Asia Cast

Asia Cast for Thursday 8th November

In this Bulletin…
- Eight Killed at Finland School After YouTube Post
- More than 70 people killed by severe floods in Vietnam and
- The Udumbara flower continues to blossom in many places in Mainland China

In Finland seven children were killed when a fellow pupil opened fire at a school in southern Finland on Wednesday, hours after he posted a video on YouTube foreshadowing a massacre there.

The school principal also died as the 18-year-old walked through the corridors of Jokela High School firing into classroom after classroom with a .22-caliber handgun.

The gunman is in hospital with no brain function after shooting himself in the head. Police chief Matti Tohkanen told a news conference that five boys, two girls and one adult woman were killed.

He later identified the woman as the principal of the school in Tuusula municipality, a town of thirty five thousand some 60 km from Helsinki.

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A UN plan for three-way talks involving detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has been rejected by Burma’s generals, according to state media.

Minister Kyaw Hsan told UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari that Burma would not accept interference in its sovereignty.

Mr. Gambari arrived in Burma on Saturday for his second visit since protests in September were brutally suppressed.

BBC UN correspondent Laura Trevelyan says diplomats privately admit omens for Mr Gambari’s mission are not good. Publicly, UN officials are saying they cannot confirm the junta’s decision to reject the proposal.

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More than 90,000 homes have been damage and over seventy people have been killed by severe flooding in the central province of Phu Yen, Vietnam, over the past 10 days.

Reports say people have been killed while battling floodwater to salvage firewood and other resources. While officials are preparing to evacuate thousands of people, a tropical storm is expected to hit later this week.

The flooding has affected several of the central coastal provinces and Danang city, causing extensive damage to property and crops.

Landslides are reported to have occurred in several areas and VietnamNet newspaper reported that mud has blocked sections of a national highway.

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In Indonesia, a report has warned that land clearances to meet the growing global demand for palm oil pose a serious threat to the environment.

Forests are being burned and peat wetlands drained for plantations, causing huge releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Greenpeace said. The environmental group warned of a potential “climate bomb” and called for the clearances to stop.

Palm oil is an ingredient in foods and a bio-fuel added to diesel for cars.
The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin says that it is already controversial because it is often grown on rainforest land in South-East Asia.

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Legend told is that Udumbara flowers blossom only once every three thousand years. Recently this has been continuously happening in Mainland China and the flower matches exactly as the description of Buddhist sutras.

Recently reporters from Mainland China invited entomologist to witness the miracle flower.

According to the news, you can twist or pinch all you want but at the end the flower will return to the original shape. According to the Buddhist scriptures, Udumbara flower is an auspicious flower from heaven.

Blossom of the Udumbara flower also signals that the Holy King Who Turns the Wheel has come to the human world.

Recently the flower blossom has happened in province of Liao Ning, He Nan, Ji Ling, An Hui, Beijing, Wu Han, Sheng Zhen and other places.

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In Si Chuan province the Du Jiang Dam bureau is planning to build a 15 level hydroelectric dam. This has brought much criticisms from hydrology experts.

Famous hydrology scholar Mr. Weiluo Wang who is currently living in Germany, pointed out that the Du Jiang Dam has two thousands years of history.

Mr. Weiluo Wang thinks this two thousand year old dam is far better than the proposed dam with its current technology; but the Chinese Communist regime have been short sighted and destroyed the precious legacy of history.

The Chinese Communist Party, in the last fifty years have ruined many aspects of natural resources which includes the legacy from Chinese ancestors that should be passed on to the later generations of Chinese people.

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