Toyota Hybrids Vs Battery Electric Vehicles

            (Staff post from the CAR EXPERT and the FACE BOOK on 14 June2025.)

Toyota says its hybrids have saved nine million EVs worth of CO2: Toyota's boss claims its 27 million hybrids produced to date have saved carbon emissions equivalent to nine million EVs.

Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda has reinforced his company’s commitment to prioritising hybrid vehicles (HEVs) over battery-electric vehicles (EVs or BEVs), outlining that hybrids are its ideal way forward in terms of reducing total CO2 emissions.

Speaking through an interpreter in a recent interview with Automotive News, Toyoda-san said Toyota is as committed to reducing the environmental impact of cars as any other brand, but has adopted a cost- and time-effective way to go about reducing its carbon emissions.

Bamaw City Undersiege: KIA Traps Myanmar Army

        (Anthony Davis’s post from the ASIA TIMES on 23 June 2025.)

Captured army's howitzer at Bamaw City.

Siege warfare keeping Myanmar military in the fight: Improved coordination between infantry, artillery and drones changing war’s complexion after heavy regime losses in 2023 and 2024.

For centuries, the small northern Myanmar city of Bhamo has owed its prosperity to its importance as a ferry terminus and commercial hub on a wide bend on the upper Ayeyarwady River close to the border with neighboring China.

In recent months, that strategic location in Kachin state has required its slow destruction in a test of will and resources that bodes ill for the future of Myanmar – but which may push resistance forces opposed to the State Administration Council (SAC) military regime to a radical rethink of their approach to the war.

Bunker Busting B2s Destroyed Iran’s Fordow Nuclear Site

         (Based on staff post rom the ABC NEWS AUSTRALIA on 22 June 2025.)

Dropped from a B-2 stealth bomber flying at about 12 km altitude, the bomb accelerates purely from gravity—no engine required. Guided by satellite and steered using movable tail fins, its immense weight creates intense kinetic energy on impact, driving the hardened casing up to 60 meters underground. A delayed fuse then detonates 2,400 kg of explosives deep below the surface.   

Donal Trump ordered the deployment of six B-2 bombers that attacked Iran’s deep-lying nuclear enrichment site at Fordow with 13.6-tonne (30,000lb) bunker-buster bombs, designed to penetrate 60 metres of rock.

The United States has bombed three nuclear sites inside Iran, with Donald Trump warning any future attacks will be "far greater and a lot easier. I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success," he said during a late-night White House address tonight. "Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated." 

The Dirty Secrets behind Myanmar's Rare-earths Boom

           (Mathis Richtmann’s post from the DW GERMANY on 24 May 2025.)

Myanmar is caught in a scramble for minerals. Their exploitation is causing deaths and environmental harm in the country's Kachin State, activists tell DW. Rare-earth mining has exploded in Myanmar's Kachin region, making it the world's largest source of supply.

Lahtaw Kai draws an imaginary mountain into the air with her hands and uses her fingers to dot it with holes. "At the top of the mountains, they drill holes and then pour chemicals like ammonium nitrate into the ground to extract the rare earth minerals at the bottom," the Myanmar environment activist told DW.

Lahtaw Kai — whose name we've changed for security reasons — was illustrating the so-called in-situ leaching technique, which has been applied for decades in mining rare earths in Myanmar's northern Kachin state.

WW3: Pakis’ll Nuke Israel if Jews Nuke Islamist Iran?

           (Based on the current news of the rapidly escalating Iran-Israel war.)

As our world is dangerously overpopulated, another world war is imminent as the world wars are the nature’s way of controlling human population. Humans have no predators and only way to cut the population is to kill each other large scale.

And right now, human population is well beyond eight billion and about thirty percent of that are Muslims the suicidal maniacs, and they have been growing at the rate of twenty percent between 2010 and 2020, growing at twice the rate of the overall world population. And they have nukes to destroy the rest and themselves.

Pakistan has a massive stockpile of nukes and Islamist Iran has been trying to have some to kill the nuke-armed Israelis. That is the main reason Israel now is attacking Iran with an undeclared war. Now the conventional war between Iran and Israel is reaching new heights. Israel has threatened Iran with her nukes and Pakistan reportedly backed Iran with a threat that they will nuke Israel if Jews nuke Muslim Iran.

UWSA: China’s Proxy Army in Myanmar’s Shan State

     (Pracha Burapavithi’s post from THE NATION THAILAND on 27 May 2025.)

"Red Wa": China’s shadow army controlling Shan State power: The Wa ethnic group rose to control northern and southern Shan State as the dominant northern ethnic army, safeguarding China’s interests in Myanmar.

Thai civil society groups are demanding action against the Red Wa—for involvement in drug trafficking and mining operations. They trace the root causes to China, a major patron, but so far, there has been no official response from the Thai government.

Following the flash floods in Mae Sai, NGOs have raised alarms over toxic contamination in the Sai and Kok rivers, urging the government to intensify negotiations to pressure Myanmar authorities and the Red Wa forces to shut down mining activities.

Bromance Is Over: Fued between Trump and Musk

          (Batya Ungar-Sargon’s post from the FREE PRESS on 06 June 2025.)

The Elon-Trump Bromance Crashes and Burns: A series of conflicts of interest cut to the core of the delicate tech bro-MAGA alliance. Elon Musk is First Buddy no longer. The epic bromance between Musk and President Donald Trump, between the richest man on the planet and the most powerful one, has come to an end, not with a bang but with a tweet: 

Just days after Trump granted Musk a golden key in an Oval Office send-off from his role as head of DOGE and adviser to the White House, Musk unleashed on the president’s Big Beautiful Bill: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” he wrote on his social media platform, X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

On Thursday, Musk amplified his attacks, directing them at the President, saying Trump would have lost the election without him. “Such ingratitude,” Musk said. President Trump retorted that he was "very disappointed with Elon."

Dictator and His Pet Buddhist Monk (Wa-zi-pait)

Many wise men all over the world have stated that Buddhism is not a real religion like other mainstream religions such as Christian, Judaism, and Islam. They even added that pure Buddhism is more like a well-known philosophy of Lord Buddha.

I was a born-Communist since my late parents were hard-core Commies, and while I was growing up in Burma with my mothers’ devout Buddhist family, while my late parents were fighting in the jungles, I sort of became a Buddhist. Then later I learned that Burmese Buddhism is not really a pure-Buddhism at all, for historically Burmese were a seriously backward Pagan-Tribe thousands of years ago.

Burmese became Buddhists reluctantly in AD 1060 when our famous king Anaw-ra-htar forcefully converted the whole populace to Buddhism for some unexplained reasons. The conversion wasn’t too successful, and Burmese populace ended up with too many leftover practices from their old paganism.

China Calls the Shots in Myanmar’s Civil War

      (Staff post from the ECONOMIST MAGAZINE on 30 May 2025.)

IN LATE FEBRUARY a plane carrying 25 Chinese mercenaries landed on Ramree Island, off the coast of Myanmar. Their arrival, at an airfield in the midst of a chaotic battle, is a sign of China’s growing influence throughout the country.

Since a coup d’état four years ago brought a military junta to power in Myanmar, China has become the most important actor in its southern neighbour’s affairs. Western countries have mostly looked away as Myanmar’s struggle for democracy has turned chaotic and violent.

China has filled the resulting vacuum, working with both the junta and a vast array of armed rebel groups to advance its own agenda. China’s interests in Myanmar are varied. They include stability along the 2,100km (1,300-mile) border and the suppression of Western influence.