Podcasts about Southeast Asia

More countries are formally recognizing a Palestinian state ahead of this week's UN General Assembly meeting in New York. The government's border czar Tom Homan is facing scrutiny over reports he accepted a $50,000 bag of cash. News outlets are fighting back on the Pentagon's "pledge" to restrict reporting at the defense headquarters. A super typhoon is set to affect tens of millions in Southeast Asia. Plus, the FTC is taking Amazon to court for allegedly tricking customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training Is hiring one of the biggest challenges you've faced when it comes to running your agency? How do you sift through hundreds of applications when most don't even read the job description? Today's featured guest opens up about the realities of building a team, the role that gave him his time back, and why finding the right people, not unicorns, but the right fits can make or break an agency's growth. Dan Salganik is the managing partner and CEO of Visual Fizz, a Chicago-based digital full-service marketing agency. He spent years working at agencies of every size and learning of the many flaws in their operations: bloated overhead, work designed more to win awards than to serve clients, and inefficiencies everywhere. Instead of sticking it out, he decided to try something different. With the help of a co-founder he met online, he turned his freelance gig into an actual business. Within nine days of their first conversation, they had their first paying client. Once they were at three clients, they decided it was time to make it official and started Visual Fizz. In this episode, we'll discuss: The digital nomad myth. Hiring as the biggest challenge for agency success. The unicorn problem. Why the big guys should be worried. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources This episode is brought to you by Wix Studio: If you're leveling up your team and your client experience, your site builder should keep up too. That's why successful agencies use Wix Studio — built to adapt the way your agency does: AI-powered site mapping, responsive design, flexible workflows, and scalable CMS tools so you spend less on plugins and more on growth. Ready to design faster and smarter? Go to wix.com/studio to get started. Inspired to Create Something Better After Working With The Big Guys Dan's path into agency life started straight out of college, working at agencies as a project manager. He saw how the big guys worked and was frustrated by the waste. Expensive office space downtown, teams focused on portfolio-building instead of client results, and layers of inefficiency that didn't make sense to him. After a layoff, he started contracting and freelancing. After a while, he figured if he was already selling his time, why not build a team and sell more than just his own hours? Partnering with a co-founder who brought SEO and paid search chops, he launched Visual Fizz for just $50 and a “crappy logo.” The Digital Nomad Myth At first, Dan thought the digital nomad lifestyle was going to be the dream. He traveled through Asia, working out of hostels, hopping on 2 a.m. client calls from rooftop hotels, and running projects with a global team scattered across South Africa, Kuwait, and the U.S. It sounded cool on paper—but the reality was brutal. Trying to serve U.S. clients while living 12 hours ahead was a recipe for burnout. As he put it, “If you're traveling to Southeast Asia and trying to hit U.S. hours, you're in for a rude awakening.” Over time, he realized international travel had to shift into more realistic time zones if he wanted to scale the agency. From Scrappy Start to Scaling Smart Visual Fizz didn't take off by accident. From the beginning, Dan and his co-founder knew they wanted more than just a freelancing partnership. She had the technical expertise, he had the business and sales skills, and together they leaned into that divide. Their first clients came on at around $2,500/month retainers, which felt big at the time. But what really set them apart was their willingness to sell the agency model—not just themselves as individual contractors. Dan admits the early days were DIY to the extreme. He designed the first website, created the brand, and hustled every step of the way. But over time, they shifted from being “just two freelancers” into a legit business with structure, processes, and a growing client roster. Why Hiring is Always the Hardest Part Dan didn't hesitate when asked about the hardest part of running an agency: hiring. In a business where you're selling knowledge and time, having the right people is everything. And finding those people can be tough, especially for smaller agencies. Posting a single job ad often results in 700 to 1,500 applications—most of which are noise. Dan prefers entrepreneurial-minded hires over candidates with perfect credentials. He values people who can adapt, who want to learn, and who bring a cultural fit to the table. That's how he's built a team that can handle change in an industry that shifts constantly. Like most founders, Dan has had terrible interview experiences with candidates who applied mindlessly as soon as they saw an opening and didn't bother to read anything about the profile required. People were showing up to interviews while in their card eating, not even knowing the company's name, and clearly not having the skills required. If you've ever found yourself in this position, overwhelmed by resumes and constantly interviewing the wrong people, bury a hidden instruction in your job post, like requiring a candidate to send a video with a specific subject line to a private email. The people who follow directions prove they're serious. The rest self-select out, saving you hours of wasted interviews Tired of the fancy resumes and disastrous interviews, Dan has turned to his contractors. He's hired people who had contracted with the agency for years, which of course had the advantage of already understanding their capabilities and knowing they were up to the task. Furthermore, Dan considers himself to be very fiscally conservative when it comes to hiring, so he prefers working with the person until he feels he can comfortably hire them to be a full time team member. The Hire That Changed Everything For Dan, the biggest game-changer was bringing in a project manager who grew into a project lead. Having someone who could take ownership of processes, build out SOPs, and even tell him to log off at 6 p.m. gave him the space to focus on the bigger picture, strategy, branding, and biz dev. The right project manager isn't just checking boxes. They protect your time. They let you walk into client conversations clear-headed instead of stressed about whether a deliverable is behind. When they can run the team and operations, you can finally do the job of a CEO: winning new business and setting the direction of the agency. Stop Chasing Unicorn Hires What's the next hire on Dan's list? A hybrid between a campaign strategist and a creative marketing manager. Someone who can think strategically, get hands-on with campaigns, and still spot when an SEO report doesn't make sense to a client. Sounds great but also sounds like a unicorn. As most agency owners eventually learn: unicorn hires exist, but you can't build a hiring strategy around finding them. Instead, hire clearly defined roles—project managers who love execution, account managers who thrive on client leadership. When you stumble across someone who can flex across lanes, great. But don't make that the expectation. How to Train Your Team to Sell Naturally Dan's agency doesn't run with a traditional account manager structure. Their PMs double as client leads, which means Dan had to find a way to make sales training part of the culture without turning his team into pushy salespeople. The secret to this training is storytelling. Instead of saying, “Hey, we can upsell you,” his team learns to connect client comments with relevant success stories. If a client mentions running a content audit, a PM can naturally suggest looping in the SEO lead, not because they're chasing revenue but because they know it will help the client. Over time, this approach builds trust and positions the agency as a partner, not just a vendor. Positioning in a Shifting Market Dan has seen client expectations are moving “down a notch” lately. Big brands that once chased Ogilvy or Leo Burnett are now hunting for mid-sized partners. Those mid-sized companies are shifting to smaller shops. And boutique agencies like Visual Fizz are landing $100–500 million clients who want to be a top priority instead of client number 142 on a massive roster. It's the boutique hotel effect. Clients don't always want the 3,000-room resort. Sometimes they want the place where the staff knows their name, treats them like the biggest deal in the building, and still delivers world-class service. For smaller agencies, that's a huge opportunity to win the types of clients that used to feel out of reach. Why Lean Agencies Have the Edge The future isn't kind to bloated agencies. What used to take 100 people a few years ago could now be done with 40—or even 15. Large firms with huge overhead and outdated models will struggle unless they pivot, merge, or find a vertical niche. Meanwhile, smaller and mid-sized agencies that can move fast, price smart, and deliver with a lean team are better positioned than ever. As Dan put it, even Fortune 500 companies are asking, “Why should I pay $50k a month for SEO when I can get the same expertise at $8k?” Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

Episode SummarySachin Bhanot leads Southeast Asia & ANZ investments at Prosus Ventures, a global fund with $100B+ in assets. Though based in Singapore, Sachin has become an “honorary Australian fund manager”, with nearly half of Prosus's regional portfolio now in Australia and New Zealand.In this episode, Cheryl and Maxine dive into why Prosus ramped up in Australia during a downturn, what paradoxical traits they see in winning founders, and how Singapore and Southeast Asia really compare as markets for expansion.They unpack the playbook for Australian startups going regional, what Singaporean family offices are actually looking for, and why relationship-building is the real cheat code in Southeast Asia. Sachin also shares his biggest Big Chon moment, and how building coffee chains in the Philippines and Malaysia reshaped his view of what it takes to be an investor.Time Stamps02:53 – Sachin's first and most important investment (hint: not a startup)07:31 – The paradoxical traits of winning founders10:26 – Singapore vs Southeast Asia: the tale of two ecosystems18:12 – Why Prosus doubled down on Australia in 202228:40 – Tips and traps for Aussie founders expanding regionally34:44 – When is the “right” time to enter Southeast Asia?42:11 – The rise of the Australia–India–Singapore innovation corridor48:34 – Singapore family offices and the art of relationship-driven capital51:59 – Sachin's Big Chon moment: learning empathy by building businesses himselfResourcesResources Mentioned

Psychiatrist, internist, and addiction medicine specialist Muhamad Aly Rifai discusses his article "Why kratom addiction is the next public health crisis." Muhamad explains how kratom, a botanical imported from Southeast Asia, has rapidly spread across the U.S., marketed as a natural remedy for pain and opioid withdrawal. He warns that its potent alkaloids act directly on opioid receptors, leading to dependence, withdrawal, psychosis, and even fatalities. Muhamad outlines the surge in use during the COVID-19 pandemic, the risks to youth, and the dangers of contamination and unregulated production. He also highlights the lack of tailored treatments for kratom dependence, the need for stronger regulation, and the importance of educating the public about its hidden dangers. Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of why kratom's growth poses urgent challenges for both clinicians and policymakers. Our presenting sponsor is Microsoft Dragon Copilot. Want to streamline your clinical documentation and take advantage of customizations that put you in control? What about the ability to surface information right at the point of care or automate tasks with just a click? Now, you can. Microsoft Dragon Copilot, your AI assistant for clinical workflow, is transforming how clinicians work. Offering an extensible AI workspace and a single, integrated platform, Dragon Copilot can help you unlock new levels of efficiency. Plus, it's backed by a proven track record and decades of clinical expertise, and it's part of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, built on a foundation of trust. Ease your administrative burdens and stay focused on what matters most with Dragon Copilot, your AI assistant for clinical workflow. VISIT SPONSOR → https://aka.ms/kevinmd SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast RECOMMENDED BY KEVINMD → https://www.kevinmd.com/recommended

Africa was especially hard hit by Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs, which ended years of duty-free access to the U.S. and triggered a rush to find new markets. China's announcement that it will remove all tariffs on African imports undoubtedly provides some relief, but it shouldn't be the only answer, say experts.  India, Southeast Asia, and Japan all offer tremendous opportunities for African exporters, if they know how to break into these markets. Géraud traveled from Mauritius to Singapore to join a conversation at the Centre for African Studies at Nanyang Technological University, where he was joined by the center's director Amit Jain and Veda Vaidyanathan, a fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi, for a lively conversation on the future of Africa-Asia relations beyond China. JOIN THE DISCUSSION: X: @ChinaGSProject | @eric_olander | @christiangeraud Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject YouTube: www.youtube.com/@ChinaGlobalSouth Now on Bluesky! Follow CGSP at @chinagsproject.bsky.social FOLLOW CGSP IN FRENCH: www.projetafriquechine.com | @AfrikChine JOIN US ON PATREON! Become a CGSP Patreon member and get all sorts of cool stuff, including our Week in Review report, an invitation to join monthly Zoom calls with Eric & Cobus, and even an awesome new CGSP Podcast mug! www.patreon.com/chinaglobalsouth        

This week, the boys head back to 1997 to figure out what the hell is going through David Fincher's head while torturing Michael Douglas in “The Game”. His follow-up to “Alien3” and “Se7en”, as well as lots of peak-MTV music videos, Nolan kept his mystery streak going, and we're still wondering, what did he want from us? First, after John tells everyone to go see “TWINLESS”, we had some beef to settle featuring 11 callers! So grab a drink, enjoy the ride, and listen to a bunch of callers give us crap, courtesy of our friends at The Matt & Mark Movie Show.  linktr.ee/theloveofcinema - Check out our YouTube page!  Our phone number is 646-484-9298. It accepts texts or voice messages.  0:00 Intro; 6:22 Gripe Calls; 17:33 1997 Year in Review; 33:51 Films of 1997: “The Game”; 1:17:44 What You Been Watching?; 1:24:26 Next Week's Episode Teaser Additional Cast/Crew: David Fincher, Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, James Rebhorn, Michael Ferris, John Brancato, Deborah Kara Unger, Carroll Baker, Peter Donat, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Dylan O'Brien. Hosts: Dave Green, Jeff Ostermueller, John Say Edited & Produced by Dave Green. Beer Sponsor: Carlos Barrozo Music Sponsor: Dasein Dasein on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/77H3GPgYigeKNlZKGx11KZ 
Dasein on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/dasein/1637517407 Recommendations: Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, Alien: Earth,  Additional Tags: The Dallas Cowboys, Short-term memory loss, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Netflix, AMC Times Square, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, MGM, Amazon Prime, Marvel, Sony, Conclave, Here, Venom: The Last Dance, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, Oscars, Academy Awards, BFI, BAFTA, BAFTAS, British Cinema. England, Vienna, Leopoldstadt, The Golden Globes, Past Lives, Apple Podcasts, West Side Story, Adelaide, Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Melbourne, The British, England, The SEC, Ronald Reagan, Stock Buybacks, Marvel, MCU, DCEU, Film, Movies, Southeast Asia, The Phillippines, Vietnam, America, The US, Academy Awards, WGA Strike, SAG-AFTRA, SAG Strike, Peter Weir, Jidaigeki, chambara movies, sword fight, samurai, ronin, Meiji Restoration, plague, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, casket maker, Seven Samurai, Roshomon, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Stellan Skarsgard, the matt and mark movie show.The Southern District's Waratah Championship, Night of a Thousand Stars, The Pan Pacific Grand Prix (The Pan Pacifics). 

As we speed towards the 4th quarter of 2025, some economic metrics in South East Asia are trending towards nervousness. Air travel capacity is a primary case study, where the year-on-year data is mostly positive (look away now, Indonesia), but the ASEAN and APAC regions (overall) are still playing catching from 2019... all those pre-Covid years ago. Plus, on our weekly travel news roundup, Gary and Hannah journey across ASEAN to discuss the top talking points in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines and Timor Leste. En route, we discuss the devastating flooding fallout in Bali, 'brownouts' in Boracay, Koh Samui's controversial mega-bridge and the downbeat news that the Thai-Cambodia border "will not be reopened soon." To salve the sense of gloom, we finish by keeping our fingers crossed that Timor Leste will be admitted as the 11th member of ASEAN - although no-one seems quite sure.

We welcome veterans of the now-gone Army Security Agency, which was first created on September 15, 1945, in the immediate aftermath of World War II. ASA veterans John Peart and others will share their stories of service with this shadowy intelligence agency that played a critical role in the Cold War. The Army Security Agency (ASA) operated under the authority of the National Security Agency (NSA) and was tasked with intercepting, analyzing, and exploiting enemy communications. Its mission included codebreaking, electronic intelligence gathering, direction finding, and secure communications. The ASA played a central role during the early Cold War period, collecting intelligence on the Soviet Union and its allies. ASA units were composed of highly trained personnel, often fluent in foreign languages, skilled in radio operations, cryptography, and electronic surveillance. The ASA's role expanded during the Korean War and reached a peak of operational activity during the Vietnam War. ASA personnel were deployed across Southeast Asia, conducting covert and direct support operations for U.S. and allied forces. They established field stations and remote intercept sites near conflict zones and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Using direction-finding equipment and advanced signal processing tools, they intercepted enemy radio traffic, provided early warning of enemy movements, and monitored North Vietnamese and Viet Cong communications. Their intelligence was vital to strategic planning and tactical decision-making. One of the most significant and symbolic events involving the ASA during the Vietnam War was the death of Specialist 4 James T. Davis on December 22, 1961. Davis, part of the 3rd Radio Research Unit—the ASA cover name in Vietnam—was on a joint operation with South Vietnamese forces near Saigon when his convoy was ambushed. He and ten South Vietnamese soldiers were killed. Davis became the first American battlefield casualty of the Vietnam War recognized by the Department of Defense. His death marked a turning point, highlighting the increasing U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the dangerous nature of ASA missions in the field. The ASA compound at Tan Son Nhut Air Base was later named “Davis Station” in his honor. Throughout the Vietnam War, ASA personnel worked in close coordination with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Air Force Security Service, and Navy intelligence units. Their work remained classified for decades. Despite the high-risk nature of their missions, ASA soldiers were generally non-combatants operating in a military intelligence capacity, though many saw combat or were exposed to hostile fire due to their proximity to enemy forces. The ASA continued its global intelligence operations through the 1970s but was eventually dissolved in 1977. Its functions were absorbed into the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), consolidating Army intelligence efforts under a single command structure. Though no longer active, the ASA's legacy endures in the modern electronic warfare and signals intelligence capabilities of the U.S. Army. We're grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

China proposed on Wednesday the creation of an international alliance to formulate new measures to crack down on telecommunication and cyberspace fraud, saying that such transnational crimes call for an innovative combat approach.中国于周三提议成立国际联盟，制定打击电信网络诈骗的新举措。中方表示，此类跨国犯罪需要创新的打击方式。Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong made the proposal during the opening ceremony of the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province.中国公安部部长王小洪在江苏省连云港市举行的全球公共安全合作论坛开幕式上提出了这一倡议。The annual event, which was launched in 2015 as the Lianyungang Forum, brings together officials and experts from various countries to address global public security challenges.该活动每年举办一次，2015年以“连云港论坛”之名启动，旨在汇聚各国官员与专家，共同应对全球公共安全挑战。China's proposal for an alliance against telecom fraud came along with a series of steps it has vowed to take in the coming year to enhance international cooperation on public security.中国在提议成立反电信诈骗联盟的同时，还承诺未来一年将采取一系列举措，加强公共安全领域的国际合作。Over the past year, China joined international efforts to crack down on illicit drugs and telecom and online fraud, Wang said, noting that China also trained more than 3,000 law enforcement officers from various countries and dispatched police advisory teams to Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Africa and Latin America.王小洪表示，过去一年，中国参与了打击非法毒品及电信网络诈骗的国际行动，为各国培训了3000余名执法人员，并向东南亚、南太平洋、非洲和拉丁美洲地区派遣了警务顾问组。Over the next one year, China will train another 3,000 law enforcement officers from various countries and continue to send advisory teams to countries that have the need, he added.他补充道，未来一年，中国将再为各国培训3000名执法人员，并继续向有需求的国家派遣顾问组。Wang reaffirmed China's support for the United Nations' peacekeeping missions, saying that the country will provide financial support for training UN peacekeepers.王小洪重申中国对联合国维和行动的支持，称中国将为联合国维和人员培训提供资金支持。China is the second-largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget, and has deployed more peacekeepers than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council.中国是联合国维和预算的第二大出资国，派遣的维和人员数量超过联合国安理会其他常任理事国。Jean-Pierre Lacroix, UN undersecretary-general for peace operations, urged member states “to pay their assessed contribution in full and on time”. Hailing China as “a steadfast partner of the UN”, he said that the nation's support for UN peacekeeping “is a clear reflection of its commitment to international peace and security”.联合国主管维和行动副秘书长让-皮埃尔·拉克鲁瓦敦促成员国“足额、按时缴纳分摊的维和费用”。他称赞中国是“联合国坚定的合作伙伴”，并表示中国对联合国维和行动的支持“充分体现了其对国际和平与安全的承诺”。Public Security Minister Wang said that destabilizing factors and uncertainties are increasing worldwide, and global public security “is faced with unprecedented challenges and diverse dangers”.公安部部长王小洪表示，当前全球不稳定因素和不确定性增多，全球公共安全“面临前所未有的挑战和多样的危险”。He called for upholding sovereign equality, the international rule of law, multilateralism, and a people-and action-oriented approach to make global security governance more equitable and efficient.他呼吁坚持主权平等、国际法治、多边主义，秉持以人民为中心、行动导向的理念，推动全球安全治理更加公平高效。Speaking on counternarcotics, Wang said that China has fulfilled its international duties to combat synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals, and it has provided assistance to countries facing fentanyl and other synthetic opioid abuse crises.在禁毒问题上，王小洪指出，中国已履行打击合成毒品及易制毒化学品的国际义务，并向面临芬太尼及其他合成阿片类物质滥用危机的国家提供了援助。“We must follow the principle of shared responsibility and comprehensive balance to address the issue of illicit drugs, work hard to reduce the demand for illicit drugs, and engage actively in effective international cooperation,” he said.他表示：“我们必须坚持责任共担、综合平衡原则，解决非法毒品问题，努力减少毒品需求，并积极开展有效的国际合作。”Wednesday's opening ceremony followed a subforum on international counterterrorism cooperation, where participants emphasized the need for new measures, as terrorist groups exploit emerging technologies.周三的开幕式之前，还举办了国际反恐合作分论坛。与会者强调，由于恐怖组织利用新兴技术，因此需要制定新的应对措施。The fruits of the latest round of technological revolution are being abused by terrorist groups, said Chen Zhimin, chairman of the China Association for Friendship.中国人民对外友好协会会长陈至民表示，最新一轮科技革命的成果正被恐怖组织滥用。Many developing countries and those on the front line of combating terrorism lack digital infrastructure, talent and investment to cope with new threats, Chen said, adding that more resources should be channeled to them.陈至民指出，许多发展中国家及处于反恐一线的国家，缺乏应对新威胁所需的数字基础设施、人才和投资，应向这些国家投入更多资源。Zhang Lixun, Party secretary of the China People's Police University, said that priorities should be given to tackling “digital terrorism”. He also called for stronger international cooperation to spur economic growth in developing countries, improve livelihoods, and reduce the risks of radicalization.中国人民警察大学党委书记张利兴表示，应将打击“数字恐怖主义”列为优先任务。他还呼吁加强国际合作，推动发展中国家经济增长、改善民生，降低极端化风险。international anti-fraud alliance .国际反诈骗联盟/ˌɪntəˈnæʃnəl ˌænti-ˈfrɔːd əˈlaɪəns/law enforcement officersn.执法人员/lɔː ɪnˈfɔːsmənt ˈɒfɪsəz/

What if power wasn’t just about wealth or status, but about opening doors for those shut out? That’s the idea behind ErudiFi, a student financing platform founded by John Tan, which has already helped tens of thousands of young people in Southeast Asia pursue higher education. But can a business built on social impact also stand on solid financial ground? And how do you measure success when it’s not just about returns, but about mobility? On Right Business, Hongbin Jeong speaks to Zat Astha, Editor-in-Chief of The Peak Singapore, who recently sat down with John Tan, founder of ErudiFi, to find out more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

K-pop is no longer just South Korea’s cultural export. It is evolving into a global training and talent pipeline. From Seoul to Los Angeles, academies are shaping the next generation of performers, and now Singapore is home to the first SM Universe K-pop Academy outside Korea. So why was Singapore chosen, and what does this mean for Southeast Asia’s role in the global K-pop ecosystem? On Industry Insight, Lynlee Foo speaks with Jonathan Ang, Regional Director at SM Universe, about the business of training idols, Southeast Asia’s potential as a creative hub, and how K-pop’s globalisation is reshaping music, fandom culture, and the wider creative economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Adam shares exclusive updates on REGENT's exciting development roadmap, including the progress of their full-scale prototype and the path towards commercial operations in 2027. He explains how Seagliders combine the speed of aircraft with the accessibility of maritime vessels, operating from existing dock infrastructure and offering passengers affordable, sustainable coastal transport. Listeners will hear how REGENT is: - Expanding its $10 billion order backlog with airlines, ferry operators, and energy companies. - Building strong ecosystem partnerships with regulators, infrastructure providers, and community leaders worldwide. - Unlocking new opportunities in key markets such as Hawaii, South Florida, the U.S. Northeast, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. - Differentiating Seagliders from traditional eVTOL aircraft with lower operating costs, greater passenger capacity, and synergies for multimodal transport at ports. Adam also dives into the importance of regulatory engagement with the U.S. Coast Guard and Lloyd's Register, REGENT's customer training programs, and how Seagliders could transform daily life by improving access to jobs, healthcare, and housing in coastal communities.

Malaysia was once a leader in Southeast Asia's automotive sector, even producing the region's first national car. But in recent years, it has struggled to keep pace with neighbours like Thailand and Indonesia, who are rapidly advancing in the electric vehicle (EV) industry. Now, Malaysia is turning to an unlikely source – an indigenous plant – as it looks to shift gears and carve out a place in the global EV supply chain. Patrick Fok reports.

Edo Kuipers from We4Ce and Søren Kellenberger from CNC Onsite discuss their Re-FIT blade root repair solution, which has been successfully implemented at a wind farm in Southeast Asia. The solution allows operators to keep blades onsite while repairing critical blade root bushing failures. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Allen Hall: Ed0o and Soren, welcome to the program.  Edo Kuipers: Thank you very much. Thank you both. Allen Hall: We have some really exciting news from you, from the field, but first I, I want to start with the problem, which. A lot of operators have right now, which is this blade root, bushing it in or insert issue, which is really critical to blades and you're the creator of the device that's gonna save a lot of blades. You want to talk about what happens? When these blade root bushings fail?  Edo Kuipers: Uh, yeah. What we have seen is that it especially concerns, um, uh, polyester type of blades. And what we see is that, um, bushings and, and, and composites, they are not attached to each other anymore. And after a [00:01:00] while, blades are simply flying off. That's the, that's the whole, that's the whole problem. Of course. And now going back to the root cause, the root cause here is we are working with, with foes and. The fact is that if you're working with polyesters, they already have, um, at the, uh, uh, during the process, the curing process, they have already curing shrinkages. So we have already curing shrinkages, which means we have already initial micro flagging going on, on the interface between the bushing and, and, and, and the limited around it. And that reduces, that reduces the um, surface. Carrying area. And by doing so, because we have less area, surface area that can transfer the loads from the hub, um, from the blades to the hub, eh, we have limited amount of, of years on running. So we are reducing, uh, the, the amount of years [00:02:00] that the blades are on the, on the, on the turbine safely.  Joel Saxum: This problem is compounding right now simply because there's a lot of the global wind turbine fleet that's starting to age. Right. Like we, we, we went through a big push in, you know, the early two thousands, 2000 tens, 2000 twenties to now where, you know, if you look at the country of Spain, we hear that regularly, Alan is, Hey, we're getting to the end of life. We're close to the end of life. Then there's people saying, what is the remaining useful life? Where are we at? Um, and this is one of those issues where. It can develop rapidly, right? So if there's an issue, you can, if you catch it in time, great. You're good. But it can develop rapidly and that can lead to catastrophic losses. But I guess my, one of the questions I want to ask you, and you guys of course have done some commercial here. Uh, how many turbines do you think are affected by this globally affected by this root bushing issues?  Edo Kuipers: Oh, that's a good one. If I, if I talk a number of blades at the moment, we are more or less at a ball point figure about 30, [00:03:00] 40,000. Blades. Wow. Worldwide. So we see many us, we see many in South America and we see also in Southeast Asia, like India. And those blades are running, let's say from 10 years, 12 years, and some of them also after six years,  Allen Hall: and a lot of manufacturing. Uh, blades happens in multiple sites, right? So if you have a particular OEM wind turbine,

From online propaganda targeting youth, to the gendered dynamics of extremist groups, Southeast Asia faces a unique set of terrorism challenges that are often overlooked by the international community.In this episode, host Lucas Webber is joined by Julie Chernov Hwang - Associate Professor at Goucher College, Senior Research Fellow at The Soufan Center, and an expert on terrorism in Southeast Asia. Together, they explore the key drivers of radicalisation in the region, how individuals disengage from violent groups, and what local civil society initiatives are doing to counter extremism.

How can deep tech change the world for the better? Hosted by Michelle Martin, this episode of Influence welcomes Jeep Kline, Founder & Managing Partner of Raisewell Ventures who has launched 4 VC funds to explore impact-driven investing. We discuss why climate tech and advanced manufacturing sit at the heart of Raisewell’s portfolio, how academia can bridge research and entrepreneurship, and the realities of venture flows in Southeast Asia. Jeep shares her personal journey to launching Silicon Valley’s first impact VC fund led by a Thai woman. Gain insights into mission-driven investing, market opportunities, and shaping a better future through innovation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At a young age Anand Chandra Sekaran would be captivated by the documentary The Underground Eiger. This story of British Cave Explorers would be his motivation to pursue a career within the world of scuba diving. A journey that would propel him into a position of leadership. A role in which he mentors, guides, and ushers in the future torchbearers of the industry. With each course taught, he aims to level up the quality of training received, all while continuing his journey into the overhead environments of Southeast Asia. Please enjoy. Recorded in June 2025Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anand_padiidc/Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/antigravitydiversWebsite:https://www.antigravitydiving.com/

Jeremy Au, Shiyan Koh, and Dmitry Levit dissect the collapse of eFishery, the breakdown of Indonesia's growth narrative, and the systemic risks that resurface in Southeast Asia's venture ecosystem. They explore how IPO failures and inequality capped consumer demand, why bad faith actors gained visibility, and how boom-era fads like embedded lending and play to earn unraveled. Their discussion highlights how funding has reset to 2016 levels, why board oversight is crucial, and where opportunities in agritech and supply chain digitization still remain. 06:07 Unicorn Religion and Reset: Dmitry explains how the belief in Southeast Asia's consumer population created artificial unicorns, attracted global capital, and birthed a generation of investors dependent on unicorn rounds. With that narrative now broken, funding has reset to 2016 levels. 14:25 Indonesia's Narratives Collapse: Once built on consumer growth and SME digitization, Indonesia's investment stories unraveled after weak IPO results and late-stage funding pullback. This led to the retreat of corporates and VCs, shrinking available capital. 20:14 Redefining the Middle Class: Dmitry critiques World Bank definitions, pointing out that Indonesia's true “digital middle class” is closer to 12–20 million spending users, not 70 million. This smaller but wealthier segment supports realistic billion-dollar outcomes. 23:24 Bad Faith Actors and Fraud: The eFishery scandal highlighted systemic risks in Indonesia's ecosystem. Dmitry frames it as long-standing misaligned incentives—founders chasing salaries or secondaries—surfacing explosively rather than new corruption. 27:18 Embedded Fintech Debate: Jeremy calls out poorly governed lending arms disguised as platform metrics. Dmitry and Shiyan counter that embedded finance, if properly structured, remains one of the most capital-efficient models in Southeast Asia. 30:35 Capital Efficiency Lessons: Dmitry shares research showing the most efficient companies in Southeast Asia were fintech enablers or platforms layering financial services. These delivered 7x–12x returns on invested capital, shaping their core investment thesis. 37:49 Profitable but Overlooked Players: Despite noise about failed IPOs, Dmitry highlights a dozen Southeast Asian companies quietly positioned for billion-dollar exits, already attracting $300–400M investments from North Asia and Latin America. Watch, listen or read the full insight at  https://www.bravesea.com/blog/dmitry-levit-shiyan-koh-efishery-fraud-reset Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VakR55X6BIElUEvkN02e TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeremyau Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyauz Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeremyau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bravesea English: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts Bahasa Indonesia: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts Chinese: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts Vietnamese: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts

In the lead-up to K, the world's largest plastics and rubber event, our limited podcast series, ‘K-show plastics preview', features Argus experts discussing the latest market developments across key polymer and feedstock sectors. From pricing trends and policy shifts to regional supply dynamics, the series offers timely insights to help industry participants stay informed and ahead of the curve.  This week, we turn to Southeast Asia's polymer markets, with Yee Ying Ang, Senior Reporter for Polymers, and Timo Tumuscheit, VP Business Development for Chemicals in Asia, joining James Elliott to unpack the region's pricing dynamics and Argus' methodology. Key topics discussed: How seasonal shifts and trade policy are influencing polymer demand across Southeast Asia's key markets. How Argus assesses polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) prices in Southeast Asia, including how spot market activity and market sentiment are captured. The role of transparency and multi-source verification in building market confidence.

Ep 541 - Indo-Pacific region: Our economic saviour? Guest: Vina Nadjibulla   By Stuart McNish   “In the face of threatened tariffs, shifting security dynamics, and changing domestic priorities, Canadian policymakers and businesses alike need to assess how best to safeguard their interests and manage relations with key Indo-Pacific economies,” says Vina Nadjibulla of the Asia Pacific Foundation.   Nadjibulla continues, “The return of Donald Trump to the White House has brought heightened uncertainty to the Indo-Pacific region, posing new challenges for Canada's evolving Indo-Pacific Strategy and its key relationships in Asia.”   Asia-Pacific Senior Fellow Patrick Leblond says, “While Trump's foreign policies  may unleash turbulence, Canada's long-term Indo-Pacific objectives remain valid. While China relations are likely to stay rocky, Canada needs to double down on Southeast Asia to maintain Canada's relevance as a partner in the region.”   We invited Vina Nadjibulla of the Asia Pacific Foundation to join us for a Conversation That Matters about fortifying existing trading relationships and building new ones in the Indo-Pacific region.   You can see the interview here https://www.conversationsthatmatter.ca/   Learn More about our guests career at careersthatmatter.ca  

Diplomat Grant Dooley was inside the Australian Embassy building in Indonesia when a bomb went off, killing several people. This was just the beginning of a series of devastating events that Grant had to come to terms with years after moving back home to Australia.In 2004, Grant Dooley and his wife, Kristan, moved to Jakarta with their two young children to start a three-year posting at the Australian Embassy.In September of that year, Grant arrived at the embassy complex for a brief visit. Not long after he entered the building, a bomb went off outside, which partially destroyed the building and killed many people.The Australian Embassy had been the target of an attack plotted by Jemaah Islamiah, a terrorist group with links to al-Qaeda.Little did Grant know that he and his family had arrived in Indonesia in the middle of a horror show of bombings, natural disasters, and geopolitical tensions, which would not end for the next several years.The embassy bombing was followed by the Boxing Day Tsunami, a second Bali bombing, the Garuda plane crash in Yogyakarta and more.Not only was Grant a witness to these events, he was also a first responder to some of them.Further informationBomb Season In Jakarta is published by Affirm Press.This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris; executive producer is Nicola Harrison.It explores terrorism, diplomacy, expats, Bali bombings, Sumatra, earthquake, tsunami, Schapelle Corby, Bali 9, drug smuggling, banged up abroad, how to become a diplomat, the real life of diplomats, PTSD, post traumatic stress, Jemaah Islamiyah, jihadist organisation, al-Qaeda, Paddy's pub, Sari Club, Aceh, John Howard, Alexander Downer, Kevin Rudd, Prabowo Subianto, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Joko Widodo, foreign affairs, books, writing, memoir, modern history, Abu Bakar Bashir, 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing, East Timor, South East Asia, Iraq, Afghanistan, war.To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you'll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Our next guest is passionate on all things animals. She is an ER Vet Nurse as well as the author for her blog, Faraway Kitchen, where she shares vegan recipes from around the world. She was recently a contestant on Season 15 of MasterChef. We dive into her adventurous beginnings where she leaves no stone unturned in her travels across the country as well as to Southeast Asia. We reflect on what it was like to manifest and finally fulfill her dream of cooking vegan food for Gordon Ramsay alongside other passionate home chefs. Please enjoy my conversation with Courtney Fraley. https://instagram.com/faraway.kitchenhttps://www.farawaykitchen.com

This week on VOMAus Radio, we hear once again from Patrick, who oversees VOM Australia's field work in Southeast Asia, sharing about Vietnam. This country has a long and complex history, and it remains one of the few communist countries in the world. Life here can be difficult for Christians. Yet, praise God, the church continues to grow. Patrick outlines the various forms of persecution in Vietnam, including the consequences faced by a couple who gave their daughter a biblical name.

This week on VOMAus Radio, Patrick and Noah continue the conversation on what it's like to worship and gather as Christians in Vietnam – sometimes the consequences are severe. Yet the church is making a bold stand for Christ. In the coming weeks, we will hear more from Patrick as he explains further about the persecuted church in Southeast Asia and how VOM Australia is coming alongside our persecuted brothers and sisters to equip and aid them when opposition comes.

What was the process of wealth generation and accumulation by the most prominent business community of South India?  A journey that was marked by risk and courage; a journey that carried them to the greener pastures of South and Southeast Asia; and a journey that was shaped by the power of global events. In this conversation, scholar Prof. Carol Upadhya and veteran journalist K N Hari Kumar and Prof. Raman Mahadevan shall unravel and illuminate not only the making, but also the relative weakening, of the Nattukottai Chettiars as a business community, and the significance of their journey for our times. In this episode of BIC Talks, Prof. Carol Upadhya and Prof. Raman Mahadevan will be in conversation with veteran journalist K N Hari Kumar. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Jul 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favorite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

Who was South India's equivalent to Alexander The Great? How did the Chola dynasty conquer Southeast Asia? And what was life like for the enslaved “service women” in the Chola court? William and Anita are joined once again by Anirudh Kanisetti, author of Lords of Earth and Sea: A History of the Chola Empire, to discuss Rajaraja I and the development of the Chola dynasty.  Join the Empire Club: Unlock the full Empire experience – with bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to miniseries and live show tickets, exclusive book discounts, a members-only newsletter, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at empirepoduk.com  For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com. Email: empire@goalhanger.com Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Anouska Lewis Executive Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Erin West joins Dr. Sandie Morgan as they uncover why that random text asking "Can you come for ribs?" might be the opening move in a $5 billion crime operation targeting vulnerable people through sophisticated romance and investment scams known as pig butchering. Erin West Erin West is a globally recognized expert in transnational organized crime and the founder and president of Operation Shamrock, a nonprofit uniting law enforcement, industry, and everyday citizens to disrupt pig butchering scams—the world's fastest-growing form of transnational organized crime. After 26 years as a prosecutor, including eight years on the REACT High-Tech Task Force where she became known for her relentless pursuit of cryptocurrency-enabled criminals, Erin retired to launch this cross-border fight to expose the scam economy and protect both victims and the trafficked workers forced to run these schemes. She is also the host of "Stolen," a podcast that takes listeners inside the darkest corners of the scamdemic, where love is weaponized and billions are laundered. As a sought-after international speaker and educator, Erin continues to equip audiences worldwide to use their skills and platforms to fight back against these sophisticated criminal enterprises. Key Points Pig butchering scams are long cons that can last up to four months, involving four hours of daily texting to build the relationship victims have always wanted before stealing their life savings. Chinese organized criminals created this crime model by repurposing casino towers in Southeast Asia during COVID, literally translating "pig butchering" as fattening up victims with love bombing before cutting their throats financially. The scams begin with seemingly innocent outreach through wrong number texts, LinkedIn connections, or social media befriending, then quickly move to encrypted platforms like WhatsApp to conduct criminal activity without oversight. Hundreds of thousands of people from Africa, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are being trafficked to Southeast Asia under false job promises, then forced to work 16 hours a day running these scams under threat of violence. Victims of forced criminality face arrest and detention when compounds are raided because they're treated as criminals rather than trafficking victims, creating a massive repatriation crisis. The scale of this crime is unprecedented, with victims reporting losses of $4.9 billion in 2024 alone, representing a generation's worth of stolen wealth from retirement and college savings accounts. End-to-end encryption, while protective for legitimate users, is weaponized by criminals to conduct relationships and transactions away from law enforcement visibility. Effective response requires unprecedented cross-sector collaboration between banking, law enforcement, cryptocurrency platforms, diplomacy, victim assistance, and NGOs working together rather than in silos. Resources 351 – Hidden Crimes: Fraud and its Impact on Vulnerable Communities Operation Shamrock Stolen Podcast Transcript [00:00:00] Sandie Morgan: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast here at Vanguard University's Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. I'm Dr. Sandie Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issue, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. [00:00:23] today. We'll discover why that random text asking Can you come for ribs? Might be the opening move in a $5 billion crime operation [00:00:36] I'm joined today by Aaron West, founder and president of Operation Shamrock, and former prosecutor who spent 26 and a half years. Fighting high tech crimes And now here's our interview. [00:00:53] [00:00:54] Sandie Morgan: welcome to the podcast Erin West. I am so delighted to meet you. [00:01:02] Erin West: Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm delighted to be here.

Being a trusted adviser to our affluent clients for over two decades, our wealth management philosophy—making life decisions before money decisions—is rooted in our experience of managing over S$1 billion worth of our clients' hard-earned assets.In this week's Money Wisdom episode, our co-host Isaac chats with Chris about the importance of planning for the next generation of leaders at Providend, which began in 2021, outlining a 10-year roadmap and why this long runway is important.Chris reflected on how the founding team has never quarrelled over money, which can be rare, and how they chose to decline offers from interested buyers, and how maximising wealth was never their primary goal. He explains how these principles underpin Providend's Philosophy of Sufficiency and our core values.You can read Chris's article on this topic in The Business Times here.Music courtesy of ItsWatR.The host of this episode, Isaac Ong, is a Client Adviser at Providend, the first fee-only wealth advisory firm in Southeast Asia and a leading wealth advisory firm in Asia.The full list of Providend's Money Wisdom podcast episodes from Season 4 can be found here.Did you know that our Providend's Money Wisdom podcast is now available in video format on YouTube? Follow us on our YouTube channel for new episode on Thursday at 8pm.

Global order is shifting - how can Southeast Asia seize opportunity amid uncertainty? Hosted by Michelle Martin with Prof Alfred Schipke, Professor of the Practice of International Finance at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Director of the East Asian Institute at NUS. Ahead of the FutureChina Global Forum’s Opening Plenary, Prof Schipke shares insights on China’s economic balancing act, weak demand, and property overhang. He explores ASEAN’s role as a neutral investment harbour in a fractured global landscape. From tariffs reshaping supply chains to China’s AI and digital ambitions, what lies ahead for policy and business leaders? Hear what 600 delegates at FCGF 2025 will be asking as the world in flux redraws opportunities and risks.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Au explored how talent, policy, and capital flows shape startup ecosystems across Southeast Asia, India, and China. The discussion covered talent strengths and weaknesses across countries, the role of industrial policy and government subsidies, the challenges of building large language models outside the US and China, and the impact of US China geopolitical tensions on venture capital flows. 01:18 Southeast Asia talent rankings: Jeremy explains Asia Partners' view that Singapore and Indonesia rank higher in talent, while Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia sit in the middle, and Thailand lags. 04:01 Quick commerce lessons: He compares how India's delivery startups slowed timelines to survive, showing why founders must adapt to market development levels. 05:10 TSMC and industrial policy: Jeremy highlights Taiwan's deliberate investment in semiconductors as a case study of state-driven strategy creating global champions. 07:30 Policy shapes business: He outlines the chain: “Policy leads to law, law leads to business, and business leads to everything else.” 15:08 Sequoia's split: Jeremy explains how US–China tensions and new rules like reverse CFIUS forced Sequoia to separate its US, China, and Southeast Asia/India arms. Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/talent-gaps-rising Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VakR55X6BIElUEvkN02e TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeremyau Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyauz Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeremyau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bravesea English: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts Bahasa Indonesia: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts Chinese: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts Vietnamese: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts

Become a Client: https://nomadcapitalist.com/apply/ Get our free Weekly Rundown newsletter and be the first to hear about breaking news and offers: https://nomadcapitalist.com/email Join us for the next Nomad Capitalist Live event: https://nomadcapitalist.com/live/ For this special edition of the Weekly Report, we come to you from Kuala Lumpur as we are ramping up for Nomad Capitalist Live 2025. But before we kickstart the event, we are sitting down with one of the guest speakers. Our very own, Tax Terminator, Javier Correa. We'll be discussing the ongoing tensions between America and Venezuela and how it has impacted Javier's freedom of movement. Panama City and why he decided to move there. As well as taking a deeper dive into the differences between living in Latin America and Southeast Asia on a tax level. Nomad Capitalist helps clients "go where you're treated best." We are the world's most sought-after firm for offshore tax planning, dual citizenship, international diversification, and asset protection. We use legal and ethical strategies and work exclusively with seven- and eight-figure entrepreneurs and investors. We create and execute holistic, multi-jurisdictional Plans that help clients keep more of their wealth, increase their personal freedom, and protect their families and wealth against threats in their home country. No other firm offers clients access to more potential options to relocate to, bank in, or become a citizen of. Because we do not focus only on one or a handful of countries, we can offer unbiased advice where others can't. Become Our Client: https://nomadcapitalist.com/apply/ Our Website: http://www.nomadcapitalist.com/ About Our Company: https://nomadcapitalist.com/about/ Buy Mr. Henderson's Book: https://nomadcapitalist.com/book/ Disclaimer: Neither Nomad Capitalist LTD nor its affiliates are licensed legal, financial, or tax advisors. All content published on YouTube and other platforms is intended solely for general informational and educational purposes and should not be construed as legal, tax, or financial advice. Nomad Capitalist does not offer or sell legal, financial, or tax advisory services.

The concentration of terrorists, political suspects, ethnic minorities, prisoners of war, enemy aliens, and other potentially “dangerous” populations spans the modern era. From Konzentrationslager in colonial Africa to strategic villages in Southeast Asia, from slave plantations in America to Uyghur sweatshops in Xinjiang, and from civilian internment in World War II to extraordinary rendition at Guantanamo Bay, mass detention is as diverse as it is ubiquitous. Camps: A Global History of Mass Confinement (University of Toronto Press, 2024) offers a short but compelling guide to the varied manifestations of concentration camps in the last two centuries, while tracing provocative transnational connections with related institutions such as workhouses, migrant detention centers, and residential schools. Aidan Forth is an associate professor of British, imperial, and global history at MacEwan University. 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

The concentration of terrorists, political suspects, ethnic minorities, prisoners of war, enemy aliens, and other potentially “dangerous” populations spans the modern era. From Konzentrationslager in colonial Africa to strategic villages in Southeast Asia, from slave plantations in America to Uyghur sweatshops in Xinjiang, and from civilian internment in World War II to extraordinary rendition at Guantanamo Bay, mass detention is as diverse as it is ubiquitous. Camps: A Global History of Mass Confinement (University of Toronto Press, 2024) offers a short but compelling guide to the varied manifestations of concentration camps in the last two centuries, while tracing provocative transnational connections with related institutions such as workhouses, migrant detention centers, and residential schools. Aidan Forth is an associate professor of British, imperial, and global history at MacEwan University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The UN estimates revenues from scam centers in Southeast Asia, mostly Myanmar, to be nearly $40 billion. The sheer number of people being conned into working for them has overwhelmed police. So, one man tried to step in, rescuing dozens of people from being trapped. The post Freeing victims from criminal enclaves in Myanmar, one TikTok at a time appeared first on The World from PRX.

The concentration of terrorists, political suspects, ethnic minorities, prisoners of war, enemy aliens, and other potentially “dangerous” populations spans the modern era. From Konzentrationslager in colonial Africa to strategic villages in Southeast Asia, from slave plantations in America to Uyghur sweatshops in Xinjiang, and from civilian internment in World War II to extraordinary rendition at Guantanamo Bay, mass detention is as diverse as it is ubiquitous. Camps: A Global History of Mass Confinement (University of Toronto Press, 2024) offers a short but compelling guide to the varied manifestations of concentration camps in the last two centuries, while tracing provocative transnational connections with related institutions such as workhouses, migrant detention centers, and residential schools. Aidan Forth is an associate professor of British, imperial, and global history at MacEwan University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

September is historically a slow month for travel news in South East Asia. With the October Golden Week imminent, followed by the peak November-February tourism season, it's usually a period to reflect and prepare. Not this year. Political upheaval and economic instability in ASEAN's two largest economies, Indonesia and Thailand, are front-page news. Events in both nations have the potential to influence the end-of-year travel season, not least in Thailand where an enforced national election is likely. Meantime, Gary and Hannah assess Malaysia's latest positioning statement for its biggest ever 12-month national tourism campaign in 2026. Phnom Penh inaugurates Cambodia's much hyped new Techo Airport. And Vietnam's buoyant tourism economy enjoys a further boost during National Day. Plus, why are consumer trade shows an even bigger deal than normal in 2025 in Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines? All this and more in our weekly travel and tourism news roundup.     

The concentration of terrorists, political suspects, ethnic minorities, prisoners of war, enemy aliens, and other potentially “dangerous” populations spans the modern era. From Konzentrationslager in colonial Africa to strategic villages in Southeast Asia, from slave plantations in America to Uyghur sweatshops in Xinjiang, and from civilian internment in World War II to extraordinary rendition at Guantanamo Bay, mass detention is as diverse as it is ubiquitous. Camps: A Global History of Mass Confinement (University of Toronto Press, 2024) offers a short but compelling guide to the varied manifestations of concentration camps in the last two centuries, while tracing provocative transnational connections with related institutions such as workhouses, migrant detention centers, and residential schools. Aidan Forth is an associate professor of British, imperial, and global history at MacEwan University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies

As the US transitions to higher-volatility gasoline grades, refiners are adjusting their strategies to balance supply and demand amid seasonal maintenance and export pressures, which also have implications for butane demand. In this episode, the team unpacks the mechanics of the RVP transition, the impact of refinery issues in Mexico, and the growing demand for LPG in Southeast Asia. Jeff Mower, director of Americas oil news, discusses these seasonal shifts with light ends pricing manager Sarah Hernandez, LPG price reporter Hunter Marrow, and senior oil news reporter Janet McGurty.  Links:  US gasoline RVP calendar Gasoline Unleaded 87 USGC Prompt Pipeline AANY105 Butane FOB ARA PMAAC00 ULSD USGC Prompt Pipeline AATGY00

Aug. 22-28: Scott Bakula is a magic detective, Patricia Arquette and Owen Wilson are both in danger in Southeast Asia, an internet remix goes to Isengard, Matt Damon and Heath Ledger fight fairy tales, Peppa Pig warms our hearts, spooky caves are spooky, Narcos and Fear the Walking Dead debut, and like all men, we talk about Rome way too much. All that and more from 30, 20, and 10 years ago.

Best-Seller Bundle With 100 FREE Loads of Laundry & 50 FREE Loads of Dishwasher Detergenthttps://click.trulyfreehome.com/aff_c?offer_id=428&aff_id=5460 In this episode of the Evolving Wellness Podcast, host Sarah Kleiner discusses the hidden dangers of common household cleaning products and introduces guest Stephen, the founder of Truly Free. The conversation covers how conventional cleaning products can contain undisclosed toxic ingredients that pose health risks. Stephen shares his personal journey of creating Truly Free after his first child experienced severe eczema due to laundry detergents. The discussion dives into the ethical production practices of Truly Free, often prioritizing safety and efficacy over profit. Stephen talks about the company's commitment to sustainability, transparency, and social responsibility, including their work with deaf communities in Jamaica and Southeast Asia. They also touch on the broader impact of chemicals on health and the importance of consumer choices in driving industry change. Sarah and Stephen emphasize the necessity of voting with your dollars to support ethical and health-conscious businesses.About Truly Free homeTruly Free Home aims to free over ten million homes from harmful toxic chemicals and excess plastic waste. The company designs and delivers innovative, powerful, and family-safe cleaning products packaged in refillable and reusable formats that empower families to protect themselves while reducing their environmental footprint. Beyond their products, Truly Free Home is driven by a commitment to giving back—actively supporting safe-houses and orphanages in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, where they assist over 200 children with food, education, clothing, shelter, and hope for the futureFull product line (use code SARAHK to save) - https://click.trulyfreehome.com/aff_c?offer_id=238&aff_id=5460Sponsored By:→ Troscriptions | There's a completely new way to optimize your health. Give it a try at http://troscriptions.com/SARAHK, or enter SARAHK at checkout for 10% off your first order.→ Bon Charge| Go to https://us.boncharge.com/products/red-light-face-mask?rfsn=8108115.26608d & use code for SARAHKLEINER for 15% off storewide.Timestamps00:00 Coming Up00:25 The Impact of UV Brighteners in Laundry Detergents01:16 Introduction to Today's Guest: Steven of Truly Free03:58 Steven's Journey to Creating Truly Free11:22 The Evolution of Cleaning Products14:51 Challenges in the Green Cleaning Industry19:16 The Fragrance Loophole and Its Implications25:04 Chemical Warfare and Everyday Products26:19 The Layering Effect of Toxins27:16 Estrogen Dominance and Endocrine Disruptors29:26 The Profit Motive in Healthcare31:03 Commitment to Ethical Business Practices42:43 Customer Service and Community Trust45:36 Taking Control of Your Environment________________________________________This video is not medical advice & as a supporter to you and your health journey - I encourage you to monitor your labs and work with a professional!________________________________________Get all my free guides and product recommendations to get started on your journey!https://www.sarahkleinerwellness.com/all-free-resourcesCheck out all my courses to understand how to improve your mitochondrial health & experience long lasting health! (Use code PODCAST to save 10%) - https://www.sarahkleinerwellness.com/coursesSign up for my newsletter to get special offers in the future! -https://www.sarahkleinerwellness.com/contactFree Guide to Building your perfect quantum day (start here) -https://www.sarahkleinerwellness.com/opt-in-9d5f6918-77a8-40d7-bedf-93ca2ec8387fMy free product guide with all product recommendations and discount codes:https://www.canva.com/design/DAF7mlgZpJI/xVyE4tiQFEWJmh_Xwx8Kbw/view?utm_content=DAF7mlgZpJI&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h0782b52987

This week, the boys head back to the end to discuss Christopher Nolan's mind-and-time-melding noir, “Memento”. The random year generator spun 2000, previously visited by us to discuss “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Chopper”, so we recap the film events and world news of the year before getting into our featured conversation. Be sure to listen to John's mini-review of the fourth “The Conjuring” film, the final film for our beloved movie Warrens, and Dave's experience seeing “Caught Stealing” at AMC Times Square.  linktr.ee/theloveofcinema - Check out our YouTube page!  Our phone number is 646-484-9298. It accepts texts or voice messages.  0:00 Intro; 6:06 John's “The Conjuring: Last Rites” mini-review; 12:21 Dave's “Caught Stealing” mini-review; 16:27 2000 Year in Review; 34:05 Films of 2000: “Memento”; 1:18:35 What You Been Watching; 1:24:26 Next Week's Episode Teaser Additional Cast/Crew: Guy Pearce, Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Junior, Jorja Fox, Stephen Tobolowsky, Harriet Sansom Harris, Austin Butler, Darren Aronofsky, Matt Smith, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Griffin Dunne, George Abud, Will Brill, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Michael Chaves, James Wan, Mia Tomlinson, Steve Coulter, Ben Hardy. Hosts: Dave Green, Jeff Ostermueller, John Say Edited & Produced by Dave Green. Beer Sponsor: Carlos Barrozo Music Sponsor: Dasein Dasein on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/77H3GPgYigeKNlZKGx11KZ 
Dasein on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/dasein/1637517407 Recommendations: Peacemaker, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, Platonic, New Orleans, America's Team: The Gambler and his Cowboys. Additional Tags: The Dallas Cowboys, Short-term memory loss, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Netflix, AMC Times Square, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, MGM, Amazon Prime, Marvel, Sony, Conclave, Here, Venom: The Last Dance, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, Oscars, Academy Awards, BFI, BAFTA, BAFTAS, British Cinema. England, Vienna, Leopoldstadt, The Golden Globes, Past Lives, Apple Podcasts, West Side Story, Adelaide, Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Melbourne, The British, England, The SEC, Ronald Reagan, Stock Buybacks, Marvel, MCU, DCEU, Film, Movies, Southeast Asia, The Phillippines, Vietnam, America, The US, Academy Awards, WGA Strike, SAG-AFTRA, SAG Strike, Peter Weir, Jidaigeki, chambara movies, sword fight, samurai, ronin, Meiji Restoration, plague, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, casket maker, Seven Samurai, Roshomon, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Stellan Skarsgard, the matt and mark movie show.The Southern District's Waratah Championship, Night of a Thousand Stars, The Pan Pacific Grand Prix (The Pan Pacifics). 

Pack your sarongs and sunscreen, hunty—Queer Money is headed to Thailand!

Fraudology is presented by Sardine. Get your tickets to Sardine[Con] and end the scamedmicThis episode of Fraudology returns with a comprehensive fraud news roundup, as host Karisse Hendrick examines major cybersecurity incidents and emerging scam tactics. This episode offers an in-depth look at the Salesforce data breach that impacted hundreds of organizations, including credit bureau TransUnion. Carice breaks down how hackers exploited a third-party tool to steal sensitive data and credentials from Salesforce instances. She also unpacks the PayPal fraud detection failure that sent European banks into panic mode, freezing billions in transactions. The episode shines a light on the dark world of human trafficking and scam compounds in Southeast Asia, revealing new connections to sextortion schemes targeting minors. Carice shares eye-opening details about these criminal operations and their expanding reach. The rise of AI-powered fraud takes center stage as well, with Carice examining how deepfakes and other AI tools are being weaponized by scammers to impersonate executives and create convincing fake websites. She offers practical advice for protecting yourself and your business from these evolving threats. With expert insights and analysis of the latest fraud trends, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to stay ahead of cybercriminals and scammers. Don't miss this essential update on the state of fraud, tune in now to arm yourself with knowledge.Fraudology is hosted by Karisse Hendrick, a fraud fighter with decades of experience advising hundreds of the biggest ecommerce companies in the world on fraud, chargebacks, and other forms of abuse impacting a company's bottom line. Connect with her on LinkedIn She brings her experience, expertise, and extensive network of experts to this podcast weekly, on Tuesdays.

Last time we spoke about the surrender of Japan. Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender on August 15, prompting mixed public reactions: grief, shock, and sympathy for the Emperor, tempered by fear of hardship and occupation. The government's response included resignations and suicide as new leadership was brought in under Prime Minister Higashikuni, with Mamoru Shigemitsu as Foreign Minister and Kawabe Torashiro heading a delegation to Manila. General MacArthur directed the occupation plan, “Blacklist,” prioritizing rapid, phased entry into key Japanese areas and Korea, while demobilizing enemy forces. The surrender ceremony occurred aboard the Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, with Wainwright, Percival, Nimitz, and UN representatives in attendance. Civilians and soldiers across Asia began surrendering, and postwar rehabilitation, Indochina and Vietnam's independence movements, and Southeast Asian transitions rapidly unfolded as Allied forces established control. This episode is the Aftermath of the Pacific War Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  The Pacific War has ended. Peace has been restored by the Allies and most of the places conquered by the Japanese Empire have been liberated. In this post-war period, new challenges would be faced for those who won the war; and from the ashes of an empire, a defeated nation was also seeking to rebuild. As the Japanese demobilized their armed forces, many young boys were set to return to their homeland, even if they had previously thought that they wouldn't survive the ordeal. And yet, there were some cases of isolated men that would continue to fight for decades even, unaware that the war had already ended.  As we last saw, after the Japanese surrender, General MacArthur's forces began the occupation of the Japanese home islands, while their overseas empire was being dismantled by the Allies. To handle civil administration, MacArthur established the Military Government Section, commanded by Brigadier-General William Crist, staffed by hundreds of US experts trained in civil governance who were reassigned from Okinawa and the Philippines. As the occupation began, Americans dispatched tactical units and Military Government Teams to each prefecture to ensure that policies were faithfully carried out. By mid-September, General Eichelberger's 8th Army had taken over the Tokyo Bay region and began deploying to occupy Hokkaido and the northern half of Honshu. Then General Krueger's 6th Army arrived in late September, taking southern Honshu and Shikoku, with its base in Kyoto. In December, 6th Army was relieved of its occupation duties; in January 1946, it was deactivated, leaving the 8th Army as the main garrison force. By late 1945, about 430,000 American soldiers were garrisoned across Japan. President Truman approved inviting Allied involvement on American terms, with occupation armies integrated into a US command structure. Yet with the Chinese civil war and Russia's reluctance to place its forces under MacArthur's control, only Australia, Britain, India, and New Zealand sent brigades, more than 40,000 troops in southwestern Japan. Japanese troops were gradually disarmed by order of their own commanders, so the stigma of surrender would be less keenly felt by the individual soldier. In the homeland, about 1.5 million men were discharged and returned home by the end of August. Demobilization overseas, however, proceeded, not quickly, but as a long, difficult process of repatriation. In compliance with General Order No. 1, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters disbanded on September 13 and was superseded by the Japanese War Department to manage demobilization. By November 1, the homeland had demobilized 2,228,761 personnel, roughly 97% of the Homeland Army. Yet some 6,413,215 men remained to be repatriated from overseas. On December 1, the Japanese War Ministry dissolved, and the First Demobilization Ministry took its place. The Second Demobilization Ministry was established to handle IJN demobilization, with 1,299,868 sailors, 81% of the Navy, demobilized by December 17. Japanese warships and merchant ships had their weapons rendered inoperative, and suicide craft were destroyed. Forty percent of naval vessels were allocated to evacuations in the Philippines, and 60% to evacuations of other Pacific islands. This effort eventually repatriated about 823,984 men to Japan by February 15, 1946. As repatriation accelerated, by October 15 only 1,909,401 men remained to be repatriated, most of them in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the Higashikuni Cabinet and Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru managed to persuade MacArthur not to impose direct military rule or martial law over all of Japan. Instead, the occupation would be indirect, guided by the Japanese government under the Emperor's direction. An early decision to feed occupation forces from American supplies, and to allow the Japanese to use their own limited food stores, helped ease a core fear: that Imperial forces would impose forced deliveries on the people they conquered. On September 17, MacArthur transferred his headquarters from Yokohama to Tokyo, setting up primary offices on the sixth floor of the Dai-Ichi Mutual Life Insurance Building, an imposing edifice overlooking the moat and the Imperial palace grounds in Hibiya, a symbolic heart of the nation.  While the average soldier did not fit the rapacious image of wartime Japanese propagandists, occupation personnel often behaved like neo-colonial overlords. The conquerors claimed privileges unimaginable to most Japanese. Entire trains and train compartments, fitted with dining cars, were set aside for the exclusive use of occupation forces. These silenced, half-empty trains sped past crowded platforms, provoking ire as Japanese passengers were forced to enter and exit packed cars through punched-out windows, or perch on carriage roofs, couplings, and running boards, often with tragic consequences. The luxury express coaches became irresistible targets for anonymous stone-throwers. During the war, retrenchment measures had closed restaurants, cabarets, beer halls, geisha houses, and theatres in Tokyo and other large cities. Now, a vast leisure industry sprang up to cater to the needs of the foreign occupants. Reopened restaurants and theatres, along with train stations, buses, and streetcars, were sometimes kept off limits to Allied personnel, partly for security, partly to avoid burdening Japanese resources, but a costly service infrastructure was built to the occupiers' specifications. Facilities reserved for occupation troops bore large signs reading “Japanese Keep Out” or “For Allied Personnel Only.” In downtown Tokyo, important public buildings requisitioned for occupation use had separate entrances for Americans and Japanese. The effect? A subtle but clear colour bar between the predominantly white conquerors and the conquered “Asiatic” Japanese. Although MacArthur was ready to work through the Japanese government, he lacked the organizational infrastructure to administer a nation of 74 million. Consequently, on October 2, MacArthur dissolved the Military Government Section and inaugurated General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, a separate headquarters focused on civil affairs and operating in tandem with the Army high command. SCAP immediately assumed responsibility for administering the Japanese home islands. It commandeered every large building not burned down to house thousands of civilians and requisitioned vast tracts of prime real estate to quarter several hundred thousand troops in the Tokyo–Yokohama area alone. Amidst the rise of American privilege, entire buildings were refurbished as officers' clubs, replete with slot machines and gambling parlours installed at occupation expense. The Stars and Stripes were hoisted over Tokyo, while the display of the Rising Sun was banned; and the downtown area, known as “Little America,” was transformed into a US enclave. The enclave mentality of this cocooned existence was reinforced by the arrival within the first six months of roughly 700 American families. At the peak of the occupation, about 14,800 families employed some 25,000 Japanese servants to ease the “rigours” of overseas duty. Even enlisted men in the sparse quonset-hut towns around the city lived like kings compared with ordinary Japanese. Japanese workers cleaned barracks, did kitchen chores, and handled other base duties. The lowest private earned a 25% hardship bonus until these special allotments were discontinued in 1949. Most military families quickly adjusted to a pampered lifestyle that went beyond maids and “boys,” including cooks, laundresses, babysitters, gardeners, and masseuses. Perks included spacious quarters with swimming pools, central heating, hot running water, and modern plumbing. Two observers compared GHQ to the British Raj at its height. George F. Kennan, head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, warned during his 1948 mission to Japan that Americans had monopolized “everything that smacks of comfort or elegance or luxury,” criticizing what he called the “American brand of philistinism” and the “monumental imperviousness” of MacArthur's staff to the Japanese suffering. This conqueror's mentality also showed in the bullying attitudes many top occupation officials displayed toward the Japanese with whom they dealt. Major Faubion Bowers, MacArthur's military secretary, later said, “I and nearly all the occupation people I knew were extremely conceited and extremely arrogant and used our power every inch of the way.” Initially, there were spasms of defiance against the occupation forces, such as anonymous stone-throwing, while armed robbery and minor assaults against occupation personnel were rife in the weeks and months after capitulation. Yet active resistance was neither widespread nor organized. The Americans successfully completed their initial deployment without violence, an astonishing feat given a heavily armed and vastly superior enemy operating on home terrain. The average citizen regarded the occupation as akin to force majeure, the unfortunate but inevitable aftermath of a natural calamity. Japan lay prostrate. Industrial output had fallen to about 10% of pre-war levels, and as late as 1946, more than 13 million remained unemployed. Nearly 40% of Japan's urban areas had been turned to rubble, and some 9 million people were homeless. The war-displaced, many of them orphans, slept in doorways and hallways, in bombed-out ruins, dugouts and packing crates, under bridges or on pavements, and crowded the hallways of train and subway stations. As winter 1945 descended, with food, fuel, and clothing scarce, people froze to death. Bonfires lit the streets to ward off the chill. "The only warm hands I have shaken thus far in Japan belonged to Americans," Mark Gayn noted in December 1945. "The Japanese do not have much of a chance to thaw out, and their hands are cold and red." Unable to afford shoes, many wore straw sandals; those with geta felt themselves privileged. The sight of a man wearing a woman's high-buttoned shoes in winter epitomized the daily struggle to stay dry and warm. Shantytowns built of scrap wood, rusted metal, and scavenged odds and ends sprang up everywhere, resembling vast junk yards. The poorest searched smouldering refuse heaps for castoffs that might be bartered for a scrap to eat or wear. Black markets (yami'ichi) run by Japanese, Koreans, and For-mosans mushroomed to replace collapsed distribution channels and cash in on inflated prices. Tokyo became "a world of scarcity in which every nail, every rag, and even a tangerine peel [had a] market value." Psychologically numbed, disoriented, and disillusioned with their leaders, demobilized veterans and civilians alike struggled to get their bearings, shed militaristic ideologies, and begin to embrace new values. In the vacuum of defeat, the Japanese people appeared ready to reject the past and grasp at the straw held out by the former enemy. Relations between occupier and occupied were not smooth, however. American troops comported themselves like conquerors, especially in the early weeks and months of occupation. Much of the violence was directed against women, with the first attacks beginning within hours after the landing of advance units. When US paratroopers landed in Sapporo, an orgy of looting, sexual violence, and drunken brawling ensued. Newspaper accounts reported 931 serious offences by GIs in the Yokohama area during the first week of occupation, including 487 armed robberies, 411 thefts of currency or goods, 9 rapes, 5 break-ins, 3 cases of assault and battery, and 16 other acts of lawlessness. In the first 10 days of occupation, there were 1,336 reported rapes by US soldiers in Kanagawa Prefecture alone. Americans were not the only perpetrators. A former prostitute recalled that when Australian troops arrived in Kure in early 1946, they “dragged young women into their jeeps, took them to the mountain, and then raped them. I heard them screaming for help nearly every night.” Such behaviour was commonplace, but news of criminal activity by occupation forces was quickly suppressed. On September 10, 1945, SCAP issued press and pre-censorship codes outlawing the publication of reports and statistics "inimical to the objectives of the occupation." In the sole instance of self-help General Eichelberger records in his memoirs, when locals formed a vigilante group and retaliated against off-duty GIs, 8th Army ordered armored vehicles into the streets and arrested the ringleaders, who received lengthy prison terms. Misbehavior ranged from black-market activity, petty theft, reckless driving, and disorderly conduct to vandalism, arson, murder, and rape. Soldiers and sailors often broke the law with impunity, and incidents of robbery, rape, and even murder were widely reported. Gang rapes and other sex atrocities were not infrequent; victims, shunned as outcasts, sometimes turned to prostitution in desperation, while others took their own lives to avoid bringing shame to their families. Military courts arrested relatively few soldiers for these offenses and convicted even fewer; Japanese attempts at self-defense were punished severely, and restitution for victims was rare. Fearing the worst, Japanese authorities had already prepared countermeasures against the supposed rapacity of foreign soldiers. Imperial troops in East Asia and the Pacific had behaved brutally toward women, so the government established “sexual comfort-stations” manned by geisha, bar hostesses, and prostitutes to “satisfy the lust of the Occupation forces,” as the Higashikuni Cabinet put it. A budget of 100 million yen was set aside for these Recreation and Amusement Associations, financed initially with public funds but run as private enterprises under police supervision. Through these, the government hoped to protect the daughters of the well-born and middle class by turning to lower-class women to satisfy the soldiers' sexual appetites. By the end of 1945, brothel operators had rounded up an estimated 20,000 young women and herded them into RAA establishments nationwide. Eventually, as many as 70,000 are said to have ended up in the state-run sex industry. Thankfully, as military discipline took hold and fresh troops replaced the Allied veterans responsible for the early crime wave, violence subsided and the occupier's patronising behavior and the ugly misdeeds of a lawless few were gradually overlooked. However, fraternisation was frowned upon by both sides, and segregation was practiced in principle, with the Japanese excluded from areas reserved for Allied personnel until September 1949, when MacArthur lifted virtually all restrictions on friendly association, stating that he was “establishing the same relations between occupation personnel and the Japanese population as exists between troops stationed in the United States and the American people.” In principle, the Occupation's administrative structure was highly complex. The Far Eastern Commission, based in Washington, included representatives from all 13 countries that had fought against Japan and was established in 1946 to formulate basic principles. The Allied Council for Japan was created in the same year to assist in developing and implementing surrender terms and in administering the country. It consisted of representatives from the USA, the USSR, Nationalist China, and the British Commonwealth. Although both bodies were active at first, they were largely ineffectual due to unwieldy decision-making, disagreements between the national delegations (especially the USA and USSR), and the obstructionism of General Douglas MacArthur. In practice, SCAP, the executive authority of the occupation, effectively ruled Japan from 1945 to 1952. And since it took orders only from the US government, the Occupation became primarily an American affair. The US occupation program, effectively carried out by SCAP, was revolutionary and rested on a two-pronged approach. To ensure Japan would never again become a menace to the United States or to world peace, SCAP pursued disarmament and demilitarization, with continuing control over Japan's capacity to make war. This involved destroying military supplies and installations, demobilizing more than five million Japanese soldiers, and thoroughly discrediting the military establishment. Accordingly, SCAP ordered the purge of tens of thousands of designated persons from public service positions, including accused war criminals, military officers, leaders of ultranationalist societies, leaders in the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, business leaders tied to overseas expansion, governors of former Japanese colonies, and national leaders who had steered Japan into war. In addition, MacArthur's International Military Tribunal for the Far East established a military court in Tokyo. It had jurisdiction over those charged with Class A crimes, top leaders who had planned and directed the war. Also considered were Class B charges, covering conventional war crimes, and Class C charges, covering crimes against humanity. Yet the military court in Tokyo wouldn't be the only one. More than 5,700 lower-ranking personnel were charged with conventional war crimes in separate trials convened by Australia, China, France, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Of the 5,700 Japanese individuals indicted for Class B war crimes, 984 were sentenced to death; 475 received life sentences; 2,944 were given more limited prison terms; 1,018 were acquitted; and 279 were never brought to trial or not sentenced. Among these, many, like General Ando Rikichi and Lieutenant-General Nomi Toshio, chose to commit suicide before facing prosecution. Notable cases include Lieutenant-General Tani Hisao, who was sentenced to death by the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal for his role in the Nanjing Massacre; Lieutenant-General Sakai Takashi, who was executed in Nanjing for the murder of British and Chinese civilians during the occupation of Hong Kong. General Okamura Yasuji was convicted of war crimes by the Tribunal, yet he was immediately protected by the personal order of Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek, who kept him as a military adviser for the Kuomintang. In the Manila trials, General Yamashita Tomoyuki was sentenced to death as he was in overall command during the Sook Ching massacre, the Rape of Manila, and other atrocities. Lieutenant-General Homma Masaharu was likewise executed in Manila for atrocities committed by troops under his command during the Bataan Death March. General Imamura Hitoshi was sentenced to ten years in prison, but he considered the punishment too light and even had a replica of the prison built in his garden, remaining there until his death in 1968. Lieutenant-General Kanda Masatane received a 14-year sentence for war crimes on Bougainville, though he served only four years. Lieutenant-General Adachi Hatazo was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes in New Guinea and subsequently committed suicide on September 10, 1947. Lieutenant-General Teshima Fusataro received three years of forced labour for using a hospital ship to transport troops. Lieutenant-General Baba Masao was sentenced to death for ordering the Sandakan Death Marches, during which over 2,200 Australian and British prisoners of war perished. Lieutenant-General Tanabe Moritake was sentenced to death by a Dutch military tribunal for unspecified war crimes. Rear-Admiral Sakaibara Shigematsu was executed in Guam for ordering the Wake Island massacre, in which 98 American civilians were murdered. Lieutenant-General Inoue Sadae was condemned to death in Guam for permitting subordinates to execute three downed American airmen captured in Palau, though his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1951 and he was released in 1953. Lieutenant-General Tachibana Yoshio was sentenced to death in Guam for his role in the Chichijima Incident, in which eight American airmen were cannibalized. By mid-1945, due to the Allied naval blockade, the 25,000 Japanese troops on Chichijima had run low on supplies. However, although the daily rice ration had been reduced from 400 grams per person per day to 240 grams, the troops were not at risk of starvation. In February and March 1945, in what would later be called the Chichijima incident, Tachibana Yoshio's senior staff turned to cannibalism. Nine American airmen had escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids on Chichijima, eight of whom were captured. The ninth, the only one to evade capture, was future US President George H. W. Bush, then a 20-year-old pilot. Over several months, the prisoners were executed, and reportedly by the order of Major Matoba Sueyo, their bodies were butchered by the division's medical orderlies, with the livers and other organs consumed by the senior staff, including Matoba's superior Tachibana. In the Yokohama War Crimes Trials, Lieutenant-Generals Inada Masazumi and Yokoyama Isamu were convicted for their complicity in vivisection and other human medical experiments performed at Kyushu Imperial University on downed Allied airmen. The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, which began in May 1946 and lasted two and a half years, resulted in the execution by hanging of Generals Doihara Kenji and Itagaki Seishiro, and former Prime Ministers Hirota Koki and Tojo Hideki, for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace, specifically for the escalation of the Pacific War and for permitting the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war. Also sentenced to death were Lieutenant-General Muto Akira for his role in the Nanjing and Manila massacres; General Kimura Heitaro for planning the war strategy in China and Southeast Asia and for laxity in preventing atrocities against prisoners of war in Burma; and General Matsui Iwane for his involvement in the Rape of Nanjing. The seven defendants who were sentenced to death were executed at Sugamo Prison in Ikebukuro on December 23, 1948. Sixteen others were sentenced to life imprisonment, including the last Field Marshal Hata Shunroku, Generals Araki Sadao, Minami Hiro, and Umezu Shojiro, Admiral Shimada Shigetaro, former Prime Ministers Hiranuma Kiichiro and Koiso Kuniaki, Marquis Kido Koichi, and Colonel Hashimoto Kingoro, a major instigator of the second Sino-Japanese War. Additionally, former Foreign Ministers Togo Shigenori and Shigemitsu Mamoru received seven- and twenty-year sentences, respectively. The Soviet Union and Chinese Communist forces also held trials of Japanese war criminals, including the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials, which tried and found guilty some members of Japan's bacteriological and chemical warfare unit known as Unit 731. However, those who surrendered to the Americans were never brought to trial, as MacArthur granted immunity to Lieutenant-General Ishii Shiro and all members of the bacteriological research units in exchange for germ-w warfare data derived from human experimentation. If you would like to learn more about what I like to call Japan's Operation Paper clip, whereupon the US grabbed many scientists from Unit 731, check out my exclusive podcast. The SCAP-turn to democratization began with the drafting of a new constitution in 1947, addressing Japan's enduring feudal social structure. In the charter, sovereignty was vested in the people, and the emperor was designated a “symbol of the state and the unity of the people, deriving his position from the will of the people in whom resides sovereign power.” Because the emperor now possessed fewer powers than European constitutional monarchs, some have gone so far as to say that Japan became “a republic in fact if not in name.” Yet the retention of the emperor was, in fact, a compromise that suited both those who wanted to preserve the essence of the nation for stability and those who demanded that the emperor system, though not necessarily the emperor, should be expunged. In line with the democratic spirit of the new constitution, the peerage was abolished and the two-chamber Diet, to which the cabinet was now responsible, became the highest organ of state. The judiciary was made independent and local autonomy was granted in vital areas of jurisdiction such as education and the police. Moreover, the constitution stipulated that “the people shall not be prevented from enjoying any of the fundamental human rights,” that they “shall be respected as individuals,” and that “their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness shall … be the supreme consideration in legislation.” Its 29 articles guaranteed basic human rights: equality, freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin, freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Finally, in its most controversial section, Article 9, the “peace clause,” Japan “renounce[d] war as a sovereign right of the nation” and vowed not to maintain any military forces and “other war potential.” To instill a thoroughly democratic ethos, reforms touched every facet of society. The dissolution of the zaibatsu decentralised economic power; the 1945 Labour Union Law and the 1946 Labour Relations Act guaranteed workers the right to collective action; the 1947 Labour Standards Law established basic working standards for men and women; and the revised Civil Code of 1948 abolished the patriarchal household and enshrined sexual equality. Reflecting core American principles, SCAP introduced a 6-3-3 schooling system, six years of compulsory elementary education, three years of junior high, and an optional three years of senior high, along with the aim of secular, locally controlled education. More crucially, ideological reform followed: censorship of feudal material in media, revision of textbooks, and prohibition of ideas glorifying war, dying for the emperor, or venerating war heroes. With women enfranchised and young people shaped to counter militarism and ultranationalism, rural Japan was transformed to undermine lingering class divisions. The land reform program provided for the purchase of all land held by absentee landlords, allowed resident landlords and owner-farmers to retain a set amount of land, and required that the remaining land be sold to the government so it could be offered to existing tenants. In 1948, amid the intensifying tensions of the Cold War that would soon culminate in the Korean War, the occupation's focus shifted from demilitarization and democratization toward economic rehabilitation and, ultimately, the remilitarization of Japan, an shift now known as the “Reverse Course.” The country was thus rebuilt as the Pacific region's primary bulwark against the spread of Communism. An Economic Stabilisation Programme was introduced, including a five-year plan to coordinate production and target capital through the Reconstruction Finance Bank. In 1949, the anti-inflationary Dodge Plan was adopted, advocating balanced budgets, fixing the exchange rate at 360 yen to the dollar, and ending broad government intervention. Additionally, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry was formed and supported the formation of conglomerates centered around banks, which encouraged the reemergence of a somewhat weakened set of zaibatsu, including Mitsui and Mitsubishi. By the end of the Occupation era, Japan was on the verge of surpassing its 1934–1936 levels of economic growth. Equally important was Japan's rearmament in alignment with American foreign policy: a National Police Reserve of about 75,000 was created with the outbreak of the Korean War; by 1952 it had expanded to 110,000 and was renamed the Self-Defense Force after the inclusion of an air force. However, the Reverse Course also facilitated the reestablishment of conservative politics and the rollback of gains made by women and the reforms of local autonomy and education. As the Occupation progressed, the Americans permitted greater Japanese initiative, and power gradually shifted from the reformers to the moderates. By 1949, the purge of the right came under review, and many who had been condemned began returning to influence, if not to the Diet, then to behind-the-scenes power. At the same time, Japanese authorities, with MacArthur's support, began purging left-wing activists. In June 1950, for example, the central office of the Japan Communist Party and the editorial board of The Red Flag were purged. The gains made by women also seemed to be reversed. Women were elected to 8% of available seats in the first lower-house election in 1946, but to only 2% in 1952, a trend not reversed until the so-called Madonna Boom of the 1980s. Although the number of women voting continued to rise, female politicisation remained more superficial than might be imagined. Women's employment also appeared little affected by labour legislation: though women formed nearly 40% of the labor force in 1952, they earned only 45% as much as men. Indeed, women's attitudes toward labor were influenced less by the new ethos of fulfilling individual potential than by traditional views of family and workplace responsibilities. In the areas of local autonomy and education, substantial modifications were made to the reforms. Because local authorities lacked sufficient power to tax, they were unable to realise their extensive powers, and, as a result, key responsibilities were transferred back to national jurisdiction. In 1951, for example, 90% of villages and towns placed their police forces under the control of the newly formed National Police Agency. Central control over education was also gradually reasserted; in 1951, the Yoshida government attempted to reintroduce ethics classes, proposed tighter central oversight of textbooks, and recommended abolishing local school board elections. By the end of the decade, all these changes had been implemented. The Soviet occupation of the Kurile Islands and the Habomai Islets was completed with Russian troops fully deployed by September 5. Immediately after the onset of the occupation, amid a climate of insecurity and fear marked by reports of sporadic rape and physical assault and widespread looting by occupying troops, an estimated 4,000 islanders fled to Hokkaido rather than face an uncertain repatriation. As Soviet forces moved in, they seized or destroyed telephone and telegraph installations and halted ship movements into and out of the islands, leaving residents without adequate food and other winter provisions. Yet, unlike Manchuria, where Japanese civilians faced widespread sexual violence and pillage, systematic violence against the civilian population on the Kuriles appears to have been exceptional. A series of military government proclamations assured islanders of safety so long as they did not resist Soviet rule and carried on normally; however, these orders also prohibited activities not explicitly authorized by the Red Army, which imposed many hardships on civilians. Residents endured harsh conditions under Soviet rule until late 1948, when Japanese repatriation out of the Kurils was completed. The Kuriles posed a special diplomatic problem, as the occupation of the southernmost islands—the Northern Territories—ignited a long-standing dispute between Tokyo and Moscow that continues to impede the normalisation of relations today. Although the Kuriles were promised to the Soviet Union in the Yalta agreement, Japan and the United States argued that this did not apply to the Northern Territories, since they were not part of the Kurile Islands. A substantial dispute regarding the status of the Kurile Islands arose between the United States and the Soviet Union during the preparation of the Treaty of San Francisco, which was intended as a permanent peace treaty between Japan and the Allied Powers of World War II. The treaty was ultimately signed by 49 nations in San Francisco on September 8, 1951, and came into force on April 28, 1952. It ended Japan's role as an imperial power, allocated compensation to Allied nations and former prisoners of war who had suffered Japanese war crimes, ended the Allied post-war occupation of Japan, and returned full sovereignty to Japan. Effectively, the document officially renounced Japan's treaty rights derived from the Boxer Protocol of 1901 and its rights to Korea, Formosa and the Pescadores, the Kurile Islands, the Spratly Islands, Antarctica, and South Sakhalin. Japan's South Seas Mandate, namely the Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, and Caroline Islands, had already been formally revoked by the United Nations on July 18, 1947, making the United States responsible for administration of those islands under a UN trusteeship agreement that established the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. In turn, the Bonin, Volcano, and Ryukyu Islands were progressively restored to Japan between 1953 and 1972, along with the Senkaku Islands, which were disputed by both Communist and Nationalist China. In addition, alongside the Treaty of San Francisco, Japan and the United States signed a Security Treaty that established a long-lasting military alliance between them. Although Japan renounced its rights to the Kuriles, the U.S. State Department later clarified that “the Habomai Islands and Shikotan ... are properly part of Hokkaido and that Japan is entitled to sovereignty over them,” hence why the Soviets refused to sign the treaty. Britain and the United States agreed that territorial rights would not be granted to nations that did not sign the Treaty of San Francisco, and as a result the Kurile Islands were not formally recognized as Soviet territory. A separate peace treaty, the Treaty of Taipei (formally the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty), was signed in Taipei on April 28, 1952 between Japan and the Kuomintang, and on June 9 of that year the Treaty of Peace Between Japan and India followed. Finally, Japan and the Soviet Union ended their formal state of war with the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, though this did not settle the Kurile Islands dispute. Even after these formal steps, Japan as a nation was not in a formal state of war, and many Japanese continued to believe the war was ongoing; those who held out after the surrender came to be known as Japanese holdouts.  Captain Oba Sakae and his medical company participated in the Saipan campaign beginning on July 7, 1944, and took part in what would become the largest banzai charge of the Pacific War. After 15 hours of intense hand-to-hand combat, almost 4,300 Japanese soldiers were dead, and Oba and his men were presumed among them. In reality, however, he survived the battle and gradually assumed command of over a hundred additional soldiers. Only five men from his original unit survived the battle, two of whom died in the following months. Oba then led over 200 Japanese civilians deeper into the jungles to evade capture, organizing them into mountain caves and hidden jungle villages. When the soldiers were not assisting the civilians with survival tasks, Oba and his men continued their battle against the garrison of US Marines. He used the 1,552‑ft Mount Tapochau as their primary base, which offered an unobstructed 360-degree view of the island. From their base camp on the western slope of the mountain, Oba and his men occasionally conducted guerrilla-style raids on American positions. Due to the speed and stealth of these operations, and the Marines' frustrated attempts to find him, the Saipan Marines eventually referred to Oba as “The Fox.” Oba and his men held out on the island for 512 days, or about 16 months. On November 27, 1945, former Major-General Amo Umahachi was able to draw out some of the Japanese in hiding by singing the anthem of the Japanese infantry branch. Amo was then able to present documents from the defunct IGHQ to Oba ordering him and his 46 remaining men to surrender themselves to the Americans. On December 1, the Japanese soldiers gathered on Tapochau and sang a song of departure to the spirits of the war dead; Oba led his people out of the jungle and they presented themselves to the Marines of the 18th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Company. With great formality and commensurate dignity, Oba surrendered his sword to Lieutenant Colonel Howard G. Kirgis, and his men surrendered their arms and colors. On January 2, 1946, 20 Japanese soldiers hiding in a tunnel at Corregidor Island surrendered after learning the war had ended from a newspaper found while collecting water. In that same month, 120 Japanese were routed after a battle in the mountains 150 miles south of Manila. In April, during a seven-week campaign to clear Lubang Island, 41 more Japanese emerged from the jungle, unaware that the war had ended; however, a group of four Japanese continued to resist. In early 1947, Lieutenant Yamaguchi Ei and his band of 33 soldiers renewed fighting with the small Marine garrison on Peleliu, prompting reinforcements under Rear-Admiral Charles Pownall to be brought to the island to hunt down the guerrilla group. Along with them came former Rear-Admiral Sumikawa Michio, who ultimately convinced Yamaguchi to surrender in April after almost three years of guerrilla warfare. Also in April, seven Japanese emerged from Palawan Island and fifteen armed stragglers emerged from Luzon. In January 1948, 200 troops surrendered on Mindanao; and on May 12, the Associated Press reported that two unnamed Japanese soldiers had surrendered to civilian policemen in Guam the day before. On January 6, 1949, two former IJN soldiers, machine gunners Matsudo Rikio and Yamakage Kufuku, were discovered on Iwo Jima and surrendered peacefully. In March 1950, Private Akatsu Yūichi surrendered in the village of Looc, leaving only three Japanese still resisting on Lubang. By 1951 a group of Japanese on Anatahan Island refused to believe that the war was over and resisted every attempt by the Navy to remove them. This group was first discovered in February 1945, when several Chamorros from Saipan were sent to the island to recover the bodies of a Saipan-based B-29. The Chamorros reported that there were about thirty Japanese survivors from three ships sunk in June 1944, one of which was an Okinawan woman. Personal aggravations developed from the close confines of a small group on a small island and from tuba drinking; among the holdouts, 6 of 11 deaths were the result of violence, and one man displayed 13 knife wounds. The presence of only one woman, Higa Kazuko, caused considerable difficulty as she would transfer her affections among at least four men after each of them mysteriously disappeared, purportedly “swallowed by the waves while fishing.” According to the more sensational versions of the Anatahan tale, 11 of the 30 navy sailors stranded on the island died due to violent struggles over her affections. In July 1950, Higa went to the beach when an American vessel appeared offshore and finally asked to be removed from the island. She was taken to Saipan aboard the Miss Susie and, upon arrival, told authorities that the men on the island did not believe the war was over. As the Japanese government showed interest in the situation on Anatahan, the families of the holdouts were contacted in Japan and urged by the Navy to write letters stating that the war was over and that the holdouts should surrender. The letters were dropped by air on June 26 and ultimately convinced the holdouts to give themselves up. Thus, six years after the end of World War II, “Operation Removal” commenced from Saipan under the command of Lt. Commander James B. Johnson, USNR, aboard the Navy Tug USS Cocopa. Johnson and an interpreter went ashore by rubber boat and formally accepted the surrender on the morning of June 30, 1951. The Anatahan femme fatale story later inspired the 1953 Japanese film Anatahan and the 1998 novel Cage on the Sea. In 1953, Murata Susumu, the last holdout on Tinian, was finally captured. The next year, on May 7, Corporal Sumada Shoichi was killed in a clash with Filipino soldiers, leaving only two Japanese still resisting on Lubang. In November 1955, Seaman Kinoshita Noboru was captured in the Luzon jungle but soon after committed suicide rather than “return to Japan in defeat.” That same year, four Japanese airmen surrendered at Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea; and in 1956, nine soldiers were located and sent home from Morotai, while four men surrendered on Mindoro. In May 1960, Sergeant Ito Masashi became one of the last Japanese to surrender at Guam after the capture of his comrade Private Minagawa Bunzo, but the final surrender at Guam would come later with Sergeant Yokoi Shoichi. Sergeant Yokoi Shoichi survived in the jungles of Guam by living for years in an elaborately dug hole, subsisting on snails and lizards, a fate that, while undignified, showcased his ingenuity and resilience and earned him a warm welcome on his return to Japan. His capture was not heroic in the traditional sense: he was found half-starving by a group of villagers while foraging for shrimp in a stream, and the broader context included his awareness as early as 1952 that the war had ended. He explained that the wartime bushido code, emphasizing self-sacrifice or suicide rather than self-preservation, had left him fearing that repatriation would label him a deserter and likely lead to execution. Emerging from the jungle, Yokoi also became a vocal critic of Japan's wartime leadership, including Emperor Hirohito, which fits a view of him as a product of, and a prisoner within, his own education, military training, and the censorship and propaganda of the era. When asked by a young nephew how he survived so long on an island just a short distance from a major American airbase, he replied simply, “I was really good at hide and seek.”  That same year, Private Kozuka Kinshichi was killed in a shootout with Philippine police in October, leaving Lieutenant Onoda Hiroo still resisting on Lubang. Lieutenant Onoda Hiroo had been on Lubang since 1944, a few months before the Americans retook the Philippines. The last instructions he had received from his immediate superior ordered him to retreat to the interior of the island and harass the Allied occupying forces until the IJA eventually returned. Despite efforts by the Philippine Army, letters and newspapers left for him, radio broadcasts, and even a plea from Onoda's brother, he did not believe the war was over. On February 20, 1974, Onoda encountered a young Japanese university dropout named Suzuki Norio, who was traveling the world and had told friends that he planned to “look for Lieutenant Onoda, a panda, and the abominable snowman, in that order.” The two became friends, but Onoda stated that he was waiting for orders from one of his commanders. On March 9, 1974, Onoda went to an agreed-upon place and found a note left by Suzuki. Suzuki had brought along Onoda's former commander, Major Taniguchi, who delivered the oral orders for Onoda to surrender. Intelligence Officer 2nd Lt. Onoda Hiroo thus emerged from Lubang's jungle with his .25 caliber rifle, 500 rounds of ammunition, and several hand grenades. He surrendered 29 years after Japan's formal surrender, and 15 years after being declared legally dead in Japan. When he accepted that the war was over, he wept openly. He received a hero's welcome upon his return to Japan in 1974. The Japanese government offered him a large sum of money in back pay, which he refused. When money was pressed on him by well-wishers, he donated it to Yasukuni Shrine. Onoda was reportedly unhappy with the attention and what he saw as the withering of traditional Japanese values. He wrote No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War, a best-selling autobiography published in 1974. Yet the last Japanese to surrender would be Private Nakamura Teruo, an Amis aborigine from Formosa and a member of the Takasago Volunteers. Private Nakamura Teruo spent the tail end of World War II with a dwindling band on Morotai, repeatedly dispersing and reassembling in the jungle as they hunted for food. The group suffered continuous losses to starvation and disease, and survivors described Nakamura as highly self-sufficient. He left to live alone somewhere in the Morotai highlands between 1946 and 1947, rejoined the main group in 1950, and then disappeared again a few years later. Nakamura hinted in print that he fled into the jungle because he feared the other holdouts might murder him. He survives for decades beyond the war, eventually being found by 11 Indonesian soldiers. The emergence of an indigenous Taiwanese soldier among the search party embarrassed Japan as it sought to move past its imperial past. Many Japanese felt Nakamura deserved compensation for decades of loyalty, only to learn that his back pay for three decades of service amounted to 68,000 yen.   Nakamura's experience of peace was complex. When a journalist asked how he felt about “wasting” three decades of his life on Morotai, he replied that the years had not been wasted; he had been serving his country. Yet the country he returned to was Taiwan, and upon disembarking in Taipei in early January 1975, he learned that his wife had a son he had never met and that she had remarried a decade after his official death. Nakamura eventually lived with a daughter, and his story concluded with a bittersweet note when his wife reconsidered and reconciled with him. Several Japanese soldiers joined local Communist and insurgent groups after the war to avoid surrender. Notably, in 1956 and 1958, two soldiers returned to Japan after service in China's People's Liberation Army. Two others who defected with a larger group to the Malayan Communist Party around 1945 laid down their arms in 1989 and repatriated the next year, becoming among the last to return home. That is all for today, but fear not I will provide a few more goodies over the next few weeks. I will be releasing some of my exclusive podcast episodes from my youtube membership and patreon that are about pacific war subjects. Like I promised the first one will be on why Emperor Hirohito surrendered. Until then if you need your fix you know where to find me: eastern front week by week, fall and rise of china, echoes of war or on my Youtube membership of patreon at www.patreon.com/pacificwarchannel.

Two sharply contrasting foreign policy visions emerged this week from China and the United States. In Beijing, President Xi Jinping outlined an agenda in talks with fellow BRICS leaders that directly challenged Donald Trump's “America First” doctrine, urging instead for stronger multilateral cooperation. Meanwhile in Washington, reports surfaced of a potential overhaul in U.S. security strategy, shifting the Pentagon's focus away from countering China abroad toward reinforcing defenses at home and across the Western Hemisphere. No other region around the world has as much at stake in this duel as Southeast Asia, effectively the frontline in the simmering great power rivalry. Dylan Loh, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a leading expert on Chinese foreign policy, joins Eric to discuss how Southeast Asian policymakers are responding to the mounting pressure coming from both Washington and Beijing. JOIN THE DISCUSSION: X: @ChinaGSProject | @eric_olander Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject YouTube: www.youtube.com/@ChinaGlobalSouth Now on Bluesky! Follow CGSP at @chinagsproject.bsky.social FOLLOW CGSP IN FRENCH: www.projetafriquechine.com | @AfrikChine JOIN US ON PATREON! Become a CGSP Patreon member and get all sorts of cool stuff, including our Week in Review report, an invitation to join monthly Zoom calls with Eric & Cobus, and even an awesome new CGSP Podcast mug! www.patreon.com/chinaglobalsouth

— Today we're diving deep into betrayal, infidelity, and the emotional aftermath. Why do people cheat—even when they love their partner? What drives repeated cheating or secret behavior? And most importantly, how can couples heal after trust is broken? Valeria interviews Nicola Beer, a relationship and trauma therapist with over 20 years of experience helping couples and individuals navigate infidelity recovery. Nicola believes that cheating is often a coping mechanism—sometimes even an addiction—and that full recovery is absolutely possible when both people are committed. Today she'll walk us through what really happens emotionally, psychologically, and relationally after betrayal—and how to heal from it. Nicola Beer is also a psychedelic retreat facilitator. She blends sacred plant medicine (primarily Huachuma/San Pedro), somatic therapy, and conscious relationship work to help individuals and couples heal emotional wounds, release stored pain, and reconnect to their inner truth. Nicola runs private healing retreats in Southeast Asia and hosts two podcast shows: Healing with Psychedelics and Relationship Revival. Her work focuses on turning trauma into transformation—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Podcast Healing with Psychedelics. To learn more about Nicola Beer and her work, please visit: https://nicolabeer.com/ and https://plantmedicinepower.com/ Also, check out Nicola's amazing offerings: — Affair recovery masterclass https://click.nicolabeer.com/trainingnicolabeercomaffair-recovery-coaching — Affair recovery pack https://training.nicolabeer.com/clarity

On April 13th, 2018, Nepali New Year's Eve, the University of Texas at Tyler revoked full-ride scholarships it had previously awarded to 60 Nepali students. The university described it as "an administrative oversight." But the global education community knew that it was an unprecedented admissions crisis. The scholarships, which included tuition as well as room and board, were revoked well after most other US university application deadlines had passed. Thus, Nepali students had already declined offers from other institutions they had previously applied to. The moment UT Tyler's mass email hit the inboxes of these high-need, high-performing students, some were already midway through the visa process to attend UT Tyler, and all had celebrated the momentous feat of a hard-earned Presidential Scholarship. In the days following, Selena Malla at USEF-Nepal, Kathmandu, issued a call on social media for help. After seeing a call for support from Selena, Joan Liu, a university advisor at the United World College of South East Asia, Singapore, stepped forward to help. Joan assembled a group of counselors from several corners of the world to form a volunteer crisis management team. Joan Liu is on the show to explain how we can step up this September to support Second Chance. Ready to learn more? https://www.secondchance.global/  

Felix Frenzel is the Founding Partner of Kadan Capital, a Singapore-headquartered early-stage venture capital firm backing category-defining startups across Southeast Asia and beyond. At Kadan, he focuses on high-impact companies in fintech and artificial intelligence, targeting ventures with strong early traction and potential for rapid scale.Before co-founding Kadan Capital, Felix built his expertise across investment management and strategy consulting. He was an Investment Manager at Antler, a leading global early-stage VC platform, and a strategy consultant at Bain & Company, where he advised top-tier clients on transformative growth strategies. Earlier in his career, he gained experience in public equity investing, adding depth to his financial acumen.Felix's passion for investing runs deep. At just sixteen, he launched a small fund focused on European equities—a first step that reflects both his entrepreneurial drive and early fascination with capital markets.He holds an MBA from INSEAD, an MSc in International Finance from HEC Paris, and a BSc in Economics from the University of Bonn.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixfrenzel/

Ryan and Emily discuss Trump threatens Chicago takeover, Trump blows up ship near Venezuela, judge orders Trump tariff refunds, Israel disappearing Gazans at aid sites, Trump fakes Epstein files release, Southeast Asia erupts in protest, voices of Gaza youth. Fox News is now reporting that the boy "Amir" Aguilar reported to have seen shot has been located unharmed. https://www.foxnews.com/world/exclusive-video-reveals-gaza-boy-said-killed-idf-alive To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grab is a rideshare service-turned superapp, not available in the US but rapidly growing in Southeast Asia. It's even outmaneuvered global players like Uber to reach a valuation north of $20 billion. Grab's co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan joins Rapid Response to share how the platform has successfully expanded into food delivery and fintech, while also investing in the future of electric vehicles and autonomous driving. For any leader looking to bolster their company culture to meet the moment, Tan shares how his team set in motion an ambitious project to study and creatively implement AI — channeling both the hunger and humility to win in a competitive and chaotic market.Visit the Rapid Response website here: https://www.rapidresponseshow.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.