Imagine that you are Thai and poor, as most people in this country still are. Imagine that you are aware of your social position, as most poor Thais are, and that you are educated and understand the complexities and hidden meanings of political life of your country, which most Thais do not. You have basically two alternatives if suicide or emigration is not the option: to support the outrageously elitist aristocracy and the army (many of whose members now paint themselves yellow) whose goal is to preserve society's feudal arrangements, or support the business tycoon accused of tremendous corruption (his people are painted red). If you can't chose between these two camps, you are out of luck – nothing else is on the menu.

This is the sixtieth anniversary of the start of the Korean War. We are now just starting to learn about the mass murder of civilians by both Korean armies and the United States, and the policies that made this possible. In South Korea, little by little the remains of some of these victims are being uncovered through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Korean citizens.

When I first did readings from this book years ago, I explained to audiences what I knew about the contemporary South Pacific: that nuclear fallout has produced many babies without bones or anus or eyes or left them with extremely small heads and thus the “jelly babies” I describe are real, how hundreds of Tahitians and Marshall Islanders die every year from radiation-caused cancers in hospitals in Paris and the U.S., how a boat tours the Pacific monitoring the results of the three hundred plus atomic and hydrogen bombs dropped on the humans there in tests, how the Pacific Islanders make ideal test candidates, living in the largely uninhabited “wastes” of the Pacific and having a terrific rate of reproduction because of their belief in pleasure in paradisiacal surroundings.

After dramatically increasing its military expenditure over the last several years, in 2010 China has raised it by only 7.5 percent, marking the first time in nearly 21 years that the rate of increase has fallen below double digits. While there are a number of factors behind this, the Chinese government has used this to announce its pacific intent, underlining that it has always tried to limit military spending and set defence spending at a reasonable level. China's foreign policy thinkers and political establishment have long sought to convince the world that Beijing's rise is meant to be a peaceful one, that China has no expansionist intentions, that it will be a different kind of great power.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the conclusion of the revised Japan-U.S. Mutual Security Treaty (Ampo). The original treaty was signed on September 8, 1951, the same day the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed. One of its provisions stipulated that Japan must guarantee the U.S. the same stable use of military bases as it did under the occupation. Without accepting that requirement, Japan could never have won its independence.

In April 2010, The People's Republic of China executed four Japanese citizens who had been convicted of trafficking methamphetamines. They were the first Japanese to be executed in China since the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1972. At the time of their demise the condemned men—Akano Mitsunobu, Takeda Teruo, Mori Katsuo, and Ukai Hironori—were ages 65, 67, 67, and 48, respectively. All were killed by lethal injection in a province (Liaoning) that borders North Korea—the nation which may have been the source of the drugs—and all were either members of the yakuza or drug mules for them.