East Asia

IMPACT: Thousands killed by US's Korean ally

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG Associated Press May 18, 2008

DAEJEON, South Korea - Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.  read more »

China Petrochemical Project Opposed

By EDWARD WONG May 6, 2008 NY Times

BEIJING — Residents took to the streets of a provincial capital over the weekend to protest a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant backed by China’s leading state-run oil company, in the latest instance of popular discontent over an environmental threat in a major city.  read more »

Workers Strike at Nike Contract Factory

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — More than 20,000 Vietnamese workers have walked off the job at a Taiwanese-owned plant that makes shoes for Nike Inc., demanding higher pay to keep pace with skyrocketing prices, officials said Tuesday.

The workers at Ching Luh plant, in southern Long An province, went on strike Monday. They want a 20 percent bump to their $59 average monthly salaries along with better lunches at the company cafeteria, said Nguyen Van Thua, an official with the province's trade union.  read more »

Okinawans protest crimes related to U.S. troops

CHATAN, Japan (AP)— Several thousand Okinawans angry over recent reports of crimes allegedly committed by U.S. troops held a loud but peaceful protest today, with many demanding the troops be withdrawn from the island altogether.

The protest was followed by a march to the gate of a nearby U.S. Marine base. No incidents or arrests were reported.  read more »

No G8 Japan 2008 - Lake Toya promo


Each year, Leaders of the Group of Eight countries - Italy, France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Russia, the United States and Canada - meet to decide policy for the rest of the world. They meet behind closed doors, behind walls of concrete and steel, with armies to protect them from their own people.In July of 2008 they will meet again at the Windsor Hotel resort on Lake Toya, on the island of Hokkaido, Japan.

We will be there to stop them.  read more »

Hundreds protest Shanghai maglev rail extension

12 Jan 2008 Reuters By Royston Chan

SHANGHAI, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Hundreds of people marched through China's financial hub of Shanghai on Saturday protesting a planned extension of the city's magnetic levitation train, or "maglev", worried it would emit radiation and sicken them.

Police detained dozens of people, bundling them into waiting cars, vans and buses, as protesters thronged a major shopping street shouting "We don't want the maglev" and carrying placards reading: "No to maglev -- bad for health".

"We are afraid how the radiation will affect us. Why does the government not listen to our concerns?" said a protester surnamed Guan, adding the extension would pass within 100 metres (328 ft) of her house.  read more »

Attacks on Chinese activists raise fears

By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Jan. 6, 2008

SHENZHEN, China - Huang Qingnan lifts his hospital sheets and shows a long scar below his left hip. His right thigh needed stitches and surgeons fought to mend muscle and tendon gashed in his calf.

The 34-year-old labor activist was stabbed repeatedly by knife-wielding thugs, one in a series of attacks that experts and workers' rights advocates fear may signal a worrying new trend — privatized intimidation.  read more »

Malaysian riot police break up rally to protest detention without trial law

Sunday, January 6, 2008 04:42 AM

KUALA LUMPUR (AP) - Banging batons against their shields, Malaysian police chased away hundreds of demonstrators who held a candlelight vigil to protest against a decades-old law allowing indefinite detention without trial.

A water cannon fired a single burst to drive away the last stragglers among the crowd in downtown Kuala Lumpur, ending a 90-minute standoff.

Police had banned the rally to protest the Internal Security Act. It was the latest in a series of protests that had rocked the government in recent months. Any gathering of more than four people requires a police permit.  read more »

Vietnam: Man Sets Himself On Fire To Protest Land Confiscation

HANOI, VIETNAM(AP): A Vietnamese man set himself on fire to protest the confiscation of the land where he lived that authorities said belonged to the government, police and state media reported Wednesday (26 Dec).

Hoang Huu Hanh, 53, soaked himself with gasoline and lit a match Tuesday (25 Dec) when police pulled down his makeshift house in Hai Ba Trung District, said a local police officer who declined to be identified, citing policy.

Police quickly extinguished the fire and rushed him to a hospital where he remained in serious but stable condition Wednesday, he said.  read more »

Kuala Lumpur Memo to Parliament: 24 arrested, 9 freed

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Dec 11, 07 10:59am

PKR secretary-general Khalid Ibrahim, PAS election director Mustapha Ali and a teenager were among nine people released by police as at 4pm.

The others freed comprise six members of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih), who had gone to Parliament House to hand over a memorandum to Opposition parliamentarians, to submit to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

In all, 24 members of Bersih had been arrested this morning in the vicinity of Parliament House, while attempting to deliver the memorandum on the extension of the Election Commission chief's retirement age via constitutional amendment.  read more »

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