AsiaCast

Asia Cast for Saturday 21st July

-Money Or Human Rights?

-Christians in China arrested for an illegal get-together

-Wild Weather causes Chaos in Europe

Representatives from international human rights groups and several oppressed groups in China came to the Pasadena City Council meeting on July the sixteenth, to express their regret and objections over the approved entry of the Chinese government’s float into the 2008 Rose Parade.The objections and comments were made during the public comments portion of the council meeting. They objected to the entry of China’s float, with the theme of the 2008 Olympics, because of its dismal human rights record.

The groups included Reporters Without Borders, Visual Artists Guild, Caltech Falun Gong Club, Justice for Americans in China, Amnesty International – Pasadena Chapter, Los Angeles Friends of Tibet, China Ministries International, and the Conscience Foundation.

TV, radio, and newsprint media representatives were also in attendance.

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Until July the nineteenth, fifteen Christians from Anhui Province, Jiangsu Province and
Inner Mongolia, China, have been arrested.

China Aid Association reported that on July the tenth, the authorities arrested Lu Jingxiang, a Christian clergyman from Anhui Province.

On the eleventh of July, the local government sent several police vehicles and arrested ten Christians, including the church leader Zeng Zhengliang, when a family church was holding a children Sunday school.

On the fourteenth of July, four main clergymen of a family church in Wuhai City, Inner Mongolia were detained.

The authorities claimed that the Christians were sentenced for the crime of an ¡°illegal get-together¡±, but they haven¡¯t followed any proper procedures or showed any documents for arresting.

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On July the eighteenth, Jinan City and the surrounding area in Shandong Province suffered the worst rainstorm in fourty-five years. The rainfall has reached to 135.2 millimeters.

Thousands of cars and buses were submerged and trapped in the water causing serious traffic jams. The authorities reported that twenty-two people were killed, more than one-hundred and fourty are injured and six were missing.

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In the United States a federal appeals court has ruled that lawyers for Guantana mo prisoners should have access to nearly all Government evidence so they can challenge detainees’ designation as “unlawful enemy combatants.”

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals in Washington was a blow to the Bush administration’s attempt to limit the lawyers’ access to only the evidence presented to a US military tribunal that made the determinations.

The ruling came on the same day President George W Bush ordered the CIA to comply with Geneva Conventions against torture in dealing with detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and secret CIA prisons elsewhere.

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In a further effort to cool the booming economy China’s central bank has raised interest rates for the third time this year.

The central bank has issued instructions to commercial banks to increase interest rates by 0.27 per cent.

The instruction applies to rates paid to depositors and those charged to borrowers.
The latest economic growth figures were so strong that such a move was seen as almost inevitable.

The idea is to make it more expensive for business to borrow money to invest and to make it more attractive for consumers to save more of their money and spend a little less on goods produced by Chinese industry.

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In Wales and England, Torrential rain has been causing travel chaos and forcing the evacuation of homes and schools.

Helicopters have been sent to rescue people from homes in Worcestershire, a hospital has been flooded in West Sussex and a man has died in his home in Cumbria.

Roads have been badly affected in the Midlands and across southern England, with flights and trains cancelled or late.

In complete contrast, parts of central and southern Europe have been hit by a heat wave which has claimed a number of lives.
In Romania, the health ministry has reported two more deaths, bringing the total for the week to seven.

Bushfires have broken out in neighbouring Bulgaria, while Macedonia has declared a two-week crisis.