Animal Farm By George Orwell – Chapter 1

                    (Chapter-1 from the Project Gutenberg Australia on 8 March 2008.)

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring.

As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there was a stirring and a fluttering all through the farm buildings. Word had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals.

It had been agreed that they should all meet in the big barn as soon as Mr. Jones was safely out of the way. Old Major (so he was always called, though the name under which he had been exhibited was Willingdon Beauty) was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour's sleep in order to hear what he had to say.

At one end of the big barn, on a sort of raised platform, Major was already ensconced on his bed of straw, under a lantern which hung from a beam. He was twelve years old and had lately grown rather stout, but he was still a majestic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent appearance in spite of the fact that his tushes had never been cut.

Socialists Bringing ISIS Wives and Children Home

                   (Staff article from the ABC NEWS Australia on 28 October 2022.)

Will they be allowed to bring their AK-47s.

The first group of Australian women and children held in a detention camp in north-east Syria since the fall of the Islamic State (IS) group in 2019 is en route to Sydney. It is likely to be the first step in repatriating the entire cohort of Australian citizens detained in the war-torn country.

France last week removed 40 women and 15 children from the camps, joining more than 25 countries that had repatriated their citizens since the fall of the IS in early 2019.

The Australian government, which was involved in the extraction, confirmed the group's return. Those removed were assessed by Australian officials as being the most vulnerable of the 60 Australian women and children held in Roj.

The Darién Gap: A deadly extension of US border

                (Belen Fernandez’s article from The ALAZEERA on 27 October 2022.)

The Darién Gap: A deadly extension of the US border. As the US maniacally fortifies its borders, that sociopathic policy plays out over migrant bodies a thousand miles away.

This year, a record number of United States-bound migrants and refugees have risked their lives to cross the Darién Gap, the 66-mile mountainous stretch of spectacularly inhospitable jungle between Colombia and Panama.

According to Panama’s National Migration Service, more than 151,000 people, including at least 21,000 minors, made the crossing between January and September.

Sanctioned Tycoon Tay Za Hiding in Singapore

           (Bloomberg article from the BANGKOK POST on 18 October 2022.)

Sanctioned Myanmar tycoons find shelter in Singapore: Frangipani plants and coconut trees front the three-story villa on Sentosa Island where Myanmar tycoon Tay Za stays when he’s in Singapore.

It’s one of two houses his family owns in a development overlooking the South China Sea known as a playground for the wealthy. A short drive away is the Marina Bay Sands casino, where he would often show up carrying a duffel bag stuffed with cash. On a sunny day in June, a yellow Ferrari F8 Spider and a Mercedes were parked outside one of the villas.

Singapore has long been a haven for sanctioned Myanmar businessmen, including Tay Za, who has been accused by the US and others of supplying arms and equipment to the military. He has maintained the right to live and work in Singapore despite sanctions first imposed by the US in 2007 and has incorporated about 10 companies there with operations in palm oil, teak and aviation.

Exiled Dissident Fuelling the Hijab Protests in Iran

                    (Dexter Filkins’s article from the NEW YORKER on 24 September 2022.)

Since 2014, Masih Alinejad has published videos of Iranian women removing their head scarves. When a twenty-two-year-old died last week in the morality police’s custody, the country exploded.

Women from across Iran are pulling off their hijabs and lighting them on fire, flouting the country’s gray-bearded theocrats in dramatic scenes of a population struggling to set itself free. Of all the astonishments pouring forth from the Islamic Republic, perhaps the most remarkable is the fact that Iran was brought to this point, at least in part, by an unpaid forty-six-year-old mother working from an F.B.I. safehouse in New York City.

Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist who was driven into exile thirteen years ago, has helped galvanize the country’s women, amassing some ten million followers on her social-media sites and spurring them to trash the most potent symbol of the regime’s legalized gender-apartheid: the hijab, the hair covering mandated for every adult woman.

Elon Musk’s Starlink Fighting for Iranian Women

                      (Staff article from The ALJAZEERA on 24 September 2022.)

Elon Musk greenlit to activate Starlink internet for Iranians: Legal guidance by the American government on expanding internet services to Iranians was changed despite US sanctions on the country.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been given the green light by the United States government to activate the satellite internet service Starlink to help Iranians protesting against the death of a woman in police custody.

Access to social media and some content is tightly restricted in Iran and significant internet outages were reported across the country on Saturday, with one of the biggest mobile phone operators disrupted, leaving millions of Iranians offline.

Myanmar Dog-soldiers Sodomized Frontier Journalist

              (Ye Mons’ article from The FRONTIER MYANMAR on 16 September 2022.)

I reported on the military’s abuses, and then I became a victim: In a rare first-hand account, Frontier journalist Ye Mon recounts being beaten and sexually abused by regime soldiers in December 2021 after being detained at Yangon International Airport.

I couldn’t see the soldiers through my blindfold, but their words were terrifying enough. “If they refused to answer our questions, we raped them – women and men – and then killed them.” Despite the casual delivery, it was clear that the soldiers were threatening me. I had read numerous reports about soldiers sexually assaulting people in detention but I never imagined it would happen to me.

After covering the aftermath of the February 2021 coup along with my Frontier colleagues, I quietly flew out of Yangon to Thailand in October. The State Administration Council, as the junta calls itself, had been increasingly targeting journalists and I no longer felt safe. I had been living in a safe house for months, and soldiers and police visited my former residence at least twice looking for me.

Burma Rebel Surgeon – Dr. Soe Min

         (DR. Than Naing Oo’s post from the EURASIA REVIEW on 06 September 2022.) 

The 21st Century Burma Surgeon – OpEd: Dr. Soe Min stared at the monsoon downpour that varied between drizzling and torrential rain from inside his makeshift field hospital—a squat building with open sides, a corrugated roof, and wooden floor. 

The dirt road leading to the hospital had become a mud field.  He has just operated on a villager who stepped on a landmine. His next case was a routine one, an appendectomy.  Not far from the hospital, at the village of Sezin, a fierce fight had recently taken place between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) joined by the newly minted Peoples Defense Forces (PDF). 

They were squaring off against Burma’s military known at the Tatmadaw who were reinforced by the local Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA).  The fighting had produced a flood of refugees, many badly wounded.  There is a risk the hospital may need to be closed or relocated should the fighting spread.  Dr.  Min has made contingency plans for such a scenario – he has to; after being in this war zone for the past 12 months, he must prepare for everything.

Burmese Gold Smuggled Across Border Into India

                          (Staff article from The FRONTIER MYANMAR on 20 July 2022.)

Captured gold bars at India-Burma border.

After the gold rush: How the Myanmar junta created, and then crushed, a surge in smuggling. Shwe Bon Thar Street in downtown Yangon has been the bustling hub of Myanmar’s gold trade since the colonial period, when it was known as Mogul Street. In recent months, however, its gold shops have gone unusually quiet.

Traders have deserted the market since mid-May due to a series of arrests and other interventions by the military regime aimed at controlling the trade and fighting rampant smuggling, speculation and hoarding.

In Myanmar, gold is a popular hedge against economic downturns. Sales have spiked since the February 2021 coup d’état, which sparked widespread resistance and crushed confidence in the economy.