<p>A Thai red shirt held in prison shares with Prachatai the story of Conor David Purcell, Australian, and Jeff Savage, a Briton, who were arrested for their involvement in the red-shirt rallies in April and May 2010 and deported to their home countries last year.</p>

<p>As heard among many red shirts: &ldquo;We are ready and waiting for the word&rdquo;, ready for bringing about regime change through a democracy &ldquo;revolution&rdquo; (การปฏิวัติ), inspired by the recent events in Tunisia. The problem to most red shirts is that there are few real options remaining in the current repressive situation created by the governing regime. A &ldquo;democratic revolution&rdquo; is a mass movement which wishes to replace undemocratic and unelected regime with a democratic system of governance.</p>

<p>The claim by a 57-yr-old Ukrainian engineer that he had been held prisoner in a Pathum Thani gas factory seems to have provoked the emergence of a number of similar cases.</p>

<p>&nbsp;The tortured mind of Jared Lee Loughner, currently charged with the killing of 6 people and the attempted murder of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, appears to have had a fixation on grammar. On the internet, he posted &ldquo;The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar. You control your English grammar structure.&rdquo; And in a political meeting he is reported to have said &ldquo;What is government if words have no meaning?&rdquo;, a plaintive cry that makes one wonder if he was familiar with the speeches of Thai politicians.</p>

<p>&nbsp;Foreigners have been known to complain that there are no rules in Thai society. People just seem to do what they feel like, or at least what they think they can get away with.</p>

<p>1. 52 unmarried Malaysian couples were arrested by Malaysia&rsquo;s Islamic morality police in hotel rooms in Selangor and charged with khalwat (close proximity). The police scheduled the raid for 1 January because they knew such celebrations would be going on. Perhaps this year, couples will have crossed the border into Thailand where such shenanigans go unpunished.</p>

<p>Santipong Inchan, 25, lost his right eye to a rubber bullet during the military crackdown at Khok Wua intersection on 10 April 2010.&nbsp; He got a job as a news translator in December, but had to quit after three weeks because his remaining eye could not take it.</p>

<p>So you think you know the news? The following quiz on world events over the past year is carefully designed to deflate any such pretensions. As in previous years, this competition is not open to employees of Prachatai (so that they do not suffer the ignominy of exposing their ignorance). Questions are given in chronological order of the events they refer to, as if that helps.</p>

<p>Harrison George wishes to apologize for the irregular appearance of this column over the past few weeks. This has been caused by an unwise decision to visit foreign (and frozen) parts and the ensuing problem of frostbite attacking the extremities (hands, feet, nose, occipital lobe, etc.).</p>

<p>&nbsp;The collapse of the two cases against the Democrats on procedural technicalities has caused some consternation among police and judicial officials. There is growing concern that future prosecutions may be jeopardized by the failure to follow due process in the strictest possible manner.</p>

<p>&nbsp;While the world&rsquo;s attention has been focussed on the steady outpouring of secret and confidential US State Department cables from the Wikileaks website, Prachatai has come across a similar treasure trove from the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs.</p>

<p>Chaos has been caused by the latest pronouncement by the Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situation (CRES) (Legislative Branch) banning the &lsquo;possession or distribution of any goods, clothing, or other materials which bear pictures, illustrations or anything that will instigate unrest or cause disunity among the public.&rsquo;</p>