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» Cambodian Americans Discuss Atrocities at California Hearing
» Some Asian Families in U.S. Using Sex Selection to Produce Sons
» University of Massachusetts to Become First Foreign College to Offer Online Classes in China
» Bus Overturns in U.S., Sending 17 Korean Passengers to the Hospital
» West Virginia Man Heading to Vietnam to Help Children With Birth Defects
» CAUSE Chairman to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award
» Local Filmmaker Wins Short Film Contest on Crackle.com
» South Korean University Professor Convicted for Fake Yale Degree
» Some Japanese Theaters Cancel Showings of Film About War Shrine
» In India, an Unlikely Wine Industry Struggles to Take Root
» Talks on Complex Global Warming Pact Open in Thailand
» Sri Lanka Offers Nearly $100,000 to Would-Be Rebel Suicide Bombers Who Change Their Minds
NATION:
Cambodian Americans Discuss Atrocities at California Hearing
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Cambodian genocide that claimed 1.7 million lives a generation ago continues to cast a shadow on both survivors and their American-born children.
About 100 people attended a workshop at California State University, Long Beach, to discuss the effects of the 1975-79 slaughter under the Khmer Rouge. Nearly a quarter of the population died from disease, overwork, starvation and execution in the “killing fields.”
The workshop was one of the first U.S. events to target Cambodian Americans and solicit their participation in an international war crimes tribunal under way in their homeland.
Panels of experts discussed psychological and other aspects of the genocide.
Panelist Lakhena Nget, a child of Cambodian refugees, said she grew up in an American culture and didn’t understand her parents. Cambodian culture had called for them not to express their emotions over their experiences, she said.
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Some Asian Families in U.S. Using Sex Selection to Produce Sons
WASHINGTON — A new analysis of the 2000 census shows that among U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean and Indian parents, the odds of having a boy increase if the family already has a girl or two.
The findings “suggest that in a sub-population with a traditional son preference, the technologies are being used to generate male births when preceding births are female,” co-authors Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund said of their findings, appearing in the recent edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We should emphasize that our paper does not imply that sex selection is practiced by all or even most Asian Americans,” they said in an e-mail. Most Chinese, Korean and Indian parents do not sex select.
The discovery that some do is a new development, since the same variance was absent in the 1990 census.
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University of Massachusetts to Become First Foreign College to Offer Online Classes in China
BOSTON — The University of Massachusetts has signed an agreement with Chinese education officials that moves it closer to becoming the first foreign university approved to offer online degree programs in China.
The agreement signed in Beijing on March 31 between the university, China’s Continuing Education Association and the CerEdu Corp. calls for UMassOnline to make classes and degree programs at all five of the system’s campuses available in China within a year.
China’s Ministry of Education currently does not recognize college credits or degree credentials earned in China by distance learning programs from foreign institutions.
University officials say 40 courses, four certificate programs and one master’s degree program could be made available in China within a year.
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Bus Overturns in U.S., Sending 17 Korean Passengers to the Hospital
HIGHGATE, Vt. — A tour bus carrying Korean passengers crashed on a highway near the Canadian border on March 31, sending 17 to the hospital with minor injuries.
The Dream Tours bus from Maryland was carrying 25 passengers from Montreal to Boston when it overturned on snowy roads around 10 a.m.
Swanton Police Sergeant Eugene Rich says the bus landed on the side with the door, making it difficult to get to passengers. Part of Interstate 89 was closed for several hours until the bus could be removed.
Rich said the accident remains under investigation.
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West Virginia Man Heading to Vietnam to Help Children With Birth Defects
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Michael Quick is going to Vietnam for a two-month journey known as the Orange Walk — calling attention to children born with birth defects believed to be caused by Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War.
A group of about eight walkers paid their own expenses for the trip.
The walkers plan to walk from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, about 1,000 miles away. They’ll visit villages and distribute aid along the way. Quick says all of the money raised and items donated will go directly to victims of Agent Orange.
U.S. forces sprayed more than 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides on southern and central Vietnam from 1961 to 1971 to kill crops and strip Vietnamese guerrillas of ground cover. Agent Orange contains dioxin, a toxin linked to birth defects and health problems.
COMMERCE:
CAUSE Chairman to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award
PASADENA, Calif. — The Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association recently honored Charlie Woo with a Lifetime Achievement Award at its 33rd annual Installation and Awards Dinner on March 28. Charlie Woo is board chair and a founder of Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE).
CAUSE Chairman Woo was selected for the esteemed Lifetime Achievement Award — an award of distinction given to California’s top leaders who have dedicated their lives for the betterment of the Asian Pacific American community — because of his concurrent leadership and founding of CAUSE in 1993. This year, CAUSE celebrates 15 years as an organization that has worked to politically empower the Asian Pacific American community through nonpartisan voter registration and education, community outreach and leadership development. Other SCCLA award recipients confirmed include Assemblyman Ted Lieu and Julie Su, litigation director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.
ARTS:
Local Filmmaker Wins Short Film Contest on Crackle.com
SAUSALITO, Calif. — Crackle, a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company, has named HyunJeen Lee the winner of their short-film contest. Filmmakers across the country submitted their work to the video entertainment network’s Shorts channel with the hope of winning a development deal with Crackle Studios and a pitch meeting with executives at Columbia Pictures to discuss feature film projects.
Lee’s short film, Fish, uses an artful blend of animation and live action to tell the story about a fish and his human roommate. Her unconventional story caught the eye of Crackle audiences and wowed the exclusive panel of Columbia Pictures judges.
Lee came to America from Seoul, South Korea, to pursue a visual arts degree in New York. She is very involved in photography, and her work has been featured in a handful of festivals across the country. Fish was Lee’s second film.
GLOBAL:
South Korean University Professor Convicted for Fake Yale Degree
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean court sentenced a disgraced former university professor to 18 months in jail recently for faking her Yale doctorate and embezzling official museum funds.
Shin Jeong-ah, 36, was convicted for using her fake degree to become an art history professor at the Buddhist-affiliated Dongguk University in Seoul and acquiring financial support from businesses for an art museum she was working for.
The court also handed down a suspended one-year jail term to 59-year-old former presidential aide, Byeon Yang-kyoon, with whom Shin was romantically linked.
Shin and Byeon made headlines last year after Byeon allegedly used his influence to get Shin hired by Dongguk University.
Dongguk University is suing Yale for $50 million, saying the American university wrongly confirmed Shin’s degree.
Yale on Dec. 29 expressed regrets and called the matter an administrative error.
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Some Japanese Theaters Cancel Showings of Film About War Shrine
TOKYO — Several Japanese movie theaters canceled showings of a documentary about a controversial war shrine after at least one theater received threats.
Callers objected to Yasukuni, by Chinese director Li Ying, because they considered it anti-Japanese.
Yasakuni Shrine
Manubu Matsumoto said Humax canceled showings at one theater after callers threatened the company. “I personally think the decision is regrettable. I don’t think the movie is anti-Japanese,” Matsumoto said.
Five theaters have canceled screenings of the documentary, the Kyodo News agency reported.
The documentary takes a critical look at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which honors some 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including some war criminals who were executed.
In recent years, Japanese leaders have enraged China and South Korea by going to the shrine. Critics say the visits show Japan has failed to fully atone for invasions and atrocities of World War II.
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In India, an Unlikely Wine Industry Struggles to Take Root
NASHIK, India — This sleepy town in western India, long famous for its grapes, has become the subcontinent’s Sonoma Valley, the heart of a $100 million industry that has seen annual growth of more than 25% annually since 2003.
A taste for wine is now a sign of sophistication among increasingly wealthy Indians, and scores of wineries have opened in recent years to quench their thirst.
The wine business is still relatively small, considering India’s 1.1 billion population. In 2006, Indian winemakers sold roughly 940,000 cases of wine domestically and 60,000 cases overseas.
Indian winemakers face a significant challenge gaining a foothold in this country, where alcohol is still largely frowned upon for religious and cultural reasons, and many of those who do drink — nearly all men — are just fine with their whiskey-and-sodas.
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Talks on Complex Global Warming Pact Open in Thailand
BANGKOK, Thailand — Negotiators began their first talks on forging a complex global warming pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
The weeklong gathering of representatives from 163 countries launched a process aimed at concluding a new climate change agreement by December 2009 to rein in gases such as carbon dioxide, which is blamed for the rise in world temperatures.
Developing countries, led by China, demand that the bulk of the considerable costs and actions be assumed by rich nations that expanded their economies in decades past by polluting the environment. They also want aid and technology to increase energy efficiency.
Wealthy nations, meanwhile, such as the United States and Japan, say a global pact will only be fair if it calls for up-and-coming polluters in the developing world to take on emissions reduction commitments as well.
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Sri Lanka Offers Nearly $100,000 to Would-Be Rebel Suicide Bombers Who Change Their Minds
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The Sri Lankan government is offering would-be rebel suicide bombers nearly $100,000 and a new life abroad to surrender themselves to authorities.
The offer has been made in red-and-yellow posters pasted on walls around Colombo, the scene of several recent suicide bombings blamed on the Tamil Tiger rebels.
“Sri Lanka needs your life, your youth. Why are you throwing this away for [Tamil Tiger leader] Prabhakaran,” read the posters, which have been pasted across ethnic Tamil neighborhoods. The posters show a photograph of the severed head of a bomber.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are responsible for more than 240 suicide attacks in their fight for an independent state. The United States, India and the European Union have branded the group a terror organization.
Compiled by Melissa Chin
