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Notable Chinese-American author and human rights activist Bette Bao Lord, who is in residence this week as a Montgomery Fellow, will engage in a public “conversation” about her personal and professional experiences in Filene Auditorium today at 4:30 p.m., in a talk monitored by English professor Melissa Zeiger.

Lord — best-selling author of “Spring Moon: A Novel of China,” “Legacies: A Chinese Mosaic” and the well-known children’s book “In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson” — serves on the Board of the Newseum, Freedom House and the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1998, Lord was also awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Humans Rights by President Bill Clinton.

Invited to the College as a Montgomery Fellow by Montgomery Endowment Executive Director Richard Stamelman, Lord has visited several classes while on campus, including Zeiger’s “Immigrant Women Writing in America,” which perfectly corresponds with her own experiences, Lord said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

Instead of a formal lecture, Lord’s conversation with Zeiger will offer an opportunity for her to tell stories and share her experiences with students, faculty and local residents.

“I’ll be hopefully just telling stories — stories about my own life and stories about people I’ve met,” she said. “But I was thinking about what kind of stories I would tell, and I thought to myself about how much of my life has been infused with luck — stories [that] I’ve heard about people’s luck and lucky things or unlucky things that happened to me.”

As a self-proclaimed storyteller, Lord said she hopes that her stories will “entertain and edify” Dartmouth audiences.

“The things that I have to tell are really the events in my lifetime,” Lord said. “Not because I’m so interesting but because I lived in interesting times and have had the opportunity of meeting people from so many worlds — whether it’s publishers in New York or dissidents in China or high school kids.”

Lord was born in Shanghai and came to the United States with her family when she was eight years old, she said. “In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson” describes Lord’s own experiences growing up in Brooklyn, illustrating an experience similar to her own immigration.

“I have myself in [my novels] because it’s my knowledge of Chinese culture, Chinese traditions and Chinese cultural context — but they’re all made-up characters,” Lord said. “Although, oddly enough, I’ve had more than a handful, much more than a handful, of readers write me and insist that I’ve written about their family.”

The main character in “In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson” is Shirley Temple Wong, a name that Lord said is connected to her own name, as she was born the same year in which her namesake Bette Davis won the Academy Award for her role in “Jezebel” .

“My parents decided, when we were coming to America, to give me an English name as well — they named me Bette like Bette Davis,” she said. “Now the other choice would have been after the movie, and I’m very glad they decided not to name me Jezebel.”

In reference to her habits as a writer, Lord revealed that she is a “very slow writer,” she said.

“Writing for me is really about rewriting and rewriting and rewriting,” she said. “It took me six years to write ‘Spring Moon.’ ‘In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson’ took less because of its form. Once I decided to write it as a children’s book, it was much easier to write. You have to find the point of view of your character.”

She said that there are two questions she is most frequently asked about her writing process: when she writes and with what. Lord said that she avoids pen and pencil and works like a true night owl from midnight to 6 a.m.

“I cannot read my own writing, so I’ve always written on a typewriter of one kind or another,” she said.

Lord said she is a member of a monthly book club, and this June will mark its 103rd meeting. This is not your average book club, however, as attendants include television actor Alan Alda of “MAS*H,” children’s book author Arlene Alda, biographer Hannah Pakula, journalist Robert MacNeil and journalist Calvin Trillin, she said. Trillin was previously in residence as a Montgomery Fellow in February 2011. The club is called “The Moveable Feast” because each person takes a turn to host, and the organization’s only rule is that nobody is allowed to cook, she said.

Three men abducted a Springfield man from outside his home, forced him to withdraw money from ATMs, and left him in the trunk of his car early Wednesday morning, according to the Fairfax County Police Department.

Around 1:30 a.m., the 22-year-old victim was leaving his home on the 6100 block of Cumberland Avenue, near the Concord Shopping Center and Springfield Plaza. Three men with their faces covered approached him, demanding that he get into his own car at gunpoint.

The robbers drove the man to two banks, where they made him withdraw cash from the ATMs.

The robbers then forced the man into the trunk of his car and drove the car to Piedmont Place near Braddock Road in the Annandale area. One suspect opened the trunk, cut the victim with a knife and told him not to get out of the trunk until the suspects had left.

When the victim eventually got out of the trunk, his abductors were gone. Police say his injury from the knife was not life-threatening.

The suspects are described as black males between 18 and 25 years old. They were wearing hooded jackets. All three had their faces covered with masks or cloth.

An early morning ceremony to remember the twentieth anniversary of the Westray mine disaster today paid respect to the 26 coal miners killed in the coal dust-sparked methane blast.

More than that though, it raised the difficult question of whether these preventable deaths have at all re-shaped the notion of safety in the workplace.

Westray retains a vital segment of the collective social consciousness, at once because it represents a cataclysmic, and unnecessary, disaster, and because it is a classic example of corporate profits taking complete and utter precedence over safety.

Before the mine was ever built, the Foord seam in Pictou County was well-recognized as one of, if not the, most dangerous coal seams to mine in Canada. After beginning operations, safety procedures and regulations were simply not followed.

The no-holds-barred quest for profits resulted in a dear cost in human life.

But Westray was no isolated incident, and as the push continues for increasingly-tight profit margins and ever-more inaccessible resources, more Westrays seem unfortunately destined to occur. If not here in Canada, then in more distant places where 26 dead on the job is unfortunately a common occurrence.

Statistically speaking, Canada is no safer a place to work than in 1992. This despite the enactment of federal bill C-45 in 2003, known as the “Westray bill.” The Westray bill was/is meant to enforce corporate liability and make it easier to hold companies criminally accountable for so-called accidents at the workplace.

But the bill, while hopeful on paper, has never resulted in a criminal conviction.

“I don’t think [Bill C-45]‘s been applied very well, obviously,” says Steven Hunt, Western Canadian Director for the United Steel Workers. “There’s been a couple of plea bargains where fairly small employers have pleaded guilty to workplace acts that killed people, but obviously there’s been some fairly egregious workplace fatalities, and most of them are preventable, and have gone under the radar. People continue to die, and these workers at Westray that lost their lives and eventually caused Parliament to enact a law…they seem to me to have died in vain right now.”

To Ken Georgetti, President of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), it is a question of a collective psychological re-tooling. While the legal ability to hold a corporation criminally accountable theoretically exists, it requires an as-yet untapped popular momentum to make it stick.

Georgetti sees reclaiming the word “accident” as being of particular importance to this initiative. To this effect, the CLC has prepared a new set of pamphlets meant to educate police and prosecutors on investigating and analyzing so-called accident scenes.

“[The CLC] think[s] the mentality should be that anytime a death occurs the police should investigate it as a crime scene primarily and then determine whether or not the death was accidental, rather than just assume that because it’s a workplace death that it’s accidental,” says Georgetti. “That’s the problem, because the presumption always is that it’s an accident, and accidents imply ‘no fault’.

“Our compensation system was set up so that no blame would be laid in accidents and people would be properly compensated, and at the same time people wouldn’t be fearful of the truth to prevent the accident from happening. So we now presume under our system that all accidents are accidental…but there is a culture of acceptance that this is just the normal outcome, of heavy industry especially, of the workplace, [that] deaths happen, and they’re a consequence of the nature of the work we do in Canada.”

Until this mass awakening takes place, it seemingly falls to unions to provide a collective voice to workers, especially in potentially dangerous work environments. In the case of Westray, workers made overtures to the United Steel Workers prior to the May 9th blast in 1992, but were deterred from unionizing by management at the mine.

Ken Neumann, National Director of the United Steel Workers, and on hand at the memorial, remembers the instance well. Neumann agrees with Georgetti that a social shift is needed to hold corporations legally responsible for worker deaths.

“I truly believe, from my perspective, that some of it has to do with a culture shift. For years and years people looked at health and safety as being regulatory. So when you have the police or the attorney general, when you have a crime scene, when you have a shooting, they rope it off. They investigate it like it’s a true crime. And I think that’s the mentality shift [that is needed]. We’re going to ask the federal government, along with the provincial governments and attorney generals, to provide further education, and to basically have some political will.

Following customers’ requests for high-end men’s clothing, Delbro Premium has opened up in Port Elizabeth’s Westbourne Road. Delbro was founded in North End as a gentleman’s clothing store in 1946, by Hashik Dullabh’s late grandfather, Thakor Dullabh.

With this store, the company has gone back to its roots. Hashik Dullabh, owner of Delbro Premium, says Westbourne Road was chosen because of the vibe of the street, its accessibility and the high traffic volumes going past. “We wanted to differentiate ourselves from our other outlets. This is a destination store, with a completely different atmosphere to the hustle and bustle of a mall. Our customers are businessmen, many of whom don’t like malls. They tell me they just want to park, walk straight in and walk out.”

He took the step to open a high-end men’s store in Port Elizabeth after his customers had told him that they “can’t get decent shirts or suits in Port Elizabeth. They said they had to go to Sandton in Johannesburg or the Waterfront in Cape Town to get high-quality fashion clothing.”

The store stocks a range of exclusive imported brands, selected for the fashion conscious who are happy to pay for quality and style. “We will monitor the market and decide whether to stock more exclusive brands,” he says. Customers are able to select from a complete wardrobe of clothing, including shoes, jackets, suits, belts and other accessories and fashion conscious staff have been specially selected to complete the experience.

“We see the street as an extension of Stanley Street, with its unique vibe. In order to extend the strip, we have gone for a refined, modern, urban-contemporary look,” he adds. It joins a block of up-market men and women’s clothing and hire outlets, fashionable hairdressers, restaurants, modern and speciality furniture stores, one of the metro’s oldest framing companies and more.

Dullabh also has an outlet at the Bridge in Greenacres, where the focus is on hip clothing and trendy shoe brands.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa scored another notch in his green belt, announcing Monday that a Colorado electrical vehicle maker will locate an assembly plant in Chatsworth.

Boulder Electric Vehicle leased a 27,714-square-foot building last month and has already started tooling it up for an assembly facility, Boulder CEO Carter Brown said.

The company will initially hire 30 people. Employment could reach up to 150 people at full production, turning out 1,000 vehicles a year.

Brown said the assembly plant jobs will pay between $15 to $30 per hour.

“We really like the state and the city’s enterprise zone,” Brown said. “Face it, L.A., San Diego and San Francisco is a huge market for the early development of electric vehicles.”

A $3 million grant from the California Energy Commission helped get the new business for the Valley.

The company’s initial investment will total about $6 million, Brown said.

Villaraigosa has been pushing a green agenda throughout his administration. He made the announcement of Boulder’s plans Monday during a keynote address at the International Electric Vehicle Symposium 26 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“We are proud to welcome Boulder EV to the growing sector of electric vehicle and clean tech companies in Los Angeles,” the mayor said in a statement.

“Boulder EV’s manufacturing facility will bring a new edge to our growing electric vehicle industry and much needed

jobs.”

This is the third electric vehicle company to set up shop in the city.

Chinese electric automaker BYD opened its North American headquarters last October on Los Angeles’ Auto Row, a move that city officials said could create hundreds of jobs and provide a hub for sales and research. BYD, which stands for Build Your Dreams, makes electric and hybrid cars, charging systems, solar panels and LEDs.

CODA Holdings, an electric carmaker and advanced battery system developer is located in the 10000 block of Santa Monica Boulevard. And TIG/M LLC, a builder of electric trolleys, has a research and development facility in Chatsworth.

“I really feel that L.A. has a competitive advantage when it comes to the electrical vehicle industry. I think we’re building a bit of a cluster here,” said Ben Stapleton, vice president and head of the global CleanTech Practice Group for Jones Lang LaSalle, the company that worked with Boulder to find the Chatsworth space.

The decision to locate the plant here began taking shape when Boulder executives had lunch with the mayor’s business team at an environmental conference in 2009 where the company had one of its trucks on display

“The Mayor’s Office has been excellent in helping with a range of issues and helping us find the building,” Brown said.

The company also liked the city’s enthusiasm for electric vehicles.

Boulder’s first vehicle should roll off the assembly line in next year’s first or second quarter. The Chatsworth plant will support the West Coast and export markets.

The facility will produce four models that Boulder markets to fleet users, such as governments and big delivery companies. The vehicles have a two-ton carrying capacity and a range of 40 miles, 80 miles and 120 miles, depending on the model, according to the company’s web site.

It will be a hands-on operation. The company has a 60,000 square assembly facility at its headquarters in Lafayette, Co.

“Once at full scale each line could turn out a truck every three hours. We are very labor intensive,” Brown said.

These will be just the kind of jobs the Valley needs, said Ron L. Wood, president and CEO of the Valley Economic Alliance.

“Those jobs help people migrate to the middle class and that’s exactly what’s missing in our (job) growth patterns,” Wood said.

Chatsworth is also a good location for this type of business because of its rich manufacturing history.

“You have a lot of engineers and there are quite a lot of small engineering companies in the Chatsworth area that have been around for a long time, so you have a good workforce to pull from. It’s educated and experienced,” Stapleton said.

Last week the man many had come to know as ‘Ted’ as he led the All Blacks to Rugby World Cup glory officially became Sir Graham Henry, for services to New Zealand’s national sport.

On Friday he will be in Timaru as the guest speaker at the annual South Canterbury Sports Awards, before which the Herald will put readers’ questions to him.

Today we run a profile by Fairfax reporter Steve Kilgallon, who met Sir Graham last month for his first major feature interview after October’s World Cup victory.

Henry opens up his laptop to show me how busy he is; every day has multiple engagements. He’s splitting his employment three ways: as a “mentor” to New Zealand rugby coaches, as a mentor to Argentina’s national coaches (although he promises he won’t be seen in a Pumas jacket when they play the All Blacks) and as a mentor for Sport New Zealand’s emerging coaches from disciplines as diverse as yachting and cycling.

Oh, and he’s also involved in a rugby coaching website (“the best rugby coaching website in the world, and I am a minor shareholder”), and a Hong Kong import-export company. He’s having his autobiography ghost-written by veteran rugby writer Bob Howitt, “and I want to be proud of that”, and gives “the odd speech here and there”.

All this, he tells me, is under the umbrella of his own firm. I search Companies Office records and see it’s called, rather aptly, Sixty Five Plus Limited. Henry turns 66 in June.

Is Raewyn pleased he’s no longer coaching? “I am sure she is. But she is looking at me sideways, wondering what retirement means. Her definition of retirement differs to mine.” Wry smile. “But after 42 years, we’re still not communicating as well as we should.”

Anyway, he’s not saying he has finished with coaching, which he appears to view as some sort of Dorian Gray exercise.

Expenditure on training can be exorbitant for companies, particularly when it comes to travel and accommodation costs. To address this, Bytes People Solutions has provided a cost-effective alternative, by creating a real-time training centre at its headquarters in Midrand, which allows people in Durban and Cape Town to participate in live instructor-led training programmes run from the centre. Learners can see and hear the facilitator, interact in group discussions with other participants, and receive assistance when doing labs.

The real-time training environment comprises videoconferencing equipment and an interactive whiteboard. The content on the whiteboard is projected through the videoconferencing equipment and is broadcast on 47-inch LCD screens in each location around the country. The interactive whiteboard allows for the images to be saved to file for later use. Connectivity between the different locations is achieved by means of diginet lines.

“This technology enables seamless integration between the whiteboard and videoconferencing endpoints,” says Pieter Nel, customer relationship executive at Bytes People Solutions. “Interactive whiteboards increase learner participation and allow participants to interact with dynamic content and live presenters. Course facilitators can share and communicate content with learners in the same room and with those in other cities.”

Nel says this new offering enables Bytes People Solutions clients to save money on travel, reduce their carbon footprint, and increase productivity as employees spend less time travelling and more time doing their jobs.

“Another benefit of this technology is that it has lowered the costs of many of our offerings,” says Nel. “Highly specialised technology courses are more affordable as we are able to attract larger numbers of participants per training intervention. It also means we can run courses more frequently and that people around the country now have access to highly qualified facilitators who are not readily available outside of Johannesburg.”

Bytes People Solutions is extending an invitation to people to come and view the facilities for themselves. “This is state-of-the-art technology that is enabling us to offer greater access to training on specialised products from vendors like Microsoft, Oracle, Citrix, VMware and CompTIA in a professional and comfortable environment. We welcome human resources and training managers to come and experience the real-time classroom and see how it can benefit their companies.”

Most stock markets in Europe ground out gains in volatile trading on Monday, after election results in Greece and France highlighted the scale of anti-austerity sentiment across the continent.

Athens’ stock market nevertheless closed 6.7 percent lower after Greek election results reignited concerns over the country’s ability to stave off bankruptcy.

Sunday’s election resulted in a massive loss of support for the two main parties that had backed the international bailout and its related austerity program. Votes transferred mostly to extremist parties, making it difficult to form a new government that would support the rescue package – meaning another election may be held in two months.

Antonis Samaras, leader of conservative New Democracy, which won the most votes, is trying to form a government but has so far failed to do so.

“Certainly the probability of Greece leaving the eurozone has increased, though probably not yet a 50 percent likelihood,” said Michael Woolfolk, an analyst at Bank of New York Mellon.

Despite the uncertainty over Greece, markets in the rest of Europe staged a late rally to close higher, possibly as investors who had sold stocks in the run-up to the elections sought out bargains or on hopes that Hollande will push for more economic growth in Europe’s strategy to fix the debt crisis

Hollande, who defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy to become president, campaigned on the need for more growth-generating economic policies and less reliance on austerity. While economists agree more growth would help fight the debt crisis, some fear Hollande could upset the balance in European policies and irk Germany, which has been one of the main proponents of austerity as a means to deal with the debt crisis.

“Ultimately much may have changed in Europe as a result of the weekend elections, but there is no need for wholesale panic,” said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co. “The result is likely to be the growing recognition of growth in Berlin.”

That sentiment helped the CAC-40 in France, which following early losses, closed 1.7 percent higher at 3,214.22. Germany’s DAX eked out a 0.1 percent advance to close at 6,569.48, having spent most of the day in the red.

Also supporting markets recover from early losses was Spain’s decision to present measures this week to support the banking sector – a key source of worry over whether the country might need a financial bailout. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he would not rule out lending, or injecting public money into the sector if necessary.

Phil “The Thrill” Mickelson will be inducted tonight into the World Golf Hall of Fame at the ripe old age of 41, a warranted eternal tribute to the unconventional left-hander who has teed up a lifetime’s worth of memories.

But while the wildly popular four-time major winner with 40 PGA Tour titles on his résumé is very appreciative of the induction, he wishes he was closer to receiving his AARP card than this honor.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to moving the age to 50 because I think now with fitness being a bigger part of the PGA Tour, guys’ careers are going longer, and I think that would probably be a better point to reflect on your career as opposed to being inducted while you’re right in the middle of it,” Mickelson says about the Hall’s age limit of 40 to get on the ballot. “I feel like the next five years could be the best of my career.”

Why shouldn’t he feel that way? He won this year’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, lost in a three-man playoff at the Northern Trust Open, and was in contention for a fourth Masters title. His work with short-game guru Dave Pelz and renowned swing coach Butch Harmon, he says, will continue to pay dividends. And his body, he adds, is healthy and strong.

That means more of his maverick nature — flop shots no one else would have thought of hitting. An example of one of his more memorable shots is a 6-iron off the pine straw through a small gap in the pine trees that just cleared Rae’s Creek and helped him win a green jacket at Augusta National. On the flip side? An errant drive and a misguided second shot on the final hole that cost him a chance to win a U.S. Open at Winged Foot.

He is our generation’s Arnold Palmer, a go-for-broke persona that never does dull. And like Palmer, Mickelson will sign autographs until the ink dries out.

“You’ve got to play without fear,” he says. “Rather than play tentatively, or let someone else hand it to you, I’ve always liked to try to get the tournament in my control … which has forced me to play aggressive.”

Corruption has become one of the most dangerous threats in the world. Recently, the Chinese communist leader, Bo Xiali, got suspended from the party due to corruption charges. Wal-Mart, a well-known retail chain, is also facing corruption and bribery charges. The list goes on and on.

Every day we hear about an incident involving corruption. Whether it’s in a developed country, developing country or underdeveloped country, corruption is a termite infestation that reaches every corner of the world.

There is a close relationship between corruption, business and politics. Most corruption scandals are rooted in the misuse of power or public property for personal benefit or benefit of selected firms or businessmen.

Corruption mainly occurs in a systemic manner, one in which multinational companies work hand-in-glove with the government. One important reason is that the companies don’t want to lose their projects to their competitors, at any cost.

Corruption has various forms, such as bribery, nepotism, embezzlement, cronyism, patronage and trading in influence. For most companies caught in a corruption scandal, cutthroat competition is the major driving factor.

From another perspective, the most powerful governments in the world are still unable to solve this problem completely, which may be because the most corrupted people are politicians.

Corruption has become a cancer to the economies of developing countries. Today, many of these countries face a wide range of problems that are due to corruption. Interestingly, most of the corruption scandals involve foreign companies and agents.

Civil society, nongovernmental organizations and some international organizations are working hard to fix this problem. They have had success to some extent, but this is not sufficient. There is still a long way to go.
As per Transparency International’s Corruption perception index, New Zealand occupies the top of the list as the least-corrupted nation, followed by Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Japan takes the 14th position, the United Kingdom is 16th, the United States is 24th, Saudi Arabia is 56th, Brazil is 73rd, China is 75th and India is 95th on the list of 182 countries.

North Korea and Somalia collectively occupy the bottom of the list as the most corrupted nations, preceded by Myanmar and Afghanistan, who are preceded by Uzbekistan, Sudan and Iraq.

There is a dire need to prevent corruption, and civil society and nongovernmental organizations are showing anger toward the corruption. They are protesting against the corruption through various methods.

The lack of accountability, low transparency in government and greed for more money are the major reasons for corruption.
Anti-corruption movements are gaining ground in many countries. For example, India recently witnessed mind-boggling scams in the telecom sector and at the commonwealth games; as a result, civil society members organized various anti-corruption movements.

Last year, the United Nations’ fourth session of anti-corruption conferences was held at Marrakech, Morocco, and was attended by 1,500 representative from 125 countries. The result was several proposed measures to prevent corruption, such as framing stronger laws and recovering assets if an individual is convicted of corruption.
The civil society members, citizens and nongovernmental organizations of the G20 nations forced them to fight against corruption as one of their main agenda items for the upcoming G20 summit.

Experts believe that corruption is breeding a lot of problems, such as widening the gap between the rich and poor, and hindering the development of nations. The high-level, systemic corruption is causing losses in the countries’ treasuries. Corruption is one of the major causes of poverty, and it is also causing significant damage to the environment.

Corruption is a complex problem for the world; we don’t have a silver bullet that will solve it immediately. We don’t have a panacea to cure this mosaic disease. To solve corruption problems around the world, we must chalk out a strong plan that will convince most of the nations that it is a real problem.

Some of the nations disagree with the United Nations’ plan against corruption. So those nations should engage in a dialogue with the international community and negotiate with them to reach a conclusion on corruption.
We should implement the U.N. proposals for fighting corruption. The corporate world should treat corruption as an ethical issue. They should also engage in fair business practices.