News, 12-13/4/00
hytran
* Vietnam gives green-light to 970 million dollar bauxite venture with
France
HANOI, April 13 (AFP) - The Vietnamese government gave the go-ahead
Thursday for a 970 million joint venture with French firm Pechiney to
develop bauxite deposits in the country's central highlands, the
industry ministry said Thursday.
Vietnam's state-owned General Minerals Company hopes to start work on
the mine in the province of Lam Dong at the beginning of next year if
it can come up with its share of the capital.
Initial production is projected at one million tonnes a year but total
reserves of the aluminium mineral are estimated at 1.6 billion tonnes.
Vietnam hopes the development of the deposits will provide more than
5,000 jobs in one of the poorest areas of the country.
* Damage to floating reservoir hits Vietnam's oil and gas exports
HANOI, April 13 (AFP) - Damage to a floating reservoir caused a sharp
drop in output from Vietnam's biggest oil and gas field in the first
quarter, oil officials said Thursday.
Oil output from the White Tiger field in the South China Sea fell to
2.6 million tonnes, down 13.85 percent compared with the same period of
last year, officials of the Vietnamese-Russian joint venture,
VietsovPetro, said.
Daily output of gas from the field also fell by 700,000 cubic metres,
they said.
VietsovPetro officials have been working to repair the damage ever
since the accident occurred in early February but the Ba Vi oil station
is still undergoing repairs in a shipyard overseas.
The surge in world oil prices in the first quarter meant that the
company's turnover still rose by 130 percent on the previous year
despite a drop in sales volumes of 38,000 tonnes.
VietsovPetro runs a total of 206 wells in the White Tiger and Dragon
Fields, 145 of them for oil.
* Vietnamese leader to visit France in late May
HANOI, April 13 (AFP) - Vietnamese Communist Party chief Le Kha Phieu
-- the number one in the country's political hierarchy -- is to visit
former colonial power France in late May, French officials said
Thursday.
"Mr. Le Kha Phieu will be received in Paris by President (Jacques)
Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin as well as visiting the
senate," said the French upper house's speaker, Christian Poncelet, who
arrived here Wednesday on a six-day visit.
The communist party chief is also expected to visit the headquarters of
European aircraft manufacturer Airbus at Toulouse in southwest France
amid speculation that Vietnam is looking to update its aircraft fleet.
Vietnam has maintained close relations with France in recent years,
hosting the two-yearly summit of French-speaking nations in 1997.
* Vietnam today: A different war - Vietnam Finds an Old Foe Has New
Allure
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (NYT, 13/4/00) -- For months, a giant
portrait of Vietnam's revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh, stared out
across a central square at a billboard showing the American fashion
model Cindy Crawford.
"The glorious victory of Communism will last 1,000 years," the portrait
of Ho proclaimed. Miss Crawford's portrait, offering for sale an
expensive watch to count the hours, smiled enticingly and said nothing.
The portrait of Miss Crawford is gone now as this raucous, bustling
city -- still known to almost everybody as Saigon -- smartened itself
up to celebrate the high point of Vietnamese Communism: What Hanoi
calls the liberation of the nation, after 30 years of war, from foreign
domination by the French and then by the Americans.
It was 25 years ago, on April 30, 1975, that the last fleeing
helicopter lifted off the roof of the American Embassy and the first
tanks of the North Vietnamese smashed through the gates of the
presidential palace a few blocks away.
Some 58,000 American soldiers were dead, along with an estimated 3
million Vietnamese, military and civilian, both in the north and south.
The ruinous decade-long conflict known to Americans as the Vietnam War,
and to Vietnamese as the American War, was over.
But in its way, a quarter of a century later, the war is still being
waged here, even though more than half the population of 78 million was
born after 1975.
Ho Chi Minh and the alluring faces of Western capitalism still confront
each other, emblems of Communist Vietnam's celebrated past and of a
more complicated future it has not yet decided to embrace. In the
capital, Hanoi, a cumbersome, suspicious leadership still hesitates
between them, fearing to lose in the global marketplace what it won, at
such cost, on the battlefield.
"Now the war is all over and they have the liberty and independence and
freedom they made such sacrifices for," said the United States
ambassador, Pete Peterson, himself a war veteran who spent six years in
a North Vietnamese prison.
"But the world has redefined those things," Mr. Peterson said. "What is
independence in the global economy? Now a country is more appropriately
graded on interdependence. And liberty from what? Happiness today is
defined by the individual. They couldn't have assumed in their wildest
imagination a situation like this."
The old fighters whose ingenuity and perseverance defeated a superpower
seem to have been overwhelmed by the challenges that confronted them in
building a new, independent nation.
By fits and starts over the years they have let in some fresh air,
opening the economy somewhat and cautiously allowing more religious and
social freedoms. But now they seem to have paused at a crossroads,
divided and stuck, gripping the reins of political and economic control
for dear life, almost frenetic in their stasis.
"Fighting a war was easy," said a retired North Vietnamese Army
lieutenant who now works for a private company in Hanoi and
wholeheartedly supports his government. "I tell you, to fight is easier
than to manage. You cannot go too quickly. If you go too quickly
something can go wrong. Every official in a high position says, in a
very big voice, we have to do something. But when he reaches that point
he realizes how difficult it is."
Following their victory, the Communist leadership, struggling to unify
a nation that had torn itself apart in war, tried disastrously to
implement a socialist economy throughout the country even as the
defeated superpower worked actively to lock them out of the world
economy.
Carlyle S. Thayer, an Australian expert on Vietnam, calls that first
decade "winning the war and losing the peace." Then in 1986 Vietnam
embarked on an experiment in openness called "doi moi" -- fundamental
renovation -- and the world rushed in briefly, in the early 1990's,
with more investment and aid than the country could manage or absorb.
And through the late 1970's and the 1980's, Vietnam was also engaged in
more warfare, as it occupied Cambodia and fought off a punitive attack
by China.
Before that second decade had run out, Vietnam had lost its chief
patron and aid donor with the collapse of the Soviet Union; foreign
investors had begun to flee in frustration over the bureaucracy,
corruption and slippery legal system that crippled their work; and
conservative forces had raised a hue and cry about the corrupting
influence of "social evils" imported from the free-thinking West.
In a speech in February, Vietnam's top Communist leader, Le Kha Phieu,
warned once again that the battle with the West is still on, though the
arena is now the economy. "They continue to seek ways to completely
wipe out the remaining socialist countries and attack the movements for
independence, democracy and social progress," he said. "We should never
relax our vigilance for a minute."
Under this watchful leadership, Vietnam today seems like a nation of
bees buzzing inside a bottle, thrumming with repressed energy. Many of
the same difficulties that drove away foreign investors -- along with
stifling limits on local business practices -- are crippling the
efforts of Vietnamese entrepreneurs. And an insistence on government
control of major industries serves as a sea anchor slowing economic
growth.
"If the government ever got out of the way here, this country would put
the rest of Asia to shame," said a Western economic analyst who
represents an international aid agency in Hanoi. "Go to the villages.
Vietnam defines industriousness."
What he was talking about would amount to a revolutionary step for the
Communist leadership, a redefinition of their victory 25 years ago.
While they wait and consider, said Ambassador Peterson, "there is
probably no developing country with such a vast void between potential
and realization."
View of America: Fascination and Distrust
The next difficult step for Vietnam in its reintegration into the
larger world is the signing of a trade agreement with the United States
that embodies the free-market prescriptions of the International
Monetary Fund. It would open Vietnamese markets to perhaps $800 million
a year in new investment and send a signal that Hanoi is ready once
again to do business with the world.
The pact was initialed by trade negotiators last November but then came
to a dead stop as Hanoi began having second thoughts. Its economic
prescriptions challenged too many vested interests and raised too many
fears of a loss of central government control. And it roused a deeply
held distrust of the United States.
"They have a kind of vague fear that there is something between the
lines," said a Vietnamese economics professor, speaking of his
government on condition of anonymity. "It's still a wartime generation
that is governing this country and they do not completely trust
American intentions."
Americans are received with real warmth today, both in the north and in
the south. But that warmth does not for the most part extend to their
government.
Although Hanoi now allows as many as 1,300 students to study in the
United States each year, it remains leery of their views when they
return, the economist said. "They say, 'You are coming back from
America so perhaps you have been duped.' "
After so many years of war, and so many years of postwar hostility,
said Tom Vallely, director of the Vietnam program at the Harvard
Institute of International Development, "I think it's difficult and
maybe impossible for them to believe you can have a win-win situation
with the United States."
For nearly two decades after the war ended, the United States
maintained a trade embargo, arguing that Hanoi was slow to provide
information on missing American soldiers and that Vietnam was acting
aggressively by occupying its neighbor, Cambodia, from 1979 to 1989.
President Clinton lifted the embargo in 1994 and established full
diplomatic relations the following year. American investors, many
motivated by postwar sentiment, flooded in with what Ambassador
Peterson called "visions of grandeur" that ended in disappointment.
Today, trade between the two countries remains small, with Vietnam
shipping $650 million worth of goods to the United States each year and
American companies selling $350 million in exports to Vietnam.
There are other reminders of the costs of the American war: continuing
generations of babies born deformed because of the effects of the
chemical defoliant Agent Orange and continuing generations of farmers
and children who are killed and maimed by unexploded bombs and mines.
These explosives, ranging from mortar rounds to antipersonnel mines to
buried 500-pound bombs, shift and rise to the surface with the annual
floods that torment the central provinces, frustrating efforts to clear
new farmland.
But when the United States offered a $750,000 program of mine-clearing
and training several years ago, the Vietnamese refused because it would
once again cause uniformed American soldiers to be based on Vietnamese
soil.
Despite these legacies of war, Vietnamese appear fascinated by the
United States. It sometimes seems the entire nation is studying
English, the language of commerce.
And after two decades of postwar refugees, nearly a million of whom are
now in the United States, there is now a waiting list of thousands who
have applied to immigrate to join their relatives.
And in a curious twist, the dollars sent home by these refugees, now
well over $1 billion a year, are one of the country's largest sources
of foreign currency -- a much larger contribution than if these same
people had remained in Vietnam.
Even in a museum here that still displays the "war crimes" of
Americans, a woman selling souvenirs made out of bullets took an
American visitor aside recently to ask how she could emigrate to the
United States.
Throughout its history, Vietnam has been the victim of its geography,
fighting off periodic invasions by its northern neighbor, China -- most
recently in 1979. During the American war, the Communists of North
Vietnam found themselves leaning on China, as well as on the Soviet
Union, for support. Now, Hanoi may see the United States as its
necessary buffer against its big and powerful northern neighbor.
"America now is an alternative to China," the Vietnamese economist
said. "To counter the Chinese threat we must lean towards the West --
not because we like the West, but because the Chinese Army is 2.5
million strong."
Recently, a young Foreign Ministry official enumerated Vietnam's
official grievances against the United States, then went on to describe
with relish a recent trip he had taken through several American states.
He recalled that in the 1940's, Ho Chi Minh had made overtures of
friendship to the United States that were rebuffed. "That is the
tragedy and the drama of Vietnam," he said. "It never wanted to be
enemies with America."
Political Control vs. a Free Market
Apart from China, only Vietnam is attempting the acrobatic feat of
creating a capitalist economy under the control of a Communist
government. Clearly, though, it is suffering from a greater fear of
heights.
Though Vietnamese leaders insist that they follow no outside models,
they thrive on cautionary tales: the Soviet Union that collapsed when
it loosened its government's grip, Indonesia that dissolved into
disorder with the ouster of a strong leader, Asian economies that
imploded because of their dependence on the global marketplace.
Dennis de Tray, the International Monetary Fund's senior resident
representative in Vietnam, says the country has its own successful
model to emulate in opening its economy -- the decision a decade ago to
end collectivized agriculture.
"They went from near starvation to the world's second largest rice
exporter overnight," Mr. de Tray said. "And they did it with one simple
change, by letting farmers keep their own rice. If you lived through
this, why not just go ahead, guys, go for it. This is as good an
example as I've seen in the world."
Indeed, he said, despite Vietnam's current stagnation, it has covered a
good deal of ground in the last decade. "Ten years ago this was a
country that did not even have the vocabulary of trade, the vocabulary
of a legal system, the vocabulary of economics, the vocabulary of a
central banking system," he said. "So why are they hesitating now to
take the next step?"
With a per capita income of just $360 a year, Vietnam is one of the
poorest nations in the world, with nearly 80 percent of its population
in the countryside, most of them on the edge of poverty. The
government, whatever its political agenda, is clearly committed to
raising living standards, according to political analysts.
But with agriculture making up only a small part of national income,
the next liberalizations must come in a growth of private enterprise in
other sectors, foreign experts agree. At the moment, medium or
large-scale private companies make up less than 2 percent of the
economy.
"Vietnam needs to open up the domestic private sector to get things
going beyond photocopy stands and noodle shops, to get people investing
in small manufacturing businesses instead of just providing a service
to their neighbors," said Robert Templer, the author of "Shadows and
Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam" (Little, Brown 1998).
And, said one Vietnamese who owns a small business in Hanoi, local
bureaucrats who enforce scores of often ambiguous regulations must
undergo a fundamental shift in attitude. "It has to be 'do whatever is
not forbidden,' " he said, "rather than 'do only what is permitted.' "
But under Vietnam's political system, none of this is so simple.
First, both Vietnamese and foreign experts say, the government is
hobbled by a decision-making process that demands consensus -- some say
unanimity -- in a leadership with increasingly diverse economic
interests. A veto, it seems, can come from just about anywhere.
Second, the government is not yet convinced it can carry out its
acrobatic balancing act, fearing that an open marketplace will lead to
political pluralism.
Thus, every time the economy opens up a bit, it seems, restrictions on
free speech and political activity grow tighter and political rhetoric
grows harsher.
At this moment of uncertainty, for example, almost no nonofficial
Vietnamese would allow their names to be printed in this article. As
one businessman in Ho Chi Minh City put it, with a touch of bitterness,
"We have freedom here, but it is under control."
The American War Is Ancient History
In a cozy refuge from the rain, six teenage boys sat in a tiny arcade
in Hanoi jittering and shouting in their seats as they played war games
on a row of computers.
To the sounds of synthetic gunfire, the computers charted their
progress with exclamation points:
"Long was blown away by Ken's super rocket!"
"Nam caught Ken's hand grenade!"
Exactly 25 years ago, boys their age were firing real rockets and
throwing hand grenades in North Vietnam's final assault on the South.
What did these postwar youngsters think of that? The question was
greeted with blank stares.
"Twenty-five years ago?" said one boy. "Is that right?"
For the large majority of Vietnamese who were born after the war, or
who were only children when it ended, much of it apparently seems,
literally, ancient history.
"It is just one of a whole series of events that they are supposed to
revere in school, but for many of them it doesn't have any more
specific meaning than the Vietnamese victories over the Chinese in the
10th century," said Peter Zinoman, a professor of Vietnamese history at
the University of California at Berkeley.
"Another reason for their disengagement," he added, "is this whole new
culture of consumption that does sort of preoccupy them."
Vietnam has seen little of the kind of political debate, national
soul-searching or artistic reconsideration of the war that has helped
the United States to try to draw lessons since the fall of Saigon.
In part this is because an unqualifiedly heroic version of the war is
essential to the legitimacy of the Communist Party. There is no
disputing official propaganda.
A result is that art, journalism and policy discussions remain
constricted by political boundaries as well as by a genuine respect for
the elderly heroes of the Communist victory. "Making compromises is
something we have to do now," said a Hanoi-based official in his late
30's. "We cannot make our fathers feel so unhappy. They are our
fathers. What can we do? We must accommodate their thinking."
For younger Vietnamese eager to get onto the world's fast track, he
conceded, this delicacy can be maddening.
"As my father often says, 'You didn't live under the French. You didn't
see how people were starving.'
"I say, 'Other countries in the region are moving ahead now and they
are prosperous.'
"He says, 'They're in crisis.'
"I say, 'Now they are emerging and they are moving faster than we are.
We should have taken advantage but we didn't take advantage.' "
The young official seemed ready to burst with frustration.
"What Vietnam is doing now is toddling, like a child," he said. "So I
say to them, 'Why not try the adult method: firm, but faster!' "
As some Vietnamese like to say, 25 years is a long time in a human life
but a short time in history. Most people here agree that change will
come in its own good time.
But without America's openness in discussing and digesting its history,
the future, when it does arrive, may indeed be the alien visitor the
country's leaders fear.
There are already signs that they may be losing control of their own
history. Tu Anh, for example, a company project manager who was born in
1975, talked in surprising detail the other day about the long-ago war.
But her information did not come from textbooks or her elders. The
source she cited was a pirated copy of the movie "Forrest Gump."
* Seminar on ODA Project Management Opens in Vietnam
HANOI (April 12) XINHUA - A two-day seminar opened in Vietnam 's
northern city of Hai Phong Wednesday to discuss how to improve the
management and implementation of official development assistance ODA)
projects and training of personnel for the projects in the country.
Attending the seminar are nearly 200 representatives from Vietnam's
relevant ministries and project management boards and international
donors and organizations, Vietnam News Agency reported Wednesday.
The seminar is jointly organized by Vietnam's Ministry of Planning and
Investment, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Japanese
Bank for International Cooperation.
In a report delivered Wednesday morning, the Vietnamese Ministry of
Planning and Investment assessed the management and implementation of
ODA projects since 1993 and typical difficulties encountered in recent
years.
Other speeches dealt with legal regulations related to ODA projects,
such as investment, construction, financial management, site clearance
and resettlement, contract management and the quality control process.
The seminar will work out an action plan for improving the
implementation of ODA projects, to be submitted to the Vietnamese
government and donors.
International donors have pledged to provide the country with 15.14
billion U.S. dollars in ODA.
Relations were established between Vietnam and the international donor
community in 1993. Since then, seven conferences have been held by the
Consultative Group of international donors for Vietnam.
* Vietnam Launches Month of Action for Food Safety
HANOI (April 12) XINHUA - Vietnam is making efforts to ensure food
hygiene and safety by launching here Wednesday the Month of Action for
Food Safety and Hygiene.
Attending the launching ceremony, held by the country's Health Ministry
and Hanoi People's Committee, were representatives of the World Health
Organization, the Embassy of Japan, the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization and the Asian Development Bank,according to a report of
Vietnam News Agency.
The Month of Action for Food Safety and Hygiene will last from April 15
to May 15 with the aim of broadening knowledge and ensuring the
practice of hygiene and food safety by production, processing and
trading establishments, particularly small and medium establishments,
food stands in markets and on streets and consumers.
It also aims to improve the state's management in this sector.
Vietnam's Health Minister Do Nguyen Phuong said the number of acute
food poisoning cases has increased. Major cases involving many people
frequently occur at funeral parties and in the dining halls of
factories, enterprises and schools.
People's knowledge of food safety and hygiene is very poor and many
people in the food industry are also uninformed and will do anything to
make profit while paying no attention to the health of consumers,
Phuong stressed.
Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem encouraged the entire
people to take part in the Month of Action for Food Safety and Hygiene
and called for assistance from foreign countries and international
organizations in this field.
As many as 45 food poisoning cases were reported, affecting 1, 530
victims in the first three months of this year, according to reports
from 39 out of the 61 cities and provinces nationwide. Of the victims,
17 died. In the same period last year, 1,451 people suffered food
poisoning and 18 of them died.
* Rules of disengagement
The Ottawa Citizen, 7/4/00
Rules of Engagement ***
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Guy Pearce, Bruce
Greenwood
Directed by: William Friedkin
Written by: Stephen Gaghan
Rating: AA
Playing at: AMC Kanata, SilverCity, Coliseum, Rideau Centre,
Gloucester, Orleans, South Keys, Cinema 9, StarCite, Promenades
It's a fable of the fighting man that we have come to know as well as
the old stories of glory over the English Channel or how John Wayne
took Iwo Jima: a hands-on, under-fire, war-hero leatherneck who took a
gutsy shortcut to victory through a hail of bullets and candy-ass
regulations finds himself facing his new enemy in a courtroom, a slick
greenhorn Marine lawyer out to prove that he did something wrong by
fighting for his country in the best way he knew how. The lawyer is
smart and smarmy and hasn't been closer to the front lines than the
officer's club at West Point, and at some stage -- just like those
British Spitfires are going to shoot down the Nazi planes, just like
John Wayne is going to lead the boys over the top -- we know the Marine
hero is going to stand up and tell the Monday morning quarterbacks that
they can't handle the truth, or, in the case of Col. Terry Childers,
decorated hero in the hotseat, "I was not going to stand by and watch
another Marine die just to live by those f---- rules."
It's the money shot in this new genre of post-Vietnam war film, where
the battles concern not land or ideology but second-guessing and shaky
geopolitical morality. It is delivered with full, popcorn-curdling fury
by Samuel L. Jackson, the hero of Rules of Engagement, the latest and
best-looking of the military courtroom movies. It is an unnecessary
movie, its point having been made in a dozen earlier versions -- the
point being that politicians are double-dealers who sell noble soldiers
down the river -- but it is a stylish one.
That is thanks to William Friedkin, an old war hero himself, having
served with distinction in The Exorcist and The French Connection
before he was banished to the desk jobs of The Guardian and Blue Chips.
Friedkin takes three sequences in Rules of Engagement -- a Vietnam
battle set in 1968, a current uprising in Yemen, and a series of
courtroom scenes where striped Venetian blind lighting colours the
proceedings with the patina of ethical compromise -- and makes them
into master classes in the chaos of action and consequence.
The Vietnam sequence is where we first meet Childers and Col. Hays
Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones). Childers saves Hodges' life with an act of
brutal courage: he shoots a prisoner of war to persuade his commander
to call off a raid. Twenty-eight years later, Childers has become a
model Marine and Hodges, on the eve of retirement, is pictured as a
cynical, failed Marine lawyer -- 67th in his class -- who has taken
refuge in the bottle and the trout stream. This is not how we want
Tommy Lee Jones in a film, of course, but don't fear: he overcomes the
cumbersome plot and turns into exactly the guy you want defending you
if you are ever charged with conduct unbecoming and murder.
That occurs when Childers is sent to Yemen to free beleaguered
ambassador Ben Kingsley from an American embassy under siege from a
chanting, rock-throwing mob of locals, supported by snipers on nearby
roofs. It's too bad the Jihad-maddened Arab has to be brought yet again
into the Hollywood film to provide a suitable enemy, but Rules of
Engagement hints at a promising ambiguity when Childers gives the order
to open fire on the crowd of civilians. Eighty-three of them are
killed, including women and children.
What really happened at that embassy becomes the focus of the resulting
court martial of Col. Childers, although it is given away far too
quickly and stripped of all its what-if sophistication. What looks like
it will be a film about points of view and battlefield decisions turns
into a story about suppressed evidence and clear thinking.
Nor is it difficult to tell that William Sokal, the national security
adviser, is going to be vilified: for one thing, he's played archly by
Bruce Greenwood, and for another, he's the national security adviser.
His problem is that Yemen is a moderate nation, and if Childers doesn't
take the fall for the deaths, no matter what happened, there will be
diplomatic hell to pay.
With the sides set out so clearly, the pleasures in the movie come down
to the Yemen embassy battle, where Friedkin's bouncing camera captures
both the fear and confusion of war and protest, and the performances by
the stars. Jackson and Jones bring such easy masculine authority to
their roles that we can forgive them a silly fistfight in
mid-investigation. Jackson has to look stirring in several scenes where
he snaps to attention and salutes the U.S. flag -- U.S. flags in
varying degrees of bullet damage play a supporting role in the film --
but he's an actor of deep resources and you can buy him in it.
Jones, meanwhile, can make even self-deprecation sound confident: "I'm
a good enough lawyer to know you need a better lawyer than me," he says
and he overcomes his father fixation and alcohol problem quickly enough
to tackle prosecutor Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential), whose hollow
cheekbones make him a shoo-in for the lead in the Gene Tierney biopic.
Rules of Engagement ends with one of those tacked-on postscripts that
only underlines the weakness of the storyline. It tells us what
happened to all the characters without telling us how; the resolutions
are not even hinted at in the film itself. Of course, it's easy to sit
here and second-guess filmmakers who were just doing their best in the
trenches of movie star battle, while budgets exploded all around them.
Besides, it is well known that we can't handle the truth.
* U.S. War Vet Returns To Help Laos
PHONE HONG, Laos (AP, 13/4/00) -- Nightmares about the most intense air
bombardment in history have brought American war veteran Lee Thorn back
to bygone battlefields of Indochina -- this time to help heal a
still-suffering people, and himself.
Almost every night for three decades, Lee Thorn says he dreamed of
straddling a bomb that screamed toward earth and a group of children
and animals it was about to kill. Bombs like those he once loaded onto
Navy warplanes.
Then the 56-year-old veteran came to Laos and Vietnam, to places he
helped destroy, and the nightmares vanished. For the first time in 31
years, Thorn was able to sleep until dawn.
" You know, Laos isn' t even mentioned in American high school history
books, " Thorn says, entering one of 10 derelict hospitals he has
stocked with vitally needed medical supplies. " Yet what happened here
was the worst of war horrors."
The last American bomb fell on Laos 27 years ago and the Communists
celebrate the 25th anniversary of their victory this year, but Thorn
says reconciliation is far from complete and suffering from the war
persists.
Unexploded U.S. ordnance, particularly small anti-personnel devices,
continues to kill and maim hundreds in the Laotian countryside,
especially on the Plain of Jars, the birthplace of Thorn' s close
associate Boonthanh Phommasathit.
As a young girl Boonthanh fled the bombardment, and several years after
the Communist victory became a refugee for the second time when she,
her husband and two babies escaped to neighboring Thailand. They later
found asylum in the United States.
A social worker in Etna, Ohio, Boonthanh visited her homeland in 1991,
finding wretched health conditions and poverty in Phone Hong, a town 70
miles north of the capital Vientiane, where her parents lived.
Nobody responded to her pleas for aid until she established contact
with Thorn in 1997. In the 1960s, he had returned from Southeast Asia
to become a prominent anti-war organizer and management consultant in
San Francisco. He also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder,
battling alcoholism, marital problems and insomnia.
Laos, Thorn says, preyed on his mind. It was the forgotten place of the
Vietnam War and it needed help. One of the poorest countries on earth,
Laos has among Asia' s highest infant mortality rates and life
expectancy is 53 years. The health budget for Vientiane Province, where
Thorn decided to work, comes to 50 cents per person a year.
In early 1998 Thorn and childhood friend Richard Stoll, a San Francisco
attorney, hauled 200 pounds of medical supplies in duffel bags to Phone
Hong. Boonthanh brought others.
Working alongside local doctors, teachers and authorities, Project
Hearts and Minds-Laos will this year focus on providing water,
sanitation and health education to poor village schools.
Assistance, Thorn says, comes from conservative Christians, Laotian
Communists, Vietnam War veterans and the U.S. Air Force, which recently
flew in his latest aid package -- 10 tons of medical supplies worth $1
million -- free of charge.
Trying for more self-sufficiency, Thorn has launched the export of
superb Laotian " Arabica typica" coffee to the United States, with
profits to be put into the projects.
" What we are trying to do is the opposite of war, " says Thorn, a
soft-spoken man with a trim gray beard and middle-age spread. " Ours is
a reconciliation project."
Thorn recalls that he didn' t initially question America' s involvement
in Indochina when serving on an aircraft carrier off the coast of North
Vietnam in 1966.
Many of the carrier' s planes would unleash their cargo over the Plain
of Jars, where U.S.-backed forces were attempting to stop Laotian
Communists and their North Vietnamese allies. The United States would
eventually drop 2 million tons of bombs on Laos, more than was used by
its forces during all of World War II.
What turned him against the war and set off his traumas, Thorn says,
was a raid on the oil refinery in the North Vietnamese port of
Haiphong. An intense firestorm was ignited that raged through
surrounding residential areas.
The young navyman was tasked with screening post-operation footage of
the airstrike -- three times.
Thorn points to a mural on the wall of a Buddhist temple near Phone
Hong depicting a vision of hell: men speared, boiled and butchered like
animals; women chained and raped.
He first came to this quiet, ancient sanctuary during his 1998 trip to
Laos and Vietnam, and it' s become a special place, the place where his
nightmares stopped.
" To me this painting is war and it' s set right next to images of
great peace, " Thorn says. " I began to understand that the villagers
here, who have suffered so much, could accept such horror as a part of
life, that they could still lead normal, daily lives."
" I had been blessed. I began to get a perspective on my own history, "
Thorn said as monks and village elders gathered around him. " I began
to understand that you can' t bury evil."
* Nasdaq tumbles again, loses 7 percent
CNET News.com, 12/4/00 - Sparked by an analyst's negative comments
about Microsoft, tech stocks were pounded again today as the Nasdaq
composite index recorded its sixth-biggest decline.
Dragged down by Microsoft this morning, the Nasdaq's descent picked up
speed as the day wore on. When the dust settled, the tech-heavy index
was off 286.39, or 7.1 percent, to 3,769.51. The damage spread to such
tech bellwethers as Cisco Systems, Intel and Sun Microsystems.
With today's decline, the Nasdaq has lost 25 percent of its value since
it reached a record high barely one month ago. When it peaked on March
10, the Nasdaq was sitting on a gain of 24 percent for the year. It has
now lost 7.4 percent in 2000. Today's plunge ranks as the
second-largest point loss and the sixth-largest decline in percentage
terms.
The Dow Jones industrial average appeared to be benefiting from the
Nasdaq's malaise, as investors diverted money to the more conservative,
"old economy" stocks that comprise the index. Throughout the day the
Dow was in positive territory, but the pessimism eventually enveloped
it, sending it down 161.95, or 1.4 percent, to 11,125.13.
Today's trouble started when Goldman Sachs lowered its third-quarter
revenue estimates for Microsoft, citing reduced demand for personal
computers. In addition, Justice Department officials would not rule out
a breakup of the company to settle its antitrust case against the
software giant.
Microsoft shares fell $4.50 to $79.38 on volume of 76.5 million shares,
more than twice the daily average, making it the second-most actively
traded stock on the Nasdaq Stock Market behind Cisco. Microsoft shares
have plunged 25 percent this month and are down 32 percent so far this
year.
"Folks are saying 'Wait a minute--if Microsoft isn't going to be able
to exceed expectations, we'll stay on the sidelines'" and refrain from
buying technology shares, said Michael Manns, who holds the software
giant's shares as senior portfolio manager at American Express
Financial Advisors.
Among other tech heavyweights that were caught in the downdraft, Cisco
lost $5 to $65, Hewlett-Packard shed $11.31 to $134.50, and Intel fell
$8.88 to $121.88.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 33.42, or 2 percent, to 1,467.17;
the CNET tech index lost 194.25 to 2,963.74. Among the 98 stocks
tracked by the index, losers outnumbered winners 93 to five.
Of the 18 sectors tracked, Internet services companies posted the
sharpest decline, falling about 10 percent.
Compuware lost $8.13, or 40 percent, to $11.94 after the company warned
that fourth-quarter earnings will not meet Wall Street expectations.
Even analyst support could not stem losses by many stocks. Analysts
reiterated "strong buy" ratings on DoubleClick, Conexant Systems and
Level 3 Communications, yet all three posted significant losses.
DoubleClick fell $6.19, or 8 percent, to $70.38; Conexant fell $9.25,
or 13 percent, to $62; and Level 3 dropped $12.56, or 15 percent, to
$69.31.
Telecom stocks, however, managed to post small gains.
Cox Communications gained 25 cents to $46.19, SBC Communications rose
44 cents to $47.69, and Bell Atlantic inched up 31 cents to $64.38.
Nortel Networks fell $13, or 11 percent, to $103.75. The company signed
a $500 million deal with Verizon, the company that was created from the
merger of Bell Atlantic and Vodafone.
The Philadelphia semiconductor index fell 94.21, or 8 percent, to
1,037.70, led by chip designer Rambus, which lost $32.19, or 13
percent, to $213.81.
Shares of Rambus, Advanced Micro Devices and Redback Networks may cause
further swings on the markets tomorrow. The technology companies
released quarterly earnings today after the markets closed.
"There was constant selling pressure throughout the day, so every time
the market tried to rally there were more shares around waiting to
sell," said Tony Cecin, head of equity trading at U.S. Bancorp Piper
Jaffray. "I feel that the Nasdaq will test the lows established during
last week's trading lows.
"Tomorrow will be a reasonably significant day," he added. "In my
opinion, the market has to show the ability to rally, or we're probably
looking at levels between 3,000 to 3,500."
* Nasdaq 'Searching for Lows' Reuters
CHICAGO (Reuters, 12/4/00) -- The Nasdaq composite stock index dropped
as much as 5 percent Wednesday after more bad news on some of its major
technology components, but technical analysts say the index is groping
for a bottom near term.
The closely watched index fell 5.0 percent, or 203.60 points, to a
late-morning low of 3,852.30, down 25 percent from its intraday
all-time high of 5,132.52 on March 10.
At 11:25 a.m. (PDT), the Nasdaq composite was at 3,885.04, down 4.2
percent or 170.86 points on the day.
Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) slid after an analyst with investment house
Goldman Sachs cut his fiscal third-quarter revenue forecast for the
software giant. Compuware (CPWR) shares ebbed when the software maker
warned that its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings would fall far short of
Wall Street forecasts.
"The market is groping for a bottom," said Paul Cherney, a Standard &
Poor's market analyst.
Share volume is expanding on intraday price advances, marking a subtle
underlying change, though price declines are obviously outnumbering
advances, Cherney said.
Cherney said the index put in a tentative low from 3,864.00 to 3,854.00
Wednesday. If it breaks that area decisively, "I would not rule out a
test of what I call 'last chance' support from 3,711.00 to 3,649.11,"
he added.
The latter level was the April 4 intraday low when the index fell as
much as 575 points before whipping back.
On the day the index drops into that area of support from 3,711.00 to
3,649.11, if fewer than 280, and preferably fewer than 230, of the
5,000 or so Nasdaq stocks hit new 52-week lows, the market should be
within hours of making a bottom, Cherney said.
Volume would not need to approach the April 4 record of 2.79 billion
shares, but would need to approach from 1.9 billion to 2.0 billion to
suggest that the index is nearing or has reached a capitulation point
that would bring in buyers, Cherney said.
Terence Gabriel, a technical analyst at IDEAglobal.com, said the Nasdaq
composite was trying to establish a second low to turn back to the
upside from a short-term downtrend.
"So, looking forward two to four weeks I expect to see the composite
higher, but the short-term trend is still down and trying to find some
low," Gabriel said.
On Wednesday the index broke 3,880.00, roughly a 50 percent retracement
of the 2,500 point rally from October to March, and the next support
may be at 3,649.11, Gabriel said.
A break of the 61.8 percent retracement of the rally at about 3,600.00
would open a risk toward the 200-day moving average near 3,490.00,
Gabriel added.
However, Gabriel said he did not expect the index to retrace the whole
upmove from the October lows with the daily RSI quite oversold and the
weekly approaching oversold.
A move back above resistance at 4,200.00 and the 4,475.20 April 10 high
would be a clear indication that the composite is out of the woods,
Gabriel said.
In the meantime, the volatility in the Nasdaq composite is likely to
continue, Gabriel said. The index is running at about 5 percent
volatility per session, or roughly 200 points or more per day from the
low to the high.
"There does not seem to be much appreciation for that degree of swing,"
Gabriel said. "Investors are being very much whipsawed by extreme
pessimism and extreme euphoria."
* Cell Membrane Protein Reduces Cholesterol
ScienceDaily, 13/4/00 - A cell membrane protein thought mainly to bind
"bad" cholesterol and remove it from circulation also plays a major
role in reducing the production of that cholesterol, according to a
study published this February in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The UW-Madison study provides new insights into the nature of
lipoprotein overproduction in people with familial hypercholesterolemia
(FH), an inherited disease that affects one in 500 people. The research
also explains how statins, a class of medications taken by several
million Americans, work to lower blood cholesterol levels.
Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) carries cholesterol to other cells in the
body that need it. People whose blood levels of LDL - the "bad"
cholesterol - are too high have an increased risk of heart disease.
Individuals with FH have extremely high levels of LDL and are at high
risk for heart attacks at an early age.
"In the 1970s researchers discovered that the LDL receptor is
responsible for removing most of the cholesterol from blood," according
to Alan Attie, a biochemist in the College of Agricultural and Life
Sciences. "They showed that a mutation in the gene that codes for the
LDL receptor causes FH. Most people thought that the receptor's major
function was to clear LDL from blood."
However, scientists later found that people with FH have high LDL
levels not only because they clear it from their blood too slowly, but
also because they produce too much, Attie says. "Ours is the first
study that explains the paradox of why people with FH produce too much
LDL," he says. "We showed that functional LDL receptors increase the
degradation of apolipoprotein B inside liver cells."
Apolipoprotein B (apoB) is the major protein component of very
low-density lipoprotein, which is made by liver cells and converted to
LDL in the blood. The rate of apoB production in liver cells - and thus
LDL production - is determined by how much apoB is degraded inside the
cells before they secrete very low-density lipoprotein into the blood.
Attie led the research team, which included Jaap Twisk, Donald
Gillian-Daniel, Angie Tebon, Lin Wang, and Hugh Barrett. Barrett is
with the University of Western Australia in Perth; the others were with
the UW-Madison at the time the research was done. Twisk is now with the
University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and Wang is at the University
of California-San Diego in La Jolla, Calif.
The scientists studied liver cells from mice with functional LDL
receptors and mice with mutant, nonfunctional receptors. Mice with the
mutation showed symptoms analogous to those of people with FH. Their
average blood cholesterol level was more than three times that of mice
with functioning receptors.
The researchers examined how the presence or absence of LDL receptors
affected the secretion of apoB from mouse liver cells. They studied
apoB secretion from cells with receptors, from cells with the mutation,
and from mutant cells they altered by introducing unusually large
numbers of functional receptors.
"We found that although all three types of cells synthesized the same
amount of apoB, they degraded different amounts before secreting it,"
Attie says.
The study found that liver cells with functional receptors degraded 55
percent of the apoB they made before releasing it. Liver cells with
FH-like mutant receptors degraded only 20 percent of the apoB they
made. However, when large numbers of functional receptors were added to
those same mutant cells, they degraded 90 percent of the apoB they
synthesized before secreting it.
The results also explain why statin medications - which include the
brands Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Lescol, Mevacor and Baycol - are
effective in lowering serum LDL levels. As a class of pharmaceuticals,
statins inhibit cholesterol production. Liver cells respond to this
decrease in cholesterol by producing more LDL receptors on their
surfaces. It's long been believed that the additional receptors lowered
blood cholesterol levels by clearing LDL-cholesterol from the plasma.
Attie notes, however, that statins do not improve the removal of
LDL-cholesterol in many people, yet result in lower LDL-cholesterol
levels anyway.
"Several studies have shown that statins reduce cholesterol
production," Attie says. "We've shown that cells with the most LDL
receptors have the lowest production of apoB. By stimulating the
production of receptors, statins lower the amount of LDL that is
produced."
The UW-Madison scientists are now focusing their efforts on discovering
the mechanism by which the LDL receptor limits apoB and LDL production.
The research was supported by state funding to the College of
Agricultural and Life Sciences and a grant from the National Heart,
Lung and Blood Institute.
* Cancer-Preventive Potential Of White Tea - Study Finds Rare Tea May
Be Healthiest of All
SAN FRANCISCO (ScienceDaily, 29/3/00) — Known mostly to tea
connoisseurs, white tea may have the strongest potential of all teas
for fighting cancer, according to Oregon State University researchers.
They will present their research today — the first on white tea — at
the 219th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the
world’s largest scientific society.
Among the rarest and most expensive varieties of tea, white tea is
produced almost exclusively in China. It belongs to the same species
(Camellia sinensis) as other tea plants, but has a higher proportion of
buds to leaves. The buds are covered by silvery hairs, giving the plant
a whitish appearance.
Some teas are processed more than others. White tea is rapidly steamed
and dried, leaving the leaves virtually “fresh.” Green tea, composed of
mainly leaves, is steamed or fired prior to being rolled. Oolong and
black teas get their dark color and flavor from additional processing.
The researchers theorize that processing may play a part in tea’s
cancer-fighting potential. The key is a class of chemicals called
polyphenols.
“Many of the more potent tea polyphenols (‘catechins’) become oxidized
or destroyed as green tea is further processed into oolong and black
teas,” says Roderick H. Dashwood, Ph.D., a biochemist in the
university’s Linus Pauling Institute and principal investigator of the
study. “Our theory was that white tea might have equivalent or higher
levels of these polyphenols than green tea, and thus be more
beneficial.”
Chemical analysis confirmed their theory. White tea contains the same
types of polyphenols as green tea, but in different proportions. Those
present in greater amounts may be responsible for white tea’s enhanced
cancer-fighting potential, says Dashwood.
Encouraged by reports of cancer-fighting chemicals in green tea, the
researchers decided to test white tea to determine whether it has
similar qualities. They brewed four varieties of white tea and
subjected each to a laboratory test using bacteria. The test, called
the Salmonella assay, determines whether a chemical can cause or
prevent DNA mutations, the earliest steps leading to cancer.
White tea inhibited mutations more efficiently than green tea. This
means it may have more potential to prevent cancer than green tea, says
Gilberto Santana-Rios, Ph.D., a post-doctoral research associate with
the institute, located in Corvallis, Ore.
The researchers, now performing experiments in rats, report that their
latest data indicate that white tea may protect against colon cancer in
particular. They attribute this to elevated levels of particular liver
enzymes.
The researchers say more studies are needed to determine whether white
tea actually protects people against cancer.
“White tea, and tea in general, is a healthy alternative to other
popular drinks, such as sodas,” says Dashwood. “But to be on the safe
side, one should maintain a healthy lifestyle that includes a diet rich
in fruits and vegetables, regular exercise, and avoidance of smoking.”
Dr. Dashwood is Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental
and Molecular Toxicology at Oregon State University. He also is
Principal Investigator with the university’s Linus Pauling Institute.
Dr. Santana-Rios is a post-doctoral Research Associate with the Linus
Pauling Institute.
* Heat Capacity Of Glassy Substance Holds Key To Its Transition Kinetics
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (ScienceDaily, 13/4/00) -- The idea that rigidity and
orderliness go together is a triumph of modern theoretical physics. But
how these two properties interrelate when a liquid is cooled and
becomes solid-like -- a phenomenon called the glass transition -- has
been less clear. Now, University of Illinois chemical physics professor
Peter Wolynes and graduate student Xiaoyu Xia have found a way to
explain the odd behavior of glassy materials.
"A periodic array of atoms in a crystal behaves differently than a
fluid," said Wolynes, who holds the James R. Eiszner Chair in chemistry
at the UI. "For example, you can't move just one atom in an array
without displacing the entire structure. The rigidity of glass, an
amorphous solid, is more mysterious. Without any apparent order, this
chaotic jumble of atoms behaves as if rigidly frozen."
Glassy phenomena typically occur on long time scales. "How rapidly the
time scale increases as the material is cooled is what determines the
'fragility,' " Wolynes said. "The fragility differentiates rapid
glass-formers -- like polymers -- from slow ones -- such as ordinary
window glass. Quantitatively relating fragility to other glass-forming
characteristics has been an elusive goal, however."
Ten years ago, Wolynes developed a theory called the Random First Order
Transition Theory of Glasses that qualitatively described the
glass-transition phenomenon. The resulting mathematical expression was
based upon microscopic theories of freezing.
Unlike ordinary freezing -- which typically involves only a few orderly
patterns -- it appeared there were many patterns into which a liquid
could freeze and still be called disordered, Wolynes said. The number
of possible freezing patterns seemed to be correlated with the
material's rigidity.
"In the intervening years, we realized we could take our theory and
quantitatively explain the one number that was needed to distinguish
one glassy substance from another -- the fundamental flow
characteristic called fragility," Wolynes said. "We could then
correlate a material's fragility with thermodynamic measurements of its
heat capacity."
While the heat capacity of a liquid is rather high, at the glass
transition it falls to a value more typical of the crystalline state.
The heat capacity is especially interesting because it is related to
the amount of disorder, or entropy, in a substance: A liquid with a
large heat capacity loses entropy much more rapidly as it cools. By
measuring the heat capacity of a substance, and then plugging it into
their equation, the researchers can predict the speed at which the
molecular motion changes with temperature.
"The fact that all glassy materials can now be expressed in a universal
form gives us much greater confidence that we truly understand the
glass-transition phenomenon," Wolynes said. "This knowledge will be
useful in many other fields of study, including protein folding."
Wolynes and Xia described their theory in the March 28 issue of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
* Herbs to Combat Springtime Woes?
Ask Dr. Weil, 13/4/00
Q. April is here, and I've got spring fever. My allergies are in bloom,
too. Any suggestions for herbal remedies? -- Anonymous
A. April really can be the cruelest month -- we've got the added stress
of tax season, many of us suffer from hay fever and allergies, and
changing the clocks for daylight saving can leave some of us tired. The
following herbal remedies can help get you past the seasonal symptoms:
Astragalus (Astragalus membranaceous): This Chinese plant can boost
vitality and immunity, treat chronic or recurrent infections, and help
overcome the physical effects of stress. Look for tincture or capsules
of astragalus root standardized to 15% polysaccharides.
Cordyceps (Cordyceps sinesis): The Chinese use this fungus as a tonic
for physical stamina, mental energy, sexual vigor, and to overcome
general weakness and fatigue. Take two capsules once a day or follow
the dosage advice on the product.
Quercetin: A bioflavonoid from buckwheat and citrus fruits, quercetin
helps prevent hay fever, hives, and other allergic reactions (when
taken regularly for at least 6 to 8 weeks). Buy 400 mg coated tablets
and take one twice a day.
Stinging Nettle Plant (Urtica dioica): The leaves of the stinging
nettle bush are an effective treatment for symptoms of hay fever --
with no side effects. Buy capsules of freeze-dried leaves and take one
to two every two to four hours as needed.
Valerian (Valeriana officinalis): Use tincture, extract, or tablets of
valerian as a remedy for insomnia or anxiety. Take only with your
doctor's supervision if you're using antihistamines, sedatives, muscle
relaxants, psychotropic drugs, or narcotics. Valerian may also interact
with alcohol. People with impaired kidney or liver functions shouldn't
take valerian except under a physician's supervision.
You can find other herbal suggestions for the season in my Spring
Herbal Medicine Chest. Check it out.
One other health advice for spring: With better weather and longer
days, many of us go overboard with new exercise programs or outdoor
activities. Go easy. A strain or sprain could ruin the whole season.
hyt...@my-deja.com
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