Ferris Buellers Nights Onstage

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MATTHEW BRODERICK spent the evening of his 50th birthday late last month at the Imperial Theater, where he will open on April 24 in the new musical "Nice Work if You Can Get It." After some cake and a brief celebration he returned to his chores, which seemed like an illustration of the show's title. He was required over and over again to dance with a bevy of beautiful chorus girls who hoisted him off the floor and carried him across the stage before starting to undress him. Not just nice work, it seemed, but hardly work at all.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Matthew Broderick prepares in his dressing room at the Imperial Theater, where he stars in "Nice Work if You Can Get It," opening on April 24. More Photos »

By CHARLES McGRATH

Published: April 5, 2012

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Stage Scenes: Matthew Broderick

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The Broadway life of Matthew Broderick: as the in-demand Jimmy Winter in the coming "Nice Work if You Can Get It." More Photos »

In musical theater, though, nothing is as easy as it looks. Mr. Broderick had back surgery just last summer and had been working out almost daily with both a trainer and a physical therapist to get ready for this job, which also requires him to deliver Gershwin standards like " 'S Wonderful." During breaks, when he wasn't catching his breath on a prop sofa, he was off by himself in a corner of the stage, squinting with concentration and dancing with invisible partners to silent accompaniment. "That's it," Kathleen Marshall, the show's director and choreographer, called out to him at one point. "Turn, turn, turn —and land! "

A few days later in his dressing room Mr. Broderick acknowledged "sweating like a maniac after about 15 minutes," and recalled a similar stage during rehearsals for "The Producers," the smash hit in which he starred with Nathan Lane. "Nathan and I both got horribly tired," he said, "and we lost all kinds of weight, so we went to Prada and bought some nice clothes for our new, thin bodies. But gradually, as the run goes on, your body figures out how not to work so hard, and your Prada clothes go back to the other side of the closet."

Mr. Broderick is married to Sarah Jessica Parker, who according to Forbes, made $30 million last year, and was himself paid $100,000 a week for a return engagement in "The Producers." Presumably he doesn't need to work this hard, and in many ways he is an unlikely musical-comedy star. He is not classically trained as either a singer or a dancer, and at least part of his appeal onstage stems from the kind of eternally boyish charm that caused a teenager, spotting him one day outside the theater, to nudge his companion and say: "Dude! Ferris Bueller!"

Though "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," the beloved John Hughes comedy, came out in 1986, or half a lifetime ago for Mr. Broderick, he may be forever identified with his role in that film: a cheerful, innocent-seeming slacker who makes everything look easy. He acknowledged as much by appearing this year in a Super Bowl commercial that gently parodied the movie. "I spent a long time trying to move on from that," he said of the Ferris role. "Only because it was so successful. I'm not complaining. But then I figured since everybody thinks of me that way anyway, maybe it would be nice to be in on it. Why wouldn't Ferris Bueller have become middle aged?"

Maintaining a Ferris-like image is part of the challenge of Mr. Broderick's new job. "Nice Work," which is capitalized at $10 million and which several years back was slated to star Harry Connick Jr., is a hybrid show. It has a brand-new book by Joe DiPietro, a Tony winner for "Memphis," but incorporates just about every Gershwin song you can thing of and some you probably haven't. Mr. Broderick plays Jimmy Winter, a much-wedded, frequently sozzled Prohibition-era New York playboy who falls in love with a female bootlegger, played by Kelli O'Hara. The part calls for someone who can seem as if he has never worked hard at anything in his life, and can also hold his own in song-and-dance numbers with an ensemble that is exceptionally lithe and energetic.

Ms. Marshall, a multiple Tony winner, was able to handpick the cast of "Nice Work," and just about everyone she hired, including Ms. O'Hara, Michael McGrath (Ms. O'Hara's bootlegging sidekick), Judy Kaye (a crusading temperance worker) and Stanley Wayne Mathis (the local police chief), is someone she had worked with before. She wanted Mr. Broderick (whom she choreographed in the 2003 televised version of "The Music Man" ) because he has "such style," she said.

"That's the hardest thing to teach, and he comes by it naturally," she said. "I think it's because he's such an old-movie buff." She added: "A comedy like this requires a light touch, and Matthew has a light touch in everything he does: his singing, his dancing. He has a beautiful voice with such ease to it, no sense of production. He reminds me a little of Fred Astaire, and it's probably no coincidence that Fred Astaire originally introduced a lot of these Gershwin songs."

A few weeks earlier, during an Act I run-through at a rehearsal hall near Union Square, Mr. Broderick did not seem particularly Astaire-like. He was wearing tracksuit pants and a shapeless striped T-shirt, and when he put on his Jimmy Winter tailcoat and top hat, he looked for a moment like someone who had wandered in from a rehearsal of "Waiting for Godot." As the act went on, he seemed to be simultaneously coasting and working much harder than everyone else. He wasn't even pretending to have a good time; instead he was looking at his feet a lot, and at the end of one long and complicated bit of choreography that had him dancing on chairs and up and over a table he was puffing a little.

"The hardest thing for me is remembering the steps," he said later, "and when they get changed, my brain goes crazy." He added: "I know I'm irritating sometimes to people. I tend to take my time, and I don't like to do too much without an audience. I think it's slightly embarrassing to act full out at 890 Broadway with people looking at you from folding chairs." He smiled. "It shouldn't really be done."

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On Education

Kinh Doanh | school logo |

Keeping Students' Mental Health Care Out of the E.R.

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Adeline Seise in her Bronx apartment with her twin sons Gabriel, right, and Alejandro.

By MICHAEL WINERIP

Published: April 8, 2012

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During the 2010-11 school year, Adeline Seise's son Gabriel, a second grader, repeatedly disrupted classes at Public School 67 in the Bronx.

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On Sept. 29, according to a school report, Gabriel told his teacher he was going to beat up a classmate. While the teacher was trying to calm him, Gabriel, who was 10 at the time, spotted the boy and pushed him from behind. The boy whipped Gabriel in the face with a sweater, scratching him under the eye. Gabriel was enraged, and when the teacher tried to stop him, he tripped her. Security guards restrained him and school officials called Emergency Medical Services, which transported Gabriel to St. Barnabas Hospital's emergency room, where he was evaluated by a psychiatrist.

Gabriel did not need to be admitted to the hospital, the psychiatrist wrote; he was cleared to return to school the next day.

This happened several times that year. Once, according to a school report, Gabriel became so enraged, "he grabbed desks, chairs, books and plastic bins and threw them throughout the room."

A few days after the Sept. 29 incident, the school's special education committee decided Gabriel — who has been given a diagnosis of attention deficit and oppositional defiant disorders — needed regular counseling.

He never got the counseling.

Typically, if disruptive children are going to attend a traditional public school, they are placed in a classroom with a 12-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio and assigned an aide.

Gabriel got neither. Instead, he was mainstreamed in a class of 25 that included 10 special education students and 2 teachers. Twice more that year, school officials called E.M.S. to take him to the hospital — once in restraints — and both times Gabriel was examined and returned to school the next day.

Then last summer, Ms. Seise filed a complaint with the Education Department . At an administrative hearing, P.S. 67's principal, Emily Grimball, was asked why Gabriel didn't get more extensive special education services. She answered that there wasn't enough money left in her budget.

"A lot of times it goes down to funding and what it is that the school is able to provide for the child," she testified.

In September, no doubt due in good part to Ms. Seise's administrative complaint, Gabriel received the extra services.

Since then, Ms. Grimball said, his behavior has improved considerably.

Gabriel has lots of company. For more than a decade, mental health and Education Department officials have worked to reduce referrals to E.M.S., which they see as an expensive and traumatizing response to problems that should be handled at the schools.

"Kids who make verbal and behavioral threats to themselves and other people very much need and deserve a same-day mental health evaluation," said Charles Soulé, a psychologist in pediatric psychiatry at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. "But most New York City school kids don't have access at the schools, where it's better done."

Dr. Soulé, who is the co-chairman of the New York City School-Based Mental Health Committee, said there had been some progress. In 1999, when he started working on this issue, 75 schools had mental health services. Today, according to the Education Department, 319 of the 1,700 schools have such services.

After news media coverage in 2004 highlighted the problem, the department appointed a full-time administrator to oversee mental health care. "The D.O.E. understands the need and is committed to improving, but the issue is resources," Dr. Soulé said.

In the last few years, care appears to have deteriorated. Dr. Soulé said the number of schools with services had fallen by 10 percent. Marge Feinberg, a department spokeswoman, said cuts were due in part to a reduction in state financing.

It's likely that there are thousands of mental health cases referred to emergency rooms each year. In 2009-10, there were 868 E.M.S. calls for suicidal ideation alone, according to school officials. That would not include children like Gabriel who are menacing to others.

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Green workplace aids safety

thongtinhongbong.edu.vn | school logo |

VietNamNet Bridge – Already looking older than his 42 years, Nguyen Van Quy has unsettled his younger colleagues by coughing ceaselessly throughout the day. Quy, a scrap metal recycler at a small private workshop on Ha Noi"s La Thanh Street, says he is fed up with medicine.

VietNamNet Bridge – Already looking older than his 42 years, Nguyen Van Quy has unsettled his younger colleagues by coughing ceaselessly throughout the day. Quy, a scrap metal recycler at a small private workshop on Ha Noi's La Thanh Street, says he is fed up with medicine.

Ha Tu Coal Company in northern province Quang Ninh Province plants trees on its landfill site to improve the surrounding environment. Green growth will help reduce occupational diseases. (Photo: VNS)

"Doctors say I have a lung problem related to dust. I'm not sure what it is but I'm not taking medicine anymore since it is expensive and the cough just comes back anyway," says the man from Phu Tho Province, some 90km northwest of Ha Noi.

Having handled scrap iron every day for the last 15 years, Quy only wears dirty gloves and occasionally a rudimentary welding mask to protect himself at work.

"There might be a link between this job and my health problem but all manual work has its costs," he says. The dark small man with several tattoos on his arms takes a slow puff of pipe tobacco, taking advantage of a moment when his cough subsided. "I have no choice. This job treats me pretty okay and my family back home also lives on it."

Earning more than VND3 million (more than US$140) a month, Quy does not want to spend much on medicine so that he can afford his two children's schooling.

The global industry of scrap metal recycling has been connected to employee's illness, including heavy metal poisoning, repeated trauma disorders and skin and respiratory diseases, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

In Viet Nam, scrap metal recycling is only one of many jobs that put workers at risk of contracting diseases.

Nearly 27,300 workers suffering from occupational diseases were reported in the country by the end of 2011, the latest statistics from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) have shown.

Some 5.9 per cent of more than 60,500 workers who had health checks paid for by social insurance last year were also found to be ill with problems relating to their professions.

"Despite the Government's efforts to minimise work-related diseases and accidents, the problem is getting worse with more than 1,000 new cases reported every year," said MoLISA's Work Safety Department vice director Do Thi Thuy Nguyet at the World Day for Safety and Health at Work (April 28) conference held yesterday in Ha Noi.

MoLISA also recorded 574 deaths in nearly 6,000 work-related accidents last year, up by 15 per cent from 2010.

"But the reality is far worse since usually less than 10 per cent of enterprises hand in their reports on work accidents and diseases," said Nguyen Van Mau, deputy inspector general of the Ha Noi Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The MoLISA report indicates some 11 per cent of 30,000 factories inspected last year had working environments that were polluted with dust and electromagnetic radiation.

According to medical experts, many people will not develop symptoms of work-related diseases for a long time. For instance, it can take 3-5 years to exhibit hearing loss and 10 years for eye illnesses or loss of vision.

Respiratory doctor Phan Thi Hanh from the Ha Noi-based E Hospital said she had seen many workers with pleural calcification or silicosis – a form of lung disease caused by inhalation of crystalline silica dust – and most of them came to her only after the disease was at an advanced stage.

"It takes at least 10 years to see clear signs of illness, so they usually come to me when they are at a late period," she said. "If only they had periodical health checks…"

Many of her patients, who mostly work at cement, concrete mixing and heavy metal factories or construction sites, end up with lung cancer.

In the context of this gloomy picture, Bui Xuan Tu says he feels lucky that the plastic pressing factory where he has worked for four years organises a "careful medical examination" every year for employees and is "always willing to improve work environment".

Despite the credit crunch, his employer Panasonic Viet Nam has spent VND6 billion ($285,700) this year – or one-fifth of its total yearly investment in equipment – installing deodorisers, air conditioners and noise protection machinery to ensure workers' health, according to the company's assistant administrative manager Hoang Van Hoan.

Unlike big Japanese companies that were leaders in occupational safety, many enterprises in harmful industries did not organise periodic health checks for their workers or pay them extra for dangerous jobs, said Ngo Chi Hung, vice chairman of the Ha Noi Industrial and Export Processing Zones Authority.

Official Nguyet also said occupational health and safety was far worse in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which accounted for 95 per cent of businesses in Viet Nam.

"Mining and construction have significantly developed in the country, increasing the threats for health and safety at work," she said.

There was also a lack of management over the development of craft villages and family businesses, she added. And scrap metal recycler Quy – a worker in one such "informal sector"– is a grim piece of evidence. Not as lucky as Panasonic worker Tu, Quy did not even have a work contract or any insurance, not to mention other health and safety benefits.

The National Targeted Programme on Occupational Safety and Health 2011-15 set the ambitious goal of reducing the number of people diagnosed with work-related diseases by 10 per cent and the number of occupational deaths by 5 per cent each year. The programme also aimed to make 30 per cent of SMEs in dangerous industries adopt effective work safety models and to insist that all employees in work-related accidents or with occupational health problems be treated free of charge.

According to Nguyet, the theme of this year's work safety day "Promoting Safety and Health in a Green Economy" is a new trend in the world to achieve a more sustainable economy.

"To develop a green economy, we need improved work environments that ensure the safety and health of workers," she said.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung two weeks ago approved Viet Nam's Green Growth Strategy to create a more sustainable economy and society that preserves the environment for future generations and that is more equitable for all people.

This model is also expected to benefit occupational safety and health issues in the country.

"New green business opportunities are a sustainable and long- term source for economic growth and decent work," said ILO country director Gyorgy Sziraczki.

"Production facilities can become more productive and competitive; investments can be directed to skilled staff instead of raw materials; new industries with quality employment opportunities will emerge, and jobs in many existing industries will become better for the environment and for workers themselves."

Many workers are waiting to see if and how the policy will become a reality.

In the mean time, Quy just finished his pipe tobacco. Coughs continued as he put on his gloves again and got back to work. "Everyone has his own fate. If I cannot pay more for my health, why should I bother with it?" he said.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

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Farallones Deaths Follow Dangerous Year in Sailing

gia de hang | medical school interview questions |

The Farallon Islands, 28 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge, are known as the Devil's teeth for the sharp, rocky spires that spring from the open ocean. Frequent gale force winds and steep, breaking waves make it a threatening shore for approaching boaters. But since the annual Full Crew Farallones Race began, in 1907, using the islands as the turning point, there had never been a fatality.

By CHRIS MUSELER

Published: April 19, 2012

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Stephen Lam/Reuters

A vigil was held at the San Francisco Yacht Club for the five sailors who were killed during a yacht race last Saturday.

Related

• San Francisco Club Shaken by Loss of Sailors in Race (April 20, 2012)

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Ben Margot/Associated Press

The Giants observed a moment of silence for Alexis Busch, a former bat girl who is missing off the Farallon Islands.

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John J. Kim/Associated Press

A couple died during last year's Race to Mackinac on Lake Michigan when their 35-foot sailboat capsized in a squall.

On Saturday, the San Francisco Bay was uncharacteristically calm when the 38-foot Low Speed Chase was among the 52 sailboats to start this year's race. The boat and its eight-person crew even remained in the race after nearly half the fleet had retired after three miles, when the typically powerful wind from the northwest began gusting to 25 knots.

But around 3 p.m., as conditions worsened, the Low Speed Chase was flung into the rocks while making the turn at the Farallones, and its crew went overboard. Three were rescued by Coast Guard and Air National Guard helicopters. One body was found, but four others were lost in the swirling whitewater.

With participation rising each year in ocean racing events, accidents are gaining more attention. Deaths in ocean racing are so statistically rare that when three sailors died in accidents last year, U.S. Sailing , the national governing body for the sport, decided to form a panel and open its first safety investigation.

In early summer, a young girl drowned after becoming caught under a capsized dinghy in Annapolis, Md. During the Race to Mackinac in Lake Michigan last July, a 35-foot sailboat capsized in a squall, trapping and killing a couple . During the Fastnet Race in August, the 100-foot Rambler, with a crew of American sailors, capsized in the Celtic Sea when the boat's ballast keel broke. All the crew members were rescued.

"Part of sailing is risk management," said John Rousmaniere, a member of the panel and the author of "Fastnet, Force 10," which chronicled the 1979 Fastnet Race , in which 15 sailors died. "You make one little mistake in demanding conditions, and suddenly it becomes a big mistake."

The findings and recommendations from the U.S. Sailing panel were completed in October and shared with the sailing community at safety seminars this spring.

Rousmaniere, a safety-at-sea instructor, said the panel identified three contributing factors to the accidents: inconsistent stability requirements in races; misunderstanding of what the Coast Guard does and does not do; and confusing weather forecasting terms that led some sailors to underestimate conditions.

The Mackinac race has taken several of the safety recommendations to heart for this year's event. According to the committee chairman, Lou Sandoval, the boats need to meet a higher stability standard, and new personal safety equipment requirements include a knife and a quick release tether for harnesses. Both changes address contributing factors to the deaths in last summer's accident.

Rough conditions are expected in ocean racing, and safety investigations by national federations are not common. Rousmaniere said that after the deadly 1979 Fastnet Race, the Royal Yachting Association in Britain held the first known investigation by a national federation into a sailing accident. Recommendations from that investigation led to an overhaul of design rules, safety gear, rescue techniques and safety seminars that are standard today.

It was not until the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race , when five boats sank and six sailors died, that another national federation created a panel, this time in Australia. That investigation led to stricter crew eligibility standards and led to further safety studies by the International Sailing Federation.

As the sailing community in San Francisco Bay mourns , experts are trying to make sense of the accident at a time when personal locator beacons, safety harnesses and advanced life rafts should be preventing loss of life.

According to Laura Nunoz, executive director of the Yacht Racing Association of San Francisco Bay, the competitors in Saturday's race were required only to meet the minimum safety equipment list under the sailing federation's Category 2 offshore requirements, based on the race's proximity to land. A Category 1 event, like the 635-mile Bermuda Race, requires life rafts and safety education for 30 percent of the crew; a Category 2 event does not.

Sailing experts say that even the best ocean racers do not tether themselves to the boat when making a turn as they would in bad weather and at night.

But Kimball Livingston, author of "Sailing the Bay," a book about boating in San Francisco Bay and the Gulf of the Farallones, said: "We can make it safer with new electronic equipment, and we have. But if you fly your airplane into the side of a mountain, your parachute does no good. And that's what we may have here."

Accidents and fatalities have occurred before in races around the San Francisco Bay. In 1982, four sailors died in the Doublehanded Farallones race, and one died of hypothermia in the 1984 running after a capsize. Two sailors were lost in the 2008 Doublehanded Lightship Race that goes only halfway to the Farallones. U.S. Sailing's 2010 Hanson Rescue Award was given to sailors who rescued a group after they were thrown from their sailboat at the Farallones.

"Rounding the Farallon Islands, you are truly in an 'other place,' " Livingston said. "It's a moonscape. Rocks rising up. You're out at the edge of the continental shelf, and seas travel for thousands of miles before they build up there. It's spectacular and awe-inspiring. You just don't want to get close."

The 2013 America's Cup will be sailed within the San Francisco Bay, and the event is working to manage the gusty and wavy conditions through design.

"Sailing the Cup here is intimidating, but that's the game they've decided to play," Livingston said.

He said that designers of the 72-foot America's Cup catamarans, the first scheduled to launch in July, must balance the equation that says stronger equals slower.

John Kostecki, a Bay Area native and a tactician for Oracle Racing, the defender of the America's Cup, said: "We're taking strength very seriously. It's pretty extreme inside the Bay. Bottom line is you need to finish races here."

The haunting shell and shredded sails of the Low Speed Chase continue to be battered by waves as the Coast Guard considers salvage options off the environmentally sensitive shoreline.

"I can't believe this hasn't happened more," said Kostecki, who sailed the Farallones Race when he was 11. "This stuff can be dangerous. You have to respect Mother Nature and the ocean."

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 30, 2012

An article on April 20 about safety concerns in ocean racing events in the wake of five recent deaths in the Full Crew Farallones Race off San Francisco misstated the number of sailors who died during the 1982 Doublehanded Farallones race, which took place in the same area. Four sailors, not eight, died in the race.

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New Internet policy aimed at socio-economic growth

DuLichDoSon.net | harvard university |

Le Nam Thang, deputy minister of Information and Communications, said Vietnam is developing a new Internet policy to replace the old one, keeping in mind the current situation in the country, and exploring the advantages of the Internet, curbing misuse and focused on socio-economic growth.

The deputy minister stated this at a meeting to discuss 'Influence of Internet on the country's economic growth' organised by the Vietnam Club of Information Technology Journalists with participation of leaders of the Ministry of Information and Communications, Vietnam's Internet Association and international IT corporations such as Google, Intel and other domestic enterprises.

At the meeting, the US-based McKinsey & Company released its survey report 'Online and upcoming: Internet impact on developing countries.'

The Internet contributes to 9 per cent of Vietnam's gross domestic product (GDP), which is the same as Turkey and Morocco, according to a recent global survey.

The contribution is driven by private consumption of Internet-related products such as broadband and mobile Internet spending, cited the survey.

Private consumption accounts for some 2 per cent of Vietnam's GDP but is offset by the country's large trade deficit in Internet-related goods and services.

The survey also pointed out that the GDP contribution of the Internet in Vietnam is still lower than the two per cent average for nine developing countries that the company studied in detail.

However, Shaowei Ying, associate principal in McKinsey's Singapore office, told at the seminar that the contribution will soon catch up with the average rate and probably be able to reach 2.5 per cent in the near future.

On the other hand, McKinsey's survey found that e-commerce in Vietnam is still an untapped market with high potential for growth. Shaowei Ying announced that business effectiveness of small and medium enterprises has increased by 19.3 per cent thanks to utilization of Internet.

It said more than one-third of Internet users have visited an online shopping or auction site. Meanwhile, in another survey, 50 per cent of Internet users said they believed that shopping online provides access to a wider range of products.

Moreover, Vietnam's foundations for e-commerce activity are low in comparison with more developed countries and regional averages, due to low online payment enablement, McKinsey said in the survey.

Vietnam has 30 million Internet users in Vietnam, accounting for 31 per cent of the population. The blooming growth of telecommunications and Information technology in the country has brought hopes of a breakthrough for Vietnam's economy.

Ann Lavin, Head of the Public Policy and Government Affairs, Southeast Asia at Google Asia Pacific, said the real strength of internet in developing economy is in small and medium enterprises. She added that Google will have a discussion with Vietnam to assist such enterprises to participate in international markets.

Vuong Quang Khai, director of VNG, said during the past 10 years, digital content increased by over 50 per cent, a favourite condition to develop the digital content industry, as more and more subscribers have paid to access or download digital content.

However, it needs an appropriate policy to manage it or else it will fall in the control of foreign countries and affect national security, Khai said.

Source: SGGP

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Rights Group Reports Evidence of War Crimes in Mali

ong kinh may anh | harvard university |

A Malian man holds a sign that reads: "No to rape." There are reports of rapes in regions taken by Tuareg rebels and Islamic militants in northern Mali, April 4, 2012. (VOA - N. Palus)

Photo: N. Palus/VOA

International human rights experts say the armed groups occupying northern Mali have committed war crimes, including rape and using children as combatants. And there is evidence of crimes by Malian soldiers too.

Human Rights Watch says separatist Tuareg rebels and other armed groups who have taken over northern Mali have abducted and raped women and girls, used children as combatants, and - in rampant looting - robbed communities of their very means of survival.

Among the scores of witnesses and victims human rights researchers spoke with in Mali was a 14-year-old girl who said she was gang-raped for four days by fighters with the Tuareg separatist group National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, or MNLA.

Corinne Dufka is Human Rights Watch's senior Africa researcher.

"We noted a very worrying dynamic of abduction and sexual abuse by primarily the MNLA as well as the Arab militia," said Dufka. "I spoke with the witnesses to 17 abductions and then we spoke with either direct victims or with family members and friends who had direct knowledge of a number of girls being sexually abused as well."

While tens of thousands of Malians have fled the occupied regions, people who remain say attacks on civilians continue.

This resident of Gao, who did not want her name used, said girls as young as 10 years old and pregnant and nursing women have been raped.

She says rapes are still happening. As we speak, she says, women and girls are being kidnapped and raped.

She says it is important that the world know the truth about the separatist Tuareg rebels.

She says the international community must understand that contrary to what the rebels say - that they are here for independence of northern Mali - they have come raping our women, raping our girls, looting every last thing we've got.

The Tuareg rebels, who for decades have mounted sporadic uprisings in a bid for autonomy, fought alongside Islamic militant groups in attacks on Mali's north in recent months.

The New-York based Human Rights Watch says all of the armed groups have committed offenses. Ansar Dine, the Tuareg Islamic group seeking to enforce a radical interpretation of Sharia law across Mali, is reported to have carried out severe punishments, including slitting the throat of one man and cutting off the hand of another.

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director with Human Rights Watch, says fallout from the latest violence could be dangerous, as some non-Tuaregs affected by the unrest in the north are talking revenge.

"They're very keen to take revenge for the suffering that has been caused by the rebel groups in the north and are now organizing their own militias and some of their rhetoric is quite extreme," he said. "They feel like the Tuareg rebels have caused problems in the north for a long time and they want to go back and basically cleanse the north of Tuareg."

There is an ethnic element also in crimes allegedly committed by members of the Malian army. Human Rights Watch says it found credible evidence that in the aftermath of the rebel sweep of the north, Malian soldiers carried out arbitrary detentions and summary executions of Tuaregs and other light-skinned people.

Corinne Dufka says the abuses by Malian soldiers could be a sign of things to come.

"We are concerned that some of these trends could continue as perhaps some of the militia groups engage in an operation against the north and we'll be watching that," said Dufka. "We call on all sides to abide by international humanitarian law and ensure that those members of their respective militaries maintain discipline and are disciplined in case they do commit abuses."

Human Rights Watch is calling on the Malian government to invite the UN human rights commission to monitor and investigate abuses in the north.

The International Criminal Court said on April 24th that it has been closely watching the situation in Mali since the latest rebellion broke and will make a decision soon on whether to examine further.

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Selling goods the Vietnamese way

may in ma vach | education services |

VietNamNet Bridge – Walking for half of a day to a kermis to sell several soapberries, a pack of tea, several chickens, a basket of snails or a jar of pickled vegetables… is perhaps seen in mountain kermises in Vietnam.

In mountainous and isolated areas, kermises are not only the place for purchasing goods but also for seeing people. Besides some traders from the lowland, most of others are local people who sell self-made products.

Two Nung ethnic minority women sell several soapberries and some
tea at Bang Van kermis in Bac Kan province.


This woman sells some pairs of cloth shoes of Nung people.


The H'mong woman sell one blouse and several
shin-pads made by herself.


Some Muong students from Hoa Binh province sell crabs and snails.


Some people go to Re market in Hoa Binh province to sell snails.
These bags of snails are priced only several tens of thousand dong (several USD)

Three times a week, this Muong woman appears at this market to
sell two jars of pickled vegetables.

It takes this man hours to carry this pig to the market, but he may have to
take it back home (Pha Long market in Lao Cai province).


There is no fixed place for sellers.




Medicines are displayed on flat baskets at Bac Ha
market, Lao Cai province.

Le Anh Dung

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Japan helps Vietnam control expressways

Kinh Doanh | harvard university |

Japan will provide 527 million JPY (6.3 million USD) for Vietnam to implement a project to develop a traffic control system for expressways in Hanoi.

An exchange note to this effect was signed in Hanoi on Mar 29 between the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport, the Japanese Embassy in Vietnam and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Vietnam .

Apart from building highways for socio-economic development in recent years, the Ministry of Transport and JICA have cooperated in applying the intelligent transport system (ITS) in Vietnam .

The project includes installing and putting the system into operation on Hanoi Belt Highway 3 from Highway 5 to Phap Van and Cau Gie.

The project is scheduled to be carried out from the second quarter of 2012 to the fourth quarter of 2013.-VNA

Theo en.baomoi.com

Hanoi and Beijing youth bolster ties

tin tuc | harvard university |

The discussion was held following talks between Vice Secretary of the Hanoi chapter of the HCMCYU Nguyen Thi Nga and Deputy Secretary of the CCYL Beijing Committee Yang Lixian, in Hanoi on March 28.

The CCYL Beijing Committee proposed to coordinate with the Hanoi chapter to facilitate youth creativity and youth-run businesses.

The Hanoi chapter invited the CCYL Beijing Committee to become involved in the friendship meeting between Hanoi and Beijing youths slated for November this year and the 14th Congress of the HCMCYU Hanoi chapter in October this year.

At the talks, the two sides informed each other about their organisational apparatus and shared experiences in youth activities.

Hanoi introduced its model of voluntary youths in traffic management and environmental protection with 1,000 voluntary students keeping watch at traffic intersections during rush hour and a team of volunteers setting out to eradicate illegal advertisements at hotspots in Hanoi on Saturdays.

The Beijing Committee gave a detailed description of the legitimate rights and privileges of the city's youth, especially educational and developmental rights.

The Beijing Committee said it has established a council to prevent crimes among youth and help youths who had committed crimes.

It also opened a hotline with more than 1,200 psychologists, legal experts and professional students, to consult and detect pressing youth issues.-VNA

Theo en.baomoi.com

Op-Ed Columnist

tin tuc tong hop | harvard university |

Nobody knows what the Supreme Court will decide with regard to the Affordable Care Act. But, after this week’s hearings, it seems quite possible that the court will strike down the "mandate" — the requirement that individuals purchase health insurance — and maybe the whole law. Removing the mandate would make the law much less workable, while striking down the whole thing would mean denying health coverage to 30 million or more Americans.

Broccoli and Bad Faith

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 29, 2012

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Given the stakes, one might have expected all the court’s members to be very careful in speaking about both health care realities and legal precedents. In reality, however, the second day of hearings suggested that the justices most hostile to the law don’t understand, or choose not to understand, how insurance works. And the third day was, in a way, even worse, as antireform justices appeared to embrace any argument, no matter how flimsy, that they could use to kill reform.

Let’s start with the already famous exchange in which Justice Antonin Scalia compared the purchase of health insurance to the purchase of broccoli, with the implication that if the government can compel you to do the former, it can also compel you to do the latter. That comparison horrified health care experts all across America because health insurance is nothing like broccoli.

Why? When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don’t make broccoli unavailable to those who want it. But when people don’t buy health insurance until they get sick — which is what happens in the absence of a mandate — the resulting worsening of the risk pool makes insurance more expensive, and often unaffordable, for those who remain. As a result, unregulated health insurance basically doesn’t work, and never has.

There are at least two ways to address this reality — which is, by the way, very much an issue involving interstate commerce, and hence a valid federal concern. One is to tax everyone — healthy and sick alike — and use the money raised to provide health coverage. That’s what Medicare and Medicaid do. The other is to require that everyone buy insurance, while aiding those for whom this is a financial hardship.

Are these fundamentally different approaches? Is requiring that people pay a tax that finances health coverage O.K., while requiring that they purchase insurance is unconstitutional? It’s hard to see why — and it’s not just those of us without legal training who find the distinction strange. Here’s what Charles Fried — who was Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general — said in a recent interview with The Washington Post: "I’ve never understood why regulating by making people go buy something is somehow more intrusive than regulating by making them pay taxes and then giving it to them."

Indeed, conservatives used to like the idea of required purchases as an alternative to taxes, which is why the idea for the mandate originally came not from liberals but from the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. (By the way, another pet conservative project — private accounts to replace Social Security — relies on, yes, mandatory contributions from individuals.)

So has there been a real change in legal thinking here? Mr. Fried thinks that it’s just politics — and other discussions in the hearings strongly support that perception.

I was struck, in particular, by the argument over whether requiring that state governments participate in an expansion of Medicaid — an expansion, by the way, for which they would foot only a small fraction of the bill — constituted unacceptable "coercion." One would have thought that this claim was self-evidently absurd. After all, states are free to opt out of Medicaid if they choose; Medicaid’s "coercive" power comes only from the fact that the federal government provides aid to states that are willing to follow the program’s guidelines. If you offer to give me a lot of money, but only if I perform certain tasks, is that servitude?

Yet several of the conservative justices seemed to defend the proposition that a federally funded expansion of a program in which states choose to participate because they receive federal aid represents an abuse of power, merely because states have become dependent on that aid. Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed boggled by this claim: "We’re going to say to the federal government, the bigger the problem, the less your powers are. Because once you give that much money, you can’t structure the program the way you want." And she was right: It’s a claim that makes no sense — not unless your goal is to kill health reform using any argument at hand.

As I said, we don’t know how this will go. But it’s hard not to feel a sense of foreboding — and to worry that the nation’s already badly damaged faith in the Supreme Court’s ability to stand above politics is about to take another severe hit.

Theo www.nytimes.com

Netting Tiny Eels and Big Profits

Anh ngu | harvard university |

The next two months will bring sleepless nights and high anxiety — and quite possibly an extraordinary windfall — for a small universe of people in Maine. They are the lucky few with licenses to catch elvers — young, tiny eels that look like cellophane noodles and by some accounts are fetching up to $2,200 per pound this spring.

Craig Dilger for The New York Times

Suzanne Smith, left, and John Taylor on Thursday gathered the elvers that they caught in their nets overnight in Pemaquid, Me.

By ABBY GOODNOUGH

Published: March 29, 2012

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Ms. Smith prepared her eel catch while Mr. Taylor tended to their nets in Pemaquid, Me., on Thursday.

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The tiny but highly profitable young eels are a hot commodity in Asia and high-end American restaurants.

Elvers are a hot commodity in Asia, where aquaculture farms grow them to adult size and sell them for sushi and other food. They are believed to spawn in the Sargasso Sea and drift on currents to Maine, where they make their way to fresh water and, from March 22 through May 31, into the waiting nets of some 400 elver fishermen. The action takes place overnight, when elvers are most active.

Maine is one of only two states, along with South Carolina, where elver fishing is still allowed. And with Asian demand especially high — last year’s tsunami curbed supply in Japan, and Europe has cracked down on exporting eels — a gold rush of sorts is on along the rivers and streams of coastal Maine. Since the season began last week, stories have abounded of people making a small fortune in an often hard-luck state.

"The first two days of the season were extremely amazing," said Bill Quinby, an exporter based in Charleston, S.C., who shipped about 90 pounds of elvers to South Korea on Tuesday after buying them from Maine fishermen. "People were making $30,000, $40,000 a night."

Takes like that have brought poachers out in force. Gov. Paul R. LePage signed emergency legislation on Thursday increasing fines for unlicensed elver fishing to $2,000, up from a maximum $500. The law also stiffens penalties for catching elvers before the season starts and tampering with the nets that they are caught in. Prices have dropped this week, though they remain far higher than in previous years. David Smith, a licensed elver fisherman from Southwest Harbor, said they were down to about $1,750 per pound, perhaps because the catch was so abundant in the first few days of the season.

"It may be the buyers think, based on Thursday night’s harvest, 'There’s going to be plenty of eels; we don’t need to pay this kind of money,’ " Mr. Smith said. "But it may bounce back up. Who knows?"

Asked whether he did well last week, Mr. Smith put it this way: "I’m having a little addition put on my house, and I think I just paid for half the windows and doors."

Mr. Smith’s wife is usually his only company when he catches elvers from a tributary in a secluded part of Mount Desert Island. But in other parts of the state, fishermen cluster along the banks of some waterways and fight to protect their spots.

"I had to sit there for three days before the season opened, slept in my truck, just to stake out my position," said John Taylor, an elver fisherman from Newcastle, Me., who did not want the location of his nets revealed. "I had to actually let another guy take the spot — otherwise, he was going to fight me for it. And I wasn’t going to go to jail, knowing what kind of season was ahead of me."

Elver prices fluctuate from year to year — the creatures brought about $900 per pound last year, some fishermen said, but far less in the past. People often catch between 20 and 40 pounds in a good season, Mr. Smith said, though he has heard rumors of experts landing 50 pounds in one night.

Richard Blake, a longtime buyer, said poachers were coming "right out of the woodwork." Some unscrupulous types have even tried selling him young eels that he suspects came from other states, he said.

"Most of the eel dealers up here are smart enough to know if the product being offered didn’t come from the state of Maine," Mr. Blake said. "Anyone that I’m not sure about, I send down the road." Mr. Quinby said some dealers are "walking around with security because of all the cash they carry from buying elvers in the middle of the night."

High-end restaurants in the United States sometimes put elvers on the menu, perhaps fried or sautéed in olive oil with garlic. Dan Scofield, a buyer for Pierless Fish, a Brooklyn dealer, said the company had supplied elvers to Daniel in New York, French Laundry in Northern California and other top American restaurants in the past. But, he said, prices this year are too high.

The future of the fishery is not clear: the federal Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the American eel as threatened or endangered. Already, elver fishing is not allowed two days each week during the season for conservation purposes.

Mr. Smith, for one, does not mind the break. On some nights during elver season, he fishes until 2 or 3 a.m. and turns to his primary vocation, a crab processing business, at 4 in the morning.

"I inevitably in the next two months will suffer from sleep deprivation," he said. "There was one spell last year when I got about three hours’ sleep in three days and then my wife took the car keys away."

Theo www.nytimes.com

Study Shows Opiate Abuse by Some US Forces with Mental Disorders

giao duc | school teacher |

The case against a U.S. soldier who is accused of killing 17 civilians in Afghanistan has focused attention on the mental health problems some soldiers experience after years of combat. War veterans with a condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, were twice as likely to be on high-risk drugs as those with no mental health issues.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is the longest military conflict in American history. Many of the troops who have fought there also saw combat in Iraq. Doctors say at least one third returned with mental health problems.

Dr. Michael Yochelson was part of a military medical team that assessed returning soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

"I think it's going to be really critical that those personnel are identified and get into therapies quickly," Yochelson said.

But what kind of therapies are most effective?  Researchers studied a group of more than 140,000 U.S. military veterans who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2005 and 2010, and who had been prescribed an opioid -- a narcotic -- within a year of getting a pain diagnosis at a veterans' hospital.

Dr. Karen Seal is a co-author of the study. "Veterans who had a mental health diagnosis, but particularly PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) were far more likely than their counterparts without mental health problems to receive opiate pain medication," Seal said.

Veterans with PTSD were 2 1/2 times more likely to be on these narcotics.  The researchers also were also concerned about the quantity of drugs prescribed.

"These patients tend to receive higher dose opiates than their counterparts and would request early refills of their opiates, which indicates that they are using them more quickly than they should be," Seal said.

Many of the veterans on these drugs -- whether they were mentally ill or not -- had higher rates of accidents, alcoholism, violent injuries, suicides and overdoses.  Seal says the findings demonstrate that alternative methods of treatment, such as physical therapy, talk therapy or acupuncture, should be offered more widely.

"The study really woke us up to the reality of the serious adverse consequences that can occur with the use of opiates in returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have pain and mental health problems," Seal said.

Yochelson says treating post-traumatic stress disorder will take more than a quick fix.

"Frankly, if they've been on multiple deployments and perhaps been there for 12 or 18 months or longer, or even over a period of several years, several deployments and never had it addressed until now, I think that treatment period may be going on for several years and maybe indefinitely," Yochelson said.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Theo www.voanews.com

Restringing a Famous Last Name

may tinh tien | school teacher |

Jenny Lauren Steps Into Her Own

Erin Baiano for The New York Times

Jenny Lauren, 39, in the sunny Upper East Side studio where she makes her jewelry.

By RACHEL FELDER

Published: April 6, 2012

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YOU might expect the jewelry designer Jenny Lauren to have a head start in the business: She's the niece of Ralph and the daughter of his brother Jerry, the executive vice president for men's design at the fashion behemoth. But her big retail break came from an unlikely source: Urban Zen, the small chain that Ralph Lauren's contemporary (and some might say competitor), Donna Karan, helped found.

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Ms. Lauren's jewelry, made of a mix of beads and bits in bone, brass, coconut wood, silver and glass, includes chunky unisex chokers and bracelets, metal chains, dangling earrings and extremely long women's necklaces.

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Erin Baiano for The New York Times

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Erin Baiano for The New York Times

Not that Ms. Lauren deliberately approached the Karan store with a sales pitch, or even a plan beyond a quick afternoon browse. Last September, she stopped by Urban Zen's boutique in Sag Harbor, N.Y., wearing a neckful of the flapper-meets-hippie extra-long beaded necklaces she makes by hand. The store manager, unaware of her design lineage, admired them and offered her a trunk show on the spot. When it was held at the shop a few weeks later, Uncle Ralph stopped by and decided he needed the jewelry for his stores, too.

"Ralph just said to me, 'This is not because Jenny's my niece,' " Jerry Lauren said proudly. " 'You know, this stuff is terrific.' "

The jewelry does suggest a family influence. It's a mix of beads and bits in bone, brass, coconut wood, silver and glass that feels a little American Indian, and a lot "Out of Africa," with a touch of prepster-on-vacation earthiness. "I don't think it's an accident," Ms. Lauren said. "There's no way that growing up in my family and being around the looks my whole life didn't seep in."

But a childhood spent in that picture-perfect family, a tight-knit clan that could be a group of extras from a Polo ad, wasn't easy for Ms. Lauren, who battled an eating disorder and related health problems during her teens and 20s. (She documented those experiences in a 2004 book, "Homesick: A Memoir of Family, Food and Finding Hope.")

These days, at age 39, she seems comfortable in her own skin and with her own look, which is more eclectic artist than all-American, accessorized by the chipped nails and pallor of a type-A creative sort who works mostly at night. In an interview she seemed unpretentious and earthy, without any of the slickness you might expect from someone raised in Manhattan with boldface names in the background.

Still, she's close to her family, including her high-profile first cousins David, the executive vice president for global advertising, marketing and communications at Ralph Lauren; and Dylan, of Candy Bar fame. (Ralph Lauren's other son, Andrew, is a film producer.) She has two older brothers: Brad, who is in the restaurant business, and Greg Lauren , an artist, former actor and founder of a clothing line under his name, sold at Barneys New York, that suggests his uncle's garments deconstructed and turned into costumes for the fight scenes in "The Hunger Games."

Ms. Lauren's jewelry, which has a hand-touched, intentionally raw feel, shares some of the rough-and-tumble look of her brother's collection. It includes chunky unisex chokers and bracelets that men have been pairing with button-down oxfords and suits, vintage-y metal chains with a cluster of hammered medallions and simpler dangling earrings with textured beads from Kenya and Ghana.

The standouts are those extremely long women's necklaces — essentially, extra exaggerated opera length — which each have an ever-so-slightly jarring combination of colors and materials, like delicate little deep-red Czech glass beads and pale-gray granite stones from Mali, acquired mostly during the last two decades, when the designer hopscotched from Santa Fe, N.M., and Tucson to Paris.

Although she has been beading since she was a teenager, most of her adult life has been focused on other art-related endeavors, like painting, working in galleries and studying art therapy. But last year, Ms. Lauren found herself returning to jewelry, mostly as an escape from prolonged grieving over losing her mother, Susan, to lung cancer in October 2008. "I feel like a cat with nine lives," she said. "I feel very grateful that I've had so many different careers and interests and that they've culminated into something that's so fulfilling."

By last May, she was spending most of her time at a rented house in Wainscott, N.Y., obsessively beading, mostly late at night. Friends who saw the work liked it, and many bought pieces as gifts, but it wasn't until her encounter at Urban Zen that Ms. Lauren started to think her jewelry could become a business.

Jenny Lauren Jewelry, (or JLJ, as the tiny brass hangtag on most of the pieces reads) isn't cheap, starting at $350 for earrings and some of her simpler metal necklaces, to $5,000 for one of the long necklaces, which have names like Wonder Woman, Red Desert and Lioness. But Ms. Lauren said she considered her work a hybrid of art and fashion, with each item made by hand (often with rare beads, although she doesn't use precious stones) in her sunny Upper East Side studio.

As for that famous last name, Ms. Lauren thinks that making jewelry — the only creative medium she has explored that has a connection to fashion — has liberated her from its baggage. "For the first time in my life, I don't feel like it's been an albatross," she said.

Theo www.nytimes.com

The Ethicist

Vu Quang Hung | school teacher |

My wife and I retained a "fertility consultant" to help us find an egg donor who matched some of my wife's diverse ethnic background, which, as we explained, is part ethnic Hawaiian. After a month of dead ends, we asked the consultant directly whether she had searched any Hawaiian donor agencies. She said no, and that she would not do so in the future. Now she refuses to refund our retainer. Did she behave ethically? NAME WITHHELD, CHICAGO

Donor Agent Provocateur

By ARIEL KAMINER

Published: April 6, 2012

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As a matter of professional ethics, no, the counselor should not have taken you on as clients if you made clear that you were interested in a service she did not intend to provide. That part is simple. The rest of it is anything but.

All prospective parents have ideas — fantasies, really, though I don't mean that disparagingly — about the shapes their families will take. Those ideas shouldn't be subject to anyone else's dictates. But they shouldn't be taken at face value, either. And they certainly shouldn't be taken as universal.

For starters, if your fantasy is a child who resembles your wife, be forewarned that choosing a donor who shares your ethnicity might not get you there. Common ethnicity won't guarantee a close genetic resemblance; given all the unseen variables, two people who have a common heritage might be further apart genetically than two people who do not. In any case, less than 6 percent of Hawaii's population identifies itself as "ethnically Hawaiian." Who knows what the numbers are among the state's egg donors?

Choosing a donor of the same ethnicity wouldn't guarantee a close physical resemblance, either. As in any other group, one ethnic Hawaiian might look like the world's most beautiful linebacker; another might look like a homely blade of grass. Your wife's doppelgänger could be in another state, or even on another continent.

These might seem like purely logistical considerations, but they hint at why a preference that seems almost too straightforward to mention isn't straightforward at all. Not all families, as it turns out, want a kid who resembles them. Lots of parents hope their children will be new and improved versions of themselves, which might include looking either more or less "ethnic" than they do. Meanwhile others dream of children who bear no resemblance to them whatsoever. According to a leading fertility specialist in New York, some couples come to her specifically looking for egg donors whose backgrounds differ from their own. One Anglo woman said she hoped to find a Japanese donor.

Her desire obviously reflects some pretty complex ideas about race. A donor who matches your (or your wife's) background is a common desire, but that doesn't make it less complex. Perhaps you feel that it's better for children to grow up among their own, or that it's kinder to children not to broadcast the complexities of their conception. All respectable positions, to be sure. But all particular positions, which 10 other couples might argue 10 different ways.

So by all means, press your case with the fertility consultant. But also give some thought to the assumptions that might be shaping your search and to their possible ethical implications. With a subject as muddled as race or ethnicity, those assumptions (which we all harbor, in one form or another) are always worth scrutinizing. But never more so than when they are being projected onto an innocent new life.

E-mail queries to ethicist@nytimes.com and include a daytime phone number.

Theo www.nytimes.com

African Musicians Forced to Cancel Concerts After US Visa Hurdles

may tinh bang moi | school teacher |

Two members of popular Ghanaian hip-hop group Fokn Bois, artists Wanlov the Kubolor and Mensa, were invited to play shows in New York City this year.

Photo: photos.com

Some popular African musicians face visa hurdles when booking U.S. shows.

After performing at venues throughout Europe and South Africa, they said a trip to the U.S. to visit another side of their worldwide audience should have been a routine matter. But the duo was forced to cancel the concerts when U.S. officials denied Wanlov a visa.

"I applied in Accra, and I was denied a visa," he said. "They are telling me the reason they are denying me a visa is because I have a son and a wife that are American and live in Los Angeles, and because I've never applied for a green card. So the only way I can come to America is if I apply for a green card."

Wanlov had applied for a performance visa.  A green card is an immigrant visa for applicants intending to live in the US. But Wanlov said he has no intention of moving and just wants to play shows for his American fans.

The Ghanaian group is not the only act from West Africa that has been forced to cancel U.S. concerts because of visa difficulties.

Sierra Leonean musician Sorie Kondi was invited to play at the popular South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas earlier this year. Though Kondi was not denied a visa, he was not granted one in time either. He submitted his paperwork at the U.S. embassy in Freetown with what he was told was sufficient time for processing before his trip. But as the concert dates approached with no word about his visa application, Kondi was forced to cancel for fear he would not get the visa in time.

"A week before the proposed trip, they actually approved the visa, but by that time it was kind of off the table," said Boima Tucker, a New York-based DJ who was collaborating to help Tucker make it to the US. "We had cancelled all the gig plans and the airline flight would have been way too expensive at the last second. And plus Sorie needs to travel with a caretaker and so all the costs are double, because he's blind."

Wanlov said problems like these make it hard for popular African musicians to play in the U.S., no matter what level of success they enjoy.

"We do shows all the time all around the world," he said. "For me it's a very silly situation that I've been put in. I was just invited to come there for a week, financially I'm stable. I've seen over 20 countries in the past three years, from the music and from touring and stuff and yet there's this whole notion that I want to move to the United States."

Wanlov said U.S. consular officials told him his only options were to apply for a green card or get a divorce, so he does not foresee future U.S. tour dates. But bandmate Mensa said the group is hopeful they will manage to get to the U.S. one day.

Tucker said Kondie is hoping to schedule new performances for later this year. He will have to reapply for a new visa.

Theo www.voanews.com