The head of civil rights for the US Department of Homeland Security is urging Muslim air travellers to register with the federal government before flying to reduce the chances they might be stopped at an airport because their name is on or similar to names on an anti-terrorism watch list. Registering by completing a two-page “Passenger Identity Verification Form” which can be done on-line.�

The Homeland Security department shares the information with airlines, who compare it against security lists that might otherwise red-flag a passenger. The aim is to distinguish a traveller from people whose names – or close variations thereof – appear on US no-fly lists compiled by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The department says they want to improve their relations with Muslims and Arab-Americans.�

The two-page “Passenger Identity Verification Form” asks for personal information including name, address, birth date, height, weight, eye and hair colour, and requires copies of three of the following documents: passport, visa, birth certificate, naturalisation certificate, voter registration card, government identity card or military identity card.

Jon from the UK writes, in connection with a travel warning issued by the UK government about the Philippines:

I’ve visited the Philippines 3 times this year and travelled widely. I think our FO is overdoing it with its travel warning. The Sulus, Basilan and parts of Mindanao are certainly to be avoided but the rest of the country is pretty safe. Local skirmishes do break out between anti- government forces and the army but you will be stopped from getting too close to such a situation, in the unlikely event that you are close. This happened to me in Mindanao 2 weeks ago.

I have always felt pretty safe and found most people helpful and friendly. I believe the risk of street crime is substantially lower than over here. There is remarkably little begging and hassling, especially considering the low standard of living of many people. Large scale corruption is a way of life, led by the President and her family, but is need not be the concern of tourists. In short, do not be afraid of going to the Philippines on holiday, just avoid southern Mindanao and the Sulu region.

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

Ugandan rebels have murdered a second Briton in less than a week as they step up a new offensive against tourists and aid workers. Gunmen from the Lord’s Resistance Army shot dead a British tourist in an ambush in the north of the country. According to the UK Foreign Office, the man had gone to help a group of tourists whose boat capsized in the Murchison Falls national park in north-east Uganda.�

The tourists had been rafting from Egypt to the source of the Nile, a Foreign Office spokes-woman said. After the rescue, the Briton and the rescued tourists – including Britons and New Zealanders – were travelling by car when they were ambushed and the man was shot. Another killing followed, when a British aid worker was shot dead in an ambush in neighbouring southern Sudan.�

The Foreign Office had already warned on Monday that the LRA may now be targeting “white people”, referring to a hand-written letter apparently written by the LRA and passed to locals last month

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

A new terminal dedicated to low cost airlines will open at Singapore’s Changi Airport on March 6 next year the Civil Aviation Authority said. Passenger charges at the new facility will fall to SGD$13 (USD$7.79) compared to the SGD$21 departure tax at the airport’s Terminals 1 and 2. There will be a free bus service for travellers transferring between the terminals

Terminal 5, whose sole tenant is British Airways is due to open on Sunday, 30 March 2008. The £4.2bn project is intended to bring some … to your transit. Never mind the passenger experience; your baggage will have a first-class journey. Amazingly, Terminal 5 is said to be Europe's biggest construction project.

About a dozen people have been killed by salt-water crocodiles in Australia in the past 20 years. Now divers in northern Australia are calling for development of crocodile warning devices following two recent crocodile attacks. The numbers of crocodiles have increased rapidly in recent years, due to a ban on hunting passed in the 1970s. The deaths have also reopened debate as to whether limited limited hunting should resume. The salt-water crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) is the largest living reptile in terms of mass. There is a large population in Australia, with the majority being in the Northern Territory.

A 9-year-old boy, wanting to help Hurricane Katrina victims, swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco, raising $30,000 in donations in the process.

Fourth-grader Johnny Wilson made the mile-and-a-half swim in the choppy, 53-degree water of San Francisco Bay in under two hours.

Wilson called the swim tiring, but said he kept telling himself, “I'm almost there, I'm almost there.” The 9-year-old boy said the beginning was the hardest because that's when he was the coldest. His classmates on the shore, cheered: “Go, Johnny! Go, Johnny!”

Alcatraz prison closed in 1963 and is now a tourist attraction and not a single inmate ever successfully escaped.

Spotted by Webmaster Paul, here's a satellite photo from Google of York Minster: