Some news related to VN '98 (103)
Kim Nguyen
Note : Just for online reading, not for redistribution
* Vietnam's anaesthetising sorceress sentenced to death
ABC, 3/4/98
A woman who posed as a real estate agent has been sentenced to death by a
Vietnamese court after being convicted of killing five people whom she
drugged and then robbed.
Tran Thi Chac, 60, dubbed the anaesthetising sorceress by the local press,
was sentenced to death by the People's Court of Binh Thuan province.
The court heard she posed as a real estate agent wanting to buy property in
rural areas for high prices to gain entry into people's houses. then
drugged them and stole their property.
Chac was accused of having drugged and robbed 82 people between 1983 and
1996.
Five of her victims died after being rendered unconscious by the drugs.
* Vietnam to stick with open-door policy-report
HANOI, April 3 (Reuters) - Vietnam has no intention of abandoning its
open-door policy to foster development but also intends to focus on using
its internal resources, Communist Party Secretary General Le Kha Phieu
said.
Phieu, the country's top official, made the remarks in an interview with a
Vietnam Foreign Ministry journal published on Friday in the Nhan Dan
newspaper, the communist party mouthpiece.
``In no place can people close the door themselves. If the door is closed,
then it will open later itself and this is the same for Vietnam,'' Phieu
said.
``In this situation closing the door and carrying out modernisation and
industrialisation...is an illusion.''
Phieu, who became secretary general late last year, was responding to a
question quoting some foreign observers as saying Vietnam had become more
inward looking since the last Communist Party congress in 1996.
Vietnam threw open its doors to foreign trade and investment in the late
1980s and freed parts of the economy from state control, triggering a
commercial and foreign tourist boom.
However, elements in the communist party have reacted with alarm to some
social changes brought about by a decade of reform and open-door policies.
Campaigns to stamp out ``social evils'' such as prostitution and drug abuse
peaked at the time of the 1996 congress.
Last September the official Vietnam News Agency said foreigners were
engaged in widespread crime and subversion.
Phieu, a former military commissar, said Vietnam would also focus on its
internal resources.
``If we rely on just foreign money to carry out industrialisation it's
difficult to maintain economic and political independence,'' he said.
Phieu also made clear that the country's plan to sell off parts of
state-owned enterprises, called equitisation in Vietnam, would not lead to
full privatisation.
``We must understand that equitisation of the state sector is not
privatisation and it doesn't mean that the following stage is
privatisation,'' he said.
* Vietnam PM launches drive to slash red tape
HANOI, April 3 (Reuters) - Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has
instructed government ministries to cut red tape to improve the business
climate, the official Vietnam News daily reported on Friday.
Khai's written directive, which took effect on Tuesday, gave officials 15
days to deal with delayed investment proposals and complaints from
companies, the newspaper said.
The initiative followed a series a meetings Khai held with foreign and
local businessmen across the country earlier this year, where he heard a
litany of complaints about the difficulty of doing business in Vietnam.
An official at the Government Office confirmed the details in the Vietnam
News report but declined to comment further.
Khai's instruction said once the 15-day period had expired, all officials
must report the results to the prime minister's Office. Some matters could
then be referred directly to Khai, the report added.
The Hanoi Moi newspaper also said Khai had set a deadline of April 30 for
ministries and related agencies to improve the foreign investment
environment.
Khai, who is in London for the second Asia-Europe Meeting, took office last
September and has won praise for his efforts to improve the business
climate in Vietnam.
However, political analysts have said the reform-minded Khai was
constrained by Vietnam's consensus-based politics.
Businessmen and economists have said Khai's meetings earlier this year,
where he sought to reassure businessmen about the country's commitment to
reform, would be pointless unless he followed through with firm action.
Khai ordered the Ministry of Trade to revise regulations and statutes to
promote export enterprises.
He also said export licensing would be abrogated, except for items that
needed government control, the Vietnam News report said, without
elaborating.
Khai also ordered the Customs Department to dismiss any officers guilty of
fraud.
Varying official figures show foreign investment fell 40-50 percent in 1997
compared with the previous year.
* Vietnam's bureaucrats told to cut their paper blockade of commerce.
ABC (The Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 3/4/98
Vietnamese Prime Minister, Phan Van Khai has ordered government agencies to
stop bureaucratic obstructions in an effort to boost business and
investment.
He has instructed Ministries and Departments to revise their regulations
and administrative procedures withing the next 15 days.
The order follows meetings between the Prime Minister and local and foreign
business leaders who say bureaucrats are creating major hurdles to doing
business in Vietnam.
Mr Khai has asked the Customs Department and agencies to keep a close watch
on activities of its officer and to dismiss those found guilty of fraud or
annoying business.
He also also asked the Ministry of Trade to revise regulations to promote
export enterprises.
* EU to offer sympathy, but little cash, for Asia's ailing economies
LONDON (AP, 3/4/98) -- The European Union is offering plenty of support and
sympathy for Asia's plummeting economies -- but little in the way of
financial aid -- during a summit with the region's leaders beginning today.
In the runup to the two-day conference, the 15 EU nations repeated pledges
to keep their markets open, knowing the Asians are banking on exports as a
way to rebound from their crises.
The summit's opening session today was expected to be a dissection of the
economic troubles afflicting the 10 participating Asian nations, followed
by a position statement signed by all those attending.
In a draft of that statement obtained by Dow-Jones news service, the
leaders called for open trade and urged full implementation of reform
programs already in progress in the Asian nations.
They also called for a strengthening of the international monetary system
-- in particular, financial supervision and crisis prevention techniques.
Though the statement reflected current anxieties, it also showed a general
optimism that Asia would bounce back from its woes, saying the leaders of
the 25 nations at the summit expressed "confidence that with full
implementation of the necessary policy reforms, financial stability would
be restored."
In concrete terms, the EU's biggest gift at the summit would be a trust
fund suggested by Britain, which currently holds the EU presidency.
But the fund, which would be managed by the World Bank, would amount to
very little. Britain has said it will pitch in $8.4 million, but other EU
countries have yet to announce their contributions.
Some officials from the Asian nations attending the meeting called the fund
little more than a symbolic gesture, but at least one representative
expressed appreciation.
"Personally, I think it's a good beginning and I would like to see it go
further to alleviate liquidity crunches of many countries," said Surin
Pitsuwan, Thailand's foreign minister.
On the sidelines of the Asia-Europe meeting, the European Union and China
held their first summit Thursday.
Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji first met with British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, and the two later were joined by the president of the European
Commission, Jacques Santer, and the EU Trade Commissioner, Sir Leon
Brittan.
The attendees at the Asia-Europe summit are: the 15 EU nations (Austria,
Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland,
Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden); the seven
members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Brunei, Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam); and Japan,
South Korea and China.
* "Made in VN" - The American Sneaker Controversy :
You decide -- Are they sweatshops?
ESPN, 2/4/98
http://espnet.sportszone.com/gen/features/
Even if you don't wear the shoes, you probably have heard of the
controversy that has dogged U.S. sneaker manufacturers over the past year.
If your footwear includes a swoosh or some other familiar logo on the side,
you may even have wondered if you're supporting companies that abuse its
workers.
To sort out a complex issue, ESPN's Outside the Lines sent reporters Bob
Ley and Mary Ann Grabavoy to Vietnam to tour the factories where the shoes
are produced that the rest of the world wears. They talked to the workers,
mostly young women, about their treatment by supervisors who often don't
speak the same language, their health concerns, and exactly how far the
going wage -- 23 cents an hour -- goes in Vietnam.
Their findings may surprise you. If you missed the April 2 television
special and post-show chat session with Ley, see what Outside the Lines
discovered at the three Reebok and one Nike factory they were permitted to
examine by clicking on the links at left, which represent the key areas of
concern.
If you don't like to download video, make an exception. This is your
opportunity to not only read up on the issue but see with your own eyes
what life is like for workers whose plight has subject Nike to scorn from
politicians, pundits and investors. This is no Gary Trudeau cartoon. It is
the real thing, designed to add flesh and blood to a debate that so far has
been dominated by rhetoric and abstract talk about global economies.
Finally, make sure to share your opinion in a special message board created
for ESPN SportsZone by the professors of a University of North Carolina
class that specifically focuses on Nike's labor situation. During the
week-long run of the SportsZone series, the professors and students will
take your questions and stimulate debate on the volatile topic.
Salary
It is 5 p.m. and the sun is setting but the temperature outside the Pou
Yuen shoe factory still hovers around 100 degrees. Liu Thi Nguyen, one of
the tens of thousands of workers who make the sneakers the world wears,
finds the bicycle that she bought with her entire first month's salary and
makes the nine-mile trek home along a dusty road.
Home is a boarding house, an 8-by-12 foot room with a corrugated steel roof
and a reed mat to rest her head on at night. Every morning at 4 and every
evening at 7, she cooks her rice on a makeshift hot plate in one corner of
the floor, then washes the dishes in the community courtyard.
She knows her life is not good.
"The company takes advantage of its workers," Lieu says through an
interpreter.
She said the Taiwanese-owned company she works for, which produces shoes
for Reebok, has made her and others show up early for work without getting
paid for it. Reebok concedes that it once asked workers to punch in early
but since has discontinued the practice.
Besides being cheated out of salary, the company also has paid only her $45
a month, despite a contract that calls for to be paid $47, she said.
"We want to protest but we're afraid of being fired (because) if we get
fired, then what?" she says.
And that is where the issue of pay gets tricky. The only option for many of
the workers, usually young females, is a life in the rice fields. While the
average annual salary of workers in foreign-owned shoe factories is only
$564 U.S -- $10.85 per week, $1.81 per day, 23 cents an hour -- it complies
with the minimum wage in a communist country desperate for foreign
investment. In fact, although the average worker in Ho Chi Minh City makes
$800 a year, many Vietnamese earn no more than $300.
The question is whether the sneaker companies should insist that workers be
paid more of a living wage. Pepsi built a bottling plant in Vietnam six
years ago and pays its entry-level workers, such as bottle cleaners, about
$960.
"The compensation for workers is not adequate and fair compared to the
profit that this company can make on a pair of shoes," said Madame Khanh, a
labor leader in Vietnam who has sought support in the U.S. for her cause.
"When we went to the United States, only then did we realize how cheap our
workers are paid."
Factory condidtions : Life on the glue line
Since going to work on the glue line at the Hiep Hung factory that makes
Reebok shoes, Le Thi Kim Loan says she has developed respiratory problems.
So she takes precautions, altering the cotton mask that the company gives
its workers.
"We have to wear extra layers under the protective masks because we don't
think that the mask will give enough protection," she says.
Dara O'Rourke, an environmental consultant for the United Nations and human
rights activist who has visited several Vietnamese shoe factories, calls
the worker's effort insufficient.
"Wearing a cotton mask to protect yourself against hazardous solvents is
like wearing flip-flops in the NBA," she said. "It just doesn't work."
Like Reebok, Nike defends the factory conditions where its shoes are
produced as more than adequate. The company says that it is working harder
with its subcontractors to offer an environment that protects the workers'
health and safety. Last year, responding to pressure, the South Korean
owners of one factory, Sam Yang, instituted health checks of workers, and
built more bathrooms and areas to rest.
Health concerns were raised, however, when an inspection report that was
prepared for Nike was leaked in November to the New York Times. Ernst &
Young found that workers at one factory were exposed to a chemical that
exceeded legal standards by 177 times in parts of the plant and that 77
percent of the employees suffered from respiratory problems. Nike says
those readings are impossible.
The chemical cited in the report, toluene, is known to cause damage to the
liver, kidneys and central nervous system. Female workers, most of whom are
between the ages of 16 and 28, also told Outside the Lines they also worry
about not being able to have babies.
"We don't know that toluene causes infertility, which is what they're
worried about," said Dr. Howard Frumpkin of Emory University. "But toluene
certainly causes a host of other reproductive problems, like birth defects,
low birth-weight babies, and developmental disabilities in the children."
The Ernst & Young report also found that workers in one factory with skin
or breathing problems had not been transferred to departments free of
chemicals and that more than half the workers who dealt with dangerous
chemicals did not wear protective masks or gloves. The factory was also
cited for excessive heat and noise, and failing to transfer workers who had
developed skin or breathing problems to other departments.
Nike says that improvements have been made since the report was issued in
January 1997. Indeed, Outside the Lines generally found the Nike factory it
toured to be clean and well-lit, with fans in places to cool the workers.
However, despite prominent signs, compliance with instructions for
employees to wear gloves, earplugs and masks was erratic.
Management : When cultures clash
The genesis of the American sneaker controversy goes back to late 1996,
when a female factory supervisor at one of the Nike plants struck 15 women
over their heads with the sole of a shoe. The supervisor was convicted and
jailed. A subsequent investigation by Vietnamese-American businessman Thyen
Nguyen found more incidents of abuse.
"While I was in Vietnam they had 56 women run around the factory for four
kilometers, and 15 of them fainted," Thuyen said. "You know, that's part of
the corporal punishment."
Thuyen's report found that the code of conduct that the company laid down
in 1992 was adequate but that the foreign contractors who owned the
factories consistently violated it. Since then, Nike has made a number of
changes in its monitoring of those factories and pledged to work with
President Clinton to eliminate so-called industry "sweatshops." One of the
steps taken was producing and distributing Code of Conduct cards to every
worker in their native language.
In that code of conduct, Nike pledges to seek partners that "recognize the
dignity of the individual, the rights of free association and collective
bargaining, and the right to a workplace free of harassment, abuse or
corporal punishment." The company says it works with subcontractors in
sessions on sexual harassment, physical an verbal abuse, and listening
skills.
Still, Outside the Lines witnessed two incidents of improper behavior by
supervisors last month at the company's plant outside Ho Chi Minh City, Tae
Kwang Vina, where 8,800 workers make 20,000 pairs of shoes a day. It was
the only plant Nike permitted Outside the Lines to visit.
Just before the end of the day's shift, a female Vietnamese supervisor was
observed slapping an employee sharply across the forearm for not spreading
glue slowly enough. When asked about the incident, the supervisor, Tran My
Linh said, "I was just reminding her that, you know, she did something
wrong, that's all ... That's just the way we Vietnamese do it."
Earlier, in the stitching department, a supervisor was seen angrily
throwing a stitched upper portion of a sneaker at a worker from a distance
of 10 feet.
Nike says it could not identify the individuals in either incident, and
that no discipline was meted out.
Some of the problems at the sneaker factories appear to be caused by
language barriers. Many of the supervisors speak little or no Vietnamese,
preferring to speak with workers through translators. And some of them
prefer a militaristic approach to dealing with workers, which can further
create problems.
Just one week ago, a 25-year-old female worker was grabbed around the
collar and hit in the head by a male Korean guard as she departed a Nike
factory during a crowded shift change. Outside the Lines informed Nike of
the incident, and after an investigation docked the guard $100 U.S over the
next three months.
* Veterans memorial marches onward
Groundbreaking held. Foundations to help fund park in Canton
BY JANET FRANKSTON
Beacon Journal staff writer
3/4/98
CANTON: Debbie Shaffer came to a site near downtown to honor her father, a
World War II Army Air Corps veteran who died a year ago yesterday. Shaffer
said she and her daughter, 19-year-old Michelle White, were ``full of
emotion'' as ground was broken yesterday afternoon for the Westbrook
Veterans Memorial Park.
``For the veterans, I think this is extremely important,'' said Shaffer,
44. ``My dad would have wanted to be here.''
More than 60 people, including city and county officials, attended the
ceremony, culminating more than four years of planning and fund raising.
``This is a thank-you for serving our country with honor and pride,'' Tom
McGraw, president of the Stark County Veterans Memorial Committee Inc.,
told the veterans who attended. U.S. Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Navarre,
presented McGraw with an American flag.
Organizers said they plan for the nearly one-acre memorial park to be
completed by Veterans Day, Nov. 11. The park is at the corner of 13th
Street Northwest and Harrison Avenue Northwest on donated city property.
``We've worked hard on this project,'' said McGraw, 55, a Vietnam veteran.
``We never thought we'd get to this point. We want the park to be usable by
veterans and the community.''
The memorial would honor all Stark County veterans. There have been about
48,000, according to McGraw.
``I'm at a loss for words,'' said Delbert Woods, 51, a Vietnam veteran who
attended the ceremony with his brothers, Addison, 53, and Norm, 51. All
three are former Marines.
The estimated cost of the memorial project is $350,000. So far, about
$130,000 has been raised, McGraw said.
The remainder of the money will come from local foundations on the
recommendation of the Capital Campaign Committee. That committee is an
informal group of community leaders who are past capital campaign
fund-raisers and are members of the foundation community. The veterans
group received approval from the committee last month, McGraw said.
``Our committee was very impressed with your diligence, determination and
ability to raise funds from your local constituents,'' William H. Belden
Jr., chairman of the Capital Campaign Committee, wrote to McGraw.
The veterans park will be a priority capital campaign in the community,
said Cynthia M. Lazor, a vice president of the Stark Community Foundation.
Representative from six foundations -- the Timken Foundation, the Deuble
Foundation, the Stark Community Foundation, the Hoover Foundation, the H.W.
Hoover Foundation and the David Family Foundation -- will be asked to
respond to the request for nearly $250,000 by May.
``I would say it's safe to say they will get (the money they asked for),''
Lazor said. The ``foundations will see that they will get the money
somehow.''
Lazor said the veterans committee should receive the money after all the
foundations have met, probably some time in May.
Money collected from the foundations is going exclusively for construction
of the memorial, McGraw said.
For additional money, the veterans committee will continue to sell paving
bricks for $50 each until June 1. The bricks, including 1,500 that have
been sold already, will be the base of the memorial. The bricks are to be
engraved with veterans' names.
Selling the bricks has been the committee's major fund-raising effort.
Designer Gary Jervis, a Louisville resident and son of a World War II
veteran, designed the 175-foot-by-74-foot memorial. The bricks will create
a ``memorial walkway,'' McGraw said.
The memorial will have five granite monoliths to honor the five armed
services -- Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard. A flag
representing each branch is to fly behind the monoliths.
The engraved bricks will make up a semicircle walkway.
And in the center will stand two statues -- a serviceman and a servicewoman
-- looking up to the American flag.
For information about the memorial, call 330-452-2285 or write the Stark
County Veterans Memorial Committee Inc., P.O. Box 80388, Canton, OH 44708.
The committee also can be reached at its Web site (http://members.aol.com/
scvmcweb).
* Old suspicions : Pearson saw De Gaulle as plotting to destroy Canada
By Jim Brown
The Canadian Press
Cnews, 2/4/98
OTTAWA (CP) -- Lester Pearson was convinced, in the aftermath of Charles De
Gaulle's "Vive le Quebec Libre" speech, that the French president was
deliberately trying to break up Canada.
The Liberal prime minister delivered that verdict at a cabinet meeting
Sept. 21, 1967, two months after De Gaulle used the separatist slogan in a
speech at Montreal city hall.
"It had now clearly emerged that Gen. De Gaulle has mapped out a deliberate
campaign for the separation of Quebec from Canada and the destruction of
Canadian Confederation," Pearson is recorded as telling colleagues in the
official minutes of the meeting.
The papers were released Thursday by the
National Archives after the standard 30-year wait under cabinet secrecy
rules.
Pearson appears to have come to his conclusion based largely on an
assessment by the External Affairs Department.
Aside from the De Gaulle visit, he noted a steady stream of other French
ministerial visits and "provocative statements" about Quebec-France
relations.
"The explanation for Gen. De Gaulle's position seemed to be a determination
to save French Canadians from the Anglo-Saxon devils, especially the
Americans," the minutes show Pearson saying.
De Gaulle had already confronted Washington over the war then raging in
Vietnam, he observed, and the French president seemed to think Quebec also
had to be saved from U.S. influence.
The prime minister's comments reflected a hardening of Ottawa's position
since De Gaulle's July speech.
Immediately following the Quebec Libre remark, cabinet had done a delicate
diplomatic dance, torn between the urge to retaliate and the fear of
provoking a worse confrontation.
Paul Martin Sr., the external affairs minister and late father of the
present finance minister, told cabinet on July 25 that he was "outraged"
when he saw De Gaulle on television.
His first thought, he said, was to cancel the Ottawa leg of the official
visit that was to follow De Gaulle's stops in Quebec City and Montreal.
But upon reflection, Martin feared that could inflame public opinion in
Quebec or even lead France to break diplomatic relations.
Pierre Trudeau, then justice minister, retorted that "people in France
would think the government was weak if it did not react." He was echoed by
Jean Chretien, then a junior minister without portfolio, who also asserted
that "the government should show no weakness."
But Jean Marchand, the manpower minister, favored a cautious approach,
claiming that "90 per cent of the population in Quebec failed to see a
relationship between Gen. De Gaulle's speeches and separatism.
"People applauded him because he was a great man and a French-speaking
great man at that."
Several other ministers counselled Pearson not to force De Gaulle from the
country. Instead they wanted Ottawa to make its displeasure clear and put
the onus on the French president to leave if he didn't like it.
In the end, Pearson delivered a public statement calling De Gaulle's words
unacceptable. 'The people of Canada are free," he said. "Canadians do not
need to be liberated."
De Gaulle decided to cut short his visit.
Had he come to Ottawa he would have met a frosty reception. The government
planned to call off a Parliament Hill appearance for fear of
counter-demonstrations and cabinet would have refused to meet him.
The dispute was rekindled in November, when De Gaulle told a news
conference in Paris that Quebec should be "elevated to the rank of a
sovereign state ...master of its national existence like other nations."
In Pearson's opinion, those comments "resolved once and for all any
questions concerning the French president's attitudes."
Leo Cadieux, the defence minister, urged his colleagues on Nov. 28 to
consider a referendum "with a view to obtaining from the polls an outright
rejection of separatism."
No other minister concurred and the idea appears to have died quietly.
Trudeau, however, took the opportunity to lambaste federal unity strategy
as incoherent and complained the government "was not giving the leadership
to the country that was required of it."
Sixteen days later on Dec. 14, Pearson, who had brooded for two years over
his failure to win a majority government in the 1965 election, abruptly
informed cabinet that he intended to step down.
He did not refer to the De Gaulle affair as playing any part in his
decision.
* Poster Perfect
By Hank Burchard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 3, 1998
POSTERS are appealing by design and definition. They appeal to our pride
and patriotism, they appeal to our hearts and minds, they appeal to our
purses and prejudices. Sometimes they're simply meant to appeal to the eye.
So it's not surprising that the poster show at the National Museum of
American Art is immensely appealing. Its 120 images were selected from more
than a century of American postermaking, and range from subtle to stark,
from inspiring to searing, from fancy to funny, from sexy to satirical and
from sentimental to stupid.
Although the competition is stiff, the winner and still champion is James
Montgomery Flagg's 1917 recruiting poster, whose finger-pointing Uncle Sam
called men to the colors in two World Wars. It has become a world-wide icon
and has been satirized and/or plagiarized by hundreds of poster artists. It
worked then, and works now, because it epitomizes the power poster: a
simple, direct message driven home by a simple, direct image.
"Posters American Style" is misnamed, however. As curator Therese Thau
Heyman herself points out, the pictorial poster, which supplanted the
traditional large-type broadsheet in the latter 19th century, first evolved
in Europe. New poster styles and techniques flash around the world
overnight, so that posters everywhere tend to look familiar until one gets
close enough to read them.
What's American about these posters is the substance. To be effective a
poster's image or subject, and preferably both, must be couched in
instantly identifiable cultural references. Of course some images are
universal: Hunks and honeys have been favorites from the beginning,
especially in posters promoting the turn-of-the-century bicycle craze.
Examples here from the 1890s tout the long-vanished Crescent, Orient,
Stearns and Victor bicycles and "Bearings," a cycling magazine whose cover
has a knickered biking boyo studiously not noticing a sidewalk belle who's
noticeably noticing him.
Cheap, high-quality color lithography made sophisticated posters possible
and practical. Artists such as Honore Daumier, Edouard Manet, Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard and Aubrey Beardsley rushed to exploit the
new medium, especially in exhibition announcements and playbills. American
artists, and especially advertisers, quickly followed suit.
Propaganda has always been the highest and best use of the poster because
the artist's motivation tends to be relatively pure and the techniques more
or less transparent. We're spared cartoon images of the Slavering Hun here,
but one World War I poster that appears to go altogether too far turns out
to be literally true. Fred Spear's "Enlist" (1915), painted in
Impressionist style, shows a woman and her baby drowning. In fact Spear
simply illustrated an incident from the sinking of the liner Lusitania by a
German submarine. Among the drowned victims found amid the wreckage was a
young woman clutching her 3-month-old baby to her breast. They did not come
apart when pulled from the water or when laid out on the receiving dock,
and no one could bear to separate them.
The fervor of antiwar protest produced equally thrilling and chilling
posters in the Vietnam era. The spectrum is defined here by an anonymous
and wonderful photograph of singer Joan Baez and her two sisters seated
demurely on an antique couch. Their allure puts punch into the text: "Girls
say yes to boys who say no." Nearby is a heart-wrenching and nation-shaming
photograph by R.L. Haeberle of Vietnamese women and children slaughtered at
My Lai during the Vietnam War. Overprinted are two lines from the
transcript of the investigation: "Q. And babies? A. And babies."
Almost as shocking is the occasional poster that shows how far some of our
frames of reference have shifted. Who would believe that the South Shore
Line used to run excursion trains to view the steel mills of Gary, Ind.?
Norman Erickson's 1928 poster is unknowingly prescient in showing the mills
smokeless, when in fact they belched fumes and filth around the clock --
until the following year's stock market crash begat the Great Depression.
Nowadays almost anything is possible in posters, and it's somewhat
disappointing that artists seem slow to take advantage of new techniques.
Two uninviting trends, perhaps already fading, are the deliberate use of
nearly unreadable type, especially in rock posters, and the slapdash
juxtaposition of image fragments, as in "Save Our Earth" (1995) by Morla
Designs. The show's handsome catalogue may come to mark the end of an era,
because the exhibition stops short of the poster revolution being
stimulated by computer-aided imaging.
POSTERS AMERICAN STYLE -- Through Aug. 9 at the National Museum of American
Art, Eighth and G streets NW (Metro: Gallery Place). 202/357-2700 (TDD:
202/633-9126; Spanish: 202/633-9126). Open 10 to 5:30 daily.
The principal text and many of the posters are available on a handsome Web
page devoted to the exhibition: www.nmaa.si.edu/posters. From Washington
the show travels to the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Aug.
29-Oct.25); the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Museum of Art (Jan. 23-March 21,
1999) and the Oakland (Calif.) Museum (June 12-Aug. 15, 1999).
* U.S. candy maker Mars eyes Vietnam for cocoa
PANAMA CITY, April 2 (Reuters, 2/4/98) - U.S. confectionery company Mars
Inc. said on Thursday it saw opportunities to start cocoa production on a
big scale in Vietnam, and said large-scale newly planted cocoa could be in
place by the year 2000.
``Vietnam offers a great opportunity to produce cocoa. There is abundant
land that was cleared in the 1950s that can be cleaned up and used for
growing cocoa,'' Mars Inc. cocoa researcher John Lunde told Reuters at a
meeting in Panama City.
Ecologists, cocoa production experts and industry representatives,
including Hershey Food Corp. (HSY - news), Mars Inc., Cadbury Schwepps
(quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: CBRY.L) and Nestle (NESZn.S), were
attending a workshop to find ways to achieve ``sustainable'' cocoa
production in coming years.
The four-day workshop, which ended Thursday, was funded by Mars, and
organized by the U.S. Smithsonian Institution.
Cocoa experts said the chocolate industry was anxious to find new areas for
cocoa production to guarantee stable supply in the long run and prevent
farmers from seeking alternative food crop farming.
``They (industry) want to spread the risk of cocoa production as wide as
possible,'' Francois Ruf, who tracks trends around the world for France's
CIRAD crop agency, told Reuters.
A document circulated to all delegates at the conference urging the
creation of a ``task force on sustainable cocoa supply'' among scientists,
industry representatives and ecologists.
It said one of the aims of the task force would be to ``target countries
and regions. (The) objective by 2000 (is) to identify three new or dormant
regions with a tradition of small holder agriculture and begin to introduce
or to increase production of cocoa to reach commercial levels within 10
years.''
Delegates said that the industry feared that of the world's total 2.7
million tonnes of cocoa produced each year, West Africa accounts for some
60 percent of this. Any change in crop production due to weather, disease,
pest or political instability in that area could have serious consequences
on supply, they said.
The American Cocoa Research Institute (ACRI) has, in the past on behalf of
Mars, set up test plots in Vietnam to find the best way to grow cocoa
there, using ecological techniques, Lunde said.
Mars said that once the most suitable planting techniques were agreed on to
prevent ecological harm, improve the soil and reduce the chances of pest or
disease, full scale planting of cocoa would be promoted in Vietnam, he
said.
``Vietnam is an obvious example where cocoa can be introduced. It was
successful in starting up coffee production, and cocoa farming is quite
similar,'' B.K. Matlick, a cocoa.
* Acrodyne Industries Announces First Quarter Asian Orders to Exceed $1.4
Million
BLUE BELL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 3, 1998--Acrodyne Industries, Inc.
(NASDAQ: ACRO) a leading manufacturer and installer of television
transmitters announced today that orders received from Asia in the first
quarter of 1998 have been very strong across all product lines and
highlight the Company's continued expansion in the Asia Pacific region as
a supplier of superior quality TV transmitters. Some of Acrodyne's recent
high profile projects already won this year are in the Philippines,
Vietnam and in the People's Republic of China.
In the Philippines, Acrodyne has received a high power transmitter order
from Eagle Broadcasting Corporation in Quezon City for the sale,
installation and commission, of a dual 60kW UHF television transmitter
system. Eagle is a repeat Acrodyne customer in the Philippines and this is
the second 2x60kW Acrodyne television transmitter system to serve Quezon
City and Manila. The Company now has four Diacrode(R) sockets in the
Philippines.
Mr. Mark Manalo, Operations Manager and Caesar Villadiego, Systems
Engineer of Eagle Broadcasting, were both instrumental in advancing the
order of the third Diacrode-equipped transmitter in operation in Asia.
Eagle's choice to use Acrodyne, was influenced by their site evaluation of
a similar Diacrode transmitter installed by Acrodyne at KASY-TV in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. This new television transmitter represents nearly
a $900,000 investment for Eagle and is one of 30 Acrodyne television
transmitters currently operating in the Philippines.
The dual 60kW Diacrode UHF transmitter will be installed at Eagle's new
site in Quezon City in the second quarter of 1998 with support from
Composite Technology, Inc., Acrodyne's new representative in the
Philippines. "We are very proud to be working with Composite Technology,
Inc. Composite provides the highest level of professionalism, technical
expertise and service to Acrodyne's customer base in the Philippines. We
have no doubt that this will be a long-lasting and successful
partnership," said A. Robert Mancuso, Chief Executive Officer of Acrodyne.
Eagle Broadcasting Corporation joins Radio Mindanao Network as Acrodyne's
newest Diacrode user in Asia. They will now produce viewers with the
strongest UHF television signals in Manila, Quezon City and the
surrounding viewing areas. The Company has now provided three of the four
highest power UHF transmitters licensed to serve Manila.
In Vietnam, Acrodyne has won a contract for the sale, installation and
commission of three new transmitters valued at nearly $300,000. The
largest is a TRU/10KD10kW UHF television transmitter system to VTC for use
in Vinh Long. This is the first Diacrode transmitter to be installed in
the country. To enhance Acrodyne's ability to provide the highest quality
on-site training and after sales support to VTC's engineering staff in
Vietnam, the Company employs Vietnamese engineers on its technical staff
which eliminates any language barriers with customers.
Acrodyne is also pleased to announce a contract for delivery of a new
TRH/10KM 10kW UHF all solid television transmitter to Kai Feng Television.
This new transmitter will be installed in Henan Province, People's
Republic of China. Acrodyne received sales support from its
representative, Mid-America Resources, Inc., who was instrumental in
assisting the Company to secure this order. This latest contract is valued
at approximately $225,000. Antenna, feeder cable and transmission system
integration will be performed by the Design Institute of the Ministry of
Radio, Film and TV. Kai Feng Television plans to be on the air with its
new equipment by the end of 1998.
Acrodyne will be presenting its HDTV/DTV technology at NAB 98' in Las
Vegas from April 6-9. Please visit the Company at booth #13420, in the
main hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Acrodyne is also holding a
press briefing to present its new Adjacent Channel Transmitter technology
(ACT) on Monday, April 6 from 8:00-9:00 am, in press room N117, at the
trade show. Please R.S.V.P to Susan Bolen at (212) 370-4500, if you plan
to attend.
Acrodyne Industries, Inc., the operating subsidiary of Acrodyne
Communications, Inc., is an established and respected manufacturer of
television broadcast equipment. In business over 25 years, the Company has
developed the leading position as a technologically advanced, high quality
low cost producer of transmitters and translators used by television
stations to broadcast and retransmit over-the-air signals. (See also:
http://www.businesswire.com)
* Asia-Europe summit: No cure, but support for Asia's ailing economies
LONDON (AP, 3/4/98) — Europe cannot afford to abandon Asia in its time of
economic turmoil, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today at the
opening of a two-day economic summit. Despite the strong words, the 15-
nation European Union was prepared only to offer moral support, not
financial aid.
The most sensible way to ease the Asian crisis is to keep European
markets open to Asian goods and for Asians to commit to financial and
economic reforms, the prime minister insisted as the Asia-Europe summit
got under way.
"We are not fair-weather friends who turn away at the first sign of
difficulty but partners for the long term, ready to stick by Asia through
thick and thin,'' said Blair, the summit host.
But conspicuously absent from the EU pledge of sympathy and support were
any significant offers of financial assistance.
For their part, Asian nations tried to reassure their European
counterparts that they will soon have their house in order.
Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai said the Asians, who came to the summit
without any specific aid requests, were "united in our resolve to turn the
situation around.''
He stressed that despite the current slump, "the economic fundamentals in
Asia remain sound.''
That was echoed by Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, whose
country is seen as key to reviving moribund Asian economies.
"The current difficulties will be overcome,'' he said.
Associated Press
Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto greets British Prime Minister
Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street in London Thursday, April 2, 1998. Friday
is the start of the Asia-Europe Summit in London. Foreign ministers held
talks Thursday ahead of a summit where European leaders will be keen to
show their Asian counterparts they want close ties, both in good times and
in bad. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)
The EU and Asian leaders were to approve a statement calling for open
trade, full implementation of reforms in Asian nations, and better
supervision of banks and crisis prevention techniques.
In concrete terms, the EU's biggest gift will be a small trust fund, to
be managed by the World Bank, of about $45 million, according to German
officials.
Although the fund is little more than a symbolic gesture, at least one
representative expressed appreciation.
"Personally, I think it's a good beginning and I would like to see it go
further to alleviate liquidity crunches of many countries,'' said Surin
Pitsuwan, Thailand's foreign minister.
The summit is an encore to a 1996 meeting in Bangkok, held under
drastically different conditions. Then, it was the Europeans who were
mired in an economic slump and looking for trade opportunities.
One theme that cropped up two years ago and again today is the European
insistence on human rights — an issue that has long been a sore point in
relations between nations from the two regions.
Blair made a cloaked reference to human rights in his opening speech,
saying Europe and Asia must be ready to talk "in private and frankly ...
about the issues that matter to us.''
Asian nations consider European harping on human rights an interference
in their internal affairs.
Human rights campaigners threw an "unrepresented peoples'' reception
Thursday night to make the point to EU and Asian leaders that without
human rights, Asia's economic crisis will never be solved.
While leaders dined at Blair's 10 Downing St. residence, more than 300
activists listened to a speech by Nobel laureate and exiled East Timor
resistance leader Jose Ramos-Horta, who called for more peace, freedom and
democracy in the region.
East Timor has been plagued by human rights violations and civil unrest
since Indonesia invaded in 1975 and annexed the territory a year later — a
move not recognized by the United Nations.
Participating in the summit are: the 15 EU nations — Austria, Belgium,
Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden; seven members of
the Association of South East Asian Nations — Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam; and Japan, South Korea
and China.