It Could Happen Here - Behind Myanmar's Devastating Earthquake

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

James and Gare discuss the terrible impact of the earthquake that hit Sagaing in late March, how the Junta has blocked aid workers, and how the revolution has responded. We also talk about how you can help. Better Offline & Weird Little Guys are nominated for this year’s Webby Awards! Get your votes in by April 17th! 🗳️🗳️🗳️https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2025/podcasts/individual-episode/businesshttps://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2025/podcasts/individual-episode/crime-justice Sources:https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/up-to-700-myanmar-muslims-killed-in-quake-hit-mosques-weakened-by-neglect.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/world/asia/myanmar-earthquake-aftershocks-airstrikes.html https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/myanmar-juntas-aerial-attacks-continue-despite-post-quake-ceasefire/ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/myanmar-junta-shoots-chinese-earthquake-aid-convoy-rcna199233 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/world/asia/myanmar-earthquake-aid.html https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/myanmar-lashes-out-at-quotchocolate-barquot-foreign-aid-idUSSP172535/ https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/lives-updates-quake-death-toll-rises-to-3600-junta-suspends-tourist-visa-after-quake-private-us-field-hospital-in-naypyitaw-and-more.html https://www.irrawaddy.com/opinion/guest-column/global-response-to-myanmar-earthquake-shines-light-on-strategic-rivalries.html https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/live-updates-death-toll-exceeds-3500-hundreds-in-urgent-need-of-quake-aid-juntas-airstrikes-still-rage-on-and-more.html https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/world/live-updates-death-toll-rises-to-3471-quake-relief-teams-must-obey-junta-us-pledges-additional-7-million-in-quake-relief-and-more.html https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/resistance-forces-capture-indaw-town-after-months-of-fighting/?sfnsn=scwspmo https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/war-against-the-junta/myanmar-junta-airstrikes-kill-over-30.htmlSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The championship is back in the Bay for the first time in 40 years. On the new limited podcast series, Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors. In fact, I thought we had a draft date deal to end up getting him to Phoenix. For the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run, listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey kids it's me Kevin Smith. And it's me Harley Quinn Smith. That's my daughter man who my wife has always said is just a beardless d***less version of me and that's the name of our podcast, Beardless D***less Me. I'm the old one. I'm the young

one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent Hi, I'm Sam Mullins and I've got a new podcast coming out called Go Boy, the gritty true story of how one man fought his way out of some of the darkest places imaginable. Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted. Has spent 24 of those years in jail. But when Roger Caron picked up a pen and paper, he went from an ex-con to a literary darling. From Campside Media and iHeart podcasts, listen to Go Boy on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm ready to fight.

Oh, this is fighting words. Okay. I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. Part of the power of Black queer creativity is the fact that we got us, you know? We are the greatest culture makers in world history.

Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, Robert here. I wanted to let you know that two of our hosts, Ed Zitron of Better Offline and Molly Conger of Weird Little Guys, are in the running to win the Webbies right now, or to win Webbies in their respective categories. If you just Google their names, Ed Zitron, Webby, W-E-B-B-Y, or Molly Conger, Webby's in their respective categories. If you just Google their names, Edzitron, Webby, W-E-B-B-Y or Molly Conger, Webby, you can find them and vote for them. There will be links in the show notes as well, so if you'll put them in, so please do vote for

them. Hello and welcome to the show. It's me, James, today and I am joined by Garrison Davis. Hi, Garrison. Hello. Hi, Garrison. Hello. Hello. Garrison has just said some words about something that's happening on social media that I don't understand, and it's made me feel very old. This was happening today in my world.

It's very sad. We're gathered here today to talk about the earthquake in Myanmar, right? I think most of you will probably have been made aware of the earthquake in Myanmar, right? I think most of you will probably have been made aware of the earthquake. It's somewhat odd that corporate media has really not reported on the revolution in any substantial way since 2021. But the earthquake apparently like justified a lot of like networks sending people to Myanmar

for the first time. Very amusingly, people DMing me on Blue Sky and Twitter asking how to get a visa from the Burmese hunter, which is not a thing I have ever done. The last communication I had with them came in the form of a car bomb that they set off near to a place where we were. But if you're not aware, the earthquake happened on the 28th of March of this year,

just before one in the afternoon. It was the biggest earthquake in March of this year, just before one in the afternoon. It was the biggest earthquake in Myanmar since 1912 and it registered 7.7 on the Richter scale, which is huge. Because it's very hard for foreign journalists to get a visa to enter Myanmar. The initial reporting focused on Bangkok and the damage done in Thailand. But the epicenter was in Sagaing, which is near Mandalay, Mandalay's second biggest city in Myanmar. And that was where the worst of the destruction happened. Almost every street in Mandalay has collapsed buildings. It's a little difficult for us

to get a sense of the exact scale of the damage because the hunter refuses to allow. Some media has been allowed in the BBC. I saw like sneaked somebody in. It's very difficult for media to move and report freely. In addition to this, the Hunter has continued its practice of cutting off internet for people in Myanmar, right? Even during like emergency situations? Yes. Yeah. Especially during emergency. Like they've cut it it off as a response to this because I guess they perceive it to be something that makes them look weak. This is a tendency that the Hunter has displayed before.

So in 2008, Cyclone Nargis affected Myanmar and killed over 130,000 people and they blocked international aid. They said that people didn't need the quote chocolate bars that the US and other countries were trying to deliver and that they could exist by like hunting frogs in ditches was their suggestion. I don't think people realize like how far down the North Korea scale the Burmese hunter is, but But they're very worried that any interaction with the outside world, specifically with like, I guess, Western neoliberal powers will be damaging for their ability to control the

population. So for that reason, we don't know how many people have died, right? From what I've heard on the ground, the death toll is substantially higher than the 3,600 number being reported. The US Geological Survey estimated that an earthquake of that magnitude in that region would kill between 10 and 100,000 people. Obviously, that's quite a big kind of delta there. What I can tell you is that I've heard firsthand that there are some parts

of Mandalay and Sagang where the stench of rotting bodies is so powerful that people have stopped returning to their homes. There have been so many aftershocks that people are still sleeping in the street because they're worried about the damage structures falling down. The UN has an estimate of 17 million people across 57 townships. Townships like the administrative districts that are used in Myanmar have been affected with over 9 million people facing severe hardship. And of course, this is all compounded by the fact that there were already 20 million people in Myanmar who needed humanitarian assistance. And there are about three and a half million internally displaced people as

a result of the fighting that's happened after the revolution. So like it really came at a pretty difficult time in a place where the government is not willing to, they said after the earthquake, they wanted international aid, but they've, as we'll see later in this script, they've, they've only accepted it from certain countries. I spoke to a friend who has family in Mandalay yesterday. He told me that they, the way they're assessing the damage is using like open source intelligence. They're trying to look in the backgrounds of people's videos on Facebook to like work

out if, if their childhood homes fell down, right? They were using satellite imaging software when I spoke to them yesterday to, to try and ascertain if their families were okay. Uh, they told me, or Sagang has very famous pagodas and the pagodas are all on a hill. Apparently a lot of those pagodas have fallen down and even the hill itself is like listing. So there's been like massive cultural damage as well.

Another way in which the damage was compounded by Myanmar's politics was the quake strike, like I said, at 1pm on a Friday, right? Which is Friday prayers. This happened during Ramadan, specifically the day before Idul Fitr, which is a very busy day for mosques, if you're not aware, right? Successive governments of Myanmar since the 1960s have refused to allow even basic maintenance for mosques. That means that these buildings were in great states of disrepair.

Right. Myanmar, there is an ultra nationalist Buddhist movement, which has been embraced to a great degree by the Hunter, but also limited even like the National League for Democracy, which was the relatively neoliberal aligned party that had previously been in power in Myanmar or somewhat in power, I suppose. And ultra-nationalist Buddhist monks like Ashin Wurathu and his 969 movement have kind of condemned anything that they did as making them pro-Muslim. And they have this, essentially they have a great replacement theory, right? That Muslims are trying to come in through Bangladesh to replace Buddhists in Myanmar. Yeah, lots of people here have this like very orientalist perspective of like Buddhism TM

as this like, you know, like, like, like peaceful blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, no, like Buddhism, like every religion has a variety of sex. Yes. And the Buddhist national sex can be particularly nasty. Yeah, I mean, as vicious as any other, people, I'm sure, will be familiar with their Hindu genocide and like there are a lot of monks who supported that, including, where Rathu is the most notable one, but there are plenty more, right? And they're part of the, I mean, he's, he's literally explicitly explicitly expressed how much he looks up to the English Defense League. Jesus!

Yeah, these are people who are part of this global nativist movement. People's Orientalism, I think, sometimes stops them seeing that or appreciating that it extends outside of white global north countries. One thing that I did think that really touched me in the days after the earthquake was young Buddhist Bama people of the majority ethnicity reaching out to me and being like, hey man, this happened in Friday prayers during Ramadan and it has devastated Muslim population. Like, thousands of people, hundreds of mosques have gone and thousands of people are trapped in a rubble and like no one's talking about it. Why is no one talking about it? population. Like, thousands of people, hundreds of mosques have gone, and thousands of people are trapped in a rubble. And like, no one's talking about it. Why is no one talking about it? This is terrible. And like, it would have been inconceivable to hear young Bamar Buddhist

people so concerned with the wellbeing of like, their Muslim countrymen before the coup in 2021. This was a country that had been manufacturing consent for genocide against its Muslim minorities for four or five years by that point. Specifically on Facebook, there's a Behind the Bastards episode on this. You can also listen. If you're new to the show, Robert and I have made two scripted series about the revolution in Myanmar, which we'll include in the show notes. But that change to a real genuine solidarity and care between these two groups was really touching in the like moments after the earthquake and the days after the earthquake. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about the revolution and I want to

talk about how the revolution has been responding to this and the impact it's had on the reputation. The championship is back in the Bay for the first time in 40 years. On the new limited podcast series, Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors. In fact, I thought we had a draft date deal to end up getting him to Phoenix. For the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run. Listen to Dubb Dynasty on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, kids, it's me, Kevin Smith. And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith. That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless D***less Me. I'm the old one. I'm the young one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it?

A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. It could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless,

S***less Me on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever. You get your podcast. Sonoro and iHeart's MyCultura podcast network present The Setup, a new romantic comedy podcast starring Harvey Guillen and Christian Navarro. The Setup follows a lonely

museum curator searching for love. But when the perfect man walks into his life... Well, I guess I'm saying I like you. You like me? He actually is too good to be true. This is a con. I'm conning you. To get the Delano painting, we could do this together. To pull off this heist, they'll have to get close.

And jump into the deep end together. That's a huge leap, Fernando, don't you think? After you, Chulito. But love is the biggest risk they'll ever take. Fernando is never going to love you as much as he loves this job. Chulito, that painting is ours. Listen to The Setup as part of the MyCultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On November 5th, 2018, at 6.33 a.m., a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleephole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found, except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were 10 vile, grotesque, horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the public until now.

You feeling this too? A horror anthology podcast. You're feeling this too. A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We are back. And of course, the revolution hasn't stopped because of the earthquake, right? The conflict is still ongoing ongoing and the PDFs and their allied ethnic resistance organizations are still fighting against the hunter. In fact, within an hour of the earthquake, the hunter began using paramotors to drop bombs on Hangu village in Sagaing. This has been a thing that they've started to do recently. In a sense, I guess it's a good sign because it shows that maybe like their jets and other aircraft are in a poor state of repair or

that they're struggling to keep enough of them airborne. Initially, I wondered if they were using the paramotors because their runways had been damaged, but that doesn't seem to be the case. They've been air striking just as much as they ever did, which is unfortunate. Satellite images or reports from my sources on the ground suggest that they're able to continue carrying out bombing raids at a pretty similar rate from when they did before. Despite this, the National Unity Government, which is kind of the shadow government composed mostly of people who were elected and then deposed by the coup in 2021. And the PDF, who in theory are commanded by the national unity

government, called a two week ceasefire right after the earthquake to allow for like a humanitarian pause. The Three Brotherhood Alliance, which is an alliance of the three most powerful ethnic resistance organizations in Myanmar, also called what they call a humanitarian pause for a month. In both cases, they said they wouldn't undertake offensive operations, but they would defend themselves, right? Because I think they had a sense that the junta wasn't going to stop attacking them. The junta did declare its own ceasefire on April 3rd, and the Kachina Dependents Army, which is another ethnic resistance organization, followed shortly thereafter. Notably, that ceasefire from the hunter came the day after

its troops fired on a Chinese Red Cross convoy, which is not a great look for them. No, never love to see that. Yeah, we don't love to see people firing on the Red Cross. This is especially bad for the hunter because China has been growing closer and closer to the Hunter and supporting it. China's had this weird back and forth relationship with the revolution. At times it supported the revolution, it seems like, specifically supporting the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, which is a group that broke off the Communist Party of Burma in the 1980s.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. There's also the United War State Army, which isn't part of the revolution, which is the, which has the strongest relationship with the PRC and they're just chilling. They haven't really entered the conflict. It's called straight chilling by the way, James. Straight chilling? Yeah, there you go.

That's how they use it. I've, yeah, I've marked myself out yet again. Straight chilling, the United War State Army. Thank you, Harrison. I actually spoke to some cadres from the Burmese Communist Party recently. The Communist Party of Burma re-entered after 2021, and they're not focusing on proselytizing the Maoist gospel to people. They're focusing on fighting the hunter and developing alliances. It's interesting to see where that will go given, yeah, Marxist Leninism and Maoism is definitely not the majority ideology of the revolution.

Most people are committed to some form of federal democracy, which when you speak to different fighters varies from, like, we want what you guys have in the US to something more akin to the democratic confederalism that people might be familiar with in Rojava. China is competing with Russia in Myanmar. Both of them are interested in supporting the junta, right? Obviously both their ideologies are far from liberatory. They're interested in propping up a totalitarian state. We have seen both Russia and China send support to the Hunters and like rescue teams after the

earthquake. Meanwhile, the US offered two million dollars, which I was kind of surprised they offered anything. That is low-key surprising considering Mark Rubio. Right, yeah. Well, I think Rubio is more of a like a slightly, Rubio is a neocon. Yeah, I guess like it makes sense. Mark Rupio like five years ago. Yeah. It doesn't make sense like post like you say to being gutted. They're like, oh, you're still doing that kind of stuff, huh? Yeah, there's like a weird like a mix of things because because yes,

like a traditional neocon style rubio this this tracks. But all of the movements that the Trump administration's been doing more recently, this seems like seems like a some kind of DEI shenanigans, if you ask me. Yeah, I think they added another 7 million later. 9 million. Which is, yeah, it's not a lot of money compared to what we would normally expect. At the same time they did it, three USAID workers, at least three I should say, three

that I'm aware of, were laid off. Like literally they received emails telling them that they no longer had a job while they were on the ground assisting earthquake survivors. Department of Government Efficiency strikes again. Highly efficient. We'll send you the money and then also pull out our own people who I guess are supervising how the money is spent or would be. It definitely shows though like a strategic shift in the region.

China and Russia, China obviously is interested in Myanmar because of its rare earth metals, because of jade, China has traditionally had a lot of jade trade with Myanmar. And then because it controls a large amount of seafront, right? Which China wouldn't want to fall into like, what you would see as like someone with adversarial interests. Russia is still interested in just kind of projecting itself as a global power, even as it continues to shrink every day in terms of its global abilities to project power.

But there definitely are both Chinese and Russian assistance helping the Myanmar hunter now. Meanwhile, the US doesn't seem to give a shit what happens here now. Like, this is kind of, not that the Biden administration was doing very much either, but at least we had USAID and USIP was very invested in Myanmar and actually did a really good job of kind of almost like being the foreign affairs, not branch, but like they explained the revolution to the world. Like whenever a journalist wanted to understand the revolution in Myanmar was USIP they went

to. Obviously all the countries that have a USIP have now been doged, which is a shame. So despite the ceasefire, right? I said they fired on these Chinese troops. The Hunter has in fact not stopped bombing earthquake struck areas since the earthquake. Madeleine PDF, who I'm in contact with, they're the revolutionary forces in the area that was most affected by the earthquake on April 7th, told me that they're aware of 10 airstrikes in their area of operations. Since the earthquake, a three-month-old baby and a 10-year-old child were killed in an air raid on Na Nicar village in Papoon township that was in Karen state.

On April 10th, they bombed a school and something that the hunter likes to do a lot that they dropped two 500 pound bombs on a food court. They then circled back and dropped another bomb on the people responding to and giving aid to the people they'd initially bombed at the food court. By food court here, just to clarify, I'm not talking about like at the shopping mall, I'm talking about like a market where people can buy like prepared food, right? They've killed, at the best I can collate from various sources, at least 72 people and injured about 100 people in addition to thousands who died after the earthquake. There are also reports that Hunter, quote-unquote,

recruiters here are engaging in forced conscription in the disaster zone. I read of at least one person who was on a search and rescue team, that they were a trained search and rescue volunteer, right? So they were moving rubble to rescue people and they were forcibly conscripted while they were doing that. Obviously that's had a chilling effect on people going out to help others, right? What the Hunter is not doing is rescuing its citizens. The military is detested in most of Myanmar, even in the areas that it controls, and it's failure to even try and track people rescued under the rubble won't help this. There was a video that went viral recently of Hunter troops, literally a line of soldiers rescuing bricks. They've gone to a

collapsed building and they're inspecting the bricks to see if the bricks are whole and then passing them down the lines and stacking them up. Don't worry, the bricks are safe. Yeah, the bricks are safe. The people are not, which it was genuinely infuriating to see it when I can't imagine for people who have lost family members How that must feel? even Rescue workers like I said have been forcibly conscripted Equality Myanmar has noted more than 100 cases of forced conscription since the earthquake So that's Myanmar has a conscription rule right a law

So anyone men and now women between certain ages can be forcibly conscripted into the Hunters army. So they're just finding people displaced from the earthquake and forcing them. Yeah, it's people who have been hiding in their homes, right, who now don't have homes to hide it. Yeah. Or people who came out in order to save their neighbors. And now they're forcing them to be, to fight for them.

Just as the Hunters did with Cyclone Nargis, they've also delayed and in cases blocked aid. A team came from France to assist in a search and rescue. They spent 24 hours sitting in an airport waiting for their visa to be approved. And then they spent one day working in search and rescue efforts before being told that search and rescue efforts had now finished and they were to go home. They traveled around the entire world, didn't save a single life. Abundance. Yeah, it's great.

Presumably because the hunter wanted to placate China, a Taiwanese team was straight up refused entry into Myanmar. Taiwan had a search and rescue team that they were willing to send who could have saved people lives and that they weren't allowed to enter. All tourist visas have been suspended, so it's not like the hunter is like overwhelmed with visa applications but they're not allowing search and rescue teams to enter from countries I guess they're not politically aligned with. This kind of horrific indifference to human suffering has characterized Atatmadaw for decades and it's really unlikely to change as it grows even more

desperate and it loses even more territory it's just going to clamp down harder and harder on its people. Be one in the liberated areas. Aid is being mobilized using the mutual aid structures which have existed for decades in the absence of the state. In significant and growing parts of Myanmar, people are relying on each other instead of the government for aid. And that has its benefits, right? Like people have been out rescuing people from the rebel, but they're also desperately short of resources. I spoke to Mandalay PDF rescue team at the first week of April and thought they literally sent me, they have

a notebook of a list of like, we've run out of gauze, we've run out of tourniquets, we've run out of adhesive dressings, we've run out of elastic bandages, right? They're like the literal nuts and bolts of saving people's lives, they run out of. dressings, we've run out of elastic bandages, right? They're like the little nuts and bolts of saving people's lives they run out of. We did a fundraising campaign for them through Behind the Bastards. We raised nearly $2,000, which is great. So they are restocking their supplies, which is fantastic. But that's just one township. All across the country, people are struggling for the basic supplies that they need to save

lives. The military has also blocked aid and medicine from entering their areas, right? So the military controls a lot of roadblocks and it uses its control of those roadblocks to stop aid and medicine. Often it's kind of hoarding it in the capital city, which is Napidore. If you're not familiar, Napidore is a city that they've come to build for itself to govern from, it means seat of kings. Also in Napidore right now is the US aid agency Samaritan's Purse. Are you familiar with Samaritan's Purse, Gerritin? I don't think so.

It sounds vaguely familiar, but all of these humanitarian organizations all have like the same like four words that they shuffle around in different ways. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Samaritan's Purse, perhaps most famous for being run by Franklin Graham. Okay. Yes Yes, I do know what this is and who this is. Yes Yeah having all their volunteers sign like a statement of faith and being extremely homophobic For some reason Samaritan's Purse is establishing a field hospital in Napier door right now They're gonna force people to convert to evangelical Christianity before they give services like they do in some cases?

Yeah, or just leave them like they did in Afghanistan if they're not Christian. I cannot work out for the life of me what the fuck they're doing. Because like, the Hunter has made a consistent policy of bombing Christians in Myanmar, right? In Karen and Kareni state, there are a lot of Christian people. On Christmas day, the Hunter bombed people going to services, because it knew that Christians would be going to services at churches, right? The Kareni Christians this year, I saw, celebrated Christmas in caves, because they were so afraid of being bombed, right?

Like, I have no idea what logical leap you have to make. Bizarre. Yeah, it's, and they're like, they're not even at the, uh, in Sagang. The only people, the only international aid I'm aware of that was able to make it to Sagang was a Malaysian team who were able to save some lives. Unfortunately, there were really strong rains this week and that made all the collapse structures even more unstable. And the Malaysian team I saw have now returned home.

We're gonna take another ad break here. When we come back, we will talk about what you can do to help. The championship is back in the Bay for the first time in 40 years. On the new limited podcast series, Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how Steph Curry almost never even joined the Warriors. In fact, I thought we had a draft date deal

to end up getting him to Phoenix. For the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run, listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey kids, it's me, Kevin Smith. And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith.

That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless, D***less Me. I'm the old one. I'm the young one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only.

Or listen to it with your kid. Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless, let's me on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sonoro and iHeart's MyCultura podcast network present The Setup, a new romantic comedy podcast starring Harvey Guillen and Christian Navarro. The Setup follows a lonely museum curator searching for love. But when the perfect man walks into his life... Well, I guess I'm saying I like you. You like me? He actually is too good to be true.

This is a con. I'm conning you. To get the Delano painting. We could do this together. To pull off this heist, they'll have to get close. And jump into the deep end together. That's a huge leap, Fernando, don't you think? After you, Chulito. But love is the biggest risk they'll ever take.

Fernando is never going to love you as much as he loves in this job. That painting is ours. Listen to The Setup as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On November 5th, 2018 at 6 33 a.m. On November 5th, 2018 at 6.33 a.m. a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleephole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were ten vile, grotesque, horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the public. Until now.

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! Alright, and we're back. First, I want to, I guess, have some good news. Despite everything, the military has still been taking massive losses. The all-Burma Students' Democratic Front captured remaining hunter positions in Indoor. The all-Burma Students' Democratic Front are a group that's been around since 1988, right, and they have armed up and re-entered the revolution since 2021. One of the things that they captured on Monday was a underground Japanese field hospital

from World War II, which I guess had been like an entrenched position. I guess they're not covered technically by the ceasefire, but there was a unit under the National Unity Government's command that operated with them and from what I understand, this began as a defensive action. They'd surrounded the hunter, I think it's called Japan Cave Hill, they'd surrounded them on Japan Cave Hill for a long time and then the hunter obviously seeing the earthquake and everything thereafter decided that now was the time for them to break out of this encirclement. They did not break out, they took a fat L and as a result they've all been captured now. Meanwhile in Chinland, if people haven't listened to the episode I did a couple of weeks ago with Azad from the Anti-Fascist Internationalist Front, I would suggest going back and listening

to that to understand Chinland. But the AIF and a lot of their allied forces from the Chinlan defense force and the Chin brotherhood had a significant victory in capturing the rest of the hunters positions in Falam last week. And I think it's very much like on the table that we will see the whole of Chinlan liberated in the next few months or by the end of the year, which would be great to see. So people are wondering like what they can do to help, right? And I think it's a very valid question because I saw today that the UN was meeting with the hunter in Napidor.

And I just have no faith that any money that goes to the hunter is going to get to people who need it. Yeah, no, absolutely not. You cannot. Like they want them to die. That like that. I don't know. They're like evil. Why? Yeah, yeah. They are literally genocidal. They have done a genocide that has been prosecuted international criminal court. Like, I have no understanding why people continue to look international organizations continue to fund

our money to them, other than because like they have a status quo bias, I guess. So don't be doing that. But there are groups who are making a really big difference. And one of them that I wanted to highlight, and Robert and I are both very familiar with their work from the last time that we were over reporting, is Community Partners International. CPI are really cool because they work by empowering members of the local community to be health

volunteers as opposed to like dropping in some, some like doctors from America, right? Or doctors from the United Kingdom or whatever. And then when those people leave, they take their skills with them. And CPI, the thing is to educate folks within the community so that they can take care of one another. And I saw that CPI has a matching donations thing right now, which is pretty cool. So like if you donate, someone else will match your donation and that will double

the amount that, that you receive. Otherwise I will provide a list of mutual aid funds that have been shared with me. Most of them are like GoFundMe's or things like that. I'll put it all in the show description. They've all been vetted and like, I know people are sometimes reluctant to give to GoFundMe's and they'd rather give to like a 501c3 or like an organization which has a little bit more, I guess like online presence. In this case, you have to understand that like a lot of orgs just aren't operating in the liberated areas. The two that I'm aware of are CPI and Free Burma Rangers.

I spoke to Dave from Free Burma Rangers. They're trying to get to as many people as they can as well. That would be another great place to donate. And I would include a list of vetted GoFundMe's. If you want to have a look through those and see if any of them kind of speaks to you more. You can do that too. What this will mean for the future of Myanmar, we don't know yet, right? We have really no sense of how many people have died, of what it's done to the hunters ability to control those areas. But until the revolution has a way to stop planes bombing people, we

will continue to see the same dynamic rate of the hunter losing terrain on the ground, pulling back its soldiers and then bombing civilians in the areas that it's lost. That is its game plan. It's continuing to get more drones from China, it's getting aircraft, munitions and jet fuel from China. And until there is an embargo on jet fuel and munitions to the Hunter, then we will see the same pattern continue, right? They lose terrain, they bomb a school, they lose terrain, they bomb a hospital. It's the same stuff that Israel is doing. And they, of course, previously been armed by Israel as well. But we don't see as much solidarity for the people of Burma. If you want to stay in touch with what's happening on the ground, I think the Irawri, I-double-R-A-W-A-D-D-Y,

does a really good job of doing daily summaries right now. So I would suggest checking out what's happening there. And of course, we'll keep you updated on developments in the spring revolution as they come. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, CoolZoneMedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. The championship is back in the Bay for the first time in 40 years. On the new limited podcast series, Dub Dynasty, we hear from head coach Steve Kerr on how

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