AsiaCast

Asia Cast for Thursday 25th June

Zhang Yunpeng hung banners and threw leaflets from a 15th floor window in protest over counterfeit shares that cost his parents their life savings . (Courtesy of The Epoch Times)

In this Bulletin…

- TV company staff fired for failing to censor sensitive programmes;
- Google angry over disruption to service in China; and
- Shen Yun Performing Arts reaches South America.

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Over 20 shareholders of China Southern Airlines protested over trading irregularities in front of Beijing’s China Securities Regulatory Commission on Monday, reports The Epoch Times.

The protesters say their investments in the airline suffered enormous losses as a result of illegal trading practices by the Shanghai Stock Exchange and other securities companies.

One man hung banners and threw flyers from a nearby 23-story building. The group says they will spread their message across China if they do not get a response from the authorities.

About a dozen police cars quickly moved in to contain the protesters and the man was taken away.

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According to The Epoch Times, five staff members from Guangzhou Cable TV have been suspended for a so-called political mistake. They apparently failed on several occasions to censor scenes related to the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the Falun Gong spiritual practice.

Programs from Hong Kong relayed to Guangdong Province normally have between a 5 to 15 second delay for monitoring purposes. When Hong Kong TV broadcasts sensitive political information, local stations need to censor it immediately and replace it with other footage.

In May, the cable company failed to censor a trailer for a special series about the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and an estimated one million TV viewers in Guangzhou City watched it.

In June a special program about religion that included some content on Falun Gong was also not censored in time.

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The row over China’s internet restrictions and controls has heated up after access to Google was disrupted in some parts of China.

Users reported they could not access either Google’s search engine or its Chinese-language version.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang accused Google of spreading pornography and breaking Chinese law.

The move came as the US called on China to scrap its plan to put net-filtering software on all new computers.

Meanwhile, the US said China’s proposed internet filter would violate China’s free trade obligations, weaken computer security and raise serious censorship concerns.

US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said China was putting companies in an untenable position by requiring them, with virtually no notice, to pre-install software that appears to have broad-based censorship implications and network security issues.

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In the first stop of its tour across South America, the classical Chinese music and dance company, Shen Yun Performing Arts, arrived today in Buenos Aires. The company will perform a total of 11 shows in the city.

In its 2009 World Tour, Shen Yun has visited more than 80 cities around the world, and is including cities in South America for the first time. After the performances in Buenos Aires, the company will travel to Santiago, Chile, before returning to Argentina to perform in the province of Cordoba.

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts says it is dedicated to reviving traditional Chinese culture, which has been suppressed for years by the ruling communist regime in China. The dance company’s mission is to present the beauty and profundity of ancient traditions and values to a modern audience.

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