Spanish police are targeting tourist resorts in a crackdown on holidaymakers who drink and drive.  Until this summer, penalties for drink-driving applied only to full-time residents with tourists being let off with a caution and a small fine.  But now visitors who commit the offence will face fines of up to £5,000 and a three-year ban from driving in Spain.  Those involved in accidents resulting in the death or injury of others will be jailed.  Despite its modern road system, Spain has one of Europe's worst safety records, with one person killed or injured every 11 minutes.

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According to the UK Foreign Office, there is a high threat to Western, including British, interests from terrorism in Somalia, as there is in a number of countries in East Africa and the Horn.  You should be aware that a number of British nationals and Westerners have been killed and injured in attacks in Somaliland. The Somaliland authorities believe these were terrorist inspired. Two British nationals were shot dead in Sheikh in Oct 2003. In the same month an Italian aid worker was murdered in Boroma near the border with Ethiopia. On 19 March 2004, a Kenyan woman working for a German Government aid organisation was shot dead in an ambush on the Hargeisa-Berbera road. Her German colleague was injured in the attack. Several suspects have been detained for this attack and for the two earlier similar incidents. This latter attack resulted in the temporary withdrawal of international aid personnel.

In May 2004, a remote-controlled landmine was found planted in a remote airstrip in the south of Somalia. UN and European Commission flights to Somalia are consequently now much restricted.

The Somaliland authorities have established a Special Protection Unit (SPU) which accompanies all UN missions outside Hargeisa. NGOs and individuals can also apply for an SPU escort at a cost of US$4.00 per day (or US$7.00 per 24 hours). British nationals who decide to stay in or visit Somaliland, despite our advice to the contrary, are urged to obtain details of the new system and to ensure that, when travelling, they take adequate security precautions.

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News comes from SE Asia that some airline ticket have fallen below the cost of bus fares, with a one-way ticket between Singapore and the Thai resort of Phuket advertised for as little as 29 Singapore cents.  No-frills airline Thai AirAsia offered one-way flights between Singapore and Phuket at 29 Singapore cents (17 US cents) for the first 3,000 seats.  The price did not include taxes and fees of about SGD$61 for insurance, a fuel surcharge and airport taxes.  (Sound like Ryanair?)   The tickets were snapped up within 2 days.  Tiger Airways, a venture between Singapore Airlines and the founder of our friends Ryanair, started the price war last month with one-way SGD$1 fares to Thailand for a limited period, which when added to taxes and fees amounted to SGD$62.  Singapore Airlines is offering return fares between Singapore and Bangkok ranging from SGD$178 to SGD$268 each compared with its normal ticket price of SGD$358.

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The Burma Campaign UK has released its latest list of companies that invest in Burma, or Myanmar as it is called by the country’s military dictatorship.  You may be interested to know that high class UK travel company Abercrombie and Kent are on the “dirty” list.  For more info, see: Burma Campaign

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Spotted by our Webmaster, Paul, this website tells you how to drive between different places in Europe.  It calculates the total number of miles, the best route and the amount payable in tolls.  Worked for the Beetle who tested it out from the Beetle lair in Central London to Brussels: 200 miles, taking approx. 4 ½ hours, including 2 hours 40 mins on express highways.  Not bad, hey!

Michelin Route Planner

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Work on a tunnel and rail system under the Bosporus Strait connecting Europe and Asia in has just started in Istanbul.  The tunnel will be 13.7 kilometres long, (8.5 mile) tunnel and 1,400 meters of the tunnel will be underwater.  The Bosporus Strait, a 32 km waterway connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, separating European Turkey from Asian Turkey.  It bisects Istanbul as it flows by historic Ottoman castles, mosques and parkland.  The tunnel will become the third link between the city's European and Asian sides.

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Forty-five years after it was first proposed, a modern version of the ancient Silk Road that once linked Asia with Europe is taking shape, in the form of a 140,000 km web of highways and ferry routes that will again connect the two continents.  The Asian Highway Agreement, signed by 23 Asian nations, including China, Japan and South Korea is intended to ensure construction of a road system that would ease the isolation of many landlocked Asian nations and establish a modern version of the ancient trading route that once linked the continent to Europe by camel train.  The Asian Highway would be not one road but an entire system of routes that by land and sea would connect Tokyo to Turkey, and Bhutan to Bulgaria.  Large nations like Japan, China, South Korea, Russia and India would benefit from the better trade links a unified highway system would bring.  But the project is also designed to help smaller, landlocked countries gain coveted routes to sea ports.

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A vibrating sex toy in a rubbish bin sparked a security scare and closed a Mackay airport in Queensland, Australia for almost an hour.  An emergency was declared at the airport after airport staff heard a strange noise coming from the bin. “It was rather disconcerting when the rubbish bin started humming furiously,” cafeteria manager Lynne Bryant said.  Police evacuated the terminal and were about to call in bomb experts when an unidentified passenger came forward to identify the contents of a package left in the bin.  Police later said the package was identified as an “adult novelty device”.

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