Daily Dose: 04/08/08
April 8, 2008
» AsianWeek Market Report
» Chinese Six Companies Speaks Out in Support of Torch Run
» Trial Begins in U.S. in Cambodia Conspiracy Case
» Minority Doctors in Short Supply in San Joaquin Valley
» Anti-Communist Protests Divide Little Saigon, Anger Neighbors
» Mumbai Tries, Fails on ‘No Honking Day’ to Mark World Health Day
» Ousted Philippine President Sees No Legal Problem During Planned U.S. Trip
» Vietnamese Workers Back at Nike Contract Plant After Wage Dispute
BAY:
Chinese Six Companies Speaks Out in Support of Torch Run
Chinese Six Companies hosted a press conference in Chinatown on April 8 to demonstrate their backing of the Beijing Olympics and the San Francisco Olympic torch run, amidst worldwide protests against Olympic host China’s human rights record.
“The Olympics has nothing to do with politics. The protestors are an unwanted distraction from the original intent of the Olympic spirit,” board member Mel Lee said. “We are honored to host the Olympic tour relay race in San Francisco, and we oppose Supervisor Chris Daly’s shameful resolution.”
Lee suggests that protestors should go to the United Nations to voice their concerns.
Kok Po (Sam) Ng, president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, said people have the right to protest but thinks they are not helpful.
“The outside world cannot change China’s policies, and the protests are just disrupting the Olympics,” Ng said. “We call upon the Chinese American community to come out and show their support for the torch run tomorrow.”
The Olympic torch is scheduled to make its only North American stop in San Francisco on April 9.
— AsianWeek
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Trial Begins in U.S. in Cambodia Conspiracy Case
LOS ANGELES — A Cambodian-born accountant unleashed an attack to overthrow the government of his homeland, but the plot failed when only 200 supporters showed up to fight in Phnom Penh, a prosecutor told jurors on April 2.
In his opening trial statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lamar Baker said defendant Yasith Chhun was willing to risk other people’s lives as part of the effort in 2000 dubbed “Operation Volcano.”
Baker portrayed Chhun as callous, cowardly and incompetent, and promised he would take jurors inside the conspiracy with testimony from officers who led the attack and are now serving prison terms in Cambodia for their involvement.
Defense attorney Richard Callahan said his client, a U.S. citizen, was trying to save the country where he was born and raised.
Chhun, 52, an accountant from Long Beach, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, conspiracy to damage or destroy property in a foreign country, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States, and engaging in a military expedition against a nation with which the United States is at peace.
— Associated Press
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Minority Doctors in Short Supply in San Joaquin Valley
FRESNO, Calif. — A new report suggests the San Joaquin Valley’s growing Hispanic and Southeast Asian populations aren’t getting medical care from the doctors best equipped to understand their needs.
A California Medical Board survey shows that just 8.1% of all doctors in the region are Hispanic, despite the fact that Hispanics represent about half of all residents in Fresno, Merced and Tulare counties.
The survey tracks ethnic information collected from doctors when they renew state medical licenses.
The nonprofit Fresno Center for New Americans says there are about 30,000 Hmong living in Fresno, but only a few practicing Hmong doctors.
Doctors of all ethnic backgrounds are in short supply: There are 173 doctors per 100,000 residents in the valley, the lowest of any region in the state.
— Associated Press
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Anti-Communist Protests Divide Little Saigon, Anger Neighbors
WESTMINSTER, Calif. — Hundreds of noisy protesters have picketed outside the Vietnamese-language newspaper Nguoi Viet for more than two months, ever since it published a picture of a bright yellow foot-washing basin lined with the flag’s three red stripes.
The photo has proved an emotional flashpoint for hard-line anti-communists in Little Saigon, home to thousands of refugees who fled their homeland in the late 1970s after communist forces took over and wiped out the South Vietnamese government.
Nguoi Viet, which has previously been accused of pro-communist leanings, is now being condemned as a communist front.
The outcry is the latest in a surge of passionate — and sometimes violent — demonstrations by anti-communist protesters here. The demonstrations have divided Little Saigon and drawn unwanted attention to a thriving immigrant enclave that is the largest community of Vietnamese outside Vietnam.
GLOBAL:
Mumbai Tries, Fails on ‘No Honking Day’ to Mark World Health Day
MUMBAI, India — “Stop honking!” That was the message sent out on April 7 by traffic police in India’s busiest city.
Mumbai’s police marked World Health Day, April 7, as a “No Honking Day,” trying to build awareness of the effects of noise pollution in India’s financial and entertainment capital, where it sometimes seems as if all the city’s 1.5 million vehicles are honking their horns at the same time.
But on April 7, there was no perceptible drop in noise levels — not really surprising in a country where honking the horn is seen as an integral part of driving.
Trucks regularly paint the words “Horn Please” on their backs so they can tell if motorists want to overtake, while other cars, auto-rickshaws and motorcycles are often fitted with souped-up foghorns or blast a variety of tunes.
— Associated Press
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Ousted Philippine President Sees No Legal Problem During Planned U.S. Trip
MANILA, Philippines — Ousted Philippine President Joseph Estrada said on April 6 that he plans to travel to the United States next month and does not expect any legal problem in connection with a U.S. spy plot case to which he has been linked.
Estrada, 70, said he would apply for a U.S. visa for his planned two-week California trip in late May to seek treatment for his aching knees and a general medical checkup.
Estrada was among a number of Filipino politicians identified last year in U.S. court documents as having received confidential U.S. government information illegally obtained by former Filipino police officer Michael Ray Aquino and former FBI analyst Leandro Aragoncillo.
A U.S. court sentenced Aquino to six years and four months in prison for his role in an effort to use the information to undermine the government of Estrada’s rival, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
— Associated Press
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Vietnamese Workers Back at Nike Contract Plant After Wage Dispute
HANOI, Vietnam — Workers returned to a Vietnamese factory on April 7 to make Nike sneakers, one week after a strike over a wage dispute closed the plant.
The plant’s 21,000 workers resolved their disagreement with management last week and had been scheduled to return to work on April 2 after a two-day stoppage. But management decided to close the plant an additional three days after a brawl broke out among returning workers.
Witnesses said the fighting employees had disagreed about the merits of the settlement, under which they received a 10% raise — half what they had requested.
The plant is one of 10 factories in Vietnam that contracts with Nike Inc. to produce a total of about 75 million pairs of shoes a year.
Workers have gone on strikes at many factories in Vietnam recently as rising prices have been squeezing workers’ paychecks.
— Associated Press
Compiled by Lisa Wong Macabasco
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2 Responses to “Daily Dose: 04/08/08”
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>Lee suggests that protestors should go to the United Nations to voice their concerns.
Hey Lee, you can just have your blue jumpsuit thugs make
em go.. oops forget that, you’re not in China anymore.
Please free Tibet…
Chinese American please stop voice support any thing or sport in communist China, why you support?
By Pro-Chinese Democracy