AsiaCast

Asia Cast Monday 29th October

Turkish troops battle Kurdish guerrillas

Argentina votes in first female president

Benazir Bhutto receives supporters

Read on for more

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According to army sources, Turkish troops killed twenty Kurdish guerrillas on Sunday in a major operation against separatist rebels in eastern Turkey.

The operation involved eight thousand troops with air support in the eastern province of Tunceli, hundreds of kilometres from the Iraqi border. There were no details of army casualties.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has killed about 40 people in the past month, including 12 soldiers in the latest major attack, and said it took eight soldiers prisoner.

Ankara is under strong domestic pressure to deal with the PKK, but Turkish -Iraqi talks aimed at preventing a cross-border incursion collapsed on Friday after Ankara rejected Iraq’s proposals as insufficient.

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Television exit polls showed Argentina’s first lady, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, won Argentina’s presidential election on Sunday to become the country’s first elected woman president.

The polls, aired by several television channels, showed Fernandez, a centre-leftist senator, with 42 to 46 percent of the vote, well ahead of her nearest rival, former lawmaker Elisa Carrio with 23 to 25 percent.

Fernandez, 54, ran on the record of her husband, leftist President Nestor Kirchner, and she’s to take over from him in a highly unusual transfer of power between democratically elected spouses.

A Fernandez victory would make her the second woman elected president in a Latin America country in the last two years, coming after Chile’s Michelle Bachelet

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Surrounded by heavily armed guards, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was due to receive supporters and relatives at her ancestral home in southern Pakistan on Sunday.

But with security fears still high after an assassination attempt killed 139 people hours after she returned to Pakistan last week, Bhutto’s movements have been sharply curtailed.

Around four thousand supporters turned out to welcome Bhutto back to her native Sindh province on Saturday but there was no large-scale public address due to fears militants would launch another assassination bid

Bhutto then prayed at the tomb of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s first popularly elected prime minister, who was toppled by the military in 1977 and later hanged.

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Most Asian markets rose Friday, with Hong Kong hitting its second straight record close and Japan getting a lift from Honda and Sony earnings.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.8 percent to close above 30,000 for the first time as property companies rose on hopes of a cut in U.S. interest rates.

However, traders said the local market is likely to remain volatile due to potential economic tightening measures in China.

Shares also rose in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan.

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About twenty five thousand people protested in the streets of the Indian capital, Delhi, after marching 325km to demand the redistribution of land.

The protesters, mostly low income tenant farmers and landless indigenous people, say they have been left behind by India’s economic boom.

The marchers set out on 2 October, the national holiday marking the birthday of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.

The government has promised to set up a commission to examine land reform.

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According to a South Korean news agency, North Korea has been forced to ground a fleet of Soviet-era military planes because of the high oil prices.

North Korea’s impoverished economy has suffered from energy shortages for years, and rising oil prices have made the situation worse forcing the grounding of North Korea’s Antonov An-2 biplanes – of which North Korea’s air force is thought to have about 300.

North and South Korea are still technically at war as a peace accord to bring an end to the 1950-53 conflict has never been signed.

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Amidst much speculation, organisers have announced that up to 1.85 million tickets for the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games will go on sale to people in China on Tuesday.

The tickets will be available on a “first come, first served basis” from 9am until all are sold.

Seven million tickets will be sold for the 2008 games, with more than five million allocated to the host country.

In an effort to combat ticket touting, buyers are required to register ID details, but there are reports that a black market for tickets has already emerged.

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