US President Barack Obama’s fortunes will sink further and nuclear threats will grow, but the world economy will bounce back in the turbulent Year of the Tiger, Chinese soothsayers predict.
“Obama will start going downhill this year. He will not be able to achieve much,” said Peter So, one of Hong Kong’s celebrity feng shui masters peering into the future as the Lunar New Year rolls around today.
Chinese fortune-tellers study the changing balance of the five elements they believe form the core of the universe — metal, wood, water, fire, and soil — and in the Chinese zodiac the tiger is seen as the mother of fire. In feng shui, a person’s element can be calculated by using the exact time and date of his birth. Obama, born in the summer of 1961, needed the support of water and did not go well with fire, So said.
“Unfortunately, there is too much fire and no water for Obama this year,” he said.
He predicted that China-US relations would deteriorate further in the second half of the year, with Obama’s good fortune running out.
Other leaders could also be in for a hard time, according to their place in the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese Zodiac.
Monkey is the least favorable animal sign this year, as it is in a direct clash with the tiger, the soothsayers said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was born on the Day of the Monkey in the Year of the Monkey, is expected to experience a particularly rough year, said Raymond Lo, a Hong Kong feng shui expert.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權), who has been dogged by growing public discontent, was born in the Year of the Monkey.
The tiger’s link to fire could also be a warning of renewed nuclear threats, Lo said.
Adding to the possibility of troubled times is the assertion that metal is the dominant element this year.
“Unfortunately, this means the year 2010 will not be peaceful,” Lo said.
Lo said that metal this year belongs to the yang strand and is a symbol of loyalty to friends and justice.
“However, these seemingly positive qualities can be destructive to international relations as state leaders may take sides and make military alliances,” he said.
But the disputes were unlikely to result in violence, he said.
Feng shui master Alion Yeo predicted that stock markets in Hong Kong and China would be up at the beginning of the year.
“But it will experience significant fluctuations around August before the market rebounds for a sustainable recovery towards the end of the year,” he said.
The experts believe the Year of the Tiger will also be favorable to industries connected to metal, such as banking, machinery, high technology and cars.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS