World Music

Published on Dec 2, 2023 by Luke Hunt

Chris Minko and his daughter Anya have carved out prominent lives in Thailand and Cambodia through music, sport, and education that came with the backing of Australian World War II hero Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop and Thai philanthropist Mechai Viravaidya.Chris was raised in the small town of Myrtleford in the alpine valleys of southeastern Australia and initially found fame as a musician with jazz band Bachelors from Prague in the mid-1980s before moving into event management.He courted controversy with Melbourne’s Moomba Festival when he defied orders and put an Aboriginal float at the head of an annual parade but also found favor with the trade unions and the Australian Football League (AFL), where he organized half-time entertainment at the Grand....

A Dutchman in Cambodia

Published on Nov 18, 2023 by Luke Hunt

Hans van Zoggel taught English in his early 20s when he first met Cambodian refugees in The Netherlands. He was barely out of college and jobs were hard to come by but he left home for the Thai border camps where he succeeded in putting his students in touch with their relatives.He was also struck by their plight – refugees and internally displaced people huddling in a mishmash of shabby huts and surrounded by the Khmer Rouge. He stayed and went to work in the camps where he prepped those lucky enough to be accepted as refugees for a life in the United States.Click here to listen..

An Aboriginal Voice

Published on Oct 11, 2023 by Luke Hunt

Jill Gallagher is a senior elder from the Gunditjmara nation, a spokeswoman for the Aboriginal community in the southeast Australian state of Victoria and a key advocate for the yes campaign and the Voice to Parliament, which will be decided through a referendum this Saturday.She says non-indigenous Australians should not feel any guilt about past atrocities committed against Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders who inhabited the continent for 60,000 years before European settlement.Click here to listen to the podcast with The Diplomat. .

A Refugee's Story

Published on Oct 3, 2023 by Luke Hunt

In 1979, Mylinh Lee arrived in Australia as a child, by boat and as a refugee. More than four decades later she is a public relations specialist in Melbourne where she is also dedicated to the construction of the Vietnamese Museum Australia.The museum, due to open in 2025, is the first in the world dedicated to the plight of Vietnamese refugees, who began arriving in Australia shortly after the fall of Saigon in April 1975, signaling the end of the Vietnam War and the communist takeover of South Vietnam.Click here to listen to her podcast recorded with Luke Hunt from The Diplomat..

An Illustrious Photographer

Published on Oct 3, 2023 by Luke Hunt

French photographer Roland Neveu has spent five decades covering Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. His work also took him from South America to Africa and Hollywood, where he shot stills during film productions for Oliver Stone, Brian de Palma, and Ridley Scott.His world had changed dramatically during his university days in Paris of the 1970s when student protests interrupted Neveu’s studies. He picked up the camera to “capture the moment” then headed for Thailand and eventually Cambodia.As a young photojournalist, he was among the handful of reporters who remained in Phnom Penh in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge marched in, heralding one of the great tragedies of the 20th century.Over the next two decades he covered the Soviet....

A Cambodian Dynasty

Published on Aug 29, 2023 by Luke Hunt

Cambodian autocrat Hun Sen completed a “generational” transfer of power this morning after the ruling party approved his eldest son Hun Manet as prime minister and a new government was sworn in by the National Assembly.The vote came one month after the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) secured government by winning 120 of the 125 seats at a national election, derided as “rigged” in the West and by human rights groups, following the disqualification of the opposition Candlelight Party.The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt talks with academic Bradley Murg, an affiliate fellow with Pacific Forum, about the implications of Hun Manet’s rise to the top job in a country where the economy is struggling and perceptions matter.Click here to listen..

Out of Myanmar

Published on Aug 2, 2023 by Luke Hunt

Security advisor Ross Milosevic has just returned from Thailand’s northern border regions, where he met a wide range of rebels who have sided with the National Unity Government (NUG) and its armed wing, the People’s Defense Force (PDF), in opposing Myanmar’s military takeover.His arrival coincided with more killings and increased politicking as the junta moved former leader Aung San Suu Kyi out of solitary confinement and then went on a public relations drive, a renewed offensive in justifying the carnage of the last 18 months.He talks with Luke Hunt from The Diplomat. Click here for the podcast..

From Pol Pot to US Presidents

Published on Jul 5, 2023 by Luke Hunt

From the Killing Fields to the US Secret Service. A conversation with author Leth Oun. As a child, Leth Oun enjoyed a happy life in Battambang City in western Cambodia. His family was poor but his father, a lieutenant in the Lon Nol government, ensured he went to school and that there was food on the table. Then, in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge marched into town.He survived Pol Pot's tyrannical rule, was rescued and eventually granted refugee status in the United States. Leth Oun now works for the Secret Service, the first Cambodian to join those ranks in its 158-year history. He guards presidents, vice presidents, and their families with a focus on the K9 unit, training and deploying....

Two British Poets

Published on Jun 18, 2023 by Luke Hunt

A podcast with James Fountain about the British poet Joseph Macleod from the 1930s and 40s. Fountain also talks about author Graham Greene and the literati of that time. With Brighton-based Waterloo Press, Fountain was commissioned with re-introducing and editing all of Mcleod's major works. He also has a novel and two of his own collections of poetry accepted for publication. Some of his poems appeared in UK literary magazines such as Acumen, The Journal and Dream Catcher. Click and listen here..

Testifying Against Pol Pot

Published on Feb 22, 2023 by Luke Hunt

A podcast with Kerry Hamill. The Khmer Rouge tribunal is all but over with the final appeal in the genocide case against the regime’s former head of state Khieu Samphan dismissed and legislation passed to wind up the legalities and consign volumes of evidence to the history books.For many of Pol Pot’s victims, the time has come to move on – and that includes Rob Hamill, a New Zealander who testified against Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, who ran the S-21 extermination center and was responsible for the death of his brother Kerry.Kerry Hamill talks with Luke Hunt about justice and the Khmer Rouge.Listen here..