Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Friday 25th June

In this Bulletin …

- Heavy rains continue in Southern China;
- US citizen to receive harsher sentence from North Korea; and
- Raging weather seen on far away planet.

But first we have our SOH focus on China.

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Heavy rain fell as forecast on China’s southern Jiangxi Province Thursday.

The National Meteorological Center has warned that the current rain could keep pounding parts of the south until Saturday.

The flood-battered Changkai dyke on the Fu River, first breached Monday, was breached yet again Wednesday as heavy flooding that has killed more than 200 people in the past week intensified.

Water levels in the town of Changkai and its neighbouring villages receded slightly since Wednesday.

With water down to ankle deep at some places, local residents were seen cleaning up their flooded belongings and preparing to stay in their homes instead of moving to temporary relief centres set up in the Fuzhou city centre.

Watch NTDTV’s coverage online for more.

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In China, the recent wave of worker strikes has highlighted problems that exist within the country’s labour force.

Aside from low wages and poor working conditions, some workers are also complaining about the lack of an independent and effective labour union.

Mr Zhang, a worker from Chengdu, in Sichuan Province says the company he works for has a union, but it has never held a meeting. He says the union is just like a dummy.

All labour unions in China are state-controlled. They are often seen as siding with the management and local communist authorities instead of representing the workers.

For more on this story watch NTDTV.

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
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A US citizen jailed in North Korea to serve eight years of hard labour for illegally entering the country, has been threatened with a harsher punishment.

The former English teacher from South Korea, was arrested in January after crossing from China.

North Korea threatened they would use wartime law against the 30-year-old if the US continued its aggressive approach over the sinking of a South Korean warship.

An international inquiry found a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan.

US requests to free Gomes will not be accepted while the disagreement over the sinking of the warship continues.

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Five Americans will each serve 10 years in jail in Pakistan after being found guilty of terrorism charges, prosecutors say.

The five men – aged between 18 and 25 – were convicted of scheming to commit terrorist attacks on Pakistani soil and of funding prohibited jihadist groups.

They were arrested in December in the north-eastern city of Sargodha.

The case is one of several involving suspected home-grown American Muslim militants linked to Pakistan.

After the young men all disappeared one of their families found a farewell video message.  It showed scenes of war and calls for Muslims to be defended. This provoked their families to contact the US authorities.

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At a girls’ school in northern Afghanistan twenty-one people fell sick. Authorities there suspect they were poisoned.

Fifteen students, five teachers and a principal of the girls’ primary school lost consciousness, according to the spokesman for the Education Ministry.

The Taliban is suspected for the poisonings as they banned girls from going to school when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

Since girls’ schools began reopening after the Taliban were overthrown, facilities, female students and teachers have been the victims of attacks.

The provincial deputy governor says it’s the third time such an incident occurred in the province, and it’s the seventh suspected poisoning incident in the country.

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Astronomers say a Jupiter-like world orbiting a star 150 light-years away has scorching temperatures and winds blowing at speeds up to 10,000 kilometres per hour.

The storm came from the planet’s very close and rotationally synched orbit around its parent star.

The planet, known as HD 209458b, is about eight times closer to its host star than Mercury is to ours. This causes the sun-facing side to reach about 1000°C, which is hot enough to melt brass.

Its permanent night side is much cooler, an imbalance that keeps gases in the atmosphere constantly moving.

The weather report is the first of its kind from HD 209458b for a planet beyond the solar system. This represents a milestone in ongoing efforts to learn about distant worlds and whether the possibility exists for any life there.

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And now for the Shen Yun quote of the day.

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And don’t forget Asia Cast is going to be changing to a weekly roundup of events across the Asia-Pacific region. Listen out for the new style show and tell us what you think. Thanks for listening and we’ll be back soon.

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