Asia-Cast

Asia Castfor Friday 13th July

Pakistan¡’s President Pervez Musharraf, speaking in a televised address to the nation, says he is determined that extremism and terrorism will be eradicated in the country.He was speaking after officials reported seventy five bodies had been found after the siege at the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad.

For months Muslim clerics and students had been defying the authorities in Islamabad in their campaign to uphold Sharia law in the capital.

Troops launched a thirty six hour attack on the mosque early on Tuesday to flush extremists out of the mosque complex.

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In an effort hoped to trigger North Korea¡¯s shut down of its only working nuclear reactor, South Korea sent a shipload of oil to the communist nation.

A South Korean ship departed for North Korea carrying an initial batch of 6,200 tons of heavy fuel oil being given to the North for its agreement to shut down Yongbyon.

The chief U.N. inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, said he expects the agency’s monitoring of the shutdown of the North’s Yongbyon reactor will start “early next week” and the initial inspection is expected to be completed “within a month or so.”

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A number of Tibetan scholars have criticized the Dalai Lama’s reconciliation efforts with the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

As part of his ¡°middle way¡± policy, Tibet¡¯s spiritual leader says he wants greater autonomy, not independence for his homeland. But China still considers him a separatist, underscoring the gulf between the sides.

Lodi Gyari, the Dalai Lama’s top envoy, has warned of potential instability unless the Tibet issue is resolved within the lifetime of the spiritual leader, who turns seventy two this month.

His death in exile could radicalise exiled Tibetan youth who have clamoured for independence and are frustrated with the Dalai Lama’s “middle way” approach.
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Almost ten thousand poverty-stricken residents of China¡¯s Yao Race Autonomous Region staged a peaceful protest at the doors of the local authority buildings.

The residents have been cast into a life of poverty since the Chinese Government built a dam nearby which permanently flooded the regions agricultural fields.

A local resident claimed that since the construction of the dam they have been forced to survive on as little as five US dollars per month.

The protests highlight the growing resentment of rural residents to development schemes that are allowing authorities to resume their homes and agricultural lands.

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Human rights groups and the Canadian government separately condemned a ruling this week by a Chinese court affirming a life sentence for Canadian man, Huseyincan Celil, who was accused of “separatist activities.”

Mr Celil is an outspoken advocate of the rights of Uighur Muslims in the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang and was sentenced in April to life in prison.

On Tuesday this week, a higher court rejected his appeal. Family members said neither Celil nor his lawyer were allowed to speak at the hearing.

Canadian embassy officials have been denied access to Celil by the Chinese regime, which refuses to acknowledge Celil’s Canadian citizenship.

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The New York Science Institute of America has announced Chinese doctor, Jiang Yong-Yan, as the winner of its 2007 Human Rights award.

Seventy-six year old Dr Yong-Yan was a retired military doctor of China¡¯s Liberation Army Hospital and was also the doctor who first alerted the world of the outbreak of SARS in China.

Dr Yong-Yan was recently detained by Chinese authorities for applying to the US state congress to have the Tiananmen Square incident reviewed.

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After recently celebrating ten years of its return to Chinese rule, Hong Kong’s government has unveiled a range of proposals on how and when it might arrive at full democracy.

China and Britain promised in 1997 that Hong Kong would become a full democracy, but did not state when that would happen.

The paper includes a range of options, including the option of universal suffrage in five years’ time.

But China’s President Hu Jintao has said political development in Hong Kong should be “gradual and orderly”, with the emphasis on Beijing’s sovereignty over the territory.