New China-funded railway across Malaysia

(Alexandra Radu’s post from the DIALOGUE EARTH on 07 February 2020.)

Work on Malaysia’s new East Coast Rail Line (ECRL) started again in April 2019 after a delay of almost a year for renegotiations with the Chinese firm leading the project. The railway’s new route, adjusted to save costs, now avoids two areas of ecological importance, making the delay good news for Malaysia’s environment.

Over 640 km long, the railway connects Kota Bharu on the east coast of peninsula Malaysia with the country’s biggest commercial port, Port Klang, on the west coast near the capital Kuala Lumpur. It will link up to a wider pan-Asian network of railways currently under construction or planned as part of China’s global Belt and Road Initiative.

Work on the project started in August 2017 but was suspended in 2018 following a general election in Malaysia. The newly-elected prime minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad, accused his predecessor of awarding the project to the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) without an open tendering process, at high costs and unfair terms for Malaysia.

Counter-Coup in Myanmar: Dictator Removed & Jailed?

 

According to the insider sources the Myanmar Dictator-turned-President Min Aung Hlaing has been removed and arrested together with his absolutely corrupt family in Naypyidaw. The counter-coup has been staged by current army chief General Ye Win Oo with the support of Vice Senior General Soe Win on June-8 early morning.

According to the army sources most army divisional commanders have supported the counter-coup as the almost six-years-long civil war is nearly lost with massive casualties on the front lines and the capital city Naypyidaw is now seriously threatened.

The bloodless coup would become the turning point for anti-army revolution as the Myanmar Army has already lost nearly 60% of Myanmar landmass to the revolutionary forces mainly EAOs (Ethnic Armed Organizations) and NUG’s PDF (National Unity Government’s People Defence Forces) all over the poverty-stricken nation.

Australia to Produce a Record 2.2 million tonnes Lentils

 (Matt Brann’s post from the ABC NEWS Australia on 06 June 2026.)

Australia forecast to produce a record 2.2 million tonnes of lentils: On below are three glass jars. One filled with red lentils, one with yellow lentils and the third with barley. Australian lentils are mostly exported to countries including India and Bangladesh.

Australian farmers are set to produce less wheat, barley and canola this year because of dry seasonal conditions and high input costs. But they are on track to produce Australia's biggest crop of lentils. National commodities forecaster ABARES says lentil production is set to rise 3 per cent to a record 2.2 million tonnes.

Following Graph is showing lentil production increases over the years. "Plantings have exploded across Victoria and South Australia, with production now creeping into places like WA and New South Wales," said Market Check chief executive Nick Crundall.

Sittwe City Under Siege by Arakan Army

(Lin Thit’s post from the IRRAWADDY TIMES on 12 March 2026.)

AA (Arakan Army) Tightens Noose in Battle for Rakhine Capital Sittwe: Fighting has intensified around Sittwe as the Arakan Army (AA)’s pincer offensive closes in on the Rakhine State capital, striking junta positions on both the northeastern and northwestern approaches.

AA troops are now attacking the Shwe Min Gan naval base on the city’s northeastern edge as well as a string of fortified regime outposts along the Mayu River to the northwest. Targeted positions include riverbank posts around Ah Myint Kyun and the heavily mined and fortified village of Kywe Tae.

The Kywe Tae fortress is designed to shield the regime’s Padaleik Battalion and the Regional Operations Command headquarters against approaches from AA-held territory across the Mayu estuary.

Pauline Hanson for PM: Aus-Muslims’ Nightmare?

(Oscar Godsell’s post from the SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA on 31 May 2026.)

Pauline Hanson says she’s ready to be Prime Minister of Australia, considering run for lower house seat: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has declared she’s ready to be the Prime Minister of Australia and is considering running for a seat in the House of Representatives.

Her comments come after a recently published Redbridge-Accent Research seat-by-seat projection showed One Nation could win more than 50 seats at an election. In the wake of the polling, Ms Hanson told Sky News’ Sunday Agenda that she believed she was capable of leading the country as prime minister.

“Do I want to be Prime Minister? Well, I tell you what, I won’t knock the job because I believe that I have the ability to do it,” she said. “I’m not going to underestimate myself or say, 'no, I can’t do it,' because you know, have a look at what we’ve got now. That’s why we’re in a mess.”

Myanmar The Shithole is now A Living Hell on Earth

Myanmar formerly known as Burma or British Burma was well known as The Shithole of South East Asia since the 1962 Military Coup. The world has had a big hope for our Burma when the military dictator ship was transformed into a semi-democratic quasi-civilian system a decade ago. But since 2021 Military Coup staged by the group of motherfucking-Bastard Army Generals (“A Group of Stupid Thugs” according to the US State Department) the notorious shithole is now being turned rapidly into a living hell on this planet.

Economy has completely collapsed, civil war has consumed nearly three quarters of the land, more  than half of population is starving, over 20% of population has been displaced and most ended up struggling in neighbouring Thailand, every military-aged man don’t even dare to go out of their houses for the roaming army’s chain-gangs will be dragging them out of the streets and into the army and sending them onto frontlines to die fighting the rebels. Myanmar simply is a living hell for almost six years now.

Inflation is sky-high people can’t even afford to buy good rice let alone luxury like meat and chicken. For the country formerly well known all over the world as the Rice Bowl of British Empire where sun never set, totally unbelievable.

Arakan Army Chief Htun Myat Naing’s Interview

(Rajeev Bhattacharyya’s post from the DIPLOMAT on 04 May 2026.)

Arakan Army Chief Twan Mrat Naing on Talks With the Myanmar Government, and Relations With India and Bangladesh: “The military government wants to negotiate from a position of strength but we will not succumb to such pressure.”

Arakan Army (AA) and United League of Arakan (ULA) Chief Twan Mrat Naing gives an interview to Rajeev Bhattacharyya at an undisclosed location somewhere in Myanmar’s Arakan region, on March 2, 2026.

The Arakan Army (AA) and its political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), are among the largest revolutionary organizations in Myanmar currently battling the government. Seventeen years after it was formed in 2009, the AA controls almost 90 percent of Arakan, the narrow coastal region on the Bay of Bengal in the western region of Myanmar.

The Demon in the Machine by Paul Davies

(Steven Poole’s post from the GUARDIAN UK Book Review on 18 Jan 2019.)

The Demon in the Machine by Paul Davies review – what is life? A new theory, which centres on information, is providing some answers in this lucid but speculative exposition.

In 1943 the great physicist Erwin Schrödinger, of both-dead-and-alive-cat fame, gave a series of lectures at Trinity College Dublin, published the next year as his book What Is Life? He supposed that genes must take the form of a “huge molecule” containing a “miniature code” to direct the subsequent development of the organism.

Francis Crick and James Watson, inspired by Schrödinger’s work, later proved him right when they, along with Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, discovered the structure of DNA.

But Schrödinger’s central question remains unanswered. There is still no agreed-on definition of what life is, let alone how it started. Maybe, some suggest, there are biology-specific laws of nature that we have yet to identify. Indeed, Schrödinger himself argued that “living matter, while not eluding the ‘laws of physics’ as established up to date, is likely to involve ‘other laws of physics’ hitherto unknown”.

Zhou Qunfei: The Founder of Lens Technology

            (Alvin Huang’s post from the FACEBOOK on 16 May2026.)

Touch your phone screen right now. Feel how smooth it is. There's a decent chance the glass under your fingertip was made by a woman who grew up raising pigs and ducks in a village in Hunan province, dropped out of school at 16, and took a factory job making watch lenses for less than a dollar a day.

Her name is Zhou Qunfei. She's the founder of Lens Technology, the company that makes the cover glass for Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and Tesla. She's worth over US$18 billion. She's the world's fourth richest self-made woman. And the entire thing started with a resignation letter.

Zhou was born in 1970 in Xiangxiang, Hunan, the youngest of three children in a family shaped by loss. Before she was born, her father, a former soldier, lost a finger and most of his eyesight in an industrial accident.

He supported the family by weaving bamboo baskets, making chairs, and repairing bicycles. Her mother died when she was five. The girl helped her family raise animals for food and whatever small income they could manage.