By John Helmer in Moscow
It’s a pity Vladimir Lenin was tone deaf, and dismissed music (along with chess) as an entertainment for the ruling class. Had he an ear and taste for classical music (like Karl Marx, who was keen on Beethoven, and Leon Trotsky, who loved Verdi), he might have devised a revolutionary doctrine for the performing arts. This could have protected Russia from the likes of Mstislav Rostropovich the cellist, Nikita Mikhalkov the filmmaker, Valery Gergiev the conductor, and X the theatre director.
I regret I am obliged to avoid using X’s, or his Moscow theatre’s real name, because he and his colleagues are so thin-skinned, so despotic, and so vengeful, they brook no criticism, and would react by attacking the livelihood of a member of my family.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
If life were a circus, then the only reason a contemplative man would walk behind an elephant in a ring, wielding bucket and shovel, would be for the money, not for the laughs.
John Lloyd, a onetime Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times, has made many of his colleagues and readers laugh at him. But it was his eulogy upon the death of ex-President Boris Yeltsin, just published by the Financial Times, that has been convincing. Lloyd hasn’t been clowning all this time for laughs. He’s been putting shit in a bucket for the money.
And good money it was, certainly when his then wife headed the Moscow office of a well-known English law firm, and Lloyd filled his Moscow despatches with tales of the good fortune falling from the parapets of the Kremlin for her clientele. There was the odd and embarrassing pratfall; the time, for example, when Lloyd reported, and the FT printed, that Yegor Gaidar had been voted in as prime minister, when that favourite of Lloyd, his wife’s law firm, and the FT had in fact been trounced by Victor Chernomyrdin. Thus did Gaidar’s high political career end – in retrospect, we can now say, for good – while Lloyd was telling the FT audience the reverse.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
Oleg Deripaska is under unexpected personal pressure, at home and abroad, just when his plan to take control of one of the largest bauxite and aluminium producers in the world is close to final government approval. And that is exactly why the trouble for Deripaska is growing now.
Russian government authorization this month of the creation of a monopoly aluminium concern, integrating domestic and foreign bauxite, alumina, and aluminium production assets, has followed a no-objection ruling from the European Commission (EC) in Brussels. The unconditional ruling was issued by the EC on February 1.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
Did Nicolas Sarkozy, the small rightwing candidate for President of France, benefit from the brief imprisonment in Lyon of one Russian billionaire, and from the award of a medal, days later in Paris, to another Russian billionaire, who happened to be the business partner of the first?
And was Sarkozy helped by Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, ministre blanchisseur, official custodian of French culture, receiver of kickbacks, and arranger of unorthodox donations to presidential campaign chests?
In short, on January 30, when Donnedieu de Vabres awarded the medal of Officer of the Legion of Arts and Letters to Vladimir Potanin, was this the end to an ingenious quartet of hostage-taking and ransom on the French side, procuring and precious metals on the Russian?
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This is the VOA Special English Development Report. <!– IMAGE –>The
World Health Organization is using a new combination of drugs to treat human
African trypanosomiasis disease, also known as sleeping sickness.  The drugs nifurtimox and eflornithine will be given
out in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.Officials from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative
say the new treatment has fewer side effects. 
It is also more effective and less costly than the drugs traditionally
used.  In addition, the new treatment
reduces the number of injections needed. And it shortens the amount of time
patients must spend in the hospital.Sleeping sickness threatens millions of
people in thirty-six countries in Africa. 
Most live in poor rural areas. The disease is caused by the trypanosoma
parasite.  It is spread to humans through
the bite of infected tsetse flies.Common signs of sleeping sickness include fever, headaches,
extreme tiredness and pain in the muscles and joints. Early identification of
the disease may be difficult because many infected people do not show any
immediate symptoms.Over
time, the parasites invade the central nervous system. The disease causes sleep
disorders, mental confusion, personality changes, speech problems, seizures and
coma. If left untreated, sleeping sickness kills.The World Health Organization estimates that about
sixty thousand people are currently infected with the disease. It develops in two
different forms. Trypanosoma gambiense is responsible for ninety percent of the
reported cases of sleeping sickness. People infected with this form may develop
the disease over many years without any major symptoms. The disease develops
more quickly over a few weeks or months in people infected with trypanosoma
rhodesiense.Until now the drug melarsoprol was used to treat
patients in the advanced stage of sleeping sickness.But
the drug requires many painful injections several times a day for several
weeks. It also causes bad side effects, some of which can be deadly.In
Uganda, a new study has confirmed earlier research linking the spread of sleeping
sickness to infected farm animals.  The writers
of the study have called for stronger rules requiring cattle to be treated
before being sold at market.  The study was
published in the Public Library of Science.And
that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve
Ember.

<!– IMAGE –>
AA: I’m Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: English teacher Lida Baker suggests five resolutions for people who want to improve their English in the New Year.LIDA BAKER: “My first resolution that I would recommend people make is to spend a certain amount of time listening to English — and it can be five minutes a day or it can be 10 minutes a week or it can be whatever suits a person’s work schedule, life schedule or whatever. But it’s really important to set goals and to stick to them. And it would be very helpful if people had Internet access to do this, because what I’m going to recommend is listening to sites that have scripts included. “RS: “What do you do if you don’t have access to a computer, how can you listen better?LIDA BAKER: “Well, almost everyone all over the world has access to pop music. And one of my resolutions would be to spend time listening to English music. The advantage of listening to music is that it’s a really wonderful way to work on your pronunciation, because you get a feeling for the stress and the rhythm of the language when you’re singing. And also music is full of idioms, so it’s a terrific way to learn colloquial vocabulary and to work on your pronunciation. And a third advantage of listening to music is that it’s really easy to remember.”So for people who have access only to a radio, even they can do something to improve their English just by listening to pop music. And I might add, if you do have access to the Internet, there are lots of Internet sites that will give you the lyrics to pop songs. Do a search, type ‘music’ or ’songs’ plus ‘lyrics,’ and you’ll find sites where you can type in the name of the song and it will give you the lyrics to the song.RS: “So spend a little bit more time listening, or have a goal for listening. Listen to English music. What else?”LIDA BAKER: “Something else I tell my students, and they’re always surprised when I tell them this, is read children’s books.”AA: “That makes sense, though.”LIDA BAKER: “Yeah. Why do you say that?”RS: “Well, few words.”AA: “It’s simpler.”RS: “Direct, simple. Lots of pictures.”LIDA BAKER: “There you go.”RS: “That puts it in a context.”LIDA BAKER: “There you go. And the other thing is, you can find children’s books at all levels. If you were a total beginner in English, you start with books that have just a few words on the page and lots of pictures, and you can work your way up to books that have relatively speaking more text and fewer illustrations. But again, children’s books are very motivating. To this day I enjoy reading the books that I read to my daughter when she was a little girl.”AA: “So now we’ve got the listening to the radio, listening to music, going online and looking for scripts of programs to go with the audio, reading children’s books. What’s your next resolution?”LIDA BAKER: “Learn a new word every day. And if you don’t have time to do it every day, do it every other day. Again, pick a realistic goal. Choose your word, look up the meaning, but then don’t stop there. Look at the examples in the dictionary for how the word is used. Is it used as a noun? Is it a verb? Is it used to talk about people? If it’s an adjective, does it have a positive meaning or a negative meaning? So look for what’s called the connotation of the word. And then, when you’re sitting in your car, or you’re walking to the bus stop or sitting on the bus, practice. Put the word into your own sentences. Think of ways that you could use that word.”And so now we come to our last resolution, which in a way is the most difficult one, because my last resolution would be, even if it’s only very occasionally, talk to native speakers every chance you get.”RS: Lida Baker teaches English and writes textbooks in Los Angeles, California.AA: That’s all for Wordmaster this week. Our e-mail address is word@voanews.com. And Internet users can read and listen to all of our segments at voanews.com/wordmaster.RS: With Avi Arditti, I’m Rosanne Skirble.

All born in the United States are citizens
Yes, I was an anchor baby in 1958 when my parents came from China as immigrant students. They weren’t citizens, but when I was born, I was automatically a citizen. They could then claim to be related to a US citizen to get their citizenship. Now I’m not that dead set against disallowing birth citizenship when neither parent is in this country legally. But here is an interesting piece on George Mason University’s History News Network which seems to walk a fine balance between left and right. The interesting point is that it was the case of a Chinese that enshrined this right in the first place, and it was objections to Asians that sparked earlier attempts to restrict or get rid of birthright citizenship. I got this tip from the Adam Holland blog Chinese were also the ones that established a right to a language appropriate education after their teenagers were being stuck in 1st grade if they could not speak english.
Repealing Birthright Citizenship Wasn’t a Good Idea Back in the Forties Either by Greg Robinson
Read it about it here: http://www.hnn.us/articles/130165.html and here is a short snippet:
“Our nation’s history demonstrates that birthright citizenship is a precious resource for nonwhite Americans, especially those of Asian ancestry, to protect against racial prejudice. Until the Second World War most Asian immigrants were excluded from entering the United States. Those who did come (of whom many would today be deemed “illegal immigrants”) were barred by federal law from naturalization. Under pressure from white nativists, Western states (including Arizona) enacted discriminatory laws against “aliens ineligible to citizenship” to eliminate their economic competition and stigmatize them as undesirable. However, in 1898 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wong Kim Ark, a young Chinese American, and thereby enshrined the principle of automatic birthright citizenship for all native-born persons. American-born citizens of Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian groups, unlike their parents, were able to hold property and vote, and so were less vulnerable to official bias. In response, frustrated West Coast whites repeatedly attacked the principle of birthright citizenship for children of “ineligible” aliens.”

DREAM Act immigration activists
Frank Yang and Joseph Kim are two among millions of hard-working students in the United States who are all equally deserving of receiving higher education. However, because Yang and Kim are undocumented students in the U.S., they do not qualify for state or federal grants, and are unable to afford college. The passage of the DREAM Act in the upcoming November midterm elections could change this and offer them, along with approximately one million other Asian and Pacific Islander students, a chance to obtain a college degree.
By definition, an undocumented person is a non-citizen who entered the U.S. without legal documentation or who overstayed their visa. In response to the limitations that undocumented individuals face, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act is a pending bipartisan legislation that would provide undocumented students with a path to legalization.
The DREAM Act (first introduced in 2001) would allow students to serve two years in the military or obtain a two-year college degree, to then qualify to apply for permanent residency. To be eligible, the immigrant must enter the country before the age of 16, live five consecutive years in the U.S., earn a high school diploma or equivalent, and have a clear record void of criminal activity. Thus, if the legislation were to be enacted into law, approximately 2.5 million undocumented youth under the age of 18 who live in the U.S. would be affected.
It is popular conception that these affected individuals primarily consist of those who are of Latino or Hispanic descent. However, there are over 1.5 million undocumented APIs living in the U.S. Part of the reason for this lack of awareness is due to the cultural stigma that surrounds the issue of undocumented individuals.
“I became very detached from my community,” said Kim. “Out here, if people speak out, it’s shunned upon. I kept my own undocumented status a secret in shame.”
Although Kim excelled in his academics, the rejection Kim received from his own community made it difficult to find jobs, which added to his fear of deportation. To survive, Kim had to work “under the table jobs,” since many employers discriminate against his undocumented status. However, unlike Kim, Yang had a different experience with his community.
“I felt welcomed by my classmates,” said Yang, describing his experience in early education. “As a kid, I was undocumented, but I felt no pressure. I did everything normally.” However, as Yang approached the end of high school and decided that he wanted to go to college, he realized that his undocumented status would have a more serious, lasting effect than he had ever anticipated.
“I was not eligible for financial aid,” said Yang. Therefore, Yang paid his way through college by earning scholarships and taking out many student loans. The 21-year-old U.C. Berkeley graduate now faces a new state of uncertainty.
“I feel like I’m in limbo. I’ve been accepted into many graduate programs,” said Yang. “But I’m again not eligible for financial aid.” Yang’s lack of financial resources to pay for graduate school has led him to search for jobs and internships in the mean time.
Kim and Yang, alongside the many other undocumented students in the U.S. are standing united as one to fight for their rights. They voice their stand for all immigrant youth as a part Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights Through Education (ASPIRE), alongside many other immigration activists.
Despite the emergence of undocumented students willing to share their stories, there is much criticism surrounding the DREAM Act and immigration reform.
Republicans believe that tougher border control is necessary before legislation for citizenship of immigrants can be enforced. Many conservatives say that to condone such an amnesty would further encourage other immigrants to break laws and find loopholes to gain U.S. citizenship. In March, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) called the DREAM Act a “nightmare for the American people,” furthering that such legislation would open citizenship to millions for the families of the DREAM Act beneficiaries to gain citizenship.
“It’s highly doubtful for any immigration reform to pass this year,” said Senior Law Attorney Sin Yen Ling. Ling further explained how the upcoming Nov. 2 Elections would cause many politicians to remain uninvolved in such legislation. Therefore, many are looking to the DREAM Act for hope.
Although the passage of the DREAM Act was a progressive step towards immigration reform, there is still a requirement of 60 votes to invoke the legislation. The bill is currently part of a larger comprehensive immigration reform package in which supporters hope will pass before the November midterm elections.
For more information, please visit http://www.asianlawcaucus.org.

By Connie Zheng
Harvard
On August 29, 1879, Ko Kun Hua appeared on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, five children, and two servants. Hired from China to teach Mandarin courses at Harvard, Ko would be the first Chinese faculty member at any college in the United States. At that time, uncertainty about his position reigned. An unidentified faculty member said, “Who is going to learn Chinese, and how it is to be got into our College, are questions that have not even been considered.” These dismal views seemed to be borne out when Ko had only one student in his first year. At the time of his death by pneumonia two years later, that number had grown to five or six pupils, but his time at Harvard was considered to be a satisfactory success. One student had acquired the ability to easily converse in Mandarin and was ready to establish a business in China. Ko began a legacy of interest in China and Asian studies at Harvard. The books he brought to the United States were the first books in Chinese or of any other Asian language at Harvard. They were also the beginnings of the million-volume East-Asian collection at Harvard-Yenching Library, the largest collection of any academic library outside Asia.
More than a century later today, the number of Chinese Americans in U.S. academia has swelled, with scholars making significant contributions in many fields ranging from science, law, history, and the arts.
Numerous Chinese American scholars have won the Nobel Prize for physics and chemistry, making invaluable contributions to the world and scientific community through their research. Laureates include Tsung Dao Lee, Chen Ning Yang, Samuel C.C. Ting, Steven Chu, Daniel C. Tsui, Roger Y. Tsien, and Charles K. Kao. In 1957, Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, the first laureates of Chinese origin, together won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in disproving the principle of the conservation of parity. In 1976, Samuel C.C. Ting won the award in physics with Burton Richter for their discovery of the subatomic J/ψ particle. In 1997, Steven Chu, who later became the Secretary of Energy for the Obama presidential administration, won the award in physics for his research in the cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light. In 1998, Daniel C. Tsui won the award in physics for his contribution to the discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect. In 2008, Roger Y. Tsien won the award in chemistry with two other chemists for their discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein. In 2009, Charles K. Kao won the Nobel Prize in Physics.  Kao is sometimes referred to as the “Godfather of Broadband” because the fiberoptic technology that he helped develop, for which he won the Nobel Prize, forms the backbone of Internet telecommunications.
Another notable scholar is Min Chueh Chang, the co-inventor of the first birth control pill in the 1950s. In 1990, Chang-Lin Tien was announced as chancellor of UC Berkeley by the University of California Board of Regents, establishing a milestone by becoming the first Chinese and Asian American head of a UC campus and a major research university in the United States. Tien became UC Berkeley’s seventh chancellor during a time when charges of racism and anti-Asian bias in Berkeley’s admissions policies were being leveled. Also in 1990, Wallace D. Loh became the dean of the University of Washington’s School of Law in Seattle, the first Chinese and Asian American law school dean in the United States. Loh came into office during a time of national sit-ins and picketing against the dearth of minorities and women on law school faculties. In 2004, Frank H. Wu became the ninth dean of Wayne State University Law School in Detroit.  In 2010, he became Chancellor of UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.  In 2007, Jim Chen joined the University of Louisville as dean of the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. A prolific and influential scholar, Chen clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. He became one of only a handful of Asian American law school deans in the nation.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung was the first to inspire serious study of Chinese Americans with her publication of the book, Mountain of Gold, in 1967. This pioneering chronicle of the history of the Chinese in America later led to an invitation to initiate Asian American Studies at the City College of New York in 1970. Her courses were the first of their kind in the Eastern United States. She later wrote the 1976 award winning book, Chinese American Manpower and Employment. Scholars Him Mark Lai, known also as the “Dean of Chinese American History,” and Philip Choy were the first to begin teaching college courses in Chinese American history in September 1969 at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University). These college courses came during the civil rights movement and during a time of great changes in the Chinese American community as the immigrant population swelled after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended national origin quotas that had kept Chinese out.
Ming Cho Lee, theatrical set designer and professor, has been extolled as “perhaps the most respected and revered of living American set designers” by the influential Playbill Magazine. Known for minimalism, daring textures, and the use of non-traditional materials, Lee’s work has been featured in theatrical, opera and ballet productions throughout the world. In 1983, he won the Tony Award for his famous set design of the “K2” production. In 2002, Lee was awarded the National Medal of Arts, the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence by President George W. Bush.
Despite such successful figures in Chinese American academia, their numbers still remain relatively low, especially in senior leadership positions. There are numerous reasons for the low representation:
• Discrimination and racism: Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, anti-Chinese sentiment was manifested in the notion of the “yellow peril,” the suspicion and fear of Chinese that led to outright lynching and the Chinese Exclusion Acts, Joseph McCarthy’s crusade against the Red Chinese in the 1950s, and the Wen Ho Lee case in the 1990s. Chinese in America were viewed as racial inferiors bent on domination of whites, spies, communists, people not to be trusted, and disloyal. Such biases and national security concerns have held back their entry into sensitive areas of academia in the United States with untold consequences to American national power.
• Stereotypes: Chinese Americans are seen as model minorities who do not need help like affirmative action. They are also seen as compliant and willing to do any job given to them no matter how badly paid or demeaning. Due to their perceived passivity they are not considered leadership material and are frequently passed over for higher positions in leadership.
• Lack of role models: In general, Chinese American faculty tends to gravitate toward engineering and sciences and less toward the humanities, meaning that students have fewer role models to look up to other professions outside of the engineering and science fields.
• Legal barriers: Some attribute the problem to be linked to the passage of Proposition 209 and laws in other states inspired by it. The 1996 California ballot measure amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity in hiring. Universities like UC Berkeley saw a steep drop in minority hiring following passage both because of the new law as well as far fewer minorities wanting to work for the system. Proposition 209 inspired similar laws in other states, such as the Civil Rights Initiative in Michigan in 2006 and Initiative 200 in Washington in 1998.
Chinese Americans have always faced and conquered many challenges in making a career in academia and must continue to confront and conquer many challenges in the future.
For more information about Chinese American heroes, please visit the Chinese American Heroes website at www.chineseamericanheroes.org

Former Giants pitcher #37 Masanori Murakami was on hand at the Giants game Tuesday August 24th for Giants Japanese Heritage Day.  At age 20 he pitched for the SF Giants in 1964-65.  He then returned to Japan to play for many more years
Murakami was the first Japanese player in Major League Baseball  Jerseys with Murakami #37 were handed out to certain fans.