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The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has this advice to visitors:

Around 5,000-7,000 British nationals visit Azerbaijan every year, mainly on business. Azerbaijan has a large expat population who work mostly in the oil and gas sector. Visitors are generally welcomed. Crime against foreigners is generally low, but does occur. Corruption is an every day aspect of life in Azerbaijan, despite regulations prohibiting corrupt activities by public officials and others. We do not recommend the payment of bribes under any circumstances.

Crime levels in Baku are generally low, but muggings do occur from time to time after dark in the centre of town around the western bars and clubs. Some incidents have also occurred near dimly lit entrances of private apartments.

We advise against all travel to Nagorno-Karabakh and the military occupied area surrounding it. This area is the subject of a continuing dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia and although a cease-fire has been in place since 1994 there are regular exchanges of gunfire across the Line of Contact. Some areas may be heavily landmined.

You should not attempt to enter or leave Azerbaijan via the land borders with Russia (i.e. Dagestan) as these are closed to foreign nationals. If you hold a valid visa it is possible to cross the Iranian border at Astara.

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A gym in Amsterdam is offering “Nudfit” training sessions for nudists. The Sunday morning sessions were added by popular demand and “anyone who shows up just to ogle will be thrown out,” said the gym manager. So, if you find yourself in Amsterdam feeling the need for exercise and don’t mind baring all, sessions start on March 4. Interestingly, the gym staff will remain clothed during the sessions, and in the interests of hygiene (someone was going to ask,) machinery and bikes will be covered with towels or disposable covers.

A group of U.S. tourists, including a former Marine from a cruise ship got into a bit of trouble whilst ashore at the Caribbean port of Limon. ON being held up at gun point by one Wagner Segura, 20, the cruise ship passengers somehow snapped the neck of one of their attackers. Regional police director Luis Hernandez said, “One of the tourists was a former Marine and he was probably the one who broke (Segura’s) neck,” Hernandez said. “His neck was completely snapped.” Strangely, two other unidentified thieves, one of whom was armed with a knife, fled the scene. No charges will be filed against the tourists because police viewed the incident as an act of self-defence. Police questioned and released the group, which rejoined the cruise and left Cost Rica.

Fewer planes crashed worldwide in 2006 than in any year since 1963, but the 1,292 death toll was in line with the average of the past 10 years, reported a Geneva-based monitoring agency. In 2006, there were 156 plane crashes, 22 fewer than in 2005, while the number of people killed in accidents fell 11 percent compared with the previous year, the Aircraft Crashes Record Office (BAAA) said in a statement. North America saw the most crashes, with 32 percent of the total, followed by Africa with 18 percent and Asia with 17 percent. The worst accident occurred in Ukraine, where 170 people were killed when a Tupolev-154 crashed on August 22 2006. The agency included only planes capable of carrying at least six people.

For the fourth year in a row, the United Nations has ranked Norway as having the highest standard of living in the world. Sweden, Australia and Canada are next in line, while the United States is further down the scale. The annual ranking is based largely on average levels of education and income, combined with expected length of lifetime.

The report measured standards of living in 177 countries around the world. Other Nordic countries also ranked high, with Iceland in 7th place, Finland 13th and Denmark 17th.

Did you know that it is the Chinese year of the pig which is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity. But this time it is a golden pig year, which happens once every 60 years. Some soothsayers warn that the pig can bring turbulence, and warn of a rise in natural disasters and conflict in 2007.

Ivad, a small village in the north east of Hungary is offering people – anyone – the opportunity to have a street named after them. If you are interested, the cost is 100,000 forints ($511) per metre. The eight streets of Ivad are up for grabs. And the village’s website says that the name will not be altered for 300 years.

“If, for example Barbra Streisand, whom I like a lot, has no street named after her, she may decide to have one in our village,” said Gabor Ivady, mayor of Ivad where most of the 400-strong population are related. There is one catch – the law in Hungary states that roads cannot be named after the living, so your street won’t be named after you until you are long gone and dead. Ah yes, and the website goes on to say, “The person must be or have been prominent in their sphere of life.”

Northern Ireland has been tipped by a top travel guide as one of the “must-see” countries to visit in 2007.

The Lonely Planet Bluelist featured NI in the “Go List” section of its guide – a chapter dedicated to detailing the hot destinations for the coming year.

In another section of the book, Belfast was listed as one of the top 10 “cities on the rise”.

A US travel warning was recently issued to American nationals visiting Kenya advising them to evaluate their personal safety situation in light of terrorist threats and increasing incidents of violent crime. In a response similar to that issued recently in South Africa concerning spiralling levels of crime and violence, Kenyan Tourism Minister Morris Dzoro and Government Spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua said the advisories would not affect tourism or any other sector of the economy. “What we know as a government is that there is no place in the world that is secure. There are worse things that happen in American and European cities than what is happening in Kenya now, so it has not mattered before and doesn’t matter now and it will not matter.”

He went on, “When you consider the number of criminal attacks that are in cities such as New York or Los Angeles where people are killed in gang warfare, now that is another thing,” said Mutua in his weekly briefing. “It does not mean that Kenya is a place where there is rampant insecurity and nobody is safe. Issuing travel advisories in terms of a few acts of thuggery in our country is totally unfair.”

What do you think?

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese man has been sentenced to death for conning people out of 3 billion yuan ($387 million) in a giant scam to breed ants, local media said Thursday. Wang Zhendong, from the north-eastern province of Liaoning, fabricated a business purported to be making wine, tea and medical elixirs using mature ants, the Beijing News said.

In parts of China, black ants are sold by the bagful to be steeped in tea or soaked in liquor as a natural remedy for ailments such as arthritis. Wang sold packages of ants to the investors for up to as much as 10,000 yuan ($1,290) when they were only worth 200 yuan, China Central Television reported.

A special subscription deal to Globetrotter members or e-newsletter readers: at the special discounted price of only £29 for the year – that’s 12 issues for the price of 10! All you need to do is visit our website at www.realtravelmag.com and you’ll find further details. .

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Need help? Want a travelling buddy or advice about a place or country – want to share something with us – why not visit our Mutual Aid section of the Website: Mutual Aid

Anyone any suggestions for Arjun? He write in to us: I am from Kolkata, India with a great dream to travel the entire world. But my financial condition does not allow me to make it happen. Yet I will try someday to make my dream come true. Please give me some ideas on how can I make it possible. I have mountain trekking experience in the Indian Himalaya. I can be contacted by e-mail on: sahaarjun77@rediffmail.com

Another request for information from Lena: I will be travelling by myself to Dajeerling, North India. How can I co from there to Nepal? Is it safe to travel there and travel alone? If you have any information please respond. Is it possible to enter China from this part of India.? What about Sikkim and Buthan? I am a teacher and a photographer and I would like to travel and take photos. I do not have much experience travelling in Asia. Last year I went to Kolkata to volunteer in a school and then I went to Darjeeling for a short time. This time I would like to travel more and I would value any suggestions from you. If you think you can help Lena, please e-mail her on: lenainavon@comcast.net

If travelling in Pakistan and worried about the absence of alcohol, look no further. Whilst Pakistan is predominantly Muslim, about 97% according to one source, which does not approve of drinking alcohol, the Murree Brewery Co Ltd (established in 1860 to produce beer and spirits, mostly for British colonial troops) is set to produce a 20-year-old single malt whisky. The malt whisky is due to go on sale in July to non-Muslims and its makers are not expecting huge sales. Mr Javed, the General Manager proudly announced, “Our product will match the best Scotch whiskies in the world.”

A row is brewing over the renewal of the Singapore Airlines advertising contract, worth in the region of SGD$50 million (USD$33 million). The current image projected by Singapore Airlines in all their ads is of an Oriental girl wearing a tight fitting sarong kebaya uniform, created by French designer Pierre Balmain. Singapore Airlines have said that it will not give up the iconic image and uniform of its Singapore Girl flight attendants. Critics say it is sexist and outmoded and the images are passé and largely intended to serve male passengers’ fantasies of desirable, subservient Oriental women.

Royal Nepal Airlines has apologized to Peru after mistakenly putting a picture of Peru’s tourism icon, Machu Picchu, on a poster under a slogan “Have you seen Nepal?” This was noticed by Peruvian mountaineer Ernesto Malaga, who was visiting India last month, and saw the poster hanging on a wall in the airline’s office in New Delhi. Peruvian authorities requested explanations from the airline via the embassy. “The airline … offered apologies to Peru for using the picture of the Machu Picchu Sanctuary on a poster to promote their country and assured that the lamentable error has been corrected,” the statement said.

In this e-news, we have Nepal advertising Machu Picchu, more news of mistaken identity – this month Serbia’s first PR campaign since the end of the Balkan wars in the 1990s has gone horribly wrong. The commercial called “Serbia – Moments to Remember” which was not received well by Serbians for being boring, misleading and showing Serbia as a land of rolling hills, churches and nature reserves full of wildlife, but no people. Worse than that, CNN used the soundtrack for a Kazakh tourism ad as backing music o the Serbian advert by mistake. Serb viewers also spotted that one medieval church featured prominently in the ad was not Serbian but Romanian, on the wrong side of the Danube river on Serbia’s eastern border. Officials said they will edit the commercial to highlight the fun side of Serbia, including the vibrant cafe culture and nightlife of the capital Belgrade.

A recent American survey of over 2,000 gay travellers, 21 and older, found that San Francisco was the top “gay-friendly” destination, followed by Key West, Fla.; New York City; Fire Island, which is part of Long Island in New York; Provincetown, Mass.; Los Angeles; Miami-South Beach, Fla.; Las Vegas; New Orleans, and Palm Springs-Palm Desert, Calif. Nearly half of gay and lesbian travellers said that whether a destination has a “gay-friendly” reputation matters when they are making leisure travel choices. A place where “they can hold their partner’s hand in public” without fear of harassment was cited as an example of something that more than half of gay men and more than two-thirds of gay women look for when they are choosing a destination, according to the survey.