Podcasts about Myanmar

In this episode, Casey Fatchett sits down with award-winning photographer Ari Espay, who splits his time between New York City and Santiago, Chile. Ari discusses his decade producing and teaching at National Geographic's photography workshops alongside legends like David Alan Harvey, Ed Kashi, Bob Sacha, Ira Block, and Maggie Steber; his approach to street photography and portraiture with subjects ranging from presidents to Broadway performers; his long-term humanitarian project documenting the EB (Epidermolysis Bullosa) community; and his nonprofit Statement Arts, which has run photography workshops and donated more than 100 cameras to young and at-risk photographers in Myanmar and Laos, including activists documenting human rights abuses in their own communities. Topics Covered: Lessons from a decade at National Geographic's photography workshops Why "serendipity" changed how Ari approaches every shoot Reading a scene: light, subject, and background as visual problem-solving Building trust with strangers on the street Studio portraiture with presidents and public figures vs. street portraiture Photographing vulnerability: the Faces of EB project Where to draw the line between bearing witness and intruding Statement Arts: teaching photography and donating cameras in Myanmar and Laos Why the people living a crisis should be the ones documenting it The throughline across Ari's career: humanity Episode Promos On1 Photo RAW - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/on1 Nerdy Photographer Contract Templates - https://nerdyphotographer.com/product-category/contracts/ Siteground Web Hosting - https://siteground.com/go/nerdy Survey Monkey - https://get.surveymonkey.com/nerdy ABOUT MY GUEST Award-winning photographer, Ari Espay, splits his time between New York City and Santiago, Chile. Ari has shot documentary pieces, campaigns and editorial essays for magazines in the US and all over South America including; Architectural Digest, Vogue Latin America, Que Pasa, and ED. He has worked for Maybelline, Gillette, Corpbanca, Ferouch, New Man, Kohana Rum, Amazon/AWS, Australis Cruise to name a few and has shot portraits for Presidents, internationally known actors, Emmy Award winning directors, Broadway performers, politicians and high profile business people. With numerous gallery exhibitions, Ari's recent show, "A Glimpse of Southeast Asia" was featured at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, a museum in Cento, Italy (2018 – 2019). Other exhibitions include; 2026 "Rostros, El Mar De Cultura" Valencia Photo Festival, Spain. 2025 "FACES / VISAGES" , Art-Icon Collective Exhibition Arles, France. 2024 "Corporeality" Art-Icon Collective Exhibition - Paris, 2024 "Moments in Time" Art on the Avenue - New York City, New York, 2021 Art on the Avenue - New York City, New York "Art on the Avenue" (New York City 2021), "Mingalabar Myanmar"(Rome and Bologna, Italy - 2016) and "The Faces of EB" in New York City (2015). In 2012, he was named as Artistic Director of International Projects for Galeria64, the only gallery in Chile exhibiting photography exclusively. Ari has won Chile's prestigious Fondart Grant, was a 2026 Finalist Lucie Foundation On The Block Street Photography, a 2026 Selected Winner American Photography AI-AP 42, a 2024 Portraiture Bronze Winner Prix de la Photographie Paris PX3, Short Listed "EB" State of the World Project Prix de la Photographie Paris PX3, Street Photography Honorable Mention Prix de la Photographie Paris PX3 and 4 Portraiture Honorable Mention Prix de la Photographie Paris PX3, a 2024, 2022 BIFA Budapest International Foto Award Silver winner in Book / Documentary, 2022 MIFA Moscow International Photo Award Winner for our book, 2020Unmasked, in the Documentary Book category. He was the photo editor for "2020 Unmasked" book which won 2 Honorable Mentions at the IPA/International Photography Awards for Documentary and Self-published book.  For 10 years, he taught photography workshops for National Geographic and their legendary photographers including, Joe McNally, Bob Sacha, Ira Block, VII's agency Ed Kashi and Magnum's David Alan Harvey. He has worked and traveled in more than 40 countries. Ari speaks 3 languages and enjoys spending time in the mountains. Find Ari Espay: Website: https://ariespayphotography.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/ari_espay Photography Workshops: https://fancygirlstreetboy.com Nonprofit: https://StatementArts.org Follow the Nerdy Photographer Podcast: Instagram - https://instagram.com/thenerdyphoto Reddit - https://reddit.com/u/thenerdyphoto Threads - https://threads.com/thenerdyphoto Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/thenerdyphoto.bsky.social TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@thenerdyphoto About The Podcast The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com    If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

Episode #600: “I won't be disappointing the people.” Before Kyaw Moe Tun took the UN General Assembly floor on February 26, 2021, that was as much as he had disclosed about the position he intended to take. Myanmar's permanent representative—its ambassador to the UN—and a diplomat since 1993, he had received the junta's instructions after the coup but secretly prepared a statement siding with the public and the ousted elected government. Almost no one knew his words in advance. Once delivered, they placed both his position and his safety at risk. The junta tried to remove him from the UN and later an assassination plot against him brought FBI intervention and a month of round-the-clock Secret Service protection. Kyaw Moe Tun nevertheless retained the seat after the UN Credentials Committee deferred competing claims in 2021. That arrangement has continued, but at a price: he has withdrawn from the General Debate speakers list each year and kept a lower profile to protect the consensus that excludes the junta's nominee. The next decision is formed through a process he cannot directly address. China, Russia, and the United States are expected to sit on the nine-country committee, while the other six members may emerge only when the new General Assembly session begins. Informal discussions can settle the language before a November meeting, and the full General Assembly may approve the report within seconds. The mission defending Myanmar's democratic claim has meanwhile shrunk from fourteen people to five, surviving on funds held before the coup. Losing the seat would remove the channel through which Kyaw Moe Tun conveys the people's aspirations and seeks international action. It would also strip him of the office from which he has resisted the junta while deepening his exile. He says the military has sentenced him for treason and that he must protect his wife and two children. The institution will decide who represents Myanmar; its current representative cannot safely return there.

CBN IS HELPING NEPAL FLOOD VICTIMS. CONTRIBUTE TO THOSE EFFORTS HERE: https://ob.org/nepalflood/ Help Persecuted Christians TODAY: https://csi-usa.org/quickstart/ Christian Solidarity International On today's Quick Start podcast: NEWS: The death toll from Nepal's catastrophic flooding has surpassed 1,000 with thousands still missing. Plus, a longtime Baptist pastor has reportedly been killed by Myanmar's military junta amid continued persecution of Christians. FOCUS: The Lindsay Clancy trial reaches a critical moment as jurors struggle to reach a verdict in the closely watched murder case. MAIN THING: War, economic collapse and intense persecution are putting enormous pressure on Christians inside Iran. Yet despite the danger, Iran's underground church is standing strong. BIBLE VERSE: Romans 12:12 (ESV) — “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” SHOW LINKS Radical Revelations with Raj Nair https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radical-revelations/id1888511250 Faith in Culture: https://cbn.com/news/faith-culture Heaven Meets Earth PODCAST: https://cbn.com/lp/heaven-meets-earth NEWSMAKERS POD: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/newsmakers/id1724061454

Nasty Neal interviews writer-director Arkar Soe Oo and star Li Li Kyaw Khaing about THE LAST FOOTAGE, Myanmar's first found-footage horror film, following its premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival!Shot entirely from a first-person perspective, THE LAST FOOTAGE follows a group whose getaway to a remote forest cabin becomes a nightmare when a young boy disappears. A desperate blood ritual resurrects a witch's dead son, while a reckless dark-web summoning awakens an ancient predator lurking in the wilderness.Arkar Soe Oo and Li Li Kyaw Khaing discuss bringing this groundbreaking Burmese horror film to life, creating its immersive POV style and introducing Myanmar genre cinema to international audiences.Subscribe for more horror movie interviews, independent film coverage and festival exclusives from Without Your Head with Nasty Neal.Join this channel to get access to perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOmwH7xVAhD-OOAqFWyTYTA/join#TheLastFootage #FantasiaFilmFestival #FoundFootage #HorrorMovies #MyanmarCinema #BurmeseCinema #HorrorInterview #IndependentHorror #WithoutYourHead #NastyNeal

It's Monday, August 31st, 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 Adam McManus Burmese military killed pastor and another believer The Burma Research Institute has confirmed that Rev. William, who used no last name, and another Chin Christian, Nam Ceu, were extrajudicially murdered on June 4th by the Burmese military dictatorship in Myanmar, reports International Christian Concern.  Rev. William had pastored the Chungcung Baptist Church in Chin State for more than 25 years. He was arrested with Ceu in May and had been detained by the military since then. Sources told the Burma Research Institute that Rev. William and Nam Ceu were killed for allegedly supporting the Hakha Chinland Defense Force, which is fighting against the Burmese military dictatorship. Psalm 116:15 says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Zo Tum Hmung, President of the Burma Research Institute, said, “We call the Trump administration to protect the persecuted Christians in Burma.” Send a polite, 4-sentence note to Kyaw Moe Tun, the Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations.  Address it to the Myanmar Delegation, 10 East 77th Street, New York, NY 10075. Democrat James Talarico: Muslims and Christians worship same God James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator in Texas who is running against Republican Ken Paxton, the current Texas Attorney General, falsely claimed that Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians. Listen. TALARICO: “Christians and Muslims and Jews all worship the same God. Muslims love Jesus. They love Moses and Abraham. We are all branches on the same tree as the Abrahamic faiths.  “So. it's heartbreaking to watch extremists, whether they are Christian nationalists or whether they're the Taliban or al-Qaeda, perverting these beautiful traditions, that have so much in common, to attack others and consolidate their own power.” There are three primary differences between Christianity and Islam. First, regarding the nature of God, Christians teach that God is the Trinity—one God existing in three co-equal, co-eternal persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19) By contrast, Islam completely rejects the Trinity. Second, Christians believe that Jesus is the divine Son of God and God incarnate who physically died on the cross for the atonement of the sins of the elect and rose from the dead. (John 1:1,14) By contrast, while Islam reveres Jesus as a major, virgin-born prophet and messenger of God, it explicitly denies His divinity, crucifixion, and resurrection. And third, Christianity teaches that salvation is a free gift of grace received through personal faith in the finished sacrificial work of Jesus Christ, rather than by human effort. (Ephesians 2:8-9) By contrast, Islam teaches that salvation depends on total submission to Allah's will, adherence to the Five Pillars of Islam, and the final judgment of one's deeds. Therefore, Muslims and Christians clearly do not worship the same God. Georgia Democrat distanced himself from antisemitic leftist Georgia Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff has offered sharp criticism of President Donald Trump which generated buzz about Ossoff potentially running for president in 2028.   That, in turn, has attracted some left-wing figures who have lauded his messaging like left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in April that he was “intrigued” by Ossoff. There are two developments of note.  First, Ossoff, whose father is Jewish, is facing criticism from some of Georgia's local Jewish community over his votes to block certain arms sales to Israel. Second, Senator Ossoff has distanced himself from Hasan Piker over recent comments that many interpreted as justifying threats to American Jews,  reports the Jewish Telegraph Agency.   Speaking on a Twitch livestream on August 20th, Piker said this. PIKER: “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone's going to come around and take action. Not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.” Last Thursday, according to Fox News, an Ossoff spokesman said that the senator “unreservedly rejects reckless and dangerous rhetoric suggesting that policy advocacy invites violence against the Jewish community or any community.” In Genesis 12:3, God said, “I will make [Israel] into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on Earth will be blessed through you.” Undercover video exposes GOP Sen. Murkowski on SAVE Act And finally, liberal Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska stood on the Senate floor and painted a grim picture of the supposed damage the SAVE America Act, or the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, would do in her home state.  This is the bill that would ensure that American citizens — and only American citizens — should decide American elections. It would simply require: A valid ID before registering to vote in a federal election. Proof of citizenship. No Mail-in Ballots (except for illness, disability, military, or travel). Listen to Senator Murkowski's claim. MURKOWSKI: “What we're talking about right now is just the registration to vote. So, you're in Unalaska -- say you're a fisherman or a teacher -- the flight to Anchorage, because this is where you're going to have to go -- you're going to have to go into Anchorage: 800 air miles, $1,100 per seat, if you can maybe get on a charter.” James O'Keefe, an undercover journalist with the O'Keefe Media Group and the Justice League, flew to Unalaska to find out firsthand if Senator Murkowski's claim was true. Listen to his analysis. O'KEEFE: “I'm James O'Keefe, and I'm in the middle of absolutely nowhere, about 800 miles off the coast of Alaska, on a remote island in the Aleutian Islands. “Now, Senator Lisa Murkowski says that one of the reasons she's not going to pass the SAVE Act is because of people that live here on this island of Unalaska.  “Senator Murkowski saying if the SAVE Act passes, online registration goes away, and the residents here, the few thousand people that live here, are going to have to fly 800 miles and spend thousands of dollars to go to Anchorage to take care of their business.  “But all the people we spoke with here, they all said that that's wrong, including the post office, the library, the city clerk, the DMV. We didn't know there was a DMV here. Everyone we spoke to here said they're able to register to vote here. They're able to prove citizenship by going to the library.  “So, Senator Murkowski says, ‘If you're a fisherman in Unalaska, the closest election office is 800 miles away; it would cost $1,500. You would also need a hotel, cabs, and food while in Anchorage. But the librarian just told us differently.” Here is the portion of the undercover investigation with a female undercover agent, who accompanied O'Keefe, to the library in Unalaska. UNDERCOVER FEMALE AGENT: “Just wanted to learn a little bit more about the process to get an ID. “ LIBRARIAN: “We do passports here.” UNDERCOVER AGENT: “Oh, you do passports here.” UNDERCOVER O'KEEFE: “Mmm.” UNDERCOVER FEMALE AGENT:  “That's good to know, though, that if somebody wants to confirm their citizenship, they can do it here.” UNDERCOVER O'KEEFE: “To get the Alaska ID, do you get it here or back in Anchorage?” LIBRARIAN: “Oh no, here. The DMV should be the near the police station.” UNDERCOVER O'KEEFE: “So, we don't have to go to Anchorage to get it.”  LIBRARIAN: “No, no, no. As long as you have all the paperwork you need.”  UNDERCOVER O'KEEFE: “But I read in the newspaper that the senator [Lisa Murkowski], said, ‘Oh, they're going to pass this SAVE Act, and everyone's got to go to Anchorage to get it.'” LIBRARIAN: “I don't think so.” UNDERCOVER O'KEEFE: “Oh no. Okay.” Proverbs 12:19 says, “Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.” Call liberal Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski's office in DC, 24 hours a day/7 days a week, and ask the live operator to connect you to her voicemail, urging her to support the SAVE America Act. Her number is (202) 224-6665. Tell her that you reject her false claim that people in the Aleutian Islands have to travel 800 miles by air to register to vote in Anchorage. Plus, call your two Senators at 202-224-3121 and ask them to vote for the SAVE America Act as well. Close And that's The Worldview on this Monday, August 31st, in the year of our Lord 2026. 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

Episode #598: Rare earth mining has drawn Kachin State into a global struggle over minerals essential to electronics, green technologies, automobiles, and defense, while communities near the mines bear the environmental and social costs of extraction. Produced by Insight Myanmar for the International Development Research Centre's Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar Initiative (K4DM), this episode brings three Kachin researchers into conversation with themes from their August 13 Dialogue on Sustainable Development, including transboundary pollution, community vulnerability, environmental governance, and regional cooperation across the Mekong.First, Brang (a pseudonym being used for safety) sees rare-earth mining as both a local disaster and a geopolitical asset. Heavy rare earths from Kachin feed defense, electronics, automobiles, and green technology, while mining clears forests, contaminates water, destroys crops, and damages health; around the Chipwi River, he points to vanished fish and cattle dying after drinking polluted water. China, he argues, has pushed toxic extraction across its borders while retaining control over processing technology. Western access therefore depends on more than securing ore; in Brang's view it also depends on political change in Myanmar rather than a commercial accommodation with the military.Tu Nan (a pseudonym being used for safety) approaches the industry through environmental and transitional justice, asking not only who carries the damage now but who will be responsible for repair after conflict. His focus stays with communities whose livelihoods, forests, water, and cultural practices are being depleted. Yet he also documents their activity: villagers create protected community forests and defend watersheds against mining pressure. “They have that kind of agency to respond to a threat of oppression.” For Tu Nan, the Kachin Independence Organization's claims to future statehood will be tested by whether resource governance includes public participation and protects community welfare even while extraction finances conflict.Seng Li studies the gap between KIO mining regulations and conditions on the ground. He sees greater institutionalization since 2025, but environmental restoration, labor, and gender protections remain weak. Women seeking mine work can face sexual coercion from Chinese operators, while polluted water and lost agricultural markets reshape village life. Conflict has expanded extraction by increasing desperation and armed groups' need for revenue. Seng Li's final concern reaches the international system: resource-governance frameworks often ignore non-state authorities, even though those actors control mines and communities. Accountability, for him, requires bringing them within the standards applied to state governments.Together, these accounts frame Myanmar's rare-earth industry as a regional concern requiring credible monitoring, community participation, accountable state and non-state governance, supply-chain responsibility, and cooperation that gives affected communities a voice and a fair share of the benefits.

In the headlines today, Thailand introduces expanded deportation rules that take effect today, then, Anutin's visit to the border brings condemnation from Cambodia, in Myanmar, a Thai woman has been sentenced as questions remain over her ex-husband's death, back in Bangkok a driver records a blood alcohol content five times the legal limit after sucking on a breathalyzer, in education news the country is set to end any competitive testing or rankings for children under six, and in some feel good news a mystery benefactor has donated 100 million baht to expand Pattaya hospital.

Episode #596: “I needed to find another way... through research, writing, education, mentoring, community work,” says CS Kyaw, a Myanmar-born doctor turned development researcher now based in Australia. She argues that Myanmar's future depends not only on financial support from abroad but also on social remittances, the transfer of knowledge, skills, values, and relationships across borders that allow displaced Myanmar people to continue contributing even when returning home is unsafe. Originally trained in medicine and public health, Kyaw worked in Myanmar's nonprofit sector before receiving an Australia Awards scholarship to study development at the University of Melbourne. Her work convinced her that health could not be understood through medicine alone. While serving as an outreach doctor, she saw neighboring villages with strikingly different access to education and healthcare because of unequal resources and opportunities. The experience led her to see well-being as inseparable from broader social and political conditions. The 2021 military coup became another turning point. It overturned her plans and forced her to ask how she could continue serving Myanmar when she could no longer do so safely inside the country. That question led her toward research, education, mentoring, community work, transnationalism, and social remittances. Now living in Australia as an asylum seeker, she identifies as a “transmigrant,” someone whose identity and responsibilities continue across borders. Kyaw puts these ideas into practice by volunteering with refugee and migrant women through the River Nile Learning Centre, co-founding Mohinga Hub for Myanmar diaspora communities, and teaching through Spring University Myanmar, while acknowledging the funding, security, and volunteer challenges these initiatives face. She also reflects on tensions between Myanmar communities inside and outside the country, the decolonization of language and knowledge, and the importance of local voices in education, research, and advocacy. Throughout the interview, she returns to the values that unite her work—dignity, equality, knowledge, community, and freedom. Asked to describe Myanmar's future in one word, she says, “hope.”

Subscribe today for ad-free listening, early access, and all of our bonus content. Myanmar is not a country. It is a place of endless violence and ethnic strife, with its 50 million people trapped in another civil war, now in its fifth year, with no end in sight. Since its independence from Great Britain after the Second World War, Burma (now Myanmar) has been ruled mostly by military juntas. Every generation or so, a better future has seemed possible, but democracy and economic prosperity have never been allowed to blossom. Our guest is historian Maitrii Aung-Thwin, who teaches Myanmar and Southeast Asian history at the National University of Singapore. He is the co-author of A History of Myanmar Since Ancient Times. Further reading: The War Forgotten by the World is an Apocalypse Now (New York Times) Subscribe today to support our important work! Subscriptions begin at only $5 per month. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“Don’t worry, we will send your sons back soon. We are taking them for a meeting.” On the afternoon of September 1, 2017, ten hungry Rohingya men and boys walked out of the smoke-filled hills onto a beach in the fishing village of Inn Din, Myanmar. They hadn't eaten in five days, and the sea was the only place left to look. But instead of food, they found soldiers. What followed was a chillingly orchestrated deception. The captive men were photographed kneeling, given clean clothes, and fed a final meal of beef to ease the worries of the families waiting outside. But in reality, there was no meeting at all. By the next morning, they were led to scrubland at the north end of the village where a single, freshly dug mass grave was already waiting, and they were never seen alive again. Join your fellow Heinous fans and interact with the team at our website or through our socials (IG, TikTok) @heinous_1upmedia. - Love Heinous? But feel its getting too dark for you? Check out:

Episode #595: Salai Vanni Bawi, a Chin researcher focused on migration, refugees, and transnational repression, speaks about how the country's crisis extends beyond its borders into a system that continues to shape the lives of displaced people even after they have fled the country. For example, in Thailand, individuals passing through Bangkok airport may be detained and interrogated, sometimes finding that authorities already possess detailed information about them. The presence of Myanmar embassy officials during questioning suggests further coordination. However, outcomes vary: in Bangkok, visibility and legal support may prevent deportation, while in border areas such as Mae Sot, enforcement is harsher and more unpredictable. Charges like illegal entry or human trafficking can be used to justify detention or pressure detainees, sometimes reframing political cases as criminal ones. Corruption further shapes outcomes, as bribes may determine whether someone is deported—an outcome that can lead to imprisonment, forced conscription, or death. At the same time, local relationships and informal arrangements can allow limited movement, showing that authority is negotiated as much as enforced. Vanni Bawi situates these regional dynamics within a broader structural problem: the way international engagement with Myanmar is still overwhelmingly organized around state-to-state relations. In practice, this means external actors continue to prioritize engagement with the military regime—treating it as the primary interlocutor—while the resistance and ethnic groups remain largely excluded. He argues this is not simply a political choice but a built-in limitation of conventional foreign policy frameworks, which are not designed to engage meaningfully with non-state actors. What is missing, he argues, is sustained and direct engagement with the actors actually shaping events inside Myanmar. Without incorporating these perspectives into regional and international dialogue, any attempt at resolution will remain fundamentally incomplete.

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports Rohingya refugees are rallying in Bangladesh camps to demand a safe return to Myanmar.

Au menu de l'actualité :L'ONU et la Croix-Rouge appellent à réglementer les armes autonomesEn RDC, l'épidémie d'Ebola se propage depuis plus de 100 joursAu Myanmar, l'ONU dénonce une économie de prédation Présentation : Jérôme Bernard

With "Tony" arriving in theaters this week, we opted to have a freewheeling discussion on the beloved Anthony Bourdain and his final television series, Parts Unknown. Join us as we talk about his exploration of Myanmar during its brief period of opening up, and then the elegiac finale about Manhattan's Lower East Side and whether or not it would have actually sucked to hang out in the East Village in the late 70s.

In his weekly clinical update, Daniel Griffin and Vincent Racaniello are perplexed by the state of global public health as malaria, cholera and other infectious diseases are spread by civil warfare, the lack of manpower at the CDC to implement Congressional health programs, the first cancer mRNA vaccine resulting from a Merck and Moderna collaboration, how cyclosporiasis and screwworm outbreaks continue, FDA approval of new drugs against screwworm and critical policy decisions to control the Ebola outbreak in the Congo, before Dr. Griffin deep dives into the measles outbreak, recent statistics on RSV, influenza, SARS-CoV-2 infections and the drop in vaccination rates in the US, how schools are the source of measles infection, how vaccines only prevent severe disease not transmission as trafficking of measles on vaccinated people begins to be acknowledged, to access and pay for Paxlovid, what to know about the mRNA flu vaccine, where to go for answers about long COVID-19, clinical guidelines for treating long COVID, three myths of respiratory disease and contacting your federal government representative to stop the assault on science and biomedical research. Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Links for this episode Myanmar's Civil War Pushes Infectious Disease Over Its Borders (NY Times) Alzheimer's disease (AP News) US adult cigarette smoking rate hits another all-time low (AP News) The CDC has zombie programs. Congress funds them, but few people are left to do the work (AP News) Merck, Moderna's personalized cancer vaccine slows recurrence in phase 3, setting up approval push (FIERCE Biotech) Surveillance of Cyclosporiasis (CDC: Cyclosporiasis) Infectious DiseaseOutbreaks (Michigan: Health & Human Services) Cyclosporiasis Cases in North Carolina (North Carolina: Division of Public Health) Cyclospora Infection (Cyclosporiasis) (NYC Health) Missouri Communicable Disease Report (2026) (Missouri Health) TWiP 285: Why is cyclospora hard to contain: Parasitologists explain the 2026 US outbreak (microbeTV:TWiP) Dashboard SCREWWORM.Gov (USDA: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) CDC Activates Emergency Operations Center for New World Screwworm Response (CDC Newsroom) FDA Issues Emergency Use Authorization for Drug to Treat New World Screwworm in Dogs and Puppies (FDA) FDA grants emergency use authorization for another New World screwworm treatment (CIDRAP) Ebola dashboard (ebola.fyi) EBOLA: The Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2026 (WHO) Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak Democratic Republic of the Congo (WHO: Democratic Republic of Congo) Ebola Outbreak: Current Situation (CDC:Ebola) Three Months into the Bundibugyo Ebola Outbreak: Now is the time for Decisive Action (AfricaCDC) Wastewater for measles (WasterWater Scan) Measles cases and outbreaks (CDC Rubeola) Big outbreak, bright lights…Measles Dashboard (South Carolina Department of Public Health) Utah measles outbreak response (Utah Department of Health and Human Services) Utah Measles Dashboard (Utah Department of Health and Human Services) Measles (VDH: Virginia Department of Health) Tracking Measles Cases in the U.S. (Johns Hopkins) HAP's Latest News Pa. Launches New Measles Dashboard (Hospital + HealthSystem Association of Pennsylvania) Measles vaccine recommendations from NYP (jpg) Weekly measles and rubella monitoring (Government of Canada) Measles (WHO) Get the FACTS about measles (NY State Department of Health) Measles (CDC Measles (Rubeola)) Measles vaccine (CDC Measles (Rubeola)) Presumptive evidence of measles immunity (CDC) Contraindications and precautions to measles vaccination (CDC) Adverse events associated with childhood vaccines: evidence bearing on causality (NLM) Measles Vaccination: Know the Facts (ISDA: Infectious Diseases Society of America) Deaths following vaccination: what does the evidence show (Vaccine) Do vaccinated cases transmit measles? A systematic review and meta-analysis (Expert Review of Vaccines) County, district and community-level measles transmission in the United States in 2013−2025 (Nat Medicine) Dozens of States Tried to Roll Back Vaccine Laws. Here's How They Fared. (NY Times) More U.S. Parents Opting Children Out of Vaccine Requirements, C.D.C. Reports (NY Times) The threat of more, expanded measles outbreaks looms with start of school (CIDRAP) Influenza: Waste water scan for 11 pathogens (WastewaterSCan) US respiratory virus activity (CDC Respiratory Illnesses) Respiratory virus activity levels (CDC Respiratory Illnesses) Flu vaccine recommendations: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee March 12, 2026 Meeting Announcement (FDA) WHO updates all 3 viral strains to be included in fall flu shots (CIDRAP) FDA vaccine advisers recommend adding subclade K to fall shots (CIDRAP) Weekly surveillance report: clift notes (CDC FluView) What to Know About the mRNA Flu Vaccine, Newly Approved by the FDA (JAMA) Oseltamivir for Critically Ill Patients with Influenza: A Randomised Trial (LANCET) OPTION 2: XOFLUZA $50 Cash Pay Option(xofluza) RSV: Waste water scan for 11 pathogens (WastewaterSCan) Respiratory Diseases (Yale School of Public Health) US respiratory virus activity (CDC Respiratory Illnesses) RSV-Network (CDC Respiratory Syncytial virus Infection) Vaccines for Adults (CDC: Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection (RSV)) Economic Analysis of Protein Subunit and mRNA RSV Vaccination in Adults aged 50-59 Years (CDC: ACIP) Global, regional, and national disease burden estimates of acute lower respiratory infections due to respiratory syncytial virus in children younger than 5 years in 2019: a systematic analysis (LANCET) A national programme of bivalent prefusion F vaccination in pregnancy and protection against respiratory syncytial virus hospitalisation in infants until age 6 months in the UK: a multicentre, prospective, test-negative, case–control study (LANCET) Real-world studies show RSV immunizations protect newborns in their first year of life (CIDRAP) Waste water scan for 11 pathogens (WastewaterSCan) COVID-19 deaths (CDC) Respiratory Illnesses Data Channel (CDC: Respiratory Illnesses) COVID-19 national and regional trends (CDC) COVID-19 variant tracker (CDC) SARS-CoV-2 genomes galore (Nextstrain) Where to get pemgarda (Pemgarda) EUA for the pre-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 (INVIYD) Infusion center (Prime Fusions CDC Quarantine guidelines (CDC) NIH COVID-19 treatment guidelines (NIH) Drug interaction checker (University of Liverpool) Help your eligible patients access PAXLOVID with the PAXCESS Patient Support Program (Pfizer Pro) Understanding Coverage Options (PAXCESS) Trump Officials Falsely Connect Covid Vaccines to Miscarriage (NY Times) Infectious Disease Society guidelines for treatment and management (ID Society) Molnupiravir safety and efficacy (JMV) Convalescent plasma recommendation for immunocompromised (ID Society) What to do when sick with a respiratory virus (CDC) Managing healthcare staffing shortages (CDC) Anticoagulation guidelines (hematology.org) Daniel Griffin's evidence based medical practices for long COVID (OFID) Long COVID hotline (Columbia : Columbia University Irving Medical Center) The answers: Long COVID Beyond the acute illness: three myths about viral respiratory infection (JID) Reaching out to US house representative Letters read on TWiV 1350 Dr. Griffin's COVID treatment summary (pdf) Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks! Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees Send your questions for Dr. Griffin to daniel@microbe.tv Content in this podcast should not be construed as medical advice.

Scientists warn the El Niño event developing in the Pacific could be the strongest in living memory, pushing up global temperatures and increasing the risk of extreme weather. Effects are already being felt around the world - the Indian government is having to import sugar to bolster local supplies. We visit the West Bank town of Kadim to see how the Israeli government is expanding settlements ahead of October elections. The former Pakistani President Imran Khan is taken to hospital and then returned to prison, confusing his family and followers. And what is Meghan going to do in the UK when she returns with Prince Harry in a couple of weeks' time? The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk Photo: A woman walks during heavy rainfall in Yangon, Myanmar, 12th August. Credit: EPA/Shutterstock

Negotiators race against a midnight deadline as Canada and the U.S. near a major trade deal to avoid steep tariffs.American winemakers face mounting losses and deep uncertainty as provincial booze bans become a major bargaining chip in Canada—U.S. trade talks.Leaked audio captures U.S. Vice-President JD Vance offering candid thoughts on Mark Carney and Canada's Conservative opposition.At least fourteen people have been killed in a Myanmar military airstrike on a Buddhist monastery during a meditation retreat.Two former organizers of Hong Kong's annual Tiananmen Square vigils convicted of subversion under Beijing's national security law.Over 2,500 people have died from an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as rising mistrust leads to violence against health workers.London's High Court orders Prince Harry and six other high-profile figures to pay an interim nine and a half million pounds in legal fees to the Daily Mail's publisher. Alberta's technology minister faced boos and constant interruptions Thursday night at a heated town hall over Meta's planned 13-billion-dollar data centre.Canada's 2SLGBTQ+ monument unveils in Ottawa today, honouring thousands forced out during decades of systemic discrimination.

We head to Bangkok as Myanmar’s post-coup leadership arrives for a diplomatic push. What does it mean for a government to gain legitimacy? Then: Rail Baltica brings the Baltics ever closer. Plus: Rob Bound previews ‘Monocle on Culture’.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode #593: “Why are values included in international trade?” Arianna Bondi's research begins with that question, but Myanmar turns it into a problem of limits. A PhD candidate at McGill University studying international political economy, Bondi examined how the European Union tried to promote human rights through trade policy, focusing on Myanmar's place in the EU's Generalized System of Preferences. Her study, completed in 2020 at Johns Hopkins SAIS in Bologna, looks at the period before the 2021 coup. That timing matters; Myanmar had been brought back into the EU's Everything ButArms trade scheme in 2013 after preferences were withdrawn in 1997 over forced labor concerns. The policy was supposed to support development while encouraging respect for international standards. Bondi found that this created two different tools: positive conditionality, through engagement and market access, and negative conditionality, through the threat or use of withdrawal. Her interviewees saw little evidence that withdrawal had produced human rights change. Negative conditionality could send a signal, but it risked punishing workers while failing to reach the military structures responsible for the gravest abuses. Positive conditionality seemed more promising, especially in the garment sector, where EU-linked trade could improve wages, standards, and opportunities for largely female workers. But that success remained narrow. It could touch factory floors more easily than constitutional power, military violence, or the Rohingya crisis. Bondi's account keeps returning to mechanism. Human rights cannot be treated as one broad category that trade either improves or fails to improve. The question has to be which right, which sector, which actor, and which channel. EU policy also carried other motives: business access, regional influence, concern over China, and member-state interests. That makes the application of values uneven. Myanmar leaves the trade instrument under pressure. A tariff preference may help workers, a withdrawal may make a statement, and neither may reach the institution doing the most harm.

In March 1945, the British Fourteenth Army were advancing on the city of Mandalay in central Burma, now known as Myanmar, which was held by the Japanese Army. The army was made up of soldiers from across the British Empire, with units from the United Kingdom, India, East and West Africa all fighting side by side. The BBC's Douglas Cleverdon accompanied those troops into battle, making what is thought to be one of the first ever radio programmes recorded from the front line of a war. Witness History is produced and presented by Tim O'Callaghan, in collaboration with the BBC Archives, using the recordings made by Cleverdon in 1945. 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: British Indian soldiers at the gates of Fort Dufferin in Mandalay. Credit: Official photographer/Imperial War Museums via Getty Images)

Episode #591: “The war may end, but for years and years, landmines indiscriminately will kill and maim people, quite often children, as well as farm animals, long after the act of fighting has ended.” Ken Maclean, a cultural anthropologist and human-rights fact-finder, traces Myanmar's landmine crisis from early-2000s interviews with prisoners forced to walk ahead of soldiers through suspected minefields to the political obstacles that still prevent systematic clearance. His central concern is not only what mines do when planted, but what they continue to control after troops leave. During research in 2013–14, possible refugee return from Thailand exposed the lack of safe routes, reliable maps, or an agreed authority for mine action. Military units, ethnic armed groups, and villagers used different mines for battle lines, camp perimeters, resource sites, roads, and community protection. Lightweight devices shifted in rain and soil, old mines remained live, and armed groups sometimes dug up and reused them, leaving no side with a dependable record of contamination. Removing a device can cost hundreds of dollars or more, even when it cost only a few dollars to make. A low-cost tractor fitted with a spiked hedgehog roller cleared some flat farmland in Karen State, but formal standards, ceasefire fears, and rivalries prevented the experiment from expanding. Mine-risk education faced its own contradiction: material that taught civilians to recognize booby traps could also teach fighters how to build them. Maclean still argues that multilingual risk education should be broadcast nationwide as immediate harm reduction. Peace would not settle who controls clearance or owns the land made usable. A national mine-action center could centralize authority in ways ethnic organizations reject, while clearing profitable roads and towns first could favor elites over refugees and displaced families. With conflict now dispersed and contamination no longer confined to the borderlands, Maclean sees no logical place to begin. Even if fighting stopped, the mines would continue to shape movement, livelihood, and return for decades.

We speak to investigative researcher Misha Vandelune about new war crimes dealt out by the junta in Myanmar. Warning, this episode is incredibly graphic and brutal. Not for the faint of heart. No ads and all exclusives: patreon.com/popularfront Discounted 50% off the best internet privacy for all our listeners: proton.me/popularfront INFO | MERCH | NEWS | JAKE | SUBSTACK

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China's Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet. Like many of China's Indigenous borderlands, this mountainous region has long borne the force of encroaching Chinese state power. Since the 1980s, the Chinese state has been compelling the Lisu to give up their subsistence lifeways, move into urban settlements, and send their children to government boarding schools. In exchange for the so-called gifts of development—healthcare, income, and education—they suffer environmental and social catastrophes such as mass landslides, strange new illnesses, and toxic food. Drawing on over a decade of engagement with the Lisu, Ting Hui Lau takes readers into the world of ex-shamans, heart-pained mothers, restless spirits, and demon-mad migrants as they grapple with the fallout from state development, which Lau argues is the latest phase in a centuries-long project of settler colonialism along China's Southwest frontier. At once a portrayal of loss and an ethnography of hope, Lau chronicles Lisu worldmaking amid this destruction, centering their quiet resistance through everyday acts of communal caretaking. In a time of escalating geopolitical and ecological crisis, this book calls for a new decolonial politics rooted in the transformative power of endurance. Ting Hui Lau (email address: lau.th@nus.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. She studies sociocultural, psychological, and medical anthropology, development and environmental change, Indigeneity and colonialism, and the borderland areas of East and Southeast Asia. Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China's Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet. Like many of China's Indigenous borderlands, this mountainous region has long borne the force of encroaching Chinese state power. Since the 1980s, the Chinese state has been compelling the Lisu to give up their subsistence lifeways, move into urban settlements, and send their children to government boarding schools. In exchange for the so-called gifts of development—healthcare, income, and education—they suffer environmental and social catastrophes such as mass landslides, strange new illnesses, and toxic food. Drawing on over a decade of engagement with the Lisu, Ting Hui Lau takes readers into the world of ex-shamans, heart-pained mothers, restless spirits, and demon-mad migrants as they grapple with the fallout from state development, which Lau argues is the latest phase in a centuries-long project of settler colonialism along China's Southwest frontier. At once a portrayal of loss and an ethnography of hope, Lau chronicles Lisu worldmaking amid this destruction, centering their quiet resistance through everyday acts of communal caretaking. In a time of escalating geopolitical and ecological crisis, this book calls for a new decolonial politics rooted in the transformative power of endurance. Ting Hui Lau (email address: lau.th@nus.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. She studies sociocultural, psychological, and medical anthropology, development and environmental change, Indigeneity and colonialism, and the borderland areas of East and Southeast Asia. Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/native-american-studies

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China's Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet. Like many of China's Indigenous borderlands, this mountainous region has long borne the force of encroaching Chinese state power. Since the 1980s, the Chinese state has been compelling the Lisu to give up their subsistence lifeways, move into urban settlements, and send their children to government boarding schools. In exchange for the so-called gifts of development—healthcare, income, and education—they suffer environmental and social catastrophes such as mass landslides, strange new illnesses, and toxic food. Drawing on over a decade of engagement with the Lisu, Ting Hui Lau takes readers into the world of ex-shamans, heart-pained mothers, restless spirits, and demon-mad migrants as they grapple with the fallout from state development, which Lau argues is the latest phase in a centuries-long project of settler colonialism along China's Southwest frontier. At once a portrayal of loss and an ethnography of hope, Lau chronicles Lisu worldmaking amid this destruction, centering their quiet resistance through everyday acts of communal caretaking. In a time of escalating geopolitical and ecological crisis, this book calls for a new decolonial politics rooted in the transformative power of endurance. Ting Hui Lau (email address: lau.th@nus.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. She studies sociocultural, psychological, and medical anthropology, development and environmental change, Indigeneity and colonialism, and the borderland areas of East and Southeast Asia. Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China's Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet. Like many of China's Indigenous borderlands, this mountainous region has long borne the force of encroaching Chinese state power. Since the 1980s, the Chinese state has been compelling the Lisu to give up their subsistence lifeways, move into urban settlements, and send their children to government boarding schools. In exchange for the so-called gifts of development—healthcare, income, and education—they suffer environmental and social catastrophes such as mass landslides, strange new illnesses, and toxic food. Drawing on over a decade of engagement with the Lisu, Ting Hui Lau takes readers into the world of ex-shamans, heart-pained mothers, restless spirits, and demon-mad migrants as they grapple with the fallout from state development, which Lau argues is the latest phase in a centuries-long project of settler colonialism along China's Southwest frontier. At once a portrayal of loss and an ethnography of hope, Lau chronicles Lisu worldmaking amid this destruction, centering their quiet resistance through everyday acts of communal caretaking. In a time of escalating geopolitical and ecological crisis, this book calls for a new decolonial politics rooted in the transformative power of endurance. Ting Hui Lau (email address: lau.th@nus.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. She studies sociocultural, psychological, and medical anthropology, development and environmental change, Indigeneity and colonialism, and the borderland areas of East and Southeast Asia. Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China's Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet. Like many of China's Indigenous borderlands, this mountainous region has long borne the force of encroaching Chinese state power. Since the 1980s, the Chinese state has been compelling the Lisu to give up their subsistence lifeways, move into urban settlements, and send their children to government boarding schools. In exchange for the so-called gifts of development—healthcare, income, and education—they suffer environmental and social catastrophes such as mass landslides, strange new illnesses, and toxic food. Drawing on over a decade of engagement with the Lisu, Ting Hui Lau takes readers into the world of ex-shamans, heart-pained mothers, restless spirits, and demon-mad migrants as they grapple with the fallout from state development, which Lau argues is the latest phase in a centuries-long project of settler colonialism along China's Southwest frontier. At once a portrayal of loss and an ethnography of hope, Lau chronicles Lisu worldmaking amid this destruction, centering their quiet resistance through everyday acts of communal caretaking. In a time of escalating geopolitical and ecological crisis, this book calls for a new decolonial politics rooted in the transformative power of endurance. Ting Hui Lau (email address: lau.th@nus.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. She studies sociocultural, psychological, and medical anthropology, development and environmental change, Indigeneity and colonialism, and the borderland areas of East and Southeast Asia. Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/medicine

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China's Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet. Like many of China's Indigenous borderlands, this mountainous region has long borne the force of encroaching Chinese state power. Since the 1980s, the Chinese state has been compelling the Lisu to give up their subsistence lifeways, move into urban settlements, and send their children to government boarding schools. In exchange for the so-called gifts of development—healthcare, income, and education—they suffer environmental and social catastrophes such as mass landslides, strange new illnesses, and toxic food. Drawing on over a decade of engagement with the Lisu, Ting Hui Lau takes readers into the world of ex-shamans, heart-pained mothers, restless spirits, and demon-mad migrants as they grapple with the fallout from state development, which Lau argues is the latest phase in a centuries-long project of settler colonialism along China's Southwest frontier. At once a portrayal of loss and an ethnography of hope, Lau chronicles Lisu worldmaking amid this destruction, centering their quiet resistance through everyday acts of communal caretaking. In a time of escalating geopolitical and ecological crisis, this book calls for a new decolonial politics rooted in the transformative power of endurance. Ting Hui Lau (email address: lau.th@nus.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. She studies sociocultural, psychological, and medical anthropology, development and environmental change, Indigeneity and colonialism, and the borderland areas of East and Southeast Asia. Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China's Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet. Like many of China's Indigenous borderlands, this mountainous region has long borne the force of encroaching Chinese state power. Since the 1980s, the Chinese state has been compelling the Lisu to give up their subsistence lifeways, move into urban settlements, and send their children to government boarding schools. In exchange for the so-called gifts of development—healthcare, income, and education—they suffer environmental and social catastrophes such as mass landslides, strange new illnesses, and toxic food. Drawing on over a decade of engagement with the Lisu, Ting Hui Lau takes readers into the world of ex-shamans, heart-pained mothers, restless spirits, and demon-mad migrants as they grapple with the fallout from state development, which Lau argues is the latest phase in a centuries-long project of settler colonialism along China's Southwest frontier. At once a portrayal of loss and an ethnography of hope, Lau chronicles Lisu worldmaking amid this destruction, centering their quiet resistance through everyday acts of communal caretaking. In a time of escalating geopolitical and ecological crisis, this book calls for a new decolonial politics rooted in the transformative power of endurance. Ting Hui Lau (email address: lau.th@nus.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. She studies sociocultural, psychological, and medical anthropology, development and environmental change, Indigeneity and colonialism, and the borderland areas of East and Southeast Asia. Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

Thinzar Shunlei Yi, Magnitsky human rights award recipient for Outstanding Young Human Rights Activist Award and activist of the human rights NGO #Sisters2Sisters joins the Reformasi Dispatch podcast to share the realities of oppression in Myanmar and the diplomatic gains being made by the junta in Asean and beyond.  Also, Kevin and Erin discuss the ouster of Indonesia's central bank governor and the upcoming pre-trial suit of the disgraced deputy attorney general Febrie Adriansyah.Watch the Youtube version here: https://youtu.be/NvJjNcD4rMwIt takes a lot of money to run a podcast. You need subscription fees for hosting, audio recording services, editor's salary and music licensing. Luckily, you, estemeed listeners of Reformasi Dispatch podcast can help us.You can donate to us on buymeacoffee.com/reformasi and help us grow!

Subscribe now for an ad-free experience and all of our episodes. Danny and Derek bring you the headlines against their better judgment. In this week's news: Western Europe and the U.S. set new temperature records (2:05); in Iran, the Islamic Republic demands reparations and sanctions relief before reopening the Strait of Hormuz (4:22), Trump declares that the U.S. will keep control of the Strait (8:20), and Iran makes a wave of hardline appointments (10:25); in Yemen, Houthi forces strike a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (13:02); Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey form a new defense alliance (15:00); Netanyahu rejects Hamas's disarmament plan as the Board of Peace agreement collapses (18:11), plus Israeli settlers besiege a Palestinian American family's home in a West Bank village (19:48); a Syrian court sentences Bashar al-Assad to death (in absentia) for war crimes (22:19); a new UN report finds that violence against civilians rises in Myanmar (23:43); in Darfur, the Sudanese military and allied militias make key territorial gains against the RSF (25:49); Ukraine bombs the Russian port of Novorossiysk as tensions in the Black Sea push global food prices higher (28:23); Abelardo de la Espriella takes office as Colombia's new far-right president and joins the U.S.-backed Shield of the Americas (31:58); Trump secretly flees Turkey on a decoy aircraft amid reports of an Iranian assassination plot (34:06); and the Pentagon claims its Yemen strikes caused the only U.S.-inflicted civilian casualties of 2025 (37:31). Watch yesterday's livestream here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Danny and Derek bring you the headlines against their better judgment. In this week's news: Western Europe and the U.S. set new temperature records (2:05); in Iran, the Islamic Republic demands reparations and sanctions relief before reopening the Strait of Hormuz (4:22), Trump declares that the U.S. will keep control of the Strait (8:20), and Iran makes a wave of hardline appointments (10:25); in Yemen, Houthi forces strike a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (13:02); Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey form a new defense alliance (15:00); Netanyahu rejects Hamas's disarmament plan as the Board of Peace agreement collapses (18:11), plus Israeli settlers besiege a Palestinian American family's home in a West Bank village (19:48); a Syrian court sentences Bashar al-Assad to death (in absentia) for war crimes (22:19); a new UN report finds that violence against civilians rises in Myanmar (23:43); in Darfur, the Sudanese military and allied militias make key territorial gains against the RSF (25:49); Ukraine bombs the Russian port of Novorossiysk as tensions in the Black Sea push global food prices higher (28:23); Abelardo de la Espriella takes office as Colombia's new far-right president and joins the U.S.-backed Shield of the Americas (31:58); Trump secretly flees Turkey on a decoy aircraft amid reports of an Iranian assassination plot (34:06); and the Pentagon claims its Yemen strikes caused the only U.S.-inflicted civilian casualties of 2025 (37:31).Watch yesterday's livestream here.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

When a poor woodcutter goes out to the forest to gather wood, he enjoys the delicious scent of fish frying from the fish seller nearby, but when she learns this, she demands that he pay her for the smell.  The matter is taken to the court and the judge comes up with a clever solution to teach the fish seller a lesson.  A fun tale from Myanmar to encourage us to think about fairness and justice.  An episode from Journey with Story, a storytelling podcast for kids ages 4-10.  (duration 11 minutes) We have suspended our Patreon platform for now.  But, you can receive all of this month's coloring sheets by signing up for my newsletter and you will also receive some terrific resources for raising kids who LOVE to read.  Sing up for free now at www.journeywithstory.com If your little listener wants to ask us a question or send us a drawing inspired by one of our episodes, send it to us at instagram@journeywithstory.  Or you can contact us at www.journeywithstory.com.  We love to hear from our listeners. If you enjoy our podcast, you can rate, review, and subscribe at here Did you know Kathleen is also a children's picture book author, you can find out more about her books at www.kathleenpelley.com    

Settler siege of Palestinian families marks now low, says OHCHRAfghanistan: Education ban for girls is hardest to bearMyanmar: WFP warns monsoon flooding could make hunger crisis worse

Trump evades Iran via catering truck, Pete Hegseth's Pentagon is a disaster, and Jared pays off a gangster and drug trafficker as part of his Albanian island takeover.This week Tommy and Ben cover shocking new info on how Trump hid from Iran on his way back from the NATO summit in Turkey, leaving his staff and the press behind as decoys. They shake off their déjà vu to dig into the latest developments in Iran and Israel before touching down in Yemen as the conflict between the internationally recognized Yemeni government and the Houthis heats up. In London, a brave Sudanese protester calls out the UAE's prime minister for underwriting the war in Sudan. Over at the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth continues to try to remake the military in MAGA's image, but still finds time to blame an underling for our dire munitions shortage and cozy up to defense contractors. They dig into the strategy behind Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries (the Amazon.com of Russia), Jared Kushner's payout to a gangster in his quest to steal an island from Albania, the grim news on Ebola and Trump's inaction on the crisis, and why Claude is coming for political speechwriters. Then, Ben speaks to Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group about the state of play in Myanmar, how coup leader and now-president Min Aung Hlaing is making diplomatic inroads with his neighbors, and the recent—and rare—glimpse of Myanmar's detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi.Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.To watch this episode with subtitles, click here and turn on closed captions (CC).You can request a transcript by emailing transcripts@crooked.com. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.

Stories from Yemen, Myanmar, Sudan, and elsewhereSubscribe to Foreign Exchanges today and get 40% off your first year! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Today's West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy Podcast for our especially special Daily Special, Smothered Benedict Wednesday is now available on the Spreaker Player!Starting off in the Bistro Cafe, furious world leaders are ditching Trump to form their own regional security arrangements.Then, on the rest of the menu, the Trump administration is accused of ‘inventing' terror threats to target charities; Trump's Sumo Goon scolded the CNN's top foreign war correspondent for the grave crime of, dancing; and, RFK, Jr says he can't vote because he's legally homeless.After the break, we move to the Chef's Table where a UN investigation found Myanmar's military has escalated airstrikes against civilians; and, a coalition of farmers, consumer associations and environmental groups is urging Malaysia's National Biosafety Board to reject a proposed field trial of genetically modified rice.All that and more, on West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy with Chef de Cuisine Justice Putnam.Bon Appétit!The Netroots Radio Live PlayerKeep Your Resistance Radio Beaming 24/7/365!“It may be safely averred that good cookery is the best and truest economy, turning to full account every wholesome article of food, and converting into palatable meals what the ignorant either render uneatable or throw away in disdain.” – Eliza Acton ‘Modern Cookery for Private Families' (1845)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/west-coast-cookbook-speakeasy--2802999/support.

The political world gasped once again as news broke from the New York Times' Maggie Haberman that Trump has been telling anyone who will listen that he's getting reinstated as President and has become obsessed to the point of insanity on these voter audits in Arizona and Georgia which he believes will show that he won the election. Elsewhere, QAnon threw a Memorial Day bash in Dallas that saw former trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn advocating for a Myanmar style coup in the United States while Sidney Powell unleashed a torrent of bullshit around Trump's presidential reinstatement. Finally, Michael sits down with Phil Arballo who came with in a few percentage points of unseating Devin Nunes in the 2020 election. He joins Mea Culpa to discuss how he'll win the midterm election, what's at stake for this country if the democrats lose the House and where the GOP is most vulnerable. This is a wild, wild episode you won't want to miss.To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policyLearn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Myanmar: UN investigators document deliberate military attacks on civilians Colombia earthquake update - OCHA, WHO Ebola outbreak passes grim new threshold with 2,000 dead

Episode #587: Su Thit, the founder of Spouses of People's Soldiers, frames military defection in Myanmar less as a single brave act than as an extended struggle against survival math. Leaving the institution means losing salary, housing, rank, and the thin protection that comes with uniform. Staying can mean remaining inside a system that demands obedience to violence. She describes the decision to defect as the hardest part of her own life—everything afterward is hardship with consequences: exile, scarcity, psychological strain, and the persistent ache of being unable to return home. In her account, the main barrier for those considering defection is not ideology but logistics—how to eat, how to earn, where to live once the military salary and accommodation vanish. Fear is reinforced by internal punishments: prison terms for running from the compound and even harsher consequences for fleeing a frontline battalion. Against that pressure, motivations vary. Some refused the illegality of coup initially. Some run because they do not want to die. Some remain inside for years because a parent's illness or family needs make departure feel impossible, even while quietly feeding information outward. Su Thit's organization operates as a set of practical supports meant to turn defection from a leap into hunger into a survivable transition. She describes arranging accommodation and food, supporting families with children in forest conditions, and providing monthly basic assistance from the Thai border—growing from dozens of families to now over 200. She argues spouses are a crucial leverage point inside the military household, and she invests heavily in testimony-driven media meant to weaken indoctrination. “If we can remove their brainwashing, at least they will not kill the civilians,” she says, treating reduced violence as a minimum gain even when full transformation is slow. The work expands into conscription cases as well, with families pleading for help to retrieve young men sent to the front line. Success depends on reach—knowing the area, having resistance links, being close enough to act. What remains, for her, is endurance under constraint and the insistence that defectors and their families—often undocumented, underpaid, and exhausted—still do not go back.

MK Long is a historian and ethnographer of Buddhism and gender. Her current project highlights vernacular auto/biographical writings of Buddhist women in Myanmar, examining their rhetorical strategies of self-presentation and how they theorize Buddhist authority, temporality, and belonging. Long's study of vernacular literature of the 1980s-90s foregrounds its conditions of production, not only its relationship to Buddhist biographical and narrative traditions, but also authoritarian censorship, state-driven reorganization of monastic institutions, and shifting citizenship regimes. This work is shaped and informed by Long's ethnographic fieldwork in a large, mission-oriented nunnery in downtown Yangon, Myanmar, and its network of branch nunneries throughout the country. Long's research has drawn support from the Social Science Research Council's International Dissertation Research Fellowship (SSRC-IDRF), the Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA), and The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies, awarded through the American Council of Learned Societies. Long earned her doctorate from the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University with a graduate minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in 2024. She holds an M.T.S in Buddhist Studies (Harvard Divinity School, 2016), an M.A. in International Relations & Religion (Boston University, 2014), and a B.A. in Religion (Smith College, 2010). Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group  

When devastation strikes around the world there are groups of experienced, dedicated teams that will fly in to support local people in saving lives. Others support people in the long, slow task of dealing with the aftermath and impact on health, homes and livelihoods. Datshiane Navanayagam talks to women from Venezuela and the UK about their roles in disaster response.Claudia González grew up in La Guaira, Venezuela which has recently been hit by two earthquakes. She works for World Vision Venezuela and was at a United Nations meeting when the disaster struck. On returning to Caracas she learned many of her school friends and their families had died in collapsed buildings. Since then she's been working round the clock to support her team working with UN agencies to coordinate the emergency response.Lori Demontigny is a registered nurse with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) providing care in crisis zones. Lori was working in Myanmar when it was hit by its worst earthquake for over a hundred years in March 2025. It's thought over five thousand people were killed. She's now project coordinator for MSF in Bangladesh. Produced by Jane Thurlow

The BBC's Diplomatic Correspondent, Paul Adams, has been given rare access to a Ukrainian naval ship and a visit to one of the main ports in the Black Sea. He reports on the naval battle taking place at sea, as Russian attacks on Ukrainian vessels are increasing.Also: a warm welcome in Bangkok for the Myanmar military ruler seen elsewhere as an international pariah. David Owori, the captain of one of Uganda's biggest football teams has died after being attacked near his home in the capital, Kampala. As wildfires continue to rage, a new study highlights how they can cause migraine headaches. A US Senate committee has voted to hold the former top health official Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he refused to answer questions during a hearing on the Covid-19 pandemic. Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi leads commemorations in Hiroshima on the 81st anniversary of the world's first use of nuclear weapons. Indonesia resumes the export of long-tailed macaques for use in laboratory experiments after a four year pause. Disney characters could become official TikTok stars after what's been called a “first of its kind” deal between the Hollywood studio and the video platform. And a 97-year-old woman in the UK has broken the Guinness World Record for being the oldest female wing walker.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk Photo: A civilian vessel on fire as Ukraine's navy spokesman reported a Russian military strike near the Black Sea port of Odesa, Ukraine July 2026. Credit: REUTERS/Victor Sayenko

Gianni Infantino remains Fifa president after receiving the backing of senior executives in a meeting in Morocco, where he apologised for "errors" he made.Has the boss of world football done enough to save himself? HIs critics - especially in Europe - say they're not done yet.Also in the programme: Ukraine carries out more strikes on Russian oil refineries; has Myanmar's military ruler broken out of diplomatic isolation; and we'll hear from a supporter of the black Cambridge professor who's resigned over allegations of fabrication and plagiarism who says the issue here turns on racism.(Photo shows a file photo of FIFA president Gianni Infantino. Credit: Zac Goodwin/PA)

This week, hosts of N2K CyberWire ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Maria Varmazis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dave Bittner⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ alongside ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Joe Carrigan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are discussing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. We start with some follow-up after a listener asks Joe to finally reveal the backpack that's become a recurring character on the show—and whether it's really as airport-infeding as everyone says. Joe covers Myanmar's approval of the death penalty for convicted scammers and shares a real-world fraud case involving forged Little Debbie snack deliveries that shows scams don't always happen online. Maria explores the rise in foreclosure rescue and equity-stripping scams, where fraudsters target financially vulnerable homeowners and attempt to steal their money—or even their homes. Dave breaks down new research showing how AI-powered phone farms are making it easier than ever for scammers to automate fraud, manage hundreds of fake accounts, and scale their operations with minimal technical skill. Our Catch of the Day is on a scam-baiting exchange featuring an unforgettable tale of a supposed two-timing "Barb Johnson" that quickly spirals into absurdity. Resources and links to stories: Kitchen Sink Backpack Giant Backpack Your Backpack Got Worse On Purpose Burma approves death penalty for scammers months after FBI's $8 billion crypto crackdown Little Debbie snack fraud investigation leads to arrest of West Virginia man, who allegedly forged records for deliveries that never happened As foreclosures increase, so do warnings about some self-proclaimed 'home savers' Researchers Warn of AI-Enhanced Phone Fraud Ecosystem That Twotiming B**ch Barb Johnson ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hackinghumans@n2k.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Why does a man with everything going right for him quietly fall apart on the inside? Jeremy Lipkowitz was a PhD student at Duke studying the genetic code that supposedly explains what a human being is. On the outside it looked like a life going exactly to plan. In private he was losing to a compulsion nobody around him knew about, and the more he achieved the worse it got. Eventually he stopped trying to fix himself from the outside, left the program, flew to Myanmar, and ordained as a monk.He has spent the last decade teaching men to do what he did, without religion, dogma, or drugs. His show is Unhooked and his work is at https://unhookedacademy.com/We talk about where shame actually comes from, what happens to you around day four of a silent retreat, and whether moderation is possible with anything engineered to hook you. Late in the episode we get into whether there is anything behind all of this. He says no. I made my case anyway. Neither of us moved, and that exchange might be my favorite part of the conversation.

Americans are ripped off in the billions annually through romance “pig-butchering” scams—the most dominant type. But who's really behind them?The shocking reality is the vast majority of these scammers are trafficked victims, enslaved across more than 60 countries and forced to scam or face torture.“You're working 17-hour days. You're catatonic. You're not getting sleep. You start to doze. They‘ll electrocute you, and if you refuse to scam, they'll torture you,” said Timothy Blackwood, an award-winning Canadian-American film director.His film “Scam Slave: From Hell to Home” follows a Ugandan man promised a high-paying job in Thailand, only to be kidnapped by a Myanmar-based crime syndicate.“There's all different types of scams going on there. There's villas, there's strip clubs, there's clinics to support the staff that are managing and running these compounds,” Blackwood says.These scam centers in Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar generate billions that fund even more advanced operations.“It's not simply in the horrific statistics of how many billions of dollars are being scammed from Americans annually, but the human cost to people's lives.”In this episode, I dive into how these operations stay hidden and what can actually be done to stop them.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

President Trump has said talks with Iran are going on right now. Speaking to reporters, he said Iran faced decapitation unless it agreed a deal. Mr Trump also said oil companies were making too much money, as a result of the shortages caused by the war. Also in the programme: Russian officials say seven people have been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a Black Sea beach resort; drought in eastern Europe and why it's having serious implications for Hungary and Romania's electricity generation; and we hear from Kim Aris after the Red Cross visits his mother Aung San Suu Kyi, who is a political prisoner in Myanmar.(Photo credit: Reuters)

Further reading: How did a tiny bee get to French Polynesia? Eight new species help solve a scientific mystery Secrets in the canopy: Scientists discover 8 striking new bee species in the Pacific Canopy specialist Hylaeus bees highlight sampling biases and resolve Michener's mystery Scientists discover endoparasitic marine tapeworm trapped in Cretaceous amber Show transcript: Welcome to the Patreon bonus episode of Strange Animals Podcast for August 2024! It's the start of Invertebrate August, so we have two invertebrate mysteries to discuss today, one mostly solved and one not. Let's start with the solved mystery, about a tiny bee. In 1934, three tiny bee specimens were collected in French Polynesia, specifically on a particular type of flower in the Tuamotu Archipelago. The bees really were tiny, only 4 mm long. They weren't described until 1965, when they were placed in the genus Hylaeus. This is a really big genus with over 500 species that live throughout the world, but the species most closely related to the newly described Tuamotu's masked bee lives in Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand. In case you're kind of hazy on geography, like me, Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand are part of what's called Oceania, a giant chunk of the Pacific Ocean where there's not a whole lot of land. I mean, except for Australia, which is big. The Tuamotu Archipelago is also part of Oceania, and part of French Polynesia, but it's really remote. It consists of a spread-out collection of 78 low islands, many of them too tiny to support humans, none of them with a source of fresh water except for rain. They're tropical and quite beautiful, with many unique animals and plants living on and around them. They're also almost 2,500 miles, or 4,000 km away from the places where the tiny bee's closest relatives live. Even in 1965, scientists had questions about the tiny bee. How did 4mm bees get to such remote islands, and were they even still around? The bees hadn't been seen in the wild since 1934. Since the Tuamotu Archipelago has suffered from European explorers and missionaries bringing invasive species to some islands, colonization by France, and nuclear weapons testing, scientists worried the bee had gone extinct and that they would never solve the mystery of how it got there in the first place. Bees are attracted to flowers, and the three 1934 specimens were discovered on flowers, so naturally scientists had been looking for the bees on flowers. But it turns out that in the Polynesian islands, bees mostly hang out in the treetops. Once scientists figured this out, they began discovering new species of bee—eight of them in fact, collected between 2014 and 2019 from various islands in Fiji, Micronesia, and French Polynesia. All eight species are closely related to Tuamotu's masked bee, so scientists now have a pretty good idea of how it traveled thousands of miles to get to its French Polynesian home. Its ancestors island-hopped. There are more than 1,700 islands in the Pacific Ocean, many of them barely known to humans. Researchers think there are probably a lot more species of bee to be discovered in the treetops of Pacific islands, now that they know where to look. With luck, they'll be able to find Tuamotu's masked bee too, quietly living out its bee life above the scientists' heads. Next, let's discuss our unsolved mystery. Amber, which is fossilized tree resin, is the gift that just keeps on giving to the scientific world, and our mystery involves a flatworm found in amber. The amber comes from Myanmar and dates to about 99 million years ago. In addition to bits of inorganic matter like tiny pebbles and sand grains, most organisms found in amber from this site are insects and roundworms, animals you'd expect to find on and around trees. The team examining this particular piece of amber found lots of interesting things, but then they discovered this one. The flatworm is about 10mm long and it's beautifully preserved, which means the scientists were able to compare it to modern flatworms to see what it might be most closely related to. It's most similar to a parasitic flatworm found in shark intestines. You know, an animal not typically found in trees. (I stole that joke from paleontologist Kenneth De Baets, by the way. Credit where credit's due.) It isn't a complete worm but a partial one, basically a tentacle with little hooks to keep it in place in the host animal's digestive system. The modern worm is classified as a type of tapeworm, and tapeworms are distressingly common parasites. If you've ever adopted a rescue cat or dog, you've probably had to have it treated for a tapeworm infestation. Luckily, tapeworms are also very specific about which species they parasitize, so you can't get tapeworms from a pet. (It's still icky.) Fish get tapeworms too, after eating marine invertebrates carrying various kinds of tapeworm larvae. The question is, how did a parasitic worm found in fish end up in amber? Occasionally there is rare amber found that fell into water and trapped water organisms, but this particular amber wasn't associated with water. Other items found in the same piece of amber included sand grains, tiny hairlike structures found on some ferns, and the nymph of a scale insect. The team suggests that the tree where the amber came from grew near a beach and that a dead shark washed ashore. While scavengers were picking through the carcass, a piece of worm somehow got separated from the body and ended up in a tree. Possibly a scavenger grabbed a big yummy mouthful of rotting shark guts and either climbed or flew up into a tree to eat it, and part of the worm fell out and landed in a blob of amber. Because tapeworms are endoparasites, meaning they live inside their hosts, and because they're soft-bodied and fragile, it's very rare that one is preserved. Pretty much the only other preserved tapeworm specimen we have isn't a tapeworm itself but some eggs found in fossilized shark dung, dated to 270 million year ago. Scientists aren't even completely sure the eggs are from a flatworm since they're not that well preserved. So it's fantastic that this particular specimen was so well preserved, and that it made its way into the hands of scientists! Thanks for your support, and thanks for listening!

Kate Adie introduces stories from France, Ecuador, the occupied West Bank, the Thailand-Myamar border and South Korea.Firefighters across Europe have been battling wildfires this week and in the southwest of France, an area four times the size of Paris burnt outside Bordeaux. President Macron said it was the toughest situation the country had dealt with since the Second World War. Newyddion S4C's Gwyn Loader reports from the Gironde region.Despite President Daniel Noboa's tough policies promising to crack down hard on drug trafficking and gang violence in Ecuador, the country is still terrorised by cartels and corruption. BBC senior international correspondent Orla Guerin saw how rampant crime is fuelling a climate of fear.There has been an increase in attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank in recent months. BBC Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson spent two weeks in the area around Nablus, speaking to Palestinian residents and a hardline Israeli settler about the violence.Since the military coup in Myanmar, the border city of Mae Sot in Thailand has become a haven for refugees, exiled civilians, politicians, and war-weary rebel fighters. BBC Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head sensed a mood of exhaustion in Myanmar's fractured opposition.The South Korean government has spent billions trying to get younger people coupled up, to combat the country's shrinking population - and they're not the only ones. BBC South Korea correspondent Jake Kwon travelled to a mountainside temple where Buddhist monks have been hosting special speed-dating weekends.