Asia Cast for the week ending Thursday 26th August
In this bulletin:
- Report says thousands could have been saved from China floods,
- Hong Kong mourns Philippine hostage victims,
- Taiwan keeps old tradition honouring the dead alive, and
- Mother Teresa honoured.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET-This year’s summer rains have been a season of devastation and suffering in China. Many rivers have registered record-breaking flood levels. Among multiple disasters, the recent mudslides in northwestern China’s Gansu Province stand out.
According to a report published in the Epoch Times newspaper, thousands of lives could have been saved if the recommendations of experts had been followed.
The report calls attention to the way in which state policies have combined with this year’s heavy rains to produce an especially destructive flood season in China.
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ICT-Falun Gong practitioners filed a lawsuit against the Governor of China’s Guangdong Province while he was on a recent visit to Taiwan. Huang Huahua is the first governor-level Chinese official to be sued by Falun Gong practitioners during a visit to Taiwan.
The lawsuit was filed with Taiwan’s High Court and alleges Huang is in breach of two United Nations conventions for his part in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Our Inside China Today podcast has interviews with the Chairman of the Falun Dafa Association of Taiwan and a prominent lawyer.
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NTDTV-China’s state news agency said this week certain non-violent crimes may no longer be punishable by death.
A draft amendment to China’s criminal code proposes dropping 13 ‘non-violent offences’ that carry the death penalty.
The move is being seen as a small step forward. But observers say most of the crimes in the proposal are uncommon. Amnesty International said it would be impossible to evaluate any impact of the law change due to China’s secrecy over execution numbers.
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NTDTV-A Beijing official recently told dozens of Hong Kong journalists they should assist the regime and not act as a watchdog during times of crisis.
The remarks were made at a luncheon organised by the Hong Kong Journalists Association. Many were critical of Beijing’s attitude, saying that a free media helped protect human rights during social conflicts.
Hong Kong residents later protested the Chinese regime’s interference with media freedom.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 20th August
Blueberries, one of the latest so-called super foods, are proving to be a bit of a taste sensation in South Korea. (By sub_lime79/Flickr)
In this bulletin:
- Deadly explosion at Chinese firework factory,
- China’s economy becomes world’s second biggest,
- Disease worries in Pakistan, and
- Australian election raises republic issue.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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NTDTV/ET-An explosion at a firecracker factory in Heilongjiang Province killed at least 19 people August 16. Over 150 others were injured in the blast.
The explosion damaged surrounding buildings and created a thick cloud of dust visible from six miles away.
Thousands of local residents were evacuated. The cause of the explosion is not known, but locals said workers were present inside the factory at the time of the explosion.
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ET-China overtook Japan as the world’s second strongest economy during the year’s second quarter.
China is expected to have a larger economy at the end of the year. This is due to China’s population growing between three and five times as fast as Japan’s.
But wealth in Japan is more evenly spread across the population. And most Japanese don’t seem too bothered by becoming the world’s number three economy.
Economists are predicting that China’s economic growth will slow during 2010.
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Beijing authorities and police have mounted a crackdown on petitioners in the capital. When many Chinese cannot resolve grievances locally they exercise their constitutional right and go to Beijing to petition their case.
But the petitioners SOH spoke to said the police were using any means necessary to clear them off the streets. Listen to our Inside China Today podcast to hear interviews with three petitioners in Beijing.
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A US defence department report has underlined concerns over the secrecy surrounding the growth of China’s military.
The report said the limited transparency in China’s military and security affairs enhances uncertainty and increases the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation.
The Pentagon said current trends in China’s military capabilities were changing the balance of power in East Asia. Washington wants to engage in dialogue with Beijing to avoid any miscalculation between the two militaries.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 13th August
Sound of Hope executive Liaw Shuhuey was earlier this week detained by Singaporean authorities while on her way to Indonesia and where she was due to visit independent broadcaster Radio Erabaru who air Sound of Hopes Chinese programmes.
In this bulletin:
- Mudslides hit northwest China,
- Chinese human rights lawyer honoured,
- Sound of Hope executive detained in Singapore, and
- Report hits out at damaging ‘green energy’ projects.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET/NTDTV-Days after the August 7 mudslide in Northwest China’s Gansu Province devastated the area around Zhouqu, Chinese officials reported over a thousand deaths and hundreds missing missing.
But a local resident who was involved in the rescue effort told The Epoch Times the death toll was much higher. He estimated over ten thousand were killed.
Tons of sludge and debris prevented vehicles carrying rescue supplies entering the disaster area, hampering the search for survivors.
And more heavy rain across northwest China on Friday, causing further mudslides and flooding.
State-run media said that in Longnan near to Zhouqu in Gansu Province, 15 people are dead and more than ten thousand are cut-off following torrential rains and landslides.
Authorities have blamed the landslides on the weather, but some experts believe hydro-electric dams and deforestation in the area contributed to the disaster. Heavy rain is expected in the next few days and could bring more floods and landslides.
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ET-Gao Zhisheng, a missing Chinese lawyer, has been honoured with an international human rights award from the American Bar Association.
With Gao missing in China, his 17-year-old daughter Grace accepted the International Human Rights Lawyer Award on his behalf at an event held in San Francisco Friday August 6.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 6th August
Mascots of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games. The Games open in SIngapore on August 14th. (Singapore 2010)
In this bulletin:
- Extreme weather continues across Asia,
- Witness to organ harvesting seeks asylum in Switzerland,
- 65 years on from Hiroshima atomic bomb, and
- Pacific nations consider Fiji strategy .
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET-A former member of the Chinese security forces, with highly sensitive information about China’s human rights abuses, is currently stuck in an immigration limbo in Switzerland.
The man who has inside knowledge on the state’s practice of organ harvesting from prisoners faces deportation to China.
Advocates say the witness has valuable information and should be granted asylum and an audience with the United Nations.
The Epoch Times has a detailed report on the case.
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NTDTV-A twelve-acre flotilla of garbage has formed in front of the Three Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtze River. And with ever more trash piling up, engineers are worried it will clog the gates of the dam.
Torrential rain has caused massive flooding in the region, increasing the flow of trash down river.
Nearly three tons of waste is being removed from the dam every day. But some areas are covered with a layer so thick it’s possible to walk on the river.
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ET-China’s extreme weather continues.
Some regions have also been hit by heat waves recently, despite rainfall they received. At least 40 people have died from heat stroke as a heat wave sweeps across China.
According to the National Meteorological Center, the heat in the north has already reduced, but high-temperatures will continue to escalate over the next 10 days in the south.
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And in Jiangsu Province almost 20,000 people were recently involved in a protest over embezzled compensation.
The protest large scale protest was in response to the way authorities handled calls for action from villagers in the region. The villagers’ land had been seized, but an official embezzled the compensation payments they were entitled to.
One of the protesters told SOH not Party official stepped forward to resolve the issue, so the people took to the streets. Listen to our Inside China Today podcast to hear the interview.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 30th July
Prayer flags in Ladakh, India. The Dalai Lama recently inaugurated a huge Buddha statue at a temple in the region. (By mcaysavage/Flickr)
In this bulletin:
- Floods devastate South Asia,
- Dalian oil clean-up ineffective,
- Thousands rally to keep Cantonese language, and
- Surprise by-election win for South Korean president.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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NTDTV-Chinese state media said Thursday severe flooding in Jilin had washed thousands of chemical storage barrels into the Songhua River. Official reports said 4,000 of the barrels were empty. But 3,000 contained flammable chemicals and as much as 500 tons of chemicals could still potentially contaminate the river.
Water supplies were cut to parts of Jilin City in response to the incident. A strange odour reportedly spread through down town Jilin as the barrels floated by.
Rains across central and southern China have killed more than 900 people and left over 400 missing so far this year, causing around $26 billion US dollars in damage.
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ET-Environmental damage from last week’s off the coast of China’s Dalian City is already impacting businesses in the region.
Fishermen told The Epoch Times the authorities had not done enough to assist them in the clean-up operation. The attempt to manually scoop and soak up much of the 1,500 ton crude oil spill has not been effective.
Local media reported up to 30 centimetres of oil washed up on some areas of the shoreline.
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Amnesty International is trying to help a journalist recently sentenced to 15 years in prison by China.
Hairat Niyaz is an Uighur journalist from China’s Xinjiang region. He was arrested in October 2009 for allegedly endangering state security. After the 2009 unrest in Urumqi Niyaz spoke to Hong Kong media. At the time of his arrest police said Niyaz had given too many interviews.
During the trial in Urumqi Niyaz said was just carrying out his duty as a citizen and a journalist and had not broken any laws.
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ET-Over 10,000 protesters in the southern province of Guangzhou marched in opposition to an initiative by the Chinese regime to clamp down on their native Cantonese language.
The march was in response to a proposed decrease in Cantonese TV programmes, especially during prime time. Some protesters compared the move to the destruction of traditional culture during the Cultural Revolution.
A human rights activist who supported the march told SOH the event remained peaceful and orderly.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 23rd July
StarP2P has developed a technology to breakthrough the Chinese communist regime censorship. (Provided by StarP2P)
In this bulletin:
- Online television to let Chinese see beyond Great Fire Wall,
- Ancient drainage system saves Chinese city as flooding continues,
- Tensions on Korean peninsula dominate ASEAN talks, and
- India and Japan announce new hand-held devices .
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET-Weather conditions could worsen the impact of a major oil slick off China’s northeast coast.
A pipeline exploded last Friday night as an oil tanker was being unloaded in Dalian resulting in a huge fire. About 1500 tones of crude oil spilled into the ocean.
Heavy winds Monday broke the slick up and and dispersed the oil. Official reports said over 400 square kilometres of ocean were now polluted.
But a change in the wind during the week could push oil back onto the coast. Worsening the environmental impact.
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ET-A new online television network is helping Chinese netizens to break through Beijing’s information blockade.
The peer-to-peer transmission technology used by iPPOTV combined with the unique design of the software behind the service makes it impossible to block or trace.
What’s more the software is free. Star P2P, the company behind the TV network said they were giving viewers in China back the right to knowledge stripped from them by the authoritarian political system.
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Expert commentators have branded the new 24-hour English language news channel launched by China’s state-run news agency a propaganda tool.
International Journal Modern China Studies told SOH Xinhua News Agency’s CNC World channel is aimed at pushing and extending the reach of Chinese media into Western countries.
Listen to our Inside China Today podcast for an interview with the journal’s chief editor.
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ET-A centuries old drainage system saved a city in south China from severe floods. This summer torrential rain and flash floods have caused damage estimated to be in the billions of dollars. And Friday there were new warnings for downstream of the Three Gorges Dam.
But the 100,000 residents of Ganzhou, an ancient city in southern China’s Jiangxi Province, are safe and dry, thanks to two drains built during the Song dynasty.
built more than 900 years ago, the system follows a natural cycle with the environment. It also handles sewage and helps control humidity.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Thursday July 15th
Image of UFO captured by a resident in Hangzhou Xianshan district on July 7. (Internet photo)
In this bulletin:
- Google remains in China,
- Floods devastate China’s south,
- Bribery scandal inside Taiwan’s High Court, and
- Fiji expels another Australian diplomat.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET-It looks like Internet giant Google will remain in China. State-run media confirmed July 11 the Chinese authorities had approved the renewal of Google’s operating license.
In March, Google began to automatically transfer Chinese users to a website in Hong Kong to avoid Chinese Internet censorship. This policy was changed after Beijing threatened to withdraw Google’s license. In late June a link to the Hong Kong site was installed on Google’s Chinese homepage instead.
The regime’s approval for Google to continue its business in China is a sign of compromise.
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ET/RFA-China’s renowned human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng has gone missing for a second time for nearly three months. At the end of March, after having disappeared for more than a year, he was allowed to communicate with the outside world.
Gao vanished again when he went to visit his father-in-law in Xinjiang. His family said Gao had been missing for nearly three months now and no one knew where he was.
Many suspect wrongdoing by the Chinese regime.
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NTDTV-More than 29 million people across nine provinces have been affected by flooding, landslides, and mudslides following days of torrential rain in southern China.
Thousands of homes have collapsed and many of the region’s crops have spoilt, with damage estimates over $1 billion US dollars and rising.
The latest deluge comes just weeks after heavy rains last month killed 400 people. With more rain forecast the problem could get worse.
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ICT-A group of kind-hearted Beijing lawyers have established an association to help the many disadvantaged groups facing unfair legal treatment in China’s current legal system
The Human Rights Legal Association was founded on July 1 and and will provide legal services and free consultations.
The association said it wanted to speak up for the disadvantaged so that they wouldn’t give up hope on the legal system.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for week ending Thursday July 8th
Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama celebrated his 75th birthday on July 6. Contrary to rumours that said he was ill, the Dalai Lama met the faithful gathered in front of his Himalayan monastery at Dharamasala. (Courtesy of AsiaNews.it)
In this bulletin:
- One year on from Urumqi ethnic violence,
- Earthquake danger rebuilt in Sichuan,
- Dalai Lama celebrates 75th birthday, and
- New Zealand pursuing Asian trade agreements.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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NTDTV/ET-Security forces in China’s Xinjiang have been on high alert around the July 5 anniversary of the ethnic violence in Urumqi that left hundreds dead. Authorities installed some 40,000 surveillance cameras as part of their security crackdown. State-run media said everyone should expect to be watched at all times.
Uighur groups say the last year’s protest turned violent after security forces started using live ammunition. Hundreds died in the week-long violence that followed.
Amnesty International has released a highly critical report ahead of the anniversary questioning the official version of events.
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ICT-A Chinese environmentalist has revealed to SOH just how severely polluted China’s water sources are.
Environmentalist Li Li told our Chinese reporters one of the major causes was a lack of proper waste disposal mechanisms. Many rivers are contaminated with industrial waste, heavy metals, agricultural chemicals and toxic algae.
Listen to our Inside China Today podcast to hear Li’s assessment of the problem. And the difficulties facing villagers trying to source clean water .
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ET-According to Chinese netizens sub-standard materials caused the collapse of a building being erected as part of the post-Sichuan earthquake reconstruction.
The corruption behind the unsafe buildings that made the 2008 Sichuan earthquake so deadly now seems to be dogging the reconstruction effort.
Local officials said the building in Mainzhu City’s Hanwangzhen Town was deliberately demolished. But residents said this could not have been the case.
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NTDTV-A Chinese national held hostage in the Philippines for almost 18 months has been rescued.
Xili Wu, also known as Peter Go, was unharmed after a 10-minute gun battle between security forces and dozens of Abu Sayyaf militants Monday night.
Police said Wu had been held hostage for so long he was technically breaching immigration law. And that they were turning him over to the Chinese Consul.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for week ending Friday July 2nd
Detail of Chinese banknote. A US-based micro-finance company is helping of China's rural poor to build a better future. (By Robert S. Donovan/Flickr)
In this bulletin:
- Deadly mudslides in soutwest China,
- Independent TV station wins appeal over China broadcast,
- New Philippine president inaugurated, and
- Taiwanese protests over trade deal.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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NTDTV-A court in China’s Xinjiang region has sentenced Tibetan businessman and environmentalist, Karma Samdrup, to fifteen years in prison. They’ve charged him with robbing tombs and dealing in looted relics.
The London-based, Free Tibet Campaign say the real reason for his imprisonment is his public criticism of the arrest of his brothers. Samdrup’s lawyer says he plans to appeal the conviction.
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ET-A mudslide caused by continuous heavy rain buried more than 100 villagers in southwest China’s Guizhou Province June 28.
Heavy rain started to come down in the Anshun Prefecture of Guizhou Province late in the day on June 27. Provincial authorities announced that 107 villagers from 38 families in Dazhai and Yongle villages had been buried in the mudslide.
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NTDTV-Independent TV broadcaster and SOH media partner NTDTV has won its appeal for an investigation the termination of its China broadcast. Satellite company Eutelsat abruptly stopped the signal in June 2008 citing a ‘power anomaly’ on its W5 satellite.
But an investigation by Reporters Without Borders revealed the broadcast interruption was a pre-meditated political move to appease Chinese communist officials.
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Amnesty International has called on the Chinese regime to launch an independent investigation into last year’s riots in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
A new report from the organisation includes testimonies from Uighurs who fled China after the violence. Amnesty said the official account of events left too many questions unanswered.
Security in Xinjiang has been tightened ahead of the July 5 anniversary.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for Friday 25th June
Astronomers have detected fierce weather on the far away Juipeter-like planet HD 209458b (By Flickr/Zato Ichi)
In this Bulletin …
- Heavy rains continue in Southern China;
- US citizen to receive harsher sentence from North Korea; and
- Raging weather seen on far away planet.
But first we have our SOH focus on China.
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Heavy rain fell as forecast on China’s southern Jiangxi Province Thursday.
The National Meteorological Center has warned that the current rain could keep pounding parts of the south until Saturday.
The flood-battered Changkai dyke on the Fu River, first breached Monday, was breached yet again Wednesday as heavy flooding that has killed more than 200 people in the past week intensified.
Water levels in the town of Changkai and its neighbouring villages receded slightly since Wednesday.
With water down to ankle deep at some places, local residents were seen cleaning up their flooded belongings and preparing to stay in their homes instead of moving to temporary relief centres set up in the Fuzhou city centre.
Watch NTDTV’s coverage online for more.
