The Burma Campaign UK is calling for a boycott of all Lonely Planet (LP) publications until Lonely Planet withdraws its Burma guide from the market.

The Burma Campaign say that the development of hotels, transport and tourist attractions to encourage visitors to Burma is directly linked to mass human rights abuses. There are well-documented mass human rights abuses directly linked to the development of tourist infrastructure and the tourism industry. The United Nation's International Labour Organisation reports that “the military treat the civilian population as an unlimited pool of unpaid forced labourers and servants at their disposal. The practice of forced labour is to encourage private investment in infrastructure development, public sector works and tourism projects.”

Independent tourists are required to exchange $200 when entering the country, while many hotels, domestic airlines and other 'dollar only' retail outlets are fully or jointly owned by the regime or its associates – so local people see none of this money. Tourism currently benefits only a tiny percentage of Burma's 48 million people. Eighty per cent live in rural areas and do not in the main benefit from current forms of tourism.

Millions of men, women and children are forced to labour, under the harshest conditions, on infrastructure projects across Burma each year. Many thousands more have been forced from their homes to make way for tourism developments or as part of so-called 'beautification' projects.

Added to this, tourist dollars go straight into the hands of the dictatorship. For these reasons Aung San Suu Kyi, the British Government and the European Union have asked tourists not to visit Burma. Against the weight of this advice, Lonely Planet publications continue to promote tourism to Burma through their Burma guide.

Rough Guides has already adopted an ethical stance with regard to Burma. They say: “There are occasional instances where any benefits (from tourism) are overshadowed by the nature of the social and political climate. Apartheid South Africa was an example. Burma, with its brutal dictatorship, state control of the economy and forced labour used to build its tourist infrastructure, is another. As long as the military regime remains in power and Aung San Suu Kyi – leader of the democratically elected National League for Democracy – requests that tourists do not visit, Rough Guides will not publish a guide to the country.”

What do you think? Do you have a view? Write in and let and tell the Beetle.

Continuing our recent theme on visiting Germany, we had the Beetle’s report on Munich, and now Padmassana has sent us this trip report from his recent visit to Berlin. This is how he found Berlin since he was last there, before the wall came down in 1989.

You have got to visit Berlin – this now has to be the best city in Europe. There is so much to do – Berlin has changed out of all recognition since I was last here. Shops are open on Saturday afternoons, but I think even the Beetles credit card would go sick at the thought of shopping on Kudamm!

I did a walking tour (www.berlinwalks.com) for 5 hours one day, just walked into “Mitte” the heart of the city that used to be in the East. It is a vibrant place now, not the dour way it used to be. The ghost stations are open again but have been left with their 1930’s decoration. Checkpoint Charlie is still there, but on the east side where you went through all the stuff to get in to the east are shops and cafes, it is unrecognisable now. Also the air is not full of the exhaust fumes from the East German Trabants; now the east has BMW’s and Merc’s, as well as McDonalds!

I was the only one on the walk who had been into the East pre 1989, I had to describe to an Aussie couple what it was like, it was hard to remember where the big shed was at Checkpoint Charlie and the chicane in the road. They couldn’t believe the palaver involved back then in getting into the GDR.

I never dreamed the last time I was here that I would be able to walk through the Brandenburg Gate, but I did yesterday. Where the wall was taken down they have replaced it with bricks in the road to show where it was. The biggest change is Potsdam Platz, I remember it as a concrete wasteland, with barbed wire and tank traps and towers with machine guns and massive flood lights, now it is an area of new modern buildings like the Sony centre. I like the public art in Berlin, it’s fun, there are lots of bears, doing various things as adverts for local businesses.

There are lots more places to eat than I remember, and apart from my daily milkshake, I haven’t eaten any burgers, rather I paid a daily visit to the excellent Kamps bakeries, which do hot sandwiches and the Turkish Imbiss stube, which do good kebabs.

I visited the Pergamon museum on Museum Island after the tour, lots of fab stuff from Pergamon, Iran and Babylon. Went to visit the Reichstag next, but the queue was a joke, so I walked up Unter Den Linden to the TV tower (aka The pope’s revenge), so called because when the sun shines a cross appears on this communist, atheist piece of 60’s architecture, only 6 Euros to go up for great views of the city.

Back to the Checkpoint Charlie museum (7 Euros), which has been greatly enlarged and is now very interesting. Had a look round Potsdam Platz, and bought a then and now postcard as a reminder, which they stamp the back with a GDR customs stamp. Went via the Topography of Terrors which is an exhibition about the Gestapo in their former dungeons, unearthed when the wall was dismantled. You can borrow a commentary tape in English, which guides you along the exhibit in about an hour. Nearby a bit of the Berlin wall is left, which now ironically has a fence round it to protect it from people stealing bits!

Wandered back to the Reichstag the line had shortened, queued for 30 minutes, then you get the lift up to the glass roof, best views of Berlin possible and it’s completely free, which is why the lines are so long. The idea is that people can look down on the German parliament, and the politicians can look up and be reminded as to who really has the power.

I had planned on going to Potsdam itself to see the palaces. I found out that it’s best to book Potsdam in advance because UNESCO limit the number of visitors who can go around the palaces and it doesn’t take many coach parties of 50 or 60 to fill it up. So abandoned this idea. Potsdam lies at the end of the S2 line. It’s really weird going through the stations now they are open as I remember the dark ghost stations. You can tell the old ones because they have green tiles. Instead I visited the East Side gallery. This is a bit of the wall next to the river in the east. It has the famous mural of a Trabant coming thru the wall with Honecker and Brezhnev kissing on the back seat, and another brilliant mural like a cartoon of the wall and people trying various means of escape.

I tried to go to the Documentation museum, but it was closed: Lonely Planet failed to mention it’s only open Wednesday – Sunday!

The weather was incredibly hot, so I went on a river trip for an hour (7 euros) which is nice as you get a different perspective of the city. The commentary was in German, but luckily could remember enough German to understand most of it including some of the jokes levelled against the German politicians who have moved from Bonn, they are now called “Gastarbeiters”.

So that was Berlin, I hope its not another 15 years till I get here again. I strongly recommend it – give it a go and visit!

If you’d like to contact Padmassana, click here: Padmassana

Etna burst into our view as we explored Taormina’s Teatro Greco early one April morning. The day’s clear skies allowed us to look out across from this large amphitheatre and notice how the volcano formed a marvellous and deliberate backdrop through the semi ruined red brick stage walls. The Greek colonists certainly a had sense of place and made the most of the peak and its domination of eastern Sicily’s skyline. Two thousand years later its presence also acted as beacon – this time in fulfilling our day’s aim of appreciating a major reason for visiting the island.

Driving anti-clockwise around the Parco d. Etna allowed a plan of seeing how far we could actually get into the heart of Etna to be hatched. As our steady passage along a somewhat haphazard route succeeded in drawing us closer towards Etna, all seemed to bode well as we strained our necks along unhindered views of the still snow caped peak. But more and more we bumped into the consistent problems of vague road signs & our poor navigational skills and as such we found ourselves failing to penetrate very far into the park at all, apart from a few impassable trails near Bronte. Even at this point our first lava flows, whether hundreds of years old or more recent, looked impressive as their long since cooled remains lie amid the trails of destruction wrought across the surrounding countryside. Walking on top of these flows felt like walking out onto the remains of a burnt out BBQ – the crunching steps sounded much like the point where the charcoal can be crumbled into nothing and lacks any density.

Time and lack of progress soon concluded that heading inward from the north west was going to fail and as an alternative we struggled round to the southern entrance at Belpasso. Finally, after passing through a number of grey, industrial communities we started to get drawn in towards the dwarfing centre. We moved up through kilometres of ever switching roads, across grander lava flows and on past a more disturbed countryside. Our road finished at Cantoniera d’Etna (a mere 1881 m above sea level) and we crossed up on to a landscape that looked like a cross between the moon and a war hardened battlefield. Varying craters from previous eruptions littered the scenery, whilst the main peak stood away up another 1500 meters. Even at this level heat and steam still rose, whilst swirling winds and eerie silences added to the atmosphere and only machines being used to repair the most recently damaged roads broke the spell.

Etna’s continual eruptions have generated huge outpouring of ash, which over time has settled as dust into everywhere. We noticed that it covered the remainder of the winter’s snow and formed much of a crater we clambered up to get a better view of the quickly clouding over peak. Walking up such dusty surroundings made staggering across a sandy beach in heavy boots seem easier, as each step gained cost us half a stride backwards. Our calf muscles ached for a respite by the time we reached our wind blown crater rim…

Once back in breath there was time to enjoy the stunning views – south through the hazy sunshine towards the eastern coast of Sicily and round behind ourselves and up to towards the now almost shrouded summit. Our photographic urges found us trying to capture the surrounding colours of a fired furnace contrasted reds, yellows & deep charcoals and across the horizon toward the remnants of a chairlift which had been left upright, like hairs on the back of a hand. Down below many of the restaurants and administration buildings had either been completely brushed aside or remained semi submerged within the lava flows! These sights left me wondering how such a natural force can discharge so much power and toss aside all human activities with disdain!

Such was the magnetism of Etna and its surroundings that it was with some reluctance and much lateness that we found ourselves moving on from this step of our Mediterranean tour. However when looking to fulfil the ever present needs of food and accommodation, even Etna’s charms could only sway for so long…

If you’d like to contact Matt, to ask him any questions or ask advice, please e-mail him on: matt

Number one passenger airport of 2002 is: Atlanta Hartsfield!

Atlanta retained its title as the world's busiest passenger airport last year as passenger numbers rose to 76.9 million, an increase of 1.3 percent over 2001.

Chicago O'Hare was the second busiest with 66.6 million passengers and Los Angeles LAX was third busiest with 56.2 million passengers.

London’s Heathrow was the busiest outside North America with traffic of 63.3 million.

Figures released today by Airports Council International-North America showed that although more than 1.3 billion people boarded planes last year, passenger numbers were down by 2.6 percent.

Source: Airports Council International-North America