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Asia Beat: Jul 23 08
CHANDIGARH, India
The Punjab State government has asked principals and staff of government and private medical and nursing colleges to keep a strict check on initiations, also know as the ragging menace. Every institute is required to nominate a medical superintendent as the officer to check the menace. Several students have died in such incidents the state.
SEOUL, South Korea
North Korea’s phantom hotel is coming back to life. Once dubbed by Esquire magazine as "the worst building in the history of mankind," the 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel is back under construction after a 16-year lull in the capital. The hotel consists of three wings rising at 75-degree angles capped by several floors arranged in rings supposed to hold five revolving restaurants and an observation deck.
MANILA, Philippines
A British backpacker has been killed after being swept away by a river current while climbing a mountain in the Philippines. Richard Kidd, 56 drowned near Donsolan falls during a day hike with his Filipino wife on the 553-metre Mount Samat west of Manila. Samat, a popular hiking site on the Bataan peninsula on the opposite side of Manila Bay, features a mountaintop shrine honouring Filipino and U.S. World War II dead.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
A High court has allowed disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who pioneered Pakistan’s nuclear program, will be allowed to move within the country but asked him not to speak to the media. Khan has been under virtual house arrest since February 2004 after he took responsibility for nuclear proliferation and apologized to the nation. He ran an underground nuclear bazaar and said Pakistan had sent centrifuges to North Korea under the supervision of Musharraf’s secret agents.
DHAKA, Bangladesh
Noted Bangladeshi poet Samudra Gupta, a freedom fighter who wrote against religious extremism in his poems, short stories and novels, died in a Bangalore hospital last weekend. He was 62. Widely known by his pen name, Mannan, Gupta worked for many newspapers since 1960. He was also the general secretary of Bangladesh’ National Poetry Council.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia
A popular Indonesian singer has been banned from giving a concert in southern Malaysia because her performing is considered too risque by authorities. Inul Daratista, known for gyrating her hips at fast speed while on stage, has demanded an explanation for the cancellation of the show in Johor.
Hanoi, Vietnam
Vietnam raised retail gasoline prices by 31 per cent this week to reduce state fuel subsidies and bring local prices in line with international levels. Prices of kerosene will rise 44 per cent to $1.19 dollars per litre, while diesel fuel will rise 14 per cent to 95 cents per litre. The new gasoline price in Vietnam is still far below that in neighbouring countries.
YANGON, Burma
Myanmar has indicated that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi could be freed in six months, due to current laws which limit her maximum detention period to six years. Suu Kyi has spent 13 years in detention, commencing in 1989.
JAKARTA, Indonesia
Three men sentenced to death for their role in the 2002 Bali bombings will be executed before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in September. The men remain defiantly unrepentant over their lead roles as plotters of the 2002 attack which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists at bars and nightspots on Bali. They have said they will not seek presidential clemency and are looking forward to becoming martyrs.
Hong Kong
Bruce Lee fans are marking the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Hong Kong action star’s death with an exhibit featuring movie posters, magazine covers and books about the actor. Also among the 800 items on display are letters written by Lee that detail his life in the U.S., where he attended university and taught kung fu before returning to Hong Kong. Lee made his name as an actor in Hong Kong and died on July 20, 1973, at 32.
Singapore
Singapore is working on a slew of new measures aimed at boosting the city-state’s stagnating birth rate. Singapore has a fertility rate of 1.29 babies born per woman in 2007, well below the 2.1, or at least two children per woman, for the population to replace itself naturally, according to government figures. Financial incentives to encourage married Singaporeans to have more babies have not been successful.
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