Asia-Cast

Asia Cast Thursday 25th October

Turkish warplanes attacked a village in northern Iraq on Wednesday, an Iraqi Kurdish security official said, but Turkey said it wanted to hold back from a major incursion to give diplomacy a chance.

The Iraqi official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Kurdish village in mountainous country near Shiranish Islam, 25 km (15 miles) northeast of the northern town of Dahuk, had been heavily bombed at midday. He gave no details of damage.

The Turkish government is under great domestic pressure to strike separatist PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) guerrillas in northern Iraq who killed 12 Turkish soldiers on Sunday as part of an intensified campaign against government troops.

A United Nations report says air pollution in Beijing will not significantly improve before next year’s Olympic games.

In some cases, pollution is said to be more than three times the safe limits set by the World Health Organization.

The report seems to contradict claims from Beijing Olympic officials that air quality will not be a problem.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said events may be postponed if pollution is too bad.

*****************************************************************

South Korea’s spy agency recently admitted to abducting future President Kim Dae-Jung in 1973, with tacit backing from then leader Park Chung-hee.

The admission came after a three-year inquiry by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) into its past conduct.

Agents snatched Mr Kim, who had lost an election to Mr Park in 1971, from a Tokyo hotel. They reportedly took him away in a boat intending to kill him.

Reports say the abduction was foiled after the US intervened.

**********************************************************

A Japanese company was forced to close in regard to buying and selling human organs; the company’s legal representative was arrested.

Before the company’s website was shut down, it stated clearly that the human organ buying and selling activities have been supported by the Chinese Communist Regime.

Dr. Lu who is working for the Natural Rehabilitation Research Center located in California USA said, last year he had viewed the website and found out centre was supported and supplied by the Regime.

*****************************************************

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democracy leader has reportedly left her home – where she is under house arrest – to hold talks with a government official.

She was taken to meet Aung Kyi, a retired general recently appointed to liaise with her, diplomats say.

Aung Kyi was given the post earlier this month in an apparent concession to the international community.

Burma’s junta has been heavily criticised by the UN for its crackdown on anti-government protests last month.

********************************************************

A slight change in winds allowed US fire fighters to make significant progress in combating severe bushfires ravaging California, which have already caused more than one billion US dollars in property damage.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger confirmed three people have died and 40 people have been injured in the fires, the worst to hit California since devastating 2003 blazes, which claimed twenty-two lives.

A respite from the winds, forecast to continue through the remainder of the week, enabled fire fighters to make great strides in containing three of the five biggest blazes on Thursday

***********************************************************

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 has jolted the Indian Ocean off Indonesia’s Sumatra island, the US Geological Survey says.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology says there is no tsunami threat to the Australian mainland or islands based on the magnitude and location of the earthquake.

The earthquake, which hit at 4:02am (local time), was quite shallow at only thirty kilometres deep and was centred in the Indian Ocean, one hundred and thirty five kilometres west of Bengkulu.

Earlier, the Indonesian meteorological agency had issued a tsunami warning, but has since lifted it.

******************************************************