Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Friday 31st July

In this Bulletin…

- Thousands of protesting farmers met by armed police;
- Vietnamese monastery attacked; and
- Bill in India urges free education.

But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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More than 3,000 farmers from the Changguo County Salt Farms in eastern China’s Ningbo, protested against suppression and injustice on the morning of July 25.

The protests were met by 300 riot and armed police sent by the local regime, said The Epoch Times.

Local officials had sold land owned by the farmers two years ago to a neighbouring town for construction of a science and technology park, in turn, the farmers received low compensation.

Feeling frustration at failed negotiation attempts, the farmers began protesting two weeks ago by sitting in the salt farms to stop the land-fill process.

Two farmers were beaten unconscious, while more than ten were injured, and six arrested. Villagers feel the regime have not tried to resolve any problems but instead sent police to suppress the protest.

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According to China’s state-run media China Daily, some 13 million abortions are performed in China each year and they assert the lack of education about contraception is to blame for the rising numbers of unprotected sex.

Newly published statistics say, there are 13 million abortions each year compared to 20 million births, and researchers believe the real figure is probably higher because many abortions occur at unregistered clinics.

China has imposed strict family planning rules in the 70s to limit growth of its population and since then many married women have been forced to terminate pregnancies after their first and only-allowed child is born.

However, state-run media say the high number of abortions is a cause for concern, stating that many women who have abortions are single and aged between 20 and 29.

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
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A South Korean fishing boat has been towed away by a North Korean patrol boat off the peninsula’s east coast, South Korean officials say.

The military says the ship had strayed north of the maritime border due to a problem with its navigation system and was out of reach of their radar when it crossed the Northern Limit Line, a maritime boundary which had been established after the Korean War ended in 1953.

South Korea has asked for the boat and the crew, who were fishing for squid, to be returned as soon as possible.

The North has not yet responded to Seoul’s request to release the crew and boat, other officials said.

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The Bat Nha monastery in Vietnam’s central highlands was recently attacked by about 200 vigilantes who tried to evict the monks and nuns living there and leaving the remaining monks without food, electricity and water for the last two weeks.

Eyewitnesses say the crowd harassing the monks were laypeople, plain-clothes police and other more traditional monks who opposed the teachings of the internationally renowned Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh, which is practised at the monastery.

Although the involvement of Vietnam’s communist regime can’t be proven, many are convinced the campaign to evict the monks comes from higher levels and is due to a low tolerance towards non-traditional religious teachings and accusations by party officials the Bat Nha monastery is too political.

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You’re listening to Asia Cast on the SOH Radio Network
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Electronics and entertainment corporation Sony reported on Thursday a US $390 million loss in the first quarter, maintaining its forecast for a second year of losses as the global financial crisis continues to affect its profits.

Like other Japanese exporters, Sony has been negatively affected by declining sales as consumers are spending less on extraneous purchases. The strong yen which inflates costs at home has also hurt Sony, which earns one quarter of its revenue within Japan.

Sony’s chairman Howard Stringer has already kicked off a company-wide cost-cutting campaign, eliminating 16,000 jobs. The company says it also intends to pare back its network of factories. But experts have said Sony needs more drastic solutions.

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A landmark bill is due to be introduced in the Indian parliament that seeks to guarantee universal, free and compulsory education for children between the ages of six and 14.

More than 60 years after India’s independence, the government estimates that at present 70 million children do not go to school and more than a third of the country is illiterate.

Under the education bill, a quarter of the places in private schools will be reserved for poor children and the government will set up neighbourhood schools in three years and will end practices by which schools impose admission fees to guarantee children a place.

But it is not clear how the government plans to pay for this. At the moment India spends a little over 3 per cent of its GDP on education.

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