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.

The Spratly Islands are 100 tiny formerly uninhabited islets and reefs making up 5 km of actual land spread over 410,000 sq km of sea. They are believed to have oil and gas reserves in addition to good fish stocks.

The problem is that both China and Taiwan lay claim to all of them and Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and the Philippines to part of them.

South East Asian states have just reached a draft agreement aimed at avoiding conflicts over the disputed Spratly Islands. All 10 member-states of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) approved a code of conduct for the islands in the South China Sea, which will in turn be presented to China, which is not a member.

Friction over the islands, in the South China Sea, most recently erupted in August when Vietnamese troops based on one islet fired warning shots at Philippine military planes.

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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!!

John from the UK is planning to go from Hawaii to Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, South Africa, Europe, the UK, the US, and Hawaii plus any points in between, depending on limitations of the ticket. Because he intends to start from Hawaii, the UK travel agents have been giving him some very high quotes. Can anyone help him by suggesting a good travel agent, not necessarily in the UK to give a quote? He would also welcome any advice on backpacker travel insurance for the over 50's, with sailing included. To contact John, please e-mail him on: Coehabit@aol.com

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

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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.

Here’s a little Beetle quiz based on airport codes. See how many you get right! Go on, have a guess!

Which cities are served by airports with the following codes:

1. CPT

2. NBO

3. VCE

4. ORD

5. PRG

For the answers, see at the end of the e-newsletter.

France: thieves may target cars with foreign number plates. Conceal bags and purses when driving and never leave valuables in a vehicle, even for a short time or when you are nearby. The last two digits on a French car's number plate indicate the département in which the car is registered. Many hire cars are registered in Marne département (51) and cars with registration numbers ending in 51 attract the attention of thieves.

Venice: The heightened tension in the Middle East has led the Italian authorities to increase security around the Jewish quarter in Venice. Extra police have been drafted in to guard the area. Security in the Jewish quarter in Rome has also been increased.

Greek Islands: Personal attacks, including sexual assaults and rape, are infrequent. However there have been incidents of sexual assault and rape on some Greek Islands. Visitors are therefore advised to maintain at least the same level of personal security awareness as in the UK. We strongly advise lone visitors, especially, never to accept lifts from strangers or passing acquaintances at any time.

Portugal: Crime remains comparatively low in Portugal but pickpocketing, handbag snatching and theft from cars are increasingly common in major tourist area. Passport, credit cards, travel tickets and money should not be carried together in handbags or pockets. Leave spare cash, passports and valuables in a safe place. Portuguese police recommend that car windows and doors are closed and locked while driving at night in urban centres. Pedestrians are advised not to wear valuable jewellery or watches in public areas.

Source: the Foreign & Commonwealth office

An economist has warned that global efforts to combat malaria are on the verge of collapse as scarce international donor funds were being used to fight AIDS instead. Malaria is estimated to kill more than 1-million people each year, most of whom are children in sub-Saharan Africa. Mr Sachs, speaking to journalists during an international teleconference said that international donors were not living up to their promises to help combat malaria. To make matters worse, he said, AIDS took the lion's share of donor funding. For example, the UN Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, had committed only 22m for malaria programmes during its first round of funding (out of a total of 616m committed). Sachs also lashed out at the World Bank for failing to meet its commitment to raise $500m to help eradicate malaria. “The situation is paradoxical. Knowing what to do insecticide coated bed nets alone could save millions of lives and we even have new organisational funds, but the pieces have not come together to produce results,” said Sachs. Sachs said that malaria cost the African economy more than $12bn a year, and that the disease could be controlled for $2-3bn annually.

Source: Massive Effort

Located, appropriately enough, in the heart of Theatreland, the Theatre Museum is dedicated to promoting the performing arts. In addition to housing the National Video Archive of Stage Performance, the museum boasts a staggering collection of over one million programmes and playbills, puppets, photographs and props relating to theatre, ballet, dance and music. Visitors can participate in workshops, makeovers, tours and try their hand at animation and puppetry. There is lots of memorabilia from old theatres and stage sets, which creates a very special theatrical ambience. The Theatre Museum opens 10:00-18:00 Tues-Sun. Closed 24-26 Dec. Tube: Covent Garden Enquiries: 020 7943 4700 Entrance: FREE admission for individuals

Scientists are set to explore the world’s highest fresh water lake 4 miles up in the Licancabur volcano near Antofogasta in Chile.

Their aim is to find out how the organisms that live there can survive in such a hostile environment. They will do this by taking samples and diving to the bottom of the lake.

Although the lake at Licancabur volcano is covered with almost two feet of ice during much of the year, the expedition will take place in the southern hemisphere's spring, when the lake is not completely frozen.

The information they hope to gather will help astrobiologists devise strategies and technologies to search for life on planets like Mars during future missions.

More than 300 young girls and women have been killed in Ciudad Juarez since 1993 on the other side of the US border, across from El Paso, Texas. Late November, over 1,000 women dressed in black and holding candles marched through Mexico City to demand that those responsible for killing hundreds of women in the border town of Ciudad Juarez be brought to justice. Despite several federal and state investigations, the authorities have been unable to identify the killers or establish a motive behind the murders. Several people have been arrested or detained, but still the killings continue. Various motives have been offered: satanic black magic rituals, drug related and sex slavery.

The Beetle likes cityguide.travel-guides.com

Here you can select from a number of cities around the world and compile your own guide, for free. There is a very diverse set of headings from which to chose, e.g. history, cost of living, getting around, shopping, excursions, major sites, tourist information, street maps, nightlife, sport, culture, special events etc.

If you are going away for the weekend and don’t want to buy a guidebook or just want to do some digging around, this is an excellent resource.

A South African scuba diver set a new world record after living underwater in a steel tank for 10 days and surviving by eating through a tube. Tim Yarrow was (30) cheered by hundreds of onlookers shortly after 12:30pm on Saturday when he climbed out of the 3 by 2,3m tank, his home in a Johannesburg shopping mall since November 6. Yarrow spent 240 hours underwater with scuba apparatus in a controlled environment without surfacing. The initial record was just under nine days and Tim managed 10 days, Greg Wharram, team co-ordinator, said they had contacted Guinness World Records before the attempt began and now must file papers to make the record official.

Source: Reuters

Recent press reports state that a Houston store for space buffs is helping the Russian Space Agency find potential space tourists who have $20 million to spare. This seems to be the going rate for space tourists, paid by the two last space tourists, American Dennis Tito and South African Mark Shuttleworth. The Russian space industry appear to have decided that offering space trips to incredibly wealthy people is a good way to continue to finance its participation in building the space station. Vladimir Fishel, vice president of Russian programs for Spacehab, a US spacecraft and living space manufacturer and parent company of The Space Store, acknowledged the few wealthy people enough to pay the tab likely would approach Russian space officials themselves. But marketing efforts could add that extra bit of encouragement. “Russians are in dire need of cash,” he said. “This helps not only them, but everybody.”