Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Wednesday 15th July

Darjeeling, West Bengal - Darjeeling's tea and tourism industry is suffering due to recent political strike. (Flickr/judepics)

In this Bulletin…

- Employment rate of college students in China disputed;
- Darjeeling tea and tourism hit hard; and
- Scores killed in Iran plane crash.

But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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China’s Ministry of Education is claiming that this year’s employment rate among college students has reached 68 percent growing by 44,000 from last year.

However, a report from The Epoch Times says a Hong Kong based daily has disputed the percentage rate, stating it is unbelievable given the current economic crisis, and points out the rate from last year was lower despite the economic downturn.

At a recent lecture, education expert and 21st Century Education and Research Institute Vice President Xiong Bingqi said he noticed as of March, in some provinces the employment rate of junior college graduates was less than 9 percent, but the published rate reached as high as 60 percent.

Hong Kong media says what is truly concerning is the false data the Chinese regime is spreading.

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As China’s increasingly oppressive communist regime becomes ever more unpopular with the people, a U.S. immigration official has compared the regime’s persecution of Falun Gong to the Nazi’s persecution of Jews during World War II, says The Epoch Times.

When Ms. Ann Wang from Beijing was interviewed for a green card in April at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office in Philadelphia, she said the officer asked if she was involved in the persecution of Falun Gong, compared it to the Holocaust, and explained it is a question they ask all mainland Chinese.

Ms. Wang whose parents suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution and whose sister is a Falun Gong practitioner emigrated to the U.S. in search of freedom and said if you want freedom you cannot have the Chinese communist party and if you want the Chinese communist party, you cannot have freedom. She made her choice.

Ms. Wang who officially renounced the CCP in 2005 online with The Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, quitccp.org, is among the 56 million Chinese who have quit. She was granted permanent U.S residency.

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
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A strike called by a regional political party in West Bengal has negatively affected tea production and tourism in the Darjeeling Hills region.

The strike was called to demand a separate state and fairer treatment for Darjeeling’s Nepali- speaking Gurkha community.

Tea production is already down 30 percent due to a cyclone and drought this year, and now with the strike, tens of thousands of tourists have left the region in a hurry.

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You’re listening to Asia Cast on the SOH Radio Network
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A Caspian Airlines plane flying from Iranian capital Tehran to Yerevan in Armenia has crashed in northern Iran, killing 168 passengers and crew, said officials.

The cause of the crash which happened soon after takeoff is unknown. Iranian TV says the flight crashed 16 minutes after taking off and one witness said it plummeted from the sky.

The plane built in Russia in 1987, was carrying mostly Armenian and Iranian passengers and was reported to have had no problems before takeoff.

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A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the south-west coast of New Zealand, generating warnings of a low-level tsunami, but causing little damage.

New Zealand’s Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences initially recorded the first quake at a 6.6 magnitude before upgrading it.

New Zealand issued a tsunami warning for a string of its coastal towns and cities, but later canceled that warning.

It was then downgraded to a “small boat alert” after about an hour, although officials had earlier been concerned it could bring coastal flooding.

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

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