In one hundred brief, reader-friendly chapters, alphabetized by subject, "China A to Z" introduces a general audience to contemporary Chinese society, as well as its venerable history. Discover: ? Why Chinese names are written in reverse order ? What to bring when visiting a Chinese household ? What the current relationship is between Japan and China ? Why you should wrap gifts in red or pink paper, and never send white flowers With the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Beijing, thousands of Chinese adoptions occurring each year, and China becoming the fourth most popular international destination, the need for information about this complex country is greater than ever.

    An Unlikely Heroine. The Second American Civil War. The deck is stacked against twenty-nine-year-old Ava. She’s a fighter, but she’s got trust issues and doesn’t always make the best decisions. Her personal complications aren’t without merit, but America is on the verge of a second civil war, and Ava must pull it together if she wants to survive.Trouble seems to follow Ava where ever she goes. The onset of the Second American Civil War should be no different. Caught in a vicious protest, she’ll have to do the unthinkable to stay alive.Life only gets more difficult for Ava when she spots a sinister figure watching her every move. Who is the strange man with the scar on his face and what does he want with Ava? Political discord between right and left has reached the flashpoint. Hostile rhetoric has given way to bloodshed and brutality. The tentacles of the deep state have infiltrated every facet of American culture. The public education system, entertainment industry, and mainstream media have all been hijacked by a shadow government intent on fomenting a communist revolution in the United States. The antagonistic message of this agenda has poisoned the minds of America’s youth who are convinced that capitalism and conservatism are responsible for all the ills of the world. Violent protest and widespread destruction will bring America to her knees. Don’t miss this chilling tale of America’s Civil War 2.0! Start reading today and get a glimpse of the dark future in store for our country. This is the complete three-book box set including:Book One: Divided We FallBook Two: Embers of EmpireBook Three: United We StandAs with all books by Mark Goodwin, this book contains no profanity and no embarrassing sex scenes. However, if you're offended by conservative principles and references to Scripture, this book might not be for you.

    The Russians, who had occupied the country throughout the 1980s, were long gone. The disparate ethnic and religious leaders who had united to eject the invaders - the famous mujaheddin - were at each others' throats. For the rural poor of Kandahar province, life was almost impossible.On 12 October 1994 a small group of religious students decided to take matters into their own hands. Led by an illiterate village mullah with one eye, some 200 of them surrounded and took Spin Boldak, a trucking stop on the border with Pakistan. From this short and unremarkable border skirmish, a legend was born. The students' numbers swelled as news of their triumph spread. The Taliban, as they now called themselves - taliban is the plural of talib, literally 'one who seeks knowledge' - had a simple mission statement: the disarmament of the population, and the establishment of a theocracy based on Sharia law. They fought with a religious zeal that the warring mujaheddin could not match.By February 1995, this people's revolt had become a national movement; 18 months later Kabul fell, and the country was effectively theirs. James Fergusson's fascinating account of this extraordinary story will be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the situation in Afghanistan, now and for the future...

    Join me with ideas, energy, images, and stories. This is not my chronological diary. You can watch me on television for that. This is how we prevail with joy—and exactly how an exciting president is leading the way against all odds.” —Congressman Matt Gaetz

    As over two million of his subjects starved to death, Kim Jong Il roamed between palaces staffed by beautiful girls and stocked with expensive international delicacies. Outside, the steel mills shut down, the trains stopped running, the power went out, and the hospitals ran out of medicine. When the population threatened to revolt, Kim imposed a reign of terror, deceived the United Nations, and plundered the country's dwindling resources to become a nuclear power. Now this tiny bankrupt nation is using her nuclear capability to blackmail the United States. Veteran correspondent Jasper Becker takes us inside one of the most secretive countries in the world, exposing the internal chaos, blind faith, rampant corruption, and terrifying cruelty of its rulers. Becker details the vain efforts to change North Korea by actors inside and outside the country and the dangers this highly volatile country continues to pose. This unique land, ruled by one family's megalomania and paranoia, seems destined to survive and linger on, a menace to its own people and to the rest of the world. But should the nations of the world allow this regime to survive? That's the question with which this book concludes.

    

    As Key and his Government begin campaigning for a third term in Parliament, this in-depth portrait will give a clearer idea of Key, the man and politician. Journalist John Roughan has secured unprecedented access to John Key and his closest advisors. This book will provide insights into what motivates a multi-millionaire to become Prime Minister and examines his thoughts and aspirations. It will provide the clearest picture yet of what drives this country's Prime Minister. The book will follow Key's early life, starting with the break-up of his parents, his upbringing in a state house with an interesting Jewish refugee mother and his years at high school and university. It will follow his early career as a finance trader, his move into politics and his performance in power so far. Roughan will explore how Key's political views were formed by his life experiences, and how his political decisions fit within the context of his life story. John Key and his wife Bronagh have agreed to be interviewed for the book.

    special operations personnel, the demise of Ahmad Shah, and the impact this incident had on the War on Terror.

    It appears to be suicide, by a cocktail of morphine, alcohol and Valium. But upon investigation by a CID inspector, who might not be what he seems, the family discover there may be far more sinister circumstances behind his death, reaching the uppermost echelons of government. Death of a Perm Sec exposes the dark heart of power politics, from the country’s tumultuous post-independence days to the socio-political landscape of the 1980s.

    Determined that the public should know the truth, she started a blog, which became Malaysia's go-to news outlet for information that the government was trying to suppress – and whistleblowers wanted to get out. She was soon running a radio station too.To nail down absolute proof, Rewcastle Brown criss-crossed the globe and, defying danger, pieced together the evidence of the 1MDB scandal – the theft of billions from the country’s sovereign wealth fund. Her reporting – exposing the shady dealings of international politicians, finance powerhouses, prominent PR firms, and Hollywood glitterati – convulsed Malaysian politics and reverberated around the world. The US government made its largest ever kleptocracy asset seizure, while banks and bankers fell.Sweeping in scope, The Sarawak Report provides a jaw-dropping behind-the-scenes narrative of Malaysia’s recent turbulent political struggles, revealing, as never before, how government-funded cyber-warfare and fake news operate, and, in an era of threadbare mainstream media, demonstrating that epoch-changing investigative journalism is still possible. It is an urgent account of the reality of globalisation – and the astonishing story of how one person made a difference.

    Born to working-class Democrats in Virginia, Bannon has barrelled through the Navy, Harvard, Wall Street, and Hollywood; he is fluent in esoteric philosophies and political theories; and he has diagnosed the problem with today's America---the rot that has eaten away at working Americans' hopes, opportunities, and freedoms---and developed a winning strategy for taking America back.With inside information on Bannon's current White House projects and his relationships with other figures in the Trump orbit---and with President Trump himself---Bannon: Trump's Rebel in the White House is not only a three-dimensional guide to one of the most fascinating figures of modern American history; it's also a guide to understanding the Trump administration's plans for our future.

    She has never met another child.Nina X has no books, no toys and no privacy.Nina X has no idea what the outside world is like.Nina X has a lot to learn.Nina X has no mother and no father; she has Comrade Chen, and Comrades Uma, Jeni and Ruth. Her closest emotional connection is with the birds she sees when she removes the plasterboard that covers her bedroom window. Comrade Chen has named her The Project; she is being raised entirely separated from the false gods of capitalism and the cult of the self. He has her record everything in her journal, to track her thoughts. To keep her ideology pure, her words are erased, over and over again. But that was before. Now Nina is in Freedom, and all the rules have changed. She has to remember that everything is opposite to what she was told, and yet Freedom seems to be a very confusing and dangerous place.

    Under successive military regimes, however, the country eventually ended up as one of the poorest countries in Asia, a byword for repression and ethnic violence. Richard Cockett spent years in the region as a correspondent for The Economist and witnessed firsthand the vicious sectarian politics of the Burmese government, and later, also, its surprising attempts at political and social reform. Cockett’s enlightening history, from the colonial era on, explains how Burma descended into decades of civil war and authoritarian government. Taking advantage of the opening up of the country since 2011, Cockett has interviewed hundreds of former political prisoners, guerilla fighters, ministers, monks, and others to give a vivid account of life under one of the most brutal regimes in the world. In many cases, this is the first time that they have been able to tell their stories to the outside world. Cockett also explains why the regime has started to reform, and why these reforms will not go as far as many people had hoped. This is the most rounded survey to date of this volatile Asian nation.Richard Cockett is Southeast Asia editor and correspondent at The Economist. He is the author of several books, the most recent being Sudan: Darfur and the Failure of an African State. He lives in London.

    I am a soldier. I am a wife. I am a mother. This is my story. There are many like it but this one is mine. In 2009, Army second lieutenant Jessica Scott deployed to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. It was a year of many firsts. This is the first person journey through a combat tour in Iraq, through being a woman in the army and learning to be an officer in the unforgiving environment of a brigade combat team. This is the journey of a writer, learning to find her voice. This is the journey of a mother, confronting the emotions of leaving her children. This is the story of an inexperienced lieutenant, growing into a leader. This is the journey as it happened, without commentary.This is her blog. There are many blogs from the Iraq war, but this one is hers.364 KB

    That superpower was what we know today as India under the Mughal Empire. Years of internal strife, attacks by Afghan raiders and finally conquest by the British led to the decline and destruction of this mighty empire.But what if India had never been conquered by the British? What if it remained a mighty and prosperous nation under the rule of the Mughal Empire?A nation known as Hindustaan.Dilli, 1857. The Mughal Empire is at the peak of its power and is gearing up to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of its victory over the British, an occasion where the popular Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar is widely expected to announce his successor. The Empire is thrown into sudden chaos when the Emperor is assassinated and a new regime seizes power in a bloody coup. In this maelstrom, three unlikely companions find themselves thrown together by fate. Ranveer, a young officer in the elite Mughal cavalry, who is now hunted by the very Empire he served; Theo, a rakish English traveller with a mysterious past and Maya, a beautiful and spirited Princess they rescue. Together, they embark on a series of dramatic adventures across Hindustaan. A journey that takes them from bloody skirmishes with Afghan raiders, rescue missions in remote forts, joining a coalition of rulers who band together against the new despotic regime to protect their independence, and finally back into the heart of Dilli for a dramatic mission.The stage is set for a monumental struggle that will decide not just their fate, but that of the whole of Hindustaan.