Asia Cast for Sunday 21st September
In this Bulletin…
- Elderly couple kidnapped by corrupt Chinese police;
- Chinese Communist Officials arrested over an illegal mining accident; and
- Fire breaks out in a Chinese club, killing at least 40 people.
-But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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Sources in China report in the morning of May 7, local officers from the Jiujiang City Domestic Security Section kidnapped an elderly couple after attempting to kidnap their daughter for practicing Falun Gong.
They ransacked the couple’s home, confiscated all Falun Gong books, seized two tricycles, daily necessities, and merchandise which Ms. Dai stored there.
The officers took the parents to the Xiaochi Police Station, and claimed that they were willing to exchange them for their daughter.
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And now for the rest of Asia Cast
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Chinese officials have been arrested in the northern province of Shanxi over an accident at an illegal mine.
State media in China says eight officials were detained including local township leaders and safety inspectors.
The collapse of an iron ore waste reservoir at the site earlier this month killed more than 260 people.
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A fire broke out in a club in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, near the border with Hong Kong, which killed at least 40 people and left at least 50 injured, state-run media said.
Deadly fires are common in China due to the routine flouting or ignorance of fire and safety measures.
In 2000, 311 people died in a disco fire in the central city of Luoyang.
Last October, a fire at a shoe factory in Fujian province killed 37 people.
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You’re listening to Asia Cast on the SOH Radio Network
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More than thirty miners died from gas inhalation in a coal mine in central China early this morning state media said.
The deaths occurred near the city of Dengfeng in Henan province, state media said.
The report said 108 miners were underground at the time and that 68 had escaped but more are missing.
China’s coal mines are among the most dangerous in the world, with safety standards often ignored in the quest for profits and the drive to meet surging demand for coal – the source of about 70 per cent of the country’s energy.
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A suicide truck bomber attacked the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday, killing at least 40 people, wounding nearly 250 and starting a fire that swept through the building in the Pakistani capital.
The explosion came hours after new President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, made his first address to parliament a few hundred meters away, calling for terrorism to be rooted out.
As flames engulfed the tightly guarded hotel, which is popular with foreigners, diplomats and rich Pakistanis, police said there were still people trapped inside.
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“Asia Cast… keeping you across the top headlines from Asia and the World.”
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