Hard Numbers: Foreign travel to Japan surges, Ethiopian diplomat expelled, Safari turns deadly, ABBA’s winning ‘Waterloo’
89: Japan’s weak yen is leading to a tourism surge, with foreign visitors jumping a whopping 89% in February — to 2.78 million people — compared to a year ago. Hotels, in turn, are fuller, and the day rates for stays are up roughly 25% since last year.
72: Ethiopia's ambassador has 72 hours to leave Somalia amid a spat over Ethiopian plans to build a naval base in the de facto autonomous region of Somaliland. Mogadishu is also closing two Ethiopian consulates and pulling its ambassador from Addis Ababa. Tensions between the two countries boiled over when Ethiopia offered possible recognition of Somaliland as part of the port deal, which Somalia sees as a move to annex part of Somalia to Ethiopia.
1: An 80-year-old American woman died while on a safari in Zambia this past weekend after a bull elephant charged at the vehicle she was in, flipping it. The tour company says the truck was blocked by the terrain and couldn’t get away from the agitated pachyderm. Last month, a similar attack took place in South Africa when a bull elephant lifted a 22-seat safari truck several times before letting it drop. There were no deaths reported in that incident.
50: It’s been 50 years to the day since ABBA won their first Eurovision song contest with “Waterloo.” Semifinal rounds for this year’s contest kick off next month, and, despite the competition's goal of staying apolitical, controversy over Israel's participation is already front and center.