A truly compelling account from an authoritative writer, Blood Brothers takes the reader right inside the world's criminal fraternities and reveals how they work.All over Asia bankers, gangsters, government officials and intelligence agents interact while organised crime networks threaten the rest of the world.Chinese gangs run Chinatowns all over the United States and Europe; Vietnamese mobsters have taken over the heroin trade to Australia; Russian gangsters thrive in cities througout America and the Japanese yakuza not only influence government and business at home, but chase the yen through Southeast Asia and Hawaii to Australia's Gold Coast.Organised crime is one of the biggest and most complicated issues in the Asia-Pacific today. Both Western and Asian pundits assert that shady deals are an Asian way of life. Some argue that corruption and illicit business ventures - gambling, prostitution, drug trafficking, gun running, oil smuggling - are...

Bertil and Hseng Noung Lintner, and their baby daughter, born enroute, spent one and a half years traveling through northern and eastern Burma, from 1985-87. Throughout their account, they describe, with rare and deep insight, the struggle by northern Burma’s ethnic groups against brutal Burmese army rule, and record the decline and fall of the Communist Party of Burma. During their incredibly arduous 2,275 kilometre trek, mostly on foot and at times in great danger, they recorded the history of a forgotten 40-year war, an account which otherwise would never have been committed to paper in such rich detail. Land of Jade further provides poignant descriptions of the efforts of simple ethnic tribes-people to forge lives amid the larger struggles of political antagonists, drug lords, foreign interlopers and assorted other opportunists—a situation that remains painfully relevant to many in diverse locations to the present day.