Sunday, April 19, 2026

Is Aung San Suu Kyi Already Dead?

            (Staff post from the MIZZIMA NEWS on 23 December 2025.)

The Myanmar Junta’s Greatest Fear Is Not Aung San Suu Kyi Alive – It Is Her Dead: A question is now being asked openly across international media, diplomatic briefings, and human rights forums: will Aung San Suu Kyi ever be free?

Because the world delayed demanding an answer, another question now carries unavoidable urgency: is she even alive? Aung San Suu Kyi is not a marginal political figure. She is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the democratically elected leader of Myanmar, and one of the most globally recognized symbols of nonviolent resistance of the last half-century. Her party won the country’s last free national election in a landslide. For this, she was erased.

Since the military coup of February 2021, she has been held in windowless solitary confinement, in a prison cell whose location remains undisclosed, cut off from lawyers, family, independent doctors, and the outside world. For nearly three years there has been no verified proof of life – no images, no independent medical confirmation, no credible access by neutral observers. This is not neglect. It is grotesque behavior by a regime that understands precisely what it is doing.

Thursday, April 16, 2026

Expansion of Eromanga Refinery in Queensland, Australia

      (Jay Carstens’s post from the ABC NEWS AUS on 11April 2026.)

Expansion on cards at Eromanga refinery as Queensland looks to produce more oil: As Queensland looks for more oil, a small outback refinery has proven critical for the exploration process and now expansion is on the cards.

The Inland Oil Refinery has operated in Eromanga for more than 40 years, creating small amounts of underground mining fuel that is sold to the mining sector. The refinery and its supplier say expansion is a genuine possibility as the Taroom Trough oil field opens up.

In the outback town of Eromanga, about 1,000 kilometres west of Brisbane, lies a small and relatively unknown oil refinery. Inland Oil Refinery (IOR) has operated in the south-west town since 1986, but now could be on the cusp of expansion as the Queensland government pushes to speed up oil projects.

Saturday, April 11, 2026

Outback oilfield that could save Australia

          (David Wu’s post from the NEWS.COM.AU on 09 April 2026.)

No gas at the Aussie servos!

A remote Queensland basin could be the answer to our oil supply problems – but environmental laws are preventing it from being fast-tracked. Experts believe a trough in remote Queensland, roughly the size of Singapore, could have enough oil to eliminate Australia’s heavy reliance on crude imports.

The country’s dependence on petrol and diesel imports from our Asian neighbours has been exposed by the Middle East war, with bowsers running empty nationwide. Supply is still a major talking point, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese trying to reassure Australians stock levels currently in and arriving to the country remain strong.

But Queensland Premier David Crisafulli has argued Mr Albanese only needs to look domestically in the Sunshine State’s backyard for Australia’s own future oil source.

Thursday, April 9, 2026

Taroom Trough Oilfield in Queensland, Australia

        (Angela Smith’s post from the AFR Australia on 08 April 2026.)

Oil explorers say Queensland’s Taroom could fill nation’s refineries: Queensland’s Taroom Trough could fill the country’s refineries and leave enough oil available for export, according to the chief executive of the largest holder of acreage in what has become a major energy exploration play.

Stuart Nicholls, who leads Elixir Energy, said all the signs pointed to the trough – an area the size of Singapore west of Brisbane – being able to produce enough oil to eliminate the need for refineries to import crude.

The Queensland government is urging the federal government to accelerate the processing of environmental approvals needed to extract oil in the trough to avoid years of delays in production and avert a repeat of the fuel crisis that has developed since the outbreak of war in the Middle East.

“This is an opportunity to deliver liquid gold, and we have no intention of wasting it,” Premier David Crisafulli said after travelling to Shell’s acreage in the trough. “What a golden opportunity in this country to get back to a time when we are prepared to drill, and refine and store our own fuel.”

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Trump threatens to 'obliterate' Iran’s Kharg Island

          (Staff post from THE ABC NEWS AUS on 31 March 2026.)

Trump threatens to 'obliterate' Iranian oil and energy sites if it refuses deal to end war: Donald Trump is threatening to obliterate Kharg Island, which is responsible for 90 per cent of Iran's oil production.  

Donald Trump is threatening to obliterate Iran's energy plants and oil wells if it does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The US president posted on his platform Truth Social that the United States would be "blowing up" Iran's strategically important Kharg Island if the nation's leaders refused to make a deal.

He went on to write that the US was in "serious discussions" with a "NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME" to end the war. "Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately "Open for Business," we will conclude our lovely "stay" in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet "touched"," he said.