Russian officials are meeting with Iraqi officials, to discuss deals that include oil and military.
Russian oil companies are already involved with oil production in Iraq. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, says Iraq is now interested in military help from Russia.
Lavrov is meeting with various Iraqi leaders this week.
The U.S. Department of Energy, and the Japanese Science Ministry, have put together a map of the fallout pattern of cesium. The damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been spewing cesium.
The map shows the cesium fallout extends north west of the plant, in a large area. It is depicted with the colors yellow and red. NHK has a report.
Official say radiation levels from the Fukushima Daiichi plant have dropped enough that it is time to conduct more testing of soil for levels, and types, of radiation contamination.
Standard & Poor’s cut Greece’s credit rating, downward 2 points, after Greek officials announced they needed more bailout money.
The S & P’s rating now puts Greece below investment grade. S & P’s also says that Greece will need a waiver on repaying most of its current loans (that means they don’t think Greece can pay).
Sony says it got hit again. Sony officials admitted on May 9, that their Sony Online Entertainment was also hacked, resulting in 24 million accounts being compromised. The total number of compromised accounts are now at 100 million. Sony officials say the hacks took place from April 16 to 19.
Argentina is demanding help from the United Nations, in helping to fight slave trades, run mainly by organizations from the United States.
Argentina claims that U.S. organized crime is using Argentina as a recruiting grounds, and transit point, for human trafficking. Poor people are promised well paying jobs in the U.S., but end up working for little pay, if any, and long hours.
The workers, men, women and children, not only work in industries like textiles, but, according to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics 80% end up as sex workers in the United States.
Other countries that are destination points for human trafficking are Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Israel, Japan and Thailand.
The Bosnian Serb government is refusing to recognize the Bosnian national government. This over the country’s national court, which has been hearing cases of war crimes.
Austrian Valentin Inzko, is the supreme decision maker in Bosnia, and has ordered the Serbs to back off their plans to officially refuse to recognize the Bosnian national government. In retaliation, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, sent a letter to the United Nations accusing Inzko of abusing his power.
Since the end of the Bosnian Civil War, the Idaho Air & Army National Guard has supported several peacekeeping missions to Bosnia.
Greek officials announced that the 110 billion Euro (U.S. $160 billion) bailout money they got from the European Union is not enough.
Officials say they need another two to four years of bailout funding. They are willing to cut even more from social programs to satisfy lenders.
China is the number one exporter, which country is number two? Germany.
Germany continues to do well when it comes to exporting its products to other countries. So well, that it’s hit a record of 98.3 billion Euros (U.S. $140.9 billion) in exports for the month of March: “That was the highest monthly figure recorded for both exports and imports since the collection of foreign trade statistics had started in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950.”-Destatis, German National Statistics Office
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.
It’s interesting how the main stream U.S. media reported the number of Drugs War protesters, over the weekend, as in the “hundreds”. It was tens of thousands!
Reports out of Mexico vary from 20,000 to 85,000. The latest protests took place from May 5-8, in several Mexican cities. The people were not only protesting drug gangs, but the police and military as well.
Most of the victims in the Drugs War have been innocent civilians, especially migrant workers from Central American countries. Which, when you think about it, doesn’t make sense. Why would drug dealers, police or military want to kill civilians and migrant workers? So far many local police have been arrested in connection with the mass killings of migrant workers. It makes you wounder if this is really a Drugs War.
Now the main stream U.S. media is running reports that Mexicans support their President’s Drugs War policy. In actuality the percent of supporters is slightly down from 2010. Makes you wonder why the U.S. media seems to be downplaying a war in Mexico that has killed more people than the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq combined, in the past few years.