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Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt speaks with Norma Hashim and Dr. Nazari Ismail from the Hashim Sani Center for Palestine Studies at Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur in this two-part podcast with solidarity activists from Malaysia. Hashim and Dr. Ismail share reflections on almost two decades of grassroots organizing with BDS Malaysia and Viva Palestina Malaysia. They discuss the recent closure of The Network School, an experimental project in “tech zionism”, and other successful campaigns to divest from Israeli companies. The Malaysian consumer boycott of Starbucks led to the closure of over 45+ locations. Their McDonald's boycott sparked a viral legal battle, and the struggle continues against complicit corporations like Google, Amazon, Caterpillar, and resource extraction companies that serve the Pentagon, including the Australian rare earth miner Lynas. Alongside their advocacy work, Hashim shares updates from daily relief work to support communities in Gaza, who continue to survive in the unbearable living conditions. The post People Power w/ Norma Hashim & Dr. Nazari Ismail of BDS Malaysia appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
Cristina Gomez reviews the latest UFO / UAP news and covers a new Euronews investigation showing the European Commission has secretly monitored UFOs since 2023, a Malaysian astronomer case tied to nuclear and military sites, testimony from European airline pilots, and a new CBS News poll showing eighty four percent of Americans believe their government is withholding UFO information. To see the VIDEO of this episode, click or copy link - https://youtu.be/1PP9X93Vv4UVisit my website with International UFO News, Articles, Videos, and Podcast direct links -www.ufonews.co00:00 - EU's Hidden UFO Secret00:38 - UFO Documents Exposed01:09 - Malaysia's UFO Case02:27 - Pilots Confirm UFO Sightings03:34 - New UFO Poll Numbers05:06 - UFOs Near Nuclear Sites06:08 - Europe's UFO Response Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/strange-and-unexplained--5235662/support.
Last time we spoke about the beginning of the Pacific War. In late 1941, the Second Battle of Changsha ended with Chinese forces claiming victory despite suffering nearly 100,000 casualties against roughly 1,670 Japanese losses. Chiang Kai-shek's government launched an aggressive propaganda campaign, flooding international press with fabricated triumph narratives to sustain national morale. Behind closed doors, Chiang was furious at his generals' tactical failures, executing commanders and dismantling units. Meanwhile, geopolitical forces threatened China's survival. Japan's 1939 defeat at Nomonhan crushed hopes for a Soviet alliance against Tokyo. Germany's pact with the Soviet Union left China isolated, while Western powers remained reluctant to commit meaningful support. Britain offered little; the US provided only modest loans. By 1941, facing potential collapse, Chiang desperately searched for allies while Wang Jingwei's Japanese-backed rival government beckoned as an alternative. China's exhausted people endured horror—including a 1941 bombing massacre in Chongqing that killed over 400 trapped civilians. Then Japan unleashed a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. #215 An Implosion in the East Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the US Pacific Fleet was anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Two waves of Japanese bomber aircraft, launched from six aircraft carriers, attacked the vessels and their sleeping crews, destroying the battleship Arizona outright and damaging seventeen others, as well as most of the military aircraft parked nearby. Some 2,400 Americans died, and another 1,100 were wounded. Within a day Japanese invasion forces had attacked Siam, Malaya, and the Philippines. Chiang Kai-shek heard the news at one o'clock in the morning and immediately dictated a letter of support to President Roosevelt, pledging commitment to a new "common battle." The news reached Zhou Fohai in Shanghai as well. On December 8 across the international date line from Hawaii he had heard the sounds of firing as the Japanese took over the rest of the city, and then received reports that Japan had declared war on the Western powers. "I heard they'd bombed Honolulu, Manila, Singapore, and Hong Kong. From now on, the Pacific becomes a killing ground." When Japanese carrier planes descended on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, they were executing far more than a tactical strike. They were unleashing the culmination of a strategic vision that had shaped Japanese military planning since the 1920s: the Nanshin-ron, or "Southern Advance" doctrine. The Nanshin-ron represented a critical strategic choice that emerged from internal Japanese debates during the 1920s and 1930s. Japan faced an inescapable vulnerability: it was an island nation with virtually no natural resources of its own. The nation's population had doubled since the Meiji Restoration, growing to over 70 million by 1941. An industrial economy of tremendous sophistication, capable of producing world-class warships, aircraft, and military equipment, depended entirely on imported raw materials. Oil, rubber, tin, iron ore, bauxite, copper, and manganese all had to be acquired through foreign trade or conquest. This resource dependency was not a luxury problem; it was an existential one. A nation that could not feed itself or fuel its economy was a nation vulnerable to strangulation by enemies who controlled the resources it needed. Japanese strategic thinkers divided into two camps on how to resolve this vulnerability. The Hokushin-ron advocates, primarily within the Army, pushed for expansion northward into Siberia and Mongolia, seeking to conquer Soviet territory and resources. The Soviet Union possessed vast tracts of land, mineral wealth, timber, and agricultural output. From a purely materialist perspective, the Northern Advance made geographic sense—it was contiguous with Manchuria, which Japan had already secured in 1931. Yet by the late 1930s, the Hokushin-ron strategy had suffered a catastrophic blow. In 1938 and 1939, Japanese and Soviet forces clashed at Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia in what the Japanese called the Nomonhan Incident. The battles revealed a terrifying truth: the Soviet Red Army, under General Georgy Zhukov, was far more formidable than Japanese military planners had anticipated. Soviet armor, air power, and coordinated tactics annihilated Japanese forces. Japan suffered over 60,000 casualties while inflicting perhaps 10,000 on the Soviets. The defeat was concealed from the Japanese public, but it was unmistakable to military planners. A direct clash with Soviet power could end catastrophically. The Northern Advance, it became clear, would almost certainly provoke war with a nation capable of destroying the Japanese Army. This strategic defeat tilted the balance decisively toward the Nanshin-ron. If Japan could not safely expand northward, it must expand southward, toward Southeast Asia, the Dutch East Indies, Indochina, and the western Pacific. The appeal of the Nanshin-ron was immediately apparent to the Navy, which had always been more oriented toward maritime commerce and expansion across the ocean. The territories to the south were not militarily formidable. The colonial powers, Britain, the Netherlands, France, were either already defeated in 1940 or distracted by their own desperate struggles leaving Britain fighting alone against Germany. The United States, though potentially a formidable adversary, was not yet at war, and there was a chance, however slender, that a decisive blow against American naval power might convince America to negotiate rather than fight. But beyond strategic opportunity, the Nanshin-ron offered something that the Hokushin-ron did not: it offered resources of staggering abundance. The Dutch East Indies possessed oil reserves that could dwarf Japan's consumption for years. Malaya produced the world's rubber. Thailand offered agricultural bounty and geographic position. Burma's timber and agricultural products could feed Japan's growing empire. The Philippines possessed harbors, airfields, and economic output. These were not marginal additions to Japan's economy—they were transformative. Together, they would convert Japan from a resource-hungry island nation into the master of an imperial domain encompassing hundreds of millions of people and containing most of the strategic materials necessary for sustained industrial warfare. In the last episode I explained the western sanctions and embargoes that drained Japan's military of the resources they required to continue the China War. By 1941, Japan faced a civilization crisis. Japan imported roughly 90 percent of its petroleum, and the bulk of that came from the Dutch East Indies and the United States. Suddenly, the American supply was cut off entirely. Reserves would last perhaps 18 months if Japan's military and industrial consumption continued at existing rates. After that, the military machine would sputter and die. The industrial economy would collapse. Even civilian life would become impossible to sustain. Japan was facing not merely economic inconvenience but literal strangulation by the Western powers. Yet it would be a mistake to reduce Japanese motivation to just materialism. Japanese military leaders wrapped their conquests in an ideological framework, one that many of them genuinely believed, or wanted to believe, served a higher historical purpose. The concept of the Daitoa Kyoeiken, the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," posited a new regional order in which Japan would play the leading role in liberating Asian peoples from Western colonial domination and creating an Asian-centered political and economic system. This ideology drew on genuine anti-colonial sentiment. For a century, Western powers had dominated Asia, treating Asian peoples and nations as subordinate, colonized territories existing to serve Western economic interests. Japan, which had modernized and Westernized enough to avoid colonization, saw itself as the natural leader of an Asian renaissance—a civilizing force that would restore Asian dignity and independence even as it established Japanese hegemony. Of course, this was propagandistic. Japanese conquest represented a substitution of one imperial master for another, and often a harsher and more brutal one at that. But for understanding Japanese decision-making, the ideology mattered profoundly. It provided Japanese leaders with a moral narrative for conquest. It allowed them to understand themselves as liberators rather than mere conquerors. It provided a rationale for extracting resources from occupied territories and for mobilizing subject populations to support the Japanese war effort. And it resonated with anti-Western sentiment throughout Asia, making Japanese occupation seem, in some quarters, preferable to continued Western colonial rule. The slogan Hakko ichiu—"eight corners under one roof", captured this ideological vision: a unified Asia and eventually world under Japanese guidance. Whether Japanese leaders truly believed this vision or cynically deployed it as propaganda, it shaped how they understood their actions and justified them to their subjects. Now I know this is a podcast dedicated to the century of humiliation, ie: China's experience. But I thought it was necessary just to have one episode explain what Dan Carlin titled "a supernova in the east" and I have titled an implosion in the east. I won't go into depth into the campaigns as some of them have a lot of Chinese involvement and we will be covering them in depth, but rather I will explain the rationale for Japan's numerous invasions following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan's assault on Malaya began within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, indeed, Japanese troops were already landing on the Kota Bharu beachhead on the Malaysian peninsula before dawn on December 8, 1941 local time. Malaya was one of the world's largest rubber producers, and Singapore, at the tip of the peninsula, was the linchpin of British naval power in the Far East.The Japanese interest in Malaya was straightforward but crucial: rubber. The Japanese military consumed vast quantities of rubber for tires, gaskets, hoses, and countless other applications. American and Dutch rubber supplies were now cut off by embargo. Malaya's rubber plantations represented perhaps the world's richest reservoir of this strategic material. Beyond rubber, Malaya and the surrounding region were major tin producers—essential for alloys and manufacturing. For Japan to conduct prolonged warfare, Malaya was not a luxury target; it was a necessity. Singapore represented something different: a symbol of Western power in Asia and a strategic chokepoint. As the major British naval base in the region, Singapore served as the anchor of British imperial authority across the South China Sea. By seizing Singapore, Japan would not only capture crucial resources and port facilities but would also deliver a psychological blow to the entire edifice of Western dominance in Asia. The fortress city that the British considered nearly impregnable fell within seventy days, a stunning demonstration of Japanese military capability and the vulnerability of overextended Western empires. If Malaya was critical for rubber, the Dutch East Indies was essential for oil. The region, comprising present-day Indonesia, was the world's third-largest oil producer and had reserves that could sustain Japanese military operations for years. This was the jewel of the resource-conquest strategy. Japanese planners had long eyed the East Indies, but direct conquest had seemed risky while Britain and America remained neutral or opposed. With both now at war, the window of opportunity had opened. Japan needed the oil so desperately that when the Dutch East Indies Petroleum Company initially agreed to some Japanese oil purchases before the war, Tokyo was already planning its takeover. The conquest of the Dutch East Indies would provide not just oil but also tin, nickel, bauxite, and other materials essential to an industrial war machine. The islands would also provide air and naval bases from which Japan could defend its new empire and potentially threaten Australia. The Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, which began in late December 1941 and accelerated through January and February 1942, was methodical and comprehensive. Various island groups were targeted systematically: Java, Borneo, Celebes, and the Moluccas. Dutch military forces, though brave, were overwhelmed. By March 1942, Japan had secured the entire archipelago,a stunning logistical and military achievement that delivered vast resources into Japanese hands. Thailand presented a fundamentally different case from Japan's other targets. Rather than conquest, Japan pursued alliance with military strongman Plaek Phibunsongkhram, who had seized power in a 1938 coup as a nationalist ideologue determined to reassert Thai sovereignty and recover territory lost to French colonialism in the nineteenth century. Thailand was the last independent state in mainland Southeast Asia, hemmed in by British-controlled Burma and Malaya to the west, and French Indochina to the east. For a century, Thailand had survived by playing European imperial powers against each other. But by the late 1930s, this strategy was becoming obsolete. Europe was distracted by Hitler's Germany. Colonial powers were weakening. Japanese power was visibly ascending. Phibunsongkhram recognized both danger and opportunity. He could resist Japan and invite invasion, or he could ally with Japan and profit from rising Asian power. Japanese diplomats approached Thailand with sophistication: they offered military alliance and support for Thai territorial expansion at French expense. This addressed Thailand's deepest national wound, the humiliation of nineteenth-century territorial losses to France. The Franco-Thai War of 1940-1941 became transformative. With Japan providing military support, advisors, tanks, aircraft, Thai forces defeated the French for the first time in history. By May 1941, Thailand had recovered 54,000 square kilometers of Cambodian territory and portions of Laos. For Phibunsongkhram, this was extraordinary: he had achieved what Thai leaders could not in a century, reclaiming territory from a Western imperial power. Domestically, his position was dramatically strengthened. The parallel to China's century of humiliation—the foundation of your podcast is striking: Thailand too was reversing colonial diminishment through association with rising Asian power. The Thai-Japanese relationship was unique. Unlike the Philippines, Malaya, or the Dutch East Indies, Thailand would retain nominal independence. Phibunsongkhram remained in power. Japanese occupation was light. Thai forces maintained their own command structure. Most importantly, Thailand's territorial gains from the Franco-Thai War were recognized and secured. Japan valued Thai cooperation more than conquest. Burma, controlled by the British, was the next target in Japan's southwestward advance. Japanese planners had multiple motivations for invading Burma. First, it was strategically positioned on India's eastern frontier, and Japan harbored ambitions of eventually striking toward India and linking up with Germany in the Middle East or at least destabilizing the British position in South Asia. Second, Burma was a significant producer of timber and agricultural products. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the invasion of Burma was meant to cut the Burma Road, the crucial supply line that allowed American aid to reach Nationalist China. The invasion of Burma began in late 1941 and accelerated through early 1942. The invasion of the Philippines, which began on December 10, 1941, just days after Pearl Harbor, served multiple strategic purposes. Like the assault on Pearl Harbor itself, it was meant to neutralize American military power in the region, in this case, the American garrison under General Douglas MacArthur and the American colonial administration. But the Philippines were also valuable in their own right. The islands sat directly in the path of what Japan envisioned as its defensive perimeter. By controlling the Philippines, Japan would make it extraordinarily difficult for American forces to project power westward into Southeast Asia. The territory would provide naval and air bases critical to defending Japan's new empire. Additionally, the Philippines possessed some agricultural and industrial resources valuable to the war effort, and their conquest delivered a psychological victory, defeating American forces and ending American colonial rule in Asia, which appealed to anti-Western sentiment that Japan tried to cultivate. Beyond Southeast Asia and the Philippines, Japan rapidly invaded Guam and Wake island to extend Japan's defensive perimeter further into the Pacific and eliminate American air and naval bases that could threaten Japanese operations. Guam, seized on December 10, 1941, fell within two days, the American garrison was small and the island's strategic value lay primarily in denying the United States a forward staging ground for any counteroffensive. Wake Island, attacked the same day and finally captured on December 23 after a brief but heroic American defense, served similar purposes: cutting off American reconnaissance and interdicting potential supply lines to the Philippines. Now I believe that's enough of the implosion in the east, let's get back to the situation in China. After Chiang Kai-shek sent his letter of support to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pledging Chinese commitment to what he termed a new "common battle." he did something most revealing about his mood towards the global war. He played "Ave Maria" on his gramophone, celebrating with an almost spiritual gratitude the implications of what had just transpired in the American Pacific. This moment crystallized the profound difference Pearl Harbor would mean to different members of the emerging Allied coalition. For the United States, the attack was pure shock, a violation of the sanctity of American soil and the complacency of American isolationism. For Britain, it was like the pricking of a large, painful blister—painful but perhaps not entirely unexpected given Japan's regional ambitions. But for China, the relief that surged through the government and the consciousness of the Chinese people surpassed even Britain's response. For four long years, China had fought Japan almost alone, watching as Western nations remained neutral or limited their commitment to rhetorical support and modest material assistance. Now, suddenly, the trajectory of the entire conflict had shifted with breathtaking speed. Chiang's emotional state at this moment could scarcely be contained, and those close to him understood that beneath his carefully maintained Confucian composure burned an intoxicating sensation of vindication. These Western powers who had been so impatient with Chinese strategy, who had mocked the retreats of the Nationalist Army and spoken scornfully of Japanese capabilities, were now themselves in headlong retreat from those very islanders. In Hong Kong, Singapore, and Manila, British and American forces would be fighting desperately for their lives against the Japanese military that China had been contending with for years. Chiang could not have failed to perceive the irony: the Japanese had conquered vast stretches of China through relentless campaigns, yet Westerners had dismissed Chinese resistance as inadequate. Now the Japanese were proving that they posed a formidable challenge to Western military power as well. There was a bitter satisfaction in this vindication, even as Chiang understood that the strategic implications of American entry far outweighed any emotional satisfaction. What was pragmatic and strategically clear to Chiang, however, was far more important than any emotional satisfaction. The United States was now at war, and it was on China's side. This represented the transformation for which Chiang had labored for years, bringing the full weight of American industrial capacity and military might to bear against the Japanese enemy. The diplomatic foundations for this alliance had already been laid in the months preceding Pearl Harbor. Beginning in the spring of 1941, the United States had begun to commit significant resources to supporting China. In April 1941, following the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese neutrality agreement, which had devastated Chinese morale by suggesting that Japan might attack the Soviet Union rather than move southward, the Roosevelt administration had determined to provide $45 million worth of militarily useful commodities to China as an immediate gesture of support. Then, on May 6, 1941, President Roosevelt had made a more formal commitment by announcing that the munitions provisions of the Lend-Lease Act applied to China, declaring a phrase that captured the strategic logic of American assistance: "defending China is the key to defending America." This declaration represented a significant shift in American policy, elevating China from a regional concern to a central element of American grand strategy in Asia. Subsequently, in July 1941, Roosevelt had sent Owen Lattimore to China to serve as political adviser to the Chinese government, a position that signaled deepening American engagement with Chinese affairs. In August, the administration appointed John Magruder as military attaché and head of the American Military Mission to China (AMMISCA), with the primary responsibility of overseeing the delivery of Lend-Lease material to the Chinese armed forces. On the diplomatic front, Chiang moved with remarkable alacrity. He had already severed relations with Germany on July 2, 1941, the very day after Hitler had formally recognized the Wang Jingwei puppet government in an attempt to appease Japan and encourage it to finally implement the Southern Advance. Now, on December 8, 1941, just one day after the Pearl Harbor attack, Chiang took the decisive step of formally declaring war against the Axis powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan. This declaration transformed China's position from a beleaguered nation fighting a war of survival into a formal member of the Allied coalition. Chiang had seized the opportunity that Pearl Harbor presented to ally China with a genuinely strong power against Japan, a gambit that fundamentally altered the diplomatic weight and international legitimacy of both the Chinese government and the Chinese cause. From a strategic perspective, the Japanese had committed what Chiang and others immediately recognized as a catastrophic blunder. On the operational level, Pearl Harbor was indeed a devastating tactical success, the American Pacific Fleet was crippled, and Japanese forces now enjoyed temporary naval superiority throughout much of the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Yet strategically, Pearl Harbor represented a failure of epic proportions, a miscalculation rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the intangibles of warfare: what motivated the Chinese people and what motivated the Americans. The Chinese had understood, through four years of brutal conflict, that warfare was about more than territorial conquest and resource acquisition. It was about will, about endurance, about the capacity to absorb punishment and continue fighting. The Japanese had learned this lesson imperfectly in China, where despite overwhelming military advantages they had been unable to force a decisive conclusion or compel Chinese surrender. The Americans would teach the Japanese this lesson even more emphatically. The attack on American sailors in Hawaii instantly galvanized the American population to prosecute an unlimited war, with Tokyo itself as the ultimate destination of American counterattack. While Americans would remember the "date that will live in infamy" primarily because of the assault on Pearl Harbor itself, the strategic consequence was that Japanese actions in Hawaii had introduced numerous new adversaries into the Pacific conflict: not only the United States, but also Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. These additions transformed what had been, from the Japanese perspective, a regional conflict with manageable parameters into a global war that Japan could not possibly win through any conceivable means. What made this particularly disastrous for Japan was the context in which the new theater had been opened. Japan was already deeply mired in a quagmire in China—a "malignant quagmire," as one observer would later characterize it, that had consumed vast resources, inflicted enormous casualties, and failed to produce decisive victory. In military strategy, it is sometimes wise to open a new theater in order to attack an enemy from an additional and unexpected direction, thereby dispersing their forces and creating new challenges for them to manage. But opening a new theater that introduces an entirely new, powerful adversary, and doing so when one is already overextended in an existing theater is a prescription for strategic catastrophe. This was precisely what Japan had done at Pearl Harbor. Chiang Kai-shek understood the magnitude of Japan's miscalculation with crystalline clarity. He understood that whatever the military complexities that lay ahead, whatever the challenges of coordinating with Western allies, and whatever the limitations of Western military assistance to China might be, the fundamental equation had changed. The United States would ultimately defeat Japan. The Chinese did not need to defeat Japan by themselves; they merely needed to survive long enough for American industrial and military capacity to grind the Japanese military into defeat. In the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Chinese and American officials moved swiftly to formalize the alliance and establish the mechanisms of wartime cooperation. Roosevelt asked Chiang Kai-shek to serve as commander in chief of the Allied forces in the China theater, a designation that recognized China's central role in the Pacific War and elevated Chiang's international standing to something he had long sought: a position as an equal partner in the Allied coalition, a seat at the "top table of global decision-making" alongside Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. To support this expanded role and to ensure effective coordination of the military effort, Roosevelt dispatched Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell to China. Stilwell was not chosen randomly; he brought fifteen years of experience in China, a deep familiarity with the country, its military, and its complexities that few American officers possessed. Stilwell was appointed to serve simultaneously as the U.S. government's military representative in China, as chief of staff of the China Theater, and as commander in chief of the American forces in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater. This appointment established the framework for joint Chinese-American military cooperation and represented an American commitment to the Asian theater that, while never receiving the resources devoted to the European theater, nonetheless signified recognition of China's strategic importance. Trust me, going forward we will be having a lot of time dedicated to the hilarious bromance / bro hatred of Vinegar Joe and Peanut. Yet the formation of an alliance and the establishment of command structures was easier than the practical implementation of military cooperation. The fundamental challenge that would plague Chinese-American relations throughout the war emerged almost immediately: the problem of delivering military assistance to China. Before Pearl Harbor, the United States and China had reached agreement on three major points regarding military assistance. First, the United States would provide training and technical support to assist China in establishing a modern air force. Second, the United States would provide training and equipment for a ground army consisting of thirty divisions. Third, the United States would assist China in constructing railways and highways from Yunnan to Burma, along with the provision of rolling stock and vehicles to support these new transportation routes. These were ambitious plans, reflecting the extent of Chinese need and American willingness to support the Chinese war effort. However, the outbreak of the Pacific War threw American plans into disarray. The fundamental strategic doctrine guiding American policy was the "Europe first" strategy, which meant that the European theater and the defeat of Nazi Germany received priority over the Pacific theater. Additionally, China's geography made it extraordinarily difficult to supply. China could only be reached through supply lines of extraordinary length and complexity, either through the port of Rangoon in Burma and then overland via the treacherous Yunnan-Burma Road, or through the port of Hong Kong, which immediately fell into Japanese hands after Pearl Harbor. The first Sino-American loan agreement had specified that the United States would deliver commodities worth $45 million to China in 1941. However, shipping shortages meant that only $26 million worth of commodities actually left the United States. These commodities were shipped to the transit port of Rangoon, where a massive traffic jam developed as supplies accumulated faster than they could be distributed onward to China. Along the Yunnan-Burma Road, that "much-contested life line" as it came to be known, conditions were chaotic. The road had always been a source of trouble: it was long, extraordinarily difficult to keep in repair, fantastically dangerous to travel, and too narrow to permit much volume of traffic at any one time. Due to mismanagement and pilfering, the commodities that were shipped out of Burma suffered heavy losses in transit, and only one-third of them eventually arrived in Chongqing. Yet the United States had already established one valuable asset in China that could be deployed relatively quickly: an air force nucleus. Just before Pearl Harbor, a group of American aviators had been formally organized in Chongqing who worked on volunteer status for China under the command of Colonel Claire Chennault, an American aviation officer who served as instructor at the Chinese Air Force Cadet School. Some of these men had been flying in China since the Kuomintang first began purchasing American aircraft, having come to demonstrate the aircraft and remaining to pilot and teach. Others had hurried to China after being released from their volunteer service in Spain, where they had gained combat experience during the Spanish Civil War. It was a familiar joke that pilots from both sides of the Spanish conflict were likely to meet and work side by side in China, but political convictions proved immaterial to these professional aviators, they got on well enough with each other, mercenaries of the twentieth century united by their expertise and their willingness to fight. When American traffic on the Burma Road swelled in volume and became chaotic, with cargo lost to pilfering and trucks breaking down from mishandling, the air freight service into Chongqing became increasingly vital to maintaining Chinese military capabilities. The backbone of this organization was American, and it had been in operation for months before the Japanese attack. Halfway down the Burma Road, over the border in Burma, was a plane factory backed by American and Chinese capital, providing some degree of repair and maintenance capacity for the aircraft operating out of China. Recognizing the strategic value of these experienced aviators and the need to formalize and expand their operations, American and Chinese officials moved quickly to incorporate this volunteer group, formally known as the American Volunteer Group or "Flying Tigers," into the U.S. Army Air Force. This transformation of volunteer aviators into official American military personnel represented a commitment to providing air support to Chinese operations, recognizing that air power could compensate to some degree for Chinese numerical disadvantages in ground combat. In Chongqing, it was clear that among the United Nations fighting Japan, America was the only one taking China seriously, the only one prepared to invest significant resources in Chinese military capabilities and the Chinese war effort. Yet Pearl Harbor brought consequences that extended far beyond the strategic and diplomatic spheres. For Western civilians living in China,missionaries, teachers, doctors, businessmen, and journalists, the attack represented a catastrophic change in their status and their fate. Until December 8, 1941, Westerners residing in China had maintained a curious protected status as foreign neutrals, even in areas nominally controlled by the Japanese. This status had provided them with a measure of distance from, and protection against, the grinding reality of the war that had devastated Chinese populations. For a century, Americans had been part of an imperial presence in China, sometimes benevolent, sometimes violent, but always ultimately under Western control. That world came to an abrupt end on December 8, 1941. All across eastern China, Americans and Britons were rounded up and interned. The International Settlement of Shanghai—that remarkable oasis of neutrality that had persisted in the midst of a war-torn city—was now reunified under Japanese control. Thousands of foreigners with Allied nationality were sent to holding camps scattered throughout occupied China. Some, like the eleven-year-old British boy Jim Ballard, would remain imprisoned for the remainder of the war, enduring hunger, cold, and disease in camps like Longhua, which housed approximately 2,000 detainees. Forty years later, as the novelist J. G. Ballard, he would memorialized this experience in his semi-autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun. For missionaries like Velva Brown, the evacuation process was degrading and final. The missionary staff were permitted to pack no more than three suitcases with their belongings. As they prepared to leave, Japanese and Taiwanese "sightseeing" parties arrived to decide which houses they might want to occupy. The journey home aboard crowded Japanese ships offered no concessions to status or dignity; ambassadors, consuls, merchants, and missionaries alike were given "bed-sized strips of Chinese matting which we spread side by side on the iron floor of the hold," as Brown recorded. The humiliation was compounded by the finality of it all. For many, their decades-long presence in China was ending not in orderly retreat but in hasty evacuation, leaving behind "servants, many of whom had been with us for fifteen or twenty years." Despite these immediate human tragedies, the strategic transformation that Pearl Harbor wrought for China was undeniable. Chiang Kai-shek now embarked on an entirely new sort of life, heavily involved with the leaders and generals of the Western powers. He held diplomatic discussions with the leaders of the United Nations and military planning sessions with Western generals. In these unfamiliar circumstances, he did his best to live up to the Confucian ideal of the gentleman, seldom permitting the mask to slip—though the pressure of these new responsibilities and the intoxicating combination of vindication and anxiety would occasionally prove too much even for his considerable self-control. Within weeks of Pearl Harbor, Chiang demonstrated the value he could bring to the new alliance. He visited India and spoke with the leaders of the Indian independence struggle as an ally and friend, as a fellow non-European speaking to others seeking to escape from colonialism and imperial domination. He joined the Allies in their first joint campaign, not in China but in the jungles of neighboring Burma, committing Chinese forces to operations outside China's borders in support of the broader Allied military strategy. Yet the price that Chiang would pay for China's belated entry into the global alliance against the Axis powers would prove to be a heavy one. Chiang desperately needed his new American and British partners, but accepting this alliance would unleash forces within Chinese society that would threaten the very basis of his political control. The complexities of this bargain would become most visible in the four-year struggle between Chiang and General Joseph Warren Stilwell, the American officer who would become simultaneously his chief of staff and the administrator of American military assistance to China. This relationship, shaped by mutual suspicion, different strategic visions, and incompatible political agendas, would define Chinese-American military cooperation during the Pacific War and would have profound implications extending far beyond the battlefields of Asia. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Pearl Harbor's shock reverberated through Asia. Japan's assault on Hawaii, combined with invasions of Burma, the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island, inadvertently transformed regional conflict into global war. Chiang Kai-shek, vindicated after four years of isolation fighting Japan, embraced American alliance with profound relief. The U.S. committed military aid, appointed General Stilwell as chief of staff, and recognized China as a co-belligerent. For Chiang, this partnership brought diplomatic status but also internal tensions that would define the Pacific War's final chapter.
In this episode, Michael and Jake recap Laracon US Boston, from Malaysian food and an undefeated dodgeball run to Laraprom, the great nachos-with-rice debate, conference logistics, Aaron Francis stepping into Laravel's VP of Marketing and Community role, and a reminder to make room for silly software.Jake shares his work rebuilding Boom Party, the fast-paced Bomberman clone his team used to play after stand-up, along with hosting decisions and a creative workflow involving Claude, Gemini, and Suno.Michael closes things out with what was supposed to be an easy Pest 5 upgrade but turned into a much bigger test-suite adventure: converting old PHPUnit-style tests, untangling inheritance, tracking down mysterious parallel test failures, discovering the pain of stray exit statements, and ultimately getting repeat runs across an approximately 18,000-test suite down to just eight seconds.Show linksPomplamooseSpindriftIZZELaracon USAaron FrancisSidecarWhimsy-driven development by Christina MartinezBoom PartyFly.io
DAN IS A SINGAPOREAN!!!!In this episode, we break down what the Singapore citizenship journey actually looks like, how long it takes, and the REAL REASON why Dan chose Singapore over Malaysia... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.This week, we hear about the end of decades-long martial law in Taiwan and discuss its impact on the country's literature with Ti-han Chang, the Deputy Director of Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS University of London.Next, the making of City of God, the film that showed the raw reality of children's gangs in Brazil's favelas.Plus, we remember Ashley Kriel, the young activist who became an anti-apartheid icon on the Cape Flats.We also hear about the first carbon offset scheme that planted millions of trees in Guatemala.We go back 50 years to the first time women played basketball in the Olympic Games.And the birth of Club Med, the resort that pioneered the all-inclusive holiday.Contributors: Fred Chin - former Malaysian student imprisoned during Taiwan's White Terror. Katia Lund - co-director of City of God. Adiel 'Gorie' November - former anti-apartheid activist. Roberto Antonio Alvarado - planted the saplings that became some of the world's first carbon offsets. Pierre-Xavier Bécret - son of Club Med employees. Juliene Brazinski Simpson - former US basketball player.(Photo: Green Island former prison, Taiwan. Credit: James Wendlinger/South China Morning Post via Getty Images)
Today on AirTalk: Tips for surviving this job market (0:30) What makes a good (or bad) sequel? (18:10) Fusion restaurant Rasarumah (36:54) FilmWeek (51:30) Romance movies adapted from novels (1:23:16) Visit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency.
In 1987, Taiwan finally lifted martial law after nearly four decades of authoritarian rule.The moment marked a profound shift for a society long shaped by censorship, surveillance and political fear.For many who had lived through the ‘White Terror', it opened the possibility of speaking openly for the first time.Among them was Malaysian student Fred Chin, who had arrived in Taiwan in the late 1960s with little sense of the political tensions around him.What followed would draw him into a world of secret policing and military justice that operated far from public view, leaving lasting effects on his life and identity.Ashley Byrne speaks to Fred Chin about his story and what the lifting of martial law meant for him. A Made in Manchester production.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines' life and Omar Sharif's legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives' ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.(Photo: Former Jingmei Military Detention Center, where political dissidents were imprisoned during the White Terror. Credit: Craig Ferguson/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Josephine Ylipää oon reissanu ympäri mailmaa ja kertoo kuinka hään joutu Malaysian saemettässä kontahmaan pimeässä. Hään kertoo kans muunmuassa hänen teiniiästä ja ette hään seittemäntoista vuotiana palo lopphuun. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radios app.
A 40-year-old physician associate and his wife walked away from their jobs with $50,000 earmarked for a year of world travel. They returned having spent just $30,000—and visited 15+ countries across four continents. This isn't a story about deprivation or cutting corners. It's about strategic geography, intentional choices, and the freedom that comes from knowing exactly what you value. Key Topics Discussed Introduction and Background 00:00:00 Ginger introduces Zack, the "winner of life" from the 2025 end-of-year wins episode. Now 40 with a seven-month-old baby in Arizona, Zack reflects on how a year of travel reset his life trajectory. The Genesis of the Trip 00:03:30 Growing up poor but playing travel soccer planted early seeds. Working short emergency medicine shifts gave Zack flexible scheduling and the mental space to plan an exit strategy with his wife. Financial Foundation and Savings Rate 00:07:00 A 90%+ savings rate funded their dream. Complete financial transparency in marriage and childhood memories of family bankruptcy drove Zack to master personal finance young. Planning and Budgeting 00:10:00 They allocated $50,000 for travel plus another $50,000 for job hunting upon return. Research through books and blogs introduced "low burn and high burn" countries. Chasing the sun meant packing only lightweight clothing. The $30,000 Reality 00:15:00 Final spend: under $30,000. Strategies included medical volunteering, Workaway exchanges, teaching English for pay in London, hostels, homestays, and ruthless geo-arbitrage in Southeast Asia and South America. Travel Strategies and Workaway 00:20:00 Workaway connected them to free accommodation in exchange for skills. They secured a paid two-month teaching position in London and applied to opportunities like an alpaca farm in Norway (visa restrictions prevented that one). Building Community on the Road 00:28:00 Hostels, hiking groups, public transportation, and intentional conversations created friendships. A Malaysian engineer they met on a volcano hike later hosted them. Connection required showing up and being open. Life-Changing Inflection Points 00:33:00 Two moments shaped everything: his family's bankruptcy as a teenager and waking up in an ICU coma in 2018. The latter injected urgency into postponed dreams and clarified what mattered most. Overcoming Scarcity Mindset 00:38:00 Shifting from scarcity to abundance meant building systems aligned with core values. Evidence from past good decisions created confidence to bet on themselves. Favorite Destinations 00:44:00 Guatemala's active volcano El Fuego, cooking classes in Thailand, Colombia's unexpected beauty and value, Vietnam's month-long immersion, and the dream bucket-list destination of New Zealand. Reintegration and Lessons Learned 00:52:00 Coming home brought culture shock and relief from decision fatigue. They found jobs they loved. Travel isn't vacation—it's exhausting in different ways. Resources and Closing Thoughts 00:58:00 Rolf Potts' Vagabonding shaped their philosophy. Journaling preserved memories. No single resource fits everyone; customize your approach by exploring multiple perspectives. Notable Quotes Zack: "We ended up spending just under thirty thousand dollars. If I told you the list of activities we did and the places we visited, you would not think it was possible." Zack: "Easy decisions, hard life. Hard decisions, easy life. When you spend a lot of time thinking about the hard decisions and you go really deep on the core values of your life, then I think it makes it easier to create systems that will help you move forward." Zack: "Traveling teaches you simplicity in a very interesting way. When we came home at the end of the year, we had plenty of room to spare in our backpacks. Your mindset just really shifts from 'this is what we think we need' to 'this is what we need.'" Zack: "I woke up in a coma in the ICU. That experience really brought into perspective mortality and some sense of urgency to do…
A Hateful Homicide – Season 7, Episode 5Synopsis:In the heart of Singapore's bustling Bugis district, a community already living in the shadows is shaken by a brutal act of violence. On October 27, 1990, 30-year-old Malaysian fashion designer and gender-nonconforming individual Lim Yeow Chuan, affectionately known as "Susan," was found stabbed to death on Johore Road near Queen Street—an area that had become a refuge for transgender and gender-diverse sex workers facing widespread discrimination and limited economic opportunities. (Wikipedia)As investigators searched for answers, the case revealed a violent confrontation involving two men who claimed they were attempting to recover property allegedly stolen from a friend. What began as a murder prosecution ultimately transformed into a landmark legal case when Singapore's highest court concluded that the killing occurred during a sudden fight, reducing the principal defendant's conviction from murder to manslaughter. The decision ignited debate over self-defense, proportionality, and accountability in cases involving marginalized victims. (Wikipedia)In this episode of A Hateful Homicide, we examine not only the investigation and courtroom proceedings, but also the social climate that made transgender and gender-diverse people especially vulnerable to violence in Singapore during the late 20th century. Through historical context, legal records, and the voices of advocates, we explore how prejudice, criminalization, and invisibility can shape both public perception and the pursuit of justice.More than three decades later, "A Killing on Queen Street" asks difficult questions that continue to resonate today: How does society value the lives of transgender and gender-diverse people? Does justice look different when the victim comes from a marginalized community? And what can Lim Yeow Chuan's story teach us about dignity, remembrance, and the ongoing fight against anti-transgender violence?Viewer discretion is advised. This episode contains discussions of homicide, violence, and discrimination against transgender and gender-diverse individuals."A Killing on Queen Street"
Stepping away from a safe accounting degree to forge his own path, Malaysian content creator Ming Chun transformed his love for local food into a thriving personal brand and restaurant business. Known to his audience as the "Ayam Guy" after reviewing over 50 ayam gepuk locations, he systematically built a loyal following by sharing authentic, relatable reviews. Instead of quitting his day job on a whim, Ming Chun balanced his family's signage business with late-night editing, securing a financial buffer before going full-time. Spotting key gaps in traditional recipes like tough meat and bone hassle, he engineered a modern version featuring tender, boneless, crispy chicken thighs, which he validated through a pop-up that drew massive 5-hour queues.Now operating his storefront, Gepuklah, in Damansara Uptown, Ming Chun proves that young Malaysian professionals don't need "perfect timing" by starting small and building trust first, you can scale a side hustle into a real business.
On this episode of Nature Reads, we speak to Malaysian children's author and scuba diver Gloria Chieng, together with co-host Jennifer Neoh Tan, Bookshop Manager at Sunda Shelves. We explore the books and experiences that inspired Gloria's love of nature, how her time beneath the waves led to her debut picture book, Paco the Hermit Crab, and why stories can help children connect with the ocean and the importance of protecting it.Nature Reads on Earth Matters is a monthly show where we explore the stories behind books that bring us closer to nature and the world around us, in collaboration with independent bookstore Sunda Shelves.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Welcome to the forty third episode of the Zoology Ramblings Podcast! In this episode, Robi starts by talking about the unusual fake news claiming that the government is planning to cull 95% of the ponies on Dartmoor. Emma discusses the unprecedented global temperatures we've been experiencing this summer. Robi and Emma then compete for the sexiest bird in their species of the week. Robi talks about the Malaysian rail babbler, and Emma sheds light on the plight of the Javan magpie. To end, Robi and Emma delve into the secret return of the Eurasian eagle owl to Britain. Robi Watkinson is a Conservation Biologist and wildlife filmmaker specialising in the spatial and movement ecology of large carnivores, camera trapping survey methods, rewilding, metapopulation dynamics and conservation planning. He has an MSc in Conservation Biology from the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, and the Institute of Communities and Wildlife in Africa, University of Cape Town. He is based between Cape Town and London, and has strong interests in equitable and inclusive conservation, palaeontology and wildlife taxonomy and evolution!Emma Hodson is a Zoologist and wildlife content creator, currently working in the community and engagement team at Avon Wildlife Trust. Emma's role as a Wildlife Champions Project Officer involves supporting and upskilling people to take action for nature in their local communities. Emma has experience in remote wildlife fieldwork, and has been part of Arctic fox, macaw and cetacean research teams in Iceland, Peru and Wales respectively. She has also been involved in animal care and rehabilitation work in Costa Rica and South Africa. Emma is particularly passionate about the interface between community engagement and wildlife monitoring, and enjoys running workshops and giving talks on topics including camera trapping, beaver ecology and rewilding. You can follow more of our weird and wonderful wildlife adventures on instagram: @zoologyramblingspodcast & @robi_watkinson_wildlife & @emma_hodson_wildlife Zoology Ramblings Merch: https://zoology-ramblings.teemill.com/
Send us Fan MailWelcome to Episode 256! It's been a talking point for over 6 years at this point and what some refer to as "The Big Lie". The rhetoric is now getting more aggressive despite the same statements being repeated for a decade when discussing elections -- by one man on one side of the aisle. Of course we are referring to the Big Lie of the 2020 election. Within the last week Dumpy Don took to the podium in a primetime address and spouted lies, misrepresentation, and released documents proving there was no actual election fraud evidence and in fact, evidence was presented Russian interference and worked to re-elect Dumpy Don. The Boys are breaking it down for you, giving you talking points, and the true tea.Kicking things off is the Tea Party this week with a caller voice memo to discuss multi-season television shows and the latest on the sudden tubbing of Lady G.Trash Talk topics this week cover a Florida women received upsetting, random vanity plates for her car, how to get banned from Olive Garden, a Malaysian official is warning the people about what turns people LGBGTQ+, and one Oscar winning actor had such a horrific smelling fart -- it's still a topic of conversation over 20 years later. Whose was it?All this and recommendations too! This one's a goodie! So getcha a fresh diaper, fill a glass with a tasty port vintage, and pull up chair to the table to join your GBFFS. It's time to paint!=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Let The Boys of Painted Trash know your thoughts on this week's topics and episode! What street festivals do you attend? Do you like street fests? What is your favorite festival??Have a topic idea or story you recommend for Trash Talk, be sure to send it in to our email or through the "contact us" on our website.Follow us on:Instagram: instragram.com/paintedtrashpodTwitter: twitter.com/paintedtrashpodFacebook: facebookcom/paintedtrashpodcastDon't forget to click Subscribe and/or Follow and leave us a review!email: paintedtrashpodcast@gmail.comweb: www.paintedtrashpodcast.com
MONEY FM 89.3 - Prime Time with Howie Lim, Bernard Lim & Finance Presenter JP Ong
On What's Trending, Hongbin Jeong and Nadiah Koh dives into the story of how a Malaysian man learning how to drive was met with a nasty instructor. From unnecessary yelling to even hitting the dashboard, the man was met with different instances of trauma during his driving lessons. When he couldn't take it anymore, he decides to leave the instructor in the middle of a jam-packed road and calls it quits. So the trio discusses what they would have done in this scenario and whether getting a drivers' license is still worth it here in Singapore. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Shutterstock Track 1219389 Monetization ID TFGEPGEI0LHEIJAI Kia ora. Welcome to Tuesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand. I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from interest.co.nz. Today we lead with news the Yemeni Houthis have announced a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia but effectively closing the Red Sea. Elsewhere new mediation efforts are underway again. In the US, the Conference Board's leading indicator tracking turned negative in June. The shift down isn't a lot because it wasn't very positive in earlier months. But it is consistent with the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracking showing an exhaustion of the pace of the US expansion. Off balance sheet debt at the big US tech giants is exploding, making investment assessments harder to make. It is now an estimated US$1.65 tln as artificial intelligence investments ballooned, a Nikkei study shows, and now exceeds actual reported debt. The problem is particularly acute at Meta. These companies are about to report Q2-2026 results and these debt levels are sure to become an issue. The main way these debt obligations stay off balance sheets is via "innovative" lease transactions centered around timing issues. And US Big Tech valuations are also under threat from Chinese alternatives, especially the relatively new Moonshot K3 version. It is hard not to to get a sense that financial markets are facing a revaluation crisis in the tech sector. In Canada, their CPI inflation rate came in at 2.8% in June, with a core rate of 2.1%. Both these measures were lower than in May and slightly lower than expected. The Malaysian export boom is carrying on (+45% from June a year ago), especially for electronics (+57%) and petroleum (+56%), and especially to the US (+109%). But they needed all of that because imports surged sharply too, up 44% from a year ago. The People's Bank of China kept its key lending rates at record lows for a 14th straight month in July, as widely expected. The one-year loan prime rate (LPR), the benchmark for most corporate and household borrowing, was held at 3.0%, while the five-year LPR, a reference rate for mortgages, remained at 3.5%. However, rate cut expectations are rising there as their domestic economy slows. German producer prices were up a modest +1.8% in June from a year ago, similar to the prior two months. But this new level is in contrast to the PPI deflation they had reported for the earlier twelve consecutive months. A number of major countries are struggling to contain the devaluation of their currencies against the US dollar. Japan is seeing its currency at its weakest level since 1996. India is seeing levels back to near the record lows they had in mid-May. And Indonesia is battling record low levels as well. All these are major economies and all are trying to work what level of higher interest rate differential is needed to stabilise their situation. This is just part of a rising interest rate background, not helped by the prospect of higher US interest rates from their inability to tackle inflation effectively. The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.60%, up +4 bps from this time yesterday. The price of gold has slipped to US$4003/oz, down -US$14 from yesterday. Silver is now just under US$56.50/oz, up +50 USc from yesterday. Oil prices are +50 USc firmer from yesterday at just under US$83/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is now just under US$89/bbl. Hormuz transits are still just a trickle There have been just 1 crude tanker and 5 cargo ships exiting over the past 24 hours (4 dark with transponders off) and 8 entering for new loads (8 dark) and all this traffic is Iran-linked. The Kiwi dollar is marginally firmer from yesterday at just under 58.5 USc. Against the Aussie we are down -20 bps at 83.5 AUc. Against the euro we are up +10 bps at just on 51.2 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at 62.3 which is unchanged from this time yesterday. The bitcoin price starts today at US$65,541 and up +1.6% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at just over +/-1.4%. You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz. Kia ora. I'm David Chaston and we'll do this again tomorrow. Track 1219389 Monetization ID TFGEPGEI0LHEIJAI Audio soundtrack opening is licensed from Shutterstock, Track 1219389 Monetization ID TFGEPGEI0LHEIJAI
What does it take to move to a new country at 19, navigate culture shock, come out as gay while studying psychology, work through perfectionism and shame, and eventually build your own clinical practice? In this episode, Dr. Zhi Xiang On takes us on that journey with warmth, humour, and remarkable honesty.On moved from Klang, Malaysia to Melbourne to study psychology at 19. What started as curiosity about a big city quickly became a complex navigation of identity, belonging, and self-discovery. From not understanding why everyone walked so much, to learning that "Asian Australian" was a thing, to spending two hours crying before coming out to a friend, to eventually becoming a clinical psychologist, forensic psychologist, and clinical neuropsychologist, On's story is both deeply personal and universally relatable.In this conversation with Asami, On opens up about the pressures of college party culture when you come from a conservative family, the guarded way he first approached university counselling, the moment a professor pointed out what he wasn't ready to hear about his sexual identity, and how working through his own "parts" transformed not just his studies but his entire approach to being a therapist.This episode is for anyone who's ever felt like they had to perform being okay, anyone navigating identity while far from home, and anyone wondering what it really means to "work on yourself."
This is episode 3 of a six-part series on food imperialism. Welcome to Edible Empire, a podcast by Planet Pulse Pacific about the hidden cost of our food.Food isn't just about taste—it's power. This podcast explores how empires and corporations built control through agriculture, reshaping cultures and feeding some at the expense of others.This episode traces the global impact of the palm oil industry from its indigenous roots to modern supply chains through three expert interviews.Dr Jonathan Robins opens by detailing the pre-colonial history of oil palm in West Africa and explaining how European empires weaponised the crop to fuel the Industrial Revolution, establishing structural patterns that mirror today's agribusiness models.Dr Helena Varkkey then unpacks the political economy of Malaysian production, exposing how entrenched relationships between political elites and conglomerates shield the industry from regulation.Farwiza Farhan brings a frontline conservation perspective from Indonesia, documenting how government-incentivised monoculture plantations drive deforestation, threaten endangered species, and violate Indigenous land rights. Together, the experts critique the effectiveness of voluntary sustainability certification schemes like the RSPO, debate whether palm oil can ever be truly sustainable at scale, and highlight the efforts of local communities fighting back against corporate food imperialism.Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on the next episode!Resources from this episode:https://www.mtu.edu/social-sciences/department/faculty/robins/https://commoditiesofempire.org.uk/about/jonathan-robins/https://theconversation.com/profiles/jonathan-e-robins-1227071https://seapeat.wixsite.com/homehttps://cgsea.org/https://umexpert.um.edu.my/helenav To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.Please support our work and enable us to deliver more content by buying us a coffee or becoming a member of Athletes for Nature.Follow us on Instagram and Facebook, subscribe to this podcast, and share this episode with your friends and family.
This episode, we'll explore stories inspired by the ImpossibleQuest that Commodus is calling The Contest of Godly Strength. So, when I think about gods and heroes who have performed feats of incredible strength, there are really two who leap immediately to mind. One of them is Heracles, who we've talked about a lot on this podcast – and another is the Norse god Thor. I'll tell some of their stories, as well as introducing you to the bronze giant Talos and the Malaysian hero Badang! All stories told on Myths & Muses are original family-friendly adaptations of ancient myths and legends. Stories from ancient mythology can also sometimes deal with complicated topics for young listeners — to the mortal parents and caretakers reading this, we encourage listening along with your young demigods to help them navigate those topics as they explore these epic tales. [Transcript for Episode 6] If you'd like to submit something creative you've done inspired by the stories in Myths & Muses, use this form (with a Mortal Guardian's permission!). ----more---- Stuff to Read: The Tale of Utgarda-Loki from Norse Mythology for Smart People Thor's Adventures in Jotunheim Talos at THEOI and Mythopedia Antaeus at THEOI and Mythopedia Badang the Magnificent The Legend of Badang: When Strength Carved History Stuff to Watch: Our curated YouTube playlist for the stories in this episode!
Soon to be seen in series 3 of The Traitors on Channel 10, Alvin Quah is a well known face thanks to his two standout seasons on MasterChef. Alvin gives us an insight into the machinations of The Traitors and some special memories of his MasterChef days as well. He is proudly Malaysian born and his insight to the best food from his homeland is brilliant. We also learn of Alvin's little-known skill that has absolutely nothing to do with cooking or television cameras, but one he shares with Sarah. When Kevin asked Sarah what the Food Poll for this week was going to be, 'She just smiled and gave him a Vegemite sandwich.' So keeping the show as bright as bright can be, we ask are you a happy little Vegemite sandwich eater or not? Broadcast each Sunday on the ACE Radio Network - https://aceradio.com.au/ Catch us also on: Radio 2DD - Easy Listening - On Line - https://www.2dd.online/ Follow us on Facebook...https://www.facebook.com/foodbyteswithsarahpatterson/ Twitter & Instagram - @sarahfoodbytes Producer - Christopher Gates © 2026 Howdy Partners MediaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality James McBride, Co-Founder & CEO of NIHI Hotels, joins the core four for a wide-ranging conversation on what it actually takes to build a legendary independent hospitality brand — from the jungles of Sumba to the halls of the Ritz-Carlton. James traces his career across some of the most storied names in luxury hospitality — Ritz-Carlton, Rosewood, the Carlisle, YTL — before partnering with Chris Burch to build NIHI Sumba, now widely regarded as one of the world's most exceptional and emotionally resonant hotel experiences. He breaks down the difference between operating inside a behemoth brand versus building something from scratch, and what it really costs — personally and professionally — to go independent. The conversation covers demand creation in the pre-algorithm era (think hot cookies at Malaysian airports and a chef moonlighting as a "technology butler"), how a yoga teacher ran NIHI's Instagram for its first five years, and why NIHI's most viral post — horses casting shadows on a beach at sunset — gets mistaken for AI-generated content daily. James also shares his philosophy on guerrilla marketing, the power of generosity as a brand strategy, and why scarcity may be the most underutilized asset in luxury hospitality today. On the business side, James gets candid about partner selection, equity, the emotional toll of betting on yourself, and what independent operators consistently get wrong: great product, poor storytelling. He argues that the GM running a flagged property matters more than the flag itself — that soul can't be systemized, only lived. A masterclass in brand building, emotional hospitality, and the courage it takes to build something the world hasn't seen yet. Your Hosts: Zach Busekrus — Journey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbusekrus/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthestays/ Scott Eddy — Global Travel & Hospitality Expert @MrScottEddy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrscotteddy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrscotteddy/ Ben Wolff — Founder of Onera & Oasi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-wolff/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iambenwolff/ Edwin Kramer — Luxury Hotelier Consultant & Former GM LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwinckramer/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edwinkramer/
From filming Red Bull stunts and chasing Malaysian princes around racetracks, to landing in Johannesburg and having $40k worth of camera gear stolen before a wild midnight Maccas run. Geordie Lillis is back with another proper true yarn, and this one gets loose quick.
Jesrina Arshad didn't have money for marketing. She didn't have a product yet. What she had was four years of trust built through pure education — no selling, no pitching, just genuinely helping her audience understand an ancient Malaysian herb called pegaga. So when she finally asked her community to pre-pay for a product that wouldn't ship for three months, she sold out 250 units in two weeks. With zero marketing spend. In this episode of Running With Wolves, Savannah sits down with Jesrina Arshad, founder and CEO of PurelyB, to talk about healing a decade of chronic health issues in one week, building an all-women founding team, and the exact trust-first marketing strategy that took her from an educational platform with zero revenue to an eight-figure wellness brand now expanding into the US. Here's what this episode covers: How Jesrina turned a personal health crisis into the foundation of an eight-figure company The pre-order strategy that sold 250 units of a product that didn't exist yet — with zero marketing Why trust has to come before the sale, especially in wellness — and how Jesrina built that trust for free The guerrilla pitch that got PurelyB into conversation with Erewhon's co-founder Connect with Jesrina (Jess) Arshad on Instagram at @jessarshad — https://www.instagram.com/jessarshad — or visit https://purelyb.com Apply to work with Savannah HERE: http://bit.ly/applywlfpodcast or DM her on Instagram @itssavannahjordan ( / itssavannahjordan ) with your takeaway. PurelyB, Jess founder, trust based marketing, female founder, wellness brand, pre-order strategy, eight figure brand, organic marketing 2026
Episode #561: The third episode in a three part series, this was recorded inside Malaysia's Parliament during the final stretch of Malaysia's ASEAN chairmanship. It sits where diplomacy meets consequence—non-interference, the limits of influence, and the reset button of rotating leadership. Beneath that is Malaysia's lived reality: refugees arriving as people, not headlines, often in legal limbo and reliant on UNHCR papers. MPs speak of gaps in data, barriers to legal work and schooling, strained clinics, and the politics of backlash. The first guest is Zahir Hassan, a first-term MP for Wangsa Maju in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's most densely populated constituency. An engineer and disaster-risk advocate, he treats displacement as a systems failure that has turned permanent. Refugees were meant to be part of “a few months transition,” yet some families are now third or fourth generation in Malaysia. With no legal status, “they technically cannot work. They cannot earn a living here, [so] for them to survive over the years, they have got to work illegally,” he says. Hassan also warns that Malaysia can't drift year after year without proper data, planning, burden-sharing, and serious leadership at regional levels, and that stronger action needs to be taken towards the crisis. Mohammed Suhaimi Abdullah, MP for Langkawi and a former two-term senator, describes Bukit Malut as a settlement that began in 1982 with about 12 Rohingya families, and has grown to nearly 15,000 today. Some residents, he says, “have got blue identity card,” adding, “when you have a blue card, you have to treat them like Malaysians;” despite this, he laments that much of the region is plagued by poor infrastructure and few schools. Abdullah rejects stereotypes, asserting that these Rohingya communities are “not poor people! They're very hard-working,” and adds that this fact that has created resentment among local populations who are not willing to take on equally strenuous jobs. Finally, Hassan Karim is a MP for Pasir Gudang and a lawyer shaped by civil-liberties fights. Referencing his youth, he says: “We fought any attempt by the [Malaysian] government tosuppress the space for democracy.” Karim's actions aligned with his words then, as he notes that he was arrested on sedition charges for protesting authoritarian tendencies. Concerning thecurrent influx of refugees, he calls out Malaysian society for not extending sympathy to those fleeing conflict. “This kind of humanism must transcend religions and race,” he insists. If Malaysians can mobilize around Palestinians in Gaza as a matter of human rights, he argues, they cannot practice moral compartmentalization when the persecuted are nearer, poorer, and politically inconvenient. As Karim ask openly, if Muslim solidarity is invoked loudly elsewhere, why is it so thin here? His harshest criticism, however, is for Myanmar's military, adding that currently, “I feel pessimistic. I never heard or saw any tangible effort [of progress.]”
The Malaysian island of Penang is a wonder: a vibrant nexus of ethnicities, religions, history, trade, architecture, food and industry. Its main city is George Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for the harmonious co-existence of its three main cultures. To better understand this fascinating place, meet Alexis Kerr, who with her family has spent more than three decades “Living on the Pearl of the Orient”.
A man in Australia repeatedly encountered the same eyeless woman by the roadside on his way home, and after his child claimed to see her following him home, the sightings stopped only after he placed a Bible in his car; A singer shared how a locked girls’ toilet backstage at his school mysteriously opened by itself, revealing a table wedged behind the door despite nobody being inside; A former flight attendant recalled sensing someone occupying the last crew-rest bunk on an old aircraft, only to discover that no crew member had actually been there; A man constantly felt exhausted after staying with his girlfriend, later discovering that her deceased sister’s spirit had become attached to him and even appeared to tug at a water bottle with him; A nurse on night duty was told by a patient that someone was standing behind her, while Room 817 became known for unexplained call-bell activations and strange movements of a chair; A Malaysian shop owner working late in an old shophouse heard footsteps upstairs, and later CCTV footage appeared to show an elderly woman’s reflection in a mirror despite nobody being present; Employees reviewing CCTV footage saw their beloved boss return to the office at the exact time he passed away in hospital, seemingly unable to let go of his work. 澳洲男子连续三次在回家路上看见同一名无眼女子,最后连孩子都看见她跟回家,直到在车上放圣经后才平安无事;创作歌手分享中学礼堂后台女厕离奇开门,门后竟有桌子顶住且空无一人,至今无法解释;前空姐透露在旧型号飞机的机组休息舱里,多次感觉有人占用最后一个床位,却始终找不到对应的人;男子到女友家过夜后总是异常疲累,后来发现已故姐姐的灵体一直跟着他,甚至在厨房与他争抢水壶;医院护士夜班巡视817号病房时,病人指出她身后有人,而该病房的呼叫铃与椅子也不断出现诡异现象;马来西亚老店屋业者深夜加班时听见楼上脚步声,事后从闭路电视看见镜中出现陌生老妇身影;员工从公司闭路电视看见已在医院离世的老板于过世时刻返回办公室,疑似因放不下工作而现身。See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You may know her as the internet's bestpren, but we know her as Yazmin Aziz. The accent, the features, and not being Malaysian enough. Kids made fun of her for all of it growing up. Now, she's THE ‘bespren' to a growing community of two million strong.Maggy gets the full Yazmin experience- loud, soft, funny, and raw all in one sitting.In this episode you'll learn:• What it's like growing up a third-culture kid in Malaysia• Filipino vs Malaysian identity, and why she stopped choosing just one• The bullying that shaped her drive for success• Turning your culture into content that people connect with• How joining competitions build your strength and work ethic• How Yazmin caught herself self-sabotaging a good relationship• What it's really like dating someone in your own industry• Red flags Yazmin used to ignore, and the ones she doesn't anymore• Why she stopped overthinking love and started trusting itFollow Yazmin Aziz: @yazmin.aziz----------------------------------------------------------------------Hosted by Maggy Wang, this podcast is where real talk meets real life — messy, mundane, and everything in between. From everyday struggles to smashing through stigmas, we know you're here for the unfiltered conversations. There will be laughter, there will be awkward silence and maybe some tears.One thing's for sure: You won't get enough. So kick off your shoes (or heels), grab a seat and #letsgetheadoverheelsLet us know if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful! We wanna hear what YOU want to do & talk about next. NEW WEEKLY HOH EPISODES EVERY THURSDAY AT 6PMFollow us on:Instagram: @theheadoverheelspodMaggy: @themaggywang
A ghost that can copy your face, sit on your porch while you're miles away, and keep you trapped in a brutal death rattle until you “pass it on” to your kid? That is where our deep dive into Hantu spirits begins, and it only gets stranger from there.We're Josh, Jamey, and Aleca, and we're digging into Malaysian and Indonesian paranormal folklore where “Hantu” is a broad category for spirits, ghosts, and demons. We talk through the Hantu Raya contract and the idea of a familiar that demands offerings for protection, plus the chilling inheritance angle that turns a haunting into a family problem. Then we move into Pontianak lore, a terrifying figure tied to childbirth fears, roadside encounters, and the disturbing iron nail legend that claims she can be forced into human form.From there, we hit the Pocong, the shroud-bound ghost that hops or glides through the night, and the Penanggalan, a witch whose head detaches and flies with glowing organs, hunted with thorns, chilies, and the smell of vinegar. We also cover the Hantu Bomo, the shaman who falls into darkness, and the Toyol, a toddler-like stealing spirit distracted by marbles and beans. We connect these myths to broader questions about how legends spread, why certain patterns show up in the US too, and how AI videos make the modern paranormal harder to trust.Subscribe for more paranormal history and folklore, share this with a friend who loves ghost stories, and leave a review. Which Hantu story stuck with you the most?Thank you for listening to the Paranormal Peeps Podcast. Check us out on Facebook Paranormal Peeps Podcast or Coldspot Paranormal Research and on Instagram coldspot_paranormal_researchSupport the show
When Greg Jenkins' mother, Anna, vanished in Malaysia, local authorities provided little to no assistance. Determined to uncover the truth, Greg launched his own investigation and ultimately found Anna's remains. But the discovery only deepened the mystery surrounding her disappearance and the subsequent inaction of Malaysian authorities. This episode was originally released in January 2025. Anna's family continues to fight for justice. You can keep up to date with their journey on social media here: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok Do you have information regarding any of the cases discussed on this podcast? Please report it on the Crime Stoppers website or by calling 1800 333 000. You can donate to and support Greg's cause by visiting his GoFundMe here. For Support: Lifeline on 13 11 14 13 YARN on 13 92 76 (24/7 crisis support phone line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples) 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732 CREDITS: Host: Meshel Laurie. You can find her on Instagram Guest: Greg Jenkins Executive Producer/Editor: Matthew Tankard This episode contains extra content from ABC News. GET IN TOUCH: https://www.australiantruecrimethepodcast.com/ Follow the show on Instagram @australiantruecrimepodcast and Facebook Send us a question to have played on the show by recording a voice message here. Email the show at AusTrueCrimePodcast@gmail.com
This episode explores the rise of captive-bred Malaysian dwarf toads as a pet choice. We talk about the basics and move into practical, keeper-focused information as well as breeding. The episode emphasizes buying captive-bred, working to maintain biosecurity, and more!
We'll be back soon with new episodes. In the meantime, enjoy this episode about Jho Low, the fraudster who charmed Hollywood's elite while allegedly stealing over $4 billion from one of Malaysia's sovereign wealth funds.Jho Low, a Malaysian-born businessman, will do anything to climb the social ladder. After attending Wharton business school, he establishes himself as a globe-trotting playboy with a celebrity entourage. He uses his money to get near Leonardo DiCaprio, Miranda Kerr, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Kim Kardashian. But the source of Jho Low's seemingly endless cash is a mystery…. Until one of his former associates decides to blow the whistle.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Looking toward the “futures” and determining “good value” Soybean oil futures market evolution since the start of the Iran war What happened in deferred contracts? Is palm oil next? Comparing the last strong El Niño event against an impending one A look at pricing dynamics for Malaysian palm oil futures (BMD exchange) Not a client on McKeany-Flavell's IQ Intelligence Platform? Visit iq.mckeany-flavell.com to learn more! Commodity dashboards Dynamic data & interactive charts Analytics & calculators Price forecasts Downloadable data, charts, and tables Our next webinar: Seasonal Market Outlook Wed., Jun 24, 2026 at 2pm ET / 11am PT Invites rolling out soon! Host: Michael Caughlan, President & CEO Expert: Nicole Thomas, Vice President – Information Services
Trading Nut | Trader Interviews - Forex, Futures, Stocks (Robots & More)
Mr. T returns to the show after 3 years - this time revealing his face, his updated trading strategy, and the mindset that helped him grow small accounts aggressively through gold trading. Full episode + show notes: https://tradingnut.com/mr-t-2/ Key moments - [03:36] “The only thing that matters in order to increase your win rate is just confluence.” - [05:37] “If a level that isn't supposed to break starts breaking, then you're in for a direction change.” - [06:38] “Direction, key level filtering, and confirmation — those are my three pillars of trading.” - [07:58] “It's not about how often you win or lose. It's about how much you win when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.” - [09:30] “Sessions only determine volatility. The market moves by the same rules throughout the entire day.” - [16:29] “There is no 100% win rate strategy. There's just good probabilities and bad probabilities.” - [20:50] “Never change your risk no matter how deep in drawdown you are.” - [23:51] “All you have to do is get one huge runner and your account is good.” - [27:00] “Get your money from trading and invest it somewhere else. Trading shouldn't be the end-all be-all.” - [28:09] “The market doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.” Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1HfPBvW5Zo --- Sponsors BlackBull Markets - 100% deposit bonus & free TradingView — NZ-regulated broker. https://tradingnut.com/go/blackbull/ PropFirmMatch - Find the right prop firm challenge — PropFirmMatch.com https://tradingnut.com/go/pfm/ --- More from Trading Nut Strategy Vault - Free guest setups organised by market & method. https://tradingnut.com/go/vault/ TraderZen - Free trade control & mindset app for active traders. https://tradingnut.com/go/traderzen/ Dynamic Traders Club - Free 7-minute rule strategy — mechanical intraday setup. https://tradingnut.com/go/dtc/ --- Educational only - not financial advice. Risk: https://tradingnut.com/disclaimers/ Some links are affiliate partnerships.
Trading Nut | Trader Interviews - Forex, Futures, Stocks (Robots & More)
Malaysian SNR trader Mr. T returns to break down his evolved trading strategy, including confluence-based entries, equilibrium levels, risk management, and why he believes one massive runner can completely transform a trading account. In this interview, Mr. T explains: ✅ His 3 pillars of trading ✅ Why confluence matters more than indicators ✅ How he trades gold exclusively ✅ His thoughts on ICT, SMC, and market structure ✅ Why he risks aggressively to grow accounts ✅ The mindset behind holding huge runners ✅ Why most traders fail at consistency ✅ How he turned small accounts into large gains If you're into gold trading, Malaysian SNR, price action, ICT concepts, or high risk-to-reward trading strategies, this episode is packed with valuable insights. https://tradingnut.com/mr-t-2/ - Mr. T's Links
This week on Kitchen Tape, Rose and Crystal sit down with Helen Goh, internationally acclaimed pastry chef, longtime Ottolenghi collaborator, columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian, and author of Baking and the Meaning of Life and Sweet. Featuring 100 recipes that weave together Helen's Malaysian and Australian heritage with Western and Middle Eastern influences, Baking and the Meaning of Life asks a larger question beneath the recipes: how do we build meaning in our lives? Through eight essays woven throughout the book, Helen explores baking as a practice of mindfulness, agency, competence, ritual, and connection — not simply as a way to make food, but as one of the many small acts that help us create purpose and community in a chaotic world. The conversation moves through her enviable cookbook collection, existentialism, the meanings of color, psychology, flavor, memory, and the quiet rigor behind recipes that feel both deeply comforting and profoundly intentional.Mentioned in this episode:• Baking and the Meaning of Life: How to Find Joy in 100 Recipes• Sweet by Helen Goh and Yotam Ottolenghi• Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many by Jeremy Lee• Kate Spade Green• The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book• The Flavor Thesaurus by Niki Segnit• Stars Desserts by Emily Luchetti• Flour Hour Baking Podcast hosted by Jeremiah Duarte Bills and Amanda Faber• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott• Ma Vie en Rose by Rose Levy Beranbaum• The Artful Baker by Cenk Sonmezsoy• Jikoni by Ravinder Bhogal
Today we'll be talking about a British driver who's been arrested after a serious hit and run incident on Koh Pha Ngan, then, former formula 1 driver Mika Salo was injured in a suspected bangkok knife attack, plus, a tourist couple flees from a Jomtien convenience store after an alleged energy drink theft turns physical, in ASEAN news Cambodia is activating mandatory military service amidst border tensions with Thailand, in wildlife news a Malaysian passenger was caught attempting to smuggle 251 live animals and also Phuket tourists are facing scrutiny after controversial pictures with a sea turtle, and is it acceptable to skip out on part of a bill if your order doesn't meet your standards? One woman in Phuket seems to think so.
#430 The Imp from Impington - Rich has a problem with his daughter's favourite song, and shows that he is up to date with all the music playing at the discos nowadays. His guest is the irrepressible timkey, back for a third time in 18 months!. They talk about Tim's time as a white van man, a woman who survived eight days in a snow drift (for a bit), the places that Tim is and isn't going for his (basically sold out) tour https://www.plosive.co.uk/events/tim-key-mulberry-tour-2023, where he gets his crazy ideas, the incredible baguette deal in Pret, which comedian would make the best Prime Minister, being the answer to a question of University Challenge and what it's like to do a gig to a mainly Malaysian audience.There's a new and exciting instalment of the adventures of timkey the monkey and the pair compare cancers and then Rich asks the occasionally dynamite question, “What's it like being Tim Key?” Who can be sure. All I know is it's always a rollercoaster of fun and danger to be in his company!Come and see us live http://richardherring.com/rhlstpSUPPORT THE SHOW!See details of the RHLSTP LIVE DATES Watch our TWITCH CHANNELBecome a badger and see extra content at our WEBSITE Buy DVDs and books from GO FASTER STRIPE Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What does it take to project true authority before you even speak a word? Welcome to Part Two of the Sheepdog Strong series on the Mark Divine Show, where retired Navy SEAL Commander Mark Divine shifts from building internal attributes to forging ten core internal skills, starting with Command Presence. Discover how to project "calm authority" through your body, voice, and mind to deliberately regulate the emotional temperature of any room. Mark shares a tense, real-life encounter with three men in a Malaysian alleyway to illustrate how a grounded, intentional presence can change the math of a situation and neutralize threats without violence. Learn how your internal ethos and courage power your external posture, and challenge yourself with two actionable weekly missions: the Mirror Drill and the Threshold Drill. By mastering these daily repetitions, you can make command presence your arriving default rather than an emergency response.Special thanks to Will Potter for providing the incredible track "Easy Day" featured in this episode!200,000+ leaders have become unbeatable with my operating system, will you be the next? Join The Unbeatable Leader Challenge Today: https://www.unbeatableleader.com#leadership #mental toughness #mindset #peakperformance #NavySEAL #executivecoaching #resilience #selfimprovement #growthmindset #unbeatablemind #highperformance #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #warriormindset #stoicleadership
On episode 189 of Welcome To The Winners Circle, Derek Pang interviews Afshin Javid (www.afshinjavid.com; IG: @afshinjavid1), a devoted Muslim turned Christian missionary, who transitioned from the Iranian Basij after experiencing a life-altering encounter with Jesus Christ in a Malaysian prison, reshaping his destiny and purpose. He's written a memoir called "As Easy As Drinking Water”, which recounts his incredible journey. He now leads the Cyrus Call Ministry, whose mission is to minister to people from all nations.Here are some of the subjects we touched on:- what he loves about his world right now - his mission- how he's currently serving - how does one find his/her calling- overcoming adversity- how law will never change you, but love will- what love means to him- sanctifying our identity- how he defines family- foundational pieces to making one's family- what he's learnt about fear- the importance of loving one another - notable mentors and helpers who've inspired him on his path- his relationship advice- greatest life lesson he's learnt on his path thus far- surrounding yourself with good companyI hope you guys enjoy this podcast as much as we did. We are all on the same path, The Hero's Journey, just at different points along the way. Thank you so much for listening!Connect with us on Instagram: WTTWC Podcast: @wttwcDerek Pang - @pangyogahttps://www.welcometothewinnerscircle.com
Adult money sounded A LOT cooler when we were kids?Turns out it mostly goes to insurance, impulsive makeup purchases, Pokémon cards, and lots of emotional damage. In this episode, we unpack our first paychecks, childhood money trauma, and the deeply Malaysian experience of saying “I'm just looking only” before spending on Japanese knives we don't need.Watch the full episode to see how we used our adult money to heal our inner child.If you love the furniture on our new set, you can shop on ruma:You can find their outlets across Malaysia, including Petaling Jaya, Johor Bahru, Nilai, Penang, Shah Alam, and Kuantan.https://www.ruma-home.com/
I had a really fun time chatting with Cassandra Lam, the co-founder of Mama Lam's, a maker of authentic Malaysian sauces. Visiting from Queens, New York, Cassandra and her husband, Ken, joined me @onwaverly 's Clubhouse to share their origin story as well as their favorite ways to eat Mama Lam's sauces! You can get Mama Lam's sauces online or perhaps locally at a store near you! Check out https://mamalams.com/ to find out where. Come check out our new website www.infatuasian.com and see what's new at the pod! Follow us @infatuasianpodcast on social media, or write to us at infatuasianpodcast@gmail.com Our Theme: “Super Happy J-Pop Fun-Time” by Prismic Studios was arranged and performed by @invictusquartet Cover Art and Logo designed by Justin Chuan @w.a.h.w (We Are Half the World) #asianpodcast #asianamerican #infatuasian #representationmatters
Snack Crate World Taste Test | Stay Outta My Fridge turned our kitchen into an international snack battlefield. Matt, Megh, Iyla, and Lo traveled around the world through food trying snacks from Malaysia, Scotland, Sweden, Greece, and France… and some of these flavors absolutely blindsided us. This Snack Crate taste test delivered everything from incredible chocolate and chips to snacks that tasted like they were invented during a fever dream at 2 AM. One country completely shocked us with amazing candy, while another nearly made somebody tap out on camera. Family food challenges always get chaotic in this house, but international snacks somehow unlocked a whole new level of confusion. This week on Stay Outta My Fridge, the family dives into global snack culture, weird flavors, hilarious reactions, and some unexpectedly elite treats from around the world. If you love food reviews, taste tests, family vlogs, and seeing people question their life choices after eating mystery candy… welcome home. What's In The Fridge This Week: Malaysia snack taste test Scotland candy and chips review Sweden snacks challenge Greece food reactions France snack haul and family food vlog Stay Outta My Fridge is the show where the kids take over the kitchen. Join Beard Laws, Avery, Isla, and the whole family for the most chaotic food reviews on the internet. Every episode feels like a family sitcom powered by snacks and poor decision-making. The best part? Every country brought something completely different. Scotland came in strong with bold flavors. France tried to get fancy. Sweden got weird. Malaysia surprised everybody. Greece showed up like the underdog nobody saw coming. Timestamps 00:00 - Tasting the purple Millions black currant chewy treats 00:23 - Isla's first reaction: tastes like grapes or blackberry 00:55 - Discussion of flavor profile: fizzy, soda-like candy with bold black currant flavor 01:27 - Comparison: Blackcurrant Millions versus other snacks, rating 4/5 01:57 - Moving from Scotland to France, guessing snack flavors 02:39 - Tasting French Lay's chips, flavor is savory rotisserie chicken 03:10 - Honest reactions to intense flavors, guesses based on French seasoning 03:55 - Trying Indian-inspired baked potato flavor chip, surprisingly savory and herby 04:24 - Transition to Sweden, tasting Polly milk chocolate with marshmallow-like texture 05:21 - Canada's favorite candy, enjoyed as a cozy, movie-night treat 07:24 - Transition back to Scotland for haggis-flavored chips 08:12 - Scottish chips: spicy, herby, capturing national flavor 09:42 - Comparing Scottish pepper chips with American snacks 10:12 - Texture and flavor critiques, Isla's reactions 11:34 - Tasting Scottish haggis chips, fun facts about Burns Night 12:33 - Scottish sheepherding-inspired snack, not a fan but interesting profile 14:22 - Moving to Malaysia for crunchy barbecue Curry twisties 15:47 - Malaysian snack featuring chewy ramen noodle treats, some enjoyed more than others 16:46 - Back to Malaysia for more regional snacks, some flavors reminiscent of seafood boil 18:24 - Returning to Scotland for spicy black pepper chips—perfect with cheese or panini 20:21 - Exploring snacks from France, including bubble gum gummies with a hint of blueberry 21:11 - Tasting crispy black truffle breadsticks, a delicacy from France 22:31 - Ending in Greece with a layered pastry snack, tasting like a banana Twinkie, a sweet highlight A proud production of the Beard Laws Network. New Stay Outta My Fridge episodes every Thursday — subscribe and join the family! [SOCIALS] #StayOuttaMyFridge #SnackCrate #FoodReview #FamilyVlog #SnackChallenge If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a 5-star review on your favorite podcast app! It's the best way to help our family show reach more people.This has been The Stay Outta My Fridge Podcast, your source for family comedy, snack reviews, and '90s nostalgia.Find us on social media The Stay Outta My Fridge Podcast is a part of the Bleav Network. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Ahead of Mother's Day we're talking to Cassandra Lam of Mama Lam's about her own mama's Malaysian curry chicken that she ate almost weekly growing up. Her mom missed Malaysian flavors so much that she perfected her curry paste, plus a few others, and Mama Lam's was born. We talk with Cassandra about growing up with a Malaysian mom, Cantonese dad, and as a New Yorker, making the leap from marketing to a small food business, and her OG food pop-ups. And of course, we spend time talking about Mama Lam herself. She's not a regular Tiger Mom, she's a chill Tiger Mom. Plus Cassandra talks us through the other Mama Lam's products and gives us great tips on what to make with them. Not even sponsored at all. We just love this curry paste and can attest to how good this curry chicken is!!
Episode #525: Heidy Quah, founder of Refuge for the Refugees in Kuala Lumpur, describes her work supporting migrants and refugees in Malaysia, particularly those fleeing Myanmar. She began volunteering at a refugee learning center at eighteen and was transformed by what she witnessed, particularly seeing children on the verge of losing their only access to education because of funding shortages. From that moment, she committed herself to ensuring refugees could access basic rights such as education, healthcare, and dignified livelihood. Quah's organization now supports dozens of refugee learning centers, shelter homes for trafficked and abused women, and a livelihood initiative which enables refugee women to earn income through craft production. She emphasizes restoring dignity and agency, not charity or pity. Quah recounts harrowing stories of new arrivals—young people fleeing forced conscription, sexual violence, and the killing of family members—who survive perilous overland journeys to reach Malaysia. Many arrive already indebted to smugglers, having borrowed heavily to finance their escape. Despite deep physical and psychological trauma, they often must begin working almost immediately, driven by the urgency of repaying those debts and protecting the families they left behind. A central concern for Quah is the contradiction she observes in Malaysian society: strong public advocacy for Muslim refugees in distant conflicts, such as Gaza, yet hostility toward refugees trying to live locally, like the Rohingya. She notes that Rohingya refugees in particular face racialized prejudice tied to skin color and stereotypes about cleanliness or criminality. For her, the deeper issue is selective empathy—why compassion extends across oceans but falters at the shoreline. Throughout her work, Quah centers storytelling, representation, and hope. She believes lasting change comes when affected communities speak for themselves and when advocacy preserves dignity rather than reinforcing victimhood.
It's Tuesday, April 21st, A.D. 2026. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Kevin Swanson and Timothy Reed Pope claims communion between Christians and Muslims Pope Leo XIV visited Algeria, Africa last week, and celebrated what he called “communion between Christians and Muslims” and the “shared aspiration for dignity, love, justice, and peace” -- whatever that is. Leo made no mention of the forced closure of Protestant churches as well as laws criminalizing evangelism, the distribution of Bibles, and posting Christian messages online. Out of the top ten countries in the world named for persecuting Christians, nine are Muslim-controlled nations. Psalm 12:1-2 is the cry of God's people in every age: “Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases! For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; they speak with flattering lips and a double heart.” Japan's major earthquake On Monday, Japan was hit with a major 7.7 earthquake on the Richter scale located on the northeastern side of Honshu. That's the biggest quake since 2015 to hit the island country. Experts are warning of another bigger quake potentially striking within a week. Fire on Borneo Island A huge fire displaced thousands on the Malaysian island of Borneo, reports NBC News. Almost 1,000 homes were consumed in the fire. America's drought today worse than Dust Bowl days of 1934 God's hand is upon the United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Drought Monitor is registering worse drought conditions in America today than the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression in 1934 — and the worst conditions since the monitor began in 1895. Over 60% of the 48 contiguous states are under moderate to exceptional drought conditions right now. That would include 97% of the Southeast, and 65% of the West. Also, the Drought Monitor places the last ten years, running from 2017 to 2026, as equally as severe as the ten years running from 1932 to 1941. These will be the two worst drought periods in recorded history for this country. In Leviticus 26:18-20, God warns of national droughts. He said, “If you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your Earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.” President Trump vs. Rep. Chip Roy on “no-warrant surveillance” President Donald Trump has drawn criticism after expressing his support for the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 702, which gives the government power to spy on citizens, in what is known as “no-warrant surveillance.” President Trump took to Truth Social, asking House Republicans to pass a “clean extension of FISA 702.” Back in 2024, Trump wrote, “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS.” Republican Congressman Chip Roy of Texas explained to Fox News why Americans should be wary of federal overreach. Listen. ROY: “As one of my colleagues, Michael Cloud, said the other day: ‘Never does the intelligence community ever walk into the room and say, ‘Hey guys, you know what? We have all this power to go look at a lot of stuff. You know, today we're going to give some of it back.' “That literally never happens. So, Congress, representing the people, has to say, ‘Hold on. We need to stand up for people, make sure they're being protected.” Democrats trying to impeach War Secretary Pete Hegseth House Democrats are working to impeach War Secretary Pete Hegseth over his role in the Iran War, reports News Nation. The impeachment articles, crafted by Democratic Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, allege that the Secretary of War “broke his oath to the Constitution, put U.S. troops at grave risk through the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, and engaged in abuse of office and conduct beneath the dignity of his office.” Eight Democrats are co-sponsoring the resolution, which is all but ensured to fail as Republicans control the House and Senate. 60% of Americans: Abortion should be legal in most cases Sixty percent of Americans now say abortion should be legal in most cases. That's the latest revelation from Pew Research. That's up from 51% in 2015 -- 10 years ago. Plus, 66% of younger Millennials, those between their late 20s and early 30s, take this pro-abortion position compared to 57% of those over 65. Among the 50 U.S. states, only Arkansas was pro-life in that the majority wanted abortion illegal in most cases. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts were the most pro-death states in America, according to this survey. Nebraska's new law on homeschooling The State of Nebraska enacted a law, Bill 937, requiring a 14-day waiting period for public-school families who decide to homeschool their children. The law also bans parents who have prior convictions involving sexual crimes from homeschooling their children, reports World Magazine. Record-breaking stock market U.S. stock market euphoria is setting records, reports MarketWatch.com. The Nasdaq Composite Index has jumped 18% in just 13 trading days — that's the biggest winning streak since 1992. Anniversary of Paul Revere's famous midnight ride And finally, this weekend marked the 251st anniversary of Paul Revere's famous midnight ride and the battles of Lexington and Concord. Revere, who undertook his night journey along with fellow patriots William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, warned American patriots on the night of April 18th that the British, under the leadership of General Thomas Gage, were on the march. The next morning, April 19th, the “shot heard round the world” was fired on Lexington Green, and the first blood of the American Revolution was shed. The patriotic minutemen ultimately forced the British back into Boston in a running battle, securing the colonies their first victory. The American Revolutionary War would last until 1783, when the American colonies finally won their independence. Close And that's The Worldview on this Tuesday, April 21st, in the year of our Lord 2026. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
We had another epic battle of culinary titans over @Onwaverly on March 21st! In another joint production with @worstqualitycrab, we presented 16 of the most iconic Asian dishes from around the world. Since we did all Chinese dishes last year, this year we did Asian dishes from outside of China, and we had some really tough battles. Our live studio audience did not disappoint, providing commentary, energy, and most importantly, the votes to declare a winner! This year, we partnered with some local producers of great products to sample or to give away as prizes to make the night really special. We were treated to @drinkapisol with refreshing honey seltzers, @mamalams yummy Malaysian sauces, @lunarbakerysf with some delicious baked tarts, @luluasiankitchen with some of their just-released frozen dumplings, and @heydoh.co with their small batch soy sauces. Special thanks to @xirimpi Hannah Chea (Miss SF Chinatown 2025) and @imadoniseats Adonis (Food recommender and culture keeper) for coming by and chiming in as well! Shout out to the On Waverly staff, Sharon, Sean, and Jonathan, for staying open late with us! Also, thanks to Steve, Suki, and Christy for doing odd jobs to make the night go smoothly! Pictures from: The team at Lunar Bakery SF and Alisa Wong. Graphics compliments of Sam at Worst Quality Crab I hope you enjoy this episode, and we really hope you'll be able to join us in person next year! Our Theme: “Super Happy J-Pop Fun-Time” by Prismic Studios was arranged and performed by All Arms Around Cover Art and Logo designed by Justin Chuan @w.a.h.w (We Are Half the World) #asianpodcast #asian #asianamerican #infatuasian #infatuasianpodcast #aapi #veryasian #asianamericanpodcaster #representationmatters
In 1966, the fabric of reality was torn to shreds by a bizarre beast, thrusting a group of Malaysian students and their terrified teacher headlong into a state of paranormal pandemonium… The high strangeness continues with a Tennessee family who were not only terrorized by a freakish, hairy, wart-faced fiend, but violently attacked in their own home by the savage thing who could vanish in a puff of smoke. The Cryptonaut Hotline:315-370-6853 The Cryptonaut Podcast Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/cryptonautpodcast The Cryptonaut Podcast Merch Stores:Hellorspace.com - Cryptonautmerch.com Stay Connected with the Cryptonaut Podcast: Website - Instagram - TikTok - YouTube- Twitter - Facebook
Episode 1923 - brought to you by our incredible sponsors: LUCY - Get 20% off your first order when you buy online with code HARDFACTOR at lucy.co. 00:00:00 Timestamps 00:04:50 Good news, “we've won” the war in Iran 00:13:40 Irish Youtuber convicted of killing pregnant girlfriend after GTA live stream alibi fail 00:21:40 Malaysian couple caught having sex in broad daylight at a cemetery 00:25:10 New video game ‘Five Nights at Epstein's' is sweeping through schools 00:30:20 Boner Bears Honey recalled for having unlabled Viagra ingredients Thank you for listening! Go to https://patreon.com/hardfactor to join our community!! But most importantly, get out there and HAGFD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week, we're traveling across Asia and diving into some of the most unsettling paranormal experiences we've ever heard. Our listeners share spine-chilling stories rooted in cultural folklore and lived terror—tales of spirits who predict the future, impersonate loved ones, and inflict physical harm. Between the laughter, the disbelief, and the full-body chills, this episode reminded us why some ghost stories stay with you long after the episode ends. Stories include: An encounter in rural Pakistan where a possessed girl speaks in a jinn's voice—and accurately predicts a devastating medical diagnosis A haunted family home in Cebu where something mimics loved ones so perfectly it carries on 20-minute conversations A terrifying childhood experience in Vietnam involving a crying woman in a church, prophetic dreams, and a ghostly warning that may have saved a life A Malaysian family spirit passed down through generations, bound to a dagger that mysteriously disappears, reappears, and may be choosing its next owner Watch the video version here. Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at twogirlsoneghostpodcast@gmail.com New Episodes are released every Thursday and Sunday at 12am PST/3am EST (the witching hour, of course). Corinne and Sabrina hand select a couple of paranormal encounters from our inbox to read in each episode, from demons, to cryptids, to aliens, to creepy kids... the list goes on and on. If you have a story of your own that you'd like us to share on an upcoming episode, we invite you to email them to us! If you enjoy our show, please consider joining our Patreon, rating and reviewing on iTunes & Spotify and following us on social media! Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Discord. Edited by Jaimi Ryan and produced by Emma Leventer and Jaimi Ryan, original music by Arms Akimbo! Disclaimer: the use of white sage and smudging is a closed practice. If you're looking to cleanse your space, here are some great alternatives! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices