Asia-Cast

Asia Cast Wednesday 1st August

Japans Farm minister steps down and
Thousands of Tourist guides arrested in China and
Families losing hope for hostages

Rupert Murdoch is set to achieve his decades-long dream of running the venerable Wall Street Journal after Dow Jones & Co Inc.’s board agreed to News Corp’s $5 billion buyout bid on Tuesday.The board decided to accept the offer at a meeting Tuesday evening, according to a source familiar with the matter, shortly after News Corp.’s board approved the deal.

The 76-year-old media mogul spent the past three months courting the Bancroft family, which has controlled Dow Jones for more than a century.

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Japan’s farm minister is to step down following the ruling coalition’s crushing defeat in Sunday’s upper house polls.

Norihiko Akagi, who is accused of financial irregularities, offered his resignation and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accepted it, a spokesman said.

A number of Mr Abe’s ministers have been hit by scandal, an issue seen as a key factor in his party’s poll defeat.

The premier has pledged to reshuffle his Cabinet in the wake of the polls.
Mr Akagi said he was partly to blame for the defeat.

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In central China, almost half a group of miners trapped by floods in a colliery have now been rescued, according to state media reports.

Sixty-nine miners were trapped for more than three days, after flash floods swamped the colliery in Henan province.

Thirty-one miners are out and the rest are expected to follow during the day, Xinhua news agency said.

The safe return of the group would be a rare happy ending to one of China’s frequent mining industry accidents.

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The United States has threatened to impose sanctions on Sudan if it does not cooperate with the deployment of a new United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force in the troubled region of Darfur.

The UN Security Council this morning voted to send 26,000 troops and police to Darfur to protect aid workers and millions of displaced citizens.

More than 2.1 million people have been driven into refugee camps and an estimated 200,000 have died over the last four years.

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As the 2008 Beijing Olympic approaches, distraught residents appeal against forced relocations without compensation.

According to Radio Free Asian, hundreds of Beijing residents have maintained a sitting appeal for two weeks.

They are urging authorities to solve their problems and to respect their property rights after they were forcibly evicted to make way for the Olympics.

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In China, Thousands of tourist guides had been sitting in front of the Guilin Government building, to protest to ¡°Guilin Daily¡± who published an article that has caused unemployment of tourist guides.

On the 29th of July, petitioners were suppressed by thousands of armed police and anti- riot police.

During the conflict, about 418 guides were arrested; many guides and people who passed by were assaulted and injured by armed police with electric battons.

A witness saw a pregnant women get beaten up until she had a miscarriage.

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In the central Philippines, a volcano spewed ash early Tuesday, blanketing fields and villages as far as three miles away, but there was no immediate sign of a major eruption, scientists said.

The five thousand -foot Mount Bulusan volcano has been showing signs of unrest with on-and-off ash and steam explosions since March 2006.

Television reports said the ash column caused panic in the surrounding area, with residents running out of their homes.

Villagers have been warned not to venture into a 2.5-mile “permanent danger zone” around the volcano. Broadcaster ABS-CBN said the military was expected to enforce an evacuation of people from Bulusan’s immediate vicinity.

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In central Afghanistan. The families of the remaining 21 South Korean hostages being held say they have all but lost hope for the survival of their loved ones after a second hostage’s body was recovered.

The Afghan government has ruled out a prisoner swap and has urged the Taliban to release the women being held.

The bullet-riddled body of Shim Sung-min was found Tuesday in the Chahor Devor area of the Ghazni province, the same province where the 23 South Koreans were kidnapped from their bus on July 19, according to an Afghan Interior Ministry official.