*Off Beat*

RFA staffers Jim Snyder and Gemunu Amarasinghe recently traveled to Myanmar's Kayah state where rebel insurgents have taken control of the countryside and are trying to establish a new state government.

*Double Off Beat*

Production engineer Wa Than discusses his recent trip to Thailand where he met with Burmese youth who fled the Myanmar junta's conscription orders.

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*Off Beat*

An exodus of TikTok users are migrating en masse to another Chinese social media platform, RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu. RFA Uyghur's Shahrezad Ghayrat, breaks it down for us.

*Double Off Beat*

RFA Mandarin's Kitty Wang discusses U.S.-China relations under the new administration from China's point of view

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This is a "clip episode" highlighting some of the best moments of RFA Insider in 2024, its first year in production.

We explored many topics in our first year, including:

• Vietnamese Monk Thich Minh Tue and his pilgrimage across the country, and who is now traveling on foot to India.
• North Korea sending soldiers to fight alongside Russia against Ukraine, and both countries trying to hide their presence, including by allegedly burning the faces of dead North Korean soldiers to hide their race.
• The trial of Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai
• Panda Diplomacy and the return of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington, DC.
• RFA Lao's decision to change its output from traditional Lao to modern Lao.

And many more.

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*Off Beat*

Discussing shocking news of Russians burning North Korean soldiers' faces in war with Ukraine with RFA Korean's Jaewoo Park.

*Podcast Free Asia*

Answering a comment about Vietnam's "barefoot monk" Thich Minh Tue, and revealing RFA's plan to publish a map that tracks his location.

*Double Off Beat*

Discussing H6, an alleged spy with ties to British royalty. RFA Investigative team's director Boer Deng reveals how the team was able to reveal his identity, businessman Yang Tengbo.

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*Off Beat*

Jun You from RFA Korean joins the Insiders to discuss South Korea's martial law declaration and reversal, and how the checks and balances present in a developed democracy in South Korea are not present in the North, where the word of the leader is the law of the land.

*The Rundown*

Tara McKelvey of RFA Investigative talks about the recent spy exchange between the U.S. and China and why spy stories are really stories about what it means to be human.

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*Off Beat*

Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation discusses the trial of Jimmy Lai, the media mogul charged with sedition and collusion in violation of Hong Kong's National Security Law, and what the trial means for press freedom in the former British colony.

*Podcast Free Asia*

RFA Multimedia's very own Lauren Kim discusses a kimchi taste test video that she created, and the Insiders participated in, on the occasion of Kimchi Day, which falls on Nov. 22 each year.

*The Rundown*

Western backpackers in Laos die from ingesting drinks made with methanol

A North Korea-backed faction of the International Taekwondo Federation will change the name of its 'tongil' pattern to more closely align with North Korea's shift away from South Korea.

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*Off Beat*

RFA English's State Dept. correspondent Alex Willemyns discusses possible changes in U.S. foreign policy in Asia after Trump's election victory.

*The Rundown*

The Myanmar junta jailed a citizen for criticizing the title of a movie as being discriminatory to religious minorities.

Vietnam builds a new airstrip on an artificial island built atop a reef in the disputed Spratley archipelago.

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This is a republish of just the panda-related portions of Episode 18 because we wanted to submit it for an award, but the file must be below 60 minutes.

*SPECIAL REPORT*

Amy and Eugene visited the Smithsonian National Zoo in late September to get to the bottom of Panda diplomacy and to try to figure out when the new pandas would arrive. While there, they went *Off Beat* by talking to the zoo's director Brandie Smith, who stressed that conservation was the panda program's goal.

Special thanks to Jack Davies for voiceovers in the special report.

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