Asia Cast

Asia Cast for Sunday 12th July

In this Bulletin …

- Blue Dam internet filtering software expected to surpass Green Dam;
- Metro bridge collapses in Delhi; and
- Teams probe Australian’s murder in Papua.

But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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Despite the controversy around the Green Dam Internet filtering software, the Shanghai Andatong Information Safety Technology Company is embarking on plans to manufacture Blue Dam, a filtering software project worth 800 million Yuan.

On July 2, Andatong announced that its Blue Dam Internet Pilot software will function as a management system over all networks.

Blue Dam comes in two modes, one that is purely software-based, and another that uses a combination of software and hardware. The software and hardware combination version of Blue Dam is expected to have capabilities that surpass Green Dam by 20 times.

The company’s website also claims that the system will be built with comprehensive protection and filtering systems with powerful filtering and control functions to better guide and standardize users’ Internet behaviours.

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During a court hearing for three Falun Gong practitioners in northeast China’s Panshi City, Jilin Province, lawyers for the practitioners had no choice but to leave the hearing in protest due to the regime’s requirement prohibiting them from entering a plea of innocence for the Falun Gong practitioners, as reported by The Epoch Times.

One of the lawyers told The Epoch Times that the case included 20 Falun Gong practitioners, and the three cases they were defending would normally be dealt with in the same hearing.

However, the court insisted on separating them into several different groups. The court had even planned to separate the three practitioners into different hearings, but gave up after the lawyers rejected this unreasonable demand.

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
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At least five people have died and 15 have been injured after a partially constructed bridge collapsed in Delhi, Indian officials say.

A pillar supporting part of the structure collapsed, a spokesman for the Delhi Rail Corporation said.

The men who died were reported to be labourers working on the bridge, part of the city’s new metro system.

The accident happened in the early hours of Sunday morning. Rescue crews are checking others are not trapped.

A labourer working on the site said that at least 25 men were working there when a concrete supporting pillar collapsed.

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A 40-member team of police and forensics specialists has arrived in Indonesia’s restive Papua province to investigate the shooting death of an Australian employee of the US mining giant Freeport, officials say.

Indonesian doctors conducted a five-hour autopsy on the body of 29-year-old Victorian man Drew Grant, a doctor said on Sunday, giving no details.

Forensic department chief Dr Munin Idris of Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital said the Australian Embassy had taken custody of the body of the technical expert after the autopsy.

Papua police Chief Bagus Ekodanto said the Australian was shot five times in the chest, neck and stomach.

Four others in the car were uninjured.

Saturday’s shooting happened near the Grasberg mine, one of the world’s largest open-pit mines.

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South Korea and the European Union have tentatively reached a free trade deal that will boost their $100 billion two-way trade and will likely announce it on Monday, the trade ministry in Seoul said.

The EU’s first major trade pact in Asia has been stalled by wrangling within the bloc over how a deal would affect its struggling car industry.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is visiting Sweden and holds a meeting with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on Monday.

Seoul and Brussels had launched the talks in 2007 shortly after the United States struck a free trade deal with South Korea that has not been ratified by either country’s legislature.

The prolonged negotiations had hit a snag earlier this year over differences on politically sensitive issues such as place of origin rules and custom drawback, which act in a way similar to export subsidies.

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An Italian Red Cross official held hostage by Muslim rebels for nearly six months in southern Philippines was freed on Sunday, saying the thought of seeing his family again kept him alive throughout his captivity.

Eugenio Vagni, 61, was abandoned by his captors at a remote village in Maimbung town on Jolo island early on Sunday and was fetched by soldiers and Nur-Ana Sahidulla, vice governor of Sulu province in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines, the military said.

He was taken to an army base for a medical check up and later flown to an air base in the southern port city of Zamboanga, where colleagues from the Red Cross were waiting for him.

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“Asia Cast … Keeping you across the top headlines from Asia and the world.”