Opening the ITB Travel Trade event in Berlin today, UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai's speech indicated a slight progress (verbal at least) in the organisations positions, recognising the 'environmental imperative' and the need for a 'fairer' and 'more sustainable growth'. However, no relevant key proposals were put forward, and as expected, there were no criticisms against the business as usual approach of unreformed (beyond token CSR tricks) international tourism oligopolies, there was no differentiation between more appropriate tourism types, means of transport, management and ownership structures (such as community ownership) no mention of climate change and of the direct contribution of aviation to it, tax and pension evasion and the offshore nature of whole tourism sections. There was of course continuing admiration for ever higher tourism numbers, unsustainable mega-events, and the cliche about the contribution of Tourism to global 'employment', without any reference to stagnant working conditions and declining worker rights....

How would you like it if the government suddenly informed you that the rubbish of a 3 m. city would soon be deposited next to your house in a small town (Keratea of Attica), where you and your forefathers have been living off agriculture for the past hundreds of years, and – to add insult to injury – the precise spot contains important ancient ruins (citadel of Ovriocastro) also provoking the ire of archaeologists who together with the locals have filed an official protest with UNESCO (see http://issuu.com/antixyta/docs/keratea-unesco ) This is the case in Keratea, a formerly peaceful town, in a still surprisingly pristine, wine-growing and sheep-herding area, close to the new Athens international airport. Everyone from the mayor, to the priests, to the most disinterested, otherwise apolitical/conservative citizen is up in arms, and the unpopular government has sent in semi-military riot police to defend the sub-contractors bulldozers from being burned....

Hypatia, March 415 AD, famous Greek mathematician in Alexandria, Egypt, torn to pieces by an intolerant Christian mob. Hypatia 2011 AD, a refurbished 19th c neoclassical-style mansion temporary home to 267 north African hunger strikers in Athens, Greece, facing death and an indifferent and intolerant administration. Ancient Greece worshipped Xenios Zeus, the all-powerful god who was also the protector of all travelling strangers. Modern Greece worships the all-powerful god of Tourism, protector of travelling strangers, as long as they have a visa, cash and the ‘right’ passport. Instead of planning border walls to block the weakest link of the inevitable Globalization, the Greek government should do the decent and smart thing and fully legalise all migrant workers, some of which already have been working for 15 years building roads, olympic venues, picking up strawberries from greenhouses full of chemicals, taking care of the elderly and the very young, and last but...

To all our southern neighbours, rising up for freedom and justice, with whom we share so much and the deep blue Mediterranean sea: the last poem by Yiorgos Seferis (Nobel 1963), written during another Spring 40 years ago, when Greece was under a military dictatorship, an optimistic poem stressing that the unjust sooner or later get what they deserve... "Epi Aspalathon" (On Thorny Brooms) Sounio was stunning on Announciation day it was Spring again few green leaves fallen around the rusted stones red clay and aspalathi flashing their big thorns and yellow flowers further away the old columns strings on a harp still resonating Serenity... What may have reminded me of that Ardieos? A word in Plato, I believe lost in the mind's canals the name of that yellow bush is still the same In the evening, I found the passage "they tied him hands and feet", it says "they threw...

  <p> <img alt="" src="https://ecoclub.com/images/64/dolphins.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 5px;" />It is 72 years since shrude businessmen in Marine Studios dolphinarium in Florida discovered that dolphins could be taught to perform tricks, and four years since the UN Year of the Dolphin 2007, when scientific evidence surfaced that dolphins are human-like, self-aware, intelligent beings and &nbsp;<a href="http://www.indefenseofdolphins.com/">‘nonhuman persons’</a> . &nbsp;In the European Union alone, there are 34 dolphinaria, hosting 280 captive dolphins, whales and other cetaceans, many of whom were not born in captivity but are actually products of poaching and smuggling. &nbsp;There are another 26 dolphinaria in non-EU European countries and many more in the United States, Mexico and Japan.</p> <p> Thus, this week greek Green MEP Michail Tremopoulos raised a written question to the Commission of the European Parliament in Brussels, asking the European Commission to consider banning dolphinaria, facilities where dolphins and whales are kept in captivity and forced...

  Today we attended the long-awaited presentation of  a new study – proposal for a new Greek Tourism Development Model, prepared by the greek association of tourism enterprises, SETE, which represents the interests of  large tourism businesses. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, there was nothing new therein, apart from some truisms and neoliberal recipes for more golf, holiday homes, 5-star hotels and the removal of all ‘bureaucratic’ obstacles that scare (?) investors planning mega-resorts. Although the proposal contains some telling statistics indicating that greek tourism has already reached stagnation – for example excessive hotel construction during 2000-2009 which has resulted in a 400,000 bed surplus with the highest increase 154% in 4 and 5-star hotels --  it fails to interpret these very numbers, arguing for more expansion, and more luxury hotels. But what was particularly annoying and regressive was its critique of small-size (locally-owned) tourism businesses and of  alternative forms of tourism, which it considers as...

opening the new year with two great videos: the award-winning, short film "Pet Shop" by new greek director Michael-Gabriel Zenelis, a subtle comment on the cruel, consumerist, competitive system but also hopeful in a way by showing that the alternatives are in front of us. The second video is one of the best by 'The Love Police' team, who humorously protest against the taking over of the commons by the corporates (using a famous London tourist attraction as an example), the loss of our privacy by security hysteria and what links the two processes. Non quia difficilia sunt non audemus, sed quia non audemus, difficilia sunt. "It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." - Seneca  

Along with the mainstreaming of worries for Climate Change, there are sinister attempts through a revival of long-discredited malthusianism, to blame it on the many have-nots rather than the few haves, on overpopulation rather than on capitalism, on some of the symptoms rather than the causes. The 8-point platform of 'Deep Ecology', written by Arne Naess and George Sessions,  contains an arbitrary malthusian argument that is very hard to digest: "The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a *substantial decrease* of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life *requires* such a decrease." Most of the other 7 points are apolitical truisms ("Eco-La-La" a la Bookchin) talking about..."humans" in general. Arne Naess, the founder of Deep Ecology, was a very affluent dweller of a very affluent country, in fact the younger brother of the famous Norwegian shipping magnate Erling Dekke Naess. Indeed many radical philosophers and leaders (such...

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Considering that not only diplomacy and international relations, but the modern human (capitalist) civilization itself, is built on lies, small and large, it takes a Hero-madman, the first  Internet Hero (although we could also add the founders of Wikipedia), Julian Assange, to reveal global hypocricy (...in installments). Wikileaks has proven that the Internet is still not controlled by the state, the superpowers and the corporates, and that people power is a match for the military-industrial complex, the war mongers. Each one of us can and should become an Assange, against violence exploitation of all types. And already wikileaks mirrors and offshoots are popping up. The incident has also proven, as if proof was needed, of the limitations and dependencies of the corporate part of the Internet, as providers were quick to shut Wikileaks down under heavy pressure from the system, as did...

Last week I was invited to participate in a UNEP-sponsored ‘International Year of Biodiversity’ conference held in Athens, organized by MedSOS, a leading Greek environmental NGO, a genuine one, focusing on marine and coastal pollution.  The conference was held a few days before a new biodiversity legal framework is brought to parliament, at a time when the financial crisis which brought us the IMF is increasing development pressures for neoliberal recipes such as a controversial “fast-track” plan to facilitate large scale foreign investments and circumvent environmental legislation, local protests and other civilized niceties. The subtitle of the conference could have been: “what happens when EU subsidies, including subsidies for environmental conservation, dry out”? There were representatives from most protected area management bodies, all complaining about lack of state funding,  lack of authority to do something about issues such as illegal hunting and fishing and pollution. In private conversations one could also...