AsiaCast

Asia Cast for Sunday 16th September

At least one hundred thousand people have marched in Taiwan in support of their government¡¯s plan to hold a referendum on joining the UN under the name Taiwan.

The UN has rejected previous bids from the island to join the body under its official name, Republic of China.

The bids anger Beijing, which sees Taiwan as a breakaway province and China has vowed to use force if Taiwan took steps towards formal independence.

China’s opposition means Taiwan’s bids for a UN seat are certain to fail but that is not discouraging Taiwan¡¯s citizens from expressing their opinion.

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China has launched a crackdown on political dissidents and potential troublemakers ahead of the Communist Party’s 17th congress, which begins next month.

The congress, held every five years, is the party’s most important public political event.

Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang, identified a wide range of “hostile forces” that will be targeted in the lead up to the congress, including political dissidents, peaceful Falun Gong practitioners, campaigners and people who advocate independence for the western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet.

News outlets and numerous internet websites are also being targeted in the run-up to the congress, which will be attended by more than 2,000 party delegates.

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The New Zealand branch of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong practitioners held a press conference in Wellington last week where they revealed new evidence of the Chinese Communist Party¡¯s practice of organ harvesting from live Falun Gong practitioners.

Canadian MP David Kilgour and Human Rights Lawyer David Matas spoke at the conference as they continued their world tour promoting human rights ahead of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

One Falun Gong practitioner at the conference told how his three-month-pregnant wife was tortured to death in China for practicing Falun Gong. The man says he later fled China to escape torture and organ harvesting.

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A Factory in China¡¯s Hunan Province has been accused of polluting the land and water of the area.

Since early September, several hundred people from Ganmu Village, Hunan Province have been to hospital for check-ups and 90% of them have been diagnosed with a form of lead poisoning.

The offending company, Wei Ling Metal Co., allegedly dumped chemicals in the surrounding area, leading to high illness rates of surrounding residents and the death of many trees on surrounding hillsides.

The local residents claimed they had appealed to the local authorities about the pollution, but no action was ever taken.

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The death toll from earthquake that stuck Indonesia’s Sumatra Island last week has risen to 21 with another 88 injured, and more than 13,000 homes destroyed or damaged.

The 8.4 magnitude quake, which struck off the coast of western Sumatra on Wednesday evening, has been followed by at least 40 big aftershocks and numerous tsunami warnings, which were subsequently withdrawn.

Many people are still sleeping out in the open, either because their homes have been destroyed or because they are too scared to return home in case of further quakes.

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A duck plague has broken out in Fanyu County, in China¡¯s Guangdong Province with as many as nine thousand ducks dying from illness and another thirty thousand slaughtered in an effort to stop the spread of the disease.

Police have no quarantined the duck farms and retail outlets while investigations are under way.

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And now to Thailand where fish skins are being used to create the latest in clothing and accessories.

The skin of the Tilapia fish was, until recently, either discarded or used as a supplement to noodle soup, but now clothing designers are using the skins to make handbags, shoes and even bikinis.
It seems that when the skin is dried it forms one of the most durable leather materials available.

The fish-skin bikini was unveiled at a Bangkok fashion show last month and its makers are hoping for orders from Europe and the United States.