Meeting news from our branches around the world.

Ryanair has been fined £24,000 by a court for misleading customers over fares on its website and pressure is being placed on all airlines to give an all inclusive price. Despite this, Ryanair has said that it will continue to go against advertising authorities which insist the airline include taxes and charges when emailing customers with its latest offers. Ryanair is resisting a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority in Ireland (ASAI) which upheld a complaint from ferry companies that Ryanair emails to subscribers failed to include taxes and charges. The matter was heard by the ASAI because the emails originated in Ireland. Ryanair was ordered to include all costs in its emails, a ruling welcomed by the ferry companies, 15 of which formed the 'Sail and Drive Campaign' which aimed to end what it claimed were misleading pricing policies from airlines. A spokesman for Ryanair defended its stance: “We have not had a single complaint from passengers, it is just a few ferry companies having a moan. These emails are not adverts, they are private correspondence with passengers and we will sue the ASAI for a breach of privacy if they persist with this matter.” Ferry companies have pledged to continue their battle against tax-exclusive fares. Hoverspeed managing director Geoffrey Ede said: “It's about time the relevant authorities took action to compel these so-called low-cost airlines to advertise the real price of travel.”

On another matter, Ryanair was recently found guilty in Chelmsford Crown Court of six breaches of the Consumer Protection Act over the price of flights advertised on its website. On six occasions, Ryanair had failed to state that prices excluded taxes and charges and was fined £24,000. However, the court ruled that the airline was not misleading customers by putting a net fare on its home page, provided it made clear charges would be added. In response, Ryanair said it welcomed the ruling. “This dates back to 2003 and for the past two years we have stated that fares exclude taxes and charges. This is a vindication of our policy,” said a spokesman.

A little while ago, we reported on a website set up to help pilots working for the Irish budget airline exchange information about their working conditions. Ryanair has now launched legal proceedings over a campaign of “harassment and intimidation” of its pilots. The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) said the legal action was “extraordinary” and was aimed at forcing it and the Irish Airline Pilots Association to divulge the names of pilots who had sent comments to the website. Ryanair told its Dublin-based pilots in 2004 that if they do not sign new contracts tying them to the company for five years, they will not be given training on the airline's new fleet and could lose their jobs. Pilots were also told that they would have to repay the full €15,000 cost of training if they leave the airline before the five years has expired. Ryanair is planning to replace ten Boeing 737-200s, based in Ireland, with the larger and more fuel-efficient 737-800 by the end of 2005 and more than 90 pilots in Dublin require retraining.

February 2005 London meeting

Gerry Brennan was our first speaker and gave us an insight into life in Botswana. Gerry went there to teach Art & Design. She began with slides showing some of her pupil's work. The children are expert at making sculptures from wire. Gerry showed us some of Chobe National Park's 11,000 square kilometres, home to elephants, lion and buffalo, some of which get extremely close. Gerry also explained some of the local superstitions, my favourite being her picture of a house surrounded by green fields, however the area around the house had no grass, as the locals believe that snakes live in the grass and they are scared of them!

Our second speakers were duo Shally and Richard Hunt, whose talk entitled “No ordinary walk” was their 2300 mile, 40 week walk from Cape Wraith to Nice. Though they did the first part in reverse walking from Dover to the north of Scotland before hopping over the Channel and walking in the summer heat through Belgium, Luxembourg and France. They crossed both the Jura and Vosges Mountains, sleeping in refuges and camping. After 40 weeks they finally made it to Nice in the rain.

5^th March 2005 London meeting

Our first speaker was Matthew Leeming who gave Globies a fascinating talk on Afghanistan. Matthew began in the city of Herat, where he visited the beautiful Friday mosque with its wonderful blue tiles. We saw the tile factory where the tiles are still made by hand today. From Shibagan he showed us the solid gold jewellery which had escaped melting down by the Taliban by being hidden in a bank vault.

In Balkh we saw the worlds oldest mosque dating from 950AD, the mosque of the 9 domes, which is housed under a roof now to protect it from the elements. And the views of the spectacular mountains in the east of Afghanistan finished off a great talk.

Our second speaker was long time Globie Phil Koniotes whose slides took us to Svalbard and Greenland. The Svalbard part was actually the honeymoon of Phil and fellow Globie Lindy, who met at Globetrotters, all together, aaaaaaaahhhhhh! Their trip took them to see the wildlife of Svalbard where they saw Arctic Fox and all kinds of bird life, as well as enjoying Russian hospitality including BBQ's on board their ship. In Greenland Phil showed us the old whaling stations which are dotted around. Phil's fabulous icebergs photos showed the deep blue colours of the oldest chunks of ice. He was also lucky enough to spot a Polar bear and to see a hump back whale feeding frenzy.

By Padmassana

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. There is no London meeting in August, but we will be back in September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk

We are sorry to say that for the time being, New York meetings are suspended as Laurie really needs a helper. If you have some time to spare and are based in or near NYC, please contact Laurie on the e-mail address below.

For details of forthcoming meetings email newyork@globetrotters.co.uk or register for email updates, click here at our website.

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theatre, 154 Christopher Street (btw Greenwich St and Washington St ), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm .

For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.

Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.

Due to bereavement in Christina's family, we regret to say that Texas meetings have stopped pending further notice. If you have time to spare and would like to take over Texas meetings, please contact the Beetle on: beetle@globetrotters.co.uk

The killing is over on Ambon, the hub of the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, in Indonesia. There is an invisible line drawn between the Christian and Muslim sectors in the City – it is still dangerous to stop on the wrong side. The burnt out churches, houses and even university buildings are reminders of the carnage that occurred a short while ago, when Ambon was likened to Beirut at its worst. “So it was a religious war?” I enquire. “Not really, more the result of political manoeuvrings. Now we have peace and democracy, but no jobs, clean streets or reliable infrastructure, the opposite of neighbouring Singapore.” Almost incredibly, fair and trouble-free elections had just been completed, much to the surprise of the incumbent president, who refused to accept defeat. “I would rather be in the hands of the Chinese army than the Indonesian”, a French photo-journalist told us later, after describing how he had to injure himself to persuade the Chinese soldiers to release him. “You won't be killed or “disappear” in their custody.”

With two friends I drove across the spine of Ambon to Hila, an old village overlooking the much larger island of Ceram, passing countless cloves and nutmegs drying in the sun on the roadside. It was hard to believe that centuries ago such spices were valued more highly than gold, with the result that the islands were a battle-ground for the colonial powers, ending when we swapped our land there for New York, after smuggling out seedlings to establish plantations in India! We hiked up a steep trail, through spice plantations, to a ridge with a spectacular view over the partially forested hillsides. Here we strove to observe two species of parrots endemic to these islands, which we could hear but not see. We returned early the following morning and were rewarded by the sight of the electric Moluccan Red Lory and the “poorly known”, to quote the bird book, but well-named Drab Honeyeater. On the drive back to the airport, we stopped to chat and photo the friendly locals, many of whom were Muslims.

The main reason for going to Ambon was to take a flight to the rarely visited Tanimbar Islands, some two hours east of Ambon. The only flights were with Merpati, whose slogan “Get the feeling” aptly described schedules in these parts as feelings were all you could rely on, with nobody outside their office in Ambon knowing when such flights would occur. Fortunately, we were able to fly to Saumlaki on Yamdena, the main island of the Tanimbars, on the desired day, a most uncomfortable experience in an ancient 22-seater. We then discovered that we could not fly to the relatively close Kai Islands as we wanted, flights having been suspended, and the flight we had “booked” back to Ambon did not run that day. As the previous day was full, we got a booking for the day after, but no tickets as the agent had gone to the airport to investigate why the plane had returned. The answer was that the pilot had felt ill and so decided to come back to Saumlaki, apparently not trusting his co-pilot to take-over.

The Tanimbars are at almost the south-eastern extremity of the 5000 km long Indonesian Archipelago, only 150 km from the coast of Australia. Unlike most of the country, the population is predominantly Christian. At the Harapan Indah, the only hotel in town, we arranged to stay at the owners' farm 21 km along the island's only road, so that we had ready access to the native forest. By the time we reached the farm, after supplies had been purchased, including a crate of beer, it was raining – the first time for 4 months so it was said. We had come here to try to see the 20 or more special birds endemic to these parts, a surprisingly high number for such a relatively small area. When the rain stopped, we set forth, amongst much bird activity, but were disappointed to find the extensive forest reported to be present by the last person we knew to have visited, some 10 years ago, had gone and only patches of logged forest remained. However, over the next 4 days we saw all the specialities, including 2 parrots, 2 thrushes and 5 flycatchers, apart from the Tanimbar Scrubfowl, sadly scarce or elusive due to hunting, and the Pied Bronze Cuckoo. Strangely, I had recorded the song of the cuckoo on the first afternoon, but never heard it again. According to the book, it parasitizes the endemic Rufous sided Gerygone, but the only bird to react to the playback of its song, on several occasions, was the Wallacean Whistler – indicating that this species is the main host for the cuckoo's eggs.

On the last afternoon, we visited the old village of Turgham. We started at the mayor's house, where a meeting of the village elders was in progress. After mutual greetings, we signed the visitors book, noting that all previous visitors of the last 2-3 years looked to be either Indonesians or Australians, the latter associated with the annual Darwin to Saumlaki boat race apparently. At a wood-carver's house we bought a number of carvings from the selection on offer by several local artists – good quality and value. We were invited to drink a glass of Soli, local spirit distilled from palm wine- highly alcoholic and surprisingly smooth. Returning to the Harapan Indah in Saumlaki, we enjoyed the air-conditioning, until ended by a power cut, and were amused to observe the staff ironing banknotes flat, perhaps to facilitate storage as even the smallest item can require a large number of notes, the exchange rate being 16, 000 Rupiah to the pound. The trappings of civilisation are a bit thin on the ground here: no mobile phone cover, internet access or shopping malls. Predictably, our flight was delayed by late arrival of the plane but this gave us chance to study the profusion of Oriental Plovers and Little Curlews on the runway – two species rarely encountered away from their wintering grounds in northern Australia. It was a shame we could not fly to Kai but we all agreed this last minute extension to our eastern Indonesia trip had been a highly rewarding and pleasant experience.

Which countries are represented by these flags? For the answers, see at the end of the eNews.