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In the Land of China White
By Stephen Brookes in Thailand, Hong Kong and Washington • Insight • February 5, 1990
Bangkok, Valentine's Day, 1988: The rains drenching this sprawling, Southeast Asian city were the worst anyone had seen in years. For more than a week the rain had come down in torrents, flooding Bangkok's twisting, junk-clogged canals and turning its crowded slums into miserable swamps. Traffic in the city, awful at its best, ground to a halt, and the outdoor markets shut down. At least, residents told themselves, the rains were doing one good thing: Layers of grime were washing off the magnificent mirror-clad temples, revealing again just how beautiful they were.
Opium poppies, Thailand B. CabeBut on the docks at Klong Toey port on the southern edge of the city, the rains were uncovering something else entirely. Workers loading a freighter bound for the United States noticed that, among hundreds of bales of sheet rubber that had been standing in the rain, whitish puddles were starting to form. Dockworkers alerted police, who ripped the bales apart and dug down to the source of the pale ooze: almost 2,400 pounds of pure China White heroin.
What the Thai police stumbled over that afternoon became the largest seizure of heroin yet uncovered anywhere in the world, and it launched investigators on a path that led to the arrests of more than, a dozen people and the discovery of a multibillion-dollar syndicate that stretched from the remote hills of northern Thailand to the money centers of Hong Kong and on to the streets of New York.
The deeper investigators dug, the more they found. The smugglers had managed, it was discovered, to bring almost 2 tons of heroin into the United States the year before and had been arranging yet another huge shipment as soon as the Klong Toey delivery reached its New York destination. The network of operatives involved was so vast and so intricate that two years later, several of its leaders are still being hunted down; the latest two came into the net in December.
The bust in Bangkok was only one of many signs in the past three years that massive amounts of heroin have been coming into the United States from Southeast Asia. As big as the Klong Toey gang was, say investigators, it was only one of dozens of complex, well-organized and hugely profitable heroin syndicates now in operation.
Together with thousands of small-time smugglers, they control a river of heroin that runs from the remote opium fields of Burma to secret heroin refineries along the Thai and Laotian borders, down back roads through Thailand to Bangkok, up to Hong Kong by ship and then on to the streets of Australia, Europe and North America. Huge amounts of highly refined Southeast Asian heroin, of far better quality than the impure, brownish heroin that comes from Mexico, Pakistan and Afghanistan, have been pouring into the drug markets of New York and Los Angeles since 1987, and more crosses the border every day.
It arrives in thousands of ways: hidden in crates of radios and tape recorders from Hong Kong factories; packaged inside lawn mower tires; "body-packed" by couriers who hide it under their clothes; even sewn inside dead goldfish. Supply has skyrocketed - heroin seizures have more than tripled since 1985 - and so has quality: What is sold on the street now is more than 40 percent pure, up from only about 8 percent just a few years ago.
So far, Washington's war on drugs has been aimed at the epidemic of crack cocaine that has swept the country since the mid-1980s. But a growing number of doctors, drug officials and politicians warn that an even greater threat from heroin is closing in fast. Significant heroin busts are made almost every week, with little evident effect on either price or supply. Last February, for example, the FBI was shocked to discover that the seizure of a $1 billion, 800-pound shipment -- enough to supply every addict in New York for a year -- had only a "negligible" effect on prices. "It told us that there's a lot more heroin out there than we know about," said Dave Binney, the head of FBI drug investigations.
What has many drug enforcement and medical authorities worried is that the same factors that fueled the spread of crack easy availability and low price -- could set off a similar explosion in heroin use. And there is another factor: Unlike traditional addicts, few new users inject the drug. Instead they combine heroin with crack and smoke the mixture to get the effects of both drugs simultaneously, which leads, many fear, to a double addiction.
William Hopkins, director of Street Research in the New York state Division of Substance Abuse Services, has seen the future firsthand, and he's scared. He and his team of researchers go undercover for weeks at a time on the streets of New York, keeping track of which drugs are popular and how they are sold.
"We see more people selling heroin than ever before," Hopkins told a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last August. "Smoking heroin with crack has widely spread, and we believe it is growing. And growing rapidly."
Opium smoker, Northern Thailand B. CabeSmoking heroin is not a new phenomenon. It's been a favored method in Asia since the 1920s, and appears to be coming back in fashion because of the fear of spreading AIDS through shared needles. Instead of injecting the drug, a user simply spoons some onto a piece of tinfoil, holds a lighted match under it, and inhales the upward-curling smoke through a rolled-up bill. It's known as "chasing the dragon." Mixing heroin with cocaine has been around for a long time, too. Older addicts call it "speedballing" and say it smoothes the sometimes-edgy cocaine high. A crack high can be more of a roller coaster than highs from most drugs. Smoked in small, hard pellets called rocks, crack produces an intense but short-lived euphoria, followed by a depression so severe that it sometimes leads to suicide.
Therein lies the key to heroin's growing popularity. Sprinkling a bit onto crack can extend its effects for as much as an hour and can soften the crash that follows. Hopkins and others report that dealers, always on the lookout for new products, are now selling souped-up sandwiches of heroin and crack called "moon rock," "parachute rock" or "speedball rock" in small capsules for less than $15 each, a little more than the price of a similar amount of regular crack.
Buying heroin in America's biggest cities is almost as easy as buying aspirin. It is available in glassine envelopes, in short heat-sealed sections of ordinary drinking straws (known as HIS: heroin in a straw) or in vials. Business goes on around the clock, seven days a week, and is often better organized than many legal operations. Some dealers even pass out business cards, printed up with a street comer address and part of a phone number (to be filled in at the last minute). There are sale days and bargains and shopping malls, where a buyer can select whatever drug he wants. If that is too much trouble, home delivery can be arranged, the drugs brought by children on bicycles.
Dealers are said to be targeting users under the age of 22. Already hooked on crack, eager to try something new but unwilling to start using needles, younger users have few compunctions about starting in on heroin -- especially as the price comes down. No studies have been done on how long it takes to become addicted to heroin this way, but addiction appears to be inevitable. And that has enforcement officials concerned that a whole new generation of young, poor, poly-addicted users is emerging.
The people growing rich on this trade belong to international Chinese organized crime syndicates, many based in Hong Kong, which maintain connections in Chinese communities in cities from Bangkok to Los Angeles to Amsterdam. The highly refined heroin they supply, says the Drug Enforcement Administration, now accounts for more than 40 percent of the American market, up from 14 percent in 1985. And the profits they make are huge. In its final form, adulterated and having been passed through many hands, a kilo can bring $1 million to $5 million on the streets of New York. The opium from which it was made, meanwhile, had been bought for just a few hundred dollars from a farmer in the highlands of Southeast Asia.
The emergence of the so-called Chinese connection has been partly due to the prosecutions in recent years of leaders of the big Italian organized crime syndicates, which traditionally ran the heroin trade from Southwest Asia into the United States. Chinese networks, which had previously supplied relatively small amounts of heroin, were quick to step into the void.
But the trade also has blossomed from nearly a full decade of bumper opium crops in the fertile regions of Burma, Laos and Thailand, the countries of Asia's Golden Triangle. Burma has emerged as the world's biggest supplier, and the amounts being grown there are staggering: Drug enforcement experts in Bangkok estimate the 1990 opium poppy crop to be about 2,600 metric tons, up from about 1,300 in 1989. An additional 350 tons are being produced in Laos, and as many as 50 tons will be grown this year in Thailand.
The heroin trail starts in thousands of small fields in the remote mountains where the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, thrives in the alkaline soil. Poppies are by far the largest crop for most of the Burmese hill people. By some estimates, as much as 90 percent of the cultivated land in the northeastern pail of the country is given over to them, and some 290,000 acres are thought to be under cultivation.
Tens of thousands of people are involved in growing, refining and transporting the drug, and tens of thousands more profit indirectly from the money that the opium trade brings in. In many areas, it is the only crop that makes economic sense. It takes about 2,000 poppies to produce a kilo of opium, but once grown, the valuable crop is inexpensively transported by mule through the hills.
The crop is sown in the late fall and is usually harvested about three months later, soon after the plants' white and purple petals have fallen off. The small, green seed capsule that remains is slit several times with a sharp, curved knife, and almost immediately a whitish sap begins to ooze out of the wound. Overnight, the sap dries into a dark brown gum, opium.
Some of the harvest is smoked by the villagers themselves, mostly older people, who roll a bit into a small ball and put it on a pin, holding it over a flame until it starts to smoke, then dropping it into an opium pipe. But most of the crop is wrapped in banana leaves and carried by mule to hillside refineries in the border areas, to be turned first into morphine, then into heroin.
The processing is done in small, makeshift labs, often manned just by a chemist, a few assistants and a contingent of guards; all that is really needed is a water source. In some areas, established refineries have been running for years, hidden under a cloak of camouflage netting and often surrounded by mine fields. All are well-protected, both from authorities and from competing traffickers; in Burma, a few are even reputed to have antiaircraft guns.
The initial refining step is quite simple, even crude: The opium is dissolved in hot water and mixed with lime fertilizer, which separates the morphine from the rest of the opium chemicals. Filtered, solidified with ammonia and then dried, the resulting powdered morphine has been reduced to one-tenth the weight of the opium.
But then the process gets much more delicate. Equal portions of morphine and acetic acid must be heated together for six hours at a precise temperature, binding the two chemicals into an impure form of heroin that is more than twice as strong as e original morphine. The brownish powder, when dried, is purified several times with ether and hydrochloric acid. The final product -- a fine, almost fluffy powder called diacetyl morphine -- is China White.
Once dried, the heroin is measured into 700-gram units and wrapped in paper or put into plastic bags, each stamped with an identifying logo. Brand names are important: One of the most famous is called Double UO Globe, made in Laos, which pictures two lions holding a globe in their paws. There are dozens of others, mostly from Burmese refineries; Crouching Lion, Lucky Strike, Panda and Dragon are a few. Each has its own reputation for quality.
With dozens of refineries now in operation, the stream of heroin out of Burma has turned into a flood, and the government in Rangoon appears unable, or unwilling, to do anything about it. That has partly been due to the political instability that has dominated the capital since the riots and subsequent military takeover in 1988. With a restless population and some 20 insurgency movements in the border regions, the military has been hard-pressed to devote the few resources it has to fighting a drug war.
For most of the past four decades, in fact, Rangoon has been trying to get full control of the northern and eastern provinces where the traffic flourishes. Ethnic minorities make up about 30 percent of Burma's population, and groups like the Kachin, the Karen, the Arakanese, the Shan and others have long insisted on regional autonomy, even independence. Most of them maintain their own armies, sometimes numbering thousands of troops. Heavily armed and fiercely independent, often under the leadership of a charismatic warlord, groups such as the Kachin Independence Army, the Wa National Army, the Pa-0 National Liberation Army, the Karen National Liberation Army and dozens of others roam with little interference from the government.
The funding to keep the regional armies going comes almost entirely from smuggling, say Thai authorities. Teak, gold, jade and antiquities are all taken over the border into Thailand. But the big money-maker for all of them (with the exception of the Karen, a uniquely anti-drug group) is heroin. "They all claim they're fighting for their independence," scoffs Lt. Gen. Chavolit Yodmani, head of Thailand's Office of the Narcotics Control Board and the director of his country's war against drugs. "I don't believe it. Many of them are just drug trafficking organizations."
As much as 90 percent of the heroin from Burma is said to be under the control of a single opium warlord: an enigmatic, notorious figure who operates under the nom de guerre of Khun Sa. Born Chang Chi-fu in 1934, Khun Sa heads the Shan United Army, a heavily armed force of 5,000-6,000 that controls a 200-kilometer stretch of the Burmese-Thai border where most of the refineries are located. Kicked out of Thailand in 1982, he now operates out of a fortified headquarters in the Doi Lang mountain range only a few kilometers inside Burma.
Khun SaWhile Khun Sa admits to being involved in the drug trade -- and has even boasted about it in the Asian press - he insists that he is the leader of a nationalist movement and the recognized chief of the 8 million Shan people. Claiming only to tax the opium that passes through his territory so that he can feed his people, Khun Sa has offered several times to abandon the drug trade if the United States will pay him $ 100 million a year for six years.
He has found an unusual defender in Abbot Phra Chamrdon Parnchant, a Buddhist who heads a drug rehabilitation program near Bangkok. "Khun Sa does not want to be recognized as a drug dealer," he says. "He says he only collects taxes, and I believe him. " A heavyset man with a penetrating stare, tinted glasses and two gold Cross pens tucked into the folds of his brown robes, the abbot was asked by Khun Sa several years ago to serve as his spokesman. After meeting briefly with Henry Kissinger in 1987, he has been trying, without success, to get the White House to discuss a deal with Khun Sa.
For their part, both Washington and Bangkok continue to regard Khun Sa as a criminal and the Shan United Army as his personal bodyguard and trafficking force.
"The guy's a drug dealer," says a Western drug official in Bangkok. "And he's stronger now than he's been in a long, long time. He's just sitting up there in his own little fiefdom." The Thai government has put a $25,000 price on his head, but there is little that Bangkok can do as long as he stays in Burma. "If he comes into Thailand," vows Chavolit, "we'll grab him."
Unless, that is, his enemies get him first. Some of the armed groups in northern Burma, such as the Kachin Independence Army and the Shan State Army, are occupied with smuggling heroin north into India and rarely clash with Khun Sa. But there is almost constant skirmishing in the hotly contested areas along the eastern border with Thailand, where a half-dozen groups are vying for the heroin trade.
"It's a kaleidoscope up there," says the Western drug official. "Alliances are constantly shifting among the groups. Some that used to fight now are working together. It's a business. And business is business."
Among Khun Sa's most bitter competitors, Thai observers say, is the Wa National Army, another self-styled independence movement heavily involved in drugs. It has become stronger in recent months since teaming up with the Burmese Communist Party, which under the leadership of Taik Aun is thought to control many of the opium growing areas. (The party has also reportedly enjoyed close ties with China, which it has used as a source for heroin refining chemicals.) Conflicts between the WNA and the Shan United Army have been heating up since fall, often spilling violently over the border into Thailand. (Bangkok sent police reinforcements into the village of Ban Arunothai in early December after fighting broke out between the two groups, each of which accused the townspeople of helping the other.)
While Khun Sa and his army appear to have a firm grip on refining and trafficking opium, Thai authorities say much of the cultivation is under the control of the 3rd and 5th Chinese Irregular Force, headed by Gen. Lee Wan Huan. Numbering fewer than 2,000 troops, the CIF is a descendant of a force of nationalist Kuomintang troops driven out of China and into the Burmese border area after the communist takeover in 1949. Turning to the heroin trade to finance several aborted invasions of China in the early 1950s, the Kuomintang troops gradually degenerated into full-time traffickers. They were the ones who centralized the opium marketing structure (forcing hill tribes to pay an annual opium tax), set up trading routes over the border into northern Thailand and imported chemists from Hong Kong to set up refineries. By the late 1960s, they were producing heroin in the jungle that was almost 99 percent pure.
Militia fighters in Burma's Shan State Stephen BrookesPerhaps Khun Sa's most dangerous enemy -- and a major player in the complex and delicate politics of northeastern Burma -- is the 5,000-man Karen National Union, led by Gen. Bo Mya. A genuine independence movement, the KNU is fiercely opposed to drug trafficking -- any of its soldiers who get involved with drugs face a death penalty -- in part because it depends for much of its funding on outside Christian organizations.
But the group also taxes shipments of jade, tungsten and tin that pass through the 800-kilometer-long region it controls, and its troops are heavily armed. Six Karen were arrested on the Thai border in December with hundreds of AK-47s, M-16s, mortar shells and grenade launchers, as well as more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition.
Unable to deal with both narcotics traffickers and antigovernment insurgents like the Karen and the Burmese Communists, Rangoon has been focusing on the insurgents -- to the point that many believe it is now in bed with Khun Sa. In 1988, the Bangkok press reported that Rangoon had cut a deal with the drug lord, giving him free rein along the border in exchange for protection for teak exports (on which the government depends for foreign currency).
Since then, government checkpoints have been relaxed and troops withdrawn from many of the drug trafficking areas. And in March 1984, the Thai press reported that a secret meeting had taken place between Khun Sa and Brig. Gen. Aye San, the head of Burma's Eastern Military Command. The Burmese official agreed to leave Khun Sa alone if he would use his forces against the Karen insurgents and the Burmese Communists. "It's become live and let live with Khun Sa, so the Burmese government can concentrate on the fight with the Karen," says the Western official in Bangkok.
Washington also has long suspected that much of the equipment it has provided to fight opium production, notably helicopters and transport aircraft, has been diverted to the military's anti-insurgency drive. Because of these concerns and in protest against the military's brutal suppression of the 1988 uprising, in which hundreds died, Washington cut $14 million in annual aid last year and refused to recertify Burma as cooperating with antidrug activities. (Decertification means a country is automatically disqualified from receiving direct bilateral aid and requires the United States to vote against it in such multilateral organizations as the World Bank.)
The aid was not doing much good anyway. Many top Burmese police officials, including the head of the narcotics suppression unit, lost their jobs after the military takeover in 1988, and the few antidrug forces left in the country are understaffed, poorly trained and badly equipped. At the height of its efforts a few years ago, the government had five aircraft in its opium eradication squadron: slow, prop-driven Thrushes that could not go into insurgent-controlled areas without risking being shot down. In their best year, the planes sprayed 31,000 acres, about 10 percent of those under cultivation, and there was no eradication effort at all last year. Each year from 1984 to 1987, according to a recent U.S. General Accounting Office report, the Burmese seized an average of 1.5 metric tons of opium, less than one percent of the crop. The effect on traffic was "negligible."
Rangoon has tried halfheartedly to defend itself; the state organ Working People's Daily claimed in August that Burma had kept $16.5 billion in heroin from reaching world markets. But the government's usual attitude has been benign neglect; the Working People's Daily observed in 1988 that "opium from the Golden Triangle will spread throughout the world. For Burma, it is not our business what happens once it gets out. We can only look on with folded arms." With that kind of attitude among top brass, the country's opium problem is likely to become increasingly intractable.
Bad as it is there, Burma is not the only source of high-grade heroin. Some 300 metric tons of opium has been coming out of the and plateaus of northern Laos at least since 1987, aided, Thai and Western officials say, by top figures in the Marxist government of Prime Minister Kaysone Phornivane. Bangkok officially accused Vientiane of being involved in trafficking in 1987, and the State Department says dryly that the United States "continues to receive reports of the involvement of senior Lao officials in the narcotics trade."
Khun Sa himself is widely reported to enjoy close personal and professional ties with the prime minister and to have moved a number of his refineries into Laos's northern Sayaboury province near some of his Burmese operations. "Two years ago, Khun Sa formed an alliance with Kaysone in Laos," says Francis W. Belanger, the author of "Drugs, the United States, and Khun Sa." Belanger, who met with Khun Sa early in 1989, says flatly that the Burmese drug lord "now has refineries in Laos and can produce his heroin without any outside interference. And if things go to hell in Burma in the next year or two, he can move into Laos and continue his operations there."
The Thai-Burmese border, Mae Sai B. CabeLaos would be difficult to patrol even if the government were really trying. Like Burma, vast stretches of it are virtually inaccessible. Narrow mule trails and waterways take the place of roads. The economy is in a semi-permanent shambles, making the opium and marijuana trade often the only way for poor villagers to survive. Provincial officials, who rule with a fair degree of autonomy from Vientiane, also depend on the trade: Two Laotian smugglers arrested in Bangkok last May told police they had paid local Lao officials about $2,000 per kilo to ensure safe passage out of the country.
Much of the Laotian heroin is simply ferried across the Mekong River into Thailand late at night at dozens of anonymous crossing points, then funneled into the town of Ban Houai Sai, long notorious to Thai police as a major trading center. But as surveillance has picked up all over Thailand, a new route has reportedly opened up out of central Laos: Multiple shipments are said to be going east down Highway 13 out the Vietnamese port of Da Nang.
Washington has had little luck enlisting Vientiane in the war on drugs. It offered to fund a crop substitution and narcotics control program in 1987 but was met with mostly blank looks, and Laos was taken off the U.S. aid list last year. Things may or may not be changing: Laos has reportedly started a $5.8 million U.N. plan to eradicate the poppy, though the State Department reports "no known poppy eradication" in the 1988-89 growing season. Vientiane is said by Western officials to be eager to get back on the aid list.
The third comer of the Golden Triangle, Thailand, has been much more successful in attacking trafficking. About 50 tons of opium are still being produced each year in the highlands around Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, in the remote northern stretches of the country.
Bangkok has been aggressive in trying to wipe out the remaining poppy fields and in getting its hill tribes out of the business. Nine different "crop cultivation control" programs have been started in more than 600 villages, and a slow but apparently steady transition is being made away from the poppy crop and into the less lucrative but much safer ones of coffee, lettuce and kidney beans.
Thai authorities have also been trying to crack down on the refineries still operating along the borders. The surge in opium production in Burma, says the State Department, has led to a corresponding rise in refineries in Thailand. And while Thai authorities have managed to smash dozens in the past decade -- nine last year -- and claim to have cut production by 70 percent, the country still harbors a substantial refining and smuggling network.
Even if it can wipe out its remaining poppy fields and refineries, Thailand faces a struggle against smugglers from Burma and Laos. "Thailand is a natural funnel for both heroin and marijuana," says the Western official. "And it's growing. We used to see shipments of 30 or 40 kilos that we thought were big. Now, with the booming economy and the growth in exports, we're seeing shipments of hundreds of kilos."
Getting the heroin into Thailand is no big trick. Most of it is brought over on narrow mule trails at dozens of points in the hills, then gets trucked into small western towns like Mae Hong Son to be sold to middlemen. Some comes over the bridge farther north at Mae Sai, a dusty, beat-up border town that was sacked a decade ago by Khun Sa in one of the city's periodic drug shoot-outs. Mae Sai is the northernmost point of Thailand, and you can pick up Highway I there way down to Chiang Mai, Bangkok and the coast. But even here the border barely exists: Thais and Burmese can cross freely 5 kilometers into each other's country to trade (there is a thriving black market in gold and jade, as well), and the bridge is always jammed with trucks, foot traffic, overloaded bicycles and motorcycles. A handful of border guards, machine guns slung casually under their arms, watch the crowd without much interest. After all, anyone with anything to hide would merely wade across the shallow river a mile or two downstream.
There is an array of Thai forces on the border, including the Border Patrol Police, the Thai 3rd Army, the provincial police and agents from the Office of the Narcotics Control Board. They are supplemented by DEA agents, who have three offices in Thailand, and Interpol. "We've got thousands of people up there," says Chavolit.
Nevertheless, the border remains porous, and efforts to control the trade sometimes backfire. A strategic road built by the Thais on the Burmese border near Mae Hong Son in the early 1980s was quickly appropriated by Khun Sa, who established three refineries just over the border and used the road to move heroin into Thailand. When Thai officials responded by destroying a 5-kilometer section of the road, the trafficker brought in tractors and earthmoving machinery and rebuilt it. And when one of his men was killed by a mine planted by the Thai border police last April, Khun Sa reportedly moved in 100 men to guard the road. At last report, they were still in the area.
Once inside Thailand, the heroin usually makes its way to either Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai, where officials say the big deals are made, then down to Bangkok or one of the port cities farther down the coast for shipment out of the country. In these towns, a 700-gm bag of quality heroin will run $3,000 to $4,000, and there are big profits for the middlemen who arrange to transport it to Bangkok, where it will fetch 50 percent more than in the north. These middlemen tend to be Chinese Haw: Thais of Chinese descent who are known by Thai names but maintain close contacts with other Chinese in Yunnan province in the People's Republic and in Hong Kong. Some are involved in production: Police in Mae Sai reported in October that Haw merchants were known to be running refineries just over the border in Burma. But most are in the transit business, recruiting couriers to move the drugs south.
Thai police with seized heroinThe couriers could be anyone. Some are Haw themselves, and others are drivers who never know what they are carrying. Some are just people who need a little quick cash: Four women were arrested last June near Chiang Mai when a spot police check uncovered 9.2 kilos of high-grade heroin hidden in girdles designed to make them look pregnant. Profits, in a poor country like Thailand, can be huge. A Haw arrested with 34 kilos as he approached Bangkok in December said he was paid about $8,000 to transport the drug, apparently destined for the Netherlands.
Once in Bangkok, some of the heroin passes into the hands of the city's underworld distribution network. There are about 300,000 addicts in Thailand, more than half of them in the sprawling slums of Bangkok, where heroin is sold a gram at a time in brightly colored paper packages.
But most of what comes into the capital city is quickly exported: mostly to the United States, followed by Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Singapore. Huge amounts leave the country in tiny shipments, either mailed - more than 32 kilos was intercepted in the Bangkok postal system in 1988 - or body-packed out by individual couriers (known to Asians as "ant traffickers") on commercial airlines.
Most large shipments go by freighter. Heroin has been found in plaster Buddhas, in crates of fake jade, even dissolved in fish sauce. While Bangkok's Klong Toey port is still the most important exit point, says the Office of the Narcotics Control Board, increased police surveillance there has pushed some of the smuggling down to little-watched port towns in the southern and eastern provinces. Officials in Bangkok say increasing amounts are being transshipped through Laos to Da Nang, then over to Canada.
As frequently as not, the smugglers are foreigners. About 500 foreigners are in jail in Bangkok on drug charges, most of them Burmese, Chinese, Laotian or Malaysian. Fifteen Hong Kong smugglers were caught in 1988 (with more than half of all the heroin that authorities seized that year), as were 15 Americans and a handful of Middle Easterners and Europeans.
A more recent phenomenon has been the emergence of the so-called 'African connection.' European traffickers have been recruiting couriers in poor Sub-Saharan countries, especially Nigeria, and using them to transport heroin out of both Bangkok and the Southwest Asian producing countries, routing them via India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Nigeria or other countries before going on to New York or European capitals. Some 236 Africans were arrested worldwide in 1988 for heroin smuggling, and Bangkok experienced a mini-epidemic this fall: A Nigerian woman was arrested with 58 kilos of heroin at Bangkok's Don Muang International Airport Oct. 16; two were arrested the next week trying to ship out five televisions packed with more than 20 kilos; another was busted Nov. 23 with about 40 kilos.
For those who get caught, the penalties are tough: Anyone convicted of producing or exporting heroin faces a potential death sentence. Thailand seems to be getting increasingly serious about the drug problem. More than 51,000 were arrested in 1988, up from slightly more than 33,000 in 1986, and police crackdowns are ordered periodically; the most recent was in June. But Thailand lacks any kind of conspiracy law, so it can convict only traffickers it catches with drugs. That means that mostly little fish get caught. "We need to go a step beyond getting the couriers, who aren't so important," says Chavolit. "The big guys won't do it themselves ' "
To close the net around the kingpins, Bangkok is considering a bill that would allow authorities to seize traffickers' assets and to triple penalties if the trafficking is done by government officials. If passed, that provision could make a crucial difference. Corruption is almost a way of life in Thailand, say those who live and work there; it extends from the local cop to the highest levels of the military.
Things are changing, slowly. On Dec. 12, a Thai police investigatory committee accused former police Maj. Gen. Veth Petbarom of being involved in shipping heroin to five countries, including the United States. Veth, indicted in New York on trafficking charges last July, reportedly used his influence to get the drugs through customs checks at Don Muang. "We have to be careful," says Chavolit. "Cases of corruption can take place anywhere, "
Much of the heroin leaving the Golden Triangle goes to Hong Kong, which has emerged as a key base of operations for financiers and traffickers. Situated along China's southeastern coast, Hong Kong has the biggest container port in the world and is one of Asia's foremost banking centers, handling some $50 billion a day. Most of the "Chinese Mafia" organized crime groups involved in the drug trade run the actual smuggling networks and launder profits from there, according to the DEA.
Hong Kong harbourThe trade has been going on since the 1920s, and the networks have become deeply entrenched. "The proximity to the source countries, the historical connections to Chinese communities elsewhere and the fact that we have very advanced communications and transport links with the rest of the world have given Hong Kong a long history of drug trafficking," says Tsang Yun-pui, chief staff officer of the Royal Hong Kong Police's Narcotics Bureau.
With 200 islands, most of them uninhabited, and hundreds of miles of coastline, it is easy for a trawler to anchor, bury a shipment on the beach and return to Thailand. Sometimes heroin will be dropped off the boat with a floating marker at a prearranged spot, and another boat will zip out from the shore to pick it up. Others drag it underwater in sealed drums; if intercepted by Hong Kong police, they simply cut the cables and let the evidence sink.
That route is still strong, but Hong Kong police say that an increasing amount is coming in through routes that have opened up in recent years. Opium addiction, once a massive problem in China, was wiped out after the communists took power and began executing traffickers. But as the country's economy opened up to the outside world during the 1980s, the heroin trade came back to life. "All the previously used drug trafficking routes from the Golden Triangle through China to Hong Kong have been reestablished," says Tsang.
From refineries in Burma and Laos, the usual China route extends to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, where a healthy black market exists, then goes overland to coastal cities like Canton (Guangzhou) and Shanghai. "I estimate that between 30 percent and 50 percent of the heroin is coming in from China," says David Tong, director of narcotics investigations for the Hong Kong Customs Service. "Hong Kong traffickers go down to Yunnan to buy the heroin or to the black markets right over the border in Guangzhou or Shenzhen."
They appear to be setting up networks within the People's Republic: Last year a Hong Kong resident was executed after being convicted of recruiting three Chinese couriers.
With the enormous volume of commerce across the border, intercepting the traffic is almost impossible. Some 12,000 vehicles cross every day, and thousands of commercial and fishing boats sail in and out of Hong Kong every day. "Look at this coastline," says Tong, running his hand over the huge, minutely detailed map of the colony that covers an entire wall of his office. "They could come in here or over here or down here. Almost anywhere."
Officials in the colony say the market has been changing as well. Most of the heroin entering the local market for the past few decades has been a rough, brownish, impure form known as No. 3, which Hong Kong addicts smoke. Now, the purer form known as No. 4 or China White, favored by American and European addicts, has apparently taken over, and the price has dropped as well, from $20,000 a kilo in 1987 to about $11,000 today. "In the last 18 months, the market has changed completely," says James Harris, a DEA agent in Hong Kong. "It's all No. 4 heroin now. So everybody who's in the drug business is potentially an exporter. And we're seeing a lot more local dealers crossing over and going into the international market."
Can the heroin tide out of Asia be stopped? So much has been produced that Asian drug officials say huge amounts are now just being warehoused. Even if every poppy plant in the world were chopped down tomorrow, they say, the market could still be fed for more than a year. That kind of oversupply, they say, will inevitably push prices down, and once that happens a real heroin epidemic could spread.
Sometimes even the people fighting the war wonder if it can ever be won. "What are you going to do?" asks Harris, looking out over Hong Kong's teeming streets and the harbor beyond. "Every time you take out somebody big, there's somebody else ready to step right in."


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You see on the chart how EUR/USD is growing, open a long position with a minimum lot size and make a profit. Your first trade with real money is a victorious one! You make an important conclusion - to earn on Forex is possible! Further you get a number of other simple and small victories. You have not learned to analyze the market yet, and therefore you do not understand how to explain your first successful deals.
You are excited about the world of a currency markets and tend to believe that you will to earn like L. Williams, J. Stowell, L. Gettess and others.
In addition to the joy you feel anxiety – what if today you are not able to earn? You look for some forex trading tips for success, but discover through forums that almost all of the traders there lose their Forex initial deposit. This myth is meant to create an opinion that the loss of the deposit is something common. Sometimes it makes you be afraid of trade. Such forex trading tips and comments are harmful for beginners. The reality is overwise. Only a few traders lose their initial deposit and mainly because of a wrong approach to trading.
The main mistake on this step is to aim to earn.
The first victory gives you a reason to consider yourself competent. Illusions and optimistic plans appear - some of those emotions are the worst enemy of a trader. You begin to predict movements of a currency pair confidently, share your experience on Forex forums, but the stop loss works more often than the take profit.
Continue to practice and study all helpful Forex currency trading tips. Select sources for your education carefully. Avoid being overconfident — now you are on stage of all-or-nothing thinking. Learn our Forex trading guide and communicate with more experienced traders.
If you trade on our accounts, please use the minimum lot size. This minimizes potential loss.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Raised by a blue eyed warrior woman who told her stories before she was born and a father who sang them to her from the soul of an acoustic guitar, Aubrea Summer grew up in the wilds of Northern Arizona. Television consisted of three channels from an antenna, promising books to be the more fantastic of escapes. Winter sports meant a car hood tied to the rear of a moving pickup truck, decorated in teenagers who, more often than not, went careening into the mud puddles. There was never a lack of inspiration, and writing became her passion at a young age. Her dream is to one day own a house on sixty acres with room to take in all the homeless Rottweilers in the world.


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Browse our site and select the property(ies) you are interested in. Please check the availability calendar to ensure the dates you want are available.
Once you have selected the property you are interested in and confirmed availability, please contact us via email @ email@example.com or phone us at 1(888) 440-4478 so we can confirm availability & price.
We will send you our Rental Agreement and once you sign and return it, along with a 30% deposit, we will confirm your booking in writing. Bookings are not confirmed until deposit is received.
Once your booking is confirmed, please complete the Pre-Arrival Concierge form on the next page and let us know if you have any special requests or needs.


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Discover an uplifting dining experience in Fisherman's Wharf.
One of the best parts of being in San Francisco is the food. With access to the freshest seafood and truly global cuisine, there is always something new and delicious to try. Hotel Zoe recommends our own Pescatore, a classic neighborhood Italian restaurant near Fisherman's Wharf. Discover your new favorite dish tonight!
Or Call: 415-561-1111
Uncover delicious Italian fare at Pescatore, a classic trattoria featuring fresh seafood and Italian favorites. Located on Fisherman's Wharf, just off North Beach, this Italian sidewalk café offers warm, friendly dining for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
With options ranging from classic fried calamari to homemade crab ravioli to our signature dish of cioppino, you'll never go hungry in San Francisco. And don't miss trying our legendary tiramisu with a cup of authentic Italian coffee; it's the perfect afternoon pick-me-up!
Digital Brochure >
Hours of Operation
Monday-Friday: 7:00am - 10:30am
Saturday & Sunday: 7:00am - 2:00pm
Daily: 11:30am - 5:00pm
Happy Hour:
Daily from 3:00 - 6:00pm
Daily: 5:00pm-10:00pm


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No items matching your keywords were found.
The AFL team that is , not the music genre . Although in recent years , dogged by the team drinking scandal , and giving fans little on field success , many fans could claim to be afflicted by the blues .Their iconic navy blue jumper plays out in their club's theme song.
Season 2011 promises much , with a thrashing of the newcomers the Suns in Round One , and a strong show against the League's glamour side, the Magpies , in Round 2 , the future looks rosy for the CFC.
As one of the foundation clubs of the VFA / VFL / AFL , they have a long and proud playing history , garnished with much Finals appearances , and are winners of 16 premiership flags .
Greats include past player Sergio Silvagni and present day champion Chris Judd , winner of season 2010 Brownlow Medal .


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Never Underestimate the Joy
Take advantage of this special opportunity to experience unparalleled beauty and nature bestowed on the owners at Nantucket Shores. Meticulously planned to optimize the views of forest protected hillsides and breaking Pacific waves. You won't find a more pleasing blend of man and nature. A picturesque private lake adds even more natural serenity and a wildlife sanctuary. Come and see one of America's remaining jewels for your chance to enjoy these views for a lifetime!


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Applause for the week of Dec. 22, 2014
Kudos to: People behind food drive at Hubert Bancroft School
Accomplishment: Food drive feeds 35 families during two-week school break
Details: The effort comes together with help from the student council led by teacher Pam Courtney, Angie Marin and Patty McCabe from UC Davis Medical Center and the Senator Lions Club. They fundraise, shop, accept donations from the students and organize the distribution and pickup of the food baskets.
Kudos to: Leo A. Palmiter Jr./Sr. High School
Accomplishment: Won Sacramento County Academic Bowl
Details: Students participating in Sacramento County Office of Education special education and community school programs used their knowledge about World War I while competing in the scholastic competition.
Kudos to: Maureen Smith, Sacramento State professor of kinesiology
Accomplishment: Inducted into the National Academy of Kinesiology
Details: The academy encourages and promotes the study and educational applications of the art and science of human movement and physical activity.
Bill Lindelof


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Southern Minnesota Recovery Connection partnered with Fountain Centers (Jenine Koziolek and Erin Champlin), Adolescent Treatment Center of Winnebago (Naomi Ochsendorf), as well as local faith communities to implement Recovery's Got Talent.
The purpose of Recovery's Got Talent is to showcase the talents of people in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, to promote positive self-image and self-expression, to build alliances and unity within the recovery community across southern Minnesota, to counter negative stigmas of addiction, and to host positive and sober social events.
The finale of Recovery's Got Talent took place September 20 at Daybreak Community Church in Owatonna, MN.
The contestants had advanced to the finale by showcasing their talents at qualifying rounds in Mankato and Albert Lea, and other towns in southern Minnesota.
Anna Melby-Kelly took first place with her original spoken word piece. Judging was based on stage presence, technical ability, creative expression/originality, and entertainment. Participation and entry to the shows were free. Some contestants were very new to recovery while others have lived for several years in long-term recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. The spirit that developed among contestants, judges, emcees, and volunteers was touching, and it was obvious to all that the competition became secondary to the camaraderie and participation. The finalists have been asked to entertain the crowd at the Co-occurring Disorders Symposium in January.
The partnerships of the Southern Minnesota Recovery Connection, Fountain Centers, Adolescent Treatment Center of Winnebago, and local faith communities will directly benefit those in recovery by increasing the communication networks and sharing of resources. Planning is already happening for next year, and we hope the event spreads to more locations.
Another way SMRC is using the arts to help people get in touch with their recovery is by facilitating a recovery-based creative writing workshop. The workshop, called Uncover, Discover, Recover, is free and meets one evening a week for six weeks. Because writing is a form of thinking that helps us make sense of who we are, workshop members learn to craft good, polished writing that increases understanding of our past and present. The workshop culminates in The Art of Recovery, a public reading that includes workshop participants as well as seasoned writers from the recovery community. This public reading also features an art showing of visual projects created by those in recovery.
The core mission of Southern Minnesota Recovery Connection is to mobilize resources within and outside the recovery community to increase long-term recovery from alcohol and drug addictions. The recovery community includes people in recovery, their families and friends, allies and organizations whose members reflect religious, spiritual and secular pathways to recovery. Our goals are to increase the quality and quantity of support for those dealing with addiction and recovery.
For more information about NCADD's Affiliate, Southern Minnesota Recovery Connection, please visit www.smnrc.org or visit our facebook page at www.facebook.com/smnrc.


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anyway, he is absolutely right about the incredible irrelevance of the storm-in-a-teacup that a certain misogynistic collection of Calvinists drum up with their constant blogging. no one really cares, they are all just fighting over the same piece of slowly shrinking pie, flavoured raspberry and belligerence. So read it for yourself.
PS Kiwis looking for a post on the other GC will be disappointed, but not much.


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- 1 What is Itz Cash?
- 2 Itz Cash Customer Care Number:
- 3 Itz Cash Customer Email Support:
- 4 Itz Cash Office Address:
- 5 How to find the address of the Itz Cash Card distributor/franchisee nearest to you?
- 6 How to locate nearest Itz Cash Card Branch Office?
- 7 Itz Cash Career Support Email Address:
- 8 Address of Itz Cash Card Branch Office in major Indian Cities:
- 9 Itz Cash Official Website:
What is Itz Cash?
Itz cash is nothing but an online payment app that creates a virtual account by using your mobile number or E-mail ID, this app allows consumers to make instant payments at any of its merchant sites in the country. To activate Itz cash e wallet account you either need to visit nearest itz cash franchise outlet or you can go to the registration page on the website to subscribe to its services. Reload the amount into your account with a debit card if you want to continuously enjoy Itz cash services.
Itz Cash Customer Care Number:
Itz Cash Customer Email Support:
Itz Cash Office Address:
Everest Square,
junction of Shraddhanand & Nehru Road,
Vile Parle (E), Mumbai – 400 057.
Tel. No. 022-61125656
Fax No. 022-26185383
How to find the address of the Itz Cash Card distributor/franchisee nearest to you?
Go to https://www.itzcash.com/consumer/jsp/customerICWInquiry.jsp and select your State and City. A list of Itz Cash Card distributors/franchise in your area will be displayed or you can SMS FINDICW SERVICE <YOUR AREA PINCODE> to 57575.
How to locate nearest Itz Cash Card Branch Office?
Visit http://itzcash.com/nodal-officers/ and select your City to find the Itz Cash Card branch office in your city.
Itz Cash Career Support Email Address:
Address of Itz Cash Card Branch Office in major Indian Cities:
39, III Floor, United Mansion,
M.G. Road,
Bangalore – 560 001.
Tel No. 080-25559852
Alpha Centre No. 150, 151
North Usman Road T. Nagar,
Chennai – 600 017.
Tel No. 044-42121729
2nd Floor, 6-2-929, D. B. Enclave,
Behind BPCL Petrol Pump,
Rajbhavan Road, Khairtabad,
Hyderabad – 500 004.
Tel. No. 040-23372823
Zee News, Harington Mansion,
Flat No. 11, Ground Floor,
8 Ho Chi Minh Sarani,
Kolkata – 700 071.
Tel No. 033-64517021
New Delhi:
Essel House, B-10,
Lawrence Indl. Area,
New Delhi – 110 035.
Tel No. 011-27106129


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About Us
Welcome to Kidmim Media!
We are passionate about providing relevant, fun and enriching curriculum choices for churches!
With over 28 years of proven and effective Children's ministry across the US and Canada, our team has a pulse for not only the needs and desires of kids, but what's needed and works for todays kidmin pastors, leaders, teachers and parents.
After all we use everything we produce in our own kidmin environments week after week! We get it!
Check back often. Our choices are growing!
Join our email list.


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Winning a huge account can be an important step in the success of your new startup business. The big accounts – whether you are looking for your product to be widely distributed or a big corporation using your services – are usually the largest and most profitable accounts.
However, selling to big companies is tough. Big corporate clients typically look for a strong brand and/or wide customer portfolio – neither of which your startup possesses.
Plus, there's so much competition at that level as everyone, including other big companies or well-established brands, wants to get that business. In fact, it is highly likely that the account is already being serviced by a more established business, and your task is made even more difficult as get that account, in whole or in part, from their existing suppliers.
So how can your small business win the big corporate account? Just like in one-to-one selling, the key to landing that big customer and winning over more established competitors is to understand the customer and what they are looking for in a supplier.
Here are some factors that will allow your small business to become a partner or supplier of a big company, even winning over bigger competitors in the process:
Credibility of the founder/s or owner/s
With the absence of a strong portfolio of existing customers, you — the owner of the small business — will be the main selling point. The big company will want to see that you have the strong leadership and management skills needed to successfully handle their account. They will need to see your core competency. They will want to see that you have innovative ideas that can benefit them. Hence, you should expect the potential big customer to check on your credentials and references from business contacts and that of your start up team (if any).
Quality of your presentation
How you present your business will be a key factor in helping you land the big account. The decision makers of the big company will be looking for your demonstrable experience and enthusiasm in servicing the account. They will look for your professionalism in presenting the business.
Readiness for business and hard work
You need to convince the big business that you will be able to deliver what you are promising. Sound financials is key; after all, they don't want to give their account to a new business on shaky financial standing that may go bust the following month. The big client will also look at how operationally efficient your new business is, and whether you follow standard practices required in your industry. They will also want to see a solid startup team, instead of a new business that relies on external consultants.
Strength of your offer
It is important to be explicit in what the customer can gain by accepting your offer. Are you less expensive? Are you likely to give them a better product or service? What is the big business likely to gain by giving your startup the contract? The big business will want to see whether you bring something new or better to the table. They will want to see whether you are really innovating a new product or just re engineering or modifying some existing product.
Cost is another important factor a big business considers in determining whether to give business to startups or not. As a new entrant trying to win their business (especially if you are trying to wrestle the business from an existing supplier), they expect you to offer the least costly alternative.
Flexibility of your offer
During negotiations, the big business may also consider the flexibility of your small business in your short term and long-term commitments to win the account. This can include, but not limited to, accepting longer terms of payment. This is where you need to be careful: in your desire to win the account, you might bend over backwards to the point that your cash-flow will be severely affected.
Relationship with existing suppliers
The client's satisfaction level with the current suppliers will be an important determinant in whether you can get all or part of the big contract. Some big customers will look for other suppliers, and be willing to entertain startup like yours, if they think that the presence of a new competitor will perk up the existing supplier or provide them with a better deal. The existing supplier may be expensive or late in meeting their obligations or not giving their work the priority the customer needs. Or the big company may have new needs that can be serviced by an additional supplier, hopefully your startup.
Willingness to offer a free trial
Some big companies will ask for a free trial of the services that they need. They want to see whether your startup can produce the results they want before moving forward to forging a business relationship.
Be prepared to start with a small deal and once you have proved yourself to them, the big customer may be more inclined to build on the business relationship and give your small business bigger contracts.
A small business can get a huge account – but remember, that it is not an easy ride.
Read this article for more tips on How to Sell to a Big Company
Recommended Books on How to Sell to Big Companies:
- Playing Bigger Than You Are: How to Sell Big Accounts Even if You're David in a World of Goliaths
- Selling to the C-Suite: What Every Executive Wants You to Know About Successfully Selling to the Top
- How to Say It: Business to Business Selling: Power Words and Strategies from the World's Top Sales Experts
- Exceptional Selling: How the Best Connect and Win in High Stakes Sales
- The Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Sales & Marketing
Similar Posts:
- Pros and Cons of Financing a Business
- 8 Lessons in Managing Large Accounts
- 12-Step Template to Write an Effective Sales Letter
- Top 10 Ecommerce Mistakes
- How to Bring an Existing Business to the Web


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She will face Deonna Purrazzo on the third night of their Survival of the Fittest shows on Sunday, November 19 in Oklahoma City. As noted, Madison Rayne received WWE Tryout a month ago.
The following is quoted from the original article on the official Ring of Honor Website.
In 2008, a young woman just a year into professional wrestling then-known as Ashley Layne was looking to make an instant splash. She competed in two Four Corner Survival Matches with Women of Honor pioneers like Sara Del Rey, MsChif, Daizee Haze, Lacey, and Serena Deeb.
Nearly nine years later, that competitor, now international star Madison Rayne returns to Ring of Honor to make her official Women of Honor debut during Survival of the Fittest Weekend in Oklahoma City! Since last competing in a Ring of Honor ring, Madison became a five-time TNA Knockouts Champion, was one half of the inaugural Shimmer Tag Team Champions and became one of the biggest female wrestling stars in the world.
But Madison isn't coming to compete in Women of Honor to face a young competitor looking for an opportunity or a local Oklahoman star. No, Madison is diving right into the deep end, signing to face Deonna Purrazzo! Just over two years ago, Deonna helped launch the Women of Honor brand and has become one of its biggest stars, competing all around the globe, representing Women of Honor! This first-time, ever, dream match will take place on Sunday, November 19 in Oklahoma City!
Who will win this clash of two of the world's very best female stars? Join us in Oklahoma City to find out!


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Of all the made-up wars being fought in America right now, the War Against "The War Against Christmas" is one of the least urgent, as it is taking place almost entirely in the minds of people for whom "Happy Holidays" amounts to a slap in the face. (Back off, friendly people!) But Christmas still rules the pop-cultural winter solstice; indeed, it has expanded its reach all the way back to Halloween, if the shelves at my local pharmacy are anything to go by.
As is the custom, television will be decked with holly and trimmed with tinsel until the New Year arrives.
Nowhere is this tradition more ardently observed than the Hallmark Channel, which will have debuted 19 original holiday movies, nearly all with the word "Christmas" in the title, by Jan. 1. Generally speaking, this is a case of quantity over quality, but there are always a few films that stand out by virtue of extra care, better budget and/or a starry cast.
With "A Heavenly Christmas," which premieres Saturday, the network has signaled its extra-specialness by framing it as part of the long-running Hallmark Hall of Fame franchise. Starring Kristin Davis, Eric McCormack and
Davis plays Eve, a Chicago financial consultant, too busy with work to stop and make a snowball, who slips on the ice and wakes up, if that's the word, in heaven — only to learn from celestial mentor MacLaine that she has been made a Christmas angel and is being packed back to Earth to fulfill a Christmas wish: Little Lauren (Jaeda Lilly Miller) wants her Uncle Max (McCormack), to be happy again.
That Eve and Max have already "met cute" will tell you where this is headed, if not exactly how it's going to get there. (Suffice it to say that heaven and Earth may have rules, but rules are made to broken.) The dialogue can get a little cute ("Dear God, it's me, Lauren. I think this is too big for Santa, so I'm going straight to you") and I'm pretty sure that the Chicago public school system doesn't put on nativity plays, but the plot proves watertight and the cast is able.
NBC follows last year's highly successful TV movie "Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors," with "Dolly Parton's Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love" on Wednesday. It's another "true story of a Christmas miracle that happened during my childhood," Parton says in the introduction. (The earlier film was a holiday special in spirit, but not in its setting.) Once again written by Pamela K. Long and directed by Stephen Herek, it's not quite up to the mark of its predecessor, whose strengths were in ordinary domestic relations and challenges — a Smoky Mountains "Waltons."
Christmas brings some bigger effects and O. Henry plot points that don't all quite come off or ring true; the new film doubles down on the miraculous, though it also makes room for the skeptic. Maybe that dream was a vision, or maybe it was just a coincidence; maybe that angel over the barn was only snow blowing in the wind. Dolly knows what she thinks, but you can decide for yourself.
The core is solid, with strong work again from Ricky Schroder and singer Jennifer Nettles as Dolly's parents and Alyvia Alyn Lind very good as the 9-year-old Parton, a precocious, somewhat egotistic scamp who dreams of red patent leather shoes and stardom: "Every day I wake up and say, 'Is it going to be today?' " (Nearly: Parton was 10 when she began singing on the radio.)
In the film's most singular passage, Parton plays a "painted angel" — a prostitute, is the pretty clear implication — a dazzled little Dolly meets while singing on the street and whose flashy style she vows one day to make her own. (That the singer is now 70 is something that did not occur to this viewer at the time.)
"Are you a dream?" asks little Dolly, still wearing the patchwork coat of many colors her momma made for her. "Some women say I am their worst nightmare," the ghost of Dolly Future replies. It is a little jarring, but not out of tune with the film's message to "love and accept each other, and always be kind."
Beginning Friday, Amazon is streaming two new original cartoons adapted from (and expanding greatly upon) popular picture books.
"If You Give a Mouse a Christmas Cookie" spins a holiday tale off Laura Numeroff's 1985 children's book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," a simple circular tale that leads to another cookie. (Illustrator Felicia Bond's work is aped here.) The book's nameless little boy is now called Oliver; Mouse, joined by the animal stars of other Numeroff books, has been knocked up into a hapless protagonist whose poor impulse control and need to be involved in Oliver's business winds up endangering a school play. (There's a school play in the Parton film too; it's a Christmas tale.)
It has a tendency to cuteness parents will notice more than their children will, and a few good left-field jokes, more in Numeroff's absurdist spirit, to cut the sweetness — a dog hypnotized by the revolving stripes of a barber pole, for example. ("It just keeps coming up from nowhere and going out the top.") As in many cartoons aimed at younger children, there is a surfeit of giggling. Nobody giggled in "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
There is less giggling and more art in the other Amazon special, "The Snowy Day," a gorgeous translation of Ezra Jack Keats 1962 Caldecott Medal-winning picture book, which broke ground by making its central, and almost only, character black — that race was incidental to the story was Keats' small but mighty point. Taking a cue from Keats' illustrations, the look of the animation is textured and patterned and forgoes the black outlines and exaggerations typical of cartoons; as a purely visual experience, it's thoroughly delightful. You can never predict what will become a "Christmas classic," but "The Snowy Day" deserves to be.
Where Keats was primarily concerned with portraying the beauty, magic and immanence of the tangible world — Peter (Donielle T. Hansley Jr.) goes out to play in the snow, makes tracks in it, plays with a stick, packs a snowball and puts it in his pocket to save — the adaptation, which features voice work from Angela Bassett, Regina King, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and narrator Laurence Fishburne, has been set specifically on Christmas Eve, filled out with other characters and given a small plot, most of which is taken up with Peter's distracted progress from his own house to his grandmother's a block away. (There is the familiar issue of a Christmas saved from ruin, but, like all else here, its terms are lifelike.)
Peter's street, which is every inch a New York City thoroughfare — Keats was a Brooklyn boy himself — includes an Italian chestnut vendor, a Jewish bakery, Asian and Arab shopkeepers, Latino teens and an African American a cappella group voiced by Boyz II Men. It is a bit of a dreamscape, where everyone gets along, mucks in and steps up, but consonant with the spirit of multiculturalism Keats brought to his work — and exactly the dream, not just the season, that the future requires.
Happy holidays!
'A Heavenly Christmas'
Where: Hallmark
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Rating: TV-G (suitable for all ages)
'Dolly Parton's Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love'
Where: NBC
When: 9 p.m. Wednesday
Not rated
'If You Give a Mouse a Christmas Cookie'
Where: Amazon
When: Any time, Friday
Rating: TV-Y (suitable for young children)
'The Snowy Day'
Where: Amazon
When: Any time, Friday
Rating: TV-Y (suitable for young children)
Follow Robert Lloyd on Twitter @LATimesTVLloyd


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Now that's reveal of our latest kit is over, it's time for another challenge. Members of our Facebook group has been waiting for the next challenge and we hope this one was worth your wait. :)
This challenge (as always) is pretty simple.. Use a recycled item in your project: scrapbook page, card, altered project. Anything at all. It's totally upto you.
To make this challenge even more interesting, we have some inspiration from our Design Team for you: -
Shruti Menon
Irene Retuya
Donna Espiritu
Visit their respective blogs to find out how they made these awesome projects.
And ofcourse, our prize. A twenty five dirhams gift voucher for the winner. :))
A summary of what you have to do: -
Make a Recycled Project
(The project has to be new: made after this challenge was posted)
(The project has to be new: made after this challenge was posted)
Share it in our Challenge #6: Recycle It! Album in our Facebook Group
Deadline: July 15 (just few more days left)
Happy Crafting!!


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Keith Masser | Penn State meeting recommendations, moving beyond scandal
About one year ago, former FBI director and Judge Louis Freeh released a report following his investigation into how Penn State responded to the child abuse committed by Jerry Sandusky.
The passing of this anniversary should not go unnoticed, because it's an opportunity to show how Penn State has moved beyond the news that shocked not just the Penn State community, but also many across the nation.
The goal of the investigation was to identify where our system broke down, and recommend changes we could make in governance, compliance, security and human resources to better protect our students, faculty and community. In order to make the changes needed to build an even better university, we knew we needed an independent and unfettered investigation into how Sandusky was allowed to do what he did on our campus.
After an eight-month investigation, we received 119 specific recommendations from the Freeh report for how we should strengthen university policies and performance in areas such as safety and governance; it also made a number of conclusions about what transpired.
This distinction between Freeh's recommendations for better governance and his conclusions is critical to understanding how Penn State has moved forward. People will continue to debate the conclusions, but they aren't material to the governance of our University.
Countless Penn State employees have worked virtually around the clock to complete 115 of the 119 recommendations thus far. The recommendations have been invaluable. I doubt any person would argue with the value of ensuring that thousands of University employees are trained in identifying child abuse, or evaluating security and access protocols for athletic, recreational and camp facilities.
The report also was very critical in improving the governance system in place by the Board of Trustees. Recommendations from the report, as well as the state auditor general, University Faculty Senate and others led to the most sweeping Board governance reforms since Penn State was founded in 1855.
As a result, the Board has expanded its committee oversight; opened all meetings to the public; and created an opportunity for the public to comment at each Board meeting. Among other changes, it eliminated the president and governor as voting members, while raising its quorum requirement to a majority of the Board. As a result, Penn State now has the smallest board of any of the state-related university and requires the most members for quorum (a majority), Both were recommended by governing experts as improvements.
The road has been difficult, but important feedback indicates we're on the right track. In a June 24 article, the Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed lawyers who work at various universities around the country and found the scope and degree of positive change achieved in a short time at Penn State was greater than most thought possible of the University.
Respected third parties, such as the highly esteemed former U.S. Senator George Mitchell and Moody's Investors Service have given Penn State strong performance reviews. Evaluators from The Middle States Commission on Higher Education said they were "impressed by the degree to which Penn State has risen, as a strong campus community" to the events of November 2011.
I have always believed the vast majority of the Penn State community wants and deserves to move forward in a constructive and positive way. Let me assure all of you, our priority, our passion and our responsibility as a Board are to Penn State's 96,000 students, 600,000 active alumni, and 24,000 faculty and staff. Recently, Penn State was named as one of the top 50 universities in the world for their dedication to teaching, research and service. Those are our core values and our mission.
Over the past year, many who make up our community have responded in a way that's commensurate with the finest traditions and character of Penn State. We all share a willingness to take the hard but necessary road with optimism about what we can accomplish in the future.
Keith Masser is chairman of the Penn State Board of Trustees and President/CEO of Sterman Masser Inc. This column reflects his comments made during a public hearing on board of trustees reform Wednesday in State College.