At a time of growing environmental and economic crisis the 'capitalist lunacy' of golf, in the words of Bernard Shaw, is becoming more evident. Ironically, in Cuba, Golf developers, encouraged by recent 'economic liberalisation' announcements are making their own plans... In his regular weekly 'Alo Presidente' TV Show, Hugo Chavez has recently hinted that some of Venezuela's golf courses would be expropriated to be used for other purposes, along with 'good land' that has been abandoned. Stating the obvious, Chavez, who has in the past called golf a 'bourgeois sport' pointed out that it was "an injustice - that someone should have the luxury of having I don't know how many hectares to play golf and drink whiskey and, next door, there's misery and children dying when there are landslides". The comment followed the landslides of October where many people died in shanty towns and is also related to Venezuela's acute...

The Obama administration, may have slightly loosened the travel ban in April 2009 by allowing Cuban-Americans to travel freely to Cuba, but otherwise has made little progress in lifting or at least loosening "El Bloqueo", the 50 year old & cold war trade and travel embargo, imposed by the world's most powerful state against a small island nation. The travel ban already has plenty of holes as it is condemned at the UN each year by all the world's countries (except Israel) and is also increasingly ignored by many US citizens travelling via Canada or Mexico, or, officially under humanitarian or educational cover (a "professional research general license"). Ironically, the travel ban has affected and distorted the Cuban Tourism model, with resorts seen as a last resort after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the abrupt end of soviet aid. (on the contrary the solution in agriculture was ecological with...

A ghost is again floating over Europe, the ghost of racism! From the recent electoral far-right breakthrough (6%) in the former poster child of social democracy, Sweden to blackshirt vigilantism in the Italian South, to Vienna municipal elections, to the endless tragedy of drowned and imprisoned immigrants in the Aegean and other Mediterranean islands right next to blissfully oblivious package tourists. Based on the Greek experience since the early 1990s, when a local community suddenly receives a far greater number of economic immigrants, refugees fleeing imperialist or local wars (and soon climate refugees) that it can immediately absorb in menial jobs, agriculture, construction and industry, its fringe racist & fascist elements, seconded by arch-conservative religious elements and the tabloid press & TV, become vocal and mainstream. Once this happens, right wing parties but also social-democrats try to follow, so as not to lose votes and the whole political discourse moves to...

  UNWTO has issued a press release release today assuming on the one hand - on behalf of Tourism - a 5% responsibility of global carbon emissions and on the other "cautioning" against 'mitigation' measures for air passenger transport 'taken in isolation' so as 'not to harm' developing countries and 'small island developing states' dependent on tourism. Hostage to its powerful membership, as the only UN body with multinationals as voting members, UNWTO fails to evaluate what sort of 'development' path the current capitalist tourism model offers to these states,  any "development" will do...(similar to "tourism creates jobs" or the "we employ locals"). But it seems small island states are also being used as hostages by the powerful airline lobby, so that the oligopoly of airlines and aircraft manufacturers can avoid green taxes in perpetuity. The rest of us can happily pay VAT and subsidise new airports, fuel etc.

A great video showing that research is a lot more fun for both whales and humans when combined with respect and tourism. Not for fine sushi purveyors and other delicacy enthusiasts or for those who would like us swallow that they 'need' to kill whales in order to "research" them. Featuring dwarf minke whales at the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland and Alastair Birtles, a marine biologist in the Tourism Department, who has been studying them for the past 15 years, during their annual migration from/to the Antarctic, when they are in playful mode and hence friendly and curious towards people, doing a bit of human-watching. A limited number of swim with whales operators based in Port Douglas and Cairns, have been licensed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority  on the understanding that sightings will be reported and form part of a monitoring program with the cooperation of James...

This year in some European countries with large Muslim populations, such as Belgium, France and Spain (where the proposal was narrowly defeated on Tuesday), there were proposals for a total ban on face veils (niqab / burqa) in public places. The Left, progressive and open minded people seem split on the issue, trying to defend both multiculturalism and personal freedoms. There is evidence that the niqab tradition long preceded Islam. On the other hand, moslem countries like Tunisia also ban the niqab. Also consider that "the extremist imams ... are the products of the Islamic fundamentalism that proliferated under the patronage of the grand anti-communist alliance of the past century, comprising western powers and Saudi fundamentalism, generously funded by petrodollars. "  Source: http://www.bmsd.org.uk/articles.asp?id=12 Is it the state's (i.e. the majority's) job to tell people ( i.e. the minority) how to dress, or is it a case of protecting the individual rights...

In today's Avgi newspaper, the president of the Greek Federation of Catering & Tourist Industry Employees (POEE-YTE) Leonidas Karathanassis, blasts the growing exploitation of tourism student trainees by large hotels and the displacement of hotel workers. According to Mr Karathanassis, the phenomenon first started in 2000 when some large hotels in northern Greece struck direct agreements with foreign tourism schools. He alleges that today mainly through the intermediation of specialist 'trainee agents', many of the trainees are not really tourism (or any other sort of) students, they have to work long hours, live in below-ground dormitories or even store-rooms 'like animals', without insurance, with a meagre Euros 500 half of which goes back to the agency! The union representative called on the government to investigate this illegal and abusive practice and to set maximum limits of 10% for trainees, compared to the current 50% which is the case in hundreds of...

   Two 'Na’vi' from 'planet Pandora' landed in London today to participate in multinational mining company Vedanta Resources’ Annual General Meeting.  The happening was part of a colourful demonstration against the miners, over their controversial plan to extract bauxite (Ed. surely unobtainium?) from Niyam Penu (Niyamgiri Hill) the sacred mountain of India’s Dongria Kondh tribe, that they worship as creator and sustainer, in the Indian state of Orissa. Monty Python star and travel writer Michael Palin  expressed his support to the 3 year campaign, supported by Survival International and Amnesty Int. saying he had  "seen the forces of money and power ... arrayed against a people who have occupied their land for thousands of years, who husband the forest sustainably and make no great demands on the state or the government." India’s Environment and Forests Ministry is currently investigating the Dongria’s claim to the forest while Odisha state is conducting a...

Consumerism, a modern disease: Stuffed animal beer bottles sell out in hours, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-10737787

A new report by the 'World Development Movement' describes "how the current situation came to pass, the risks of another speculation induced food crisis, and what specifically can be done by policymakers here in the UK as well as in the US and EU to tackle the problem. " Concludes that "reregulating commodity markets is a vital step in tackling hunger and reshaping the global economy to work for the benefit of people rather than profit for the small elite of bankers." Capitalism is not even mentioned once, let alone blamed, still the report makes interesting reading. The question is how can crises, which are systemic and regularly occuring, be overcome through system 'regulation', rather than system change? Download the report at:http://www.wdm.org.uk/sites/default/files/hunger lottery report_6.10.pdf