Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Saturday 19th April

In this bulletin

- Pope Benedict promotes human rights
- Mugabe spreads hate in speech to supporters; and
- The human rights torch relay reaches Tianjin China

In a speech given at the Park East Synagogue, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged worshippers to “continue building bridges of friendship” with ethnic and religious groups in their neighbourhoods.

His visit to the synagogue, one of the marked leading Orthodox Jewish congregations in the country, was the first time a pope entered a U.S. synagogue.

“I find it moving to recall that Jesus, as a young boy, heard the words of scripture and prayed in a place such as this,” the pope said.
Pope Benedict XVI speaks Friday with Rabbi Arthur Schneier at the Park East Synagogue in New York.

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On Friday Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe gave a speech bitterly attacking former colonial ruler Britain, saying London was playing the population to turn against him.

Mugabe, 84, told 15,000 cheering supporters in a fiery address to mark independence day: “Down with the British. Down with thieves who want to steal our country.”

Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, is under heavy international pressure over a delay in releasing results from the March 29 presidential election, which the opposition says was won by its leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

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Recently, banners of the Human Rights Torch Relay have appeared in Hongqiao District, Tianjin City China. Tianjin residents have welcomed the HRTR and hoped that the HRTR would bring a brighter future, better human rights, and more democracy to China.

A resident in Tianjin who wishes to remain anonymous said that the Beijing Olympics has not brought any benefit to the people. Instead, it brought disaster. The resident believes the Chinese Communist Party has looted the common people and threatened their very survival. They welcome the Human Rights Torch Relay to Tianjin.

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Also on Friday the United States and European Union urged Russia to reverse a strengthening of ties with separatist regions of Georgia that has alarmed the government of the former Soviet republic.

Moscow announced on Wednesday it would establish legal links with Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions, which border Russia. Georgia called it a step towards annexation.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to express unhappiness over the move, which was decreed by President Vladimir Putin.

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Shiite militia and Iraqi troops clashed in some of the heaviest fighting in Baghdad for weeks.
Amid blinding dust storms, Sadr’s Mehdi Army fighters attacked Iraqi army positions in east Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, but US forces said Iraqi troops stood their ground.

An Iraqi security source described the fighting as among the heaviest since confrontation erupted there in late March. The source said seven people had died in combat lasting four to five hours. A nearby market was in flames.

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Danny Federici, the keyboardist who for four decades played alongside rock star Bruce Springsteen died of melanoma. He was 58.

Federici’s death at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York was announced on Springsteen’s official website and the rocker postponed a pair of weekend concerts in Florida.

Federici had suffered from melanoma for three years and last played with the E Street Band at a concert in Indianapolis on March 20, delivering an accordion solo.

Like Springsteen, Federici was born in New Jersey and played the accordion from an early age, performing at parties and clubs and developing an interest in jazz and blues music.

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A Buddhist temple in Nagano Japan has withdrawn from the Olympic torch relay in sympathy towards the abuses to Tibetans occurring due to the Chinese Communist Regimes recent crackdown.

Zenkoji Temple in Nagano, Japan, withdrew Friday from a plan to host the Beijing Olympics torch relay.
The logos of the relay’s three corporate sponsors — Coca-Cola, Samsung and Lenovo — will also not appear on official vehicles escorting the torch through the city, the companies said.

While the torch relay protests have raised major public relations problems for the corporate sponsors, this would be the first city in which they chose to downplay their connection to the Olympic flame.

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And now for our original SOH news direct from China
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Even though the Beijing Olympics is fast approaching, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime still forces demolitions of residential quarters in the name of the games.

17th of April – Wang Lianmin, a farmer in Yangshan village, which is about two to three kilometres away from the main Olympics stadium, had his house demolished in the name of the Olympics. Wang himself was taken away in handcuffs as he tried to take pictures of the demolition.

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Recently the Chinese Communist regime’s mass arrest of Tibetans have sparked international outcry. Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama continuously calls for the government not to mistreat Tibetan people.

Tibetan dialect producer at the Qinghai Television station, author and singer Nayongji, was taken from his office on the 1st of April by the public security department, items of her belonging such as a computer was also confiscated.

According to Gesang, member of the emergency coordination team which was established by the Tibetan government-in-exile, 9 Tibetans who were detained in Lhasa were released on the 14th of April.

The released detainees revealed they were locked inside a large storehouse with approximately 800 other detainees, some of whom were beaten until their arms or legs were broken, some even blinded from mistreatment.

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And now for our daily update on the NTDTV Divine Performing Arts Chinese Spectacular” show.
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MILAN, Italy — “It showed the historical path of China, touching on the most important moments of Chinese history. The show is complete. For those who have studied Chinese culture, they can see history again in summary from its origins to today. It’s very beautiful.”
This is how Luigi Hu, a bank director, described the Divine Performing Arts Chinese Spectacular on its opening night at Milan’s Allianz Theatre on April 14.