Sun Im An arrived in the United States in the mid-1980s from her native South Korea, uneducated, alone, with only a light grasp of English.
Several years later, she turned to prostitution to support herself and her young son, said her lawyer, Francisco Celedonio of New York City.
But it was her foray into the sex trade that eventually led to her arrest, Celedonio said.
In August 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said they uncovered a network of brothels, masquerading as massage businesses, that stretched from Rhode Island to Washington, D.C., and included York County, where women were kept as sex slaves.
China's Baby Traffickers In rural Yunnan, poverty and the strict family-planning policy spawn a harrowing trade in infants By HANNAH BEECH Xicheng
Chicken street outlived its name years ago. When dawn lights the weekly market in this dusty hamlet in southwest China, the village buzzes with tribeswomen in technicolor dress peddling cilantro, bananas and wobbly squares of congealed blood used to fortify soup. But there isn't a rooster in sight, and an elderly shopkeeper can't remember when chickens last supported the local economy. The town's most lucrative trade now comes from a man standing under a scraggly palm, whispering, beckoning, pleading, enticing: "Come, come. Cheap, cheap. Baby, baby."
Massacre fallout: Charges for essay High school teacher 'disturbed' by violent content of assignment
By Jeff Long and Carolyn Starks Tribune staff reporters Published April 26, 2007
Told to express emotion for a creative-writing class, high school senior Allen Lee penned an essay so disturbing to his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct, officials said Wednesday.
Food safety worries mount Does melamine hurt humans? Why isn't food supply protected?
By Stephen J. Hedges and Mary Ann Fergus Tribune staff reporters Published April 29, 2007 WASHINGTON -- The tainted pet food scare, which has swelled into a serious crisis for animal lovers, now has spread to humans.
California officials have revealed that the contamination got into the food chain: About 45 state residents ate pork from hogs that consumed animal feed laced with melamine from China. Melamine is used to make plastics, but it also artificially boosts the protein level -- and thus the price -- of the glutens that go into food. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704280461apr29,1,1457847.story?ctrack=2&cset=true
21-year-old Chinese student arrested for operating porn Web sites April 27, 2007 Chinese police on Thursday said they had arrested a 21-year-old student for running five pornographic Web sites with 210,000 registered users, amid a nationwide crackdown on online pornography that authorities say is "perverting China's young minds."
The student, only identified as Zhu, was detained in the eastern province of Shandong on April 12, after he was suspected of operating five porn sites, containing almost 170,000 pornographic images and obscene movie clips, the Ministry of Public Security announced.
About 210,000 people had signed up to the porn sites Zhu allegedly operated - "Demon's Island", "Global Beauty Pictures", "Community of Bloom", "Moon Alliance" and "Pretty Vines", the police said. http://english.people.com.cn/200704/27/eng20070427_370223.html
Chemical Common in Chinese Animal Feed April 30, 2007 The mildly toxic chemical melamine is commonly added to animal feed in China, a manager of a feed company and one of the chemical's producers said Monday, describing a process that fraudulently boosts the feed's sales value but risks introducing the chemical into meat eaten by humans. / Associated Press Writer http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-china-pet-food-recall,1,4221127.story
Sex-slave ring: Brothel just part of trade Officials say local madam was part of East Coast network By TED CZECH Daily Record/Sunday News Article Launched: 04/29/2007 12:46:59 AM EDT
It turns out Flushing was the nucleus for the sex-slave ring federal authorities unearthed, the tentacles of which stretched along the East Coast, according to the criminal complaints.
The federal investigation into the ring began in May 2005, when a Korean couple, Ae Soon Cho and Geeho Chae, tried to bribe an undercover New York City Police Department detective, according to the criminal complaints. Cho and Chae operated a large brothel in Flushing.
The undercover detective soon found that two other NYPD officers had been accepting bribes from the couple and were pocketing the money, according to the criminal complaints. http://www.ydr.com/newsfull/ci_5777114
◇Free Diversified Aspects Masayuki Takayama Professor, Teikyo Uiversity ▼Negligence Mr.Kun-Tsan Tsai, author of 'Taiwanese and Japanese spirit', was an army special volunteer. He was in the deep mountain in Kyoto at the end of the World War II. He wrote the chaos from the end of the war to the end of that year when he returned to Taiwan. They became the "victory nation" overnight and were offered superfluity of food. He made grilled rice balls for starved children. He sometimes went "all the way to Kyoto station" to hand them out to children. "At one time he saw the people handing out the naval thermal vests to children. Then he talked to them and found they were Taiwanese volunteer as he was." However Koreans, who had been in the force he had belonged, "in a group broke into and robbed food and clothe warehouses." "They were domineering to beat dispirited Japanese while saying they were the victory nation." Japanese prepared the special trains for the victory nation. An entire vehicle was provided for even a few passengers. They the victory nation called a stationmaster or a person in charge when they found blunders by Japanese, then assaulted them by beating and kicking. Sadanori Shimoyama, a director of the traveler bureau, was one of those were gang bashed by them and he was seriously injured to the testicle explosion. The repatriation program for this victory nation was done on the order of GHQ. F.Roosevelt who had died four months before the end of the war left the will saying "confine all Japanese in four islands and destroy them". As they wanted to destroy only Japanese, unrelated people as Koreans etc. had to be banished.
- 2/3 - At this time all Koreans who had come to Japan by so called "requisition" were supposed to return to their country. However in fact all of them did not return. Ho-Gyu Lim wrote how they were in those days in 'The third country poeple's commercial code'. "The third country people is a term referring to Koreans in Japan during the prewar and the postwar days. Most of them dreamed the success in Japan and came across the sea during the period of confusion before and after the World War II." Their occupations were "such that they were able to get the cash, as a rag collector, a pachinko parlor or a sex parlor etc." Another important cash business was a crime syndicate. The story of N.Zapetti who ruled the dark world of the postwar days and started selling chewing gums is described in 'Tokyo under world'. In this story, Japanese rejected chewing gums which were not their preferences. He tied up with a crime syndicate and made them threaten storekeepers to sell gums. Therefore the chewing gum culture was established in Japan. This crime syndicate was Toseikai that grew up rapidly after the war and its all members were Koreans. There are about 500,000 Korean residents now in Japan. 1650 among them are in prison. This number follows to that of Chinese in prison, which is 2000 among total 250,000 people. The rate of Koreans receiving public assistance is 48 per 1000 people. Compared with the rate of Japanese that is 12 per 1000 people, it's as much as four times higher. They came to Japan with success dreams but are now nothing but trouble. To deal with the increasing crimes by foreigners, the Ministry of Justice issues a "residence card" in which a person's name and address etc. are written in an IC. However, according to the report from Asahi Shinbun, "Koreans are not included" in those "foreigners".
- 3/3 - I get an impression as "Ploughing the field and forgetting the seeds" from that fact. Koreans in Japan receive shameless preferential treatments any other foreigners don't. For instance, if foreigners except Koreans are arrested for prostitutions, drugs or crimes that lead to one or more years of penal servitude, they will be immediately expatriated. Only they will not be expatriated as long as they commit crimes that lead to the seven or more years of penal servitude as homicide. They explain the reason for this is their history. In plain words, Japan owes them because they are descendants of abducted people. Thus they take this preferential treatment for granted. However, the abduction by army is a fabrication made up by Kyung-Sik Park. They are the descendants of people who came to Japan before and after the war, and squatted as Ho-Gyu Lim described. There is no reason that they are distinguished from other foreigners and receive preferential treatment at all. But sensible Japanese did not say anything small-minded. I compromise only Koreans who received the penalty of seven or more years of penal servitude must be expatriated. Then how many Koreans have been expatriated since the age Toseikai was active behind the scenes ? We have often seen, in newspapers, Korean names following "John Doe whose real name is". Expecting large number of criminals have been expatriated, I asked the Ministry of Justice of the exact number. However the answer was, "The number of expatriated Koreans since soon after the war until now is zero because the minister has never stamped for approval." Though it's well known that Seiken Sugiura refused the signatures for executions, I didn't know any Justice Ministers had not expatriated Korean felons. Isn't this the bigger security concern in Japan than to refuse executions ?
Queen Elizabeth to Mark 'America's 400th Anniversary' at Jamestown Voice of America - Apr 29, 2007 And I'm Steve Ember. Next month is the four hundredth anniversary of Britain's first permanent settlement in America. Today, we tell the story of Jamestown. ... http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2007-04-29-voa2.cfm
For Native Americans, Jamestown a painful symbol South Asian Women's Forum, India - Apr 29, 2007 JAMESTOWN, United States (AFP) - "The word annihilation, the word Holocaust, the word atrocity come to mind when I think of 1607," said Adams, ... http://news.sawf.org/Lifestyle/36455.aspx
Queen Urged To Apologize For Slavery Post Chronicle - Apr 29, 2007 Britain's Queen Elizabeth is being urged to apologize for the slavery of Africans and the slaughter of American Indians when she visits Virginia this week. ... http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_21277683.shtml