Ghost Towns & Malls in China

According to Wikipedia:

Dongguan, with a population in excess of 10 million, is located in southern China’s Guangdong province, east of the province’s largest city, Guangzhou. The mall was built on land formerly used for farming, in the Wanjiang District of the city. The project was spearheaded by Hu Guirong (Alex Hu), who became a billionaire in the instant noodle industry.

The mall contains sufficient space for as many as 2,350 stores in approximately 659,612 m2 of leasable space[2] and 892,000 m2 of total area.

The mall has seven zones modeled on international cities, nations and regions, including Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Venice, Egypt, the Caribbean, and California. Features include an 25 m replica of the Arc de Triomphe, a replica of Venice’s St Mark’s bell tower, a 2.1 km canal with gondolas, and an 553-meter indoor-outdoor roller coaster.

Since its opening in 2005, the mall has suffered from a severe lack of occupants. Much of the retail space has remained empty, with over 99% of the stores vacant. The only occupied areas of the mall are near the entrance where several Western fast food chains are located and a parking structure repurposed as a kart racing track. A planned Shangri-La Hotel has not been constructed.

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According to sendawa.com

These satellite images show sprawling cities built in remote parts of China that have been left completely abandoned, sometimes years after their construction.

1. Ghost city: Kangbashi was meant to be the urban centre for wealthy coal-mining community Ordos and home to its one million workers, but its roads are eerily empty and the houses stand vacant

There are many towns in China quoted by the article above including Kangbashi, Bayannaoer, Zhengzhou New District, half of Erenhot, City of Dantu and Part of Xinyang.

Soaring property prices in China and high levels of investment has fuelled the construction of up several new cities. Experts fear a subsequent property crash could damage the global economy

Back in 2009
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More photographs by Time Magazines about Modern Ghost Town of China

This article represents a very disturbing trend that China currently facing, their citizens who buy properties but never really move into the new estate may present several problems in the near future.

These properties had became a sort of investment instead of using them as accommodation, this beat the conventional wisdom of normal demand & supply base on “actual demand”.

Actual demand of a property may represent the real value of the property that includes the surrounding amenities, availability of shops, offices and transportation.

However, if the citizen of China blindly purchase properties without proper research into the area & end up losing their investment or worst owning large sum of property loans from bank.

If there is another banking crisis similar to the sub prime crisis in America previously to happen in China….there will be millions of property owners to suddenly get burnt by their investment.

But looking in the positive note, if the China’s government manage to relocate their people in a city wide effort into the new town…it may not be so bad at all but if the citizens refuse to budge from their old city and continue to dream about reselling their properties to RICH people hence making a quick buck…may continue to hold on to their properties until the next bubble to burst.

If China’s property market burst, the economic crisis will SPREAD FAR across the globe probably making lot’s of investors very very poor.

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Leaked German report argues peak oil is happening now

A leaked report prepared for the German government has warned that global oil supplies could peak as early as this year, triggering widespread market failures and a shift in the balance of world power.

Click to continue reading “Leaked German report argues peak oil is happening now”

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Geomagnetic Storm 30th June 2010

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The KP Index has climbed to a 5 magnitude. The index is now a solar storm as the Earth is inside a stream of charged particles from a coronal hole on the sun.

The storm is expected to last for 24 hours and then subside. During this time Earthquakes will be on the rise as the solar storms usually come with larger magnitude worldwide Earthquakes.

Report your sightings of the Northern or Southern Lights below. What do you think? Will Earthquakes be on the increase now that this storm has hit?

Let’s monitor the situation via the Solar Monitor and see if there’s any increased in Earthquakes activities!

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Alex to Become Hurricane as Swells Reach Gulf Spill

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According to Bloomberg:

Tropical Storm Alex, the first named system of the Atlantic hurricane season, strengthened today over open waters, forcing the evacuation of rigs in the Gulf of Mexico while pushing swells toward the worst U.S. oil spill.

The storm, packing maximum sustained winds of 70 miles (110 kilometers) per hour, was 380 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas, heading north-northwest at 12 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in a 7 a.m. CDT advisory. The circulating winds approached hurricane status of 74 mph.

Read the full report at Bloomberg:

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BP killed the planet

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Crude oil has been GUSHING into our Gulf at the rate of 800,000 gallons per day.
What follows is the news story that accompanied these pictures.

Here’s what President Obama didn’t see when he visited the Gulf Coast: a dead dolphin rotting in the shore weeds.

“When we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at,” said a BP contract worker who took the Daily News on a surreptitious tour of the wildlife disaster unfolding in Louisiana.

His motive: simple outrage.

“There is a lot of coverup for BP. They specifically informed us that they don’t want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It’s important to me that people know the truth about what’s going on here,” the contractor said.

“The things I’ve seen: They just aren’t right. All the life out here is just full of oil. I’m going to show you what BP never showed the President.”

The day was 85 degrees, the blue sky almost white with sunshine, the air fresh with salt tang.
After checking that he was unobserved, he motored out to Queen Bess barrier island, known to the locals as Bird Island.

The grasses by the shore were littered with tarred marine life, some dead and others struggling under a thick coating of crude.

“When you see some of the things I’ve seen, it would make you sick,” the contractor said. “No living creature should endure that kind of suffering.”

Queen Bess Island was the first place where fledglings were born when the beloved, endangered Louisiana brown pelicans were reintroduced in the 1970s. Their population rebounded and was finally declared stabilized in 2002.

Now their future is once again in doubt. In what had been such an important hatchery, hundreds of pelicans – their white heads stained black – stood sentinel. They seemed slow and lethargic.
“Those pelicans are supposed to have white heads. The black is from the oil. Most of them won’t survive,” the contractor said.

“They keep trying to clean themselves. They try and they try, but they can’t do it.”

The contractor has been attempting to save birds and turtles.

“I saw a pelican under water with only its wing sticking out,” he said. “I grabbed it and lifted it out of the water. It was just covered in oil. It was struggling so hard to survive.

We did what we could for it.

“Nature is cruel, but what’s happening here is crueler.”

The uninhabited barrier islands are surrounded by yellow floating booms, also stained black, that are supposed to keep the oil out. It’s not working.

“That grass was green a few weeks ago,” the contractor said. “Now look. … This whole island is destroyed. How do you write a check for something like this?”

He said he recently found five turtles drowning in oil.

“Three turtles were dead. Two were dying and not dead yet. They will be,” he said.

As the boat headed back amid the choppy waves, a pod of dolphins showed up to swim with the vessel and guide it to land.

“They know they are in trouble. We are all in trouble,” the contractor said.

BP’s central role in the disaster cleanup has apparently given the company a lot of latitude in keeping the press away from beaches where the oil is thickest.

On Monday, a Daily News team was escorted away from a public beach on Elmer’s Island bycops who said they were taking orders from BP.

BP spokesman Toby Odone denied the company is trying to hide the environmental damage; he noted BP has organized press visits to the spill zone and said BP cannot tell cops what to do.

The contractor for BP said the public needs to see the truth.

“BP is going to say the deaths of these animals wasn’t oil-related,” he said. “We know the truth. I hope these pictures get to the right people – to someone who can do something.”

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Israel primed to strike Iran nuclear sites, says report

Prepare for the real holocaust!

Prepare for the real holocaust!

According to Channelnewsasia:

LONDON : Israel’s military is preparing so it could launch major aerial attacks on Iranian nuclear sites if ordered to by the new government, a British newspaper said on Saturday, quoting Israeli defence and intelligence sources.

“Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light, they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours,” an unnamed senior defence official told The Times.

“They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words.”

Read the full article at Channelnewsasia:

- Yes, this is the red alert “media” broadcast and this is not a drill…or not? There had been several false alarm lately but it seems to me that they are waiting for each other to “spark” the war in any time!

Slight Increase In Oil

Slight Increase In Oil

While the Sabre rattling continues, oil prices inched up a little on last Friday not sure if it’s due to the above report or the “rumor” of possible strike on Iran causing the “roller coaster” wave of oil price recently.

The finger might be the positive US earnings which gave many “analyst” that tingling feeling to indicate this as the cause of oil price to spike 35 cents on Friday but obviously it’s just too early to know if it’s a technical rebound or just another “wave” of speculative movement by big players worldwide.

While all these are pure speculations as you can see from the “volume” of last Friday shown in the chart on the left is clearly lower then normal making the high spike another technical rebound by small number of high rollers or investors.

In further gloomy news on Wednesday, OPEC cut its estimate for world crude demand again, arguing that a “devastating contraction” in consumption would keep prices under pressure in the months ahead.

OPEC estimated that demand would contract by 1.37 million bpd or 1.6 percent in 2009.

The 12-nation cartel, which pumps 40 percent of world oil supplies, holds its next production meeting in Vienna on May 28.

This means OPEC might actually decide to “CUT” production on May 28 …that may have a big impact on the oil price indeed or will they do the houdini trick again by canceling the cut just like the last meeting?

Maybe as the new government of Israel decided that the time is right….a future preemptive strike on Iran….may cause oil to goes sky high and world to collapse into pure anarchy.

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Space scientists warn of possible disaster in three years’ time, 2012 Solar Storm.

According to The Electric New Paper:

A GRIM prediction of a world teetering on the edge of apocalypse has come, not from the lips of soothsayers or lunatics, but from space scientists. In a report funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences earlier this year, space scientists warned of a massive solar storm wreaking havoc on Earth in 2012.

A solar storm – essentially plasma balls spewing from the surface of the sun – can distort the Earth’s magnetic field. A particularly big one can destroy the tens of thousands of expensive and hard-to-build transformers in power grids worldwide. This will plunge major cities like Singapore into blackouts, which are expected to last months, or even years, as new transformers are painstakingly manufactured.

Meanwhile, with no power, modern life grinds to a standstill. In the first moments of this catastrophe, trains will collide and planes will crash, as their communications systems fail. Satellites will crash back to Earth like meteors. Hospitals, with their life-sustaining support systems, will see some of the most urgent needs at first.

But eventually, millions may die from hunger and thirst. With no power, food cannot be processed or delivered. Water cannot be pumped from reservoirs into homes. Back-up generators will help, but only for a few days before their fuel runs out.

As sewage systems fail, diseases will break out. Horses will replace cars, the financial system will collapse and, in a silver lining of sorts, there will certainly be no more e-mails for you to clear.

- Read the full article at The Electric New Paper:

Yes, this is related to the solar storms that is currently causing some “warming” in many planets recently but predicted to peak in solar activities in 2012 as “planet x” passes.

Knowing

Knowing

What we can do is to find underground caves in desperate search for safety to be away from the burning sun just like the ending of the latest blockbuster movie “Knowing” or the best case scenario is global blackout for a few months pushing millions of people into 3rd world country in a concrete city like Singapore.

Those who cannot find food & water will simply perish easily in this kind of apocalyptic future with massive & immediate job losses (who will work without electricity?) and total chaos will erupt.

My hope is Singapore will band together and “prepare” for any contingencies by being as self sustainable as possible and buy ALL kinds of renewable energies available that is suitable for Singapore.

The government should not hinder the work of invention with patent laws & the inventions should not be profit driven but survival driven…this is a global disaster not just Singapore alone….and everyone have their parts to play…

Do you want to be the victim or the provider? You decide.

Popularity: 54% [?]

Israel tests Arrow ballistic missile interceptor

According to Yahoo!News & Channelnewsasia:

ERUSALEM (AFP) – - Israel on Tuesday tested its Arrow ballistic missile interception system, a costly project launched two decades ago aimed at countering strikes mainly from archfoe Iran.

The Arrow (Hetz in Hebrew) intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile similar to Iran’s Shahab-3 which can reach Israel. The missile was fired by an Israeli fighter plane over the Mediterranean, a defence official said.

“This morning, the Arrow system performed a successful test,” the defence ministry said in a statement.

“The success of the project marks a key step in its development plan and the improvement of the operational systems to offer a response to the growing threat of ballistic missiles in the region.”

- What’s is going on here, do Israel want to provoke an action from Iran or it’s just a show of “ability” to shoot down any incoming ballistic missile from Iran?

Apparently Iran’s buddy North Korea had successfully tested a longer range rocket that supposedly “sent” a satellite into space…and probably with the new information declared by the public media…North Korea can now easily begin their nice little private “auction” on the missile design or trade it in exchange with other country such as Iran.

Now that Obama just slapped 6 Iranian firms with “sanctions” for trying to acquire some kind of “unconventional weapons” which may possibly belong towards “weapons of deadly consequences”…many can imagine what exactly are those “unconventional weapons”.

Let me list out some possible suspects

  1. Electric “non-deadly” weapon?
  2. Sonic high frequencies “brain vibrator”?
  3. Super lethal Chemical/Biological/Nuclear weapons?
  4. Made In China weapons?
  5. A super spy?

Of course all other suspects may be included in the television series “future weapons”…but what exactly does Iran wants? This probably may be a taboo topic hence not much was revealed in the media….for now.

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2 US Navy vessels collide in Strait of Hormuz, Oil Spike, Iran vs Obama

According to Yahoo!News:

MANAMA, Bahrain – Two U.S. Navy vessels — a nuclear-powered submarine and an amphibious ship — collided before dawn Friday in the mouth of the Persian Gulf, one of the world’s most important sea passages for oil supplies.

There was no damage to the sub’s nuclear propulsion system and no disruption to shipping in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, said Navy spokesman Lt. Nate Christensen, with the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.

Still, the unusual collision between members of the same navy sparked a sudden rise in oil prices — which had been declining on the day — even though the strait remained open.

Benchmark crude for April delivery had traded lower for most of the morning, but then erased those losses and rose 39 cents to $52 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent prices rose 50 cents to $51.17 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Still, with pressure pulling prices down in the financial crisis, the rise was nowhere near what would have been expected months ago, when such a collision would likely have sent prices skyrocketing.

Read the full article at Yahoo!News:

- Now we think we know what had caused the oil price to rise in the past week but is it really the full truth?

We know Strait Of Hormuz is the most important narrow strait in the the whole world because it is the route of estimated 40% of the world oil supply must go through it, IRAN happen to occupy the border of this strait making Iran holding a strategic strong hold in the oil market.

This event demonstrated that the oil price may be affected by any incident that happened in or near the strait of Hormuz even if it did not cause any disruption such as this case.

Speculative rumors spreads like wild fire now that this incident may be “not serious” or “very serious” while Obama suddenly offer a “surprise new beginning” with Iran while some says Obama thinks that the Iran clock is ticking…just a matter of how fast.

Strait of Hormuz is one tensed location where US Naval patrols the area pretty tightly, any mishaps may cause disruption to estimated 40% of the world oil supply that possible set the domino of disasters one after another into another vicious loop.

Oil Spike -> Economy Crisis -> Oil Collapse -> Tension & Disruption & Oil Project Ceased/Bankruptcy of non-conventional oil companies –> Oil Spike…(Repeat).

The prediction for the following week may be unpredictable and wild…USD is on the verge of collapsing causing oil prices to goes up suddenly but any serious economic disasters

Conclusion is, the current collision may be “small incident” and oil  may oil drom

Popularity: 1% [?]