Daily Dose: 03/25/08

» AsianWeek Market Report
» AsianWeek Foundation Seeks Donations for School Raffle Program
» Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Selects Poster Contest Winner
» Vigil Scheduled to Honor Slain Duke Graduate Student
» Chinese-Born Engineer Gets 24 1/2 Years in Prison in Export Case
» New York Worker’s Rights Clinic for Non-English Speakers
» Asian American Film Festival Awards
» China Considers Barring Tiananmen Broadcasts During Olympics
» Daughter Says Former Philippine President Aquino Has Cancer
» Still No Sign of Hmong American Who Disappeared in Thailand
» Vietnamese Man Opens Home to Moms

AsianWeek Market Report

BAY:

AsianWeek Foundation Seeks Donations for School Raffle Program

SAN FRANCISCO — The AsianWeek Foundation is currently seeking donations for the School Raffle Program to benefit San Francisco public schools. The foundation organizes the program in conjunction with its annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration.

Raffle prizes are critical to the success of the program and are donated from local businesses and community members.

Raffle tickets are sold for $3 each. $2 of every ticket goes to the school. Additional prizes of $100 and $500 are awarded to the school selling at least 20 tickets and to the top seller for elementary, middle and high schools.

Last year, 25 different schools participated, representing over 17,000 students. The program raised nearly $10,000. The AsianWeek Foundation in turn donated 104% of the proceeds to participating schools in the San Francisco Unified School District for things such as Chinese classes, field trips and sports teams.

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Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Selects Poster Contest Winner

Izumi Kurokawa of Sherman Oaks, Calif, created the winning design for the 41st annual Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival’s Poster Contest. Kurokawa will be awarded a $500 grand prize, and her design will be used in posters, souvenir T-shirts and commemorative booklet covers to help promote Northern California’s largest Japanese American community festival.

More than two dozen entries were reviewed by a panel of graphic designers, community volunteers and committee members. The contest was open to the public. Artists were asked to reflect the spirit of the matsuri (festival) season, emphasizing the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival’s 41st anniversary theme of kansha (appreciation). The festival will take place over two weekends, April 12-13, 19-20, in Japantown.

NATION:

Vigil Scheduled to Honor Slain Duke Graduate Student

DURHAM, N.C. — A Duke University graduate student who was fatally shot in his apartment earlier this year was recently remembered at a memorial service.

Abhijit Mahato, 29, was studying for a doctorate in computational mechanics at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. The native of Tatangar, India, was found dead Jan. 18 in his apartment.

The event was held by the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham, Parents of Murdered Children and Durham Congregations in Action.

Two teenagers were indicted in Mahato’s death: Laurence Lovette, 17, and Stephen Oates, 19, both of Durham. Lovette also is charged with murdering Eve Carson, the student body president at the University of North Carolina.

The autopsy on Mahato said he was shot at point-blank range in the forehead as a pillow was held tightly against his face. His wallet, cell phone and iPod were missing.

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Chinese-Born Engineer Gets 24 1/2 Years in Prison in Export Case

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A Chinese-born engineer convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China was sentenced to 24 1/2 years in federal prison by a judge.

Chi Mak, 67, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was also convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, attempting to violate export control laws and making false statements to the FBI.

Mak was arrested in 2005 after FBI agents stopped his brother and sister-in-law as they boarded flights to China. Investigators found documents in the couple’s luggage pertaining to a submarine propulsion system, a solid-state power switch for ships and the future of power electronics.

Mak’s attorneys argued that the information was not classified and was made public at industry conferences attended by engineers from all over the world, including China.

Mak’s attorney, Ronald Kaye, said he would appeal.

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New York Worker’s Rights Clinic for Non-English Speakers

FLUSHING, N.Y. — Councilman John C. Liu announced an upcoming clinic on worker’s rights in collaboration with the Urban Justice Center, which will offer one-on-one sessions to consult with attorneys on issues ranging from unpaid wages to unfair treatment.

The clinic will take place on Monday, March 31, at the office of Councilman Liu in Flushing, Queens. Language interpretation will be provided in Spanish, Korean and Chinese.

“Many workers throughout Flushing and New York, and especially immigrant workers, are learning about their workplace rights and using that knowledge to improve their working conditions. The Urban Justice Center is very pleased to be able to work with Councilman Liu to provide access to free and confidential legal advice to workers seeking to learn more about their rights in the workplace,” stated David Colodny, senior staff attorney at the Urban Justice Center.

ARTS:

Asian American Film Festival Awards

The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival wrapped with an estimated attendance of 29,000.

The Jury Awards winners were announced before the Closing Night screening. Richie Mehta’s Amal won the Best Narrative Feature Award. The Special Jury Award was a tie between John Kwon’s Always Be Boyz and Ron Morale’ Santa Mesa. The jury was comprised of playwright/filmmaker Philip Kan Gotanda (Life Tastes Good), producer Gina Kwon (Me, You and Everyone We Know) and screenwriter Iris Yamashita (Letters From Iwo Jima).

Planet B-Boy, directed by Benson Lee, won the Best Documentary Feature Award. The Special Jury Award was given to Wings of Defeat, directed by Risa Morimoto. The jury was comprised of Kathryn Lo (associate director of Program Development and Independent Film at PBS), filmmakers Stanley Nelson (Jonestown: The Life and Death of the People’s Temple) and Celine Parreñas Shimizu (Super Flip).

GLOBAL:

China Considers Barring Tiananmen Broadcasts During Olympics

BEIJING — China might bar live television broadcasts from Tiananmen Square during the Beijing Olympics, apparently unnerved by the recent outburst of unrest among Tibetans and fearful of protests in the heart of the Chinese capital.

A ban on live broadcasts would disrupt the plans of NBC and other international networks, who have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to broadcast the games.

The bar to broadcasters comes as the government has poured troops into Tibetan areas wracked by anti-government protests this month and stepped up security in cities, airports and entertainment venues far from the unrest.

Like the Olympics, live broadcasts from Tiananmen Square were meant to showcase a friendly, confident China — one that had put behind the deadly 1989 military assault on democracy demonstrators in the vast plaza that remains a defining image for many foreigners.

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Daughter Says Former Philippine President Aquino Has Cancer

MANILA, Philippines — Former Philippine President Corazon Aquino, who sparked a wave of pro-democracy movements around the world by leading a 1986 “people power” revolt, has colon cancer, her daughter said recently.

Aquino, 75, was swept into power by the peaceful uprising that ousted late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, cementing her as an icon of democracy and a harbinger of change to authoritarian regimes worldwide.

She has remained active in social and political causes, and has attended rallies calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

A former housewife, Aquino reluctantly took over as Marcos’ main challenger after her husband, opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., was gunned down at Manila’s airport upon returning from exile in 1983.

Aquino held office until 1992, surviving at least six coup attempts.

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Still No Sign of Hmong American Who Disappeared in Thailand

WASHINGTON — Two years after his mysterious disappearance in Thailand, no sign has turned up of Yer Vang, the Hmong American from Minnesota.

The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok has pressed Thai police to find out what happened to Vang, who disappeared in the northern part of the Southeast Asian country in March 2006 along with his wife and daughter, both of whom lived in Thailand. Embassy officials say Thai police have told them they are continuing to look into the case. Vang was the only U.S. citizen in the group.

Weeks after his disappearance, Thai police found decomposed bodies believed to include several missing Hmong Americans. None of them turned out to have been U.S. citizens.

Vang, 55, moved from Laos to the United States in the mid-1970s.

Vang’s nephew, Lee Pao Xiong, suggested the Thai police may be behind the disappearance.

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Vietnamese Man Opens Home to Moms

NHA TRANG, Vietnam — Tong Phuoc Phuc, a 41-year-old Catholic, has opened his door to unwed expectant mothers in a country that logs one of the world’s highest abortion rates. In 2006, there were more than 114,000 abortions at state hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City — outnumbering births.

Most pregnant, unmarried Vietnamese women have few options. Abortion is a choice for many who cannot afford to care for a baby or are unwilling to risk being disowned by their families.

The Communist government calls premarital sex a “social evil.” Abortion, however, is legal and performed at nearly every hospital, stirring little debate.

Shelters for pregnant women are rare. Phuc promises them food and shelter until they give birth, and then cares for the children until the mothers can afford to take them. In the past four years, he’s taken in 60 kids.

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Compiled by Melissa Chin