Dorothy Hodgkin’s 1964 Nobel Story (Mapping of Insulin)

         (Staff post from the THIS DAY IN HISTORY on 14 November 2025.)

She spent 30 years mapping a single molecule—insulin—atom by atom. Her hands were crippled by arthritis, but she gave medicine the blueprints to save millions. She was the only British woman to ever win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Oxford, 1934. A young chemist named Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin peered into an X-ray crystallography camera at a tiny crystal of insulin. She was trying to see something no human had ever seen: the exact arrangement of every atom in the molecule that keeps diabetics alive.

The technology was primitive. The calculations would take decades. And Dorothy's hands were already beginning to twist with rheumatoid arthritis that would eventually cripple them. She started working on insulin anyway. She would spend the next 35 years decoding it.

Organ Harvesting at Myanmar's Shwe Kokko Scam Hub

              (Staff post from the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST on 22 July 2023.)

Survivors of Myanmar’s Scam Mills Talk ‘Torture,’ Death, Organ Harvesting—and the Battle To Escape: Those in charge of Myanmar’s scam centres don’t want the world to see what’s going on inside. Phones are confiscated upon arrival and work devices are wiped before anyone leaves, as scam bosses go to great lengths to hide their crimes.

Jane and Max, two Filipinos forced to work for one of the criminal outfits along Myanmar’s border with Thailand, were made to wait an additional 10 days before their eventual release in early July to allow their wounds to heal. “They held us because of our bruises,” Jane said, showing scars on her back and shoulders. “They didn’t want anyone to see.”

Despite these cover-up efforts, evidence of widespread and severe abuse is mounting. Footage supplied to This Week in Asia by victims and anti-trafficking activists shows electrocutions, beatings and workers who are handcuffed, blindfolded and forced to sleep in overcrowded rooms.

Myanmar Cyber-Scam-King Sent Back to China

          (Staff post from the ABC Australia on 12November 2025.)

Alleged Myanmar scam kingpin She Zhijiang extradited to China from Thailand: An alleged Chinese racketeer linked to a hugely lucrative scam hub in Myanmar has been extradited from Thailand to China.

She Zhijiang had been in Thai custody since 2022 after spending more than a decade on the run from Chinese authorities, accused of ties to the Myanmar gambling and fraud hub Shwe Kokko. A Thai appeals court upheld China's extradition request this week for the 43-year-old, who also held Cambodian nationality, after lengthy legal wrangling.

He was flown out of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport on Wednesday afternoon, local time, a Thai police official said. The businessman was escorted from the airport's police station with his hands braced behind his back by armed and masked Thai police, an uncommon practice for local officers.

An Interpol red notice published in May 2021 and obtained by AFP said Mr She faced criminal charges in China related to running online gambling and fraud operations. He and his company, Yatai, have already been hit with sanctions by Britain and the United States.

TELOMERASE: Carol Greider’s Nobel Winning Story

               (Staff post from the SOLO TRAVELLER on 11 November 2025.)

Christmas Day, 1984. A 23-year-old grad student went to the lab to check her experiment. What she found would win the Nobel Prize—and rewrite biology. Most people spend Christmas Day with family or friends, opening presents, eating too much, enjoying the one day when the world slows down. Carol Greider spent hers in a laboratory—chasing the smallest secret of life.

It was 1984 at the University of California, Berkeley. Carol was in her first year of graduate school, working under molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, studying chromosomes—the threadlike structures made of DNA that carry our genetic information. Specifically, they were studying telomeres: the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, like the plastic tips on shoelaces that keep them from fraying.

Scientists knew telomeres existed. They knew telomeres shortened every time a cell divided—DNA replication couldn't quite reach the very ends of chromosomes, so a little bit got lost each time. Eventually, after enough divisions, telomeres would become too short. The cell would stop dividing. It would age. It would die. This explained cellular aging. It explained why our cells don't divide forever.

China’s BYD and Cherry Dumping EVs in Australia

            (Caleb Bond’s post from the SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA on 10 November 2025.)

China's dumping ground: Labor actively encouraging foreign firms to flood Australian market in pursuit of ambitious 2035 EV targets. Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen’s net zero goal of multiplying new electric car sales many times over is punishing Australia and enriching China.

Australia has become a dumping ground for Chinese electric vehicles. And it’s a perfect business model for Chinese manufacturers because the federal government is effectively paying them to do it while they artificially squeeze everyone else out of the market.

As widely reported, a number of locations off the beaten track have been commandeered to store the swathes of cars China is sending our way. Jamberoo Action Park, about two hours down the road from Sydney, was turned into a storage facility for BYD until Kiama Council intervened and forced the cars to be moved this week.

Communist China Has Suddenly Become Cool?

(Kaihann’s REDDIT post + Shaoyu Yuan’spost from CONVERSATION in April 2025.)

TikTok is one very reason behind how China is suddenly becoming cool. The comparison TikTok videos in what middle class life looks like between the US and China to be the most influential. Of course, TikTok will not have that impact if China’s middle class was impoverished and downtrodden.

China is becoming cool because: it has a strong and improving middle class; world class infrastructure; cutting edge technology in many new fields; safe and clean cities at a scale unmatched by many Western peers; has a foreign policy which is benign and magnanimous relative to the US ( not without flaws but its relative); is not engaged in constant war.

China is becoming cool because: it is a major supporter for development in other emerging market countries; has a growing number of recognizable consumer brands; on the right side of the tariff dispute, standing up to a bully; has a 144 hour visa free policy for many countries encouraging tourism; many tourists documenting their visits over video refuting US narratives of a police state and genocide.

New York is Fucked: Defund Islamist-Leftist Mayor!

       (Josh Christenson’s post from the NEW YORKPOST on 07 November 2025.)

House GOP clashes over ‘ludicrous’ bill to defund NYC under Mamdani: The only Republican lawmaker representing one of New York City’s boroughs in Congress is lambasting members of her own party for seeking to defund the Big Apple after socialist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s win.

Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis told The Post Friday that she will “push back on any attempt” by fellow congressional Republicans to “punish” New York City. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) told Fox News on Thursday he was introducing a new bill, the Moving American Money Distant from Anti-National Interests Act, or MAMDANI Act, to block federal funding for the Big Apple.

“I’m going to fight Mamdani’s radical socialist policies — but I’ll also push back on any attempt by my own party to ‘punish’ our city,” Malliotakis said. “I love New York and will always fight for it.” “The mayor-elect did not receive a mandate on Tuesday; nearly 50% of voters opposed his election,” she added. “I’ll never stop fighting for hardworking New Yorkers who believe in the American Dream and the uniformed services that protect them.”

New York Has Fallen: Muslim-Indian-Socialist NYC Mayor

                    (Staff post from the NEWS WEEK on 05 November 2025.)

MAGA Reacts to Zohran Mamdani’s Victory in New York: Zohran Mamdani has defeated former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa to be elected the next Mayor of New York City, something which has come at the dismay of MAGA and conservatives, who have quickly flocked online to share their reactions to Mamdani’s historic win.

Why It Matters: Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist, has become the first Muslim and Indian American mayor. "Today we have spoken in a clear voice: Hope is alive," Mamdani said during his victory speech.

Democrats saw wins across the country, flipping governorships in Virginia and New Jersey and sweeping judicial races in Pennsylvania. The results could signal a shift in where the country is politically, acting as a litmus test ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Many Republicans expressed feelings of doom, and a sense that New York had crossed a line.

UN expert calls Myanmar election 'sham'

                (Staff post from the NHK JAPAN on 30October 2025.)

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has described the elections the military plans for December as a 'sham,' noting opposition parties are excluded.

In a Wednesday press conference, Tom Andrews said, "I made it as clear as I possibly could that these elections are a sham. They're a fraud." He added "you cannot have a free and fair election when you arrest, detain, imprison, and torture the leaders of the political opposition."

He also noted that the humanitarian conditions in the war-torn country are worsening, with nearly 22 million people requiring aid.

The military says the voting will take place in phases starting December 28. Campaigning kicked off on Tuesday with 57 political parties registered. But pro-democracy groups including the National League for Democracy, or NLD, which won the 2020 election, have been disbanded after refusing to take part in the process.

English Convicts' Bloods Dominant in Modern Australia!

             (John Harland’s post from the QUORA on 17 February 2020.)

The now-celebrated First Fleet of eleven English convict ships brought convicts, marines, and their families from Britain to Australia, arriving in January 1788. The primary purpose was to establish a penal colony to relieve overcrowded prisons in Britain. The fleet carried between 750 and 780 convicts, and their arrival in Sydney Cove marked the beginning of European colonization and the transportation of convicts to Australia, which lasted until 1868. 

“Has the gene pool in Australia truly been affected by the fact that a certain number of convicts were sent there as settlers?” It had a strongly positive effect. The people who were sent represented a far broader genetic range than the relatively inbred gentry of Britain. They were also people whose ancestors had faced more-rigorous selection pressure than those living in relative luxury.

Their designation as “convicts” resulted from circumstances. Many were refugees in their own country, having been thrown off the land of their ancestors through the Enclosure of Lands, where the local lord decided that broad-acre agriculture earned him more than having smallholders each farming part of the land.

Trade War: The Victims are the US Soybean Farmers

              (Stuff post from the FOX NEWS on 25 September 2025.)

Minnesota soybean farmers can usually count on big paychecks about this season, but this year, they’re deep in the red because they’ve lost their biggest buyer due to trade war triggered by the idiot Trump’s crazy tariffs. China usually buys $12-$13 billion in American soybeans each year, but it’s now buying from Argentina and Brazil instead.

In the short term, most Minnesota soybean farmers will harvest their crops and either sell them at a loss or pay to store them, or a little of both. But they can only last so long with income at or near zero.

China is a large country with a serious lack of cultivated land. After nearly 5,000 years of development, China has only about 100 million hectares of cultivated land. Therefore, grain crops must be given priority, such as wheat and rice. Therefore, the food imported into China is mainly soybean and corn, and their purpose is mainly for animal feed.

De-dollarization: Collapse of US$ as Reserve Currency?

             (Natasha Kaneva’s post from The JPMORGAN USA on 01 July 2025.)

De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? Top dollar no more? Learn more about the factors threatening the dominance of the world’s reserve currency. While the U.S.’s share in global exports and output has declined, the dollar’s transactional dominance is still evident in areas including FX volumes and trade invoicing.

On the other hand, de-dollarization is unfolding in central bank FX reserves, where the share of USD has slid to a two-decade low. In fixed income, the share of foreign ownership in the U.S. Treasury market has fallen over the last 15 years, pointing to reduced reliance on the dollar. De-dollarization is most visible in commodity markets, where a large and growing proportion of energy is being priced in non-dollar-denominated contracts.

The U.S. dollar is the world’s primary reserve currency, and it is also the most widely used currency for trade and other international transactions. However, its hegemony has come into question in recent times due to geopolitical and geostrategic shifts.

Myanmar Dictator Banned from The ASEAN Summit

       (Karishmar Vyas’s post from The ABC NEWS Australia on 26 October 2025.)

Myanmar too low on agenda as regional leaders meet Trump for summit: Sitting inside an open-air shack along Thailand's porous border with Myanmar, Koko Chit couldn't believe that he was still alive.

Desperate for money, he had left his wife and three children in July and travelled back to northern Myanmar to scavenge for jade at Hpakant's notorious mines. The work was deadly, but it was the civil war that almost killed him.

"There's no security there. When you go to work, there's fighting," says Chit, 31, who didn't give his real name because he feared for his life. "The State Administration Council (Myanmar's military) conscripts workers. They fire their guns to threaten people for no reason. And the resistance forces fire back."

What Happened in 1971? Ending the Gold Standard

        (John Zadeh’s post from THE DISCOVERY ALERT USA on 13 April 2025.)

The Nixon Shock Explained: On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon unilaterally ended dollar convertibility to gold, a decision that would fundamentally transform the global economic landscape.

This dramatic move came as US gold reserves had declined precipitously from approximately 20,000 tons to just 8,333 tons. The depletion occurred because foreign nations, particularly France under President Charles de Gaulle, were increasingly redeeming dollars for physical gold as the US ran persistent trade and budget deficits.

Nixon's decision, made during a secret meeting at Camp David with key economic advisors, was essentially a choice to preserve America's remaining gold reserves rather than face an inevitable default on gold-for-dollar obligations. Treasury Secretary John Connally famously remarked during this period that "the dollar is our currency, but it's your problem," highlighting the unilateral nature of this momentous economic shift.

Su Bin The Chinese Spy Who Stole F-35 & C-17 Secrets

                       (Jim Sciutto’s post from The CNN USA on 14 May 2019.)

‘The Shadow War’: How a Chinese spy stole some of the Pentagon’s most sensitive secrets. To his American friends and contacts, Stephen Su was an affable businessman and gregarious guy. “People liked him,” Bob Anderson, the FBI’s former head of counterintelligence, told me. “They didn’t think he was an asshole and I know that sounds stupid, but people are people and that’s how it started.”

Stephen Su, who also went by his Chinese name Su Bin, lived in his native China but traveled frequently to the United States and Canada, to build a business in the aviation and aerospace sectors. His company, Lode-Tech, was a small player in a field of giants. However, from 2009 to 2014, Su steadily and deliberately built a network of close business contacts inside far bigger US and Canadian defense contractors who held some of most sensitive US military contracts.

“So, he cultivates you over time,” Anderson recalled. The information Su was most interested in related to three of the most advanced US military aircraft ever built, the Lockheed Martin F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters and the Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.

China Backing The Yuan with Real Gold!

            (Staff post from The SILVER ACADEMY on 19 September 2025.)

China Unlocks Gold-Backed Yuan: The Dawn of a New Global Reserve Era. Yuan’s gold convertibility lets global trade bypass the dollar, accelerating a shift to a gold-anchored, multipolar financial order.

Hong Kong’s push to become a global gold trading and reserve hub highlights a sharp contrast between real assets and endlessly printed fiat money. While the United States continues expanding its money supply — diluting purchasing power through debt-driven policies — China and now Hong Kong are moving in the opposite direction, stacking tangible wealth in the form of gold.

By targeting storage capacity of over 2,000 tonnes within three years and rolling out tokenized gold investment tools, Hong Kong is positioning itself at the center of a new gold-based financial system. Unlike dollars that can be created with a keystroke, gold holds centuries of trust as a store of value and hedge against inflation.

Idiot Trump’s Crazy Tariffs Bankrupting US Farmers

       (Lindsay Chutel’s post from The NEW YORKTIMES USA on 24 October 2025.)

An ad, bought by the province of Ontario, sent an anti-tariff message using sound bites from an address President Ronald Reagan made decades ago. President Trump claimed the ad was “fraud” and terminated trade talks with Canada.

In calling a halt to trade talks with Canada, President Trump pointed to an ad paid for by the province of Ontario that used a speech President Ronald Reagan made decades ago. In it, Mr. Reagan speaks against tariffs, a tool Mr. Trump has widely deployed, including against Canada, and warns against protectionism.

Mr. Trump claimed that the ad was fake and that it had been aired “to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court,” which is considering a legal challenge to many of his tariffs. But the advertisement, which Ontario’s provincial government purchased to air in the United States, uses sound bites from a radio address Mr. Reagan made in April 1987 that was critical of tariffs. It reproduces Mr. Reagan’s quotes accurately, but changes the order he said them.

Singapore’s Minibond Saga (2008)

               (Staff post from The SINGAPORE INFOPEDIA in August 2023.)

Lehman Brothers Minibond saga: The Lehman Brothers Minibond saga refers to the chain of events resulting from the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing in September 2008.

Following the collapse of the Lehman Brothers, about 10,000 retail investors in Singapore lost their investments totalling over S$500 million in structured investment products linked to the American investment bank. The financial institutions that distributed the products were accused of having mis-sold these relatively high-risk products to investors, many of whom were elderly and less educated.

This prompted government investigations, which led to penalties being imposed on 10 financial institutions, and tighter supervision of the industry.

Hidden Risk Growing in Australia’s Mortgages

             (Aidan Devine’s post from The DAILY TELEGRAPH on 17 October 2025.)

Hidden risk in Australia’s home loans as high risk lending grows: More homeowners are buying with smaller deposits amid rising competition for properties and relaxed lending.

Australia’s housing market is being increasingly propped up by risky lending as interest rate cuts encourage banks to take on higher leveraged loans – and it could leave homeowners paying more.

Analysis of APRA figures revealed loans to home buyers with fractional deposits of less than 5 per cent surged to record levels over the 12 months to August. Lending to those with small deposits under 5 per cent hit $14.2 billion over the period, according to the analysis by Primara Research and investment property group Our Top 10.

The Movie "Margin Call" Is For Real!

                         (Jake Zamansky’s post from The FORBES on 25 Oct 2011.)

The movie “Margin Call,” which opened this past weekend, advertises that it was inspired by a true story.

The fictional head of a Wall Street firm “John Tuld” (a composite character resembling Merrill Lynch’s John Thain and Lehman Brothers’ Dick Fuld and played by the wonderfully villainous Jeremy Irons) is told that the firm is drowning in toxic mortgage-backed securities.

Tuld orders his traders to rid the firm’s balance sheet of the junk by dumping it on unsuspecting counterparties and customers. Tuld is told: “You’re selling something you know has no value.” He replies: “Be first, be smarter or cheat.”

CDO Man "Wing Chau" wasn’t Defamed by The Big Short

          (Mark Wilson’s post from The FINDLAW on 21 March 2019.)

Michael Lewis Didn't Defame Wing Chau in 'The Big Short': Michael Lewis' nonfiction book The Big Short, published in 2011, chronicled the 2008 financial crisis as seen through the eyes of some of the people involved in it, including the hedge fund managers who "shorted" (bet against) the market.

In one chapter of the book, Steven Eisman, one of Lewis' sources, meets Wing Chau, the owner of an investment firm that managed collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). CDOs were investments comprised of portions of thousands of subprime mortgages; they were a key vector for the financial collapse.

Chau sued for defamation based on 26 discrete statements in Lewis' book. The statements range from Eisman's opinion that Chau was a "sucker" for buying CDOs, to statements that Chau was knowingly selling junk investments, to representations that he was making huge sums of money betting against the market.

Rear Earth Minerals Supply: US-China Trade War

             (Charlotte Martin’s post from The IDTechEx UK on 15 October 2025.)

US-China Trade War Drives Investment in Domestic Rare Earth Supply: Rare earth elements and critical minerals are now frequently featured in global news cycles due to the national security and economic impacts of increasing supply disruption.

Growing export restrictions placed on defense-related rare earth materials from China at a time of multiple international conflicts underscores growing demand in the US and Europe to develop alternative supply.

2025 is set to be an inflection point, as a year of tariffs and trade wars drive record investment into strategic Western rare earth supply chains. IDTechEx’s latest research, ‘Rare Earth Magnets 2026-2036: Technologies, Supply, Markets, Forecasts’ explores rare earth investment and supply chain partnership trends driven by increasingly restrictive global rare earth supply.

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan?

             (Staff post from The CHINA BRIEFNG on 02 June 2025.)

2025 is a pivotal year in China’s policy cycle, marking the close of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the lead-up to the 15th, which will chart the country’s course from 2026 to 2030. President Xi Jinping is already steering discussions with senior officials on key priorities, while state media mobilize public input ahead of the CPC Central Committee’s expected approval this fall.  

2025 is a pivotal year in China’s policy landscape, marking the final year of the 14th Five–Year Plan and setting the stage for the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee to put forward proposals for the 15th Five-Year Plan in the fall.

China’s political leadership is currently laying the groundwork for the release of this pivotal document, which will shape the country’s social and economic development over the next five years. President Xi Jinping has held meetings with senior officials to discuss key priorities for the new plan, while state media have launched a national campaign to gather public input and feedback.

How US Destroyed Toshiba in 1987?

              (Huang Lanlan’s post from The GLOBAL TIMES on 28 September 2020.)

Lessons from Toshiba, Alstom: how US suppresses foreign rival companies to maintain tech hegemony. The continual suppression by the US of Chinese tech companies including Huawei and TikTok has been a farce the world has watched ever since Washington started regarding these fast growing and expanding Chinese tech giants as threats to its domestic counterparts.

People in the know are no longer surprised by the aggressive treatment of foreign tech companies by the US. In past decades, companies around the world such as Japan's Toshiba and France's Alstom were targeted, sanctioned and seriously hurt by the US government that used excuses like security, anti-dumping and anti-bribery.

There is no essential difference between the suppression of Huawei or TikTok today and Washington's past crackdowns on Toshiba or Alstom, said Zhang Monan, a chief research fellow of US studies with the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. "Washington continues its technological hegemony, placing its laws and administrative instructions above market order," Zhang told the Global Times.

The GrandMothers Hypothesis Explained!

               (Mwenza Blell’s post from The WILEY FREE ONLINE LIBRARY.)

The grandmother hypothesis is a hypothesis to explain the existence of menopause in human life history by identifying the adaptive value of extended kin networking. It builds on the previously postulated "mother hypothesis" which states that as mothers age, the costs of reproducing become greater, and energy devoted to those activities would be better spent helping her offspring in their reproductive efforts.

It suggests that by redirecting their energy onto those of their offspring, grandmothers can better ensure the survival of their genes through younger generations. By providing sustenance and support to their kin, grandmothers not only ensure that their genetic interests are met, but they also enhance their social networks which could translate into better immediate resource acquisition. This could extend past kin into larger community networks and benefit wider group fitness.

The grandmother hypothesis is an adaptationist explanation for the fact that the human female life span extends beyond the period of fertility. Human female reproductive life spans are variable in length but reproductive senescence occurs much faster than somatic aging.

Massive Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk!

             (David Smith’s post from The GUARDIAN UK 23September 2025.)

Democrats silent as Republicans galvanised after Charlie Kirk memorial: Democrats trod carefully in responding to event attended by nearly 100,000 that blended politics with religion.

Democrats maintained a wary silence on Monday as Donald Trump’s Republican party appeared galvanised by a memorial service for the late rightwing activist Charlie Kirk that was part religious revival, part political rally.

Nearly 100,000 people filled an American football stadium and overflow arena in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday to pay tribute to Kirk, according to his his organisation Turning Point USA. The 31-year-old staunch Trump ally was shot dead on 10 September.

KIA Disrupts Myanmar Rare Earth Flow To China

           (Devjyot Ghoshal’s post from the REUTERS NEWS on 17 September 2025.)

BANGKOK, March 28 (Reuters) - When armed rebels seized northern Myanmar's rare-earths mining belt in October, they dealt a blow to the country's embattled military junta - and wrested control of a key global resource.

By capturing sites that produce roughly half of the world's heavy rare earths, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) rebels have been able to throttle the supply of minerals used in wind turbines and electric vehicles, sending prices of one key element skyward.

The KIA is seeking leverage against neighbouring China, which supports the junta and has invested heavily in rare earths mining in Myanmar's Kachin state, according to two people familiar with the matter.

India Working with KIA for Rare Earth Minerals

       (Staff posts from the ECONOMIC TIMES INDIA on 10 September 2025.)

India explores rare-earth deal with Myanmar rebels after Chinese curbs: India is working to obtain rare-earth samples from Myanmar with the assistance of a powerful rebel group, according to four people familiar with the matter, as it seeks alternative supplies of a strategic resource tightly controlled by China.

India's Ministry of Mines asked state-owned and private firms to explore collecting and transporting samples from mines in northeastern Myanmar that are under the control of the Kachin Independence Army, three of the people said.

State-owned miner IREL (India Rare Earth Limited) and private firm Midwest Advanced Materials - which received government funding last year for the commercial manufacturing of rare-earth magnets - were among those involved in the discussions, the sources said.

Last Days of Sean Connery (1930-2020)

                (Nisha’s post from her FACE BOOK on 11 September 2025.)

In 2016, Sean Connery had quietly stepped away from the public eye, living a serene life in the Bahamas. The man once known for his commanding presence and iconic voice now preferred early mornings with the sound of ocean waves instead of red carpets.

He spent much of his time in his Lyford Cay home, walking slowly through the garden with his wife, Micheline Roquebrune, sometimes stopping to sit under the shade of a palm tree where they would sip tea and talk about art, travel, and the quiet beauty of growing old together.

By 2017, Connery had become more reclusive, though still sharp in moments of clarity. Friends who visited recalled how his eyes still held the same intensity that once defined characters like James Bond and Jim Malone. But his memory began to falter. He often forgot names, struggled to follow conversations, and occasionally seemed lost in his own house.

Charlie Kirk Assassinated by a Sniper in Utah!

                 (Editorial post from the NEW YORKER on 11 September2025.)

Charlie Kirk, the conservative media figure and influential supporter of Donald Trump, was shot and killed today while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University. Graphic videos captured by those in attendance appear to show Kirk being struck in the neck by a bullet. He was thirty-one.

The President announced Kirk’s death on social media, and requested flags across the country be flown at half-staff. Other major political figures from across the ideological spectrum, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris, condemned the shooting and political violence.

Kirk founded Turning Point USA, a youth-focussed right-wing nonprofit, in 2012, when he was just eighteen. “It’s impossible to overstate his role in MAGA and Republican politics,” Antonia Hitchens, a New Yorker staff writer who covers politics, told us over e-mail from Washington, D.C.

Mexico’s Molar City Could Transform Your Smile.

              (Burkhard Bilger’s post from THE NEWYORKER on 28 July 2025.)

Mexico’s Molar City Could Transform My Smile. Did I Want It To? More than a thousand dentists have set up shop in Los Algodones. Their patients are mostly Americans who can’t afford the U.S.’s dental care.

Los Algodones was built on leaps of faith. A short walk from the United States, it’s a place for the poor, the afflicted, the huddled masses without dental insurance. On weekday mornings in late winter, they start to arrive before dawn. They drive in from Arizona or California, catch a shuttle from Yuma, or park their car in a lot in the Sonoran Desert and cross the border on foot.

The path for pedestrians follows State Route 186, past a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses offering free Bible courses, along a twisting corridor of razor wire and chain-link fence, through passport control, and into Los Algodones.

Trafficking of Young Men and Boys in Myanmar

               (Based on the Burmese post from the FACE BOOK in August 2025.)

A destitute family of three in the hellhole called war-ravaged Myanmar. Old mother made and sold Burmese snacks under the big kokeko tree next to their tiny hut on the tiny piece of land they owned. The old father formerly was a carpenter but had a severe stroke and paralysed and ended up permanently in bed.

They have one young son who worked as a bricklayer and, being a good boy, he gave his daily wages to his old parents. Even though they were poor they had a reasonable life together. Then one day the tragedy struck.

On his way back home from work that day the boy was forcefully grabbed by the drafters from Mynamar Army and Myanmar Police, the hellish brutes, universally hated by their own people of Myanmar. They put him in jail and then went to his old parents and tried to haggle for his release.

Give us 10,000,000 Myanmar kyats (about US$ 2,500) if they want their son back, demanded they. Othewise he would be sent to a boot camp for two months and then be fighting the ethnic insurgents at the faraway front lines by the Chinese border.

Chongqing Basket Subway Line for Poor Vege Farmers

The Chongqing basket line refers to Chongqing Rail Transit Line 4, a metro line nicknamed the "Basket Line" because it's used daily by farmers to transport fresh produce in baskets from rural areas to city markets.

This unique system of urban-rural integration allows farmers to sell their goods at higher prices, while providing the city with fresh, local food and fostering a mutually beneficial connection between the countryside and the city center.

Chongqing is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the Central People's Government, along with Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. It is the only directly administrated municipality located deep inland.

The municipality covers a large geographical area roughly the size of Austria, which includes several disjunct urban areas in addition to Chongqing proper. Due to its classification, the municipality of Chongqing is the largest city proper in the world by population, though Chongqing is not the most populous urban area.

AI: The End of The English Essay Writing?

             (Hua Hsu’s post from the NEW YORKER MAGAZZINE on 30 June 2025.)

What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing? The demise of the English paper will end a long intellectual tradition, but it’s also an opportunity to reëxamine the purpose of higher education. There are no reliable figures for how many students use A.I., just stories about how everyone is doing it.

On a blustery spring Thursday, just after midterms, I went out for noodles with Alex and Eugene, two undergraduates at New York University, to talk about how they use artificial intelligence in their schoolwork. When I first met Alex, last year, he was interested in a career in the arts, and he devoted a lot of his free time to photo shoots with his friends.

But he had recently decided on a more practical path: he wanted to become a C.P.A. His Thursdays were busy, and he had forty-five minutes until a study session for an accounting class. He stowed his skateboard under a bench in the restaurant and shook his laptop out of his bag, connecting to the internet before we sat down.

Turning Point When Your Body's Aging Accelerates

           (Michelle Starr’s post from the SCIENCE ALERT on 28 July 2025.)

Study Reveals Turning Point When Your Body's Aging Accelerates: The passage of time may be linear, but the course of human aging is not. Rather than a gradual transition, your life staggers and lurches through the rapid growth of childhood, the plateau of early adulthood, to an acceleration in aging as the decades progress.

Now, a new study has identified a turning point at which that acceleration typically takes place: at around age 50. After this time, the trajectory at which your tissues and organs age is steeper than the decades preceding, according to a study of proteins in human bodies across a wide range of adult ages – and your veins are among the fastest to decline.

"Based on aging-associated protein changes, we developed tissue-specific proteomic age clocks and characterized organ-level aging trajectories. Temporal analysis revealed an aging inflection around age 50, with blood vessels being a tissue that ages early and is markedly susceptible to aging," writes a team led by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "Together, our findings lay the groundwork for a systems-level understanding of human aging through the lens of proteins."

Trump’s Rare Earth Deal with KIA?

          (Antonio Graceffo’s post from the MIZZIMA-ENGLISH on 30 July 2025.)

Trump Administration Considers Rare Earth Deal That Could Reshape the Burma Conflict: In a groundbreaking shift, the Trump administration is reportedly considering two proposals for securing rare earth minerals from Myanmar, resources critical to advanced weaponry and battery production.

The first option would involve engaging directly with the military junta, which would carry the side effect of granting it de facto recognition. The second, far more transformative option, would be to bypass the junta entirely and negotiate directly with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the ethnic armed organization that controls most of Myanmar’s rare earth mining territory.

If the U.S. chooses the latter, it would mark a historic break from the longstanding convention of democratic governments only engaging with officially recognized state authorities. Such a move would not only grant legitimacy to the KIA but also offer hope to all of Burma’s ethnic armed organizations, many of which have long sought international recognition and support.

The Living Years by Mike & The Mechanics (1988)

         (Lyrics and the music video of “The Living Years by Mike & Mechanics”.)

Every generation, Blames the one before

And all of their frustrations, Come beating on your door

I know that I'm a prisoner, To all my Father held so dear

I know that I'm a hostage, To all his hopes and fears

I just wish I could have told him in the living years.

 

Oh, crumpled bits of paper, Filled with imperfect thought

Stilted conversations, I'm afraid that's all we've got

You say you just don't see it, He says it's perfect sense

You just can't get agreement, In this present tense

We all talk a different language, Talking in defence.

Trump working on Access to Myanmar's Rare Earths

             (Staff post from the REUTERS on 29 July 2025.)

Trump team hears pitches on access to Myanmar's rare earths: The Trump administration has heard competing proposals that would significantly alter longstanding U.S. policy toward Myanmar, with the aim of diverting its vast supplies of rare earth minerals away from strategic rival China, four people with direct knowledge of the discussions said.

Nothing has been decided and experts say there are huge logistical obstacles, but if the ideas are ever acted upon, Washington may need to strike a deal with the ethnic rebels controlling most of Myanmar's rich deposits of heavy rare earths.

Among the proposals are one advocating talks with Myanmar's ruling junta to get a peace deal with the Kachin Independence Army rebels and another calling for the U.S. to instead work directly with the KIA without engaging the junta. Washington has avoided direct talks with the country's military leaders following their overthrow of the country's democratically elected government in 2021.

Thailand Vs Cambodia Border War?

          (Facebook post from the PHILLIPINES STAR on 25 July 2025.)

Thai and Cambodian soldiers have clashed along the border between their countries in a major escalation that left at least 14 people dead, mostly civilians. The two sides fired small arms, artillery and rockets, and Thailand also launched airstrikes.

Fighting took place in at least six areas on Thursday, according to Thai Defense Ministry spokesperson Surasant Kongsiri, a day after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers and led Bangkok to withdraw its ambassador from Cambodia and expel Cambodia’s envoy to Thailand.

On Friday, Cambodia’s chief official in Oddar Meanchey province, Gen. Khov Ly, said clashes resumed early in the morning near the ancient Ta Muen Thom temple. Associated Press reporters near the border could hear sounds of artillery from early morning hours.

The Importance of Kachin State to Myanmar’s Revolution

                    (Michael Martin’s post from the CSIS on 22 July 2025.)

Four years on, Myanmar’s civil war has spread to all 14 regions and states, as well as the major cities of Mandalay, Naypyidaw, and Yangon.

According to the analysis of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, opposition groups have effective control over 34 percent of the country’s landmass, including all but one of the border townships.

Townships under opposition control form a crescent that arcs from Rakhine State in the west, through Chin State, Sagaing Region, across Kachin State, and into Shan State in the east. Almost all of the cross-border towns with neighboring Bangladesh, China, India, and Thailand are under the administration of opposition forces.

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and its affiliated People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) have reportedly captured more than 300 military installations and 15 towns in Kachin State, Shan State, or Sagaing Region since the 2021 coup. The KIA and its allies have also taken control of all but one of the border crossings into China. In addition, they control most of Kachin’s valuable mining region, including its rare earth mines.