What does the world look like as reported by California's growing ethnic media? PNS monitors the Chinese-, Spanish-, Vietnamese-, Japanese-, Korean-, Arabic-language news media as well as English-language newcomer and native-born ethnic media published and/or distributed widely in California. "Gleanings from the Ethnic Media" is a regular weekly column compiled by Emil Guillermo, host of "NCM: New California Media TV" (seen on PBS station KCSM-TV60 in the Bay Area); assisted by Pacific News Service and the NCM Network. Just as the alternative news media connected the disaffected populations in the 1960s, so in the 1990s the ethnic media connects the new ethnic majority communities of California -- to one another and to the larger public forum.

ASIAN AMERICAN FALL GUY: Clinton may have dodged a bullet in the impeachment process, but partisans are teeing up a Friend of Bill for payback, according to an editorial in the World Journal (San Francisco). Bill Lann Lee, the Asian American who has been serving as Acting Chief on Civil Rights, is being primed to bear the brunt of partisan frustration. Nominated by the White House in 1997, Lee's approval process was stalled due to his pro-affirmative action beliefs. The White House says it will resubmit the nomination, but already, Senator Orrin Hatch has said the issue remains dead.

The World Journal writes bitterly that not many days after both parties indicated a willingness to work together for the good of the country, the old squabbling returned. And once again, an Asian American has become the scapegoat.

VEILED THREATS: Arab women are murdering their husbands at an alarming rate according to a report in the London-based As-Sharq al-Ausat. Egypt's Interior Ministry said that in the last five years 100 women have murdered their husbands. Most of the women grew up in rural areas; most murders were done by knives, poison, choking and burning; 60 percent of the murderesses cut off the heads of their husbands; 48 percent of them watched a lot of TV violence; murder came easier because it seemed so familiar; one wife of a government minister stabbed her husband through the heart. Sexual jealousy was by far the main reason for these murders.

YOUR PAPERS, PLEASE: The INS can order an employer to fire workers immediately if papers are not in order, Univision (Los Angeles) reports. The new workplace enforcement tactics were put into effect to save deportation costs. Once fired, the INS figures workers would just return to their homeland. But undocumented workers say the whole idea is misguided. 2,000 Mexicans protested outside a Yakima, Washington fruit packing plant after a plant fired dozens of workers under the new tactics. Said one demonstrator: "What the INS doesn't understand is that if they fire us at one plant, we're not going back to Mexico, but to another plant."

COCONUT AIDS TREATMENT: Tests have begun to determine the efficacy of coconut oil as an alternative to existing AIDS drug treatment, says the Philippine News (San Francisco). Dr. Eric Tayag, chief epidemiologist of the San Lazaro Hospital cited foreign studies showing that the coating of the AIDS virus could be altered by medium chain fatty acids like monolaurin, an ingredient in coconut oil.

THIRD WAY'S THE CHARM: They're calling it "Japan's Third Way," a new long term schedule to restructure modern Japanese society now reeling under persistent recession, says a report in Asahi (Tokyo). Japan's new ruling coalition between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Liberal Party devised the plan that features the market principle that gives firms the option to downsize, merge and fire workers. But it also adheres to the social principle that says the state has a duty to provide its people with a safety net. The "Japanese Third Way" starts from the basic principle that the Japanese are a homogenous people and all are part of the national family. The main safety net will be education to enable people to find a decent place in the new society. The schedule calls for growth to fully resume in 2001, revitalization to take hold in 2003 and the new society to become "normalized" by 2008.

RAIDING THE ELDERLY: A 71-year old former school teacher says the Immigration and Naturalization Service violated her civil rights when agents crashed her Daly City home last month, the Philippine News (San Francisco) reports. Rosalina Montgomery was in the bathroom when eight men and one woman identified themselves as INS agents. With soap still on her face, the agents frisked and cuffed her, then proceeded to ransack the house without showing a search warrant. The agents said they were looking for guns belonging to her son, Glenn de Guzman, arrested by the INS five days earlier for being undocumented. Montgomery's attorney said the agents had no reason to treat her the way they did. "The agents were in no imminent danger of bodily harm," said attorney Rodel Rodis.

IT'S THE I-R-S, NOT THE I-N-S. YEAH, RIGHT: Undocumented workers can now become "legal" if they wish, at least when it comes to paying taxes. Univision (Los Angeles) reports on a new program that allows any undocumented worker who lacks a Social Security number to apply for a Taxpayer Identification Number in order to file a tax return. The IRS promises that its database will not be shared with the INS, but it will take some effort to convince the undocumented that the INS isn't simply running a new sting operation.

SOME FAMILY LOYALTY: The sister of Tran Van Truong, the new infamous Ho Chi Minh worshipper, has come out condemning her brother, reports CALITODAY (San Jose). The woman did not give her name, identified herself only as Truong's sister, an owner of CT Elegance in Garden Grove. She sent a letter to the local radio station, Radio Bolsa, complaining about her wayward brother: "My family is very angry at the action taken by my brother, Tran Truong, and his wife, Nguyen Thi Kim Kahn. We have called them several times but he said that we are no longer relatives. What they are doing now is against our wishes." The sister said she doesn't mind people attacking her brother on the radio since she agrees with them. She does care that they don't attack the entire family, especially her parents. Her father, she said, died and she doesn't want to have his name brought into the fray. She also sent $200 to an anti-communist organization, one of many staging the protest in Little Saigon against her brother.