Emily Fishbein

When Trauma Finds You Sometimes, trauma finds you while you’re waiting for it, when your body is tense anticipating its appearance. Your guard is up. Somehow, you soften its blows. Sometimes, though, trauma finds …

I wrote about how vicarious trauma can find you when you least expect it, through two experiences that I've had while working with images as an open source researcher.

Neither were graphic.

Both had a serious impact on me.

giancarlofiorella.com/2025/10/04/w...

‘Strategic handshake’: How Pakistan is wooing Trump with critical minerals Minerals diplomacy opens doors, but questions linger over Pakistan’s capacity to benefit from the $500m deal.

...For Pakistan, it’s a chance to claim its mineral narrative and tie it to national pride and legacy. For the US, it’s a strategic move on the global chessboard of resource politics” - former Pakistani army general on a US-Pakistan critical minerals deal
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/...

‘Strategic handshake’: How Pakistan is wooing Trump with critical minerals Minerals diplomacy opens doors, but questions linger over Pakistan’s capacity to benefit from the $500m deal.

“This is a strategic handshake wrapped in economic opportunity, resource diplomacy and symbolic recalibration...
“This isn’t just about rocks in the ground. It is about who controls the future’s building blocks... (2/3)
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/...

‘Strategic handshake’: How Pakistan is wooing Trump with critical minerals Minerals diplomacy opens doors, but questions linger over Pakistan’s capacity to benefit from the $500m deal.

Important piece from Abid Hussain at Al Jazeera on how access to critical minerals including rare earths is impacting diplomacy between the US and Pakistan (1/3).
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/...

1. This (recent) History Thread is about Air Attacks in Myanmar (Burma.) Since Feb. 2021 coup, military regime has constantly deployed bombing & strafing by jet & helicopter, routinely against civilian targets. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

They traveled to Thailand. They wound up cyber scam slaves in Myanmar. A multibillion-dollar fraud industry has taken root across Southeast Asia, fueled partly by trafficking victims. In lawless zones along the Myanmar-Thai border, Chinese-run compounds force thousands t...

Scammed into scamming: Across Southeast Asia, a multibillion-dollar fraud industry has emerged, staffed in part by victims of trafficking reut.rs/4mobjPE

EXCLUSIVE: Israel has killed nearly 3,000 Gaza aid seekers Our interactive database shows nearly 200 attacks, and a sharp uptick since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations on 27 May.

Our investigation is now public.
It documents how, between Jan 2024 and July 2025, over 2,600 people seeking aid were killed and 14,576 others injured in Gaza.

That’s 4% of all deaths and nearly 10% of all wounded from Israel’s war in Gaza.

Military airstrike on schools in western Myanmar kills at least 18 people, most of them students More than 20 others were injured in the night-time attack on the Thayet Thapin village in Kyauktaw township, an area controlled by the ethnic Arakan Army, said an armed group and local media reports. 

Military airstrike on schools in western Myanmar kills at least 18 people, most of them students

Junta airstrike on Rakhine school kills at least 22, mostly students A warplane dropped two 500-pound bombs on a Kyauktaw Township high school as students slept, part of a wider campaign of air raids across Rakhine State

A warplane dropped two 500-pound bombs on a Kyauktaw Township high school as students slept, part of a wider campaign of air raids across Rakhine State

Read more:
myanmar-now.org/en/news/junt...

YouTube video by Rohel Khan Rapper (Rohingya Music Video ) 8 Years Without Justice – A Tribute to the Rohingya | English Rap Song | Rohel Khan

A few days late, sharing this moving rap video to commemmorare Rohingya genocide remembrance day.

8 Years without Justice

Song, lyrics, recording & vocals: Rohel Khan
Cinematography, editing & music management: Khin Maung Thein aka Abdullah Bawshur
youtu.be/nmJvYgT04g0?...

And one from the Mizo dancer Moya Fanai in Yangon

Song: Lasi Te Lal
Artist: Nanaute Hmar
Video: Jue Jue Myat Nwe

Adding to this thread, a video from the Mon dancer Bobby One and Only.

Title: ခေ (Eras)
Piano: Austin B.Chen
Video: ZanLatt
Venue: Maw Yon Cafe

"As a young artist, I’ve always believed in looking back at our cultural roots - not just to remember, but to understand where we come from."

The retired Lisu hunter described being flown to Mandalay by helicopter in the 1980s to shoot an elephant for a military colonel.

"He gave me 20,000 kyats...[&] a certificate to hold a gun. At the time, 1 viss of elephant tusks was only 1500 kyats. Since then, I have the permit to own & hold a gun"

In 2022, my teammate Jaw Tu Hkawng interviewed a retired Lisu hunter. He described hunting elephants with poisoned arrows & percussion-lock rifles in Kachin's northern forests and selling their tusks by weight in viss, a Myanmar unit of measurement.

"I’m so happy to be with the elephants & they're so happy if I visit them...we have been together for many years."

"Both [of my elephants] are bachelors. One is Awng Mai. It’s the name of an eldest son in Kachin. The 2nd one is Naw Ja, the 2nd son."

- 79-year-old mahout I interviewed in 2019

In 2019, I interviewed a 79-year-old man from Tanai, Kachin State who served in the elephant brigade of the Kachin Independence Army from 1964 to 1992 and then became a mahout. He had 2 elephants of his own and provided one for each of his 8 children.

Another impressive history thread from Edith Mirante. Over the years, elephants have also come up from time to time in my reporting on Kachin. A few anecdotes here:

That ‘Fish’ on the Menu? In Brazil’s Schools and Prisons, It’s Often Shark Brazil, the world’s top importer of shark meat, is feeding much of it to preschoolers, hospital patients, military staff, public workers and more via government procurements, Mongabay has found. This....

Brazil is serving shark meat in thousands of schools, hospitals, prisons and other institutions, raising serious concerns.

A report by #ORN Fellow @philjaco.bsky.social, #RIN Fellow @bykarlamendes.bsky.social, and Pulitzer Center's @kuangkeng.bsky.social for @mongabay.com.

👉 bit.ly/40EuQ6E

Nurdles: less cute than they sound

Myanmar Unearthed: The Dark Side of the Global Energy Transition This project investigates the environmental, social, and economic injustices underpinning the global transition away from fossil fuels, through the lens of rare earth mining in Myanmar. Over the past....

For more of my collaborative reporting on Myanmar's rare earth mining boom, please visit my Rainforest Investigations Network project page on the @pulitzercenter.org website:

pulitzercenter.org/projects/mya...

ဇခုန်တိန့်ယိန်းနှင့် သူ့၏ တကျော့ပြန်အင်ပါယာ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ မဟာမိတ် ပြည်သူ့စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင် စခုန်တိန့်ယိန်းနှင့်အဖွဲ့သည် ဒေသသယံဇာတဖြစ်သော မြေရှားသတ္တု တူးဖော်ရောင်းချပြီး ကြွယ်ဝချမ်းသာလာခဲ့ကြသည်။​ ၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ် ကချင်လွတ်မြောက်ရေးတပ်မတော် ၏ ယင်းဒေသကို သ...

We investigated the local business networks in the rare earth mining hub of Pangwa before it was seized by the Kachin Independence Army last year, and what happened to them since.

Original English version here:
pulitzercenter.org/stories/back...

www.frontiermyanmar.net/mm/%E1%80%87...

ဇခုန်တိန့်ယိန်းနှင့် သူ့၏ တကျော့ပြန်အင်ပါယာ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ မဟာမိတ် ပြည်သူ့စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင် စခုန်တိန့်ယိန်းနှင့်အဖွဲ့သည် ဒေသသယံဇာတဖြစ်သော မြေရှားသတ္တု တူးဖော်ရောင်းချပြီး ကြွယ်ဝချမ်းသာလာခဲ့ကြသည်။​ ၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ် ကချင်လွတ်မြောက်ရေးတပ်မတော် ၏ ယင်းဒေသကို သ...

1/3 The Burmese translation of my recent article with Jauman Naw is now online. Published with support from the @pulitzercenter.org's Rainforest Investigations Network, in collaboration with @justiceformyanmar.org & Myanmar Witness. Additional reporting by Zau
www.frontiermyanmar.net/mm/%E1%80%87...

Press Release 📣 Justice For Myanmar and ICJ Norway filed complaint with Norwegian police against Telenor for violating sanctions

✅ Read the press release on our website here 👉🏽 buff.ly/lk3B35u

8 Years On: Accountability needed for Myanmar atrocities against Rohingya August 25, 2025, marks eight years since the Myanmar military and authorities launched widespread atrocities against the Rohingya population in Myanmar’s  Rakhine State. Starting in August 2017, Myanm...

On this Rohingya genocide remembrance day, I would particularly like to amplify calls from activists & rights groups to ensure that all perpetrators of abuses against Rohingyas -- whether the Myanmar junta, Arakha Army or Rohingya armed groups -- are held accountable.
www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...

8 Years On: Accountability needed for Myanmar atrocities against Rohingya August 25, 2025, marks eight years since the Myanmar military and authorities launched widespread atrocities against the Rohingya population in Myanmar’s  Rakhine State. Starting in August 2017, Myanm...

Today + always, standing in solidarity with Rohingyas on the pathway toward accountability, justice and the full realization of their rights + dignity. And standing with the brave, resilient Rohingya people I have come to know over the years.
share.google/kVxanekXtlBG...

Myanmar Unearthed: The Dark Side of the Global Energy Transition This project investigates the environmental, social, and economic injustices underpinning the global transition away from fossil fuels, through the lens of rare earth mining in Myanmar. Over the past....

For additional context on rare earth mining in Myanmar, including some of the possible contributing factors to an expansion of rare earth mining in Shan State, resharing a link to my project page as a @pulitzercenter.org Rainforest Investigations Network fellow.
pulitzercenter.org/projects/mya...

Satellite images expose rare earth mining expansion in northern UWSA area of Mong Bawk - Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) Satellite images reveal that the number of rare earth mining sites has increased over eightfold since 2015 in the northern United Wa State Army (UWSA) territory of Mong Bawk near the Shan State-China ...

This is the 3rd report published by the Shan Human Rights Foundation in recent months documenting the expansion of rare earth mining in Shan State. Read the previous reports here:
shanhumanrights.org/satellite-im...
shanhumanrights.org/update-satel...

SHRF's analysis of social media posts from rare earth mining workers in NDAA territory identified in-situ leaching methods similar to those used in Myanmar's Kachin State, where harmful environmental & health impacts have been increasingly documented.
shanhumanrights.org/satellite-im...

All 19 rare earth mines identified in the report are in Shan State's Special Region 4, which is controlled by the NDAA, a ceasefire group. SHRF noted that other kinds of mining in the territory, including for manganese, are also contributing to water contamination
shanhumanrights.org/satellite-im...

Using satellite imagery analysis, SHRF identified 19 new rare earth mining sites in NDAA territory since 2021. It found that most of the sites are located around 4 KM from the China border, where leaching chemicals would drain into a Mekong River trubutary.
shanhumanrights.org/satellite-im...