JINN MAGAZINE

PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

Issue No. 4.14

07/06/98 - 07/19/98

CONTENTS

VOICES: First-Person Essays Linking the Private to the Public

The Game All the World (Almost) Loves to Play
By Mark Jacks

By almost any measure, the United States can be called the center of "globalism" -- the new supranational approach to almost everything. But there is one glaring exception -- the universal, and universalizing, game known everywhere else as football, here as soccer, writes PNS correspondent Mark Jacks. Jacks is a radio producer and journalist.

PACIFIC PULSE: The Pacific Century and Its Impact on the Americas

Has Clinton "Given Away" Taiwan?
By George Koo

For Taiwan, the clear message of President Clinton's recent trip to China is that the United States will no longer be playing such a direct role in the long-running negotiations between Taiwan and the mainland. This may prove helpful on all sides, according to PNS commentator George Koo, who sees the two reuniting in fact as well as in name. Koo is an independent business consultant, former Chairman of Silicon Valley based Asian American Manufacturers Association, a Human Relations Commissioner of Mountain View, Ca. and a member of Committee of 100, a national organization of prominent Chinese Americans.

Nixing Political Asylum-- Japan Fears North Korean Refugee Wave
By Thomas Caldwell

Japan has not been particularly friendly to the idea of granting refugee status to those seeking asylum -- over the last decade, the country's Justice Ministry has granted only 30 of 803 requests. But even that pace has slowed -- since 1994 only one person a year has been granted refugee status and PNS correspondent Thomas Caldwell reports on what looks like an attempt to reduce the number to zero. Caldwell, a former United Press International correspondent, is a Tokyo-based writer and broadcast journalist.

For Vietnam's Youth -- School Proves as Elusive as Jobs
By Andrew Lam

Vietnam's education system has hit an all-time low, warns one communist party veteran, despite a reverence for education that persists as part of the country's Confucian culture. With fewer than two percent of Vietnamese enrolled in college, and only a third completing grammar school, the country faces a dark void in science and education as it approaches the 21st century. Yet its young people hunger for "English, informatics and economics," in that order. PNS editor Andrew Lam reports from a recent visit back to the country of his birth.

THE AMERICAS: The Growing Enmeshment of the U.S. and Latin Worlds

Brazil's Landless Take the Law -- And Groceries -- Into Their Own Hands
By Roger Burbach

In the northeast of Brazil -- a country nearly as large as the United States -- a severe drought has led to food shortages affecting some 10 million people. The droughts are nothing new, but changes in the surrounding world have made them harder to bear -- and the response, especially among the landless, has taken some novel turns. PNS correspondent Roger Burbach, founder and director of the Center for the Study of the Americas, is the co-author of several books on Central America.

CALIFORNIA COLLAGE: California as Trendsetter for the Country and the World

Gleanings from the New California Media
Edited by Alfonso Serrano F.

Why does a new type of bounty-hunter have some San Diego residents up in arms? How's Bollywood box office this year? What new, and newsworthy role is the internet playing among overseas Chinese? Answers to these questions are hard to find in mainstream media outlets. Every two weeks New California Media, a network of ethnic media organizations, digests news and commentary from this rapidly growing segment of the news media.

California's Bizarre Billboard War Over Immigration
By Julie Reynolds

California's troubled quarrel over immigration has sprouted into a very large format indeed. Billboards near the Arizona-California border, and close to Los Angeles have sparked controversies that reveal emotions too strong to be concealed for long. PNS commentator Julie Reynolds is an editor for El Andar Publications and the Electric Mercado web site in Santa Cruz, California.

MOVEMENTS: Strategies For Survival, Identity and Direction by People on the Margins

"Child Custody Protection Act" Misnamed and Misguided
By Nell Bernstein

A bill moving quickly through the House of Representatives calls for criminal penalties for the act of taking a minor across state lines for an abortion to avoid parental notification requirements. The law is not so much another attack on freedom of choice, writes PNS commentator Nell Bernstein, as a seriously wrongheaded attempt to deal with a new, and growing, group of young people by placing them outside the law. Bernstein is the Editor of YO! (Youth Outlook), a magazine by and about young people published by the Pacific News Service.

"Smoke Signals" -- New Film Asks How to Be Indian Today
By Jacqueline Keeler

For the first time, Hollywood has released a film by and about American Indians, and it is a promising beginning. PNS commentator Jacqueline Keeler finds "Smoke Signals" amusing, moving, and more accurate in its way than a documentary. Keeler, a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux works with the American Indian Child Resource Center in Oakland, California.

CIVIL CONFLICTS: Interpretive Reports on Ethnic, Religious, and Inter-National Conflicts Worldwide

After the War -- America's Quite Campaign to Eliminate Defectors
By Douglas Valentine

The fate of U.S. defectors during the Vietnam War remains a mystery and the nature of U.S. government efforts to insure they would remain invisible remain a mystery. PNS commentator Douglas Valentine is the author of a book-length study of the activities of the Special Forces in Vietnam, entitled "The Phoenix Program," published in 1990. SECOND OF A TWO PART SERIES.

Targeting Defectors -- CNN Mea Culpas Obscure Role of U.S. Killer Teams
By Douglas Valentine

CNN's sensational claim that U.S. Special Forces dropped sarin nerve gas on a village in Laos at the height of the Vietnam War has now been discredited. But in all the hand wringing, CNN's equally disturbing allegation -- that the raid was intended to seek out and eliminate American deserters -- has largely been ignored. This issue deserves further exploration. PNS commentator Douglas Valentine is the author of a book-length study of the activities of the Special Forces in Vietnam, entitled "The Phoenix Program," published in 1990. FIRST OF A TWO PART SERIES.

Return of the "Wild West" -- Plans for New Border Policy Would Rely on Untrained Civilians
By Alfonso Serrano F.

The U.S. and Mexico have announced a $5000 bounty for information leading to arrest of people trying to cross the border illegally -- a move both governments say aims to reduce the rising death toll of illegal border crossers. But critics view the new-national measure as a reversion to the worst abuses of the old west. PNS Associate Editor Alfonso Serrano F. is formerly the editor of El Mensajero, a bilingual weekly published in San Francisco.

Pacific News Service, 660 Market Street, Room 210, San Francisco, CA 94104, tel: (415) 438-4755.
Jinn Magazine: <http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/>
Email: <pacificnews@pacificnews.org>

Copyright © 1997 Pacific News Service. All Rights Reserved.
Please do not reprint our stories without our permission.
Our articles are available for reprint. For rates and information, call (415) 438-4755 or send e-mail to <pacificnews@pacificnews.org>