America’s premier manufacturing-tech investment company, investing in seed to early-growth stage robotics, automation, energy, and industrial AI. Founded by engineering leader Matthew Chang, PE, and backed by a top-tier technical team, the Fund brings a builder’s mindset to early-stage investing, backing companies that are reshaping American industry. With extensive experience in factory automation, smart infrastructure, and sustainability, the Fund offers more than just funding: it provides hands-on engineering and operational support to help founders move from prototype to production.

To learn more, visit www.cr.fund or follow us on LinkedIn @Chang Robotics Fund.

Disclaimer: This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities. Investment activities in the Chang Robotics Fund’s portfolio companies mentioned herein involve risk and are intended to be made in compliance with applicable law. Potential investors should seek independent legal, tax, and financial advice before making any investment decisions.

Media contact
Laine Smith
media@changrobotics.ai

The MIL Network –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Beautiful Moments: SFA Alum Brings Smiles to Bridal Couples with Live Event Painting

Source: US State of Connecticut

By the end of the year, Erin Leigh Boughamer will have attended more the 50 weddings – 31 of them in 2025 and all of them since 2022.

It’s not that a tribe of friends are spontaneously making trips down the aisle, or even children of friends or friends of her children. It’s not that she’s stuck in a loop of invite after invite, caught in some practical joke or on a list of reception seat fillers.

Boughamer ’94 (SFA) is an event painter, a wedding artist who now makes a living by focusing on flowers and gowns, first dances and first looks. The artwork she produces for each couple is the gift of a lifetime, keepsakes meant to endure until death do they part.

At least one time, though, she was the gift, when a groom-to-be arranged for her to live-paint their first private dance as a token of affection for his bride.

Erin Leigh Boughamer ’94 (SFA) is a live event painter who has 31 weddings booked this year. (Contributed art)

“She started crying,” Boughamer says of the reveal. “The bride was walking through the reception room before the guests came in to look around at everything she had chosen for their decorations. She walked up to me thinking I was with the venue, when he looked at her and said, ‘This is my gift to you.’ Witnessing that beautiful little moment between the two of them was precious, and one I won’t soon forget.”

When Boughamer left UConn three decades ago with a degree in graphic design from the School of Fine Arts, event painting hadn’t yet become part of bridal vocabulary. People talked about videographers and photographers to document the day, not painters to encapsulate a single moment.

To ask her back then if she foresaw herself with a wardrobe of dressy pantsuits, each with at least a little dollop of acrylic paint on them, she’d have said no way. Then again, she might have said no way to some of the other professions she’s held along the way.

House stager. Interior designer. Children’s clothing designer. Private art teacher. Crafter on the green. Marketer. Public school teacher. Business owner. Entrepreneur. Gallery artist.

There might even be more, as she dabbled in small creative outlets through the years while staying home to raise her children. The last few, however, have been the most influential on her work today, all coming over the last 12 years as she set out on an unintentional quest to find her spark.

Reigniting That Flame

“Every time I go in the studio, whether I’m cleaning and organizing it, drawing and painting, or simply making sketches that aren’t a beautiful end product, just doing something, anything, I come out happy every single time,” Boughamer says. “I think we’re all like that. We all need to have some form of expression. We’ve gotten to the point where life is all work, family, house chores, go to bed, and do it again. We don’t allow ourselves the time or the space to express ourselves or be creative. I think even the simplest act of creating can keep us sane.”

Around 2013, Boughamer moved into the workforce full time when her two kids were older and took a job in network marketing selling health and wellness products, a job that was far from the world of art but nonetheless important to her future.

It’s where she learned branding, public speaking, and sales pitching. She learned how to approach people and how to talk to them. She learned how to sell someone something by sharing her story and building relationships. These were business skills that hadn’t been offered before, and it was a job that inadvertently gave her a business education.

So, when she came across the then-burgeoning paint-and-sip industry – those popular paint nights that usually involve a group of people noshing on hors d’oeurves and sipping beverages while being guided through a painting project – she’d gained the business know-how to move ahead with her own.

Paint Sip Fun became a near overnight success, Boughamer says, with she and 30 part-timers teaching sometimes two to three classes a day at restaurants, banquet halls, private residences, bars, and other places all around Connecticut and Massachusetts.

One class drew 198 students and required 10 assistants – and was the best time ever, she says.

What really makes my heart sing is that person coming in, saying, ‘I can’t even draw a straight line,’ and walking out two hours later saying, ‘I did that.’ That’s what really makes me happy, helping others to reignite that creative flame that lies dormant inside most of us. &#8212 Erin Leigh Boughamer ’94 (SFA)

“What really makes my heart sing is that person coming in, saying, ‘I can’t even draw a straight line,’ and walking out two hours later saying, ‘I did that.’ That’s what really makes me happy, helping others to reignite that creative flame that lies dormant inside most of us,” she says.

Back when she was selling health products, there was a point when Boughamer asked herself why that job. Was it to just to make money? Was it just to pay the bills? Was it to sharpen a business acumen? The answer boiled down to something pretty simple.

She found fulfillment in empowering others, whether to transform their bodies or draw a straight line.

“If you don’t have that drive, that passion, that fire, you’re going to fizzle out. I want to make an impact on other people’s lives,” she says of her impulse. “I want the woman who hasn’t done art since the third grade be amazed by what she’s created at the end of a class.”

Even as the pandemic put a temporary end to in-person group classes, each night for three months Boughamer got on social media at 6 p.m. to talk people through an art project with supplies they had at home.

This is how you can draw with a crayon. Here’s what a marker can do. Do you have a pencil? It’s a dream tool for blending and shading.

That maintained her clientele, who when they left their houses as pandemic restrictions lifted, clamored for her to open a physical studio, and while she did in Somers for about 18 months, Boughamer’s own life had taken a turn.

She’d gone back to school to earn a teaching degree and by now was working with school-aged children. Running a physical location while working full time proved incompatible, so she returned to the flexibility of a mobile paint-and-sip model.

And then, lightning struck while leading a class for a bridal party.

Taking It Seriously

“’Can you live paint my wedding?’” Boughamer says the bride-to-be asked her. “I was confused. ‘What are you talking about?’ She explained it to me, showed me pictures, and I agreed. Then, a couple people randomly found me in 2023, probably from a social post, and last year I decided to give it a go. 2024 was really my first year in the event painting business, as that’s when I created a website and started marketing at bridal shows.”

Last year brought her to 18 weddings, earning enough to outpace what she made as a public school teacher. This year has her at 31 weddings – three over Memorial Day weekend alone – and now contemplating whether to shift her professional efforts solely to Paint Sip Fun and Event Painting by Erin, along with some gallery work.

Erin Leigh Boughamer ’94 (SFA) is a live event painter who has 31 weddings booked this year. (Contributed art)

She also paints live at fundraisers and charity auctions, with her first on Nantucket last summer for the Great Harbor Yacht Club Foundation to help with its efforts to preserve Nantucket Harbor.

“It’s not that I don’t like teaching in schools, I do, I just want to build the businesses properly. I want to really set the foundation and proper business structure,” she says, adding that she’s on the hunt for a business coach to help.

Art was something gifted to Boughamer in part through genetics. Her grandmother: artist. Aunt: artist. Mom: crafty. Dad: encouraging, with a side of business savvy.

She started at UConn as a psychology major, earning a D and D- in those first two intro classes, mostly because she wasn’t interested in the subject matter. But her GPA was bolstered by the A+ in the elective art class she took.

“When I got home after freshman year, my dad sat me down and asked me why I wasn’t doing something with art. ‘Clearly, you’re good at it. You got an A+ in your elective drawing class. Why don’t you take it seriously?’ I looked at him and said, ‘I can do that?’ I didn’t know I could. From then on, it never stopped,” she says.

A couple years ago, Boughamer says she started to get restless and sought to find her art, the work that would show the world the contradictory bohemian and reserved parts of her personality, born of the free spirit side of her dad and the pearls-and-heels influence of her mom.

Erin Leigh Boughamer ’94 (SFA) exhibited her painting series, “Calming Chaos,” at The Jorgensen Gallery in March. (Courtesy of Molly Mia Photography & Film LLC)

The series that developed, “Calming Chaos,” puts on canvas her love for architectural, geometric shapes alongside a freeform, almost carefree style of painting. After hours, in her studio at home in Hampden, Massachusetts, she says one could find her literally throwing paint one minute and the next sitting with a ruler and compass.

“I had this series almost done, and I thought how poignant it would be if I could show it at the place where my whole art career began,” she says, explaining she called Emily Murray, alumni relations director at the UConn Foundation, with whom she’d worked before, to ask if UConn had a place.

The Jorgensen Gallery agreed, and in March, Boughamer, as Fine Art by Erin, returned to her alma mater as a gallery artist, having created several canvas pieces as large as 5-by-6-feet as showstoppers. She sold four artworks from the show to collectors in New York City.

The opening fed her soul, and now she’s in the thick of wedding season.

Capturing a Moment

“It’s kind of a throwback to the old days,” she says of live wedding painting. “Before the camera was invented, all couples had to remember their day was a painting. It’s almost full circle that way. Brides these days want an heirloom keepsake and instead of having a photo like we had, it’s a painting.”

Live wedding painting, while somewhat a new add-on to weddings in the Northeast, started to migrate from California about a decade ago, Boughamer says, working its way through the country, artist by artist, who now talk shop on social media about things like contract language and technique.

With her couples, though, Boughamer talks about what moment they want to preserve, but the answer to that oftentimes comes only after answering the second question.

Is it important to include the bride’s bouquet in the painting? If so, then the first dance in which the couple would be holding each other and not likely the bouquet, probably is out of contention. Is grandma’s pearl necklace an important detail? If so, the back of the couple’s heads or even a side view at the altar probably wouldn’t work so well.

Is there a visible tattoo that ought not be overlooked? Should the dogs somehow be set in the scene? How much of the architecture and décor of the barn, ballroom, reception hall, church, outdoor garden should be in the background? The bride has on a cape not a veil. Yes, the cape should be included, how can that be best emphasized?

“I ask these things for two reasons. First, this is something the couple is going to stare at the rest of their lives. Second, the very first bride was very particular and knew she wanted the dipping kiss pose because she was wearing Christian Louboutin red-bottom shoes and wanted them in the painting,” Boughamer says. “The painting has to be really tailored to exactly what the couple is looking for.”

Erin Leigh Boughamer ’94 (SFA) is a live event painter who has 26 weddings booked this year. She not only paints the wedding couple but also can sketch guest portraits. (Contributed art)

The betrothed also must decide if they want any of the other painting options Boughamer offers – guest paintings, 5-by-7-inch watercolor illustrations of each guest often given as favors, and collaborative paintings that engage the artistic efforts of guests in a sort of paint by number kind of way.

In one instance, the couple had restored an old truck together and mentioned to Boughamer there’s a special dirt road where they like to take it. So, she grabbed photos of the road and the truck and painted the focal point of the truck in the piece, sectioning off the rest of the canvas into little blocks for each guest to contribute.

One by one, she gives each guest an art lesson, handing them a palette of paint and instructing them exactly how to layer it on. Nervous guests who can’t even draw a straight line are reassured: it’s a very small area; no, they can’t mess it up. She won’t put red paint on the palette for a guest who’s painting the water in a beach scene.

An added bonus is a photograph of each guest in the act, pictures added to a guest-autographed book and given to the couple.

Boughamer relies on photographs for much of her live event work, taking pictures of the dogs to add in later, or the gardens, or the mountains in the distance, because most of the canvases get finished back in her studio – another 20 to 40 hours of work ahead.

“Some weddings are more quiet and more subdued, while some are just a flat-out party,” she says. “I enjoy all of them because I like being with people and interacting with guests. I have yet to be at a wedding where someone didn’t come talk to me and express amazement by what I do.”

Usually, guests remark that they can’t wait to see the final product, and since that’ll likely happen back in the studio, she gives blank note cards depicting the piece to each couple for use as thank yous.

People have an intrinsic desire to be creative, she says. Just watching a painting being done in real-time can be invigorating; it’s like watching the birth of something from nothing.

“We are creative creatures whether you’re creating dinner, creating a garden, creating a spreadsheet, or creating an outfit for the day. Everyone creates something, it doesn’t matter what. It’s our human nature to create,” she says.

MIL OSI USA News –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Daniel Cohan, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University

Proposed revisions to U.S. energy policy would likely raise consumer prices and climate-warming emissions. zpagistock/Moment via Getty Images

When it comes to energy policy, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” – the official name of a massive federal tax-cut and spending bill that House Republicans passed in May 2025 – risks raising Americans’ energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

The 1,100-page bill would slash incentives for green technologies such as solar, wind, batteries, electric cars and heat pumps while subsidizing existing nuclear power plants and biofuels. That would leave the country and its people burning more fossil fuels despite strong popular and scientific support for a rapid shift to renewable energy.

The bill may still be revised by the Senate before it moves to a final vote. But it is a picture of how President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans want to reshape U.S. energy policy.

As an environmental engineering professor who studies ways to confront climate change, I think it is important to distinguish which technologies could rapidly cut emissions or are on the verge of becoming viable from those that do little to fight climate change. Unfortunately, the House bill favors the latter while nixing support for the former.

Renewable energy

Wind and solar power, often paired with batteries, are providing over 90% of the new electricity currently being added to the grid nationally and around the world. Geothermal power is undergoing technological breakthroughs. With natural gas turbines in short supply and long lead times to build other resources, renewables and batteries offer the fastest way to satisfy growing demand for power.

However, the House bill rescinds billions of dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, devoted to boosting domestic manufacturing and deployments of renewable energy and batteries.

It would terminate tax credits for manufacturing for the wind industry in 2028 and for solar and batteries in 2032. That would disrupt the boom in domestic manufacturing projects that was being stimulated by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Deployments would be hit even harder. Wind, solar, geothermal and battery projects would need to commence construction within 60 days of passage of the bill to receive tax credits.

In addition, the bill would deny tax credits to projects that use Chinese-made components. Financial analysts have called those provisions “unworkable,” since some Chinese materials may be necessary even for projects built with as much domestic content as possible.

Analysts warn that the House bill would cut new wind, solar and battery installations by 20% compared with the growth that had been expected without the bill. That’s why BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, called the bill a “nightmare scenario” for clean energy proponents.

However, one person’s nightmare may be another man’s dream. “We’re constraining the hell out of wind and solar, which is good,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican backed by the oil and gas industry.

Wind turbines and solar panels generate renewable energy side by side near Palm Springs, Calif.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Efficiency and electric cars

Cuts fall even harder on Americans who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints and energy costs. The bill repeals aid for home efficiency improvements such as heat pumps, efficient windows and energy audits. Homeowners would also lose tax credits for installing solar panels and batteries.

For vehicles, the bill would not only repeal tax credits for electric cars, trucks and chargers, but it also would impose a federal $250 annual fee on vehicles, on top of fees that some states charge electric-car owners. The federal fee is more than the gas taxes paid by other drivers to fund highways and ignores air-quality and climate effects.

Combined, the lost credits and increased fees could cut projected U.S. sales of electric vehicles by 40% in 2030, according to modeling by Jesse Jenkins of Princeton University.

Nuclear power

Meanwhile, the bill partially retains a tax credit for electricity from existing nuclear power plants. Those plants may not need the help: Electricity demand is surging, and companies like Meta are signing long-term deals for nuclear energy to power data centers. Nuclear plants are also paid to manage their radioactive waste, since the country lacks a permanent place to store it.

For new nuclear plants, the bill would move up the deadline to 2028 to begin construction. That deadline is too soon for some new reactor designs and would rush the vetting of others. Nuclear safety regulators are awaiting a study from the National Academies on the weapons proliferation risks of the type of uranium fuel that some developers hope to use in newer designs.

The House-passed bill would protect government subsidies for existing nuclear power plants, like the one in the background, while limiting support for wind turbines.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Biofuels

While cutting funding for electric vehicles, the bill would spend $45 billion to extend tax credits for biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.

Food-based biofuels do little good for the climate because growing, harvesting and processing crops requires fertilizers, pesticides and fuel. The bill would allow forests to be cut to make room for crops because it directs agencies to ignore the impacts of biofuels on land use.

Hydrogen

The bill would end tax credits for hydrogen production. Without that support, companies will be unlikely to invest in the seven so-called “hydrogen hubs” that were allocated a combined $8 billion under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Those hubs aim to attract $40 billion in private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs while developing cleaner ways to make hydrogen.

The repealed tax credits would have subsidized hydrogen made emissions-free by using renewable or nuclear electricity to split water molecules. They also would have subsidized hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture, whose benefits are impaired by methane emissions from natural gas systems and incomplete carbon capture.

However it’s made, hydrogen is no panacea. As the world’s smallest molecule, hydrogen is prone to leaking, which can pose safety challenges and indirectly warm the climate. And while hydrogen is essential for making fertilizers and potentially useful for making steel or aviation fuels, vehicles and heating are more efficiently powered by electricity than by hydrogen.

Still, European governments and China are investing heavily in hydrogen production.

As Congress deliberates on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the nation’s energy agenda is one of many issues being hotly debated.
Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Summing it up

The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that the House bill would cut the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits by about half, saving the government $50 billion a year. But with fewer efficiency improvements, fewer electric vehicles and less clean power on the grid, Princeton’s Jenkins projects American households would pay up to $415 more per year for energy by 2035 than if the bill’s provisions were not enacted. If the bill’s provisions make it into law, the extra fossil fuel-burning would leave annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 1 billion tons higher by then.

No one expected former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to escape unscathed with Republicans in the White House and dominating both houses of Congress. Still, the proposed cuts target the technologies Americans count on to protect the climate and save consumers money.

Daniel Cohan receives funding from the Carbon Hub at Rice University.

– ref. How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate – https://theconversation.com/how-the-big-beautiful-bill-positions-us-energy-to-be-more-costly-for-consumers-and-the-climate-257783

MIL OSI –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Daniel Cohan, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University

Proposed revisions to U.S. energy policy would likely raise consumer prices and climate-warming emissions. zpagistock/Moment via Getty Images

When it comes to energy policy, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” – the official name of a massive federal tax-cut and spending bill that House Republicans passed in May 2025 – risks raising Americans’ energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

The 1,100-page bill would slash incentives for green technologies such as solar, wind, batteries, electric cars and heat pumps while subsidizing existing nuclear power plants and biofuels. That would leave the country and its people burning more fossil fuels despite strong popular and scientific support for a rapid shift to renewable energy.

The bill may still be revised by the Senate before it moves to a final vote. But it is a picture of how President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans want to reshape U.S. energy policy.

As an environmental engineering professor who studies ways to confront climate change, I think it is important to distinguish which technologies could rapidly cut emissions or are on the verge of becoming viable from those that do little to fight climate change. Unfortunately, the House bill favors the latter while nixing support for the former.

Renewable energy

Wind and solar power, often paired with batteries, are providing over 90% of the new electricity currently being added to the grid nationally and around the world. Geothermal power is undergoing technological breakthroughs. With natural gas turbines in short supply and long lead times to build other resources, renewables and batteries offer the fastest way to satisfy growing demand for power.

However, the House bill rescinds billions of dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, devoted to boosting domestic manufacturing and deployments of renewable energy and batteries.

It would terminate tax credits for manufacturing for the wind industry in 2028 and for solar and batteries in 2032. That would disrupt the boom in domestic manufacturing projects that was being stimulated by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Deployments would be hit even harder. Wind, solar, geothermal and battery projects would need to commence construction within 60 days of passage of the bill to receive tax credits.

In addition, the bill would deny tax credits to projects that use Chinese-made components. Financial analysts have called those provisions “unworkable,” since some Chinese materials may be necessary even for projects built with as much domestic content as possible.

Analysts warn that the House bill would cut new wind, solar and battery installations by 20% compared with the growth that had been expected without the bill. That’s why BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, called the bill a “nightmare scenario” for clean energy proponents.

However, one person’s nightmare may be another man’s dream. “We’re constraining the hell out of wind and solar, which is good,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican backed by the oil and gas industry.

Wind turbines and solar panels generate renewable energy side by side near Palm Springs, Calif.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Efficiency and electric cars

Cuts fall even harder on Americans who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints and energy costs. The bill repeals aid for home efficiency improvements such as heat pumps, efficient windows and energy audits. Homeowners would also lose tax credits for installing solar panels and batteries.

For vehicles, the bill would not only repeal tax credits for electric cars, trucks and chargers, but it also would impose a federal $250 annual fee on vehicles, on top of fees that some states charge electric-car owners. The federal fee is more than the gas taxes paid by other drivers to fund highways and ignores air-quality and climate effects.

Combined, the lost credits and increased fees could cut projected U.S. sales of electric vehicles by 40% in 2030, according to modeling by Jesse Jenkins of Princeton University.

Nuclear power

Meanwhile, the bill partially retains a tax credit for electricity from existing nuclear power plants. Those plants may not need the help: Electricity demand is surging, and companies like Meta are signing long-term deals for nuclear energy to power data centers. Nuclear plants are also paid to manage their radioactive waste, since the country lacks a permanent place to store it.

For new nuclear plants, the bill would move up the deadline to 2028 to begin construction. That deadline is too soon for some new reactor designs and would rush the vetting of others. Nuclear safety regulators are awaiting a study from the National Academies on the weapons proliferation risks of the type of uranium fuel that some developers hope to use in newer designs.

The House-passed bill would protect government subsidies for existing nuclear power plants, like the one in the background, while limiting support for wind turbines.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Biofuels

While cutting funding for electric vehicles, the bill would spend $45 billion to extend tax credits for biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.

Food-based biofuels do little good for the climate because growing, harvesting and processing crops requires fertilizers, pesticides and fuel. The bill would allow forests to be cut to make room for crops because it directs agencies to ignore the impacts of biofuels on land use.

Hydrogen

The bill would end tax credits for hydrogen production. Without that support, companies will be unlikely to invest in the seven so-called “hydrogen hubs” that were allocated a combined $8 billion under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Those hubs aim to attract $40 billion in private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs while developing cleaner ways to make hydrogen.

The repealed tax credits would have subsidized hydrogen made emissions-free by using renewable or nuclear electricity to split water molecules. They also would have subsidized hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture, whose benefits are impaired by methane emissions from natural gas systems and incomplete carbon capture.

However it’s made, hydrogen is no panacea. As the world’s smallest molecule, hydrogen is prone to leaking, which can pose safety challenges and indirectly warm the climate. And while hydrogen is essential for making fertilizers and potentially useful for making steel or aviation fuels, vehicles and heating are more efficiently powered by electricity than by hydrogen.

Still, European governments and China are investing heavily in hydrogen production.

As Congress deliberates on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the nation’s energy agenda is one of many issues being hotly debated.
Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Summing it up

The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that the House bill would cut the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits by about half, saving the government $50 billion a year. But with fewer efficiency improvements, fewer electric vehicles and less clean power on the grid, Princeton’s Jenkins projects American households would pay up to $415 more per year for energy by 2035 than if the bill’s provisions were not enacted. If the bill’s provisions make it into law, the extra fossil fuel-burning would leave annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 1 billion tons higher by then.

No one expected former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to escape unscathed with Republicans in the White House and dominating both houses of Congress. Still, the proposed cuts target the technologies Americans count on to protect the climate and save consumers money.

Daniel Cohan receives funding from the Carbon Hub at Rice University.

– ref. How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate – https://theconversation.com/how-the-big-beautiful-bill-positions-us-energy-to-be-more-costly-for-consumers-and-the-climate-257783

MIL OSI –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Daniel Cohan, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University

Proposed revisions to U.S. energy policy would likely raise consumer prices and climate-warming emissions. zpagistock/Moment via Getty Images

When it comes to energy policy, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” – the official name of a massive federal tax-cut and spending bill that House Republicans passed in May 2025 – risks raising Americans’ energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

The 1,100-page bill would slash incentives for green technologies such as solar, wind, batteries, electric cars and heat pumps while subsidizing existing nuclear power plants and biofuels. That would leave the country and its people burning more fossil fuels despite strong popular and scientific support for a rapid shift to renewable energy.

The bill may still be revised by the Senate before it moves to a final vote. But it is a picture of how President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans want to reshape U.S. energy policy.

As an environmental engineering professor who studies ways to confront climate change, I think it is important to distinguish which technologies could rapidly cut emissions or are on the verge of becoming viable from those that do little to fight climate change. Unfortunately, the House bill favors the latter while nixing support for the former.

Renewable energy

Wind and solar power, often paired with batteries, are providing over 90% of the new electricity currently being added to the grid nationally and around the world. Geothermal power is undergoing technological breakthroughs. With natural gas turbines in short supply and long lead times to build other resources, renewables and batteries offer the fastest way to satisfy growing demand for power.

However, the House bill rescinds billions of dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, devoted to boosting domestic manufacturing and deployments of renewable energy and batteries.

It would terminate tax credits for manufacturing for the wind industry in 2028 and for solar and batteries in 2032. That would disrupt the boom in domestic manufacturing projects that was being stimulated by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Deployments would be hit even harder. Wind, solar, geothermal and battery projects would need to commence construction within 60 days of passage of the bill to receive tax credits.

In addition, the bill would deny tax credits to projects that use Chinese-made components. Financial analysts have called those provisions “unworkable,” since some Chinese materials may be necessary even for projects built with as much domestic content as possible.

Analysts warn that the House bill would cut new wind, solar and battery installations by 20% compared with the growth that had been expected without the bill. That’s why BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, called the bill a “nightmare scenario” for clean energy proponents.

However, one person’s nightmare may be another man’s dream. “We’re constraining the hell out of wind and solar, which is good,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican backed by the oil and gas industry.

Wind turbines and solar panels generate renewable energy side by side near Palm Springs, Calif.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Efficiency and electric cars

Cuts fall even harder on Americans who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints and energy costs. The bill repeals aid for home efficiency improvements such as heat pumps, efficient windows and energy audits. Homeowners would also lose tax credits for installing solar panels and batteries.

For vehicles, the bill would not only repeal tax credits for electric cars, trucks and chargers, but it also would impose a federal $250 annual fee on vehicles, on top of fees that some states charge electric-car owners. The federal fee is more than the gas taxes paid by other drivers to fund highways and ignores air-quality and climate effects.

Combined, the lost credits and increased fees could cut projected U.S. sales of electric vehicles by 40% in 2030, according to modeling by Jesse Jenkins of Princeton University.

Nuclear power

Meanwhile, the bill partially retains a tax credit for electricity from existing nuclear power plants. Those plants may not need the help: Electricity demand is surging, and companies like Meta are signing long-term deals for nuclear energy to power data centers. Nuclear plants are also paid to manage their radioactive waste, since the country lacks a permanent place to store it.

For new nuclear plants, the bill would move up the deadline to 2028 to begin construction. That deadline is too soon for some new reactor designs and would rush the vetting of others. Nuclear safety regulators are awaiting a study from the National Academies on the weapons proliferation risks of the type of uranium fuel that some developers hope to use in newer designs.

The House-passed bill would protect government subsidies for existing nuclear power plants, like the one in the background, while limiting support for wind turbines.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Biofuels

While cutting funding for electric vehicles, the bill would spend $45 billion to extend tax credits for biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.

Food-based biofuels do little good for the climate because growing, harvesting and processing crops requires fertilizers, pesticides and fuel. The bill would allow forests to be cut to make room for crops because it directs agencies to ignore the impacts of biofuels on land use.

Hydrogen

The bill would end tax credits for hydrogen production. Without that support, companies will be unlikely to invest in the seven so-called “hydrogen hubs” that were allocated a combined $8 billion under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Those hubs aim to attract $40 billion in private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs while developing cleaner ways to make hydrogen.

The repealed tax credits would have subsidized hydrogen made emissions-free by using renewable or nuclear electricity to split water molecules. They also would have subsidized hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture, whose benefits are impaired by methane emissions from natural gas systems and incomplete carbon capture.

However it’s made, hydrogen is no panacea. As the world’s smallest molecule, hydrogen is prone to leaking, which can pose safety challenges and indirectly warm the climate. And while hydrogen is essential for making fertilizers and potentially useful for making steel or aviation fuels, vehicles and heating are more efficiently powered by electricity than by hydrogen.

Still, European governments and China are investing heavily in hydrogen production.

As Congress deliberates on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the nation’s energy agenda is one of many issues being hotly debated.
Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Summing it up

The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that the House bill would cut the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits by about half, saving the government $50 billion a year. But with fewer efficiency improvements, fewer electric vehicles and less clean power on the grid, Princeton’s Jenkins projects American households would pay up to $415 more per year for energy by 2035 than if the bill’s provisions were not enacted. If the bill’s provisions make it into law, the extra fossil fuel-burning would leave annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 1 billion tons higher by then.

No one expected former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to escape unscathed with Republicans in the White House and dominating both houses of Congress. Still, the proposed cuts target the technologies Americans count on to protect the climate and save consumers money.

Daniel Cohan receives funding from the Carbon Hub at Rice University.

– ref. How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate – https://theconversation.com/how-the-big-beautiful-bill-positions-us-energy-to-be-more-costly-for-consumers-and-the-climate-257783

MIL OSI –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Daniel Cohan, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University

Proposed revisions to U.S. energy policy would likely raise consumer prices and climate-warming emissions. zpagistock/Moment via Getty Images

When it comes to energy policy, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” – the official name of a massive federal tax-cut and spending bill that House Republicans passed in May 2025 – risks raising Americans’ energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

The 1,100-page bill would slash incentives for green technologies such as solar, wind, batteries, electric cars and heat pumps while subsidizing existing nuclear power plants and biofuels. That would leave the country and its people burning more fossil fuels despite strong popular and scientific support for a rapid shift to renewable energy.

The bill may still be revised by the Senate before it moves to a final vote. But it is a picture of how President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans want to reshape U.S. energy policy.

As an environmental engineering professor who studies ways to confront climate change, I think it is important to distinguish which technologies could rapidly cut emissions or are on the verge of becoming viable from those that do little to fight climate change. Unfortunately, the House bill favors the latter while nixing support for the former.

Renewable energy

Wind and solar power, often paired with batteries, are providing over 90% of the new electricity currently being added to the grid nationally and around the world. Geothermal power is undergoing technological breakthroughs. With natural gas turbines in short supply and long lead times to build other resources, renewables and batteries offer the fastest way to satisfy growing demand for power.

However, the House bill rescinds billions of dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, devoted to boosting domestic manufacturing and deployments of renewable energy and batteries.

It would terminate tax credits for manufacturing for the wind industry in 2028 and for solar and batteries in 2032. That would disrupt the boom in domestic manufacturing projects that was being stimulated by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Deployments would be hit even harder. Wind, solar, geothermal and battery projects would need to commence construction within 60 days of passage of the bill to receive tax credits.

In addition, the bill would deny tax credits to projects that use Chinese-made components. Financial analysts have called those provisions “unworkable,” since some Chinese materials may be necessary even for projects built with as much domestic content as possible.

Analysts warn that the House bill would cut new wind, solar and battery installations by 20% compared with the growth that had been expected without the bill. That’s why BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, called the bill a “nightmare scenario” for clean energy proponents.

However, one person’s nightmare may be another man’s dream. “We’re constraining the hell out of wind and solar, which is good,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican backed by the oil and gas industry.

Wind turbines and solar panels generate renewable energy side by side near Palm Springs, Calif.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Efficiency and electric cars

Cuts fall even harder on Americans who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints and energy costs. The bill repeals aid for home efficiency improvements such as heat pumps, efficient windows and energy audits. Homeowners would also lose tax credits for installing solar panels and batteries.

For vehicles, the bill would not only repeal tax credits for electric cars, trucks and chargers, but it also would impose a federal $250 annual fee on vehicles, on top of fees that some states charge electric-car owners. The federal fee is more than the gas taxes paid by other drivers to fund highways and ignores air-quality and climate effects.

Combined, the lost credits and increased fees could cut projected U.S. sales of electric vehicles by 40% in 2030, according to modeling by Jesse Jenkins of Princeton University.

Nuclear power

Meanwhile, the bill partially retains a tax credit for electricity from existing nuclear power plants. Those plants may not need the help: Electricity demand is surging, and companies like Meta are signing long-term deals for nuclear energy to power data centers. Nuclear plants are also paid to manage their radioactive waste, since the country lacks a permanent place to store it.

For new nuclear plants, the bill would move up the deadline to 2028 to begin construction. That deadline is too soon for some new reactor designs and would rush the vetting of others. Nuclear safety regulators are awaiting a study from the National Academies on the weapons proliferation risks of the type of uranium fuel that some developers hope to use in newer designs.

The House-passed bill would protect government subsidies for existing nuclear power plants, like the one in the background, while limiting support for wind turbines.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Biofuels

While cutting funding for electric vehicles, the bill would spend $45 billion to extend tax credits for biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.

Food-based biofuels do little good for the climate because growing, harvesting and processing crops requires fertilizers, pesticides and fuel. The bill would allow forests to be cut to make room for crops because it directs agencies to ignore the impacts of biofuels on land use.

Hydrogen

The bill would end tax credits for hydrogen production. Without that support, companies will be unlikely to invest in the seven so-called “hydrogen hubs” that were allocated a combined $8 billion under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Those hubs aim to attract $40 billion in private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs while developing cleaner ways to make hydrogen.

The repealed tax credits would have subsidized hydrogen made emissions-free by using renewable or nuclear electricity to split water molecules. They also would have subsidized hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture, whose benefits are impaired by methane emissions from natural gas systems and incomplete carbon capture.

However it’s made, hydrogen is no panacea. As the world’s smallest molecule, hydrogen is prone to leaking, which can pose safety challenges and indirectly warm the climate. And while hydrogen is essential for making fertilizers and potentially useful for making steel or aviation fuels, vehicles and heating are more efficiently powered by electricity than by hydrogen.

Still, European governments and China are investing heavily in hydrogen production.

As Congress deliberates on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the nation’s energy agenda is one of many issues being hotly debated.
Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Summing it up

The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that the House bill would cut the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits by about half, saving the government $50 billion a year. But with fewer efficiency improvements, fewer electric vehicles and less clean power on the grid, Princeton’s Jenkins projects American households would pay up to $415 more per year for energy by 2035 than if the bill’s provisions were not enacted. If the bill’s provisions make it into law, the extra fossil fuel-burning would leave annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 1 billion tons higher by then.

No one expected former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to escape unscathed with Republicans in the White House and dominating both houses of Congress. Still, the proposed cuts target the technologies Americans count on to protect the climate and save consumers money.

Daniel Cohan receives funding from the Carbon Hub at Rice University.

– ref. How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate – https://theconversation.com/how-the-big-beautiful-bill-positions-us-energy-to-be-more-costly-for-consumers-and-the-climate-257783

MIL OSI –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: How your air conditioner can help the power grid, rather than overloading it

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Johanna Mathieu, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, University of Michigan

Could this common home machinery help usher in more renewable energy? Holden Henry/iStock / Getty Images Plus

As summer arrives, people are turning on air conditioners in most of the U.S. But if you’re like me, you always feel a little guilty about that. Past generations managed without air conditioning – do I really need it? And how bad is it to use all this electricity for cooling in a warming world?

If I leave my air conditioner off, I get too hot. But if everyone turns on their air conditioner at the same time, electricity demand spikes, which can force power grid operators to activate some of the most expensive, and dirtiest, power plants. Sometimes those spikes can ask too much of the grid and lead to brownouts or blackouts.

Research I recently published with a team of scholars makes me feel a little better, though. We have found that it is possible to coordinate the operation of large numbers of home air-conditioning units, balancing supply and demand on the power grid – and without making people endure high temperatures inside their homes.

Studies along these lines, using remote control of air conditioners to support the grid, have for many years explored theoretical possibilities like this. However, few approaches have been demonstrated in practice and never for such a high-value application and at this scale. The system we developed not only demonstrated the ability to balance the grid on timescales of seconds, but also proved it was possible to do so without affecting residents’ comfort.

The benefits include increasing the reliability of the power grid, which makes it easier for the grid to accept more renewable energy. Our goal is to turn air conditioners from a challenge for the power grid into an asset, supporting a shift away from fossil fuels toward cleaner energy.

Adjustable equipment

My research focuses on batteries, solar panels and electric equipment – such as electric vehicles, water heaters, air conditioners and heat pumps – that can adjust itself to consume different amounts of energy at different times.

Originally, the U.S. electric grid was built to transport electricity from large power plants to customers’ homes and businesses. And originally, power plants were large, centralized operations that burned coal or natural gas, or harvested energy from nuclear reactions. These plants were typically always available and could adjust how much power they generated in response to customer demand, so the grid would be balanced between power coming in from producers and being used by consumers.

But the grid has changed. There are more renewable energy sources, from which power isn’t always available – like solar panels at night or wind turbines on calm days. And there are the devices and equipment I study. These newer options, called “distributed energy resources,” generate or store energy near where consumers need it – or adjust how much energy they’re using in real time.

One aspect of the grid hasn’t changed, though: There’s not much storage built into the system. So every time you turn on a light, for a moment there’s not enough electricity to supply everything that wants it right then: The grid needs a power producer to generate a little more power. And when you turn off a light, there’s a little too much: A power producer needs to ramp down.

The way power plants know what real-time power adjustments are needed is by closely monitoring the grid frequency. The goal is to provide electricity at a constant frequency – 60 hertz – at all times. If more power is needed than is being produced, the frequency drops and a power plant boosts output. If there’s too much power being produced, the frequency rises and a power plant slows production a little. These actions, a process called “frequency regulation,” happen in a matter of seconds to keep the grid balanced.

This output flexibility, primarily from power plants, is key to keeping the lights on for everyone.

Power plants, like this one in Utah, adjust their output to match demand from electricity customers.
Jason Finn/iStock / Getty Images Plus

Finding new options

I’m interested in how distributed energy resources can improve flexibility in the grid. They can release more energy, or consume less, to respond to the changing supply or demand, and help balance the grid, ensuring the frequency remains near 60 hertz.

Some people fear that doing so might be invasive, giving someone outside your home the ability to control your battery or air conditioner. Therefore, we wanted to see if we could help balance the grid with frequency regulation using home air-conditioning units rather than power plants – without affecting how residents use their appliances or how comfortable they are in their homes.

From 2019 to 2023, my group at the University of Michigan tried this approach, in collaboration with researchers at Pecan Street Inc., Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

We recruited 100 homeowners in Austin, Texas, to do a real-world test of our system. All the homes had whole-house forced-air cooling systems, which we connected to custom control boards and sensors the owners allowed us to install in their homes. This equipment let us send instructions to the air-conditioning units based on the frequency of the grid.

Before I explain how the system worked, I first need to explain how thermostats work. When people set thermostats, they pick a temperature, and the thermostat switches the air-conditioning compressor on and off to maintain the air temperature within a small range around that set point. If the temperature is set at 68 degrees, the thermostat turns the AC on when the temperature is, say, 70, and turns it off when it’s cooled down to, say, 66.

Every few seconds, our system slightly changed the timing of air-conditioning compressor switching for some of the 100 air conditioners, causing the units’ aggregate power consumption to change. In this way, our small group of home air conditioners reacted to grid changes the way a power plant would – using more or less energy to balance the grid and keep the frequency near 60 hertz.

Moreover, our system was designed to keep home temperatures within the same small temperature range around the set point.

Smart thermostats could have frequency regulation capabilities available to interested consumers, to help balance the electricity grid.
Danielle Mead/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Testing the approach

We ran our system in four tests, each lasting one hour. We found two encouraging results.

First, the air conditioners were able to provide frequency regulation at least as accurately as a traditional power plant. Therefore, we showed that air conditioners could play a significant role in increasing grid flexibility. But perhaps more importantly – at least in terms of encouraging people to participate in these types of systems – we found that we were able to do so without affecting people’s comfort in their homes.

We found that home temperatures did not deviate more than 1.6 Fahrenheit from their set point. Homeowners were allowed to override the controls if they got uncomfortable, but most didn’t. For most tests, we received zero override requests. In the worst case, we received override requests from two of the 100 homes in our test.

In practice, this sort of technology could be added to commercially available internet-connected thermostats. In exchange for credits on their energy bills, users could choose to join a service run by the thermostat company, their utility provider or some other third party.

Then people could turn on the air conditioning in the summer heat without that pang of guilt, knowing they were helping to make the grid more reliable and more capable of accommodating renewable energy sources – without sacrificing their own comfort in the process.

Johanna Mathieu works for the University of Michigan. She has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, ARPA-E, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She is affiliated with the IEEE.

– ref. How your air conditioner can help the power grid, rather than overloading it – https://theconversation.com/how-your-air-conditioner-can-help-the-power-grid-rather-than-overloading-it-256858

MIL OSI –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Waiting for Godot has been translated into Afrikaans: what took so long

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Rick de Villiers, Associate professor, University of the Free State

At last, the most infamous latecomer in all of literature has arrived – not in the flesh, but in South Africa’s Afrikaans language. Irish playwright Samuel Beckett’s best-known drama, Waiting for Godot, now also lives as Ons Wag vir Godot.

Published and staged in 2024, the translation was inspired by the official centenary of Afrikaans in 2025.

As a Beckett scholar, I think it’s worth asking why Afrikaans is so late on the scene – and why it matters.

Godot in many tongues

First written in French, En attendant Godot was published in 1952 and debuted on stage the next year.

The action involves two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who have a series of absurd conversations and encounters as they wait for a man called Godot who never arrives. Beckett would self-translate the drama into English in 1954, calling it “a tragicomedy in two acts”.

Since then, translations of the play have exploded. By 1969 – the year of Beckett’s Nobel Prize for Literature – Waiting for Godot could already be read in dozens of languages, including Albanian, Marathi, and even Icelandic.

Samuel Beckett and South Africa

Beckett’s connections with South Africa are surprisingly varied. As a young man, he unsuccessfully applied for a lectureship at the University of Cape Town. His 1951 novel, Molloy, was translated from French into English with the help of a South African student, Patrick Bowles. And in 1968, Beckett made a donation to the then-banned resistance party, the African National Congress, in the form of a manuscript for auction.

This gesture was unprecedented for the Irish writer, who was wary of political causes. Yet not only did Beckett feel strongly enough about apartheid’s injustices to make this donation, he also refused to let anyone perform his plays before South Africa’s racially segregated audiences.

Read more:
The case of the acclaimed South African novel that ‘borrows’ from Samuel Beckett

Already in 1963 Beckett had signed the petition Playwrights Against Apartheid. He would continue to refuse performance rights in South Africa until 1980, when the Baxter Theatre was allowed to stage Waiting for Godot with a racially integrated cast.

Nevertheless, unauthorised Godots materialised before this. Athol Fugard, the South African playwright whose own dramas were influenced by Beckett, directed one of the earliest South African productions in 1962. Featuring an all-black cast, it testified to the play’s political charge, which Fugard emphasised:

Vladimir and Estragon … were at Sharpeville or the first in at Auschwitz.

It’s reasonable to think that Beckett would have supported this protest performance. But he would probably have denounced the first and unofficial Afrikaans version, Afspraak met Godot, translated by Suseth Brits and performed in 1970 at the Potchefstroom University College (now North-West University) behind closed doors.

For different reasons, Beckett would also have frowned on the substantial “borrowings” in Afrikaans novelist Willem Anker’s 2014 novel, Buys.

Domesticating a European classic

Fully sanctioned by Beckett’s estate and beautifully translated (from the French and English) by now-retired professor of French at the University of the Free State Naòmi Morgan, Ons Wag vir Godot arrives at a different moment altogether.

The translation retains the gallows humour of the original while adding local flavour. For instance, where Vladimir originally names the Eiffel Tower as a picturesque site to commit suicide, his Afrikaans counterpart nominates Van Stadensbrug, a bridge over a ravine in the Eastern Cape. The slave-like Lucky once entertained his master with European dances: “the farandole, the fling, the brawl, the jig, the fandango”. These now become a South African mix: “volkspele, die riel, die pantsula, selfs die horrelpyp” (folk games, riel dance, pantsula dance, a hiding).

In translation-speak, Ons Wag vir Godot is therefore fully “domesticated”: the play’s universality comes through even though – and perhaps even more so because – it’s anchored in a particular place and time.

This struck me when I attended the play’s limited-run production, expertly directed by Dion van Niekerk, at the 2024 Vrystaat Kunstefees (Free State arts festival). Its set managed to thread together subtle South African roadside details: a toppled rubbish bin, pylons on the horizon, a (broken) picnic bench.

In the text itself, we encounter familiar place names, sayings and cultural clues. Consider how Beckett’s abstract phrase “the essential doesn’t change” is grounded in African mythology: “Jakkals verander van hare, maar nie van streke nie” (The leopard doesn’t change its spots). Then there’s the charming touch of the dog in Vladimir’s song snatching “’n stukkie wors” (a piece of sausage particular to South Africa) rather than a measly “bone”.

Godot and the Afrikaans canon

Ons Wag vir Godot achieves its most profound tribute to Beckett and Afrikaans through its intertextual richness. Both the French and English originals are highly allusive texts: they invoke other works of literature to increase their range of meaning and subtlety. Morgan is attuned to this subtlety and to the parallels to be found in Afrikaans literature. There are references to works by canonical Afrikaans writers like Eugène Marais, Totius and C.J. Langenhoven, each adding its own resonance.

Read more:
Koos Prinsloo: the cult Afrikaans writer has been translated to English – here’s a review

Yet the dilemma any translator faces is not so much in bringing in the new, but in striking a balance with the old. Consider the judicious swapping of a line from Percy Bysshe Shelley for a line from C. Louis Leipoldt.

In the English version, Estragon looks up forlornly at the moon and half-quotes the English Romantic poet: “Pale for weariness … Of climbing heaven and staring on the likes of us.” In the Afrikaans, he gives us a fragment from the wistful poem, Die Moormansgat: “ek kyk na die lig van die volle silwermaan” (I behold the light of the full silver moon). At face value, this lacks the detached, woeful quality of Shelley’s line. But read in the context of Leipoldt’s poem, it is every bit as poignant.

The virtue of waiting

“Vladimir would agree,” Morgan concludes in the preface to her translation, “that a century is a decent amount of time to hone a language for the translation of one of the best-known dramas in world literature”.

Read more:
Animal Farm has been translated into Shona – why a group of Zimbabwean writers undertook the task

And indeed, the riches of the Afrikaans language are on display in this sensitive, witty and allusive rendering of Beckett’s European classic. But it’s also true that a certain amount of political baggage had to be shaken off before such a feat could be realised – not just in the right words, but in the right spirit. Of course, if Beckett’s play teaches us anything, it’s the virtue of waiting.

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

– ref. Waiting for Godot has been translated into Afrikaans: what took so long – https://theconversation.com/waiting-for-godot-has-been-translated-into-afrikaans-what-took-so-long-257345

MIL OSI –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Highways to hell: west Africa’s road networks are the preferred battleground for terror groups

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Olivier Walther, Associate Professor in Geography, University of Florida

What’s the connection between roads and conflict in west Africa? This may seem like an odd question. But a study we conducted shows a close relationship between the two.

We are researchers of transnational political violence. We analysed 58,000 violent events in west Africa between 2000 to 2024. Our focus was on identifying patterns of violence in relation to transport infrastructure.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that roads, bridges, pipelines and other transport systems are increasingly attacked across west Africa, but little is known about the factors that explain when, where and by whom.

Violence in west Africa involves a complex mix of political, economic and social factors. Weak governance, corruption, urban-rural inequalities and marginalised populations have been exploited by numerous armed groups, including transnational criminal networks and religious extremists.

West Africa has been one of the world’s most violent regions since the mid 2010s. In 2024 alone, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data initiative recorded over 10,600 events of political violence in the region. These ranged from battles between armed groups, explosions and other forms of remote violence, to attacks on unarmed civilians. An estimated 25,600 people were killed. This has been the status quo in the region for nearly a decade.

The results of our study show that 65% of all the attacks, explosions, and violence against civilians recorded between 2000 and 2024 were located within one kilometre of a road.

Only 4% of all events were located further than 10km from a road. This pattern was consistent across all road types but most pronounced near highways and primary roads.

We think the reason for this pattern is that there is fierce competition between state and non-state actors for access to and use of roads.

Governments need well-developed road networks for a host of reasons, including the ability to govern, enabling economic activity, and security. Roads enable military mobility and reduce potential safe havens for insurgents in remote regions.

Insurgent groups also see transport networks as prime targets. They create opportunities to blockade cities, ambush convoys, kidnap travellers, employ landmines, and destroy key infrastructure.

Our research is part of a long line of work that explored the role of infrastructure in relation to security in west Africa. Our latest research reinforces earlier findings linking the two. Transport networks have become battlegrounds for extremist groups seeking to destabilise states, isolate communities and expand their influence.

The network

The west African road network is vast, estimated at over 709,000km of roads by the Global Roads Inventory Project. It compares unfavourably with other African regions. For example, paved roads remain relatively scarce in west Africa (17% of the regional network) when compared with north Africa (83%).

Poorly maintained roads impose costs on west African countries. They increase transport time of perishable goods, shorten the operational life of trucks, cause more accidents, and reduce social interactions between communities.

Still, significant variations in road quality are found across the region. The percentage of paved roads ranges from a high of 37% in Senegal to just over 7% in Mali. Nigeria has the largest road network in west Africa with an estimated 195,000km, but much of it has deteriorated because of poor maintenance.

Road-related violence is on the rise

We found that road-related attacks have been on the rise since jihadist groups emerged in the mid-2010s. Only 31 ambushes against convoys were reported in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger from 2000-2015, against 497 from 2016-2023.

Attacks frequently occur along the same road segments, such as around Boni in the Gourma Mounts, where Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) conducted nine attacks against Malian forces and Wagner mercenaries between 2019 and 2024.

Violence was the most clustered near roads in 2011, with 87% of all violent events located within 1km of a road. Our analysis shows that, though still high, there’s been a decline post-2000: 59% in 2022 and 60% in 2024. This evolution reflects the ruralisation of conflict in west Africa. As jihadist insurgents target rural areas and small towns more and more, an increasing share of violent events also occurs far away from roads.

We’ve studied the root causes of west Africa’s violence for nearly a decade, documenting the ever-intensifying costs paid by its people. In the process, we’ve uncovered overlooked aspects of the turmoil, including the centrality of the road networks to an understanding of where the violence is happening.

The most dangerous roads of west Africa

Our findings show that violence against transport infrastructure is very unevenly distributed in west Africa and that specific road segments have been repeatedly targeted. This was particularly the case in the Central Sahel, Lake Chad basin, and western Cameroon.

For example, the 350km ring road linking Bamenda to Kumbo and Wum in Cameroon is the most violent road in west Africa, with 757 events since 2018, due to the conflict between the government and the Ambazonian separatists.

The longest segments of dangerous roads are in Nigeria, particularly those connecting Maiduguri in Borno State to Damaturu, Potiskum, Biu and Bama.

In the central Sahel, the road between Mopti/Sévaré and Gao is by far the most violent transport axis, with 433 events since the beginning of the civil war in Mali in 2012. South of Gao, National Road 17 leading to the Nigerien border, and National Road 20 heading east toward Ménaka have experienced 177 and 139 events respectively since the Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP) intensified its activities in the region in 2017.

In Burkina Faso, all the roads leading to Djibo near the border with Mali have experienced high levels of violence since the early 2020s.

Building transport infrastructure to promote peace

Roads are an important part of state counterinsurgency strategies and a strategic target for local militants. Yes, as our work highlights, transport infrastructure is largely ignored in debates that emphasise more state interventions as a means of combating insecurity. Sixty years after the independence of many west African countries, road accessibility remains elusive in the region.

Peripheral cities such as Bardaï, Bilma, Kidal and Timbuktu, where rebel movements have historically developed, are still not connected to the national network by tarmac roads.

The duality of the transport infrastructure, as both a facilitator and target of violence, has put government forces at a disadvantage. Regular forces are heavily constrained by the sparsity and poor conditions of the road network, which makes them vulnerable to attacks without necessarily allowing them to project their military power over long distances.

Rather than building transport infrastructure, states have focused on strengthening security by investing in military bases. The military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have further reinforced this trend, with the creation of a joint force by the countries of the Alliance of Sahel States.

Strengthening security has taken precedence over developmental support for peripheral communities, who experience the worst of the violence.

Olivier Walther receives funding from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Alexander John Thurston receives funding from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Steven Radil receives funding from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

– ref. Highways to hell: west Africa’s road networks are the preferred battleground for terror groups – https://theconversation.com/highways-to-hell-west-africas-road-networks-are-the-preferred-battleground-for-terror-groups-258517

MIL OSI –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Nato leaders pledge increased defence spending – is this really the price for peace and prosperity?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Damian Tobin, Lecturer in International Business, University College Cork

Kev Gregory / Shutterstock

Nato leaders agreed to ramp up defence spending to 5% of their countries’ economic output by 2035 at a summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25. US president Donald Trump, who has spent months saying Europe should take more responsibility for its own security, described the pledge as “a monumental win for the US” and a “big win” for western civilisation.

A few months earlier, in March, the EU also launched its long-awaited white paper on defence. This provides a blueprint for improving Europe’s readiness to respond to military threats by 2030. On top of the fact that global military spending has surged in the past ten years, these developments indicate that the world’s largest nations now prioritise military over economic diplomacy.

One of the main ideas behind military diplomacy is that increased defence spending acts as a deterrent to future conflicts. The nuclear arms race between the US and Soviet Union during the cold war provides some support for this argument. The prospect of mutual destruction was so great that it acted as a deterrent to nuclear war.

But is increased defence spending really the necessary price for greater peace and prosperity? My research on interactions between firms, geopolitics and the political economy of defence indicates that this is no “big win” for society or economic productivity.

A convoy of naval ships in the Pacific Ocean.
Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock

Deterrence requires a level of brinkmanship if it is to work. But as American economist Thomas Schelling pointed out in his 1960 book, The Strategy of Conflict, the problem with brinkmanship is that it relies on deliberately allowing a situation to get somewhat out of hand, with the intention of forcing the other party to back down.

This can result in strategic blunders. Efforts by the former US president, Richard Nixon, to engineer such a situation in 1969 by threatening to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam failed to gain credibility with the Soviets and North Vietnamese. This undoubtedly helped convince North Vietnam that it could survive the war and locked the US into a much longer conflict.

The recent confrontation between Israel and Iran also showed that brinkmanship can produce situations where there are significant casualties and no clear long-term resolution. Iran has long recognised that keeping itself near the threshold of nuclear weapons capability would offer a deterrent against external threats.

But this strategy created many opportunities for error. Israel claimed that Iran was too close to building a nuclear weapon and, alongside the US, launched strikes that they say inflicted significant damage on Iranian nuclear enrichment capabilities and military leadership.

Read more:
Israeli aggression and Iranian nuclear brinkmanship made this confrontation all but inevitable

Beyond this, it is unclear just how much military spending is needed to deter aggression. Nato allies have now committed to a big increase in defence spending – thanks largely to pressure from Trump.

However, even Nato’s previous objective that countries commit 2% of their national income to defence has proved unattractive for many governments. This has even been the case in post-conflict areas such as the Balkans, where Nato has had a heavy involvement.

A costly alternative

Boosting defence spending falls short on delivering economic prosperity, too. Analysing US military spending in the Vietnam war, economist Les Fishman noted in 1967 that military diplomacy was far more costly than its economic equivalent.

Military production requires continuously high levels of investment to maintain technological progress. This sucks public investment from other parts of the economy.

That’s not to say defence spending has an entirely negative effect on the economy. Studies have found evidence that US federal funding of military research and development results in significant increases in private business research in sectors such as chemicals and aerospace.

And, over the past decade, the value of venture capital deals in the US defence industry has grown 18-fold. This far outstrips sectors such as energy and healthcare. But such investment in military-related research and development is also often acknowledged as inefficient and not necessarily the best way to boost productivity.

Fishman pointed out that the Marshall Plan, which provided substantial economic aid to western Europe after the second world war, had a far higher return for the US.

Economic stabilisation kept the Soviet Union at bay for relatively small outlay compared to the Vietnam war, where casualties were of such a magnitude that it made any cost-benefit analysis meaningless.

The Vietnam war proved extremely costly for the US.
Department of the Army Special Photo Office / Wikimedia Commons

Boosting defence spending also represents a lost opportunity to invest in more socially beneficial projects. This will worsen the climate crisis.

According to a study shared with the Guardian in May, the initial rearmament planned by Nato alone could have increased greenhouse gas emissions by almost 200 million tonnes a year. The expanded defence commitment will only increase this further.

Unlike defence, where the repurposing of civilian technologies for military uses carries a cost to society, many green investments involve beneficial substitutions that reduce the cost of a green transition.

The substitution of conventional fossil fuel heating and transport systems with heat pumps and electric vehicles, for example, is far more socially beneficial than repurposing civilian satellites for missile systems.

A final point is that military diplomacy is itself geopolitically destabilising. US efforts to contain communism in Asia during the 1950s and 1960s are a good example. Not only did such efforts see China align its trade with other communist states, it also ensured that self-reliance became a cornerstone of China’s economic strategy.

This all suggests that the current drive for deterrence-based military spending carries with it a huge cost for society that could ultimately prove economically wasteful and geopolitically destabilising.

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

– ref. Nato leaders pledge increased defence spending – is this really the price for peace and prosperity? – https://theconversation.com/nato-leaders-pledge-increased-defence-spending-is-this-really-the-price-for-peace-and-prosperity-255989

MIL OSI –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Kenya’s ride-hailing drivers say their jobs offer dignity despite the challenges

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Julie Zollmann, Digital Planet Fellow, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Many argue that gig work involves exploitation, as research and media coverage have highlighted. But that doesn’t seem to deter ride hailing drivers on platforms like Uber and Bolt.

In Kenya, in fact, many new drivers continued to join platforms even as fares were slashed starting in 2016.

As a PhD student studying the role of digitalisation in development, I spent several years trying to understand how digital drivers experienced the quality of their work. My research found that in 2019, a typical digital driver in Nairobi worked about 58 hours a week and earned well below the minimum wage on an hourly basis. What made this work attractive? Why did drivers stay?

In a new paper, I draw on a 2019 survey of 450 drivers in Nairobi and 38 subsequent qualitative interviews in Nairobi and Kenya’s second largest ride hailing market, Mombasa, in 2021 that explored drivers’ experiences in detail.

In addition to measuring working hours and incomes, my survey team asked drivers if they considered their work “dignified”. Nearly eight in ten (78%) of our survey participants said yes. While that specific share of drivers may have changed since then, the underlying reasons drivers found the work dignified remain unchanged.

In the global north, scholars have rung alarm bells about what “gig work” means for the erosion of standard jobs with legal protections around working hours, minimum wage and other benefits. But the drivers my team and I spoke with in Kenya felt that digital driving was a step towards formalisation rather than a drift away from an ideal formal job. Driving had diginity in contrast to the indignities of low-wage work and the vast informal sector, which was their realistic alternative for making a living.

My findings highlight that workers’ experiences on global platforms like Uber are not universal and that digitisation may deliver some improvements in work quality relative to informal work in African contexts.

How did digital work deliver dignity?

Drivers explained that app companies imposed rules and structure that provided “discipline” in a transport sector more broadly associated with rudeness, unruliness, and disrespect towards passengers. Requirements for things like driving licences, proof of insurance, and ratings seemed to make drivers feel more professional and make passengers see them as such.

Drivers felt proud to be part of a driver community that behaved professionally under these conditions. A 38-year-old male driver in Nairobi who had been working on the platforms for three years told us:

We are very respected … Everyone trusts you to carry them. It’s not like the old days, when the taxi driver might rob you and dump you or even kill you. We are getting attraction from the society, even in the slums. They know you are an app driver, and they trust you because app drivers are good people. They know you can deliver, that you will be honest.

Read more:
Zimbabwe’s economy crashed — so how do citizens still cling to myths of urban and economic success?

On platforms, drivers were matched digitally with riders. Respondents said this brought dignity by ensuring drivers would receive a fairly steady stream of clients. This meant that a driver could rest assured he would earn money every day.

The alternative was to “hustle” in the informal economy to shake loose opportunities and constantly solicit those who might use their labour and beg for payment after a job was done. Constant solicitation and bargaining were exhausting and degrading.

One driver explained:

Most of us are poor. I have never walked out every morning sure that I would do a job. But now I know that if my car has been serviced and my phone is charged and working, I am going to work and not to some charity job. I used to wait at the base all day without getting a customer. Now, ….. at least two, three days are going to be good for you.

Digital matchmaking also meant that drivers were not limited to serving the few clients they already knew or who happened to pass them at a fixed base. They found themselves serving new parts of the city and carrying important people, including business people, celebrities and local politicians. Serving these high-end customers made them feel proud and important. Wealthy neighbourhoods, luxury hotels and high-end restaurants felt more open to them in otherwise exclusionary and segregated cities.

Some drivers felt that digitalisation had removed barriers to entry for taxi driving, like paying to join a parking base and building a client list.

The app did away with parking bases, and about half of drivers joined the system through a “partner”, paying a fixed weekly fee to rent their car instead of buying it themselves.

In efforts to make rides cheaper, in 2018 app companies in Kenya allowed smaller, less expensive cars on their platforms, lowering costs of ownership. Drivers in our survey showed that both formal and informal financiers were willing to offer loans to digital drivers, knowing they would have regular revenue to service their debt.

Buying a car was seen as a huge, dignifying accomplishment. One driver in the survey told us:

Growing up, I thought vehicles were owned only by the rich, but now digital driving has provided a means for me to own one and earn the respect of society.

David Muteru, then chairman of the Digital Taxi Association of Kenya, echoed this sentiment: “Owning a vehicle, that’s an asset”.

Dignity not always guaranteed

The dignifying value of order was only possible when app companies enforced their own rules and did so fairly. Drivers preferred the stringent rule enforcement of one major app over the lax enforcement of another, which made for more stressful and undignified interactions with riders.

When the rules were enforced, drivers could be sure that the app company would help if a rider refused to pay or if there was a dispute with the client. Drivers felt the stricter environment kept bad actors out.

Over time, though, app companies slashed prices, competing for market share. Drivers felt less respected by riders who saw them as desperate for money. Low fares pressed drivers to negotiate with riders for offline trips and higher rates, reintroducing the indignity of haggling.

Lessons for the future

Digitally mediated work raises many questions about labour standards.

This research shows how important it is to keep local context in mind. Digital driving is not the same experience for drivers in every context. Where people suffer indignities and deprivations in the informal sector, digitalisation may offer gains. But this potential depends on rule enforcement and pay. Material and subjective dignity are intertwined.

Julie Zollmann received funding from Mastercard Foundation.

– ref. Kenya’s ride-hailing drivers say their jobs offer dignity despite the challenges – https://theconversation.com/kenyas-ride-hailing-drivers-say-their-jobs-offer-dignity-despite-the-challenges-257845

MIL OSI –

July 1, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Has finance for green industry had an impact in Africa? What’s happened in 41 countries over 20 years
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Nara Monkam, Associate Professor of Public Economics, Chair in Municipal Finance within the Department of Economics, and Head of the Public Policy Hub at the University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria

The African continent finds itself in a predicament. Advanced economies in the rest of the world developed through industrialisation: their economies transformed from mainly agricultural to industrial. This involved burning fossil fuels like coal, generating greenhouse gas emissions that caused global warming.

African economies have trailed behind industrially. They’re now industrialising at a time when the world is moving away from fossil fuels and towards solar power, wind energy and hydropower.

Africa has 60% of the world’s best solar resources but only 1% of the world’s installed solar power systems. Despite renewable energy capacity nearly doubling in the last decade, only 2% of global investments in renewable energy went to Africa.

Green industrialisation could be the answer: achieving long-term economic growth and industrial development that does not harm the environment. But in most African countries, renewable energy is more expensive than fossil fuels, which are readily available in many parts of the continent. Africa is also one of the world’s poorest regions and cannot easily afford green technologies.

So a key issue in economic development is how to stimulate green industrial productivity. Green finance (funding from banks and investors specifically for environmentally friendly projects) can fund green innovations. These include renewable energy technologies, energy-efficient building designs, or electric vehicles.

Read more:
Africa doesn’t have a choice between economic growth and protecting the environment: how they can go hand in hand

I am an economist who worked with a team of researchers to study the impact of green finance on industrialisation in Africa. We also wanted to find out if green innovation influenced the effect that green finance has on industrialisation. (This was measured in this study as the total industrial value added as a percentage of gross domestic product.)

For example, switching to renewable energy like solar power reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and helps mitigate climate change. But the high costs of renewable energy equipment could harm industrial growth.

The research analysed macroeconomic and energy, green finance and industrialisation statistics from 41 African countries between 2000 and 2020.

Our research found that green finance offers funding opportunities for clean and innovative technologies and creating new jobs in green sectors. However, the potential of green financing to drive industrialisation through green innovation (such as renewable energy projects) is not being realised.

Read more:
How green innovation could be the key to growth for the UK’s rural businesses

This is because renewable energy comes with high costs. There also are not enough skilled people available to run green projects. There’s a lack of proper roads, connectivity or transmission lines to connect renewable energy to the main grid. The basic conditions for industrial growth through renewable energy are not in place.

Governments in Africa should find ways to make green innovation work. This will mean that society can enjoy the benefit of new environmentally friendly projects.

How to make green innovation work

African governments should focus on increasing people’s access to renewable energy projects. For this to happen, they need to put more funding and effort into developing renewable energy infrastructure. Renewable energy technologies must be available and affordable.

Education and capacity building is needed, particularly in rural communities. For example, community-owned solar microgrid projects provide people with the skills needed to manage and look after renewable energy systems.

Governments will need to subsidise local manufacturing of renewable energy components. When these are produced locally, this can help harness the potential of green innovation for industrialisation and also create jobs.

Countries must co-operate regionally on green innovation. This means sharing best practices, pooling resources, and making coordinated efforts towards green industrialisation.

Our research found that it would be useful to set up regional centres of excellence for renewable energy research and development. Regional alliances are also needed, so that countries can work together to negotiate better terms for green finance. This could enhance Africa’s journey towards the kind of green industrialisation that is cost effective and sustainable over time.

What needs to happen next

These steps would boost the impact of green finance on industrialisation in Africa:
- more climate finance, including finance from the private sector
- environmental taxation – a policy tool to limit activities, goods or services that have negative environmental impacts
- reform of multilateral development agencies to make it easier for African countries to access to climate funds
- development bank funding tailored to the needs of African countries. Nations that invest in renewable energy manufacturing should get tax breaks and other incentives. Green bonds that only fund renewable energy projects should be issued to attract private investors
- vocational training and higher education programmes that focus on training people in green technologies must get government funding.
Africa has a huge problem with trying to build some resilience to the effects of climate change, such as floods and drought. Economic development is also a challenge on the continent. Both could be addressed by green industrialisation. With the right investments in green finance, innovation and infrastructure, the continent can unlock sustainable growth, reduce poverty and help curb climate change.

Nara Monkam receives funding from the University of Pretoria.

– ref. Has finance for green industry had an impact in Africa? What’s happened in 41 countries over 20 years – https://theconversation.com/has-finance-for-green-industry-had-an-impact-in-africa-whats-happened-in-41-countries-over-20-years-244567
MIL OSI –
July 1, 2025

MIL-OSI: Form 8.3 – [MARLOWE PLC – 26 06 2025] – (CGWL) CORRECTED

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

This form supersedes the previous one for 26^thJune 2025, which contained a typographical error in the “Interests” – “Number” column of Section 2(a).

FORM 8.3

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:	CANACCORD GENUITY WEALTH LIMITED (for Discretionary clients)
(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	MARLOWE 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	26 JUNE 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”	NO

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:	50p ORDINARY
	Interests		Short positions
	Number	%	Number	%
(1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled:	3,073,854	3.9146
(2) Cash-settled derivatives:
(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:
TOTAL:	3,073,854	3.9146

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
50p ORDINARY	SALE	1,865	441.33p

(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	Number of reference securities	Price per unit
NONE

(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security	Product description e.g. call option	Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc.	Number of securities to which option relates	Exercise price per unit	Type e.g. American, European etc.	Expiry date	Option money paid/ received per unit
NONE

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security

Product description
e.g. call option

Exercising/ exercised against

Number of securities

Exercise price per unit

(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?

Date of disclosure:	27 JUNE 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.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel’s website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.

The MIL Network –

July 1, 2025

MIL-OSI: Form 8.3 – [MARLOWE PLC – 27 06 2025] – (CGWL)

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

FORM 8.3

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:	CANACCORD GENUITY WEALTH LIMITED (for Discretionary clients)
(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	MARLOWE 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	27 JUNE 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”	NO

2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

(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:	50p ORDINARY
	Interests		Short positions
	Number	%	Number	%
(1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled:	3,066,534	3.9053
(2) Cash-settled derivatives:
(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:
TOTAL:	3,066,534	3.9053

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

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
50p ORDINARY	SALE	7,320	441.01p

(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	Number of reference securities	Price per unit
NONE

(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security	Product description e.g. call option	Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc.	Number of securities to which option relates	Exercise price per unit	Type e.g. American, European etc.	Expiry date	Option money paid/ received per unit
NONE

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security

Product description
e.g. call option

Exercising/ exercised against

Number of securities

Exercise price per unit

(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

NONE

(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

NONE

(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached?

Date of disclosure:	30 JUNE 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.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel’s website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.

The MIL Network –

July 1, 2025

Category: Vehicles

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