Hello Mr.Ivor,
I'm from Pakistan. I also happen to have your Begining Java 2 to be the first book i studied for Java. Infact i recently got your Visual C++ 6 book. There isn't very much jobs for Java programmers here in Pakistan but there are some work going on here to promote Java in Pakistan. I made my final project (WebBrowser) for my B.C.S using Java.
Dream to be a good programmer like you in the future.