Asia Cast

Asia Cast for Friday 5th September

In this Bulletin…

- Two incidents of large scale unrest reported in China;
- Taro Aso formally declares bid for Japan’s presidency; and
- Talks on lifting nuclear restrictions on India enter second day.

But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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The committee set up to investigate the Sichuan earthquake has admitted that some of the schools that collapsed could have had construction problems.

In some areas schools were the only buildings to collapse. There have been reports of widespread corruption and the use of waste from the tofu industry as a cheep alternative to concrete.

The admission could be a diversionary tactic aimed at pacifying angry parents and part of a wider cover-up.

Parents that have been active in protesting about the collapsed schools have been blacklisted by the Chinese regime and put under surveillance. Some of those that spoke to foreign groups have been sent to labour camps.

All Chinese media has been censored over the ‘tofu waste construction projects’.

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The alarming scale of the torture and murder of innocent Falun Gong practitioners at the Tumuchi Labor Camp in Inner Mongolia has recently been exposed on the clearwisdom.net website.

According to reports from Falun Gong practitioners in Inner Mongolia, since 1999, Tumuchi Labor Camp has imprisoned hundreds of Falun Gong believers, and tortured many to the point of paralysis or death.

In the city of Hulunbuir, Wang Hengyou was persecuted to death, while Siqin Gaowa, a physics student from Heilongjiang University, was left paralyzed and unable to look after herself. In Manzhouli city, another practitioner, Li Xiaoqiu, was driven to insanity through torture.

Falun Gong practitioners around the world continue to peacefully campaign for an end to the nine-year persecution.

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Thousands of soldiers and police have been sent to Hunan Province to quell large-scale unrest, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

Up to 10,000 people reportedly took to the streets in Jishou to demand money back from an allegedly fraudulent fund raising firm.
In another protest in the eastern port of Ningbo, 10,000 workers clashed with police during a protest about the injury of a man in a local factory, the group added.

The protests are the latest in a series of confrontations over social issues in China, many of which stem from grievances over alleged corruption and local authorities’ abuse of power, but are not usually so large as these latest incidents.

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
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Taro Aso has formally announced his bid to become Japan’s next prime minister, despite younger rivals in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) calling for generational change to rejuvenate the ailing party.

The conservative former foreign minister put the flagging economy at the top of his agenda as he aims to succeed Yasuo Fukuda, who quit suddenly on Monday after months of weak poll ratings and sagging growth.

The outspoken Aso, 67, has led in early surveys but has met resistance from reformists within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who distrust him for his eagerness to use public funds to boost the economy.

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You’re listening to Asia Cast on the SOH Radio Network
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Three of Pakistan’s top judges who where removed by former President Pervez Musharraf were reinstated Friday.

The move came a day before the nation was due to elect a new president.

At least 60 judges were arrested in November last year after Musharraf issued an emergency order that sparked months of unrest and political fighting in Pakistan. Some of the judges were jailed, while others were placed under house arrest.

After intense political pressure, Musharraf resigned on August 18, nearly nine years after he seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

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The 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is meeting for a second day to consider lifting restrictions on selling nuclear technology to India.

It is part of a controversial Indian-US deal that needs the approval of the group regulating global nuclear trade before the US Congress can ratify it.

The group did not endorse the plan in a meeting last month, forcing the US to come back with a revised proposal.
India’s government says the deal is vital to meet its civil energy demands.

Critics of the deal say it creates a dangerous precedent that effectively allows India to expand its nuclear power industry without requiring it to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as other nations must.

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