Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Friday 11th September

In this Bulletin…

- Chinese hospital working with criminals in organ harvesting;
- Japan death row inmates driven insane says rights group; and
- Energy giants Total and Chevron likely financing Burma’s junta.

But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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Chinese officials are blocking the reports of a homeless man whose organs were harvested and body abandoned in a reservoir near the Weishe Township of Xingyi City in Guizhou Province, says The Epoch Times.

It was discovered the man’s body had all its organs missing which caused a panic among locals and the homeless, who later fled the area. However, this was not the first incident.

Last week, the Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Propaganda issued orders to ban all news of these cases of organ harvesting.

According to an investigation, the doctors from the Third Hospital of the Zhongshan University in Guangzhou City along with local criminals were involved in the organ harvesting. Three doctors face murder charges.

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At a science and technology conference in Chongqing, a chief engineer at the Chinese Academy of Railway Sciences announced plans to build 42 new high-speed railway lines over the next three years.

In a breakthrough, China has developed trains that can run on both high-speed and normal lines, said Railway engineer Zhang Shuguang.

A 500 kilometre per hour train will be tested by the end of next year, Mr Zhang said.

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
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The human rights group Amnesty International is calling for an immediate moratorium on any further executions and police interrogations for prisoners on death row in Japan, saying the prisoners are being driven towards insanity by harsh conditions.

In Japan, where criminal trials have a 99 per cent conviction rate, the death penalty has wide public support.

According to an Amnesty report, the conditions faced by many death row prisoners are making them mentally ill. Death row prisoners face extreme isolation and inhibition of movement.

International human rights standards prohibit the imposition of the death penalty on the mentally ill.

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A stampede at a state-run school in Delhi, India has left 24 students injured, five in critical condition and at least five children were killed, police and doctors say.

Officials said the stampede took place when a group of girl students, who tried to run down a narrow staircase, collided into a group of boys going up.

Rumours an electric current entered the waterlogged school had started the stampede and the deaths occurred when students became jammed into a narrow school staircase.

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You’re listening to Asia Cast on the SOH Radio Network

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The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF says child mortality is decreasing, but the rate of decline is not enough and too slow.

A new report says more than eight million children under five-years-old died last year with pneumonia and diarrhoea being the two leading causes of death.

UNICEF says 40 percent of under-five deaths take place in just three countries – Nigeria, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to statistics in 1990, 12.5 million children under the age of five died, and today 10,000 fewer children are dying daily. But the number is increasing in Africa due to AIDS.

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Energy giants Total and Chevron have been accused by the rights group, Earth Rights International, of propping up Burma’s military regime through gas projects in the country.

The rights group says this has allowed the government to siphon off US$5 billion in revenue; money which has reportedly been stashed in banks in Singapore, instead of being used to ease poverty in Burma.

The rights group also accuses Total and Chevron of ignoring forced labour, killings and high-level corruption.

The two companies deny the allegations and say they play a positive and constructive role in communities.

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