Category Archives: Sidebar

Orang-utans Found

Orang-utans, like gorillas and chimpanzees, are often described as the closest relatives of humans. They are in grave danger of extinction, because their habitat is under threat from illegal logging, forest fires and gold mining. According to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the annual 5% loss of habitat means there will be virtually no intact forest left for them by 2030. Wild orang-utans exist only on two southeast Asian islands, Borneo and Sumatra.

A secret population of orang-utans has been discovered in the forests of the island of Borneo. Conservationists believe about 2,000 rare apes are living out of sight in a remote lowland region of East Kalimantan. The find, if confirmed, will raise the number of known orang-utans in the world by about 10% and represents hope of saving the endangered primate from extinction in the wild. Primate experts have predicted that the apes will be found only in zoos by the year 2020 unless immediate steps are taken to protect them.

Source: BBC

Shiva Exhibition

In an exhibit billed as “The Sensuous and the Sacred,” the Smithsonian Institution introduces the public to a Hindu deity called Shiva, noted for being the Lord of Dance.

Admission to the exhibit is free. After it closes in Washington on March 9, it will be seen at the Dallas Museum of Art, April 4-June 15, and at the Cleveland Museum of Art, July 6-September 14

Tourism Based Economies Will Suffer

Tourism revenues are a major and important earner for many countries in South East Asia. Consider, then, the effect of government travel warnings. We have already seen the deserted beaches in Bali, after more than 190 people were killed on October 12th.

The US State Department recently issued a warning specifically mentioning Malaysia as a country where US nationals could be at risk of attack by the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network, blamed for the Bali bombing.

A Malaysian senior minister says: “Our forecast of visitors is now between one to 1.1 million (tourists every month) compared with 1.3 million before, which is 100,000 to 300,000 less that what we'd hoped for,” …..”if not for the travel advisory and the Bali bombing tragedy, the situation might have been better. Now everyone thinks the entire (Southeast Asian) region is affected,” he said.

UK Visitor Numbers Drop

The number of foreign tourists visiting the UK saw its biggest fall in 20 years in 2001, according to the National Statistics Office, particularly from US, who are traditionally the UK’s biggest visitor group.

The impact of September 11 and the foot-and-mouth outbreak contributed to the sharp decline, which saw a £1.5bn drop in the amount spent by visitors to the UK. Visitor numbers fell 9% to 22.8m. Because more Britons chose to holiday overseas, rather than stay in the UK, they spent £14bn more than the amount spent by tourists in the UK.

Visitors from nearby European countries, Spain, Germany etc., have come back to holiday in the UK quite quickly, but the high spending US and Japanese markets are not so quick to return.

The British Tourist Authority (BTA) recently announced a long-term plan to increase the UK's income from tourism. Their “Leading the World to Britain” campaign aims to build on emerging markets in eastern Europe and the Far East, as well as putting more emphasis on the distinctiveness of Britain's three nations, and increasing UK tourism's Internet presence.

E-Bookers

Europe's biggest online travel agency, Ebookers, (which sells package holidays, flights and car rentals over the Internet in 11 European countries) has just announced its financial results.

The company said that its losses after tax for the three months to September 2002 came in at £2m, ($2.9m) down from £3.5m during the same period one year earlier, while sales jumped 58% on the year to £77.9m and is firmly on track to start turning a profit after tax.

They have kept costs under control by moving their ticket and payment processing operation to India, where running costs are lower. The firm estimates that having its back office operation in India rather than Europe saves it about £1m every three months.

Ebookers' strong growth in sales partly reflected growing demand for package holidays, car rentals, and hotel bookings, the company said. It added that it had benefited from the success of no-frills airlines such as Ryanair and Easyjet, saying they had encouraged more people to go on holidays, and had helped popularise online travel bookings.

Bats and Rabies

A man has died after contracting Britain's first case of rabies for 100 years, hospital bosses have confirmed. David McRae, a 56-year-old conservationist from Guthrie, Angus, Scotland, failed to recover from European Bat Lyssavirus (EBL), a type of rabies found in several northern European countries. Mr McRae, who was licensed to handle bats, was bitten by one of the creatures on at least one occasion.

In Europe, where the EBL strain is common, there have only been three cases of humans catching rabies since 1977.

If you are planning on visiting countries where there are bats, please don’t pet them. If you are bitten or scratched by a bat, you are at risk of infection and should seek urgent medical advice.

 

Globetrotter Travel Award

Under 30? 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!!

Did You Know&

Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina has a population of around 3 million, (metropolitan area of 13 million) and there is a 12,000 strong Greek community. Emigration from Greece to Buenos Aires peaked between WWI and WWII. Today, the Greek community of Buenos Aires is the largest and wealthiest of its type in Latin America. Many are successful businessmen, ship owners, scholars and writers.

Buenos Aires’ most famous Greek immigrant is Aristotle Onassis, a refugee from Smyrna, who arrived in Buenos Aires on September 21st, 1923. Onassis was involved with tobacco manufacturing, before buying his first merchant ship in the early 1930s. In 1932, Onassis was appointed Honorary Deputy Consul of Greece to Buenos Aires. He later became one of the world's wealthiest men.

JFK Airport to Use Iris Scanning

John F. Kennedy International Airport has become the first airport in the United States to use iris scanning technology to prevent employee security breaches. Kennedy has been testing the technology on about 300 employees working at Terminal 4 for two months, although the program is not mandatory for now. The idea is that the technology prevents employees from giving their ID cards to someone else. The scanner stores 247 traits of a person's iris into a computer and on his or her ID card's magnetic strip.

Terminal officials said they believe the technique is more specific than fingerprinting, which checks for 85 traits. The $2,000 iris scanner and the $15,000 door barring entry into a secure area have been installed at the customs area leading to the tarmac. If the scanner fails to match an employee's eyes and card, an alarm sounds and security guards are dispatched. After swiping their cards, workers peer into the scanner for 10 to 15 seconds, until the door clicks open. The system works with contact lenses and eyeglasses, but not with sunglasses. The Charlotte, North Carolina, airport used similar technology in 2000, but suspended the system last year.

Canadians warned about visiting US

The Canadian Government has issued a travel advisory to its citizens about visiting the United States.

Because of tightened border controls in America, Canadians born in some Middle Eastern countries should now think carefully before entering the United States, Ottawa says.

American border regulations introduced last month require that people born in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan or Syria be photographed and fingerprinted as they enter the US – even if they are now full citizens of other countries, including Canada.

That has prompted the travel warning from the Canadian Government.

This week it advised its citizens who were born in any of the five countries to “consider carefully whether they should attempt to enter the US for any reason, including transit to or from third countries”.

In the Canadian parliament on Wednesday, politicians accused Washington of harassing Arab-Canadians.

One Syrian-born member of parliament said the American rules make him a second-class Canadian.

Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham says he has already registered his strongest disapproval to US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

He added that he believes changes will be made to the American move when common sense prevails.

The American regulations come as a convenient target for Canadian politicians who sense growing unease amongst Canadians with US policy in the Middle East.

Many Canadians also worry about increased administration and delays at the border, which can be expensive for their export businesses.

Globetrotter Travel Award

Under 30? 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 Daily Telegraph Destinations 2003

Olympia London from January 30 – February 2

You'll find the largest range of holidays and ideas to be found under one roof – hundreds of tour operators, travel companies and tourist boards offering everything from adventure experiences to cultural weekend breaks. A limited number of complimentary tickets are available to telegraph.co.uk readers (maximum 2 per user) if booked in advance for Destinations 2003.

Visit www.destinationsshow.com, click on 'box office' and enter the code 'tcuk' when prompted.

Snows of Kilimanjaro May Melt By 2020

by Charles Arthur / Independent/UK (via Common Dreams News Center)

The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro, immortalized by an Ernest Hemingway short story, are melting so quickly they are expected to disappear within two decades.

Researchers have found that the ice fields capping Africa's highest mountain shrank by 80 per cent in the last century, from 4.6 square miles in 1912 to just one square mile two years ago, which has brought down the height of the mountain by several feet.

The ice covering the 19,330ft peak “will be gone by about 2020”, said Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University. The process has cut water volume in some Tanzanian rivers that supply villages and hospitals. Global warming is one reason, but scientists say it alone cannot have caused such a dramatic change. The other factors behind the transformation remain a mystery.

Cruise Ships touted for Homeless

New York City may convert de-commissioned cruise ships into shelters for its rising numbers of homeless people. Last month, a record 37,000 homeless people were sleeping in city shelters every night according to the Coalition for the Homeless, which compiles statistics for the city. City officials, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg's commissioner of homeless services, have flown to the Bahamas to inspect disused ships. They say the idea of using them was just one option being considered – but critics say the plan is unnecessary, and have called on the city to provide affordable housing for those in need. City officials stressed that it is too early to speculate on how the cruise-ship idea might be applied in New York.

Travel Warnings

The FCO said early November: 'Following the terrorist attacks in Bali… in which Western tourists were deliberately targeted, the threat to British nationals in Thailand, including popular tourist areas, the island of Phuket in particular, has increased significantly.'

This statement has enraged not only the Thai and other South East Asian tourism authorities, but ABTA, that venerable travel industry association who have asked for greater clarity in the travel advice issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Keith Betton, head of corporate affairs at ABTA, said: 'Surely they should tell us if they have had a specific threat about Phuket.' He added: 'The advice they have given has scared people and we have no idea whether it is reasonable. As far as we can tell Thailand is as dangerous for the 6,000 or so Britons there as London was for Americans when the IRA was bombing here.'

In response, an FCO spokesperson said: “We would not mark out Phuket just to be on the safe side. Our advice is drawn from a number of sources, including intelligence officials”.

Tour operators have been calling customers with bookings to Thailand, or travellers in Thailand, apprising them of the FCO advice and allowing them to postpone or alter their holiday plans. Airtours has dropped Thailand, and Thomson Worldwide says bookings have dipped.

Early November, the FCO updated its advice on 12 countries – including Honduras, Seychelles, Gibraltar and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific – advising travellers to be 'aware of the risk of indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets in public places' although no one at the FCO could explain what this risk is, and it has promised to discuss the practicality of its warnings with the Travel Advice Unit.

Foreign and Commonwealth Travel Advice is available on 020 7008 0232/3.

7 UK Airports may Close Due to Strike

A British union that has firemen and airport workers as its members has announced a set of dates it on which it proposes to strike.

These will affect seven airports: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Edinburgh, Southampton, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Proposed strike dates are: 28 Nov, 2, 10, 15 & 23 Dec and 2nd Jan, and if the fire service does strike, the airports will be left without fire cover and will almost certainly be forced to ground all flights.

Manila Warning

Canada and the European Union have joined Australia and indefinitely closed their diplomatic missions in the Philippines after receiving information about an “imminent” terror attack.

The move came after Australia said it had received “credible and specific” warning of the attack by Islamic militants on its embassy in the capital Manila within the next few days.

“It is not only location specific, targeting the Australian embassy itself, but also it's time specific,” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian radio without giving any further details.

Fave Websites of the Month

Passed on by the London Meetings co-ordinator: TravelIntelligence is a new website giving access to good travel writing (mainly British) – Philip Marsden, William Dalrymple, Stanley Stewart, Nick Danziger et al.

Take a look at Travel Intelligence and sign up for their monthly newsletter – mostly links to other sites.

Free London Museums: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

Many of the London hop-on-hop-off buses throw in a free river cruise – often to Greenwich,with the ticket. And even if you are not doing that, a visit to Greenwich can make a good day out.

The Beetle’s favourite way of getting there is to go on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to Island Gardens and to walk through the foot tunnel to Greenwich. There are some fab views, particularly in Winter, looking south, across the river.

Once in Greenwich, there’s quite a bit to do: visit the Royal Observatory, the Cutty Sark and the National Maritime Museum – and it’s free!

The museum building itself is quite interesting: it used to be an asylum building (i.e. what was referred to as a mad house) and then it was a hospital school.

What’s there to see? In the museum, you will find a collection of all things relating to the history of Britain at sea. But this has been updated to include the dangers of sea pollution and ecology, as well as Nelson’s seafaring antics.

The collection dates back to 1823 when a National Gallery of Naval Art was established, featuring some 300 portraits, paintings and artefacts.

The National Maritime Museum opens daily 10:00-17:00 Sun-Mon. Closed 24-26 Dec 2002. Train: Greenwich Train Station. Enquiries: 020 8858 4422 Entrance: FREE.