Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Tuesday 16th October

-EU Agrees to Strengthen Burma Sanctions
-NTDTV Chinese Vocal Competition Preliminaries Set Stage and
-Linking China’s Jailed Journalists to the 2008 Olympics

EU foreign ministers agreed on Monday to strengthen sanctions against Burma’s military rulers in response to a crackdown on protests last month and warned they could go further and ban all new investment.

The ministers agreed to broaden sanctions that include visa bans and asset freezes on generals, government officials and their relatives, and to take new steps targeting the country’s key timber, metals and gemstone sectors.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told reporters such additional steps would be imposed if Burma’s military rulers failed to participate in a U.N.-facilitated dialogue with political opponents.

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New Tang Dynasty’s first International Chinese Vocal Competition preliminaries ended on Monday, with the winners proceeding into the public semi-final and final rounds to be held today and on Wednesday.

The preliminaries featured over one-hundred Chinese vocalists from all around the world, including singers from as far away as China, Taiwan, Norway and Singapore.

Mr. Yajun Wang, who came from Norway to participate in the show, had heard about the vocal competition from following the NTDTV dance competition.

Mr. Wang said that the vocal competition is very meaningful as the Chinese Communist Party has destroyed Chinese culture, and morality in China slid down after that. Mr. Wang also said that it has destroyed the foundations of the nation and the whole world and that the vocal competition resumes true Chinese culture and it is very important for Chinese people.

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As the world eagerly anticipates the 2008 Olympics in less than a year, it is well to keep in mind that more than athletic contests are at stake.

Some twenty-thousand to thirty-thousand foreign journalists and technicians will descend in August 2008 to China to work in an environment that is like nothing they are accustomed to.

Long-time journalist, Bob Dietz, is pleased that people are gradually coming to see the link between China’s hosting the Olympics and its pernicious policies towards journalists—foreign and domestic. As the Asian Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), it’s his job to respond to attacks on his profession in China.

Founded in 1981, the CPJ documents hundreds of cases every year and advocates for a free press.

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried on Monday to push Palestinians and Israelis toward a middle ground in drafting a joint document seen as key to the success of a U.S.-hosted peace conference this year.

After meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Rice said the document should “seriously and substantively” address the core issues of the conflict—a sharp contrast with Israeli hopes to keep it as vague as possible.

However, she also played down Palestinian calls for a timeframe to resolve the thorniest issues in the dispute such as borders, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin insists he will go to Iran despite reports of an assassination plot against him.

Mr Putin told a news conference after talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel in the west German city of Wiesbaden that he would be going to Iran and if he listened to what the security services said then he would never leave his home.

Russia’s Interfax news agency, citing a source in the Russian special services, earlier reported a group of suicide bombers would try to kill the president in Tehran, where he is due to travel after his German visit.

Iranian officials also said the visit would go ahead, dismissing reports of the assassination bid as a plot by the Western media to wreck ties between Tehran and Moscow.

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In the past year statistics have shown that China’s thirst for Australian red wine has more than doubled to seven million litres.

The Wine and Brandy Corporation says there has been a rise of one-hundred and fourty per cent in bottled red wine sales.

It has predicted that in five years, China will take more than thirty-seven million litres of Australian wine annually.
Ali Hogarth from the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation says it is significant that China has now outstripped Japan as the number one destination of Australian wine.

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