July 2009

THE DPP is reviewing the sentence handed down to the callous leader of a gang which kicked a man to death for fun.

John Caratozzolo laughed as he and six other youths bashed and kicked Dr Zhongjun Cao, 41, to death in a Footscray street in January last year.

But victims' groups said today they were disgusted that Caratozzolo had been jailed for 15 years with a 10-year minimum for the murder.

The gang of youths had planned to go "curry bashing" and rob an Indian student for a mobile phone.

But instead they came across Dr Cao as he walked home from Victoria University, where he was a research fellow.

He was left for dead after the bashing while the gang moved on to its next target, another man they had mistaken for an Indian student but who was in fact Mauritian.

Dr Cao's family and Melbourne's Chinese community have called on the public to protest the sentences handed down to other members of the gang.

Several of other the young perpetrators were sentenced to youth detention last year.

UCSF - Daniel Ranch, MD, a pediatric nephrology fellow at UCSF, donated one of his kidneys to his wife of five years, Kana Kornsawad, MD, a research coordinator who, like Ranch, works in the Nephrology division of UCSF Department of Pediatrics.

As a pediatric nephrology fellow at UCSF, Daniel Ranch, MD, has witnessed time and again the transformative power of a donated kidney.

On April 28, he traded his lab coat for a hospital gown and gave one of his own kidneys to the person who already has his heart: his wife of five years, Kana Kornsawad, MD.

“I had always been an advocate for organ donation, and I knew the risks and benefits, so it was easy to make a decision very quickly,” said Ranch, 34, who had watched his wife’s health decline slowly but steadily since she first discovered blood in her urine in 2000.

Cinevision - The Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF) announced a number of non-screening events, including workshops, panels and parties, to be held throughout the Festival in addition to feature and short film screenings. AAIFF will run from July 23 through 26 at Clearview’s Chelsea Cinemas, the Visual Arts Theater and the Museum of Chinese in America.

AAIFF offers in-depth panels and workshops for film enthusiasts as well as the general public. This year’s Work-in-Progress workshop, which leads filmmakers toward the final stages of a film production, will present a new documentary on Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American actress to reach critical acclaim in Hollywood. New this year is a workshop on Red One cameras, a new tool in digital recording that makes filmmaking technology substantially more accessible and affordable to the general public.