Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Monday 12th November

In this Bulletin…

- Pakistan’s President announces date for election;

- Key Khmer Rouge figures to face trial; and
- Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader optimistic about progress.

Click to read more

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After much speculation and criticism, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf announced Sunday that a general election would be held by 9th of January 2008, but under a state of emergency he imposed eight days ago.

Musharraf, under pressure from rivals and Western allies to put nuclear-armed Pakistan back on a path to democracy, said the National Assembly and provincial assemblies would be dissolved in coming days, upon completion of their terms.

The army chief also told a news conference he would quit the military and be sworn in as a civilian president as soon as the Supreme Court struck down challenges to his October 6th re- election.

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Police in Cambodia have arrested two leading figures involved 1970s Khmer Rouge regime under whose brutal four-year rule more than one million people are thought to have died.

Former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, were taken into custody in the capital, Phnom Penh to face charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

They will appear before judges at an UN-backed genocide tribunal, which was established last year to bring surviving leaders of the regime to account.

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Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said she was “very optimistic” after she was allowed to meet with members of her political party for the first time in three years last week.

Suu Kyi, who has been detained under house arrest for the best part of two decades, made the remarks about the process of dialogue with the country’s ruling military junta during a meeting at a government guesthouse.

In a statement issued on Thursday by the United Nations’ special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, on her behalf, Suu Kyi also said she was “ready to cooperate” with the government and committed to pursuing a dialogue with the ruling junta.

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With Australia just 2 weeks out from Federal elections, tens of thousands of people rallied in protests on Sunday, calling on political parties to take stronger action over global warming.

The Walk Against Warming rallies, held in capital cities and about fifty country towns, aimed to draw attention to the issue of climate change in the final weeks of campaigning for the November 24th general election.

Early estimates were that up to one hundred and fifty thousand people had marched in protests around Australia.

Australia and the United States have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for carbon pollution by developed countries.

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According to a report by the Free Asia Radio, workers of a plastics factory in Chengdu, China are staging protests over what they see is an illegal merger of the factory which could jeopardise their jobs and working conditions.

The factory workers ceased work and prevented the prospective developers from entering the premises in protest of what they see as an illegal deal brokered between the factory chief and real estate developers.

The deal would see the seizure of adjoining land and a restructuring of the factory organisation.

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Also in Chengdu City in China’s Sichuan province, lost land protestors clashed with hundreds of anti-riots policemen in an attempt to recover unpaid entitlements owed from the resumption of their land by local authorities.

Dozens of farmers were beaten during the protests with an undisclosed number arrested by police. Eight farmers are still being held by police.

The protestors said they intend to take their case to the Provincial Public Security Bureau next Monday.

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Chinese author Jiang Rong has won the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize with his best-selling novel Wolf Totem.

Jiang spent 11 years living with nomadic communities in the Mongolian grasslands and the book draws on his experiences there.

The award honours literature from the region which has not yet been published in English.

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