Asia Cast

Asia Cast for Wednesday 7th January

In this Bulletin…

- Landmark victory for Chinese lawyers;
- New hope for Uighur people; and
- Notorious Asian drug lord arrested in Taiwan.

But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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Several dozen parents of children killed in last May’s Sichuan Earthquake were detained by police after more than a hundred of them paid their respects to their loved ones at the site of the collapsed Xinjian primary school and at a public cemetery.

In a separate incident, one mother whose children died in the disaster attempted suicide after police detained her for continuing to seek justice for those killed when sub-standard school buildings collapsed. The woman from Dujiangyan City, tried to kill herself while in police custody.

The woman was later confined for almost two weeks at a so called ‘study class’ in an attempt by the authorities to re-educate her about their role in the disaster.

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Lawyers defending two Falun Gong practitioners in Liaoning Province, who were arrested simply for following the peaceful meditation practice, left judges and prosecutors speechless when they proved the regime’s persecution of the group was illegal under Chinese law.

Falun Gong has been brutally suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999 after the practice became hugely popular.

Jiang Tian-Yong defended the innocence of Zhao Zhai-Jiang and Chen Xin-Ye based on the constitution, principals of Chinese law and current Party regulations. He argued that faith in Falun Gong is not a crime and that practitioners in detention should be released unconditionally.

His remarks led a Judicial Police officer at Huanggu District Court in Shenyang City to tell the practitioners’ families, “Today the court victory belongs to Falun Gong.”

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
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The Uighur people, a nine million Muslim minority residing in Eastern Turkistan, an area the Chinese regime refers to as the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, are hoping their newly elected spokesperson can raise global awareness of their plight.

Uighurs are one of the worst abused people at the hands of the Chinese regime. In contrast to worldwide awareness of problems in Tibet, Western media and politicians have so far given little attention to this issue.

The World Uighur Congress hopes that Rebiya Kadeer, once China’s wealthiest woman, may be able to change that.

She recently spoke to The Epoch Times about her untiring campaign for her people and called for the human rights abuses committed against Uighurs to be investigated.

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A notorious Taiwanese drug lord wanted in Taiwan and other parts of Asia, has been arrested in southern Taiwan on charges of producing ketamine, according to the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau.

Rao Ho, 70, learnt how to manufacture ketamine in Japan during in the 1960s. He quickly emerged as the mastermind of an international drug trafficking ring after his return to Taiwan.

By 1990, he had been listed as wanted by law enforcement authorities in Taiwan, China, Macau, the United States, Australia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Law enforcement officers seized 50 kilograms of finished and semi-finished ketamine and a large amount of production equipment with a value of more than US$3 million when they arrested him.

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You’re listening to Asia Cast on the SOH Radio Network
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Toyota has announced that production at all 12 of its Japanese factories will be suspended for 11 days in February and March in an attempt to reduce its stock of unsold cars.

The company had already announced a three-day halt for January, but before it had not cut production since 1993, when it did so for one day.

Toyota’s sales in the US fell 37 per cent in December, a bigger drop than either General Motors or Ford.

About 40 per cent of the cars Toyota sells in the US are made in Japan.

Despite the gloomy news, Toyota shares rose 1.3 per cent in Tokyo on Tuesday as the yen weakened against the dollar.

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In Japan, around five hundred people who lost their jobs and homes to the global economic crisis spent the New Year in central Tokyo’s Hibiya Park.

To help out the growing number of homeless people, volunteers have set up a temporary tent village in the park. A team of over two thousand volunteers have been providing tents, food and free job counselling to the homeless.

Japan’s Health, Labour and Welfare Minister, Yoichi Masuzoe, took direct action to help those living in the park out by opening up part of his ministry’s buildings for use as temporary shelters during the New Year holiday season.

It is not known how much longer such support will be maintained or how bad the problem could become during the coming year.

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And now for our Divine Performing Arts quote of the day
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At the Ottawa Divine Performing Arts Show on the 4th of January, Finance director Dan Lebrun and his wife Linda where there and thought the whole show was beautiful…

Linda: “They are all very beautiful, all the colours they bring the show to life.”

Dan: “Well I would say probably all of them, they are very good. When you hear the music and the dances together, it’s amazing what the stories they are saying. To me I would say all of them are so very beautiful. I don’t have a preference.”

Each performance holds a special meaning or tells a tale from China’s ancient culture bringing you back five thousand years to the days of the Emperors.

The Divine Performing Arts world tour is coming to a city near you.

Don’t miss out, visit www.divineperformingarts.org today.

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