Cambodian, Japanese among winners of Magsaysay Awards

By JIM GOMEZ
Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A psychiatrist who helped fellow Cambodians recover from trauma resulting from the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal rule and a Japanese ophthalmologist who led an effort to treat thousands of Vietnamese villagers are among those selected for this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Awards, regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize. The other winners are a Filipina pediatrician who has provided medical, legal and social help to thousands of abused children and their families, and a Frenchman who battles plastic pollution in Indonesian rivers. The annual awards, announced Wednesday, are named after a Philippine president who died in a 1957 plane crash, and honor “greatness of spirit in selfless service to the peoples of Asia.”