Melissa Chan

🇮🇹🇪🇺 Looking forward this week to catching up and meeting new friends at the European Festival of Journalism and Media Freedom, this year in Florence!

In the studio we had DW Middle East Analyst Shani Rozanes and co-anchor Hannah Hummel, making this livestream coverage of the Iran / Middle East war an all-women affair. Journalists joining us from Jerusalem, Dubai, and Delhi were also women. The best clip from the week on International Women's Day!

Opinion | Historians Confirm: Tomorrow Won’t Be Better Than Today

ICYMI: "One way of dealing with bad times is to pretend that they are normal... The human capacity for hope is an essential quality... But hope can also turn into delusion." By Ian Buruma:

There is no dystopian science fiction. We are living in it.

We should think carefully about the benefits of drones and their associated force postures in relation to different kinds of wars. This is not a capability that relates evenly across all conflicts.

Like missile launchers, drone trucks have to leave the base, move to firing positions, erect, fire, and then go back to base without being detected, tracked, and destroyed. This, as we are seeing, is very hard!

My first reporting trip to Cuba was in 2001. The Cuban regime is an autocracy and people have voted with their feet over the years, in some cases dying for their freedom. I also feel terribly for ordinary Cubans right now as they struggle with the oil shortages.

My conversation with @tnsr.org's HORNS OF A DILEMMA podcast is up! We discuss my graphic novel YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION co-authored with @badiucao.bsky.social, and reflect on the power of fiction to convey fundamental truths about autocracies. 🎙️ Link: bit.ly/texas-revolution

MARTY SUPREME is a pretty cool film but it won’t be playing like SWAN LAKE or DON GIOVANNI has across 3-4 centuries. Ballet and opera will be fine. Timothée Chalamet’s career, however — far less certain.

Journalist Melissa Chan (@melissakchan.bsky.social) joins the podcast to discuss her debut graphic novel, "You Must Take Part in Revolution." Created with activist artist Badiucao (@badiucao.bsky.social), the book explores a dystopian future involving Hong Kong, Taiwan, and rising authoritarianism.

🇰🇷🇺🇸 The limits of US power. ➡️ SEOUL, March 6 (Reuters) - South Korean Foreign Minister Cho ‌Hyun said on Friday the U.S. and South Korean militaries ‌are discussing shifting some U.S. ‌Patriot missile ‌defence systems based in South Korea to be deployed in the war against Iran.

Our fictional US president: "Haven't we been turbocharging our military the past decade?... What else am I supposed to do with all that metal? Nothing?!" Presenting two panels without comment from YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION, co-authored with @badiucao.bsky.social:

These social media platforms are driven by binaries 0/1 and algorithms. It’s okay not to know what will happen next and admit that. It’s okay to have conflicting feelings. That means you’re human, you’re deploying critical thinking skills, and you’re not ideological.

🇧🇭🇰🇼🇮🇶🇴🇲🇶🇦🇸🇦 This US-Israel joint operation on Iran has fast become a nightmare for many Gulf countries, as Tehran targets US military bases in their territories. Aya Ibrahim discusses the complex dynamics and considerations at play:

🚨 Iran • Israel • America's "Operation Epic Fury." 2/2

🚨 Announcing the start of what might be the most consequential war in years, if not this century? A historic moment for Iran, Israel, the Middle East, and the American president who has made the fateful decision to launch "Operation Epic Fury." 1/2

Almost one year ago, an anxious audience in Los Angeles for our YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION book talk asked my brilliant co-author @badiucao.bsky.social about Trump's attack on US democracy. What he said was so prescient and now so urgently timely please take a listen:

I first met Kathi Zellweger when I was still posted as a foreign correspondent in Beijing — she was going in/out of North Korea on humanitarian missions. Her life was just wild. I am so glad she's coming out with a book, co-authored with @mikechinoy.bsky.social. Pre-order now!

Just finished Michael D. Kennedy’s graphic novel MILK WHITE STEED. It’s genius magic realism storytelling and art — mixing Caribbean folk tales with migration to England, and the woodcut style reminds me so much of graphic art pioneer Frans Masereel from the earlier part of the 20th century. 💛

Text reads, "Poet Ali Asadollahi Detained in Iran," above a photo of Ali Asadollahi against a warmly lit background. Below, it states, "We join together to strongly condemn Ali Asadollahi's arrest and stand in solidarity with him. Read the open letter signed by more than 100 writers on pen.org." The PEN America logo is displayed at the bottom.

More than 100 noted writers joined PEN America and @pensydney.bsky.social in urging the Iranian government to immediately release poet and translator Ali Asadollahi, including Margaret Atwood, J.M. Coetzee, Ariel Dorfman, Jonathan Franzen, Khaled Hosseini, Azar Nafisi, Elif Shafak, and Colm Tóibín.

PEN America Joined by More than 100 Writers in Urging Release of Iranian Poet "As Ali Asadollahi marks one month behind bars, his detention is an urgent issue that must not be forgotten."

"We join together to strongly condemn Ali Asadollahi’s arrest and stand in solidarity with him and with other writers, alongside all of the courageous Iranians who have been arrested or killed for expressing dissent. We call for his immediate release." See @penamerica.bsky.social:

🟡 Semafor China: Update, not reset | Semafor Germany’s chancellor looks to update ties with Beijing, China’s wind sector targets Europe, and Beijing tightens exports restrictions on Japan.

Exciting news! @semafor.com's China newsletter has launched. Longtime China / Asia journalist Andy Browne is helming this so it'll be good:

I think it's fine to talk about Alysa Liu's father who was a 1989 Tiananmen student protester like where do you think she gets part of her fierce independence and bold eccentricity from? Do you know how much you have to believe in yourself to stand in front of tanks?

🏒 (Most, though not all) of the US men’s hockey team laughing when Trump jokes (🤔?) he’s only begrudgingly inviting the gold medal women’s hockey team. Yeah, every effing woman sees this. What a disgraceful way to become the biggest losers less than 24 hours after victory.

⛸️ It’s been a joy to see Team USA, Team Japan, Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov, and so many other figure skaters be so happy and kind to each other. Such great sportsmanship in a historically mean and unforgiving sport.

🇰🇿⛸️🐼 Love Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov for his creativity and humor: dancing as a panda at the Olympics gala but also what a sci-fi geek for picking The Fifth Element's "Diva Dance" opera aria for his long program and then wearing a Dune Fremen stillsuit for his short OMG.

Am convinced this "very Chinese time in your life" social media thingie must be Beijing propaganda because a real Chinese time for me was like 50 hours of SAT prep per week and piano recitals that give you so much anxiety you want to throw up. In China, it'd be the gao kao. 😆

🌎 While the Supreme Court decision might be welcomed by many, this continues tariff uncertainty for the world! It was great to have Steven Beardsley in the studio.

Delayland – Germany and the missing magic Why don’t things run like they used to anymore in Germany, once dubbed an "economic miracle”? And how are other places getting things right? From the makers of Cannabis Cowboys, Delayland launched on ...

🎙️🇩🇪 This is a great 5-part podcast series on Germany — for anyone who wants to learn more about the country. It dispels dated stereotypes about efficiency, etc. So of course Episode 1 had to be about Germany's 😈 national train system, which everyone hates:

For anyone who has ever lived in the Bay, it hits. 😆