The head of civil rights for the US Department of Homeland Security is urging Muslim air travellers to register with the federal government before flying to reduce the chances they might be stopped at an airport because their name is on or similar to names on an anti-terrorism watch list. Registering by completing a two-page “Passenger Identity Verification Form” which can be done on-line.�

The Homeland Security department shares the information with airlines, who compare it against security lists that might otherwise red-flag a passenger. The aim is to distinguish a traveller from people whose names – or close variations thereof – appear on US no-fly lists compiled by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The department says they want to improve their relations with Muslims and Arab-Americans.�

The two-page “Passenger Identity Verification Form” asks for personal information including name, address, birth date, height, weight, eye and hair colour, and requires copies of three of the following documents: passport, visa, birth certificate, naturalisation certificate, voter registration card, government identity card or military identity card.

The Chiang Mai Night Safari Park, part of a huge project aimed at turning the area into “Chiang Mai World”, has received a boost with Kenya agreeing to provide Thailand with 135 African wild animals. Thailand in turn has pledged to provide financial assistance worth 20 million baht to Kenya so it can set up an elephant fund to help Kenya tackle the problem of rogue elephants. Wildlife activists have expressed concern over the welfare of the wild animals. Several major NGOs have expressed strong opposition to the use of wildlife for entertainment. They also questioned the deal’s transparency. One key concern is opposition to the export and exchange of wildlife, particularly species protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species list, such as white rhinos, lions and Sita tigers.

Discover the world in a day at Destinations: The Holiday & Travel Show, the essential event for travel inspiration.

Get tips from the travel experts while experiencing Destinations Sensations, demonstrations of global culture, culinary delights and live entertainment on the World Entertainment Stage.

Meet the Expert Theatres feature inspirational talks to fuel your imagination, experts include John Simpson – BBC World Affairs Editor (London Show), Jake Meyer, the youngest Briton to climb Everest and Nick Middleton, presenter and writer of ‘Extremes Along the Silk Road’. Plus, participate in interactive sessions on topics from Travel Writing and Photography to Argentina: Beyond Buenos Aires.

• Destinations 2006 takes place at London Earl’s Court: 2nd-5th February 2006 Time: Thursday 10am – 8.30pm, Friday, Sat & Sun 10am – 5.30pm
• Birmingham’s NEC: 3rd – 5th March 2006 Time: 10am – 5pm

eNewsletter readers can buy tickets under a 2for1 ticket deal, just quote “Globetrotters email“when applying for tickets. Full Members of the Globetrotters Club are entitled to an improved offer, see your latest copy of Globe for details.�

Tickets cost: �8 in advance /�10 on the door and are available from the Destinations Hotline on 08701 200 332 or log onto www.DestinationsShow.com (Calls charged at national rate. Booking fee applies.)

Trip Advisor, the US based travel organisation recently conducted a survey of over 3,000 travellers. Their findings are that the top three most desirable travel destinations in the next year, if money were no object, are Australia, Italy and Hawaii.

The top three airlines, according to respondents, are British Airways, American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic. Surprisingly, American was also one of the three least favourite airlines, and British Airways was overwhelmingly least favourite among travellers from the U.K.

Delta was the least favourite airline and yet nearly 40 percent of those who chose Delta as least favourite participate in the Delta Skymiles program. US Airways and American tied for second least favourite airline but 36 percent of those who chose them are still enrolled in US Airways’ Dividend Miles and American’s Advantage programs, respectively.

Top considerations for choosing their favourite airline were friendly and helpful staff, sticking to schedules, and best fares and comfortable seating tied for the third.

A new terminal dedicated to low cost airlines will open at Singapore’s Changi Airport on March 6 next year the Civil Aviation Authority said. Passenger charges at the new facility will fall to SGD$13 (USD$7.79) compared to the SGD$21 departure tax at the airport’s Terminals 1 and 2. There will be a free bus service for travellers transferring between the terminals

Ugandan rebels have murdered a second Briton in less than a week as they step up a new offensive against tourists and aid workers. Gunmen from the Lord’s Resistance Army shot dead a British tourist in an ambush in the north of the country. According to the UK Foreign Office, the man had gone to help a group of tourists whose boat capsized in the Murchison Falls national park in north-east Uganda.�

The tourists had been rafting from Egypt to the source of the Nile, a Foreign Office spokes-woman said. After the rescue, the Briton and the rescued tourists – including Britons and New Zealanders – were travelling by car when they were ambushed and the man was shot. Another killing followed, when a British aid worker was shot dead in an ambush in neighbouring southern Sudan.�

The Foreign Office had already warned on Monday that the LRA may now be targeting “white people”, referring to a hand-written letter apparently written by the LRA and passed to locals last month

Jon from the UK writes, in connection with a travel warning issued by the UK government about the Philippines:

I’ve visited the Philippines 3 times this year and travelled widely. I think our FO is overdoing it with its travel warning. The Sulus, Basilan and parts of Mindanao are certainly to be avoided but the rest of the country is pretty safe. Local skirmishes do break out between anti- government forces and the army but you will be stopped from getting too close to such a situation, in the unlikely event that you are close. This happened to me in Mindanao 2 weeks ago.

I have always felt pretty safe and found most people helpful and friendly. I believe the risk of street crime is substantially lower than over here. There is remarkably little begging and hassling, especially considering the low standard of living of many people. Large scale corruption is a way of life, led by the President and her family, but is need not be the concern of tourists. In short, do not be afraid of going to the Philippines on holiday, just avoid southern Mindanao and the Sulu region.

Norway’s Directorate for Cultural Heritage has begun a unique program of setting up signs to highlight historical landmarks – underwater. The signs will be placed in order to discourage vandalism and plundering. About 30 shipwrecks in southern Norway will get the familiar preservation sign from the directorate, to help divers appreciate – and respect – some of the country’s less obvious attractions. Signs will be placed at depths of 10-30 meters (33-98 feet), and will point out wrecks and cargo that are particularly vulnerable to plundering.

Survival International, a London-based organisation which accuses the Botswana government of ethnic cleansing against the Kalahari Bushmen has come under fierce criticism for allegedly distorting the true picture. One of the largest Bushmen groups in Botswana, the Kuru Family of Organisations, claims that is untrue. “There’s no genocide taking place, there’s no ethnic cleansing taking place,” said Braam Le Roux, a coordinator of the group.

Stephen Corry, director of Survival said: “Ethnic cleansing, yes. Genocide, it’s a question of looking at the term. We are very close to saying this is outright genocide, although the government has not, as yet, outright killed people.” Survival International works with around 700 Bushmen, either evicted from, or facing eviction from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, their ancestral land for 20,000 years.

Stephen Corry’s understanding of genocide is the forced removal of the Bushmen, which he believes will lead to their eventual destruction as a distinct people.

13-15th January, 2005 at Olympia, London

Where better to start Planning your Adventure holiday or Career break than at Olympia this January?

• Over 250 exhibitors * Over 100 free talks
• New exhibitors, new speakers, new features, new ideas for 2006

Whether you are a discerning traveller looking for inspirational holiday ideas or a seasoned adventurer, come and visit us at Olympia this January – it’s where the adventure begins. Now in its 11th year, The Daily Telegraph Adventure Travel and Sports Show is the only event dedicated to showcasing the UK’s biggest collection of off-the-beaten-track holidays. For everyone planning a travel experience in 2006 – from gentle treks to rafting the Grand Canyon to taking a career break – this is the only opportunity to meet directly with more than 250 specialist adventure travel providers from around the world.

Visit www.adventureshow.co.uk for full details on talks and features and up to date show news. 13 – 15 January 2006 Olympia, London 10.00am – 6.00pm daily

Globetrotters members can get Tickets for �7 in advance (�10 on the Door) by quoting ‘Globetrotters’ by Visiting www.adventureshow.co.uk or call 0870 161 2122

More than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, 10,000 artefacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq are still missing and archaeological sites across Iraq have been plundered. The National Museum of Iraq is closed to the public and inside just about everything portable has been stolen, all except a dozen ancient statues which are just too vast to move. Unfortunately, sue to the on-going violence in Iraq, no-one has the time or manpower to look for either the stolen museum pieces or to protect the sites scattered around Iraq.

British musicians claim to have set the world record by playing a gig at the world’s highest altitude – above Mount Everest’s Base Camp. The Everest gig was organised by British charity The Nepal Balabalika Trust (Trust for Nepalese Children) and lasted 40-minutes before about 100 mountaineers, and aimed to raise money for children victimised by armed conflict in Nepal. The musicians who played also included Martin Harley of The Martin Harley Band, and solo artists Ben Michaels, Michael ‘Skyhook’, Billy Page, Mike McGuiness and Nick Storey, said trust member Jason Merry.

41 of the 110 Orang-Utans are missing from Bangkok’s “Safari World” wildlife and amusement park, known for its Orang-Utan kick-boxing shows. The “Safari Park” manager says the creatures died from pneumonia, but Thai police suspect the orang-utans may have been disposed of to avoid DNA testing, to show if they had been smuggled illegally into Thailand.

The Bangkok amusement park has been the target of animal rights campaigners for some time and last week, Thai authorities forced “Safari World” to suspend its Orang-Utan fights while Police investigated the many claims of cruelty and exploitation. Orang-Utans are protected and endangered animals and only found in the wild in the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia. Forestry officials from Jakarta visited Bangkok last week with smuggling allegations and to press the Thai Government for DNA tests on Safari World’s apes to determine their origin.

Sir Richard Branson’s Australian budget carrier Virgin Blue was found guilty of discriminating against older women who applied to become air hostesses. Eight women aged between 36 and 56 took their case against the budget carrier Virgin Blue to a tribunal, after being put through job interviews that required them to sing and dance. Despite all being experienced former flight attendants with the failed Australian airline Ansett, none made it past the first round. One woman was told she lacked “Virgin flair”. “They were after a certain look that appeals to Richard Branson,” Theresa Stewart, 52, who had been a flight attendant for 27 years, told a hearing. “The assessment was designed to view a large number of people in a very short space of time to see how they look. If you had two beautiful, blonde girls, 25 and gorgeous, then they went to them like homing pigeons.” Virgin Blue admitted that it had not hired any cabin crew over the age of 36 in a two-year recruitment drive because mostly young women had applied. The women won their case, with one being awarded �2,000 for hurt and humiliation.

The FBI recently released crime figures in the USA. Murders across the United States fell for the first time in five years, while rapes increased slightly last year. Overall, the number of violent crimes, which also include aggravated assaults and robberies, fell by 1.2 percent last year. Property crimes such as burglaries, larceny/theft and car theft dropped 1.1 percent in 2004, compared to 2003. There were 16,137 murders in the United States in 2004, the last full year for which statistics are available. That was about 350 fewer than in 2003, according to the FBI data. The decrease is the first since 1999, although smaller than what the FBI reported in June. Chicago was largely responsible for the drop, recording 150 fewer murders in 2004 than in 2003.

Government data shows that the crime rate is at a 30-year low. Despite the historical trend, the FBI included a “crime clock” in its report that shows a violent crime is committed every 23.1 seconds. A murder occurs roughly every half-hour, according to the clock.

UK based Neil wrote in to the Beetle warning travellers about Garuda. This is what he says:

Garuda have a reputation for being unreliable. On a recent trip to Indonesia and East Timor I had first hand experience of this. At check-in at Heathrow I found I was not on either the flight to KL or the onward flight to Bali. All my tickets were confirmed. The supervisor said this was common, and promptly found me a seat on both (Malaysian were the carrier in association with Garuda and Virgin).

In Bali, three days before I was due to fly, I found that I was not on the flights (flying with Merpati Nusantara) to and from East Timor. These had been booked through Garuda (by Trailfinders) in London. After phoning Trailfinders from Bali, the flights were re-booked, but had to be paid for again in Bali, a considerable inconvenience.

The moral of the story is never assume that that you have confirmed seats on flights booked with, or through, Garuda. Reconfirm at least three days before departure.

A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a �1,000 travel award?

Know someone who is? We have �1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?

Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we’ll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office advise all travel to the island of Ambae, where the Mount Manaro volcano is threatening a major eruption. The Government of Vanuatu has begun evacuating people from the centre of Ambae, and is considering a wider evacuation of the entire island.

We advise caution when considering travel to the islands of Tanna and Ambrym, which are also currently affected by volcanic activity (see Natural Disasters Section). The Government of Vanuatu issued a warning, advising people not to go near the crater of the Mount Yasur volcano on the island of Tanna.

Vanuatu is in an earthquake zone and suffers frequent tremors and shocks. Three earthquakes measuring between 6.2mw and 5.6mw hit Vanuatu on 25 and 26 September 2005. No serious injuries or damage were reported.

The British High Commission in Port Vila closed to the public on 21 October 2005. There is no longer any British consular representation in Port Vila. Routine consular services for British nationals will be provided by the New Zealand High Commission in Port Vila. The British High Commission in Fiji will be responsible for non-routine consular matters. Please see Travel Advice: Fiji for contact details.

Violent crime is increasing and you should avoid visiting isolated locations alone.

The threat from terrorism is low. But you should be aware of the global risk of indiscriminate terrorist attacks, which could be against civilian targets, including places frequented by foreigners.