Podcasts about southeast asian

Today, Josh is joined by Mythical Kitcheneer Lily Burrola and Mythical Intern Samara Chaplain to talk and taste some favorite Southeast Asian desserts. Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: youtube.com/@ahotdogisasandwich To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this week's basketball coaching conversation, Vietnam Men's National Team head coach Matt Van Pelt joins the Basketball Podcast to share his defensive shift from packline to forcing left.Matt Van Pelt is currently the Head Coach of the Vietnam Men's National Team, as well as the Hanoi Buffaloes, the reigning champions of the Vietnam Basketball Association. He now has basketball experience in 28 countries, having ran camps and clinics all over the world, and is also the owner of Van Pelt Sports Management and the co-owner of Pro Coaches Academy and The Performance Lab, in addition to being a FIBA Certified Head Coach in Vietnam.Matt has been in Vietnam on and off since 2017, where he is the winningest coach in the nation's history with a record of 81 wins and 16 losses between 2 leagues and with 2 organizations. Matt won 3 straight VBA championships & 3 straight Supporter's Cup Championships with the Saigon Heat, the country's oldest professional team. Matt also led the Saigon Heat to the 1-seed and a finals appearance in the Asean Basketball League, which formerly hosted 10 teams from 9 countries in Asia, for the first time in the organization's history in 2023.In addition to 5v5 ventures, Matt was also the Head Coach of the Vietnam 3x3 Men's National Team from 2022-24, where he won a VBA 3x3 championship, a silver medal in the 2022 Southeast Asian games, and pushed Vietnam to its best ever finish in the 2025 FIBA Asia.Matt is a former professional basketball player overseas, where he played as a point guard in 13 countries in 7 years. Before going overseas, Matt was a 4-year starter as a player at Spring Arbor University in Michigan, where he also won the nation's Pete Maravich Award.

After exposing the scam compounds and human trafficking behind today's fraud economy, we follow the money, the power, and the few pressure points—from crypto seizures to sanctions—that might actually help spell the end of Southeast Asian scam compounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By popular demand, Michael Smith Jr., co-host of The Generalist podcast, and Daniel Cerventus Lim, semi-retired entrepreneur and community builder in Malaysia, return for another candid deep-dive into Southeast Asia and India tech landscape. Fresh off India's record-breaking IPO wave that's drawing regional companies like Pine Labs to redomicile, they dissect what this exit boom means for a Southeast Asian ecosystem still struggling with venture returns. Michael delivers his characteristically unflinching take on why "the year of [insert country]" never materializes beyond Singapore and Indonesia, while making the provocative case that most VCs fundamentally misunderstand B2B distribution strategy—specifically how hyperscaler marketplaces like AWS and Microsoft provide the GTM playbook that separates successful exits from perennial fundraising. Daniel shares emerging insights from the SME acquisition space, revealing the stark reality that traditional businesses are "seeing black" while venture-backed startups continue "seeing red." Together, they debate whether we're witnessing an AI infrastructure bubble that will pop or simply taper, examine why Southeast Asia leads globally in AI adoption despite the disconnect with venture outcomes, and question the fragility of cloud infrastructure after recent AWS and CloudFlare outages. The conversation culminates in a sobering assessment: the region has achieved a remarkable $300 billion digital economy milestone, but the path forward may require accepting longer timelines, smaller profitable exits over unicorn dreams, and modernizing traditional businesses rather than building the next ByteDance."If you don't think we're gonna get there, then you should all get outta tech because we're gonna get there. And if you're gonna get there, we barely have the horsepower to do the Google Docs that we have today, let alone the world I just described." - Michael Smith JrOn AI Assistance - “If you can get 90% of the stuff done, I just need to say yes or no. And that is like my [ideal state]." - Daniel Cerventus Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quotes of the Day by Michael, Daniel & Bernard[02:12] Record India IPOs signal redomiciling trend from Singapore[03:53] Pine Labs exit provides significant Southeast Asia returns[04:41] Indonesia's venture funding freeze despite strong exit activity[11:29] Year of whatever narrative never materializes for any country in ASEAN[15:05] AI infrastructure bubble debate: does it pop or fizzle?[18:42] OpenAI's unprecedented growth speed creates new tech pantheon[21:00] Recent AWS and CloudFlare outages highlight infrastructure fragility[24:00] AI agents remain in early stages of development[28:00] Real-world robotics models still lack adequate data foundations[34:00] AppPoint's dual NASDAQ-SGX listing demonstrates successful B2B strategy[38:00] B2B marketplace strategy provides essential distribution for startups[44:00] Reflections on eConomySEA 10th Year Report 2025[53:00] SME market offers modernization opportunities with lower risk[54:00] Southeast Asia modernization surprises many American visitors[56:00] SME acquisition market shows profitability versus startup losses[57:00] ClosingProfile: Michael Smith Jr., Tech Evangelist from Oracle & Co-Host, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smittysgp/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGeneralistsPodcast Daniel Cerventus Lim, semi-retired entrepreneur, Community Builder in Malaysia and TEDxKL founder. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cerventus/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/80164351656Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

This episode features Dr. Kong Pheng Pha discussing his recently published book, Queering the Hmong Diaspora: Racial Subjectivity and the Myth of Hyperheterosexuality (U Washington Press, 2025).Queering the Hmong Diaspora dismantles narratives that frame Hmong communities as sexual deviant and reveals how legal cases, media representations, and legislative efforts have constructed Hmong Americans as hyperheterosexual and ungovernable subjects. This critical examination of how Hmong Americans are positioned within racial, gendered, and sexual discourses of liberalism, further explores the lived experiences of queer Hmong Americans, whose existence and activism challenge mainstream and ethnonationalist constructions of subjectivity. Addressing Hmong American gender and sexual politics through feminist, queer, and social justice lenses, Pha offers a critical framework for understanding how race and sexuality intersect in shaping the lives of minoritized refugee communities in the United States and beyond. Kong Pang Pa is an interdisciplinary scholar and educator whose academic research, writing, and public scholarship explores the histories and politics of refugee migration, radical queer, feminist, and anti-racist social movements, activism, and community organizing, legacies of U.S. war and empire, minoritized student experiences in the modern university, and Asian American racial, gender, sexual, and queer formations, with particular attention on Hmong and Southeast Asian communities in the United States. Presently, he is an assistant professor of Gender & Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Donna Doan Anderson is the Mellon research assistant professor in U.S. Law and Race at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

This episode features Dr. Kong Pheng Pha discussing his recently published book, Queering the Hmong Diaspora: Racial Subjectivity and the Myth of Hyperheterosexuality (U Washington Press, 2025).Queering the Hmong Diaspora dismantles narratives that frame Hmong communities as sexual deviant and reveals how legal cases, media representations, and legislative efforts have constructed Hmong Americans as hyperheterosexual and ungovernable subjects. This critical examination of how Hmong Americans are positioned within racial, gendered, and sexual discourses of liberalism, further explores the lived experiences of queer Hmong Americans, whose existence and activism challenge mainstream and ethnonationalist constructions of subjectivity. Addressing Hmong American gender and sexual politics through feminist, queer, and social justice lenses, Pha offers a critical framework for understanding how race and sexuality intersect in shaping the lives of minoritized refugee communities in the United States and beyond. Kong Pang Pa is an interdisciplinary scholar and educator whose academic research, writing, and public scholarship explores the histories and politics of refugee migration, radical queer, feminist, and anti-racist social movements, activism, and community organizing, legacies of U.S. war and empire, minoritized student experiences in the modern university, and Asian American racial, gender, sexual, and queer formations, with particular attention on Hmong and Southeast Asian communities in the United States. Presently, he is an assistant professor of Gender & Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Donna Doan Anderson is the Mellon research assistant professor in U.S. Law and Race at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 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

This episode features Dr. Kong Pheng Pha discussing his recently published book, Queering the Hmong Diaspora: Racial Subjectivity and the Myth of Hyperheterosexuality (U Washington Press, 2025).Queering the Hmong Diaspora dismantles narratives that frame Hmong communities as sexual deviant and reveals how legal cases, media representations, and legislative efforts have constructed Hmong Americans as hyperheterosexual and ungovernable subjects. This critical examination of how Hmong Americans are positioned within racial, gendered, and sexual discourses of liberalism, further explores the lived experiences of queer Hmong Americans, whose existence and activism challenge mainstream and ethnonationalist constructions of subjectivity. Addressing Hmong American gender and sexual politics through feminist, queer, and social justice lenses, Pha offers a critical framework for understanding how race and sexuality intersect in shaping the lives of minoritized refugee communities in the United States and beyond. Kong Pang Pa is an interdisciplinary scholar and educator whose academic research, writing, and public scholarship explores the histories and politics of refugee migration, radical queer, feminist, and anti-racist social movements, activism, and community organizing, legacies of U.S. war and empire, minoritized student experiences in the modern university, and Asian American racial, gender, sexual, and queer formations, with particular attention on Hmong and Southeast Asian communities in the United States. Presently, he is an assistant professor of Gender & Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Donna Doan Anderson is the Mellon research assistant professor in U.S. Law and Race at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

This episode features Dr. Kong Pheng Pha discussing his recently published book, Queering the Hmong Diaspora: Racial Subjectivity and the Myth of Hyperheterosexuality (U Washington Press, 2025).Queering the Hmong Diaspora dismantles narratives that frame Hmong communities as sexual deviant and reveals how legal cases, media representations, and legislative efforts have constructed Hmong Americans as hyperheterosexual and ungovernable subjects. This critical examination of how Hmong Americans are positioned within racial, gendered, and sexual discourses of liberalism, further explores the lived experiences of queer Hmong Americans, whose existence and activism challenge mainstream and ethnonationalist constructions of subjectivity. Addressing Hmong American gender and sexual politics through feminist, queer, and social justice lenses, Pha offers a critical framework for understanding how race and sexuality intersect in shaping the lives of minoritized refugee communities in the United States and beyond. Kong Pang Pa is an interdisciplinary scholar and educator whose academic research, writing, and public scholarship explores the histories and politics of refugee migration, radical queer, feminist, and anti-racist social movements, activism, and community organizing, legacies of U.S. war and empire, minoritized student experiences in the modern university, and Asian American racial, gender, sexual, and queer formations, with particular attention on Hmong and Southeast Asian communities in the United States. Presently, he is an assistant professor of Gender & Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Donna Doan Anderson is the Mellon research assistant professor in U.S. Law and Race at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

This week, hosts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dave Bittner⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Joe Carrigan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and Maria Varmazis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (also host of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠T-Minus⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Space Daily show) are sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. Joe share's another chicken update for us, this time from Werner Herzog. Dave's got a story from a listener named Tim, an IRS Criminal Investigation agent, who explains that real CI agents may contact people unannounced and can verify themselves in person, but if anyone asks for gift cards or crypto, it's definitely a scam. Maria has the story on how attackers are abusing real SendGrid accounts to send politically charged phishing emails that look legitimate and trick users into handing over their credentials. Joe has two stories this week, the first on Cambodia's renewed crackdown on massive Southeast Asian scam networks following the arrest and extradition of alleged kingpin Chen Zhi, signaling deeper international cooperation against fraud operations that have stolen billions worldwide, and the second on a Nashville Uber driver who lost $300 after falling for a convincing phone scam that impersonated Uber Support and falsely accused him of drunk driving. Our catch of the day comes from Reddit scams where one scammer gets put through the ringer, twice. Resources and links to stories: Cambodia to keep up crackdown on scam centres after arrest of alleged mastermind Uber driver describes drunk driving scam that cost him $300 SendGrid isn't emailing you about ICE or BLM. It's a phishing attack. Dave Part 1 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hackinghumans@n2k.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. On this episode, host Miata Tan speaks with three guests from the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice (CCSJ), a leading community-based resource providing direct victim services for Asian Americans in San Francisco. They unpack CCSJ's approach to policy change, community advocacy, and public education, and reveal how their Collective Knowledge Base Catalog captures lessons from their work. Important Links: Community Safety and Justice (CCSJ) CCSJ Collective Knowledge Base Catalog CCSJ‘s four founding partners are the Chinatown Community Development Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Chinese Progressive Association, and Community Youth Center. Transcript: [00:00:00]  Miata Tan: Hello and welcome. You are tuning into APEX Express, a weekly radio show, uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans. I am your host, Miata Tan, and today we are focusing on community safety. The Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, also known as CCSJ, is the leading community-based resource in providing direct victim [00:01:00] services for Asian Americans in San Francisco. The four founding partners of the Coalition are Chinatown Community Development Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Chinese Progressive Association, and the Community Youth Center. You might have heard of some of these orgs. Today we are joined by three incredibly hardworking individuals who are shaping this work. First up is Janice Li, the Coalition Director. Here she is unpacking the history of the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, and the social moment in which it was formed in response to. Janice Li: Yeah, so we formed in 2019 and it was at a time where we were seeing a lot of high profile incidents impacting and harming our Asian American communities, particularly Chinese seniors. We were seeing it across the country due to rhetoric of the Trump administration at that time that was just throwing, oil onto fire and fanning the flames. [00:02:00] And we were seeing those high profile incidents right here in San Francisco. And the story I've been told, because I, I joined CCSJ as its Coalition Director in 2022, so it says a few years before I joined. But the story I've been told is that the Executive Directors, the staff at each of these four organizations, they kept seeing each other. At vigils and protests and rallies, and it was a lot of outpouring of community emotions and feelings after these high profile incidents. And the eds were like. It's good that we're seeing each other and coming together at these things, but like, what are we doing? How are we changing the material conditions of our communities? How are we using our history and our experience and the communities that we've been a part of for literally decades and making our communities safe and doing something that is more resilient than just. The immediate reactive responses that we often know happen [00:03:00] when there are incidents like this. Miata Tan:  And when you say incidents could you speak to that a little bit more?  Janice Li: Yeah. So there were, uh, some of the high profile incidents included a Chinese senior woman who was waiting for a bus at a MUNI stop who was just randomly attacked. And, there were scenes of her. Fighting back. And then I think that had become a real symbol of Asians rejecting that hate. And the violence that they were seeing. You know, at the same time we were seeing the spa shootings in Atlanta where there were, a number of Southeast Asian women. Killed in just completely senseless, uh, violence. And then, uh, we are seeing other, similar sort of high profile random incidents where Chinese seniors often where the victims whether harmed, or even killed in those incident. And we are all just trying to make sense of. What is happening? [00:04:00] And how do we help our communities heal first and foremost? It is hard to make sense of violence and also figure out how we stop it from happening, but how we do it in a way that is expansive and focused on making all of our communities better. Because the ways that we stop harm cannot be punitive for other individuals or other communities. And so I think that's always been what's really important for CCSJ is to have what we call a holistic view of community safety. Miata Tan: Now you might be wondering, what does a holistic view and approach to community safety look like in practice? From active policy campaigns to direct victim service support, the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice offers a range of different programs. Janice Li, the Coalition Director, categorizes this work into three different [00:05:00] buckets.  Janice Li: It is responding to harm when it occurs, and that's, you know, really centering victims and survivors and the harm that they faced and the healing that it takes to help those, folks. The second piece is really figuring out how do we change our systems so that they're responsive to the needs of our communities. And what that looks like is a lot of policy change and a lot of policy implementation. It's a lot of holding government accountable to what they should be doing. And the third piece is recognizing that our communities don't exist in vacuums and all of our work needs to be underpinned by cross-racial healing and solidarity. To acknowledge that there are historic tensions and cultural tensions between different communities of color in particular, and to name it, we know that there are historic tensions here in San Francisco between the Black and Chinese communities. We have to name it. We have to see it, and we have to bring community [00:06:00] leaders together, along with our community members to find spaces where we can understand each other. And most importantly for me is to be able to share joy so that when conflict does occur, that we are there to be able to build bridges and communities as part of the healing that we, that has to happen. Miata Tan: Let's zoom in on the direct victim services work that CCSJ offers. What does this look like exactly and how is the Coalition engaging the community? How do people learn about their programs? Janice Li: We receive referrals from everyone, but initially, and to this day, we still receive a number of referrals from the police department as well as the District Attorney's Victim Services division, where, you know, the role that the police and the DA's office play is really for the criminal justice proceedings. It is to go through. What that form of criminal justice accountability. Could look like, but it's [00:07:00] not in that way, victim centered. So they reach out to community based organizations like Community Youth Center, CYC, which runs CCSJ, direct Victim Services Program to provide additional community. Based services for those victims. And CYC takes a case management approach. CYC has been around for decades and their history has been working, particularly with youth, particularly at risk youth. And they have a long history of taking a case management approach for supporting youth in all the ways that they need support. And so they use this approach now for people of all ages, but many of the victims that we serve are adults, and many of them are senior, and almost all of them are limited English proficient. So they need not only culturally competent support, but also in language support. And so the case management approach is we figure out what it is that person needs. And sometimes it's mental health [00:08:00] services and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's trying to figure out in home social services, sometimes it's not. Sometimes for youth it might be figure out how to work with, SF Unified school district, our public school system you know, does that student need a transfer? It could be the world of things. I think the case management approach is to say, we have all of these possible tools, all of these forms of healing at our disposal, and we will bring all of those resources to the person who has been harmed to help their healing process. Miata Tan: I'm curious. I know we can't speak to specific cases, but. how did this work evolve? what did it look like then and what does it look like today? Janice Li: What I would say is that every single case is so complex and what the needs of the victims are and for their families who might be trying to process, you know, the death of one of their loved ones. What that [00:09:00] healing looks like and what those needs are. There's not one path, one route, one set of services that exist, but I think what is so important is to really center what those needs are. I think that the public discourse so much of the energy and intention ends up being put on the alleged perpetrator. Which I know there's a sense of, well, if that person is punished, that's accountability. But that doesn't take into account. Putting back together the pieces of the lives that have been just shattered due to these awful, terrible, tragic incidents.  And so what we've learned through the direct victim services that we provide in meeting harm when it occurs is sometimes it's victims wake you up in the hospital and wondering, how am I going to take care of my kids? Oh my gosh, what if I lose my job? How am I gonna pay for this? I don't speak English. I don't understand what my doctors and nurses are telling me [00:10:00] right now. Has anyone contacted my family? What is going on? What I've seen from so many of these cases is that there aren't people there. in the community to support those folks in that sort of like intimate way because the, the public discourse, the newspaper articles the TV news, it's all about, that person who committed this crime, are they being punished harsh enough? While when you really think about healing is always going to have to be victim and survivor centered.   Miata Tan: Janice Li describes this victim and survivor centered approach as a central pillar of the Coalition for Community Safety and Justices work. I asked her about how she sees people responding to the Coalition's programming and who the communities they serve are. Janice Li: So the Direct Victim Services program is just one of the many, many programs that CCSJ runs. Um, we do a wide range of policy advocacy. Right now, we've been focused a lot [00:11:00] on transit safety, particularly muni safety. We do a lot of different kinds of community-based education. What we are seeing in our communities, and we do work across San Francisco. Is that people are just really grateful that there are folks that they trust in the community that are centering safety and what community safety looks like to us. Because our organizations have all been around for a really long time, we already are doing work in our communities. So like for example, CCDC, Chinatown Community Development Center, they're one of the largest affordable housing nonprofits in the city. They have a very robust resident services program amongst the dozens of like apartment buildings and, large housing complexes that they have in their portfolio. And so, some of the folks that participate in programs might be CCDC residents. some of the folks participating in our programs are, folks that are part of CPA's existing youth program called Youth MOJO. They might [00:12:00] be folks that CAA have engaged through their, immigrant parent voting Coalition, who are interested in learning more about youth safety in the schools. So we're really pulling from our existing bases and existing communities and growing that of course. I think something that I've seen is that when there are really serious incidents of violence harming our community, one example Paul give, um, was a few years ago, there was a stabbing that occurred at a bakery called a Bakery in Chinatown, right there on Stockton Street. And it was a horrific incident.  The person who was stabbed survived. And because that was in the heart of Chinatown in a very, very popular, well-known bakery. in the middle of the day there were so many folks in the Chinatown community who were  they just wanted to know what was happening, and they were just so scared, like, could this happen to me? I go to that bakery, can I leave my apartment? Like I don't know what's going on. [00:13:00] So a lot of the times, one of the things that CCSJ does as part of our rapid response, beyond just serving and supporting the victim or victims and survivors themselves, is to ensure that we are either creating healing spaces for our communities, or at least disseminating accurate real-time information. I think that's the ways that we can Be there for our communities because we know that the harm and the fears that exist expand much more beyond just the individuals who were directly impacted by, you know, whatever those incidents of harm are. Miata Tan: And of course, today we've been speaking a lot about the communities that you directly serve, which are more Asian American folks in San Francisco. But how do you think that connects to, I guess, the broader, myriad of demographics that, uh, that live here.  Janice Li: Yeah. So, CCSJ being founded in 2019. We were founded at a time where because of these really [00:14:00] awful, tragic high profile incidents and community-based organizations like CA, a really stepping up to respond, it brought in really historic investments into specifically addressing Asian American and Pacific Islander hate, and violence and. What we knew that in that moment that this investment wasn't going to be indefinite. We knew that. And so something that was really, really important was to be able to archive our learnings and be able to export this, share our. Finding, share, learning, share how we did what we did, why we did what we did, what worked, what didn't work with the broader, committees here in San Francisco State beyond. I will say that one of the first things that we had done when I had started was create actual rapid response protocol. And I remember how so many places across California folks were reaching out to us, being like, oh, I heard that you do community safety [00:15:00] work in the Asian American community. What do you do when something happens because we've just heard from this client, or there was this incident that happened in our community. We just don't know what to do. Just to be able to share our protocol, share what we've learned, why we did this, and say like, Hey, you translate and interpret this for how it works. In whatever community you're in and you know, whatever community you serve. But so much of it is just like documenting your learning is documenting what you do. Um, and so I'm really proud that we've been able to do that through the CCSJ Knowledge Base.   Miata Tan: That was Janice Li, the Coalition Director at the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, also known as CCSJ. As Janice mentioned, the Coalition is documenting the community safety resources in an online Knowledge Base. More on that later. Our next guest, Tei Huỳnh, will dive deeper into some of the educational workshops and trainings that CCSJ offers. You are tuned into APEX [00:16:00] Express on 94.1 KPFA​ [00:17:00] Welcome back to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA. I am your host, Miata Tan, and today we are talking about community safety. Tei Huỳnh is a Senior Program Coordinator at Chinese Progressive Association, one of the four organizations that comprise the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice. Here's Tei discussing where their work sits within the Coalition. [00:18:00]  Tei Huỳnh: CPA's kind of piece of the pie with CCS J's work has been to really offer political education to offer membership exchanges with, um, other organizations workshops and trainings for our working class membership base. And so we offer RJ trainings for young people as well as, in language, Cantonese restorative justice training. Miata Tan: For listeners who might not be familiar, could you help to define restorative justice? Tei Huỳnh: Restorative justice is this idea that when harm is done rather than like implementing retributive ways. To bring about justice. There are ways to restore relationships, to center relationships, and to focus efforts of making right relations. Restorative justice often includes like talking circles where like a harm doer or someone who caused harm, right? Someone who is the recipient of harm sit in circle and share stories and really vulnerably, like hear each other out. And so the [00:19:00] first step of restorative justice, 80% of it in communities is, is relationship building, community building. Miata Tan: These sorts of workshops and programs. What do they look like? Tei Huỳnh: In our restorative justice trainings we work with, we actually work with CYC, to have their youth join our young people. And most recently we've worked with another organization called, which works with Latina youth, we bring our youth together and we have, uh, a four-part training and we are doing things like talking about how to give an apology, right? We're like roleplaying, conflict and slowing down and so there's a bit of that, right? That it feels a little bit like counseling or just making space, learning how to like hold emotion. How do we like just sit with these feelings and develop the skill and the capacity to do that within ourselves. And to have difficult conversations beyond us too. And then there's a part of it that is about political education. So trying to make that connection that as we learn to [00:20:00] be more accepting how does that actually look like in politics or like in our day-to-day life today? And does it, does it align? More often than not, right? Like they talk about in their classrooms that it is retributive justice that they're learning about. Oh, you messed up, you're sent out. Or like, oh, you get pink slip, whatever. Or if that's not their personal experience, they can observe that their classmates who look differently than them might get that experience more often than not   And so building beginning to build that empathy as well. Yeah. And then our adults also have, trainings and those are in Cantonese, which is so important. And the things that come up in those trainings are actually really about family dynamics. Our members really wanna know how do we good parents? When we heal our relationship, like learning to have those feelings, learning to locate and articulate our feelings.  To get a Chinese mama to be like, I feel X, Y, Z. Elders to be more in touch with their emotions and then to want to apply that to their family life is amazing, to like know how to like talk through conversations, be a better [00:21:00] parent partner, whatever it may be. Miata Tan: Something to note about the workshops and tools that Tei is describing for us. Yes, it is in response to terrible acts of hate and violence, but there are other applications as well. Tei Huỳnh: And you know, we've seen a lot of leadership in our young people as well, so we started with a restorative justice cohort and young people were literally like, we wanna come back. Can we like help out? You know, and so we like had this track where young people got to be leaders to run their own restorative justice circle. It might sound like really basic, but some of the things we learn about is like how we like practice a script around moving through conflicts too. and that, and we also learn that conflict. It's not bad. Shameful thing. This is actually what we hear a lot from our young people, is that these tools help them. With their friends, with their partners, with their mom. One kid was telling us how he was like going to [00:22:00] get mad about mom asking him to do the dishes he was able to slow down and talk about like how he feels. Sometimes I'm like, oh, are we like releasing little like parent counselors? You know what I mean? Uh, 'cause another young person told us about, yeah. When, when she would, she could feel tension between her and her father. She would slow down and start asking her, her what we call ears questions. and they would be able to slow down enough to have conversations as opposed to like an argument . It makes me think like how as a young person we are really not taught to communicate. We're taught all of these things from what? Dominant media or we just like learn from the style of communication we receive in our home , and exposing young people to different options and to allow them to choose what best fits for them, what feels best for them. I think it's a really, yeah, I wish I was exposed to that . Miata Tan: From younger people to adults, you have programs and workshops for lots of different folks. What are the community needs that this [00:23:00] healing work really helps to address? Tei Huỳnh: What a great question because our youth recently did a survey Within, um, MOJO and then they also did a survey of other young people in the city. And the biggest problem that they're seeing right now is housing affordability because they're getting like, pushed out they think about like, oh yeah, my really good friend now lives in El Sobrante. I can't see my like, best friend we have youth coming from like Richmond, from the East Bay because they want to stay in relationship. And so the ways that, like the lack of affordability in the city for families, working class families has also impacted, our young peoples. Sense of health. And, this is actually a really beautiful extension of, growth, right? In what people are seeing termed as safety, From like a really tangible kind of safety previously safety was like not getting punched, interpersonal violence to now understanding safety from systemic violence as well, which includes, like housing and affordability or [00:24:00] gentrification.   Miata Tan: Through the workshops that Tei runs through the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice Communities are also exposed to others with different lived experiences, including speakers from partner organizations to help make sense of things. Tei Huỳnh: It was a huge moment of like humanization. And restorative justice is really about seeing each other, I remember too, like after our guest speaker from A PSC, our young people were just so moved, and our young people saying like this was the first time that they've shared a room with someone who was formerly incarcerated. they were so moved with like, how funny he was, how smart he was, how all the things you know, and, and that there are all these stories to shed. We really bring in people to share about their lived experiences with our Asian American youth. And then people wanted to like follow up and also Mac from A PSC was so generous and wanted to help them with their college essays and people were like, [00:25:00] yes, they wanna keep talking to you. You know? Um, and that was really sweet. In our. Recent restorative justice work, and our most recent training with POed which works with Latina youth while we saw that it was harder for our young people to just, connect like that, that they were able, that there were like other ways that they were building relationships with  Miata Tan: What were you seeing that went beyond language? Tei Huỳnh: I think it was really sweet to just see like people just trying, right? Like, I think as like young people, it's like, it's also really scary to like, go outside of your, your little bubble, I think as a young person, right? One year we were able to organize for our adult session and our youth session, our final session that happened on the same day. and so we had we had circles together, intergenerational, we brought in a bunch of translators and youth after that were so moved, I think one young person was [00:26:00] talking about how they only like. Chinese adults, they talk to other parents and to like hear these Chinese adults really trying, being really encouraging. There's like something very healing. Restorative justice is not an easy topic for young people. I think at the first level it is about relationships in community to hold those harder feelings. I was really moved by this, a really shy young girl, like choosing to like walk and talk with another young person that they didn't have like that much of a shared language, but Wiley was, they were just really trying to connect. There are moments like when the, youth, like during our break, would wanna put on music and would try to teach the other youth, how they dance to their music. You know, like it's just, it was just like a cultural exchange of sorts too which is really sweet and really fun  ​[00:27:00] [00:28:00]  Miata Tan: You are tuned into APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, a weekly radio show uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans. I'm your host Miata Tan, and today we are [00:29:00] talking about community safety. Since 2019, the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, also known as CCSJ, has been leading the charge in helping Asian Americans in San Francisco to heal from instances of harm. From Direct Victim Services to Policy Work. The Coalition has a range of programs. Our next guest is Helen Ho, research and Evaluation manager at Chinese for affirmative action in San Francisco. Her research helps us to better understand the impact of these programs. Here's Helen describing her role and the importance of CCS J's evaluation  Helen Ho: My role is to serve as a container for reflection and evaluation so that we can learn from what we're doing, in the moment, we're always so busy, too busy to kind of stop and, assess. And so my role is to have that [00:30:00] time set aside to assess and celebrate and reflect back to people what we're doing. I was initially brought on through an idea that we wanted to build different metrics of community safety because right now the dominant measures of community safety, when you think about like, how do we measure safety, it's crime rates. And that is a very one dimensional, singular, narrow definition of safety that then narrows our focus into what solutions are effective and available to us. And, and we also know that people's sense of safety goes beyond what are the crime rates published by police departments and only relying on those statistics won't capture the benefits of the work that community organizations and other entities that do more of this holistic long-term work. Miata Tan: The Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, has been around since 2019. So was this [00:31:00] process, uh, over these five years, or how did you come into this? Helen Ho: Yeah. The Coalition started in 2019, but I came on in. 2023, you know, in 2019 when they started, their main focus was rapid response because there were a lot of high profile incidents that really needed a coordinated community response. And over time they. Wanted to move beyond rapid response to more long-term prevention and, uh, restorative programming. And that's when they were able to get more resources to build out those programs. So that's why I came on, um, a bit later in the Coalition process when a lot of programs were already started or just about to launch. So what I get to do is to interview people that we've served and talk to them about. Their experiences of our programs, how they might have been transformed, how their perspectives might have changed and, and all of that. Then I get to do mini reports or memos and reflect that back to the people who run the programs. And it's just so [00:32:00] rewarding to share with them the impact that they've had that they might not have heard of. 'cause they don't have the time to talk to everyone . And also. Be an outside thought partner to share with them, okay, well this thing might not have worked and maybe you could think about doing something else. Miata Tan: Certainly sounds like really rewarding work. You're at a stage where you're able to really reflect back a lot of the learnings and, and, and work that's being developed within these programs.  Helen Ho: The first phase of this project was actually to more concretely conceptualize what safety is beyond just crime rates because there are many, Flaws with crime statistics. We know that they are under-reported. We know that they embed racial bias. But we also know that they don't capture all the harm that our communities experience, like non-criminal hate acts or other kinds of harm, like being evicted that cause insecurity, instability, feelings [00:33:00] of not being safe, but would not be counted as a crime. So, Um, this involved talking to our Coalition members, learning about our programs, and really getting to the heart of what they. Conceptualized as safety and why they created the programs that they did. And then based on that developed, a set of pilot evaluations for different programs that we did based on those, ideas of what our, you know, ideal outcomes are. We want students to feel safe at school, not only physically, but emotionally and psychologically. We want them to feel like they have a trusted adult to go to when something is wrong, whether. They're being bullied or maybe they're having a hard time at home or, um, you know, their family, uh, someone lost their job and they need extra support. And that all, none of that would be captured in crime rates, but are very important for our sense of safety. So then I did a whole bunch of evaluations where I interviewed folks, tried to collect [00:34:00] quantitative data as well. And that process. Was incredibly rewarding for me because I really admire people who, uh, develop and implement programs. They're doing the real work, you know, I'm not doing the real work. They're doing the real work of actually, supporting our community members. But what I get to do is reflect back their work to them. 'cause in the moment they're just so busy then, and, and many people when they're doing this work, they're like: Am I even doing, making an impact? Am I doing this well? And all they can think about is how can I, you know, what did I do wrong and how can I do better? And, and they don't necessarily think about all the good that they're doing 'cause they don't give themselves the time to appreciate their own work because they're always trying to do better for our communities. Miata Tan: The Coalition for Community Safety and Justice is cataloging their learnings online in what they call a Collective Knowledge Base. Janice describes the [00:35:00] Knowledge Base as the endpoint of a long process to better understand the Coalition's work. Helen Ho: The Coalition for Community Safety and Justice was doing something, was building something new in San Francisco, and the idea was that there may be other communities across the country who are trying to build something similar and contexts across country, across communities. They're all different, but there is something maybe we could share and learn from each other. And so with this Knowledge Base Catalog, the impetus was to recognize that we're not experts. we're just trying things, building things, and we, we make a lot of mistakes and we're just doing the best that we can, but we've learned something and we'll, we'll share it. and this. Kind of approach really reminded me of a recipe book where you develop a recipe after many, many, many times of testing and tweaking and [00:36:00] building, and there's a recipe that really works for you. And then you can share it. And if you explain, you know, the different steps and some of the. You know, ingredients that are helpful, the techniques and why you chose to do certain things. Someone else can look at that recipe and tweak it how they want. And make it suitable for your own community and context. and once I got onto that analogy it blossomed to something else because. Also the act of creating food, like cooking and feeding our communities is something so important , and yet sometimes it can be seen as not serious. And that's really similar to community Safety is a very serious issue. But then. There's some worries that when we talk about like restoration and healing that's not a serious enough reaction response to safety issues, but when in fact it is crucial and essential, you know, healing and [00:37:00] restoration are crucial for our communities as much as cooking and feeding our communities and both are serious, even if some people think that they're not serious.  Miata Tan: I hear you. I love that metaphor with cooking and the recipe book as well. For our listeners, could you explain where the Knowledge Base Catalog lives online and how people can access it? Helen Ho: Sure. You can go to our website@CCSjsf.org and there's a little tab that says Knowledge Base. And you can either access it through the PDF version where you can get all of the catalog entries in one file, or you can search our database and you can filter or search by different things that you're interested in. So there a lot of programs have, cross functions or cross, aspects to them that might be of interest to you. So for example, if you. We're interested in programs to cultivate trusted community figures so you can look at the different programs that we've done that in different contexts in housing, at schools, or in business [00:38:00] corridors, because when you cultivate those trusted figures, when something bad happens, people then know who to go to, and it's much easier to access resources. You can also, if you're interested in, in language programs, you know, how did we think about doing programming for immigrant communities in their native languages? You can look at our tags and look at all of the programs that are in language. So our Chinese language, restorative justice, or our Chinese language victim services. You can look at all the different ways that we've, done our programming in language and not just in terms of translating something that wasn't English into Chinese, but creating something from the Chinese cultural perspective that would be more resonant with our community members. Miata Tan: How are you reflecting back this work through your research and the Knowledge Base Catalog?  Helen Ho: Before each evaluation, I interviewed the implementers to understand, you know… what's your vision of success? If your [00:39:00] program was successful beyond as wildest dreams what do you think you would see? What do you think people would say about it? And based on those answers, I was able to create some questions and, and measures to then understand. What you know, what assessment would look like in terms of these interviews with, um, program participants or collaborators. And so then I was able to reflect back in these memos about, insights that program participants learned or feelings that they, that they had or for. Program collaborators, what they've seen in their partnerships with us and what they appreciate about our approach and our programming. And also avenues that we could improve our programs. Because we know that harm and violence, although we often talk about them in terms of singular incidents, it's actually a systemic issue. And systemic is a word that people throw around and we don't even know. Like it's so thrown around so much out. I, I don't even remember what it means anymore, but. But we know that there are [00:40:00] big societal issues that cause harm. There's poverty, there's unaddressed mental health and behavioral health issues. There is just a lot of stress that is around that makes us. More tense and flare up and also, or have tensions flare up into conflict which makes us feel unsafe. And so there are policies that we can put in place to create a more. Complete instead of a patchwork system of support and resources so that people can feel more secure economically physically, uh, health wise. And all of that contributes to a, strong lasting and holistic sense of safety.  Miata Tan: As Janice and Helen have both mentioned The Coalition was able to grow in part due to funding that was made during 2019 and 2020 when we were seeing more acts of hate and [00:41:00] violence against Asian Americans. California's Stop the Hate program was one of those investments. Helen explains more about how the work has continued to expand.   Helen Ho: Another reason why the Coalition has been able to evolve is the, government investment in these programs and holistic safety programming. So. The city of San Francisco has been really great through their grants in looking in funding, holistic programming for different racial and ethnic communities and the state. Also, through their Stop the Hate grant has been able to fund programming and also the research and evaluation work that allows us to learn and evolve. Improve and also. Take these learnings beyond when grant programs might end and programs might end, and so that we can hopefully hold onto this, these learnings and not have to start from scratch the next [00:42:00] time Miata Tan: Thank you for laying all that out, Helen. So it sounds like there's a lot of different stakeholders that are really helping to aid this work and move it forward. What have you seen, like what are folks saying have had an impact on their community in a, in a positive way?  Helen Ho: Yeah. There's so much that. The Coalition has done and, and many different impacts. But one program that I evaluated, it was community Youth Center, CYC's, School Outreach Program in which they have teams of adults regularly attending lunch periods or school release periods at several schools in the city. And the idea here is that. At lunchtime or at score release period, kids are free. They're like, we're done with class, we're just gonna be out there wild. And they're figuring how to navigating social relationships, how to be in the world, who they are. , That can come with a lot of conflict, [00:43:00] insecurity a lot of difficulties that then end up, if they escalate enough, could turn into harm. For example, it's middle school kids are playing basketball and so when someone loses a game, they might start a argument and what the school outreach team would do is they're there. They've already built relationships with the students. They can step in and say, Hey, what's going on? Let's talk about this. And they can prevent. Conflicts from escalating into physical harm and also create a teaching moment for students to learn how to resolve their conflicts, how to deal with their difficult emotions of losing and equipping them with tools in the future to then also navigate conflict and, and prevent harm. And so I was able to interview the school collaborators uh, administrators or deans to understand, you know, why did they call on CYC, why did they want to establish this partnership and let adults outside the school come into the [00:44:00] school? And they were just so appreciative of the expertise and experience of the team that they knew. That they could trust the team to develop warm, strong relationships with students of all races and, and identities. That there was not going to be a bias that these adults, the team would be approachable. And so this team brought in both the trust, not only social emotional skills and conflict navigation, but also the organization and responsibility of keeping students physically safe. Another program which is the development of in-language Chinese restorative justice programming and also restorative justice program for Asian American youth. And in interviewing the folks who went through these training programs, I myself learned, truly learned what restorative [00:45:00] justice is. Essentially restorative justice takes the approach that we should, not look to punishment for punishment's sake, but to look at accountability and to restore what has been harmed or lost through, you know, an act of harm in order to do that, we actually have to build community you know, restoring after harm has been done requires relationships and trust for it to be most effective. And so what was really transformative for me was listening to. Youth, high schoolers learn about restorative justice, a completely new idea because so much of their life has been punitive at the home. They do something wrong, they're punished at school, they do something wrong, they're punished. And it's just a default way of reacting to quote unquote wrong. But these youth learned. All of these different [00:46:00] skills for navigating conflict that truly transform the way that they relate to everyone in their life. youth were talking to me about, resolving conflicts with their parents. To believe that their parents could change too. So, you know, what does that have to do with criminal justice? Well, when we think about people who have harmed, a lot of times we're hesitant to go through a restorative route where we just want them to take accountability rather than being punished for punishment's sake for them to change their behavior. But one criticism or barrier to that is we think, oh, they can't change. But you know, if your middle-aged immigrant parent who you thought could never change, could change the sky's the limit in terms of who can change their behavior and be in a better relationship with you. Miata Tan: These workshops are so important in helping to really bring people together and also insight that change. Helen Ho: We also wanna look ahead to [00:47:00] deeper and longer term healing. And so what can we do to restore a sense of safety, a sense of community and especially, um, with a lot of heightened, uh, racial tensions, especially between Asian and black communities that you know, the media and other actors take advantage of our goal of the Coalition is to be able to deescalate those tensions and find ways for communities to see each other and work together and then realize that we can do more to help each other and prevent harm within and across our communities if we work together. For example, we're doing a transit safety audit with our community members, where we've invited our community members who are in for our organization, mainly Chinese, immigrants who don't speak English very well to come with us and ride. The bus lines that are most important to our community coming in and out of Chinatown [00:48:00] to assess what on this bus or this ride makes you feel safe or unsafe, and how can we change something to make you feel safe on the bus? it's so important because public transportation is a lifeline for our community, And so we completed those bus ride alongs and folks are writing in their notebooks and they shared so many. Amazing observations and recommendations that we're now compiling and writing a report to then recommend to, um, S-F-M-T-A, our transit agency the bus. Is one of the few places where a bunch of strangers are in close quarters, a bunch of strangers from many different walks of life. Many different communities are in close quarters, and we just have to learn how to exist with each other. And it could be a really great way for us to practice that skill if we could just do some public education on, how to ride the bus.    Miata Tan: I asked [00:49:00] Helen about how she hopes people will access and build on the learnings in CCS J's Collective Knowledge Base. Helen Ho: Each community will have its own needs and community dynamics And community resources. And so it's hard to say that there's a one size fits all approach, which is also why the recipe book approach is more fitting because everyone just needs to kind of take things, uh, and tweak it to their own contexts. I would just say that for taking it either statewide or nationwide, it's just that something needs to be done in a coordinated fashion that understands the. Importance of long-term solutions for safety and holistic solutions for safety. The understands that harm is done when people's needs are not met, and so we must refocus once we have responded to the crises in the moment of harm, that we [00:50:00] also look to long-term and long lasting community safety solutions. Miata Tan: So with this Knowledge Base, anyone can access it online. Who do you hope will take a peek inside? Helen Ho: Who do I hope would take a peek at the Knowledge Base? I would really love for other people who are at a crossroads just like we were in the early. Days who are scrambling, are building something new and are just in go, go, go mode to come look at some of what we've done so that they just don't have to reinvent the wheel. They could just take something, take one of our templates or. Take some of our topics workshop topics. Something where it just saves them a bunch of time that they don't have to figure it out and then they can move on to the next step of evolving their programs even more. Um, I think that's my greatest hope. I think another this might be too cynical, but I also feel like with [00:51:00] the political. Interest waning in Asian American community safety, that there's going to be a loss of resources. You know, hopefully we can get more resources to sustain these programs, but in reality, a lot of programs will not continue. And it is a tragedy because the people who have developed these programs and worked on them for years Have built so much knowledge and experience and when we just cut programs short, we lose it. We lose the people who have built not only the experience of running this program, but the relationships that they've built in our community that are so hard to replicate and build up again. So my hope is that in however many years when we get another influx of resources from when people care about Asian American community safety, again, that somewhere some will dust off this Knowledge Base. And again, not have [00:52:00] to start from scratch, but, start at a further point so that we can, again, evolve our approach and, and do better for our communities. Miata Tan: That's really beautiful. Hoping that people for the future can access it.  Helen Ho: Another thing about, people either from the future and also in this current moment when they're also asking what's being done. Because I think a part of feeling not safe is that no one's coming to help me and the cynicism of no one's doing anything about this. And and also.  a withdrawal from our community saying, oh, our Asian, the Asian American community, they're approaching it in the wrong way or not doing the right what, whatever it is that your criticism is. But my hope is that folks in our community, folks in the future, folks outside of our, you know, Asian American community, can come to this Knowledge Base and see what we're doing. [00:53:00] Realize that there are, there is a lot of work being put into creating long-term, equitable, holistic safety solutions that can heal individuals in our community, heal our communities at a as a whole, and heal our relationships between communities. And there's so much good being done and that. If more folks join in our collaborations or in our efforts to get more resources to sustain these programs, we can really continue doing great things.  Miata Tan: With this Knowledge Base catalog, is there a way you hope it will continue to evolve to help better inform, I guess someone who might be on the other side of the country or in a totally different place? Miles away from San Francisco. Helen Ho: I would love to be able to do more evaluations and documenting of our work. I mean, we're continually doing more and new stuff. , Even [00:54:00] in a period where we don't have as many resources, we're still doing a lot of work. For example. We are continuing our work to get SFPD to implement a language access policy that works for our communities. And we're doing more and more work on that. And to be able to document that and share that new work would be really exciting. Um, and any other of our new initiatives I will say, going back to the recipe book analogy or metaphor, I don't know if this is just me, but when I have a cookbook, it's great. It's like so long. There's so many recipes. I only use three of them and I use those three all of the time. so that's what I was also thinking about for the Knowledge Base where there's a lot of stuff in here. Hopefully you can find a few things that resonate with you that you can really carry with you into your practice. Miata Tan: Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Helen.  Helen Ho: Thank you for having me. ​[00:55:00]  Miata Tan: The music we played throughout today's [00:56:00] episode was by the incredible Mark Izu check out stick song from his 1992 album Circle of Fire. Such a beautiful track, Now, a big thank you to Janice Tay and Helen for joining me on today's show. You can learn more about the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice via their website. That's ccsjsf.org  Make sure to check out their fantastic Knowledge Base Catalog that Helen spoke to us about from examples of victim centered support programs to rapid response resources during instances of community harm. There's some really important information on there. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. For show notes, check out our website. That's kpfa.org/program/APEX-express. APEX Express is a collective of activists that include [00:57:00] Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam.  Tonight's show was produced by me, Miata Tan. Get some rest y'all .  ​  The post APEX Express – 1.22.26 – What Is Community Safety? appeared first on KPFA.

Episode #470: This episode of Insight Myanmar continues our three-part series covering the Decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies Conference at Chiang Mai University, bringing together voices exploring how colonial legacies still shape knowledge, identity, and power in the region. Thai scholar-activist Thiti Jamkajornkeiat argues that true decolonization requires more than inclusion—it demands structural transformation. “The problem about Southeast Asian studies,” he explains, “is that it has a colonial baggage and is exterior—it's been developed outside of Southeast Asia.” He calls for scholarship that centers local thinkers as equal contributors and research that serves the needs and livelihoods of Southeast Asians. For Thiti, decolonization must confront global hierarchies of knowledge, funding systems, and academic validation that continue to privilege Western authority. His vision is both intellectual and emotional: a call for courage, tenderness, and solidarity in reclaiming the power to define one's own story. From Myanmar, Kyaw shares reflections rooted in his upbringing within the country's monastic education system. Growing up as a novice, he experienced how Buddhist and secular teachings intertwined, shaping his understanding of education as a moral as well as intellectual pursuit. Today, amid crisis and repression, he highlights the resilience of Myanmar's people. “Despite everything going in a negative way, the resilience of this community is huge,” he says. For Kyaw, endurance is an act of care—protecting the collective spirit and reimagining the nation's future together. Khaing expands on this, focusing on the importance of communication and advocacy in a time when truth itself is dangerous. Having long listened to Insight Myanmar, she describes it as a vital platform allowing citizens to speak and be heard despite censorship and internet blackouts. “Your podcast is more than useful,” she insists. “It's advocacy, and information awareness.”

Compare Asia's top investment visas: Singapore GIP, Hong Kong CIES, Thailand Privilege, Malaysia MM2H, and more. Investment thresholds, residency paths, and citizenship options explained.View the full article here.Subscribe to the IMI Daily newsletter here. 

On today's show, host Esty Dinur is joined by Alfred W. McCoy to talk about his latest book, Cold War on Five Continents: A Global History of Empire and Espionage, available from Haymarket Books. His book offers an intimate portrait of both covert operatives and antiwar activists, thus humanizing a history often told in impersonal terms of nuclear arsenals or diplomatic ententes. Turning away from the usual focus of the Moscow-Washington stalemate, McCoy looks at the regions of the world where the Cold War was actually fought, arguing that Southeast Asia experienced the worst of Cold War violence. From South Vietnam to the Middle East, to Africa and Latin America the major world powers fought surrogate wars amounting to 20 million deaths.  McCoy describes how the US spread its military around the world and operated covertly in Afghanistan, Angola, and elsewhere. He says that the first success of “the man on the spot,” Kermit Roosevelt Jr., was in Iran where he helped to install the Shah in “a spectacularly successful exhibit of regime change.” McCoy says that we're currently seeing a “radical shift in US geopolitical posture” moving away from “an international system of law and commerce to becoming a regional hegemony” as seen in what McCoy calls Trump's “tri-continental strategy.” Trump has decided to concentrate US power in the Americas, from Canada to Greenland and Venezuela. He says that Trump views oil and power as synonymous, but this is a miscalculation on Trump's part. McCoy sees the era of oil as over and the next horizon is in renewables and will be dominated by China.  Alfred W. McCoy holds the Harrington chair in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since earning a history doctorate in 1977, his teaching and writing have focused on Southeast Asian history, modern empires, and the covert netherworld of syndicate crime and state security. Featured image of the cover of Cold War on Five Continents: A Global History of Empire and Espionage, available from Haymarket Books. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post From the Cold War to the Trump Regime's Geopolitics with Alfred McCo... appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Goi buoi, or Vietnamese pomelo salad, is a refreshing blend of juicy pomelo, mint, chili, crunchy fried shallots and toasted peanuts. Pomelos are the largest member of the citrus fruit family, and a Southeast Asian cousin of the grapefruit. Executive Chef Benoit Leloup and Junior Sous Chef, Hoang Long from Hotel des Arts Saigon show Chef Mai Pham from Lemon Grass Restaurant in Sacramento, CA how they make this delicious salad. Watch the full series at: https://www.plantforwardkitchen.org/southeast-asia

How do we compare across languages, media, and histories, all without flattening differences? And what might Hong Kong teach us about doing comparison differently? Alvin K. Wong examines these and other questions in Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone (Duke UP, 2025), a wide-ranging and thought-provoking study of queerness in Hong Kong. Bringing together Sinophone literature, independent and commercial cinema, documentary films, and visual art, the book asks how Hong Kong's queer productions might help us rethink the work of comparison itself. Rather than treating Hong Kong as a marginal or derivative space — a space defined by British colonialism, China-centrism, or global capitalism — this book approaches the city as a site of methodological possibilities. The key concept the book advances, “unruly comparison,” replacing neat equivalences and stable categories with incommensurability and transnational connections and linking Hong Kong to other places, times, and queer spaces across the Sinophone. Theoretically deft, the book is filled with a wide range of fascinating material, including work by filmmakers including Wong Kar-wai, Scud, and Fruit Chan; transnational and transgender visual cultures; documentaries about Southeast Asian domestic workers and queer intimacies; and poetry about language and precarity. This book will appeal to those interested in queer theory, Hong Kong studies, Sinophone studies, and comparative approaches. Listeners should also check out Alvin Wong's co-edited volume Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies(Routledge, 2020) and the Society of Sinophone Studies webpage (of which Alvin is currently chair!).  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

How do we compare across languages, media, and histories, all without flattening differences? And what might Hong Kong teach us about doing comparison differently? Alvin K. Wong examines these and other questions in Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone (Duke UP, 2025), a wide-ranging and thought-provoking study of queerness in Hong Kong. Bringing together Sinophone literature, independent and commercial cinema, documentary films, and visual art, the book asks how Hong Kong's queer productions might help us rethink the work of comparison itself. Rather than treating Hong Kong as a marginal or derivative space — a space defined by British colonialism, China-centrism, or global capitalism — this book approaches the city as a site of methodological possibilities. The key concept the book advances, “unruly comparison,” replacing neat equivalences and stable categories with incommensurability and transnational connections and linking Hong Kong to other places, times, and queer spaces across the Sinophone. Theoretically deft, the book is filled with a wide range of fascinating material, including work by filmmakers including Wong Kar-wai, Scud, and Fruit Chan; transnational and transgender visual cultures; documentaries about Southeast Asian domestic workers and queer intimacies; and poetry about language and precarity. This book will appeal to those interested in queer theory, Hong Kong studies, Sinophone studies, and comparative approaches. Listeners should also check out Alvin Wong's co-edited volume Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies(Routledge, 2020) and the Society of Sinophone Studies webpage (of which Alvin is currently chair!).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

How do we compare across languages, media, and histories, all without flattening differences? And what might Hong Kong teach us about doing comparison differently? Alvin K. Wong examines these and other questions in Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone (Duke UP, 2025), a wide-ranging and thought-provoking study of queerness in Hong Kong. Bringing together Sinophone literature, independent and commercial cinema, documentary films, and visual art, the book asks how Hong Kong's queer productions might help us rethink the work of comparison itself. Rather than treating Hong Kong as a marginal or derivative space — a space defined by British colonialism, China-centrism, or global capitalism — this book approaches the city as a site of methodological possibilities. The key concept the book advances, “unruly comparison,” replacing neat equivalences and stable categories with incommensurability and transnational connections and linking Hong Kong to other places, times, and queer spaces across the Sinophone. Theoretically deft, the book is filled with a wide range of fascinating material, including work by filmmakers including Wong Kar-wai, Scud, and Fruit Chan; transnational and transgender visual cultures; documentaries about Southeast Asian domestic workers and queer intimacies; and poetry about language and precarity. This book will appeal to those interested in queer theory, Hong Kong studies, Sinophone studies, and comparative approaches. Listeners should also check out Alvin Wong's co-edited volume Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies(Routledge, 2020) and the Society of Sinophone Studies webpage (of which Alvin is currently chair!).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

How do we compare across languages, media, and histories, all without flattening differences? And what might Hong Kong teach us about doing comparison differently? Alvin K. Wong examines these and other questions in Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone (Duke UP, 2025), a wide-ranging and thought-provoking study of queerness in Hong Kong. Bringing together Sinophone literature, independent and commercial cinema, documentary films, and visual art, the book asks how Hong Kong's queer productions might help us rethink the work of comparison itself. Rather than treating Hong Kong as a marginal or derivative space — a space defined by British colonialism, China-centrism, or global capitalism — this book approaches the city as a site of methodological possibilities. The key concept the book advances, “unruly comparison,” replacing neat equivalences and stable categories with incommensurability and transnational connections and linking Hong Kong to other places, times, and queer spaces across the Sinophone. Theoretically deft, the book is filled with a wide range of fascinating material, including work by filmmakers including Wong Kar-wai, Scud, and Fruit Chan; transnational and transgender visual cultures; documentaries about Southeast Asian domestic workers and queer intimacies; and poetry about language and precarity. This book will appeal to those interested in queer theory, Hong Kong studies, Sinophone studies, and comparative approaches. Listeners should also check out Alvin Wong's co-edited volume Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies(Routledge, 2020) and the Society of Sinophone Studies webpage (of which Alvin is currently chair!).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

Episode #467: “We still believe that engaging is more useful than not engaging,” says Kiat Sittheeamorn , former Thai Deputy Prime Minister and international trade negotiator. In this discussion, Kiat draws on decades of experience in engineering, business, and international diplomacy to reflect on the tough moral and practical choices facing Southeast Asia today. Kiat's approach to public service was shaped by hardship, self-reliance, and a code rooted in early struggle. From power plant engineer to director of the Board of Trade, to an “accidental” entry into politics at the height of Thailand's 1997 economic crisis, he moved quickly into three terms as Member of Parliament and one as Deputy Prime Minister. Carrying technical expertise into public life, Kiat saw integrity as the only defense against the temptations and the “confusion” of power. In Parliament, he explains how he fought corruption, intimidation and bribery, and helped force the repayment of billions in ill-gotten gains. Internationally, Kiat rejects “market fundamentalism,” insisting that global progress requires fairness alongside growth. For this reason, he prefers the term “free and fair trade” than “free trade” alone. Kiat views Southeast Asian economic integration as essential, but laments that Thailand's “bad politics”—corruption, disunity, and passive excuses—have held the country back. His perspective on Myanmar is equally blunt. Thailand has borne refugee burdens faithfully, he says, while Western partners fail to deliver on their promises. On the value of sanctions or “megaphone diplomacy,” Kiat argues that quiet engagement—pragmatic, persistent, and rooted in genuine empathy—offers a better path forward, even when dealing with deeply flawed elections and authoritarian regimes.

The South East Asian countries said Grok could be used to produce pornographic and non-consensual images involving women and children. They are the first in the world to ban the AI tool. Philip Teresi takes a look at the near-future of technology. This year we see tiny computers, ultrabright screens and lots and lots of bots. That and more was on display at the annual carnival of gadgets in Las Vegas known as CES (aka the Consumer Electronics Show). Please Like, Comment and Follow 'Philip Teresi on KMJ' on all platforms: --- Philip Teresi on KMJ is available on the KMJNOW app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever else you listen to podcasts. -- Philip Teresi on KMJ Weekdays 2-6 PM Pacific on News/Talk 580 AM & 105.9 FM KMJ | Website | Facebook | Instagram | X | Podcast | Amazon | - Everything KMJ KMJNOW App | Podcasts | Facebook | X | Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do we compare across languages, media, and histories, all without flattening differences? And what might Hong Kong teach us about doing comparison differently? Alvin K. Wong examines these and other questions in Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone (Duke UP, 2025), a wide-ranging and thought-provoking study of queerness in Hong Kong. Bringing together Sinophone literature, independent and commercial cinema, documentary films, and visual art, the book asks how Hong Kong's queer productions might help us rethink the work of comparison itself. Rather than treating Hong Kong as a marginal or derivative space — a space defined by British colonialism, China-centrism, or global capitalism — this book approaches the city as a site of methodological possibilities. The key concept the book advances, “unruly comparison,” replacing neat equivalences and stable categories with incommensurability and transnational connections and linking Hong Kong to other places, times, and queer spaces across the Sinophone. Theoretically deft, the book is filled with a wide range of fascinating material, including work by filmmakers including Wong Kar-wai, Scud, and Fruit Chan; transnational and transgender visual cultures; documentaries about Southeast Asian domestic workers and queer intimacies; and poetry about language and precarity. This book will appeal to those interested in queer theory, Hong Kong studies, Sinophone studies, and comparative approaches. Listeners should also check out Alvin Wong's co-edited volume Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies(Routledge, 2020) and the Society of Sinophone Studies webpage (of which Alvin is currently chair!).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

How do we compare across languages, media, and histories, all without flattening differences? And what might Hong Kong teach us about doing comparison differently? Alvin K. Wong examines these and other questions in Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone (Duke UP, 2025), a wide-ranging and thought-provoking study of queerness in Hong Kong. Bringing together Sinophone literature, independent and commercial cinema, documentary films, and visual art, the book asks how Hong Kong's queer productions might help us rethink the work of comparison itself. Rather than treating Hong Kong as a marginal or derivative space — a space defined by British colonialism, China-centrism, or global capitalism — this book approaches the city as a site of methodological possibilities. The key concept the book advances, “unruly comparison,” replacing neat equivalences and stable categories with incommensurability and transnational connections and linking Hong Kong to other places, times, and queer spaces across the Sinophone. Theoretically deft, the book is filled with a wide range of fascinating material, including work by filmmakers including Wong Kar-wai, Scud, and Fruit Chan; transnational and transgender visual cultures; documentaries about Southeast Asian domestic workers and queer intimacies; and poetry about language and precarity. This book will appeal to those interested in queer theory, Hong Kong studies, Sinophone studies, and comparative approaches. Listeners should also check out Alvin Wong's co-edited volume Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies(Routledge, 2020) and the Society of Sinophone Studies webpage (of which Alvin is currently chair!).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:17532056201798502,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-9437-3289"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");pt> Click On Picture To See Larger PictureTrump placed tariffs on many nations, the Asian nation exports are surging, even with the tariffs. More money for the people. Fuel prices are below $2 in many states. Trump has cut 646 regulations.Trump is using the Jacksonian Pivot to bring down the [CB] and go back to the constitution. The [DS] is losing it money laundering system. They are having a difficult time funding their operations. Trump is continually putting the squeeze on the [DS] and each nation run by dictators is going to fall one by one. Trump gave the [DS] 8 months to comply with his EO. He brought the NG into their states, they forced them out. He gave them a chance but they decided to escalate the situation. Next move is POTUS. Economy (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:18510697282300316,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-8599-9832"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2008258196322856968?s=20   all-time high. This is despite US tariffs which were initially set at to 49%, but later negotiated down to ~20%. At the same time, Chinese exports to the US plunged -40% YoY in Q3 2025. This comes as the region has a massive cost advantage over US and European manufacturing, which ranges from 20% to 100%, even after tariffs. Companies use Southeast Asian economies as alternative export bases to avoid China’s 37% reciprocal tariff. As a result, the amount of trade rerouting from China hit a record $23.7 billion in September. US trade flows are shifting sharply amid tariffs. https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/2008327708200104042?s=20 https://twitter.com/profstonge/status/2008516399564509382?s=20  https://twitter.com/DrJStrategy/status/2008306299235189133?s=20   and a decisive shift of policy emphasis toward productive capital and economic sovereignty rather than financial engineering, Trump has reoriented the engines of growth toward productive capital, investment, industry, and national capacity. Anchored by the Trump Corollary, asserting a sovereign, American‑led Western Hemisphere and demonstrated in both the flawless military operation in Venezuela and the broader regime‑pressure strategy, this doctrine is not theater but an integrated fusion of economic, security, and hemispheric power. These changes are as profound in their structural implications as the original Jacksonian pivot, and those who assume Trump is a merely performative politician and strategist are therefore sorely mistaken, confusing a disruptive style with a coherent focused project to realign America's coalition, its economic model, and its role in the world. Political/Rights https://twitter.com/KatieMiller/status/2008286018722562351?s=20 https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/2008263492030349618?s=20 Hilton Axes Hotel From Their Systems After Video Shows Them Continuing to Ban DHS and ICE Agents  https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2008497245826556404?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2008497245826556404%7Ctwgr%5E65c50b3797a2e502ba8c026a05c290955554706a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Frusty-weiss%2F2026%2F01%2F06%2Fhilton-axes-hotel-from-their-systems-after-video-shows-them-continuing-to-ban-dhs-and-ice-agents-n2197811 Less than two hours after the video had been uploaded to X, Hilton issued another statement saying they were dropping that particular hotel from their list of franchisees and accusing ownership of lying to them about making corrections to their policy. https://twitter.com/HiltonNewsroom/status/2008522493171298503?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2008522493171298503%7Ctwgr%5E65c50b3797a2e502ba8c026a05c290955554706a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Frusty-weiss%2F2026%2F01%2F06%2Fhilton-axes-hotel-from-their-systems-after-video-shows-them-continuing-to-ban-dhs-and-ice-agents-n2197811 Source: redstate.com https://twitter.com/amuse/status/2008256013162410201?s=20   mandatory detention without bond hearings. Judges opposing the move admitted the goal is to promote self-deportation rather than extended courtroom battles. Conservatives say the numbers reveal a coordinated judicial campaign to override Trump’s immigration policy. SCOTUS has yet to rule on the matter. DOGE Corporation for Public Broadcasting Board Votes to Dissolve Organization in Act of Responsible Stewardship to Protect the Future of Public Media   The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress to steward the federal government's investment in public broadcasting, announced today that its Board of Directors has voted to dissolve the organization after 58 years of service to the American public. The decision follows Congress's rescission of all of CPB's federal funding and comes after sustained political attacks that made it impossible for CPB to continue operating as the Public Broadcasting Act intended. Source:  cpb.org Geopolitical https://twitter.com/Object_Zero_/status/2008524560891588691?s=20   flight path (ballistic or powered) from Kola to anywhere on the lower 48, then everything goes over Greenland. Greenland is the theatre where any strategic exchange between Washington and Moscow is contested. If you want to intercept a ballistic missile, the best point to do so is at the apogee, at the top of the flight path. The shortest route for an interceptor to get to an apogee is from directly below the apogee. That's where Greenland is. So, without stating what should happen here, this is **why** the Trump administration says they **need** Greenland for national security. The other thing that is happening is that the Northern Passage through the Arctic is opening up, and soon there will be Chinese cargo ships sailing through the Arctic to Rotterdam. It's faster than the Suez and the ships aren't limited to Suezmax size so China and EU trade is going to accelerate a lot. This means Chinese submarines will also be venturing under the Arctic into the Northern Atlantic, IF THEY AREN'T ALREADY DOING SO. Hence, the North East coast of Greenland serves not 1 but 2 critical strategic security objectives of US national security. If this wasn't clear to you, please understand that the Mercator global map projection is for children and journalists only. It is not a useful guide to where any countries or territories actually are in the real world that we live in. No self respecting adult should be using Mercator for their worldview. Anyone saying “there must be some other secret reason for Trump being interested in Greenland” is a certified ignoramus. https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/2008414070425206927?s=20  permission from the Ministry of Defense. “We want to clarify that what happened in downtown Caracas was because some drones flew over without permission and the police fired dissuasive shots. No confrontation took place. The whole country is in total tranquility,” said a Spokesman for the Information Ministry. https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/2008420269480694261?s=20  Miraflores Presidential Palace.   Seems like a failed coup attempt https://twitter.com/jackprandelli/status/2008298246675021881?s=20   offshore oil, creating a massive geopolitical risk. The most immediate outcome in capture of Maduro is to neutralize this threat and secure the operating companies stakes in Guyana, as well as Western Hemisphere’s energy security. By stabilizing Guyana’s production, which is set to hit 1.7 million barrels per day, the intervention guarantees way more oil flow in near term than reviving Venezuela’s aged infrastructure and heavy sour oil. This move protects billions in U.S. investment and positions Guyana producers as the ultimate winners. https://twitter.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/2008448254095012088?s=20 https://twitter.com/profstonge/status/2008591197728813564?s=20  Mass Protests Enter 9th Straight Day in Iran — Regime Accused of Killing Young Woman and Multiple Peaceful Protesters as Officials Deny Responsibility — Brave 11-Year-Old Iranian Boy Calls on Nation: “Take to the Streets! We Have Nothing to Lose!” (VIDEO)  Protests against Iran's murderous Islamic regime continued across the country for a ninth straight day over the weekend, as nationwide unrest intensifies and the government struggles to maintain control. Demonstrations have now spread to multiple cities throughout Iran, with citizens openly defying the Islamic Republic and targeting its symbols of power. The latest wave of protests was initially sparked by the collapse of Iran's currency, further devastating an already-crippled economy and pushing ordinary Iranians to the brink. Source: thegatewaypundit.com https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/2008537318035173629?s=20 https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/2008532051331526713?s=20 https://twitter.com/infantrydort/status/2008501122902774238?s=20   when reminded that teeth still exist. They insist the world runs on rules now and that borders are sacred. Also that true power has been replaced by paperwork. This belief is not moral in the least. It's f*****g archaeological. They live inside institutions built by violence, defended by men they no longer understand, and guaranteed by forces they refuse to acknowledge. Like tourists wandering a fortress, they admire the stonework while mocking the idea of a siege. They confuse order with nature. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Then blame the person that reminds them of this. Civilization is not the default state of humanity. It is an achievement that is temporary, fragile, and expensive. It exists only where force once cleared the ground and still quietly patrols the perimeter. A lion does not debate the ethics of hunger. Neither does a starving empire. History is not a morality play, it is a pressure test. When pressure rises, abstractions collapse first. Laws follow power; they do NOT precede it. Property exists only where someone can prevent it from being taken. Sovereignty is not declared, it is enforced. The modern West outsourced this enforcement, then forgot the invoice existed. So when someone points out uncomfortable realities (whether about Greenland, Venezuela, or the broader balance of power) they respond with ritual incantations: “You can't do that.” “That's wrong.” “That's against the rules.” As if the rules themselves are armed. As if history paused because we asked nicely. This is how empires fall. Not from invasion alone, but from conceptual rot. From mistaking a long season of safety for a permanent condition. From believing lethality is immoral instead of foundational. Every civilization that forgot how violence works eventually relearned it the hard way. The conquerors did not arrive because they were monsters; they arrived because their victims could no longer imagine them. The tragedy is not that power still exists. The tragedy is that so many have forgotten it does. Idk who needs to hear this but civilization is a garden grown atop a graveyard. Ignore the soil, and someone else will plant something far less gentle. Hate me for being the messenger and asking the hard questions about conquest if you want. You're just wasting your time. War/Peace Zelenskyy Announces the Appointment of Former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland as Economic Advisor  Chrystia Freeland was the former lead of the Canadian trade delegation when Trudeau realized he needed to try and offset the economic damage within the renegotiated NAFTA agreement known as the USMCA. Freeland was also the lead attack agent behind the debanking effort against Canadian truckers who opposed the vaccine mandate. In addition to holding Ukraine roots, the ideology of Chrystia Freeland as a multinational globalist and promoter for the World Economic Forum's ‘new world order' is well documented.    given the recent revelations about billions of laundered aid funds being skimmed by corrupt members of the Ukraine government, we can only imagine how much of the recovery funds would be apportioned to maintaining the life of indulgence the political leaders expect. In response to the lucrative “voluntary” appointment, Chrystia Freeland has announced her resignation from Canadian government in order to avoid any conflict of interest as the skimming is organized. Source: theconservativetreehouse.com https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/2008618653500273072?s=20 https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/2008610869924757613?s=20 this aligns with Trump’s stated approach, where Europe takes a leading role in postwar security but with American support to ensure durability—such as the proposed 15-year (or potentially longer) guarantees discussed in recent talks. The “Coalition of the Willing” (including the UK, France, Germany, and others) is coordinating these pledges to reassure Kyiv, but the framework explicitly ties into U.S.-backed elements like ceasefire verification and long-term armaments.  Russia has not yet shown willingness to compromise on core demands, so the deal’s success remains uncertain, but this step advances the security pillar of the overall plan. Medical/False Flags https://twitter.com/DerrickEvans4WV/status/2008435766742179996?s=20    dangerous diseases. Parents can still choose to give their children all of the Vaccinations, if they wish, and they will still be covered by insurance. However, this updated Schedule finally aligns the United States with other Developed Nations around the World. Congratulations to HHS Secretary Bobby Kennedy, CDC Acting Director Jim O'Neil, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, CMS Administrator Dr. Oz, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, and all of the Medical Experts and Professionals who worked very hard to make this happen. Many Americans, especially the “MAHA Moms,” have been praying for these COMMON SENSE reforms for many years. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [DS] Agenda https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2008416829404746084?s=20  https://twitter.com/WeTheMedia17/status/2008558203077095579?s=20 President Trump's Plan https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/2008278499153637883?s=20   who tried to kill Justice Kavanaugh at his family home in Maryland. Read: https://twitter.com/mirandadevine/status/2008312587197497804?s=20 https://twitter.com/PubliusDefectus/status/2008542355838955625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2008542355838955625%7Ctwgr%5E08a8ea4b3726984aaeb1e460fafe90ec5a25b84f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2026%2F01%2Fhillary-clinton-launches-attack-trump-january-6%2F Developing: Lt. Michael Byrd Who Shot Ashli Babbitt Dead on Jan. 6, 2021 in Cold Blood, Runs an ‘Unaccredited' Day-Care Center in Maryland at His Home and Has Pocketed $190 Million in HHS Funds   Captain Michael Byrd and his home daycare in Maryland. In one of his autopen's last acts before Joe Biden left office was to pardon Capt. Mike Byrd, the DC officer who shot and killed January 6 protester Ashli Babbitt in cold blood during the protests on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.  Paul Sperry discovered recently and posted on Tuesday that Former Lt., now Captain Mike Byrd, has been running an unaccredited day-care center with his wife in their Maryland home since 2008. That is nearly 17 years! The Byrds have received $190 million in this HHS day-care scheme. Via Paul Sperry. Via Karli Bonne at Midnight Rider: https://twitter.com/PattieRose20/status/2008547480431218991?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2008547480431218991%7Ctwgr%5Ec607b3d9ed0b3fbdb6e390fdfadc416d9a45a379%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F%3Fp%3D1506321 Source: thegatewaypundit.com The White House has published a page revealing the full TRUE story of January 6 — before, during, and after. It includes: – Video and evidence showing Nancy Pelosi's involvement – A complete, detailed timeline of events – A tribute to those who died on or because of J6 A full investigation into Nancy Pelosi and everyone involved is now essential. You can view the page here: https://whitehouse.gov/j6/  https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/2008569594550895005?s=20 EKO Put This Out April 28, 2025. President Trump signs Executive Order 14287 in the Oval Office. The title reads like standard bureaucracy: “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens.” But in the third paragraph, a single phrase changes everything: Sanctuary jurisdictions are engaging in “a lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law.” Insurrection. The exact statutory term from 10 U.S.C. §§ 332-333 . The language that unlocks the Insurrection Act of 1807. Georgetown Law professor Martin Lederman publishes analysis within days. The executive order mirrors Section 334 requirements. The formal proclamation to disperse before military deployment. It designates unlawful actors, issues formal warning, establishes consequences. Governors dismiss it as political theater. Constitutional attorneys recognize something else. The proclamation was already issued. Trump just didn't announce it as such. THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK January 20, 2025. Inauguration Day. Hours after taking the oath, Trump issues Proclamation 10886 declaring a national emergency at the southern border. Section 6(b) requires a joint report within 90 days on whether to invoke the Insurrection Act. The deadline falls April 20, 2025. Eight days later comes Executive Order 14287 . National emergency declaration establishes crisis conditions. The 90-day clock forces formal evaluation. The executive order provides the legal predicate. Section 334 of the Insurrection Act mandates the president issue a proclamation ordering insurgents to disperse before deploying military force. April 28 order satisfies every requirement. It names the actors. Describes their unlawful conduct. Warns of consequences. Grants opportunity to comply. Governors treated it as negotiation leverage. It was legal notification. The trap locked in April 2025. Everything since has been documentation. THE TESTING PHASE Throughout 2025, the administration attempts standard enforcement. National Guard deployments under existing authority. October 4, 2025 . Trump federalizes 300 Illinois National Guard members to protect ICE personnel in Chicago. Governor J.B. Pritzker files immediate legal challenge. Federal courts block the deployment. Posse Comitatus restricts military involvement in domestic law enforcement. November 2025 . Portland judge issues permanent injunction against Guard deployment in Oregon. December 23, 2025 . The Supreme Court denies emergency relief in Trump v. Illinois. Justice Kavanaugh files a brief concurrence with a consequential footnote: “One apparent ramification of the Court's opinion is that it could cause the President to use the U.S. military more than the National Guard.” Northwestern Law professor Paul Gowder decodes the signal : “This is basically an invitation for Trump to go straight to the Insurrection Act next time.” The courts established ordinary measures cannot succeed when states organize systematic resistance. They certified that regular law enforcement has become impracticable. They documented the exact threshold Section 332 requires. The founders designed a system that assumed conflict between federal and state authority. For decades, that friction was suppressed. Emergency powers normalized after 9/11, federal agencies expanded into state domains, courts deferred to administrative expertise. The Guard deployment battles weren't system failure. They were constitutional gravity reasserting itself. Courts blocking deployments under Posse Comitatus didn't weaken Trump's position. They certified that ordinary measures had become impracticable, crossing Section 332's threshold. December 31, 2025 . Trump announces Guard withdrawal from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland via Truth Social. Governor Newsom celebrates: “President Trump has finally admitted defeat.” But the machine's interpretation misreads strategic repositioning as retreat. You cannot claim ordinary measures have been exhausted if contested forces remain deployed. Pull back. Let obstruction resume unchecked. Document the refusal. Then demonstrate what unilateral executive action looks like when constitutional authority aligns. THE DEMONSTRATION Trump v. United States . THE HIDDEN NETWORKS Intelligence sources describe what the roundups since fall 2025 actually target. Embedded cartel operatives running fentanyl distribution chains under state-level protection. The riots following military arrests aren't organic resistance. They're funded backlash from criminal enterprises losing billions. Pre-staged materials appear at protest sites. Simultaneous actions coordinate across jurisdictions. The coordination runs deeper. Federal employee networks across multiple agencies held Zoom training sessions in early 2025. Officials with verified government IDs discussed “non-cooperation as non-violent direct action,” the 3.5% rule for governmental collapse, and infrastructure sabotage through coordinated sick calls. They planned to make federal law enforcement impracticable. The exact language Section 332 requires. Sanctuary policies exist because cartel operations generate billions flowing through state systems. Governors sit on nonprofit boards receiving federal grants. Those nonprofits contract back to state agencies, cycling federal dollars through “charitable” organizations. Cartel cash launders through these same construction and real estate networks. When Trump's operations extract high-value targets, they disrupt the business model. The Machine defends itself through coordinated obstruction designed to make federal enforcement impracticable. This transcends immigration policy. This tests whether states can capture governance for criminal enterprises and nullify federal supremacy. THE LINCOLN PARALLEL Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation confounded supporters and critics alike. Abolitionists expected moral thunder. Instead they received dry legalese about “military necessity” and “war powers.” The document deliberately avoided the word “freedom.” It specified which states, parishes, counties. It exempted border states still in the Union. Constitutional historians recognize the genius. Lincoln wasn't making a moral proclamation. He was establishing irreversible legal predicate under war powers. Once issued, even Northern defeat couldn't fully restore slavery. The proclamation made restoration of the old order structurally impossible. Trump's April 28 order follows identical construction. Critics expected immigration rhetoric. Instead: technical language about “unlawful insurrection” and “federal supremacy.” Specified sanctuary jurisdictions, formal notification procedures, funding suspensions. Avoided inflammatory language. Constitutional attorneys recognize the structure. Irreversible legal predicate under insurrection powers. Even political defeat cannot fully restore sanctuary authority. States would have to prove they're not in systematic insurrection. Both presidents disguised constitutional warfare as administrative procedure. THE COMPLETE RECORD When you review the eight-month timeline you recognize what most ‘experts' miss. The April 28 EO satisfied every Section 334 requirement. It designated sanctuary conduct as insurrection. It provided formal notification. It established consequences. It granted eight months to comply. Compliance never arrived. California and New York passed laws shielding criminal networks. Illinois officials threatened to prosecute ICE agents. Multiple states coordinated legal defenses against federal authority. Courts blocked every standard enforcement attempt. They certified that ordinary measures have become impracticable. Every statutory requirement checks complete: Formal proclamation warning insurgents to disperse: April 28, 2025 Executive Order 14287 Extended opportunity to comply: Eight months from April to December 2025 Documented systematic multi-state obstruction: Sanctuary laws, prosecution threats, coordinated resistance Exhausted ordinary enforcement measures: Guard deployments blocked by federal courts Judicial certification of impracticability: Supreme Court ruling with Kavanaugh footnote The legal architecture stands finished. The predicate has been established. Only the final triggering event remains. Thomas Jefferson signed the Insurrection Act into law on March 3, 1807 . He understood executive authority: forge the instrument ahead of the storm, then await the conditions that justify its use. Abraham Lincoln used it to preserve the Union when eleven states organized systematic resistance. Ulysses S. Grant invoked it to shatter the Ku Klux Klan when Southern governments refused to protect Black citizens. Dwight Eisenhower deployed federal troops to enforce Brown v. Board when Arkansas chose defiance. Each invocation followed the same pattern. Local authorities refuse to enforce federal law. The president issues formal proclamation. Forces deploy when resistance continues. The current situation exceeds every historical precedent in scale and coordination. Multiple state governments coordinating systematic obstruction. Sanctuary jurisdictions spanning dozens of cities. Criminal enterprises funding the resistance through captured state institutions. The April proclamation gave them eight months to stand down. They chose escalation. THE COUNTDOWN The January 4 statement confirms what the legal timeline already established. Prerequisites met. Constitutional threshold crossed and judicially certified. The operational timeline is active. The next escalation triggers the formal dispersal order. Section 334 requires the president issue proclamation ordering insurgents to “disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes” before deploying military force. That's the legal tripwire. Once issued, if obstruction persists after the compliance window closes, federal troops can enforce federal law. Active duty forces under the Insurrection Act. Constitutional. Unreviewable. The forces won't conduct door-to-door immigration raids. They'll provide security perimeters while federal law enforcement executes targeted operations against high-value assets. Operatives. Trafficking nodes. Criminal infrastructure. Targeting oath-bound officials elected and appointed, as well as federal employees who swore to uphold federal law and chose insurrection instead. THE RESTORATION Sanctuary jurisdictions received explicit insurrection warnings last spring. More than half a year to comply. Every olive branch rejected. Courts blocked ordinary enforcement repeatedly, certifying impracticability. The Venezuela op demonstrated unilateral resolve. Yesterday's statement activated the operational sequence. Pattern recognized. Machine is exposed. Evidence is complete. What remains is execution. They're just waiting to hear it tick. The most powerful weapon restrains until every prerequisite aligns. Until mercy extends fully and meets systematic rejection. Until the constitutional framework demands its use. Every prerequisite has aligned. Mercy has been extended and rejected. The framework demands its use. Revolution destroys. Reversion restores. The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves. The Insurrection Proclamation frees a republic.  https://twitter.com/EkoLovesYou/status/2008304655156342936?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2008597603412308341?s=20 (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

Click the post for details on this episode! Welcome back to Open House! Randy Seidman here, coming to you from Thailand with another two hours of the grooviest beats. Happy holidays to you all of my listeners around the world, I'm wishing you the best for 2026. Amazing times this past month at BOHO in Pattaya and Baccarat in Bangkok, thank you to everyone who made it out. This week I'm playing the mighty Jungle Experience in Koh Phangan, and then Mustache in Bangkok January 30th. Today's episode is a special one with some of my favorite tunes in the first hour, followed by an exclusive session with the versatile South East Asian slayer, TNZ. For now, turn it up. Randy Seidman's Website Randy Seidman's SoundCloud Randy Seidman's Beatport Randy Seidman's Spotify Randy Seidman's Facebook Randy Seidman's Twitter Randy Seidman's Track List: 01. Jerome Robins, Karsten Sollors - Don't Stop The Music (Original Mix) [Randy Edit] 02. Noah Devega 'Rock to the Rhythm' (Randy's 'Bad Boy BKK' Edit] 03. Zurra - Pow! (Extended Mix) [Randy Edit] 04. Jorge Montia, Joe Red & Jose Ponce - Dark Valley (Original Mix) [Randy REdit] 05. Angel Heredia - Sing Ha He (Original Mix) [Randy Edit] 06. Angel Heredia - Zurek (Original Mix) [Randy Edit] 07. Angel Heredia - Atlas (Original Mix) [Randy Edit] 08. Angel Heredia - Unknow (Original Mix) [Randy Edit] 09. Siwell, Lucky Vegas - Count On You [Randy Edit] 10. TAI, Son Of 8 - In & Out (Earth n Days Remix) [Randy Edit] 11. Yvvan Back, Helvig - Dream Of You [Randy's 'So Many Times' Edit] 12. Tiesto, Poppy Baskcomb - Drifting (KREAM Remix) 13. Steve Angello - Tivoli (KREAM) [Randy Edit] 14. Kryder, Natalie Shay - Rapture [Randy Edit] 15. Caelu, OutFlux, HYPERS - Afterlife (feat._Caelu) (Extended Mix) [Randy Edit] 16. Thomaz Krauze - I'm Still Standing Feat. Stee Downes (Going Deeper Remix) [Randy Edit] I hope you enjoyed the first hour with some of my top recent tunes. Up next is a special exclusive session with the talented and versatile rising star out of South East Asia, TNZ. I had the pleasure of playing with TNZ at my recent show in Pattaya, and we ended up closing out the night together with a special B2B. I was very impressed by her skills, and I think you will be too! With residencies at Thailand's top spots, and stage time at the best clubs around Asia, TNZ is making her mark on the Asian dance music scene. She commands respect for her well-crafted mixes that range from House to Techno, and today she is here just for you. For the next hour, TNZ is in the mix. TNZ's Instagram TNZ's Linker.ee TNZ's MixClloud TNZ's Track List: 01. Haffenfold - Day & Age (Original Mix) 02. Franc Fala, Benja (NL) - Colombian Shipment (Original Mix) 03. Doruk (TR) - Bounce (Original Mix) 04. Angels Noise - Huracan (Original Mix) 05. Max Styler, Deomid - Every Night (Original Mix) 06. Jon.K - Wimbo (Original Mix) 07. Para Noir - One More Track (Extended Mix) 08. Stefano Mapo - Fuego (Original Mix) 09. Zac, Undercode - Hold Me Closer (Extended Mix) 10. Hidden Empire - Turn It Up (Extended Mix) 11. Landau, Silver Panda - Take No More (Extended Mix) 12. Rozenbergg - Title Doesn't Matter (Original Mix) 13. Clim - Feyko (Original Mix) 14. Contenance - Kush Coma (Extended Mix) 15. Artique - Out Of Mind (Original Mix) 16. Lena Storm - Shukr (Original Mix) Randy Seidman · Open House 251 w/Randy Seidman + TNZ [Jan. 2026]

Episode #462: Dulyapak Preecharush, an associate professor of Southeast Asian studies and comparative political scientist specializing in Myanmar, argues that Myanmar's post-independence political trajectory is best understood as a deliberately managed hybrid political system rather than a failed democratic transition. Drawing on his long-term research, he explains that this system combines limited political opening with entrenched military dominance, allowing reform and conflict management to proceed indefinitely while structurally blocking the emergence of genuine federal democracy. In his view, only a decisive rupture in military political power, rather than continued reform within the system, could produce a fundamentally new political order. He situates Myanmar alongside other hybrid regimes, such as Singapore and Cambodia, where elections and civilian institutions exist but core authority remains tightly controlled. Myanmar's 2008 Constitution exemplifies this model by permitting parties and elections while guaranteeing the military veto power and reserved parliamentary seats. The concept of “disciplined democracy,” articulated by military leaders, captures this logic of participation without vulnerability. The relocation of the capital from Yangon to Naypyidaw in 2006 serves as a concrete illustration of this hybrid logic. Dulyapak explains the move as combining strategic, developmental, and symbolic aims. Shifting the capital inland reduced exposure to foreign intervention and mass uprisings, strengthened command-and-control capacity, and improved logistical reach across the Burman heartland. At the same time, the military sought to inscribe itself into a longer historical narrative by emulating precolonial monarchs through ritual practices, including pagoda construction and the ceremonial raising of white elephants as markers of legitimate rule. Naypyidaw's deliberately zoned layout—separating civilian population, administration, and military command—physically embodies a system designed to allow limited political opening without threatening military control. Turning to federalism in Myanmar, Dulyapak traces its origins to the 1947 Panglong negotiations and its suppression after the 1962 military takeover, which centralized power and eliminatedpolitical debate. Federal ideas re-emerged after 2011 under a hybrid system, but their fragility was exposed by the 2021 coup. Today, he argues, Myanmar contains multiple governing forms simultaneously: centralized unitarian control in the heartland, near-autonomous rule in some frontier areas, and continued pursuit of democratic federalism elsewhere. This fragmentation, reinforced by regional geopolitics and constrained international engagement, sustains stalemate rather than resolution. Myanmar, he concludes, remains a revealing case for understanding why partial reform under hybrid rule fails to resolve foundational political conflict.

In The Plant-Forward Kitchen: Southeast Asia, we explore the bold, aromatic cuisines of Vietnam and Thailand — where plant-forward traditions are deeply rooted in everyday meals. Southeast Asian cuisine has long embraced plant-forward principles, drawing from its Buddhist roots that promote compassion for all living beings and encourage followers to adopt an occasional or ongoing vegetarian diet. In this series, we cook vegetarian pho with Buddhist monk, Nguyen Dzoan Cam Van, and we sample a family-style spread of vegetarian offerings at Buddhist Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda Temple Restaurant. We make some Vietnamese classics, such as Vietnamese Lemongrass Tofu, with Chef Mai Pham of Lemon Grass Restaurant. At the Michelin-starred Vietnam House Chef/Owner Luke Nguyen shows us his take on a vegetarian pork belly salad. In Thailand, renowned chef and television presenter, Ian Kittichai gives us a whirlwind tour of Thai curries. Finally, we head to Michelin-starred Bo.Lan Restaurant in Bangkok, where Chefs Bo Songvisava and Dylan Jones make an eggplant relish, and discuss the importance of championing local farmers. Watch the full series at: https://www.plantforwardkitchen.org/southeast-asia  

What went wrong with Burma's democratic experiment? How are we to understand the country's turbulent politics in the wake of the 2021 coup? In this conversation with Duncan McCargo, Amitav Acharya talks about his new book on Burma, which draws extensively on communications with young activists he refers to as “thought warriors”. He also discusses the challenges of researching a closed country, and why he decided to write a crossover book that he hopes will reach beyond the usual academic audiences. A decade ago, Burma was full of light and hope. Today, it has descended into darkness and despair. The once promising political and opening up of the country has been set back, possibly for a long time. How did this happen? Why? Many outside observers were surprised by the latest developments, but in some ways they were rather predictable. For those watching Burma the February 2021 coup was in the making for some time.  Tragic Nation: Burma--Why and How Democracy Failed (Penguin Random House, 2023) provides a timely and insightful account of the political situation in Burma, assessing why the country experienced the coup, what are the implications for the people of Burma and the Southeast Asian region, and what role the international community can play to prevent Burma becoming a failed state. Amitav Acharya is a distinguished professor and the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC. His writings on Southeast Asia include Whose Ideas Matter: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism (Cornell, 2009). Duncan McCargo is director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and a professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen. 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

What went wrong with Burma's democratic experiment? How are we to understand the country's turbulent politics in the wake of the 2021 coup? In this conversation with Duncan McCargo, Amitav Acharya talks about his new book on Burma, which draws extensively on communications with young activists he refers to as “thought warriors”. He also discusses the challenges of researching a closed country, and why he decided to write a crossover book that he hopes will reach beyond the usual academic audiences. A decade ago, Burma was full of light and hope. Today, it has descended into darkness and despair. The once promising political and opening up of the country has been set back, possibly for a long time. How did this happen? Why? Many outside observers were surprised by the latest developments, but in some ways they were rather predictable. For those watching Burma the February 2021 coup was in the making for some time.  Tragic Nation: Burma--Why and How Democracy Failed (Penguin Random House, 2023) provides a timely and insightful account of the political situation in Burma, assessing why the country experienced the coup, what are the implications for the people of Burma and the Southeast Asian region, and what role the international community can play to prevent Burma becoming a failed state. Amitav Acharya is a distinguished professor and the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC. His writings on Southeast Asia include Whose Ideas Matter: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism (Cornell, 2009). Duncan McCargo is director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and a professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Cambodia and Thailand will gradually consolidate their ceasefire. This is according to a communique following the meeting of Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and his counterparts from the two Southeast Asian countries.

A cease-fire has been reached between Thailand and Cambodia after the deadliest clashes in years between the two Southeast Asian nations. At least 101 people were killed, and leaders on both sides are now expressing hope the new agreement will hold.On Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law requiring warning labels on the addictive features of social media platforms such as TikTok and X. The move is part of the state's effort to address a youth mental health crisis linked to social media use.As Americans take to the roads and airports during the busy travel period between Christmas and New Year's, a winter storm has caused more than a thousand flights to be canceled or delayed across the Northeast and Great Lakes regions.

Episode overview Season 10 opens with a live conversation setting the intellectual frame for a new series built around Contemplating Catastrophe, an edited collection of short essays engaging thinkers outside conventional disaster studies. The episode reflects on why reading beyond the field matters, how theory reshapes practice, and why eclectic, critical scholarship is essential for the future of disaster research. Hosts Jason von Meding Ksenia Chmutina Guests A.J. Faas — anthropologist and disaster scholar J.C. Gaillard — geographer and disaster researcher Key themes Why disaster studies must continually read beyond itself Theory as a way to unsettle settled ideas, not as abstraction for its own sake Eclecticism, curiosity, and “thinking with” rather than “thinking about” communities The limits of normative frameworks (e.g., vulnerability, “no natural disasters”) How critical theory informs practice, not just scholarship The importance of non-Anglophone, non-Western, and untranslated bodies of thought Creating intellectual space for early-career researchers to take theoretical risks Core discussion highlights Introduction to Contemplating Catastrophe, a collection of short essays on thinkers who shape disaster thinking indirectly—philosophers, artists, theorists, and writers outside the field. A.J. Faas discusses reading across philosophy, literature, anthropology, and history to keep thought “lively,” and reflects on how Gramsci and Santiago Castro-Gómez help disaster scholars rethink power, hegemony, and relationality. J.C. Gaillard reflects on frustration with disaster practice as a driver for engaging critical theory, particularly Foucault, and argues that theory liberates practice rather than distracting from it. Shared concern that dominant concepts can silence alternative ontologies and lived realities if left unexamined. A collective call to broaden disaster scholarship beyond Euro-American traditions and to value thinkers writing in other languages and contexts. Season 10 structure Live episodes recorded through 2025, archived on our Youtube channel! Thematic episodes planned on feminism, urbanism, anarchism, Black power, Latin American and Caribbean thought, East and Southeast Asian intellectual traditions, and Eastern philosophies.  

This plant-forward salad is inspired by a Thai green papaya salad. Chef Toni Sakaguchi from the Culinary Institute of America makes a base of shredded green papaya, and tosses that with shredded purple cabbage and romaine lettuce, and tops it with fried dumplings for a heartier entrée salad. Get the Southeast Asian Salad recipe here!

After becoming established in the Southeast Asian market, Chinese new-style tea brands are now turning to dig gold in the United States, looking for new opportunities.在东南亚市场站稳脚跟后，中国新式茶饮品牌正将目光投向美国市场，寻求新的发展机遇。Mixue Group opened its firstbrick-and-mortar store in the US on Saturday, marking its entry into the North American market. The store was opened in Hollywood, directly opposite the iconic TCL Chinese Theatre on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, California.蜜雪集团于周六在美国开设首家实体门店，标志着其正式进军北美市场。该门店落户好莱坞，正对加利福尼亚州洛杉矶好莱坞星光大道上的标志性建筑TCL中国剧院。New-style tea refers to freshly prepared, healthier versions of milk tea and fruit tea.新式茶饮指的是现制现卖、更健康的奶茶和果茶。The opening of new-style tea brand stores in the US has been gaining momentum this year.今年，新式茶饮品牌在美国开设门店的势头日益强劲。On Aug 1, Heytea opened a store in Cupertino in northern California. So far, Heytea, the first Chinese new-style tea brand to explore the US market, operates 35 stores in the US, according to research institute Hongcan. This makes it the brand with the most US stores among Chinese new-style tea brands. One year ago, it had just two stores in the US, which demonstrates its rapid expansion.8月1日，喜茶在北加州库比蒂诺市开设新店。据红磡咨询数据显示，作为首个进军美国市场的中国新式茶饮品牌，喜茶目前在美国运营着35家门店，成为中国新式茶饮品牌在美国门店数量最多的品牌。一年前，喜茶在美国仅有两家门店，其扩张速度之快可见一斑。Meanwhile, Molly Tea has opened five stores in the US, while Chagee, as China's first new-style tea brand to be listed in the US, opened an outlet in the Westfield Century City mall in Los Angeles. Less than three months later, another outlet was opened in the metropolitan Los Angeles area.与此同时，茉莉奶白已在美国开设五家门店，而作为中国首个登陆美国的新式茶饮品牌，霸王茶姬在洛杉矶西田世纪城购物中心开设了首家门店。不到三个月后，该品牌又在洛杉矶大都会区开设了第二家门店。In July, Lelecha opened stores in New York and Los Angeles, continuing its business model of selling both tea and baked goods.七月，乐乐茶在纽约和洛杉矶开设门店，延续其茶饮与烘焙食品并售的经营模式。The market is responding positively.市场反应积极。For example, Heytea's outlet in Times Square in New York, which was opened at the beginning of this year, sold more than 3,500 cups of tea on the first day, and its average daily sales volume exceeded 2,000 cups, according to company data.例如，根据喜茶公司数据，今年初在纽约时代广场开业的喜茶门店开业首日就售出超过3500杯茶饮，其日均销量超过2000杯。Molly Tea's outlets are also breaking records. According to the company, the sales revenue of its outlet in New York in October 2024 surpassed $570,000, a record for Chinese new-style tea brands. The gross merchandise value of its first outlet in Los Angeles surpassed 4.19 million yuan ($595,000) in its first month, setting an overseas store record for the company.茉莉奶白的门店业绩同样屡创新高。据该公司透露，其纽约门店2024年10月销售额突破57万美元，创下中国新式茶饮品牌纪录。其首家洛杉矶门店开业首月商品交易总额突破419万元人民币（约合59.5万美元），刷新了该品牌海外门店业绩纪录。Chagee and Auntea Jenny have also proved popular in the US. On the day that Chagee opened its store in the US, it sold over 5,000 cups of tea. From May 16-18, Auntea Jenny's first store in the US, located in the Flushing neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, recorded 3,024 orders and achieved gross merchandise value of $65,000.霸王茶姬与沪上阿姨在美国同样广受欢迎。霸王茶姬在美国开业首日售出逾5000杯茶饮。5月16日至18日，位于纽约皇后区法拉盛社区的沪上阿姨首家美国门店共计完成3024笔订单，商品总价值达6.5万美元。Facing an increasing number of Chinese new-style tea brands in the US, Jason Smith, a US netizen, said on social media platform X that he hoped American companies "are ready for some real competition".面对美国市场上日益增多的中国新式茶饮品牌，美国网友杰森·史密斯（Jason Smith）在社交平台X上发文称，希望美国企业“做好迎接真正竞争的准备”。Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said, "With the Southeast Asian market tending to be saturated, the US, with its large consumption power base, high per customer transaction rate and demand for consumption upgrade, has become a new hot spot for Chinese new-style tea brands."北京社会科学院副研究员王鹏表示：“随着东南亚市场趋于饱和，美国凭借其庞大的消费群体、高人均消费额以及消费升级需求，已成为中国新式茶饮品牌的新热点。”Zhan Junhao, founder of Fujian Huace Brand Positioning Consulting, said: "New-style tea brands opening stores in the US is an inevitable trend, as they compete fiercely in (China's) domestic market and look forincremental markets. Each brand adopts a differentiated positioning layout to adapt to the market, avoidinghomogeneous competition.福建华策品牌定位咨询创始人詹军豪表示：“新式茶饮品牌进军美国市场是必然趋势，因其在（中国）国内市场竞争激烈，需寻求增量市场。各品牌采取差异化定位布局适应市场，避免同质化竞争。”"The new-style tea market in the US is growing rapidly, and there is no dominant brand, offering a window of opportunity for Chinese brands to seize market share," Zhan said, adding that the market potential will likely attract more brands.詹军豪表示：“美国新式茶饮市场正快速扩张，目前尚未出现主导品牌，这为中国品牌抢占市场份额提供了机遇窗口。”并补充道，该市场潜力或将吸引更多品牌入局。Zhan noted that as promising as the market is, Chinese brands still face challenges when opening stores in the US. For example, high costs of staffing and rent squeeze profits, and there are cultural differences.詹军豪指出，尽管市场前景广阔，中国品牌在美国开设门店仍面临诸多挑战。例如，高昂的人力成本和租金挤压利润空间，同时还存在文化差异。Wang, the researcher, said that the brands need to adopt a long-term strategy, building core competitiveness through precise positioning, deep localization and supply chain resilience.研究员王鹏表示，品牌需要采取长期战略，通过精准定位、深度本土化及供应链韧性来构建核心竞争力。brick-and-mortar storeadj./ˌbrɪk.ənˈmɔːr.tɚ/实体门店incremental marketadj./ˌɪŋ.krəˈmen.t̬əl/增量市场homogeneousadj./ˌhoʊ.moʊˈdʒiː.ni.əs/同质化

"Public markets are behaving more like private markets. Private markets want to behave more like public markets. So actually, they're just one market.What's not the same is the level of research, information, data disclosure. Correct. That's the only difference. It's this information gap that, to us, is the single biggest opportunity now.We think over the course of the next five to 10 years, there'll be more trading venues, more liquidity providers, more market makers, more investor types—all of that. And I think what Smartkarma has always done is be the information flow for part of capital markets.In fact, that sort of 74 billion number, I think, is quite conservative. I've seen other estimates that are close to 120 billion. So it depends on what you see as sort of growth and what you see beyond. But regardless, I think it's very large numbers, and the ratio of exit to invested capital is extremely low. A 50 billion hole is a pretty big hole." - Raghav Kapoor, CEO of SmartkarmaRaghav Kapoor, CEO & co-founder of Smartkarma, joined us for a conversation on the launch of PvtIQ and the structural transformation of Asia's private markets. Drawing from his experience building Smartkarma's independent research platform, Raghav explained how client demand for pre-IPO coverage led to creating PvtIQ, an intelligence platform designed to bridge the critical information gap in Southeast Asia's private markets. We discussed the striking imbalance where $74 billion has been invested into the region's tech ecosystem but only $23 billion has been returned through exits, highlighting the urgent need for better data infrastructure and price discovery. Raghav shared unique insights on how families dominate the region's investment landscape, why private and public markets are converging into one, and his vision for PvtIQ to become the intelligence backbone supporting companies, investors, and regulators in bringing more transparency and efficiency to Asia's rapidly evolving private market ecosystem.Episode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by Raghav Kapoor[00:57]] Smartkarma launches PvtIQ for Asia's private markets[03:11]] Investors requesting coverage three years before IPO[04:08]] Supporting MAS equity market development program[05:24]] Singapore's public markets languished despite private growth[06:13]] Path from fundraising to public listing explained[08:37]] $74 billion invested, only $23 billion exits[09:45]] Companies need support to achieve IPO readiness[11:00]] Capital chasing deals shifted to improving disclosure[11:57]] Southeast Asia's extreme market fragmentation challenges[13:23]] Families dominate and influence Southeast Asian markets[14:38]] Lack of data creates serious structural challenges[19:01]] Private market investors transitioning from momentum investing[20:18]] Digital banks provide disclosure model for research[21:24]] Late stage private rounds resemble public IPOs[23:26]] Liquidity without information is just volatility[24:06]] Private and public markets converging into one[25:30]] Information gap is the single biggest opportunity[27:00]] Private market research TAM already $8 billion[28:57]] What great looks like: intelligence backbone for Asia's private markets[30:57]] ClosingProfile: Raghav Kapoor, CEO and co-founder, SmartkarmaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ragkap/Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Recorded in Poddster Singapore

Deze week hoor je in NRC Vandaag onze serie Wilde eeuwen, het begin. Een van de verhalende series die we dit jaar maakten: perfect voor tijdens de dagen rond Kerst.Het is 50.000 jaar geleden. Seddi staat trots voor haar grote tekening van een wrattenzwijn, diep in een grot op Sulawesi. Zal het zwijn haar volk helpen te overleven? Heeft u vragen, suggesties of ideeën over onze journalistiek? Mail dan naar onze redactie via podcast@nrc.nl.Voor deze aflevering is onder meer gebruikt gemaakt van deze literatuur: Maxime Aubert e.a. ‘Narrative cave art in Indonesia by 51,200 years ago' in Nature, op 25 juli 2024. Rikai Sawafuji e.a. ‘East and Southeast Asian hominin dispersal and evolution: A review' in Quaternary Science Reviews,Volume 333, op 1 Juni 2024. April Nowell ‘Oral Storytelling and Knowledge Transmission in Upper Paleolithic Children and Adolescents' in Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, in Maart 2023. Adam Brumm e.a. ‘Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi' in Science Advances, op 15 januari 2021. Chris Stringer e.a. ‘Did the Denisovans Cross Wallace's Line?', in Science, op 18 oktober 2013. Michael Witzel ‘The origins of the world's mythologies', bij Oxford University Press, in 2012.Sally Mcbrearty e.a. ‘The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior' in Journal of Human Evolution, in november 2000.Zie ook ‘Het oudste verhaal ter wereld werd 50.000 jaar geleden getekend in een grot op het eiland Sulawesi', in NRC op 16 november.In deze aflevering komt muziek voor van de volgende artiesten: Fralalai, Frodi Fransman, Hidde Meenhorst, Arno Adelaars, Imre Peemot.Tekst en presentatie: Hendrik SpieringRedactie en regie: Mirjam van ZuidamMuziek, montage en mixage: Rufus van BaardwijkBeeld: Jeen BertingVormgeving: Yannick MortierZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

① Southeast Asian foreign ministers have gathered in Malaysia for a special meeting to discuss the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. What steps can be taken to de-escalate tensions and end the fighting? (00:58) ② China has issued a serious warning to Japan over a senior Japanese official's remarks that Japan should have nuclear weapons. We explore why Japan should not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. (13:13) ③ EU leaders have struck a deal to loan 90 billion euros to Ukraine, but failed to agree on using frozen Russian assets. What's the calculation of the bloc? (25:07) ④ China has released a new batch of public data application models to accelerate the use of government data in key sectors. How will this initiative improve digital governance in the country? (33:14) ⑤ A new generation of Chinese beverage brands is tapping into the US market. Do they stand a chance to succeed? (43:46)

International Law and Security in Indo-Pacific: Strategic Design for the Region (Routledge, 2025) edited by Dr. Joanna Siekiera uses an interdisciplinary approach to discuss international law and conflict in the Indo-Pacific region, covering topics such as maritime security, climate change and international relations. Detailing how international relations and particular state interests govern regional and global partnerships, the book provides suggestions for the future of the Indo-Pacific region. Exploring how conflict within the region has international repercussions, topics covered include the role of South-East Asian countries, and the role of statehood of small islands in Oceania. Detailing harmonization of laws and policies in the context of international security and maritime law, the book focuses on the impact of climate change and other topical issues such as cyber security and the protection of cultural identity. The book will be of interest to researchers in the field of international law, law of the sea, international relations and security.Dr. Joanna Siekiera is an expert in international law, NATO consultant, trainer, and educator. She currently works as the Assistant Professor at the War Studies University in Warsaw, Poland. She is also a fellow at the U.S. Marine Corps University in Quantico and supports various military institutions as a legal SME and course facilitator.Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. 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

International Law and Security in Indo-Pacific: Strategic Design for the Region (Routledge, 2025) edited by Dr. Joanna Siekiera uses an interdisciplinary approach to discuss international law and conflict in the Indo-Pacific region, covering topics such as maritime security, climate change and international relations. Detailing how international relations and particular state interests govern regional and global partnerships, the book provides suggestions for the future of the Indo-Pacific region. Exploring how conflict within the region has international repercussions, topics covered include the role of South-East Asian countries, and the role of statehood of small islands in Oceania. Detailing harmonization of laws and policies in the context of international security and maritime law, the book focuses on the impact of climate change and other topical issues such as cyber security and the protection of cultural identity. The book will be of interest to researchers in the field of international law, law of the sea, international relations and security.Dr. Joanna Siekiera is an expert in international law, NATO consultant, trainer, and educator. She currently works as the Assistant Professor at the War Studies University in Warsaw, Poland. She is also a fellow at the U.S. Marine Corps University in Quantico and supports various military institutions as a legal SME and course facilitator.Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

International Law and Security in Indo-Pacific: Strategic Design for the Region (Routledge, 2025) edited by Dr. Joanna Siekiera uses an interdisciplinary approach to discuss international law and conflict in the Indo-Pacific region, covering topics such as maritime security, climate change and international relations. Detailing how international relations and particular state interests govern regional and global partnerships, the book provides suggestions for the future of the Indo-Pacific region. Exploring how conflict within the region has international repercussions, topics covered include the role of South-East Asian countries, and the role of statehood of small islands in Oceania. Detailing harmonization of laws and policies in the context of international security and maritime law, the book focuses on the impact of climate change and other topical issues such as cyber security and the protection of cultural identity. The book will be of interest to researchers in the field of international law, law of the sea, international relations and security.Dr. Joanna Siekiera is an expert in international law, NATO consultant, trainer, and educator. She currently works as the Assistant Professor at the War Studies University in Warsaw, Poland. She is also a fellow at the U.S. Marine Corps University in Quantico and supports various military institutions as a legal SME and course facilitator.Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

International Law and Security in Indo-Pacific: Strategic Design for the Region (Routledge, 2025) edited by Dr. Joanna Siekiera uses an interdisciplinary approach to discuss international law and conflict in the Indo-Pacific region, covering topics such as maritime security, climate change and international relations. Detailing how international relations and particular state interests govern regional and global partnerships, the book provides suggestions for the future of the Indo-Pacific region. Exploring how conflict within the region has international repercussions, topics covered include the role of South-East Asian countries, and the role of statehood of small islands in Oceania. Detailing harmonization of laws and policies in the context of international security and maritime law, the book focuses on the impact of climate change and other topical issues such as cyber security and the protection of cultural identity. The book will be of interest to researchers in the field of international law, law of the sea, international relations and security.Dr. Joanna Siekiera is an expert in international law, NATO consultant, trainer, and educator. She currently works as the Assistant Professor at the War Studies University in Warsaw, Poland. She is also a fellow at the U.S. Marine Corps University in Quantico and supports various military institutions as a legal SME and course facilitator.Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

International Law and Security in Indo-Pacific: Strategic Design for the Region (Routledge, 2025) edited by Dr. Joanna Siekiera uses an interdisciplinary approach to discuss international law and conflict in the Indo-Pacific region, covering topics such as maritime security, climate change and international relations. Detailing how international relations and particular state interests govern regional and global partnerships, the book provides suggestions for the future of the Indo-Pacific region. Exploring how conflict within the region has international repercussions, topics covered include the role of South-East Asian countries, and the role of statehood of small islands in Oceania. Detailing harmonization of laws and policies in the context of international security and maritime law, the book focuses on the impact of climate change and other topical issues such as cyber security and the protection of cultural identity. The book will be of interest to researchers in the field of international law, law of the sea, international relations and security.Dr. Joanna Siekiera is an expert in international law, NATO consultant, trainer, and educator. She currently works as the Assistant Professor at the War Studies University in Warsaw, Poland. She is also a fellow at the U.S. Marine Corps University in Quantico and supports various military institutions as a legal SME and course facilitator.Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies

Russell Moore talks with pastor and author David Platt (McLean Bible Church, Radical) about his new book All You Want for Christmas, which is built around one verse: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” Together they explore why this claim stands apart from every other religion's story of humans climbing their way up to God—and why the Christian story begins with God coming down the mountain to us. Platt and Moore talk about what it means to believe in a personal God in a culture that prays to “the universe,” how to face grief and doubt in the “happiest season of all,” and why the wonder of Christmas is both more comforting and more unsettling than we realize. They also discuss the difference between divine service and the prosperity gospel, the surprising role of dreams and magi in God's self-revelation, and what it means to repent and trust when belief doesn't come easily. Platt shares stories from a Southeast Asian temple, a Muslim Uber driver's midnight conversion, and his own family's Christmas traditions—complete with “giving jars” and a goat that wasn't for the kid who thought it was. Resources mentioned in this episode: All You Want for Christmas by David Platt Radical by David Platt   Keep up with Russell: Sign up for the weekly newsletter where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying. Submit a question for the show at questions@russellmoore.com  Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Authorities have confirmed the alleged gunmen behind the Bondi Beach massacre had both recently travelled to the Philippines, with allegations they had undergone extensive terrorist training. The Southeast Asian country has been a terrorist training ground for extremists around the world for decades, but now it appears there’s a dangerous resurgence. In this episode of The Briefing, Natarsha Belling is joined by criminologist Dr Clarke Jones, who has interviewed convicted terrorists behind bars in the Philippines, on what’s behind this new wave of radicalisation. Headlines: The NSW Premier has announced parliament will be recalled next week to discuss urgent new reforms in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, the first funerals of the victims of Sunday’s terror attack have been held today, and former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg has criticised the Albanese government's lack of action and called for a royal commission into antisemitism. Follow The Briefing: TikTok: @thebriefingpodInstagram: @thebriefingpodcast YouTube: @TheBriefingPodcastFacebook: @thebriefingpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fighting between Cambodia and Thailand has escalated along their contested border on Tuesday, with the Southeast Asian neighbours both saying they will not back down in defending their sovereignty. With each side is blaming the other for starting Monday's renewed clashes, and it's unclear how or if a fragile ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump in July can be salvaged.

"I was at a tourism conference in Hangzhou in 2018, where Chinese companies showed how they were using AI to personalise travel for users. That's nearly eight years ago." In 2025, AI became a strategic commercial tool in all sectors, including travel and tourism. But it isn't widely understood just how effectively embedded AI already is in China's tourism sector, and how far ahead its leading players are to much of the world. On the final show of 2015, Gary welcomes back Joao Romao, Associate Professor at Yasuda Women's University in Japan, to debate the shifting Geopolitics of Travel in Asia six years after the first cases of Covid-19 were discovered in Wuhan, China. Joao is the author of Economic Geography of Tourism, which places contemporary tourism in the context of global economic, technological, societal, environmental and political challenges. We discuss the evolving AI-in-travel landscape and the multiplicity of post-Covid variables shaping travel decision making.  We analyse how Covid savaged the value of the Yen leading to a surge of inbound tourism, while making outbound travel expensive from Japan. And we dive into the implications for regional travel of icy bilateral relations between China-Japan. Plus, we look at the Middle East's investment-driven approach to tourism growth, and how this might impact South East Asian destinations in future. Meanwhile, what is the Circuit of Proximity, and why does it matter? And what did governments across Asia learn about their travel economies during the Covid shutdowns - and are those learnings are being effectively applied six years later?

Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines are grappling with severe flooding, landslides and storm damage after torrential rain and vast cyclones hit the region over the past few days.Also, the presidential election in Honduras is too-close-to-call, and the Oxford English Dictionary releases its 'word of the year'.(Photo: A military rescue team vehicle makes its way through a flooded road after heavy rainfall in a suburb of Colombo, Sri Lanka, 30 November 2025. Credit: Chamila Karunarathne/EPA/Shutterstock)

In this episode, hosts Ray Powell and Jim Carouso welcome Dr. Alvin Camba, a sociologist who studies Southeast Asian political economies, China relations, and critical mineral supply chains. Camba, author of the New America article "The Jakarta Model is No Blueprint," critiques Indonesia's export ban on raw nickel and incentives for domestic refining, which have driven economic growth and positioned the country as a key EV battery supplier but have also resulted in severe human and environmental costs.​​Growth at what cost? Camba explains the "Jakarta model” - policies forcing mining firms to sell domestically, spurring smelters and industrial parks but creating oligopsonies where refiners dictate low prices, triggering a "race to the bottom" in mining practices. This has led to widespread environmental damage like air pollution, acid leakage, water contamination, land grabs, and health issues, including rising asthma and cancer rates near facilities since 2019, while workers endure 10-12 hour shifts over six-day weeks.​Impressive parks, hidden harms: Inside sites like those in Sulawesi, visitors see advanced infrastructure with airports, ports, hotels, and thousands of workers, often funding local clinics and schools, which sustains public support despite scandals. Yet, mining outside these parks produces tailings dumps and forest clearance, while smelters emit pollutants into the air and rivers; in Kalimantan, bauxite processing creates radioactive red mud waste.​Global copycats and Western challenges: Countries like Namibia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and the Philippines eye the model for capital influx, often ignoring downsides amid weakened environmental oversight and political ties to Chinese joint ventures dominating smelters. Camba urges slower development with strong regulations, consultations, and transparency; for the West, building refining capacity requires market incentives to counter China's cheap, dirty dominance, with short-term reserves bridging gaps amid U.S.-China standoffs over rare earths and semiconductors.​

How can you write science-based fiction without info-dumping your research? How can you use AI tools in a creative way, while still focusing on a human-first approach? Why is adapting to the fast pace of change so difficult and how can we make the most of this time? Jamie Metzl talks about Superconvergence and more. In the intro, How to avoid author scams [Written Word Media]; Spotify vs Audible audiobook strategy [The New Publishing Standard]; Thoughts on Author Nation and why constraints are important in your author life [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; Alchemical History And Beautiful Architecture: Prague with Lisa M Lilly on my Books and Travel Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Jamie Metzl is a technology futurist, professional speaker, entrepreneur, and the author of sci-fi thrillers and futurist nonfiction books, including the revised and updated edition of Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How personal history shaped Jamie's fiction writing Writing science-based fiction without info-dumping The super convergence of three revolutions (genetics, biotech, AI) and why we need to understand them holistically Using fiction to explore the human side of genetic engineering, life extension, and robotics Collaborating with GPT-5 as a named co-author How to be a first-rate human rather than a second-rate machine You can find Jamie at JamieMetzl.com. Transcript of interview with Jamie Metzl Jo: Jamie Metzl is a technology futurist, professional speaker, entrepreneur, and the author of sci-fi thrillers and futurist nonfiction books, including the revised and updated edition of Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World. So welcome, Jamie. Jamie: Thank you so much, Jo. Very happy to be here with you. Jo: There is so much we could talk about, but let's start with you telling us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. From History PhD to First Novel Jamie: Well, I think like a lot of writers, I didn't know I was a writer. I was just a kid who loved writing. Actually, just last week I was going through a bunch of boxes from my parents' house and I found my autobiography, which I wrote when I was nine years old. So I've been writing my whole life and loving it. It was always something that was very important to me. When I finished my DPhil, my PhD at Oxford, and my dissertation came out, it just got scooped up by Macmillan in like two minutes. And I thought, “God, that was easy.” That got me started thinking about writing books. I wanted to write a novel based on the same historical period – my PhD was in Southeast Asian history – and I wanted to write a historical novel set in the same period as my dissertation, because I felt like the dissertation had missed the human element of the story I was telling, which was related to the Cambodian genocide and its aftermath. So I wrote what became my first novel, and I thought, “Wow, now I'm a writer.” I thought, “All right, I've already published one book. I'm gonna get this other book out into the world.” And then I ran into the brick wall of: it's really hard to be a writer. It's almost easier to write something than to get it published. I had to learn a ton, and it took nine years from when I started writing that first novel, The Depths of the Sea, to when it finally came out. But it was such a positive experience, especially to have something so personal to me as that story. I'd lived in Cambodia for two years, I'd worked on the Thai-Cambodian border, and I'm the child of a Holocaust survivor. So there was a whole lot that was very emotional for me. That set a pattern for the rest of my life as a writer, at least where, in my nonfiction books, I'm thinking about whatever the issues are that are most important to me. Whether it was that historical book, which was my first book, or Hacking Darwin on the future of human genetic engineering, which was my last book, or Superconvergence, which, as you mentioned in the intro, is my current book. But in every one of those stories, the human element is so deep and so profound. You can get at some of that in nonfiction, but I've also loved exploring those issues in deeper ways in my fiction. So in my more recent novels, Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata, I've looked at the human side of the story of genetic engineering and human life extension. And now my agent has just submitted my new novel, Virtuoso, about the intersection of AI, robotics, and classical music. With all of this, who knows what's the real difference between fiction and nonfiction? We're all humans trying to figure things out on many different levels. Shifting from History to Future Tech Jo: I knew that you were a polymath, someone who's interested in so many things, but the music angle with robotics and AI is fascinating. I do just want to ask you, because I was also at Oxford – what college were you at? Jamie: I was in St. Antony's. Jo: I was at Mansfield, so we were in that slightly smaller, less famous college group, if people don't know. Jamie: You know, but we're small but proud. Jo: Exactly. That's fantastic. You mentioned that you were on the historical side of things at the beginning and now you've moved into technology and also science, because this book Superconvergence has a lot of science. So how did you go from history and the past into science and the future? Biology and Seeing the Future Coming Jamie: It's a great question. I'll start at the end and then back up. A few years ago I was speaking at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is one of the big scientific labs here in the United States. I was a guest of the director and I was speaking to their 300 top scientists. I said to them, “I'm here to speak with you about the future of biology at the invitation of your director, and I'm really excited. But if you hear something wrong, please raise your hand and let me know, because I'm entirely self-taught. The last biology course I took was in 11th grade of high school in Kansas City.” Of course I wouldn't say that if I didn't have a lot of confidence in my process. But in many ways I'm self-taught in the sciences. As you know, Jo, and as all of your listeners know, the foundation of everything is curiosity and then a disciplined process for learning. Even our greatest super-specialists in the world now – whatever their background – the world is changing so fast that if anyone says, “Oh, I have a PhD in physics/chemistry/biology from 30 years ago,” the exact topic they learned 30 years ago is less significant than their process for continuous learning. More specifically, in the 1990s I was working on the National Security Council for President Clinton, which is the president's foreign policy staff. My then boss and now close friend, Richard Clarke – who became famous as the guy who had tragically predicted 9/11 – used to say that the key to efficacy in Washington and in life is to try to solve problems that other people can't see. For me, almost 30 years ago, I felt to my bones that this intersection of what we now call AI and the nascent genetics revolution and the nascent biotechnology revolution was going to have profound implications for humanity. So I just started obsessively educating myself. When I was ready, I started writing obscure national security articles. Those got a decent amount of attention, so I was invited to testify before the United States Congress. I was speaking out a lot, saying, “Hey, this is a really important story. A lot of people are missing it. Here are the things we should be thinking about for the future.” I wasn't getting the kind of traction that I wanted. I mentioned before that my first book had been this dry Oxford PhD dissertation, and that had led to my first novel. So I thought, why don't I try the same approach again – writing novels to tell this story about the genetics, biotech, and what later became known popularly as the AI revolution? That led to my two near-term sci-fi novels, Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata. On my book tours for those novels, when I explained the underlying science to people in my way, as someone who taught myself, I could see in their eyes that they were recognizing not just that something big was happening, but that they could understand it and feel like they were part of that story. That's what led me to write Hacking Darwin, as I mentioned. That book really unlocked a lot of things. I had essentially predicted the CRISPR babies that were born in China before it happened – down to the specific gene I thought would be targeted, which in fact was the case. After that book was published, Dr. Tedros, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, invited me to join the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing, which I did. It was a really great experience and got me thinking a lot about the upside of this revolution and the downside. The Birth of Superconvergence Jamie: I get a lot of wonderful invitations to speak, and I have two basic rules for speaking: Never use notes. Never ever. Never stand behind a podium. Never ever. Because of that, when I speak, my talks tend to migrate. I'd be speaking with people about the genetics revolution as it applied to humans, and I'd say, “Well, this is just a little piece of a much bigger story.” The bigger story is that after nearly four billion years of life on Earth, our one species has the increasing ability to engineer novel intelligence and re-engineer life. The big question for us, and frankly for the world, is whether we're going to be able to use that almost godlike superpower wisely. As that idea got bigger and bigger, it became this inevitable force. You write so many books, Jo, that I think it's second nature for you. Every time I finish a book, I think, “Wow, that was really hard. I'm never doing that again.” And then the books creep up on you. They call to you. At some point you say, “All right, now I'm going to do it.” So that was my current book, Superconvergence. Like everything, every journey you take a step, and that step inspires another step and another. That's why writing and living creatively is such a wonderfully exciting thing – there's always more to learn and always great opportunities to push ourselves in new ways. Balancing Deep Research with Good Storytelling Jo: Yeah, absolutely. I love that you've followed your curiosity and then done this disciplined process for learning. I completely understand that. But one of the big issues with people like us who love the research – and having read your Superconvergence, I know how deeply you go into this and how deeply you care that it's correct – is that with fiction, one of the big problems with too much research is the danger of brain-dumping. Readers go to fiction for escapism. They want the interesting side of it, but they want a story first. What are your tips for authors who might feel like, “Where's the line between putting in my research so that it's interesting for readers, but not going too far and turning it into a textbook?” How do you find that balance? Jamie: It's such a great question. I live in New York now, but I used to live in Washington when I was working for the U.S. government, and there were a number of people I served with who later wrote novels. Some of those novels felt like policy memos with a few sex scenes – and that's not what to do. To write something that's informed by science or really by anything, everything needs to be subservient to the story and the characters. The question is: what is the essential piece of information that can convey something that's both important to your story and your character development, and is also an accurate representation of the world as you want it to be? I certainly write novels that are set in the future – although some of them were a future that's now already happened because I wrote them a long time ago. You can make stuff up, but as an author you have to decide what your connection to existing science and existing technology and the existing world is going to be. I come at it from two angles. One: I read a huge number of scientific papers and think, “What does this mean for now, and if you extrapolate into the future, where might that go?” Two: I think about how to condense things. We've all read books where you're humming along because people read fiction for story and emotional connection, and then you hit a bit like: “I sat down in front of the president, and the president said, ‘Tell me what I need to know about the nuclear threat.'” And then it's like: insert memo. That's a deal-killer. It's like all things – how do you have a meaningful relationship with another person? It's not by just telling them your story. Even when you're telling them something about you, you need to be imagining yourself sitting in their shoes, hearing you. These are very different disciplines, fiction and nonfiction. But for the speculative nonfiction I write – “here's where things are now, and here's where the world is heading” – there's a lot of imagination that goes into that too. It feels in many ways like we're living in a sci-fi world because the rate of technological change has been accelerating continuously, certainly for the last 12,000 years since the dawn of agriculture. It's a balance. For me, I feel like I'm a better fiction writer because I write nonfiction, and I'm a better nonfiction writer because I write fiction. When I'm writing nonfiction, I don't want it to be boring either – I want people to feel like there's a story and characters and that they can feel themselves inside that story. Jo: Yeah, definitely. I think having some distance helps as well. If you're really deep into your topics, as you are, you have to leave that manuscript a little bit so you can go back with the eyes of the reader as opposed to your eyes as the expert. Then you can get their experience, which is great. Looking Beyond Author-Focused AI Fears Jo: I want to come to your technical knowledge, because AI is a big thing in the author and creative community, like everywhere else. One of the issues is that creators are focusing on just this tiny part of the impact of AI, and there's a much bigger picture. For example, in 2024, Demis Hassabis from Google DeepMind and his collaborative partner John Jumper won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with AlphaFold. It feels to me like there's this massive world of what's happening with AI in health, climate, and other areas, and yet we are so focused on a lot of the negative stuff. Maybe you could give us a couple of things about what there is to be excited and optimistic about in terms of AI-powered science? Jamie: Sure. I'm so excited about all of the new opportunities that AI creates. But I also think there's a reason why evolution has preserved this very human feeling of anxiety: because there are real dangers. Anybody who's Pollyanna-ish and says, “Oh, the AI story is inevitably positive,” I'd be distrustful. And anyone who says, “We're absolutely doomed, this is the end of humanity,” I'd also be distrustful. So let me tell you the positives and the negatives, and maybe some thoughts about how we navigate toward the former and away from the latter. AI as the New Electricity Jamie: When people think of AI right now, they're thinking very narrowly about these AI tools and ChatGPT. But we don't think of electricity that way. Nobody says, “I know electricity – electricity is what happens at the power station.” We've internalised the idea that electricity is woven into not just our communication systems or our houses, but into our clothes, our glasses – it's woven into everything and has super-empowered almost everything in our modern lives. That's what AI is. In Superconvergence, the majority of the book is about positive opportunities: In healthcare, moving from generalised healthcare based on population averages to personalised or precision healthcare based on a molecular understanding of each person's individual biology. As we build these massive datasets like the UK Biobank, we can take a next jump toward predictive and preventive healthcare, where we're able to address health issues far earlier in the process, when interventions can be far more benign. I'm really excited about that, not to mention the incredible new kinds of treatments – gene therapies, or pharmaceuticals based on genetics and systems-biology analyses of patients. Then there's agriculture. Over the last hundred years, because of the technologies of the Green Revolution and synthetic fertilisers, we've had an incredible increase in agricultural productivity. That's what's allowed us to quadruple the global population. But if we just continue agriculture as it is, as we get towards ten billion wealthier, more empowered people wanting to eat like we eat, we're going to have to wipe out all the wild spaces on Earth to feed them. These technologies help provide different paths toward increasing agricultural productivity with fewer inputs of land, water, fertiliser, insecticides, and pesticides. That's really positive. I could go on and on about these positives – and I do – but there are very real negatives. I was a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing after the first CRISPR babies were very unethically created in China. I'm extremely aware that these same capabilities have potentially incredible upsides and very real downsides. That's the same as every technology in the past, but this is happening so quickly that it's triggering a lot of anxieties. Governance, Responsibility, and Why Everyone Has a Role Jamie: The question now is: how do we optimise the benefits and minimise the harms? The short, unsexy word for that is governance. Governance is not just what governments do; it's what all of us do. That's why I try to write books, both fiction and nonfiction, to bring people into this story. If people “other” this story – if they say, “There's a technology revolution, it has nothing to do with me, I'm going to keep my head down” – I think that's dangerous. The way we're going to handle this as responsibly as possible is if everybody says, “I have some role. Maybe it's small, maybe it's big. The first step is I need to educate myself. Then I need to have conversations with people around me. I need to express my desires, wishes, and thoughts – with political leaders, organisations I'm part of, businesses.” That has to happen at every level. You're in the UK – you know the anti-slavery movement started with a handful of people in Cambridge and grew into a global movement. I really believe in the power of ideas, but ideas don't spread on their own. These are very human networks, and that's why writing, speaking, communicating – probably for every single person listening to this podcast – is so important. Jo: Mm, yeah. Fiction Like AI 2041 and Thinking Through the Issues Jo: Have you read AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan? Jamie: No. I heard a bunch of their interviews when the book came out, but I haven't read it. Jo: I think that's another good one because it's fiction – a whole load of short stories. It came out a few years ago now, but the issues they cover in the stories, about different people in different countries – I remember one about deepfakes – make you think more about the topics and help you figure out where you stand. I think that's the issue right now: it's so complex, there are so many things. I'm generally positive about AI, but of course I don't want autonomous drone weapons, you know? The Messy Reality of “Bad” Technologies Jamie: Can I ask you about that? Because this is why it's so complicated. Like you, I think nobody wants autonomous killer drones anywhere in the world. But if you right now were the defence minister of Ukraine, and your children are being kidnapped, your country is being destroyed, you're fighting for your survival, you're getting attacked every night – and you're getting attacked by the Russians, who are investing more and more in autonomous killer robots – you kind of have two choices. You can say, “I'm going to surrender,” or, “I'm going to use what technology I have available to defend myself, and hopefully fight to either victory or some kind of stand-off.” That's what our societies did with nuclear weapons. Maybe not every American recognises that Churchill gave Britain's nuclear secrets to America as a way of greasing the wheels of the Anglo-American alliance during the Second World War – but that was our programme: we couldn't afford to lose that war, and we couldn't afford to let the Nazis get nuclear weapons before we did. So there's the abstract feeling of, “I'm against all war in the abstract. I'm against autonomous killer robots in the abstract.” But if I were the defence minister of Ukraine, I would say, “What will it take for us to build the weapons we can use to defend ourselves?” That's why all this stuff gets so complicated. And frankly, it's why the relationship between fiction and nonfiction is so important. If every novel had a situation where every character said, “Oh, I know exactly the right answer,” and then they just did the right answer and it was obviously right, it wouldn't make for great fiction. We're dealing with really complex humans. We have conflicting impulses. We're not perfect. Maybe there are no perfect answers – but how do we strive toward better rather than worse? That's the question. Jo: Absolutely. I don't want to get too political on things. How AI Is Changing the Writing Life Jo: Let's come back to authors. In terms of the creative process, the writing process, the research process, and the business of being an author – what are some of the ways that you already use AI tools, and some of the ways, given your futurist brain, that you think things are going to change for us? Jamie: Great question. I'll start with a little middle piece. I found you, Jo, through GPT-5. I asked ChatGPT, “I'm coming out with this book and I want to connect with podcasters who are a little different from the ones I've done in the past. I've been a guest on Joe Rogan twice and some of the bigger podcasts. Make me a list of really interesting people I can have great conversations with.” That's how I found you. So this is one reward of that process. Let me say that in the last year I've worked on three books, and I'll explain how my relationship with AI has changed over those books. Cleaning Up Citations (and Getting Burned) Jamie: First is the highly revised paperback edition of Superconvergence. When the hardback came out, I had – I don't normally work with research assistants because I like to dig into everything myself – but the one thing I do use a research assistant for is that I can't be bothered, when I'm writing something, to do the full Chicago-style footnote if I'm already referencing an academic paper. So I'd just put the URL as the footnote and then hire a research assistant and say, “Go to this URL and change it into a Chicago-style citation. That's it.” Unfortunately, my research assistant on the hardback used early-days ChatGPT for that work. He did the whole thing, came back, everything looked perfect. I said, “Wow, amazing job.” It was only later, as I was going through them, that I realised something like 50% of them were invented footnotes. It was very painful to go back and fix, and it took ten times more time. With the paperback edition, I didn't use AI that much, but I did say things like, “Here's all the information – generate a Chicago-style citation.” That was better. I noticed there were a few things where I stopped using the thesaurus function on Microsoft Word because I'd just put the whole paragraph into the AI and say, “Give me ten other options for this one word,” and it would be like a contextual thesaurus. That was pretty good. Talking to a Robot Pianist Character Jamie: Then, for my new novel Virtuoso, I was writing a character who is a futurist robot that plays the piano very beautifully – not just humanly, but almost finding new things in the music we've written and composing music that resonates with us. I described the actions of that robot in the novel, but I didn't describe the inner workings of the robot's mind. In thinking about that character, I realised I was the first science-fiction writer in history who could interrogate a machine about what it was “thinking” in a particular context. I had the most beautiful conversations with ChatGPT, where I would give scenarios and ask, “What are you thinking? What are you feeling in this context?” It was all background for that character, but it was truly profound. Co-Authoring The AI Ten Commandments with GPT-5 Jamie: Third, I have another book coming out in May in the United States. I gave a talk this summer at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York about AI and spirituality. I talked about the history of our human relationship with our technology, about how all our religious and spiritual traditions have deep technological underpinnings – certainly our Abrahamic religions are deeply connected to farming, and Protestantism to the printing press. Then I had a section about the role of AI in generating moral codes that would resonate with humans. Everybody went nuts for this talk, and I thought, “I think I'm going to write a book.” I decided to write it differently, with GPT-5 as my named co-author. The first thing I did was outline the entire book based on the talk, which I'd already spent a huge amount of time thinking about and organising. Then I did a full outline of the arguments and structures. Then I trained GPT-5 on my writing style. The way I did it – which I fully describe in the introduction to the book – was that I'd handle all the framing: the full introduction, the argument, the structure. But if there was a section where, for a few paragraphs, I was summarising a huge field of data, even something I knew well, I'd give GPT-5 the intro sentence and say, “In my writing style, prepare four paragraphs on this.” For example, I might write: “AI has the potential to see us humans like we humans see ant colonies.” Then I'd say, “Give me four paragraphs on the relationship between the individual and the collective in ant colonies.” I could have written those four paragraphs myself, but it would've taken a month to read the life's work of E.O. Wilson and then write them. GPT-5 wrote them in seconds or minutes, in its thinking mode. I'd then say, “It's not quite right – change this, change that,” and we'd go back and forth three or four times. Then I'd edit the whole thing and put it into the text. So this book that I could have written on my own in a year, I wrote a first draft of with GPT-5 as my named co-author in two days. The whole project will take about six months from start to finish, and I'm having massive human editing – multiple edits from me, plus a professional editor. It's not a magic AI button. But I feel strongly about listing GPT-5 as a co-author because I've written it differently than previous books. I'm a huge believer in the old-fashioned lone author struggling and suffering – that's in my novels, and in Virtuoso I explore that. But other forms are going to emerge, just like video games are a creative, artistic form deeply connected to technology. The novel hasn't been around forever – the current format is only a few centuries old – and forms are always changing. There are real opportunities for authors, and there will be so much crap flooding the market because everybody can write something and put it up on Amazon. But I think there will be a very special place for thoughtful human authors who have an idea of what humans do at our best, and who translate that into content other humans can enjoy. Traditional vs Indie: Why This Book Will Be Self-Published Jo: I'm interested – you mentioned that it's your named co-author. Is this book going through a traditional publisher, and what do they think about that? Or are you going to publish it yourself? Jamie: It's such a smart question. What I found quickly is that when you get to be an author later in your career, you have all the infrastructure – a track record, a fantastic agent, all of that. But there were two things that were really important to me here: I wanted to get this book out really fast – six months instead of a year and a half. It was essential to me to have GPT-5 listed as my co-author, because if it were just my name, I feel like it would be dishonest. Readers who are used to reading my books – I didn't want to present something different than what it was. I spoke with my agent, who I absolutely love, and she said that for this particular project it was going to be really hard in traditional publishing. So I did a huge amount of research, because I'd never done anything in the self-publishing world before. I looked at different models. There was one hybrid model that's basically the same as traditional, but you pay for the things the publisher would normally pay for. I ended up not doing that. Instead, I decided on a self-publishing route where I disaggregated the publishing process. I found three teams: one for producing the book, one for getting the book out into the world, and a smaller one for the audiobook. I still believe in traditional publishing – there's a lot of wonderful human value-add. But some works just don't lend themselves to traditional publishing. For this book, which is called The AI Ten Commandments, that's the path I've chosen. Jo: And when's that out? I think people will be interested. Jamie: April 26th. Those of us used to traditional publishing think, “I've finished the book, sold the proposal, it'll be out any day now,” and then it can be a year and a half. It's frustrating. With this, the process can be much faster because it's possible to control more of the variables. But the key – as I was saying – is to make sure it's as good a book as everything else you've written. It's great to speed up, but you don't want to compromise on quality. The Coming Flood of Excellent AI-Generated Work Jo: Yeah, absolutely. We're almost out of time, but I want to come back to your “flood of crap” and the “AI slop” idea that's going around. Because you are working with GPT-5 – and I do as well, and I work with Claude and Gemini – and right now there are still issues. Like you said about referencing, there are still hallucinations, though fewer. But fast-forward two, five years: it's not a flood of crap. It's a flood of excellent. It's a flood of stuff that's better than us. Jamie: We're humans. It's better than us in certain ways. If you have farm machinery, it's better than us at certain aspects of farming. I'm a true humanist. I think there will be lots of things machines do better than us, but there will be tons of things we do better than them. There's a reason humans still care about chess, even though machines can beat humans at chess. Some people are saying things I fully disagree with, like this concept of AGI – artificial general intelligence – where machines do everything better than humans. I've summarised my position in seven letters: “AGI is BS.” The only way you can believe in AGI in that sense is if your concept of what a human is and what a human mind is is so narrow that you think it's just a narrow range of analytical skills. We are so much more than that. Humans represent almost four billion years of embodied evolution. There's so much about ourselves that we don't know. As incredible as these machines are and will become, there will always be wonderful things humans can do that are different from machines. What I always tell people is: whatever you're doing, don't be a second-rate machine. Be a first-rate human. If you're doing something and a machine is doing that thing much better than you, then shift to something where your unique capacities as a human give you the opportunity to do something better. So yes, I totally agree that the quality of AI-generated stuff will get better. But I think the most creative and successful humans will be the ones who say, “I recognise that this is creating new opportunities, and I'm going to insert my core humanity to do something magical and new.” People are “othering” these technologies, but the technologies themselves are magnificent human-generated artefacts. They're not alien UFOs that landed here. It's a scary moment for creatives, no doubt, because there are things all of us did in the past that machines can now do really well. But this is the moment where the most creative people ask themselves, “What does it mean for me to be a great human?” The pat answers won't apply. In my Virtuoso novel I explore that a lot. The idea that “machines don't do creativity” – they will do incredible creativity; it just won't be exactly human creativity. We will be potentially huge beneficiaries of these capabilities, but we really have to believe in and invest in the magic of our core humanity. Where to Find Jamie and His Books Jo: Brilliant. So where can people find you and your books online? Jamie: Thank you so much for asking. My website is jamiemetzl.com – and my books are available everywhere. Jo: Fantastic. Thanks so much for your time, Jamie. That was great. Jamie: Thank you, Joanna.The post Writing The Future, And Being More Human In An Age of AI With Jamie Metzl first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Operation Endgame expands global takedowns. The U.S. is creating a Scam Center Strike Force. Microsoft rolls out its delayed “Prevent screen capture” feature for Teams. Proton Pass patches a clickjacking flaw. Researchers uncover previously undisclosed zero-day flaws in both Citrix and Cisco Identity Services Engine. Android-based digital picture frames contain multiple critical vulnerabilities. Lumma Stealer rebounds after last month's doxxing campaign. Our guest is Garrett Hoffman, Senior Manager of Cloud Security Engineering from Adobe, talking about achieving cloud security at scale. X marks the spot… where your passkey stops working.  Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest On our Industry Voices segment, we are joined by Garrett Hoffman, Senior Manager of Cloud Security Engineering from Adobe, talking about achieving cloud security at scale. You can hear the full conversation with Garrett here. Selected Reading End of the game for cybercrime infrastructure: 1025 servers taken down - Operation Endgame's latest phase targeted the infostealer Rhadamanthys, Remote Access Trojan VenomRAT, and the botnet Elysium (Europol) US announces ‘strike force' to counter Southeast Asian cyber scams, sanctions Myanmar armed group (The Record) Microsoft rolls out screen capture prevention for Teams users (Bleeping Computer) Proton Pass patches DOM-based clickjacking zero-day vulnerability (Cyberinsider) Amazon discovers APT exploiting Cisco and Citrix zero-days (AWS Security Blog) CISA warns feds to fully patch actively exploited Cisco flaws (Bleeping Computer) Popular Android-based photo frames download malware on boot (Bleeping Computer) Increase in Lumma Stealer Activity Coincides with Use of Adaptive Browser Fingerprinting Tactics (Trend Micro) Elon Musk's X botched its security key switchover, locking users out (TechCrunch) Share your feedback. What do you think about CyberWire Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? N2K CyberWire helps you reach the industry's most influential leaders and operators, while building visibility, authority, and connectivity across the cybersecurity community. Learn more at sponsor.thecyberwire.com. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Southeast Asians have used kratom leaves as a home remedy for centuries. Recently, its popularity in the U.S. has exploded as a way to ease the effects of opioid withdrawal. But kratom is poorly regulated and synthetic versions contain high levels of a powerful compound that officials say should be restricted. Ali Rogin speaks with Tampa Bay Times senior politics reporter Kirby Wilson for more. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy