The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office advise against all but essential travel to Eritrea. We advise against all travel to the border areas with Ethiopia and Sudan. In recent weeks, restrictions placed on the UN Monitoring force by the Government of Eritrea have further heightened tensions along the Ethiopia/Eritrea border. This advice includes Tesseney, near the Sudan border. We also advise against travel in the area north of Afabet in the Sahel region and along one road in the west of the country (see Local Travel Section below for details).

In November 2005, UN agencies in Eritrea withdrew families of their personnel in response to increased tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea over their disputed border. On 6 December 2005, the Government of Eritrea told UN Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) staff from USA, Canada, Europe and the Russian Federation to leave the Mission within 10 days. The relocation of these personnel to Ethiopia is now complete.

You should be aware that there is a continuing threat to Western, including British, targets from terrorism in Eritrea as there is in other countries in East Africa and the Horn.

You should be aware that travel restrictions may limit our ability to offer immediate consular assistance outside Asmara, Keren, Dekemhare, Mendeferra and Massawa.

Travel options to and from Asmara are limited following the cancellation of scheduled flights between Asmara and Nairobi.

Thinking of visiting the Horn of Africa? You along with millions of others may go hungry.

The United Nations food agency (FAO) has warned that millions of people could face starvation in the Horn of Africa, which includes Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti. The FAO say around 11 million need food aid.

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!!

If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world.

Travel Sized Bites

A Brisbane woman has been killed in a shark attack at Amity Point, North Stradbroke Island near Brisbane. She was swimming about 15m (49ft) offshore when she was attacked in water which had become murky and muddy after a recent storm. Police believe that possibly three bull sharks could have attacked the young woman as they are known to be aggressive during mating season. Before you start to worry, let’s put this into perspective: there have been 10 fatal shark attacks in Australian waters in the past five years.

A tip from Mac’s friend, world traveller Stanley Sagara who travels around the world giving used glasses to the poor of the world (his next trip is to Ethiopia) gave me this travel tip: photocopy your travellers cheques as well as first page of your passport, drivers license, all your important papers. (This tip would be good even if not travelling. ) He suggests looking at back of papers to see if there is important information there as to how to get items replaced etc. and photocopy that side too so you know who issued cheques as well as who to notify in the event of loss or theft.

In December 2005, a drunken male passenger on a flight from northern England to the Spanish tourist island of Tenerife was dropped off at a small island off the African coast after he swore at the cabin crew. Press reported that the plane’s captain decided to leave the man at Porto Santo, just 10 miles long and four miles wide, a volcanic outcrop in the Atlantic, after he became abusive when he was refused more alcohol. (The island does have a few hotels, so he wasn’t left to sleep on the beach in case you were worried. ) Needless to say, police met the man at the airport who is due to appear in court in mainland Portugal in January.

To ensure UK travellers are fully prepared for your travels moving into 2006 please be aware that from 1st January 2006, UK residents travelling in Europe will require a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). This will allow you to benefit from free or reduced-cost medical care when travelling in an EEA country or Switzerland.

The EHIC replaces the E111 and is free of charge. For further information on the introduction of the EHIC and on how to apply for an EHIC, see: www. dh. gov. uk/travellers

If you are found to be a stowaway on a ship, the ship owners are obliged by law to bear the costs to send you home.

Unfortunately for seven Tanzanian stowaways who recently boarded a ship sailing to South America at Mombassa in Kenya, three Ukrainian sailors allegedly forced the seven stowaways to jump overboard. Two of the seven Tanzanian stowaways are believed to have drowned while five managed to swim to safety, say police.

Saturday 4th March 2006, 10. 30am – 4. 00pm at the newsroom The Guardian

60 Farringdon Rd

London EC1R 3GA

Cost: £89. 99 (inc VAT)

A day of two intensive workshops:

Travel Writing – How To Do It, and How Not To with Dea Birkett, Guardian columnist and author of Serpent in Paradise and Off the Beaten Track.

Fact, Fiction and Creating a Traveller’s Tale with Rory Maclean, author of Falling for Icarus and Stalin’s Nose.

The workshops include practical writing sessions. Participants should bring pen and paper – they will be expected to write! The emphasis is – whether you are a beginner or already have some writing experience – on developing skills which can be applied to both articles and books. Our aim is that, by the end of the day, each of you will have the tools to produce a publishable piece of travel writing.

Already done some travel writing? Contact travelworkshops@deabirkett. com for details of the Travel Writing Masterclass on Saturday March 18th 2006. Or book the Workshop and Masterclass together and save over £20.

The government of the Malaysian state of Johor says it is to organise an attempt to track down a legendary ape man said to roam its jungles. There have been a spate of sightings of Big Foot, known in local legend as Hantu Jarang Gigi – ghosts with widely spaced teeth. Last November three fishery workers claimed to have seen a Big Foot family that left footprints up to 45cm long. Conservationists say that damage to branches suggested that the creatures could have been up to 3m tall. There were similar sightings by members of the local indigenous minority who said they had seen a ‘King Kong’ covered in black fur. Now, the chief minister of Johor, Abdul Ghani Othman, says a proper scientific expedition will track Big Foot’s big foot-prints.

A Chinese HR company has announced it would like its new staff to include plenty of “dogs”. To reflect this, in its recruitment ad, they invited only people born in the Year of the Dog to apply. The reason? A personnel manager for the company said, “We believe that people born in dog years are born with some good characteristics such as loyalty and honesty. ”

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2006 is the Year of the Dog. Were you born in the Year of the Dog? Those born in 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982 and 1994 were all born to this astrological sign.

Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, a new start up company aims to be a low cost carrier but operate long haul routes. They plan to make their maiden flight from Hong Kong to London’s Gatwick Airport in June 2006 as Hong Kong’s first low-fare carrier.

Oasis aims to price round-trip tickets starting as low as HKD$1,000 (USD$128), although customers looking for such a bargain would have to book months in advance, said Oasis Chief Executive Stephan Miller, a founder and former chief executive of the city’s second largest airline, Dragonair. Oasis will not be alone. Qantas’ Jetstar arm and Viva Macau also hope to launch low-cost long-haul flights.

A recent report in “Holiday Which?”, published by the British Consumers’ Association, found that the number of people who take “independent holidays” has now overtaken those booking the traditional package, predicting that 55 percent of overseas holidays in 2005 will have been arranged independently. Travellers are searching the internet and booking flights, cars and hotels on-line. In the travel industry, this is called “dynamic packaging”: travellers who build their own itineraries, or vacation packages.

Unsurprisingly, tour operators recognise this trend and have responded. For example, Flexibletrips. com, part of Thomas Cook, allows you to build exactly the sort of holiday you want by “bundling” flights, hotels, car rental and extras such as tours and transfers. British Airways plans to introduce a “shopping basket” feature on BA. com allowing travellers to book hotels, and other travel products, alongside flights.

The disadvantage to dynamic packaging is that you may not have financial protection if something goes wrong – (pay with a credit card, not a debit card) and it can be hard to compare like with like e. g. some packaged breaks may include airport transfers and a room upgrade, and of course, all this internet searching takes time.

Air New Zealand and Qantas Airways confirmed have barred men from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights. The policy came to light after a man seated next to a child was asked to change seats with a woman in another row and was told by a Qantas flight attendant that the airline’s policy stipulated that only women should sit next to unaccompanied children. The man asked to move, Mark Worsley, 37, was later told by the airline that Qantas wanted to err on the side of caution. “I felt that it was totally discriminatory,” Worsley told The New Zealand Herald. A Qantas spokesman confirmed the policy and said the airline believed customers wanted the policy.

Bear in mind, before you read this, that this news is reported by the China Travel Service.

“China is the main engine driving Asia-Pacific travel; and by 2020, China is expected to be the world’s No. 1 travel destination with an estimated 100 million tourists visiting every year. ”

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.

Travel Facts

• Brazil takes up 47.8% of South America.
• Australians have a huge 380,000 sq m of land per person – and yet 91% live in urban areas.
• Nearly a quarter of people in Monaco are over 65.
• Canada lays claim to more water than any other nation.
• Almost the entire Cook Islands are covered by forest. Contrary to the popular rhyme, rain falls mainly on Guinea.
• 72% of people in Mali earn less than $1 per day.
• There are 22 countries where more than half the population is illiterate. Fifteen of them are in Africa.
• Mexico has the most Jehovah’s Witnesses per capita in the OECD.
• At least 9 out 10 Nigerians attend church regularly. Only 4 out of 10 Americans claim to do so

Source: www.nationmaster.com

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.

Spotted by Webmaster Paul, here’s a satellite photo from Google of Hampton Court