Asia Cast

Asia Cast for Tuesday 22nd January

In this Bulletin

- 37 pilgrims Dead and 40 injured after bus loses control
- Three Killed in Kenya Clashes with Opposition Defiant
- The Medias in Mainland China appeal to abolish the department of “Urban Management Officer”

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In southwestern India, a bus carrying pilgrims to Hindu shrines lost control and drove of a steep hill Sunday night, killing 37 and injuring more than 40 others, police said.

Five children were among the dead, said Nikhil Gupta, the police superintendent in Nashik, about 100 miles east of Mumbai.
He said the crash happened about 9:45 p.m. on a poorly lit rural road outside Nashik, which is home to about a dozen Hindu temples.

The bus was only made to seat 45 people but was carrying about 80 passengers when it crashed, Gupta told AP.

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Attackers hacked three people to death with machetes in a slum in Kenya’s capital on Sunday in ethnic clashes triggered by President Mwai Kibaki’s disputed re-election last month, witnesses said.

Armed police chased away youths in Nairobi’s Huruma neighborhood, whose name means “mercy” in Swahili, and some residents started to leave with their belongings on their heads.

Other witnesses confirmed the death toll from fighting between youths from Kibaki’s Kikuyu ethnic group and the Luo tribe of opposition challenger Raila Odinga.

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In Northern China a gas explosion in an illegal mine has killed at least 20 people, according to state media.

Xinhua news agency said miners were attempting to reopen a shaft in Shanxi province that the government had used explosives to close in 2004.

China’s coal mines are the world’s most dangerous, with more than 3,000 deaths reported every year.

Many accidents occur in small, illegal mines where safety procedures are often ignored.

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China plans to make an example of celebrities who flout China’s one-child policy by raising fines to prevent them buying their way past the rule.

“Celebrities and wealthy people will be more heavily fined for giving birth to more than one child,” Xinhua news agency quoted city family planning chief Deng Xingzhou as saying.

The Government and its media outlets have recently played up reports of celebrities and other wealthy citizens skirting the policy, which limits urban families to one child.

Xinhua says the rocketing incomes of the wealthy have allowed them to increasingly get past the rule by paying a fine officially set at around 100,000 yuan ($15,700) for Beijing residents, but which is typically much lower.

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And now for our original SOH news direct from China
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Medias in Mainland title have appealed to abolish the department and title of ‘Urban Management Officer’ according to mainland China resources.

The township official title which originated from the Chinese Law Execution System, has centralized twelve or thirteen aspects including City View, Transportation and so on and had nearly over 300 functions.

According to laws of the environment Protection and Transportation, these functions should be affiliated to the according offices, however, all the law enforcement functions implemented by the “Urban Management Officer” currently have not been authorized specifically.

In a strict legal meaning, the “Urban Management Officer”’s execution of the law belong to administrative illegal actions. This organization without any specific power of Law execution should be abolished as soon as possible.

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Over 100 Pedicab drivers gathered in the snow and protested for their rights in Yan Shi kou district, the most prosperous area of Cheng Du City, according to the Si Chuan resource.
On December 27, 2007, Cheng du government published a public notice to terminate the operation of the manpower Urban Pedicabs, and required that all Pedicab drivers must handle the procedures of termination from December 27 to 31.

Due to this policy from the government, all the living sources for Pedicab drivers will be cut off. Since Pedicab drivers received the notice, they have been protesting for their rights.

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Today the Holiday Wonders show will be performing in Detroit, before continuing on to San Francisco and than across four continents, performing to audiences in over 60 cities.

Once again the Spectacular continues to delighted audiences who express their feelings of delight and astonishment after watching the shows.

The spectaculars depict traditional Chinese values that have been suppressed in China over decades of communist rule and continue to receive rave reviews from audiences of previous shows.

The international community is learning what the real China is all about while the Chinese audiences are reconnecting with China’s traditional culture.

For show information please visit http://holidaywonders.net/index_at.php
“Asia Cast… keeping you across the top headlines from Asia and the World.”