Mekong Drought

Published on Feb 12, 2022 by Luke Hunt

A podcast with Brian Eyler. The lower Mekong River is entering its fourth year of drought with poor rainfall, climate change, and hydropower dams producing the worst conditions along Southeast Asia’s largest waterway in more than 60 years, threatening the livelihoods of up to 70 million people.The lower Mekong River is entering its fourth year of drought with poor rainfall, climate change, and hydropower dams producing the worst conditions along Southeast Asia’s largest waterway in more than 60 years, threatening the livelihoods of up to 70 million people.As a result, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) is urging the six Mekong countries to urgently address “regional low flows, water fluctuations, and drought.”In its latest report, “Mekong Low Flow and Drought Conditions....

Reds & Whites in Asia

Published on Jan 15, 2022 by Luke Hunt

A podcast with Darren Gall who left Australia more than two decades ago and has since established himself as a wine producer, taster, importer, and writer and played an integral part in promoting an industry which is now worth billions of dollars a year.That includes his stake in vineyards and wine-making facilities in Myanmar where businesses have been punished by the pandemic and last year’s military coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.In 2005 Gall oversaw the selection and importation of 15,000 vine and 2,500 Olive tree rootlings from Australia into Thailand for the further development of the Chateau des Brumes winery in Wang Nam Keow, in the Mekong Plateau highlands of eastern Thailand.He says the....

Surviving Saigon in 1945

Published on Jan 1, 2022 by Luke Hunt

A podcast with Thierry de Roland Peel, who will shortly release his first book “Ashes from Annam,” which tells the story of how his mother and her family survived the incredible upheavals in Saigon at the end of World War II when the occupying Japanese realized they had lost.Central to the story is the family dog, Mephisto, a lively Groenendael, who delivered secret messages to the outside world as the frontlines surrounding their home changed constantly with the Japanese, French, British, and Vietnamese communists vying for control and influence.De Roland Peel also serves-up a delightful history lesson about a time and place that deserves greater attention, in particular how Japan kickstarted the first Indochina war, drawing the United States into....

Afghanistan Back Then

Published on Dec 1, 2021 by Luke Hunt

A podcast with Chris WoolfT. hirty years ago, Abdullah Abdullah guided former BBC “History Guy” Chris Woolf and a colleague through a horrific war zone that they’d wandered into from Kabul. Abdullah would later become the chief executive officer in a unity government reached with President Ashraf Ghani, eventually heading the High Council for National Reconciliation in hopes of engaging the Taliban in peace talks.When Woolf met Abdullah, the Soviet Union was withdrawing from the country, paralleling this year’s events and the exodus of the United States after a 20-year conflict that resulted in the Taliban’s return. Click here to listen..

Outlook China

Published on Dec 1, 2021 by Luke Hunt

A podcast with Bart Edes, currently a Professor of Practice at McGill University in Montreal, after spending decades in the field working in international trade and development policy and analyzing the transformative trends that are reshaping East Asia and the world.Edes has a refreshing outlook for the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, and their relationships with the West, which are constantly under scrutiny amid trade wars and constant talk of a potential conflict.Click here and listen..