AsiaCast

Asia Cast Monday 23rd July

Several thousand protesters opposed to Thailand’s military-backed government have clashed with police in the capital, Bangkok.

The crowd staged a rally outside the house of a senior adviser to Thailand’s king.

The protesters say Mr Prem was behind a bloodless coup, which removed the former Prime Minister.

Rocks and bottles of water were thrown at police, in the most violent demonstration since the two thousand and six coup.

Bangkok police officials said they would issue arrest warrants for the protest leaders on Monday.

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The Chinese and Singapore governments have become key investors in Barclay’s, helping the United Kingdom firm to raise its offer for the Dutch bank ABN Amro.

The China Development Bank and Temasek, the investment arm of the Singaporean government, have invested in Barclay’s.

And they will invest further if the ABN takeover goes through.

A group led by Royal Bank of Scotland is also vying for ABN and its current offer is higher than Barclay’s’ revised bid.

Barclay’s shares climbed two percent higher on Monday after details of the Asian tie-ups emerged.

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On Friday, July twentieth, Falun Gong practitioners from around the world gathered in front of the Washington Monument to bear witness to the hundreds of thousands of other practitioners who have been brutally persecuted by the Chinese Communist Regime.

It was on this day eight years ago that the Chinese Communist Party began is campaign to eradicate the peaceful movement.

The persecution began with mass arrests, and escalated into long-term imprisonments, widespread torture, murder, and the killing of practitioners for their organs, which are sold for transplants.

Despite these adversities, Falun Gong practitioners in China and around the world have persisted in the their practice and beliefs

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The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) announced its findings after an eighteen month survey: a hundred million of people in China fall ill or die at a young age each year from the deadly pollutions, produced by the rapid economic growth.

The organization conducted the survey as per the request by China, combining data from the government, the World Bank and the China Science Institute.

The report unveiled the large-scaled biological crisis that prevails in China jeopardized the lives of Chinese people.

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China has stopped the public release of an official study putting a cost to the nation’s environmental damage, a government researcher told a Chinese newspaper, blaming reluctance from officials to confront pollution.

The Beijing News reported on Monday that the release of a “green GDP” report computing the cost of pollution and ecological degradation in two thousand and five had been “indefinitely postponed”.

A senior expert at the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning who was technical head of the project, said publicly spelling out the cost of bad air, water and soil had drawn fierce opposition from local officials eager to maintain growth.

He said some provincial governments had lobbied the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and the National Bureau of Statistics not to publicly release the latest data.

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J K Rowling is expected to break her own record as the world’s fastest-selling author as readers rush to complete the final book in the Harry Potter series.

In the United States, an estimated eight point three million copies were sold in the first twenty-four hours, according to the publisher, Scholastic.

United Kingdom sales figures are due later on Monday, but WH Smith said it sold fifteen copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows every second on Saturday night.

The sixth Potter novel is currently the world’s fastest-selling book.