Asia Cast - March 31, 2006

(To listen on-line please tick 'Sound of Hope Radio' Asia Cast.)
The leader of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party says it is willing to discuss dropping its long-standing pro-independence stance if Beijing also drops its "one China" principle.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said earlier this month that Beijing would talk to the DPP or anyone else in Taiwan, as long as they were committed to the "one China" principle, which holds that the self-ruled island is part of mainland China.
The DPP chairman rejected the demand, saying dialogue must be based on an equal basis and in-line with democratic principles.
Although the DPP's charter sets Taiwan independence from China as its goal, the chairman says the DPP is open to any form of relations with China.
But the decision lies with the island's 23 million people, not Beijing.
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China has said it will spend more than $1.2bn cleaning up the Songhua River along the Russian border after it was polluted by toxic chemicals last year.
Water supplies were cut off to millions of people following the benzene leak.
The clean-up plan will fund more than 200 projects designed to reduce industrial pollution and improve sewage treatment and water quality.
November's spill strained relations with Russia and focused attention on pollution problems in China's rivers.
About 3.8m people in the northern Chinese city of Harbin lost their water supplies for up to five days after 100 tonnes of benzene and nitrobenzene leaked into the Songhua.
The spillage was caused by an explosion upstream at a PetroChina chemical factory in the north-eastern province of Jilin.
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South Korea has lodged a protest against a Japanese school textbook's description of a dispute between the two nations.
The reference is among changes to textbooks ordered by Japanese education authorities.
Japan's Education Ministry instructed the publisher of a high school textbook to change its description of a territorial dispute over a group of islands, known as Dokdo by South Korea, and as Takeshima in Japan.
The draft said the islands sovereignty was in dispute, but the ministry changed that to say the islands were Japan's but were also claimed by Korea.
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Australia is to break the link between key economic sectors, to start formal negotiations with China on a free trade agreement .
The offers on goods and agriculture will start before work on services and investment.
China and Australia have had four rounds of negotiations on the scope of a bilateral free trade agreement and are slowly moving to the formal stage of exchanging detailed offers and demands.
To get progress, Australia is to break the link between the four main sectors.
The shift is a win for China, which originally wanted to do a deal on goods before even talking about services - the strategy it used in free trade talks with South-East Asia.
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Japan says its whaling program will not be influenced by research the Australian Government claims shows whaling for scientific purposes is a sham.
Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell yesterday released a study showing it was not necessary to kill whales for scientific purposes.
Senator Campbell said the study showed whaling was counter-productive.
But the spokesman on whaling for Japan's Fisheries Agency, says although he has not seen the study, he does not expect it will change Japan's view.
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Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen has launched a scathing attack on a UN envoy who criticised the government's record on human rights.
Yash Ghai said on Tuesday that Cambodia's government was not committed to human rights, and power had been too centralised around "one individual".
Hun Sen said Mr Ghai was "deranged" and should be sacked by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Mr Ghai, a Kenyan lawyer, completed a 10-day fact-finding tour of Cambodia on Tuesday.
He said the Cambodian government was "not very committed to human rights".
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Iran's ambassador to the United Nations nuclear watchdog says Tehran will not suspend uranium enrichment work, which can produce fuel for power plants or bombs, as demanded by the UN Security Council.
The Council had unanimously adopted a 'presidential statement', calling on Iran to freeze its enrichment work.
Iran says it only wants nuclear technology for electricity generation but Western countries fear it wants nuclear weapons.
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Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has blasted Western critics of his controversial policies and rights record, and vowed he will never retreat or surrender to a "neo-colonialist" onslaught.
Mr Mugabe, 82, has been in power since Zimbabwe won its independence from Britain in 1980.
He is accused of plunging the nation into political and economic crisis by seizing white-owned farms and destroying the key agricultural sector, rigging elections and waging a violent campaign against the opposition.
Mr Mugabe says his Government has been targeted by Western powers, particularly Britain and the United States, for empowering Zimbabwe's black majority and for resolutely defending its political rights.
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A report by more than 50 charity groups says the rate of violent deaths in northern Uganda is three times higher than in Iraq.
It says nearly 150 northern Ugandans die every week due to the rebellion waged by the group the Lords Resistance Army.
The United Nations coordinator for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, says the Ugandan Government must act to stop further bloodshed.
Mr Egeland calls the war one of the world's most neglected humanitarian disasters.
One study last year estimated that 1,000 people died every week in the north as a result of poor living conditions.