Rare-Earth Mine Collapse: EVs Killing People?

                (Based on staff posts from The Myanmar Now Media on 06 June 2024.)

On June-4 just last Tueday, the whole mountain-side on top of the largest Chinese Rare Earth Mine illegally operating inide Myanmar right near China-Burma borderline in the Kachin Land of Northern-Burma suddenly collapsed in an enormous landslide, killing at least 24 people and hundreds missing presumed dead.

The large rare-earth mine is located at five-mile-north of Panwar Village in the Chibwe Township of Kachin Land in Northern-Burma. The area is under the tight control of Panwar-People-Militia led by infamous Kachin elder named Za-Khum-Taint-Yein. Formerly a KIA senior officer he now is a lacquey of Myanmar Army.

The mine-land is jointly-and-officially controlled by the Panwar Miitia and Myanmar-Myo-Ko-Ko Mineral Eploration Pte based at Rangoon’s Tamwe Township. The area is internationally well known for a very-large deposite of Rare-Earth minerals. Ther are more than 300 small mines operated by the natives there, but the largest is controlled by Chinese.

Myanmar is Fucked: One US$ is 5,000 Kyats!

              (Based on Burmese posts from The FACEBOOK on 1-4 June 2024.)

In 1984 when I left Burma for Bangkok  one US dollar fetched 40 kyats, but in 1996 when I was doing prawn-export business in Burma that black-market exchange-rate went up to 150 kyats/US$ and now one needs 5,000 kyat to get an American dollar.

According to the NUG’s Finance Minister Tin-Htun-Naing and Dr. Sean Turnell (ASSK’s former Economic Advisor), the main reason for that hyper inflation is the reckless printing of 30 trilion kyat paper money, in just last three years, by the power-mad dictator General Min Aung Hlaing and his followers.

Every salaried man or woman is now getting paid every month with brand new kyat 20,000 notes as these  notes were constantly coming out of warzi cash printing presses. And the inflation in Myanmar is going through fucking roof as both private and government banks are also issuing brand new 20,000 kyat notes.

Myanmar Chose Russia over China For Dawei Port

                    (Bhagya Subhashini’s article from SWARAJYA Mag on 16 May 2024.)

China's Frustration Grows As Myanmar Seeks Russian Partnership For Dawei Strategic Port Project: Dawei Port will link countries in the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, without the need to pass the Malacca Strait.  

China had previously conducted a feasibility study for the Dawei port but redirected its focus to the Kyakphyu deep seaport near the India-built Sittwe port. Myanmar has recently chosen Russia for the construction of the Dawei deep seaport, a decision that has raised tensions with China, which had also shown interest in developing the port.

The port is located in the country's east coast bordering Thailand. The project was initiated in 2008 as a jointly owned bilateral economic cooperation project between the governments of Thailand and Myanmar.

Buthidaung Burning: AA’s atrocities against Rohingya?

                    (Lisa Schlein’s article from The VOA NEWS on 25 May 2024.)

GENEVA — Reports are emerging of new atrocity crimes being committed in a concerted campaign of violence and destruction by Myanmar’s military (or Arakan Army) against the largely Muslim Rohingya people in northern Rakhine state.

“We are receiving frightening and disturbing reports from northern Rakhine state in Myanmar of the impacts of the conflict on civilian lives and property,” Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Friday in a briefing to journalists in Geneva.

“Some of the most serious allegations concern incidents of killing of Rohingya civilians and the burning of their property,” she said, noting that tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in recent days by fighting in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships.

She said that information gathered in testimony from victims, eyewitnesses, satellite images, and online video and pictures over the last week indicate that “Buthidaung town has been largely burned. We have received information indicating that the burning started on 17 May, two days after the military had retreated from the town and the Arakan Army claimed to have taken full control,” she said.

Speaking in Bangkok, James Rodehaver, head of Myanmar Team, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said his team had spoken to many sources on the ground and reviewed numerous materials, many of which “were deemed to be credible.”

Shani Louk: Nude German Girl Paraded by Hamas

              (Staff article from The ALJAZEERA NEWS on 30 October 2024.)

Israel says German-Israeli woman Shani Louk, taken by Hamas, is dead: Israeli foreign ministry confirms the death of 23-year-old Israeli-German woman Shani Louk. Israeli authorities have said that a 23-year-old German-Israeli woman named Shani Louk, abducted by the Palestinian armed group Hamas during an attack on southern Israel, is dead.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a social media post on Monday that it had confirmed the death of Louk, snatched at a music festival where Hamas fighters killed more than 200 people. (Her naked-unconscious body was paraded on the back of pickup-truck by Hamas in Gaza. She was later gang-raped, shot, and beheaded by Hamas Animals.)

“Our hearts are broken,” the social media post reads, adding that Louk had been “paraded” around Gaza. “May her memory be a blessing.” The circumstances of Louk’s death were not immediately clear. Louk’s sister Adi spoke of her “great sorrow” as she shared the news of Shani’s death on Instagram.

Hamas Terrorists Rapist-Murderers’ Confessions

                  (Staff article from The NEW YORK POST on 23 May 2024.)

Abdallah: 18-yrs-old Hamas rapist-murderer.

Father-son Hamas terrorists casually describe taking turns raping Israeli woman, then executing her, in bone-chilling video: Bone-chilling new footage shows a Hamas terrorist and his teenage son casually telling Israeli interrogators how they took turns raping a woman, then executed her during the Oct. 7 terror rampage.

Jamal Hussein Ahmad Radi, 47, and his 18-year-old son, Abdallah, were seized by the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip this spring and subsequently questioned about the terror attack, the Daily Mail revealed.

Jamal described finding a woman who was “screaming” and “crying” in a house at Kibbutz Nir Oz, a community near the Israel-Gaza border. Video reportedly obtained by the Daily Mail shows Hamas terrorist Jamal Hussein Ahmad Radi being interrogated by Israeli forces. The father and son detailed their horrifying attacks on an Israeli woman.

China’s Export Surge To The Global South

                    (David Goldman’ article from The ASIA TIMES on 21 May 2024.)

2 words explain China export ‘surge’: Global South: China has had a plan, expressed at a high level in the Belt and Road Initiative, to replicate some aspects of its industrialization in other countries of the Global South.  

Contrary to a meme that’s popular among Western policy analysts, there is no Chinese “export surge.” China’s exports to developed markets have stagnated for years, but have doubled to the Global South.

Not only have China’s exports to the Global South in total risen by an unprecedented margin, but its exports to every region of the Global South – Asia, Latin America, Africa, Middle East/North Africa and Central Asia – have risen in lockstep.

Finding Kareni Commander Bo Marwi in Loikaw

     (Andrew Nachemson’s article-extract from FRONTIER MYANMAR on 17 May 2024.)

Finding Marwi in Loikaw: A Frontier editor reflects on his trip to Karenni State, culminating in a visit to the besieged state capital with one of the country’s most iconic resistance commanders.

“We need to get permission from Marwi to go to Loikaw.” It was late December and I had spent months waiting for permission to visit Karenni State, on Myanmar’s mountainous border with Thailand. Also known as Kayah State, the country’s smallest state or region with a population of under half a million, had emerged as an unexpected site of fierce resistance after the 2021 military coup.

Loikaw, the state capital, had been the site of particularly heavy fighting since anti-junta forces launched an offensive to seize the town on November 11. Likely eager to show off their gains, members of the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force repeatedly told me they would take me to the town, despite my apprehensions.

“Pig-Butchering” Cyber Scammers From Myanmar?

                  (Will Jackson’s article from the ABC NEWS on 16 May 2024.)

KNA-Controlled Shwe-Koke-Ko in Myanmar.

How South-East Asia's pig butchering scammers are using artificial intelligence technology: The video shows a young Asian man with stubbly facial hair and blond tips sitting in a gaming chair in a messy bedroom. Over the next minute his face cycles through more than a dozen different genders and ethnicities.

It's not just another new TikTok filter. The video is advertising a real-time deepfake face-swapping system reportedly being employed by South-East Asian crime syndicates in so-called "pig butchering" cyberscam operations.

Experts say the technology and other new artificial intelligence (AI) tools — such as generative AI chatbots — are increasing the effectiveness of the scams and broadening their reach to new victims. However, some of the scam operations appear to be having less success with the new tech than others.