In another sign of who’s got the money, for the second year Chinese tourists have topped the list of biggest spenders in France.
The study was done by the UN World Tourism Organization. Recently the Japanese, in their own study, found that Chinese tourist were the biggest spenders there.
The study showed a 60% increase in Chinese visiting France, from 2009 to 2010. Spending also went up by 35%.
Russian tourists are the second biggest with number of visitors, and spending, in France.
Fast five had a midnight opening, April 29, in the United States. But, the Vin Diesel, U.S. franchise success, opened in Russia first.
In fact Vin Diesel told Russian media, on opening night in Moscow, that he “…wanna shoot a movie in Moscow so badly…”, adding that “…when you see Fast Five, you’ll hear Mia and Brian talk about Russia a lot.”
Fast Five opened in more than 10 countries, in the week prior to opening in the U.S., and has become the top money maker in most of those countries.
So what’s the sign of the times? The big money for “Hollywood” movies is not to be found here in the U.S. anymore, no thanks to the bad economy.
Russia has stopped exporting refined fuel, officially to deal with fuel shortages in Russia.
Russian officials hope the export ban will last only through May, but after that Russia will increase to costs of exporting their fuel. In any event, this move by Russia should add to the increasing fuel prices the world is paying.
I can’t help wonder if Russian leaders are taking advantage of a domestic situation to make things worse for the West, in retaliation for what the West is doing in Libya, and what the West is trying to do in Syria.
“Washington is all for invading Libya and is putting more and more pressure to intervene in Syria because we want to… clear China and Russia out of the Mediterranean.”
“Those two countries are just in the way of American hegemony in the Mediterranean and certainly the Americans do not want a powerful Russian fleet stationed there and they certainly don’t want China drawing energy resources.”
“Once Russia and China come to the conclusion that the Americans simply cannot be dealt with in any rational way and are determined to somehow subdue them and do them damage, all kinds of escalations can result. This is the real danger and we’re risking a major war.” Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan, and former editor of the Wall Street Journal
The United Nations Security Council failed to come up with a plan against Syria, in part because Russia is taking a strong pro-Syria stand.
In regards to Libya, Russia abstained from voting, but now thinks that was a mistake, and won’t let it happen in regards to Syria.
Lebanon also sided with Syria. China and India refuse to take part.
“If a resolution leads to a further escalation of a civil war by any means, including outside intervention, we will not be able to support this.”-Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister
Russia is demanding that military strikes stop, and that peace talks begin following a ceasefire. Russian officials indicate that they will move from a neutral stance on UNSCR 1973 (Russia abstained from voting on it), to officially opposing it, if NATO doesn’t back off.
A volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, north of Japan, has erupted. Russia has issued an orange warning, meaning hazardous to air traffic.
Witnesses say the ash cloud is at least 7.5km (4.6 miles) high. The Shiveluch volcano is one of the largest and most active volcanoes in the Kamchatka Region.
At least 11 people are dead, and as many as 103 wounded, after an explosion in a Minsk subway, in the country of Belarus. The explosion caused Russian police in Moscow to search their subways.
Witnesses say there is a large crater where the ‘bomb’ went off. Belarus police say it is an act of terrorism, they found the remains of a bomb that ahd been stuffed with scraps of metal. One analyst says this is the first time for such an act of terrorism in Belarus.
Russia suffered a terrorist attack at one of its airports in January. Russia has been asking Western leaders to help them in their fight against terrorism since the 1990s.
Japan’s public TV station, NHK, produced a special report, to try and explain how bad the Fukushima Daiichi crisis is. Basically it is worse than Chernobyl, and must require international efforts to control. One analyst said the situation is “unprecedented” for nuclear power plants (in other words it is worse than Chernobyl).
The report compared the Three Mile Island accident, in the U.S., the Chernobyl disaster, in Soviet Ukraine, to what has happened at Fukushima Daiichi so far.
‘So far’ is one of the determining factors. NHK pointed out that there is no end in sight to the spewing of highly radioactive isotopes. No true control can be gained over the Japanese nuke plant until Cold Shut Down happens. Because of conditions at the plant, they can’t do that.
French nuke experts suspect that fuel rods in at least three reactors may be slowly melting down (Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, involved one reactor each, as I pointed out in earlier postings). Cooling efforts have not been enough to bring the temperatures down, they are still dangerously high after one month. Recently surface temperatures of one reactor shot up.
Workers are flying blind. The tsunami damaged so much equipment, and they can not get power to the control rooms, which means they don’t really know what is going on inside the reactors. In order to get power back to the control rooms they must clear large radioactive debris, some caused by the tsunami, others caused by the hydrogen gas explosions. Even then, radiation levels are so high that workers can not operate for more than 15 minutes in some cases. Remember, this is just to get to a stage where they can try to initiate Cold Shut Down.
Three Mile Island achieved Cold Shut Down less than one month from the time the cooling accident was discovered. It has been one month for Fukushima Daiichi, and it is still out of control.
Three Mile Island did not emit cesium contamination. Chernobyl is still off limits because it spewed cesium. Fukushima Daiichi is spewing cesium, from three reactors. Even plutonium has been found. Also, analyst interviewed on NHK said many other radioactive isotopes are being spewed, and are not being reported to the public. The level, and types, of radiation being emitted from Fukushima Daiichi make it worse than Chernobyl.
Analyst say they must assume that melt down is occurring. This could be the only explanation for the level, and types, of radiation being emitted. Also, analysts are worried that the highly contaminated water, that is spilling out of Reactor 2, might be from a breached reactor core. Three Mile Island avoided a full melt down, mainly because the cooling accident did not physically damage the building. Chernobyl’s reactor blew up, and full melt down occurred (it literally began melting into the ground) forcing the Soviets to make the final decision to entomb the reactor with concrete, sand, lead and boric acid. It must still be monitored today.
Fukshima Daiichi suffered major damage to the buildings, from the tsunami, then from several hydrogen gas explosions.
Cleaning up Three Mile Island’s Reactor 2, a relatively mild accident compared to Chernobyl, ended up costing $1 billion. Much more than what it cost to build the pant. It also took 14 years to ‘clean up’. Imagine how much the clean up for Fukushima Daiichi will cost. The longer this goes on the more it will cost, and the longer the clean up will take.
Japan probably won’t be able to handle the cost, that might be why organizations that influence international economies (like the G7 and G20, IMF, etc) have said they will work to help Japan. Not being prepared always costs you more money when the disaster happens.
Bill Nye the Science Guy recently said why don’t they “…pave it over?” It’s now clear the Japanese truly believed something like this would never happen. One analyst pointed out that most of the actions of Tokyo Electric Power Company are reactionary, not proactive, to the crisis.
They are now building a thick steel fence in the Pacific Ocean to try and reduce the amount of radioactive water getting into the currents. Several of the worlds largest concrete spray trucks, from Germany, modified in the U.S., are on their way to Japan on Russian transport aircraft. They are the same type of truck that the Soviets used on Chernobyl. Shipments of boric acid have been sent from the U.S. and South Korea. There were some reports, in the Japanese media, that large amounts of concrete are being stockpiled. It sounds like they are getting ready to “pave it over”.
“The Russians have taken the existence of tectonic plates into consideration in designing the Bushehr nuclear plant.”-Nasser Rastkhah, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
Recently Russia helped Iran with loading of nuclear fuel rods into their plant. The Bushehr nuke plant is scheduled to power up by May. ‘Sensitive phases of operation’ would be conducted between May 5 through May 10.