Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Monday 23rd June

In this Bulletin…

- Residents are outraged by 30% slash of public transport in Beijing;
- Oil powers seek tonic to record prices in Jeddah; and
- Ferry capsizes in the Phillipines,more than 800 missing;

But first, here is our original SOH news direct from China
**********************

With the Polluted air and sandy weather casting a shadow on the Beijing Olympic Games, from the 1st of July Beijing officials are planning to reduce its motor traffic by limiting some motor vehicles to operate with the bus service taking the lead to support the new regulation, and subsequently bus services will decline by 30 percent.

During the Olympic Games 210,000 buses will cease to run. Beijing residents are outraged.

*******************************

At 9:00am on June 21, Tong-Tai-Wen Railway of Lucheng section caved in due to moved rail structure, killing seven people and injuring 21 others. Three houses collapsed during the incident.

At present, it is known that at least ten residents are still buried in the rubble.

This section of the project was constructed by the 5th Division Tongtaiwen Project under Chinas Railway and Bridge Bureau.

Currently, search, rescue and clean-up are still being carried out on the scene.

**********************
And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
**********************

Myanmar’s military regime have started to clock bloggers messages in but that hasn’t stopped blogger Nyi Lynn Seck from raising tens of thousands of dollars for cyclone survivors through his Web site.

The 29-year-old IT specialist and his friends will be putting the donations to work by helping to build “Budget Huts” in the Irrawaddy delta, a region still reeling from the May 2-3 killer storm.

Days after Cyclone Nargis hit, Nyi Lynn Seck traveled from Yangon to the delta to document the survivors’ stories. He posted their accounts and his photographs on his Web journal.

Private efforts have filled a lot of gaps in the relief effort, especially in the early weeks after the storm, when the junta turned back most foreign relief workers. After pleas from the U.N., the junta agreed to international aid, but it still limits foreigners’ activities.

*************************

The world’s top energy policy makers meet in this Red Sea city on Sunday for emergency talks on halting oil’s unrelenting rally, but divided views over the cause of recent gains emerged early.

Saudi Arabia will try to coax its few OPEC peers who have spare production capacity to join the kingdom in pumping more barrels, although some in the cartel have been openly sceptical that raising output will rein in prices they believe are driven more by speculation than market fundamentals.

While acknowledging the divide, officials said the meeting itself showed the growing will for a global effort to tackle oil’s rise, which has triggered protests from Brussels to Bangkok over record fuel costs that threaten the world’s economy.

**************************
You’re listening to Asia Cast on the SOH Radio Network
**************************

At least 800 people are missing from a ferry which capsized off the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Fengshen.

A rescue ship reported no sign of life when finally arrived a the Princess of the Stars ferry, with only four known survivors, officials hope others may have managed to swim to safety.

The Red Cross estimates some 155 people have died across the country in floods and landslides caused by the typhoon.

*************************

Firefighters are working to contain some 400 wildfires burning across northern California, 150 homes have been evacuated so far.

Most of the hundreds of fires scattered across Northern California were started by dry lightning strikes during thunder storms that moved across the state on Friday.

California has cooked for four days under a severe heat wave that has drive temperatures above 37.8 degrees Celsius across much of the state.

*************************
“Asia Cast… keeping you across the top headlines from Asia and the World.”

Bookmark It

Hide Sites