Wednesday, October 29, 1997
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 7
China's growing influence in West still largely ignored by Americans
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Chinese impact on America goes far beyond "Made in China" Mickey Mouse magnets and Christmas toys. Baby boomers are adopting Chinese children. College students are signing up for Chinese language classes in record numbers. Young and old are taking martial arts courses.
Yet Americans seem blind to China's influence here — two-thirds say China has little or no relevance to their lives.
Aware or not, Americans stoke their fires with iron pokers, put their imported sweaters on padded hangers and outfit their children in Halloween bunny costumes — all made in China.
Western culture is flowing slowly into China, but China's imprint on Main Street USA is growing fast.
The evidence is greatest at the retail store.
"Jungle Book" audio, video and book gift packs for kids are made in China. So are a pair of women's tennis shoes. And bright yellow plastic boots for little girls.
While China has restricted the import of many U.S. products, Chinese shipments to the United States in August hit a record $5.9 billion, led by a surge in shipments of toys and Christmas decorations. Half the toys sold in America come from China.
American anxiety about the imbalance between what America sells China and what China sells the United States is one thing President Clinton will discuss with visiting China President Jiang Zemin.
It's an issue that has upset organized labor. The Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile
"Asia is the blind spot in the knowledge base of Americans."
Esther Chow
sociology professor,
American University in Washington
Employees says apparel manufacturers are using low-wage Chinese workers who are denied basic labor rights.
But most Americans think they are not affected by what is going on in China.
When asked what impact Asia had on their lives, 61 percent of 2,000 adults surveyed last month by the Pew Research Center said "not very much" or "none."
"Asia is the blind spot in the knowledge base of Americans. They know more about Europe and Latin America," said Esther Chow, sociology professor of Asian and Chinese studies at American University in Washington.
But this is changing.
The estimated 801,000 Chinese living in America represent the thirdlargest group of foreign-born residents, behind Mexicans and Filipinos.
The State Department reports that since 1965 there have been 10,543 Chinese babies adopted by Americans — such as Janet Bass and her husband Elliot Staffin of Rockville, Md.
They adopted a child from China partly because they were dismayed by the country's policy limiting most families to one child, which has led some Chinese couples to reject baby daughters in favor of boys.
Drought leaves Brazil burning for rain
The Associated Press
MANAUS, Brazil — This year's burning season in the Amazon rain forest is so bad a lake has caught fire.
Two factors — the worst drought in 25 years and government policy that encourages farmers to burn their land — are speeding destruction of the world's largest wilderness and choking inhabitants of the Amazon's largest city with thick smoke.
At the Balbina dam reservoir, a record-low water level has exposed trees that were long submerged. For months the trees dried, then caught fire.
"Even the trees in the lake are burning," said Abner Brandao de Souza of Ibama, the government's environmental protection agency. "I've never seen anything like it."
A dense haze spews from the thousands of fires that have spread
across the parched Amazon. The haze is choking the 1.1 million residents of the northern city of Manaus.
"You leave the house in the morning, and you step into a thick haze," said secretary Selena Oliveira.
Fires at this time of year are common in heavily deforested Amazon states such as Mato Grosso and Para, where land is regularly burned for pasture. But the fires now are the worst in memory — and the intensity is new here in Amazonas, Brazil's largest state, where nearly 98 percent of the original forest canopy remains intact.
The fires have spread into virgin forest, where deep roots usually keep trees so moist they rarely burn. By most estimates, at least 10 percent of the 2 million square-mile Amazon has been destroyed.
There are no large-scale efforts to extinguishe the blazes because the
fires are mostly cases of landowners burning their own property.
Andrew Rohrback / KANSAN
And there is nothing to stop the smoke.
Doctors say the number of people seeking treatment for respiratory ailments has jumped 30 percent since the smoke began smothering the city
Before some showers fell in mid October, the region had gone 70 days without rain.
in mid-September.
The water level at Balbina dam,100 miles north of Manaus, has plunged to the point where the city is forced to ration energy. Some neighborhoods have electricity for only six hours a day. Two babies died at a maternity ward that lacked a generator to power their incubators.
El Niño is blamed for the drought: The cyclical phenomenon of warm Pacific Ocean currents is sending tropical storms north to desert regions such as Baja California and Arizona and leaving normally moist areas thirsty.
Even more fires are burning in Southeast Asia, where El Niño also has caused drought, spreading dangerous, choking haze over Indonesia, Malaysia and other nations.
20-year-old man accused in cases of spreading HIV
List of possible victims grows as police investigate
NEW YORK — He was a cute little boy who grew into a troubled young man — a bully in his neighborhood. He was later acquitted of murder. Last month, he was arrested on a drug charge.
And now 20-year-old Nushawn Williams is accused of knowingly infecting at least nine women and girls with the AIDS virus in rural upstate New York.
As others are still coming forward, the number of women exposed to the virus through direct sexual contact with Williams is in dispute.
Williams gave New York City health officials the names of 50 to 75 women he claimed to have had sex with, said state health commissioner Barbara DeBuono.
Although he would not say how many there were, Fred Winters, a New York City Health Department representative, said the number of names on the list was far smaller.
Chautauqua County officials said they had documented at least nine HIV cases in which Williams was suspected of infecting sex partners as young as 13.
The county's health commissioner, Robert Berke, said that at least half of the women were infected after Williams learned about a year ago that
he was HIV positive.
With the release of his name, several aliases and his photograph, authorities expect other, sex partners to come forward. Winters said a few possible victims already had been identified.
"We are strongly urging anyone in New York who may have had contact with (Williams) to visit our HIV clinics for counseling and testing," he said.
in the Bronx, where Williams most recently lived, District Attorney Robert Johnson was investigating an allegation that Williams may have had sexual contact with a 15-year-old girl, spokesman Steven Reed said.
On Sept. 22, Williams was arrested in the Bronx for selling crack to an undercover agent. He faces sentencing Monday, Reed said.
Tom Antenen, a representative of the New York City Correction Department, said that because of Williams' newfound notoriety, he was moved on Monday night from Rikers Island to the Brooklyn House of Detention.
He is in custody as Shyteek Johnson—one of many names he used, including Face Johnson and Face Williams —but is the same man who was tried as Nushawn Williams for murder in Brooklyn in 1995, Antenna said.
Williams was arrested in 1994 at age 17 after authorities said he accompanied a friend who used a hunting knife to kill a man because of an insult to a woman. The friend was convicted of first-degree manslaughter; Williams was acquitted.
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