News, 8-9/7/99
hytran
* 150 Communists expelled from party in Thai Binh province
ABC, 9/7/99 - The Communist Party in Vietnam says 150 members from the
province of Thai Binh, have been stripped of their membership in the
past six months.
A provincial party official has told the AFP newsagency, the members
were expelled mainly for corrupt behaviour in economic activities.
During the past six months, another 900 party members received
disciplinary sanctions in the province southeast of Hanoi, known as the
cradle of Vietnam's communist revolution.
A campaign to purge the ranks of the Thai Binh party membership began
last December, more than one year after widespread and violent protests
by peasants there against local corruption.
* Child prostitution on the rise in Vietnam
HANOI, July 8 (AFP) - Nguyen Tu Anh stands under a large tree near the
Hanoi Zoo smiling and waving to men on passing motorbikes in the hope
of finding a customer for sex.
Dressed in a supermini skirt, her young features disguised with heavy
make-up, 17-year-old Tu Anh has been working as a prostitute for two
years.
"When I was 15 years old, my parents divorced and left me living with
my cousin, but she always insulted me and I could not bear it so I left
and came to the city to find a job selling sex in a hairdresser's," she
explains.
After a year the salon was raided by police, but Tu Anh was released
after her arrest because she was too young. Since then, she has been
working solo on the streets.
"I have no home of my own, no job so I have no other better choice than
standing here to find customers," she said.
Tu Anh is one of tens of thousands of minors drawn into the sex trade
in Vietnam. Though illegal, prostitution is rampant in this country of
77 million people.
"Hospitality," as it is euphemistically known, is available everywhere
-- in bars, discotheques, restaurants, massage parlours, karaoke spots
and hair salons.
Poor education, unemployment, poverty and parental neglect are blamed
for the increasing number of minors drawn into prostitution.
The increase in foreign tourism in recent years has also contributed to
more sexual abuse of children, both boys and girls, says Chris Beddoe,
tourism programme director for international group End Child
Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking.
Last year, Vietnam's ruling communist party issued a circular to call
for improved protection of children increasingly becoming victims of
crime, drugs and sexual abuse.
But local corruption is rampant, and police too often turn a blind eye
to the problem, say social workers.
"You want a young girl. Don't worry. I will recommend you a really
young girl, just 17 years old," a bartender tells a local customer at
the lounge of a massage parlour in Gia Lam, Hanoi.
"We have bought local police so please, feel free" he emphasizes.
Between 1993 and 1998 police made 8,592 prostitution raids leading to
33,378 arrests, and although attempts have been made to rehabilitate
prostitutes, few give up the trade.
Nguyen Vui, an official with the Loc Ha re-education shelter in Hanoi
where 600 arrested prostitutes stayed last year, said that more than 10
percent of them were under 17.
The children are given healthcare, psychologial treatment and
vocational training to help them find other work.
Many are sent back to their home villages but most prefer to return to
the city to earn a living by selling their bodies rather than earn a
pittance doing heavy physical labour, he said.
An 18-year-old girl awaiting clients in a karaoke bar is typical.
"I left my home for Hanoi with my boyfriend and started being drawn
into prostitution after my boyfriend betrayed me and sold me to a
brothel when I was just 16," she says.
"Police arrested me twice and sent me to a re-education shelter in
Hanoi," she said.
"After my release, I returned to do this because I can earn 100,000 to
200,000 dong (8-15 dollars) a night, while if I work as a cleaner or
babysitter, I can earn only 300,000 dong per month."
Official figures estimate Vietnam has more than 37,000 prostitutes, a
26.5-percent increase in a year, and about one fifth of them are under
17, according to a survey conducted by the Vietnam Anti-Social Evils
Department.
But western observers say the number of prostitutes is closer to
200,000, and that there has been an alarming increase in the number of
underaged women involved in the sex trade.
Among the underaged prostitutes, more than 70 percent come from poor
families in outlying provinces and cities. Many come from broken homes
or are orphans, said Nguyen Hong Son, an expert from the socil evils
department.
* 14 face charges in baby racket
The Australian, 9/7/99 - Police have charged 14 people in connection
with a multi-million-dollar operation selling hundreds of Vietnamese
children to foreigners.
A police investigation in the northern province of Ninh Binh, about
100km south-west of Hanoi, implicated Justice and Health Department
officials in the scam, which involved the falsification of birth
certificates and other documents.
The People's Daily newspaper reported that up to 350 children from Ninh
Binh were sold during a three-year period through at least two
maternity clinics. One child-welfare specialist claimed Vietnamese
women had effectively become "baby machines" for illegal adoption
schemes.
Save the Children (France) local director Oren Ginzburg said foreigners
paid more than $US5000 ($7500) for a Vietnamese child of which only
$US1000 went to the family and the rest to a broker.
Mr Ginzburg said poor Vietnamese families were willing to sell babies
because they believed they would have a better life in countries such
as France, the US or Australia.
The number of foreign couples seeking to adopt Vietnamese children has
boomed in recent years, with increasing numbers of Israeli, Dutch and
French nationals seeking to adopt in Vietnam.
* Vietnam and Switzerland sign intellectual property rights accord
ABC, 9/7/99 - Vietnam has signed a bilateral agreement with Switzerland
protecting intellectual property rights.
In a statement, the Swiss embassy in Hanoi said Switzerland had also
agreed to finance a 2.9 million dollar, three-year Special Program of
Cooperation, to strengthen the legislative and regulatory framework in
the field of intellectual property.
Both countries must now ratify the agreement separately.
According to International Intellectual Property Alliance figures,
Vietnamese business software piracy rates were 97 percent in 1998,
while rates for motion pictures were 100 percent.
Vietnam is not yet a member of the Berne Convention, one of the two
major international copyright conventions, and has only one bilateral
copyright agreement in force, with the United States.
* Vietnam to host major meet
Bangkok Post, 8/7/99 - Thailand's table tennis teams are gearing up for
the 20th SEA Games campaign at Brunei by going on a regional tour.
The table tennis teams, which have been practicing under the guidance
of Chinese coach Tang Gaolin at the Nimibutr Gymnasium, are scheduled
to compete in the Table Tennis Golden Racket Championships at Ho Chi
Minh City, Vietnam, July 8-12.
The men's team comprises Puchong Sanguansin, Sanan Ariyachotima,
Parkpoom Sanguansin, Chaisit Chaitat, Pornchai Torsuthikanok.
The ; women's team features Anisara Muangsuk, Thidaporn Wongboon,
Nanthana Kamwong and Pornsri Ariyachotima.
Meanwhile, although the Brunei Games have omitted the judo events, the
Thai judokas still have a busy schedule according to the judo chief
Sombat Pipatwong.
Thailand's judo team will first go to Vietnam for the 1999
International Championships August 3-8, followed by the Asian Meet
against China, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia, the Philippines,
Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia
in Thailand, September 15-21.
* Vietnam's Tea Export Increases in First Half
HANOI (July 8) XINHUA - Vietnam exported 12,000 tons of tea in the
first six months of this year, an increase of 1.4 percent compared with
the same period of last year, Vietnam News Agency said Wednesday.
Vietnam plans to export 35,000 tons of tea this year, mainly to its
traditional markets in Japan and the Middle East countries.
Vietnam has put additional 2,000 hectares of land under tea cultivation
this year, and another 2,000 hectares will be planted with tea from now
to the end of the year, bringing the country's total tea acreage to 74,
000 hectares.
Most of the tea areas are in Vietnam's northern mountainous region and
several central highland provinces.
* True Colors? Vietnamese Paintings at Bowers Museum Please the Eye
While Serving to Illustrate the Culture's Bitter Politics and Divergent
Modes of Being
By Scarlet Cheng
LAT, 3/7/99 - There has been a lively resurgence of art--and
artists--in Vietnam in the last decade, but little of it has been seen
in the United States because diplomatic relations were suspended until
1995.
Now "A Winding River: The Journey of Contemporary Art in Vietnam," a
show organized by the nonprofit Meridian International Center in
Washington, D.C., has come to the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in
Santa Ana, with 75 works made over the last six decades by 53
Vietnamese artists.
The exhibition has been criticized by Vietnamese activists in Orange
County, who staged sidewalk demonstrations at the Bowers when it opened
last week. Opponents say it gives undeserving positive publicity to the
current government of Vietnam, which they label repressive in the
extreme.
That artistic freedom is repressed may be true, for although several
works laud the workers' state, no dramatic critiques of current society
or politics in Vietnam are on display here.
Overall, the works selected are accessible, easy to comprehend and
pleasing to the eye. They range from ink on paper or silk to woodblock
prints to oil paintings. There also are several works in a medium
unfamiliar to us and typically Asian--lacquer, in which pigments
suspended in a tree resin are applied in layers and dried, then
protected under a transparent layer so that the surface becomes smooth
and glossy.
Stylistically, there remain strong folk traditions in rendering people
and animals, as well as the influence of 19th century French
Impressionism and European modernism in paintings. (Vietnam, after all,
was once a French colony.)
It is unfortunate the show was not hung more thoughtfully--that is, in
any chronological, thematic or stylistic order that would have helped
us view it more intelligently. (Apparently, some works were not
available until a week before the opening, so the museum staff was
working under some limitations.)
The show does, however, provide a glimpse into the soul of Vietnam, and
what emerges are two distinctly divergent modes of being, of
thinking--traditional and rural versus modern and urban.
Rural scenes are popular subjects for the artists--natural in a country
still very much agrarian, but also safely apolitical. Sectioned rice
paddies next to a grove of trees, sleepy villages lined with shops and
houses with curved tiled roofs, willowy ladies in long, flowing dresses
strolling on a peaceful riverbank--such works evoke nostalgia, a
wistfulness for simple agrarian life and values. (And which, if we are
to believe such films as Tony Bui's recent "Three Seasons," are fast
collapsing in the urban jungle of Vietnamese cities.)
Animal Attraction
Common domestic animals such as cats and buffalo also are popular. In
fact, the buffalo would have been worthy of a whole section, since the
creature crops up again and again in various permutations--and in
various parts of the gallery. Perhaps the buffalo is a symbol for the
hard-working, long-suffering Vietnamese? Their frequency and manner of
depiction in the art indicate as much.
Some artists show the creature in a folk-artsy style, as in the zodiac
illustration of Nguyen Tu Nghiem's "Year of Binh Rat." Tran Quoc Long
presents the three elements of "Girl, Buffalo and Moon" drifting about
in the ether in a dreamy, Chagall-like fairy tale.
One of the controversial works, "Love," a work in lacquer by Dinh Quan,
shows a long red buffalo with two heads--or maybe two buffalo with
their hindquarters overlapping. Their geometric faces stare out to the
central figures--two lovers floating in space. Some protesters said
they thought these buffalo symbolic of the masses, and the red dripping
from their torsos was emblematic of the blood shed by peasants for the
revolution.
"To me, it symbolizes a much older theme--fertility, the balance of
male and female," said Janet Baker, curator for Asian art at the
Bowers. She pointed out that oxen are symbols of male virility in a
number of cultures.
"It's more erotic than political," Baker said of the work.
Hong Viet Dung's oil painting, "Red Buffalo," is starkly Minimalist.
Using a chalky white line against a rough reddish background, he has
drawn a strong, bold buffalo, its head turned to look at the viewer. It
recalls a Lascaux cave drawing from prehistoric France, so simplified
as to become a powerful icon of the natural world, and so reductive as
to be completely modern.
Speaking of modernity, the exhibition raises a number of questions
about the role of women in this brave new world. (This could have made
another interesting grouping.) "Young Woman Forging Steel," one of the
disputed pictures--and one nearly removed because of the controversy it
generated--shows a woman in military uniform handling tongs in a
foundry. Protesters saw this as propaganda favoring the Communist
regime, but it also shows a woman in a nontraditional job.
Ley Huy Tiep's controversial "Creation" tells the story even more
vividly, and it is a far better, more complex painting. The central
figure is a woman in her 30s, with a ponytail, a red vest and loose
trousers. She stands, facing left, a paintbrush in her right hand, a
pot of red paint in her left. On the table before her is a artist's
palette, tubes of paint, a newspaper, books, a pot of Easter lilies and
a world globe.
Behind her, in the upper right corner, is a factory-construction site
where women are at work--one as a surveyor. In the lower right corner,
a child plays on the floor with her toys.
Ley's painting clearly celebrates the worlds of creation in which a
woman can participate--artistic, occupational and, of course,
procreative. But female artist Bui Suoi Hoa--one of only five women in
this show--addresses the reality of women's lives.
"There are many women artists in Vietnam," she said in the exhibition
catalog. "However, most of them stay unrecognized. Life is difficult
and they are burdened with all the responsibilities of the house, in
addition to their art."
Such concerns are reflected in Bui's works, several of which are
included in the show. In broad, impressionistic strokes of the brush,
her "Garden at the Window" shows a woman sitting at a desk staring out
at a garden. "At Home" shows an artist's studio--probably her own--in
all its chaotic glory. Through a doorway to an adjoining room, we see
the woman of the house tending to some chore, while in the foreground,
in the studio, her canvas sits on its easel, glaringly blank.
So while Communism's official line is one of equality of the sexes,
women find themselves having to juggle work of the family and society
with work of their own. It's a tricky balance many working mothers in
this country can relate to.
Modern Sensibility
Some of the most interesting works in "A Winding River" show a modern
sensibility percolating from beneath layers of tradition and politics.
These include paintings by Nguyen Tan Cuong that would not be out of
place in a West Hollywood gallery. Nguyen has an intuitive touch for
how to handle paint, texture and empty space.
Against flat grayish backgrounds, he paints his subjects in thick
impasto--a rather cadaverous fish on an unfolded piece of paper in
"Fish" and teacups and a teapot in "Still Life with Tea Cups."
Another wonderful work is Tran Van Thao's abstract "Night and Day"--10
blackened grids around a red center, each panel encrypted with signs
and symbols of some secret math formula. It is a work that evokes
mystery without providing answers, a quality that unites some of the
finest works of contemporary art.
"A Winding River" provides a rare opportunity to see a range of modern
Vietnamese art, and although it is hardly groundbreaking in an artistic
sense, it is full of variety and vibrancy. If only the works had been
presented with more context, in the way they were hung and accompanied
by more analytical or interpretive wall text, viewers could have
gleaned a broader, more long-lasting lesson.
Ironically, the political tempest over the show has had some positive
fallout. It has brought welcome publicity to the usually low-key Bowers
Museum, and in the first week, more visitors.
It also is strangely encouraging to see that art can still provoke such
public outcry, that some people still believe visual images can convey,
even influence, powerful ideas and emotions. In the art world these
days, the controversy is often over sex (too explicit) or political
correctness--but political correctness in a socioeconomic context,
often having to do with gender or race.
In the case of "A Winding River," the controversy is about politics in
a geopolitical sense. As one Vietnamese demonstrator said, "They should
know it [the exhibition] hurts us, because the wounds are not yet
healed."
To suggest that this exhibition could lay open those wounds is to give
it a power many artists and curators today would truly envy.
- - -
Special to The Times; Scarlet Cheng Is an Arts Writer and Frequent
Contributor to the Times. She Was Formerly the Managing Editor of Asian
Art News Magazine
* Symbol of Vietnam War in Ford museum
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP, 8/7/99) - Nearly a quarter-century ago, Ngan
Nguyen scrambled 18 steps up a metal staircase and climbed aboard a
helicopter evacuating the U.S. embassy in Saigon as North Vietnamese
troops approached.
"It's just like it happened yesterday," says Ms. Nguyen, now a beauty
stylist in Santa Ana, Calif.
"The country was falling apart. I had only a few hours to leave. I had
no time to say goodbye. My heart was broken."
In a telephone interview, Ms. Nguyen's voice cracks as she describes
her flight up the 18 steps on April 29, 1975, with her husband, a
high-ranking South Vietnamese military officer, and three sons.
She says her husband had no idea the embassy was being evacuated until
her brother-in-law, an American, told the family to pack up a few
belongings. They had to fight their way through the thousands of people
who gathered around the embassy, desperate to get on one of the
evacuating helicopters.
"I said to myself, `Goodbye to my country,'" she recalls.
The Saigon Staircase: Hop Doan stands in front of the staircase that is
now on display at the Ford Museum. (AP)
Twenty-four years after the evacuation and South Vietnam's subsequent
fall to communist North Vietnam, the staircase remains one of the most
potent symbols of the Vietnam War. Now it has been put on permanent
display at the Gerald R. Ford Museum here.
"People have different views about the Vietnamese War, but the
staircase should have the same reaction for all people because it's a
true symbol of freedom ... in contrast to the communists," said Ford,
who dedicated the Saigon Staircase in April.
The staircase is part of a new exhibit at the museum showcasing the
20th century. Other highlights of "The American Century" include
Charles Lindbergh's flight suit worn during his May 1927 flight from
New York to Paris, a wheelchair used by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Louis Armstrong's trumpet, and bullet-riddled hats worn by
Bonnie and Clyde.
The exhibit ends Oct. 17, but the staircase will remain at the museum
as part of its permanent collection.
Getting the staircase to Grand Rapids was no easy task.
The Smithsonian Institution in Washington had also expressed interest,
and the former president had to work behind the scenes to ensure the
only intact fixture from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon would become a part
of his presidential museum.
At the president's urging, Secretary of State Madeline Albright also
helped.
If you go...
For more information and directions to the Gerald R. Ford Museum, phone
(616) 451-9263.
The staircase was rusted and deteriorating when the museum got it, but
museum director Richard Norton Smith has no doubt it was worth all the
wrangling.
"It's an important part of President Ford's legacy and a national
symbol," he says. "I'm proud to have it here."
An estimated 6,000 Vietnamese climbed the staircase on the embassy's
roof to safety aboard the U.S. military helicopters. Even for those who
never used the staircase, the sight of it brought many to tears at the
dedication.
"The staircase represents the sacrifice of the people who died, those
who survived and those who struggle," said Phillip Hien Nguyen, 33, of
Grand Rapids, who was 11 when he fled Vietnam in 1979 aboard a tiny
wooden fishing boat.
Phillip Nguyen, who is not related to Ms. Nguyen, lost his father and
two uncles during the war, an experience he said was shared by too many
Vietnamese and American families on both sides of the conflict.
"The Americans and Vietnamese fought side by side and died side by
side," Nguyen, a computer specialist in Grand Rapids, said before the
ceremony. "It was a high cost, but we did slow down the spread of
communism, and we did make the communists pay a very dear price for
what they got."
Hop Doan, 55, a real estate salesman who spent years without his wife
and son after fleeing Saigon by boat in 1978, said, "Many just want to
forget the bad memories, but we still need to learn from them. We
should find a way so we never have to build another staircase."
For Ms. Nguyen, the staircase symbolizes what she considers the United
States' betrayal by leaving Saigon to fall and then re-establishing
diplomatic ties with the communist government in 1995.
Ms. Nguyen worked at the Saigon embassy as a secretary from 1967 until
1973.
"I'm angry with the way the Americans handled the Vietnam War, but I am
also grateful for the way they saved us," she says.
Raymond Tanter, a political science professor at the University of
Michigan, says the staircase also has significance for Americans.
"The staircase on first blush appears to signal defeat," Tanter says.
"On second, more intense observation, I believe it symbolizes a
willingness to confront the American people with the truth that the
U.S. stood tall with its friends for as long as it could."
Ford said the evacuation was one of the saddest moments of his
presidency, and an event that should not be forgotten.
"I can still vividly recall sitting in the Oval Office watching the
many thousands of Vietnamese struggling to get up that staircase," he
said. "It was a combination of pride and sadness.
"We were giving our allies an opportunity for freedom, and I was seeing
the last blow to a war that had been going on for some 20 years."
* The Subject Is Art
LAT, 8/7/99 - After an initial misstep, the Bowers Museum of Cultural
Art in Santa Ana has recovered nicely and is displaying all 75
paintings in a traveling exhibit from Vietnam. The museum rightly
decided in the end not to cave in to the protests of some members of
Orange County's Vietnamese community.
The Bowers previewed the paintings for some Vietnamese Americans before
the exhibit opened a week and a half ago. That set off the complaints.
Previous stops for the exhibit included Texas, Minneapolis and Atlanta.
Only in Plano, Texas, were there protests, by Vietnam War veterans and
Vietnamese Americans. But the ArtCentre of Plano resisted demands for
censorship, an admirable decision. Bowers originally had agreed to
remove at least one painting, the most controversial in the show, but
eventually the museum followed the Plano example and hung all the art.
Orange County is home to the nation's biggest concentration of
Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans. Some fled after the war; others
were political prisoners subjected to harsh mistreatment before
escaping. Earlier this year protests against a shopkeeper who displayed
a flag of Communist Vietnam and a portrait of the late North Vietnamese
leader Ho Chi Minh lasted for weeks in Westminster. But the community
is not monolithic; opinions on the paintings vary. Even the most
adamant protesters against the Bowers exhibit have difficulty agreeing
which pictures are troublesome. The one that was to be withdrawn shows
a young woman in an army uniform forging steel.
Some Vietnamese have demonstrated outside the museum during the exhibit
or have explained to museum visitors that their main objection is the
source of the paintings: Vietnam. That's fine as an opinion or as the
basis of a protest but not as grounds for censorship. Museums have
survived displays of art that some, even many, have found objectionable
for political, religious or moral reasons.
Americans are mature enough to distinguish between art and propaganda.
To have removed one or more paintings on political rather than artistic
grounds would have been an insult to an audience able to make its own
decisions.
* From Vietnam to Army fatigues - ROTC cadet repays debt to country
with military service
FORT LEWIS (NYT, 8/7/99) -- Teeth clenched with strain, Tracie Tue Ke
cradled 20 pounds of machine-gun tripod and an M-16 in her arms as she
crawled on knees and elbows underneath a 50-foot-long maze of barbed
wire.
Like the other 43 members of her platoon, the 23-year-old California
ROTC cadet wore dappled green fatigues, an equipment vest, Kevlar
helmet and combat boots, and ignored the dirt and sweat streaking her
face. Emerging from the fast crawl, she and two other cadets sprinted
for the next obstacle on Training Range 79.
In one sense, yesterday's automatic weapons drill marked just another
grueling day in a five-week advanced summer camp preparing the Army
cadets for commissioning as 2nd lieutenants in the U.S. Army.
But for Tracie Ke it also marked the latest step in an extraordinary
life's journey.
Twenty years ago, the Ontario, Calif., resident was a 3-year-old
refugee from the communist regime in Hanoi, Vietnam, crammed in a fetid
coastal trawler with her family and several hundred other people as it
headed across the South China Sea for haven in Hong Kong.
Two decades later, Ke is a U.S. citizen and senior microbiology student
at California Polytechnic State University with an ambition to pay off
a personal debt by serving in the U.S. Army.
"This is a great way for me to give back to America for the freedom it
has given me," she said.
Her family, including her father, Cheong Ke, was well-positioned in
Vietnamese society and relatively prosperous when a little-remembered
conflict erupted between Vietnam and China in 1978. A series of border
clashes jeopardized their life in north Vietnam -- Cheong Ke was an
ethnic Chinese who had emigrated to Vietnam in 1939. When a relative
was arrested in 1979, the family decided to get out, she said.
"There were rumors of a blacklist," Ke said. "They could come and
accuse you of being a traitor."
Of the family's flight, Ke has little recollection except for memories
of their boat trip from the coast near Hanoi to Hong Kong. "It was a
secretive thing, done at night from one of the beaches near Hanoi," she
recalled. "I remember there were millions of people, it seemed. You
couldn't move."
In Hong Kong a relative supported them for a year before a Catholic
relief agency sponsored their emigration to the United States. Although
Cheong Ke lost his career as a doctor, his four children grew up
Americans and are all doing well, Ke said.
After graduating from high school in 1996, Ke joined the U.S. Army
Reserves and soon was offered the chance to vie for commissioning
through the ROTC program.
More than 3,900 ROTC cadets such as Ke are at Fort Lewis this week as
the annual field training program reaches its peak, said spokesman
Capt. Arnold Strong. The cadets study and practice a wide range of
activities to develop and evaluate their leadership ability, including
physical fitness drills, weapons training and combat maneuvers against
regular troops using laser-tag simulators.
Ke said her experience with the Army has been more positive than
civilian society in accepting a person with a background such as hers.
Within the Vietnamese American community, she said, immigrants from
north Vietnam are easily recognized for their accents and frequently
ostracized.
She laughed when asked if she had ever thought of the possibility that
-- had her family not left Vietnam -- she might have ended up in the
Vietnamese army: "The Vietnamese are sexist," she said. "I doubt they
would have wanted me."
As an ROTC cadet, Ke has occasionally been confronted by soldiers still
opposed to women serving in uniform, even though the service has opened
all positions except a handful of combat specialties to women.
"When I run into guys who think women shouldn't be in uniform it
motivates me more," Ke said. "It makes me run that extra mile."
Yesterday, Ke and two fellow cadets learned a new way of running, Army
style.
Bearing the components of a heavy M-60 machine gun, they crawled,
climbed and jumped their way across the 100-yard obstacle belt where a
glowering trainer, Staff Sgt. Aundra Walton, awaited them. Lying prone
with their M-16s pointed outward, they sprang into action on command
and raced the final 20 feet and in a flurry of movement assembled the
machine gun on its tripod.
For Ke, it was one more leg of an unfinished American journey.
* Woodstock Festival Commemorated With Postage Stamp
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thirty years ago the first Woodstock music
festival shocked the nation with images of naked and near-naked young
people turning on and tuning in during a three-day orgy of rock music
and drugs.
Thirty years later, the people of the United States have voted to
commemorate the event with a postage stamp.
``There's something peculiarly American about our cultural fluidity
that you can go from outrage to icon in a generation,'' John Roberts,
one of the founders of the original festival, told Reuters Television
at the stamp's unveiling in New York.
The postage stamp, which shows the rock festival's original symbol of a
dove perched on the neck of a guitar, was selected by the public during
nationwide balloting in May 1998 as one of 15 stamps saluting the
1960s.
Among some of the other subjects chosen for stamps to represent the
period, when America was wrestling with revolutionary ideas and
lifestyles against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, are ``Man Walks on
the Moon,'' ``The Vietnam War,'' and ``The Peace Symbol.''
The stamps will be issued Sept. 17.
The original Woodstock Music and Art Fair was held Aug. 15-17, 1969, in
Bethel, New York.
Many of the deities of rock and roll performed, including Jimi Hendrix,
The Who, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Janis
Joplin. It was meant to host about 60,000 fans, but in the end 450,000
people attended.
``It's such an establishment thing to have happen to you after creating
such an anarchist event,'' said Michael Lang, another of the festival's
founders, referring to the stamp.
The 30th anniversary festival will be held July 23-25 in Rome, New
York.
* Indochina remains mired in recession
The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 8/7/99
BANGKOK: Even as the first signs of recovery in Thailand become
apparent, neighbouring Indochinese states remain engulfed by recession,
with only Cambodia confident of rebuilding.
Both Laos and Vietnam remain plagued by falling investment and
struggling trade as Asia's two-year recession still casts a shadow over
their economies.
Laos, hit hard by Asia's regional contagion, is focusing on links with
Vietnam and China to carry it through the tough economic times.
In fact, Vientiane-based diplomats say there are signs of
disillusionment over hoped for benefits from its membership in the
Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Laos joined the 10-member ASEAN in 1997, just as the region, led by
major source of trade and investment - Thailand - led the region's
recession.
Recent government pronouncements also point to the Communist Party in
Laos questioning what ASEAN has to offer, and in general where support
for Laos lies.
Politically, both China and Vietnam are viewed as more reliable
partners. "ASEAN does not offer the benefits anticipated earlier on," a
senior diplomat said.
At least in the short term, the Lao government is set to "focus more on
Vietnam and China than previously," she said.
Having moved to open its economy in the mid-1980s, Vientiane was
optimistic of further economic gains from ASEAN membership. But the
economy, hitting hardest those in the capital, is still suffering
severe recession.
"Foreign investment in the country fell to just 45 million US dollars
in 1998, from 142 million dollars in 1997," the Asian Development Bank
(AsDB) said in a recent assessment.
While the government has moved to increase state employees' salaries,
inflation in Vientiane has risen more than twice as fast.
"Inflation is threatening social safety nets and pensions," the AsDB
said. Concerns have also arisen over rising corruption as civil
servants look to alternatives to boost their flagging incomes.
The local currency, the kip, has continued to depreciate. "Officially,
the government is trying to keep the official rate in line with the
black market," the diplomat said.
But the economic outlook seems brighter in Cambodia. A recent fresh
coat of paint on public buildings in Phnom Penh, while symbolic, is at
least some sign the country's bad years may now be in the past.
The country's reputation of political uncertainty has been replaced by
greater stability since last year's general elections, allowing
Cambodia to start to inch its way back to normality.
'Phnom Penh Post' editor-in-chief Michael Hayes says there are signs of
improvement. "The city is spruced up and business is picking up a
little," Hayes said. "Economic growth is at 4 percent, which is better
than zero growth last year."
Advertisers are looking to spend again. "Ads are picking up since the
formation of the new government and aid money is picking up," he
explained.
Donor nations are pledging 470 million dollars to Cambodia in 1999 amid
a range of promises from the government to eliminate illegal logging,
cuts in military spending and civil service reform.
Cambodia's Finance Minister, Keat Chhon, under pressure from the
international community to have tighter fiscal discipline, has promised
to cut military spending to 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)
from 4.16 percent of GDP in 1998.
Plans have been drawn up to cut the 148,000 strong army by half within
five years.
"There are positive signs," Hayes said. "It is not going to change
overnight, and it requires a sustained commitment, but I am cautiously
optimistic."
Cambodia's GDP growth slowed to zero in 1998, but projections now are
for 4 percent growth this year.
Meantime, signs of progress continue in neighbouring Vietnam but growth
is edging lower.
AsDB projections estimate GRP growth to reach 3.7 percent in 1999,
slightly slower than last year's 4 percent and the robust 8.2 percent
before that.
Vietnam has been hit by Asia's crisis, not least because more than
two-thirds of its foreign direct investments come from the region.
Likewise, exports to Japan and ASEAN fell by 30 percent in 1998,
showing the extent of the economic damage from the regional crisis.
"Unless the regional and global macroeconomic situation improves
rapidly, Vietnam will have to continue exercising fiscal and monetary
restraint if it is to counter the recession without recourse to
significant macroeconomic balances," the AsDB said in this year's
economic outlook for the region.
Foreign investment also slowed in the wake of perceptions of slower
reforms.
Recently, Germany's ambassador to Vietnam, Wolfgang Erck, said Hanoi
risked jeopardising European Union aid unless economic and other
reforms were pushed forward.
The main concerns for the EU remain the issue of human rights and
freedom of the press. "We feel the internal situation gives us reason
for worry. We see less tolerance, more limitations for the press and
for religious communities," he added.-Dawn/Inter Press Service.
Agencies add: Cambodia's opposition Sam Rainsy Party on Wednesday
flouted government calls for reconciliation staging a solemn ceremony
marking the second anniversary of the bloody July 1997 political
infighting.
The small gathering of party faithful and Buddhist monks defied calls
from Premier Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and Prince
Norodom Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC - the two parties who battled it out - to
bury the past.
"We suffered a grave abuse of power in Cambodia, and this is in memory
of those who died to protect democracy," asserted Kong Kam, vice
president of the Party.
hyt...@my-deja.com
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