AsiaCast

Asia Cast for Saturday 29th December

In this Bulletin…
- Tensions rise in Pakistan in the wake of Bhutto assassination;
- Israeli and Palestinian leaders restart peace talks; and
- the death toll from the Indonesian landslides reaches one hundred and twenty.

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Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto – the first woman PM in an Islamic state – was assassinated yesterday in a suicide bombing.
Ms Bhutto was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi when a gunman shot her in the neck and set off a bomb killing at least twenty other people.
President Pervez Musharraf has urged people to remain calm but angry protests have gripped some cities, with at least eleven subsequent deaths reported.
President George W. Bush condemned the assassination as an act of violence that shredded U.S. hopes for democratic elections in the country, and the world now waits with bated breath to see if the country can restabilise itself and avoid civil war.

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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at his Jerusalem residence to try to restart peace talks which stalled after just two sessions over the issue of Israeli settlements.
Officials say Mr Abbas had been expected to again press Israel to stop all settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land, while Mr Olmert is likely to insist the two sides focus on the goal of a comprehensive agreement rather than obstacles.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called both leaders on the eve of their talks to encourage progress toward the peace process agreed on in the US in November.

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The death toll from the landslides and floods which hit the central island of Java on 26 December has risen to at least one hundred and twenty, with tens of thousands forced to flee their homes.

Rescuers are trying to get mechanical diggers and lifting equipment to two remote districts that were hit by landslides.
The latest flood, said to be the worst in a generation, came on the third anniversary of the tsunami that left 220,000 Indonesians dead or missing.
Landslides and floods are regular in Indonesia and many blame deforestation.

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The NTDTV Holiday Wonders show opened in Atlantic City today for three days of shows as part of a tour of Chinese Spectaculars that will visit over 60 cities this season.
The shows are hosted by NTDTV, an independent Chinese-language television station that frequently reports news censored by the communist authorities in Beijing.
The spectaculars depict traditional Chinese values that have been suppressed in China over decades of communist rule and have received rave reviews from audiences of previous shows.
For show information please visit http://holidaywonders.net/index_at.php

And now for SOH original news direct from China

Over one thousand residents of the Gold Bull District in China’s Cheng-Du City have been protesting outside the Long Chang Company complex for six days, demanding the return of assets that they believed were collectively owned.

According to a report over the web page of Daily Life Observation, due to the city planning and construction expansion in Cheng-Du, the rural construction system in the Golden Bull area was raised in 1996 with all households registries changed to urban residents.

The local cadres privatised the collective enterprise of Long Chang Company located in the area.

In response the local residents began to rally, protesting the minority’s privatisation and blocking the traffic outside the company, demanding the return of company assets to all members.

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We have more information of the salvaged trade vessel of the Southern Song Dynasty which was retrieved from the ocean off China’s Guangdong Province, and which we reported on a few days ago.

A specially made iron cage was constructed to bring the vessel up from the muddy ocean bottom where it rested some 20 metres below the surface.

According to Mainland media, the vessel carried relics of great significance and value including over 30 types of porcelains made by the most renowned kiln mouths in Jing-De-Zhen, Jiangxi Province and De-Hua, Fujian Province, and are classified as national treasures.

Archaeologists stated that gourd bottles to hold drinks were deemed rich “Arab” customs, and evidence of the existence of trade connections between China, India, Africa, and Arabia along the “marine Silk Road”.