Weird News From Asia

Comics defying taboos, ditching slapstick for political satire

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
The Associated Press
Comedian Hikari Ota is doing what he does best on his weekly "news" show: taking aim at Japan's aging lawmakers.
"It's easy to spot them nodding off during Diet sessions," he tells the studio audience while a large screen on stage shows a napping lawmaker. "Sometimes they're even dead!"

Ota's treatment of authority figures might seem tame by some nations' standards, but in Japan it represents a bold foray into the formerly forbidden territory of political satire.

Japan's political leaders have been a sleep at the wheel for so long that they've gone into hibernation.

Keep off sex education, teachers told
The controversy on sex education for school children has taken a new turn. The Siksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has warned teachers that they may be violating the law if they take sex to the classroom.

In a letter to teachers across the country, they have noted that teachers can be charged under Section 354 of the IPC for outraging modesty of a woman, if they follow the exercises prescribed in the UNICEF training manual on sex education in their classrooms.

Taking a page from America's Christian Fundamentalists are we. Keep everyone ignorant about sex until its far to late.

Now for a degree in prostitution?
July 18, 2007 - 2:11PM

Funding for tertiary courses in prostitution could be considered under changes aimed at boosting quality and relevance in the sector, New Zealand education officials say.

But MPs on parliament's education and science select committee were told today that although courses in the world's oldest profession might be considered if providers put them forward, they would still have to meet tight criteria to get funding.

Talk about a career change.

Financial Supervisory Commission under probe for role in financial scam
Vice Chairwoman Susan Chang of the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) defended yesterday the role she and other regulators played when dealing with a financial unit of the collapsed Rebar Group.

Chang also said she and her colleagues will give full cooperation with investigators' into their allegedly giving preferential treatment to Great Chinese Bills Finance Corp.

She made the remarks when the Taipei District Court called yesterday half a dozen of FSC officials for testimony in the trial of former senior executives of the bills finance firm

US and Pakistan Partners In Prisons

Using fear and paranoia the Bush Administration created a legal system which any previous U.S. administration would have concluded was really a Gulag created by an authoritarian government. Even with the exposure of these abuses this administration has sought new and creative ways to insure that any person held within this system will be denied any forum of due process. So it continues with what can only be describe as their latest deal with the devil. To pay for the construction of new prisons in Egypt and Pakistan two countries where human and legal rights are an after thought.

Even though those held at Guantanamo Bay remain outside of the U.S. legal system they have continued to challenge their detainment at Guantanamo Bay. Last Friday the U.S. Supreme Court accepted a case which challenges the Bush Administrations right to hold them indefinitely without the prospect of due process which is a reversal from their refusal to accept a similar case from last here. All of this has become an embarrassment to the Bush Administration which is being pressured domestically and internationally to close Guantanamo Bay and allow those held equal protection and due process of law. Of course the Bush Administration is searching for another way which brings us back to Pakistan and Egypt and the prospect of the United States government providing funds for the construction of prisons in those two countries for continued purpose of preventing access to the American legal system.

In an article published on June 29 of this year in the Asia Times their reporter Syed Saleem Shahzad gives an over view of what will take place if this policy is put into place by President Bush and his advisers. (Dick Cheney)

Asia Times Online has learned that the Bush administration is considering a plan under which inmates would be returned to special facilities in their countries of origin, where they would be treated on a case-by-case basis.

With Pakistan currently involved in a judicial crisis because President Pervez Musharraf sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry because he was seen as a legitimate legal threat to block Musharraf from seeking a second term under Pakistan's constitution when elections take place later this year. What of those already held by Pakistan on terrorism charges? A number of them have just disappeared into Pakistan's prison system with their families never hearing from them again. Based upon this evidence one would not reasonably expect those transfered to these jails in Pakistan to receive what any reasonable person would equate with equal protection under the law. As for the facilities where they are to be housed?

A top Pakistani official told Asia Times Online that a special facility has already been built in the city of Faisalabad, adjacent to Faisalabad Central Prison. Another such facility is under construction in Multan and is expected to be completed within the next few months. Work on a detention center adjacent to Adyala Jail in Rawalpindi, the capital Islamabad's twin city, has just started.

These facilities are being funded by the US and will fall under the jurisdiction of Pakistan's Ministry of Interior. Special staff will be deputed to the centers to work in conjunction with US officials.

Considering this administration's stance on torture and their willingness to abuse an individuals civil and human rights along with Pakistan's abysmal record in these areas and the fact that these prisons are being built further demonstrates this administrations willingness to operate outside of the usual legal parameters which protect the rights of those being held.