AsiaCast

Asia Cast for Tuesday 16th December

In this Bulletin…

- South East Asian leaders sign trade deals ahead of delayed ASEAN Summit;
- 26 still missing in Philippine’s ferry capsize; and
- Niger rebels claim kidnap of UN Envoy

But first, here’s our SOH focus on China

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Following the recent outbreak of avian influenza in Hong Kong, news has surfaced of mass chicken deaths in the cities of Dongtai and Hai-an in Jiangsu province which occurred about a month ago.

Local residents say that due to the blockade of information by the Communist government, the lack of disease prevention plans and the lax in supervision over poultry trade, a large number of the dead diseased chickens are being sold to cities like Shanghai, Shandong and Henan.

Veterinarian worker from Hai-an Veterinary Clinic confirmed with SOH that a chicken plague occurred there a month ago and over 100,000 chickens were killed.

Dongtai city residents say that the government will be ignoring the lives and safety of the public if it fails to take action against unconscionable merchants selling diseased chickens.

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A professor from the Huaiying Teachers College, Miao Zhen-hu has been detained by police on the charge of “subverting State safety” after his students recorded his discussion in class supporting fellow Professor Yan Shi-Chun who was recently reported by two female students after criticising the government in class.

Member of Independent Chinese PEN Center, Mr Zhu Xingxing conducted a research into the influence of the culture of spying and reporting by students in class, and found that most of Grade 3 and 4 student believe that teachers cannot criticise the government, because they are paid by the government.

Mr Zhu says that these students do not have the concept that the government is funded by taxpayers, and exist to serve the public and therefore should be subjected to supervision by the public.

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
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New trade deals have been signed today by Southeast Asian leaders who have taken action ahead of the ASEAN summit to be held in Thailand which has been postponed to late February due to the political situation in the country.

Three separate agreements were signed by the leaders of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore on the trade areas of goods, services and investment. Officials from the signatory nations have said that the deals are important to make Southeast Asia a more enticing foreign investment option amid the global downturn.

Officials from the other four member nations of ASEAN, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, who did not attend the meeting says they will sign the agreements at a later date.

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Rescue teams continue to battle rough seas to locate 26 people who are still missing after an overloaded ferry capsized in the Luzon Strait in northeastern Philippines. 27 bodies have been recovered from the sea by rescuers, many of them children.

Most of the 46 survivors clung on to debris from the capsize and swam more than half a kilometer to shore near the seaside town of Appari in Cagayan province.

The ferry, Maejan, was certified to only carry 50 passengers with a full load of cargo, but at the time of the disaster more than 100 people were crammed on to it and it was overloaded with cargo.

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Niger rebels have claimed to have kidnapped the missing UN Envoy to Niger. The Canadian diplomat, Robert Fowler, was reported missing on Monday, when his car was discovered abandoned by the side of the road on the outskirts of Niamey, capital of Niger, with the engine still running.

The kidnappers are Tuareg tribesmen of the FFR who have splintered off from the main rebel faction the Niger Movement for Justice rebelling over the uneven distribution of monies raised from Niger’s mineral wealth since 2007.

The website of the splinter group states that Mr Fowler was taken in a commando operation along with four others for collaborating with the ruling ethnic-killing regime. The government has refused to negotiate with the rebels, saying that they are drug trafficking terrorists.

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Fan Yi-ming, the Silver Prize winner of the Chinese Figure Painting Competition organized by NTDTV remains illegally detained in China by the Chinese Communist Party for his practice of Falun Gong.

During the awards ceremony on December 12, NTDTV announced that Fan was unable to attend to receive his award as he is still serving his two years re-education through labour camp sentenced, illegally handed down to him during the August Beijing Olympics.

Born in 1967 in Fujian province, Fan’s artworks have been exhibited on numerous occasions both within China and abroad, including a solo exhibition in London in 2004.

Fan’s award winning painting entitled “The Tibetan Boy” was bold and structured, and the subject was highlighted with Fan’s exquisite traditional oil painting techniques.

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