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The eastern most Canary Island of Lanzarote is one of the most popular holiday destinations in Spain.  Welcoming around 1.5 million tourists every year – the majority of them from the UK.  Attracted by the island’s great year round climate – with temperatures reaching 20C even in the depths of winter.

Parts of Mexico and Florida are located on the same line of latitude as Lanzarote – and the island itself is situated just eighty miles off the coast of West Africa.  Making it the closest winter sun destination to the UK and the rest of Northern Europe.  With a flying time of around four hours from all major British airports.

As you´d expect from a popular holiday destination Lanzarote also offers visitors high standards of accommodation.  The bulk of which is located in the main resorts of Playa Blanca, Puerto del Carmen and Costa Teguise.

The best hotels in Lanzarote can be found in Playa Blanca - the newest resort on the island.  Playa Blanca is located right at the southern end of Lanzarote – just across the Bocaina Straits from the neighbouring island of Fuerteventura.  And as result tends to get the best weather – boasting a much better microclimate than the resorts to the north.

Playa Blanca is also home to some of the best beaches on Lanzarote.  Such as the stretches of sand at nearby Papagayo (or Parrot Beach) – which are still unspoiled and natural.  As well as some excellent beaches within the resort itself, such as Playa Flamingo and Paya Dorada.

As a result of these natural advantages Playa Blanca has rapidly expanded over the last decade and good quality four and five star hotels now line the seafront.  Which have helped to establish Playa Blanca as the second most popular resort on Lanzarote.

Visitors who prefer self catering accommodation should focus their search on the islands´s oldest resort of Puerto del Carmen.  Which is located just a short ten minute drive from Lanzarote´s sole airport at Arrecife.

Puerto del Carmen was developed for tourism back in the 1970´s and as a result features a good selection of holiday apartments for tourists to select from.  Whilst the quiet residential enclave of Los Mojones is home to some of the best quality villas in Lanzarote.  Which are all located just a short ten minute walk from the atmospheric old town harbour – where visitors will find a good selection of bars and restaurants.

EU interior ministers gave a mandate on Friday to the European Commission to negotiate the conditions for visa-free travel to the United States of America for all of the bloc’s citizens, its Slovenian presidency said.  Most older EU states are already part of a US visa waiver scheme, but Greece and most of the 12 mainly ex-communist nations who have joined the bloc since 2004 are not.

Washington has sought bilateral deals with some countries that do not enjoy visa-free US travel, rather than dealing with the European Union as a whole, fuelling tensions.The mandate will allow the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to negotiate in the name of the entire 27-nation bloc and to sound out Washington about its demands for a deal.  I think the US is too paraniod to approve this.

The well-publicized landing of 40 Iranian Jews in Israel on Tuesday spurred glee among some Israelis and the immigrants themselves and drew public scorn from a surprising quarter in Iran — two officials from its centuries-old Jewish community. One of them described the emigration as a “misinformation” campaign and defended their lives under the government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The arrival in Israel was publicized as the largest single group to arrive in Israel from Iran since Iran’s Islamic Revolution, and the immigrants traveled via an undisclosed third country. Other Iranian Jews have immigrated to Israel over the years. Anti-Semitism has been a worldwide phenomenon for centuries and the state of Israel became a homeland for Jews to escape anti-Semitic persecution.

The group that sponsored the immigration is the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, based in Chicago. It says it wants to help Jews flee such persecution. The group receives money from evangelical Christians. Its founder, Rabbi Yehiel Eckstein, believes Iranian Jews face dangers, citing the words of Ahmadinejad, who has urged Israel’s destruction but not by military means.

There has been great criticism of Ahmadinejad by Jews across the globe for his remarks about Israel, for the government’s stance toward Israel, and for the regime’s sponsorship of a recent Holocaust denial seminar. Eckstein said immigrants received $10,000 each because they left behind possessions to go to Israel.

Noting the evangelical support from his group, Eckstein, in fact, believes it’s no “coincidence” that the people came to Israel on Christmas Day, which Eckstein describes as “kind of a Christmas present to these folks from Christians in America who seek to tell Israel and the Jewish people that they’re not alone.”

The immigration comes at a time of great tension between Iran, whose president stoutly rejects the Jewish state’s existence, and Israel, which asserts that Iran is funding terrorism, has ambitions to develop nuclear weapons, and is intent on destroying the Jewish state. But the account of the mass immigration was vehemently disputed among Jewish officials in Tehran who defend Jewish life there.

The man representing Iranian Jews in Iran’s parliament on Wednesday disputed the notion of an organized immigration of Iranian Jews to Israel, saying he would have known about such a development.

Iranian MP Morris Motamed told CNN that he and Ciamak Morehsadegh, the director of the Tehran Jewish Community, had issued a statement condemning the spread of false news about an evangelical organization facilitating the immigration of 40 Iranian Jews to Israel. Iranian Jews can travel anywhere they want, anytime they want, but like other Iranians they are not allowed to go to Israel, Motamed said.

Even with that, some Iranian Jews may decide to travel to and from Israel via a third country to visit their families or to visit for religious reasons. However, Motamed called the news a “misinformation” campaign aimed at creating an atmosphere of distrust between the Muslim and Jewish communities in Iran. He said it is meant to make Iranian Jews feel unsafe and vulnerable in their own country.

He said that before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iranian Jews numbered more than 100,000, but like other minorities their numbers diminished because of immigration.

He said almost 95 percent of Iranian Jews went to the United States and as a result there is now quite a sizable Iranian Jewish community there. The remaining 5 percent, he said, went to Europe and Israel. There are as many as an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 Jews remaining in Iran, the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel, according to CNN’s Shirzad Bozorghmehr.

The U.S. State Department’s 2007 report on religious freedom says the Iranian government’s “rhetoric and actions created a threatening atmosphere for nearly all non-Shi’a religious groups, most notably for Baha’i’s,” who are based in the Israeli city of Haifa. It also cites “Sufi Muslims, evangelical Christians, and members of the Jewish community.”

Jews by Iranian constitutional law have the right to practice their religion and “with some exception,” there has been scant government restriction and interference with religious practices, the report said. However, “members of these recognized minority religious groups have reported government imprisonment, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination based on their religious beliefs.”

Jewish education has been tougher to carry out, there has been a rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric, and assaults on two synagogues, the report said. Their contact with or support for the state of Israel has been squelched “out of fear of reprisal.” “Recent anti-American and anti-Israeli demonstrations included the denunciation of Jews, as opposed to the past practice of denouncing only ‘Israel’ and “Zionism,” adding to the threatening atmosphere for the community,” the report said.

In the Islamic Republic’s Jewish community, there is a different view from voices emerging. Morehsadegh described the Jewish community in Tehran as alive and well, with 20 synagogues, more than eight butcher shops, two restaurants, and four youth groups. “There is no doubt that the Holocaust happened,” he said. “But we disagree with the superpowers who have misused this incident to their own benefit.”
 

ShoreTrips’ business is booming, so you’d think owners Julie and Barry Karp could relax a bit. The couple developed a great niche arranging land tours for Caribbean cruise ship travelers. While cruise vessels have been disgorging hordes of passengers into ports and onto buses and walking tours for decades, their operators faced increased competition from landlubbers when the Karps founded their firm in 2001.

Since then, the Karps have located tour operators in scores of port cities and used them to deliver less costly and more intimate and original port experiences than the big ships offer. Clients come mostly through travel agents, who get commissions on any ShoreTrips tours they sell. The Karps put 75,000 travelers on their tours in 2006, and 100,000 last year. The firm has expanded into 38 Caribbean ports, Alaska, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic. Revenue hit $7.5 million in 2007 (up from $4.8 million in 2006), most of which went to the 2,400 tour operators with which ShoreTrips works. The Karps netted several hundred thousand dollars.

While other firms offer land excursions for cruisers, the Karps say these rivals aren’t hurting their business. Still, most vacationers on cruises, unaware of -ShoreTrips, opt for tours arranged by their ships. The Karps have approached cruise lines about teaming up but have gotten the cold shoulder. They suspect that’s because land excursions are profitable for the lines, which squeeze tour operators for lower prices than the Karps demand.

Like most of Europe, France has some changes in store for visitors in 2008, starting at the veru top. France’s newly elected president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and recently appointed prime minister, Francois Fillon, appear to be America-friendly, so we can expect no more cries for Freedom Fries from people who don’t get out much.

Travelers will encounter some construction headaches at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, as it continues major renovations. While getting into Paris may be a little bumpy, getting out is slicker than ever with the opening of new bullet train lines. The big news in northeast France is the TGV Est bullet train, serving Reims, Verdun, Colmar, Strasbourg and beyond. It has cut travel times in half, bringing Reims within 45 minutes of Paris, and Colmar within 2.5 hours of the capital.

The healthy trend is hitting smokers, too. The French have followed the Irish and Italians in making all bars, restaurants and cafes smoke-free (those sitting outside can still light up). This could be a challenge in a culture so wrapped up in cafe sitting, where people have a decades-old ritual of stopping at the corner cafe for a drink and a smoke. But the movement against second-hand smoke is strong throughout Europe and, as country after country adopts bans, smokers adjust and life goes on.  Sounds like I might have to travel to France to enjoy this non-smoking hospitality.

Amir Khan says he becomes frustrated and humiliated every time he enters the United States and federal agents search his computers. Khan, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, says it has happened five times since 2003 and it is happening more often that we would like to even know about..

He says agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have even forced him to give them access to password-protected, confidential information from his company and his banking records. An IT consultant who travels to Europe, Turkey and Pakistan, Khan says he has cooperated with the questions and searches but feels by now border agents should know he doesn’t pose a threat.

Situations for travelers such as Khan are at issue in a lawsuit filed last week by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The suit accuses customs agents of “lengthy questioning and intrusive searches” and seeks clarification on the law that allows such searches.

The San Francisco, California-based foundation, which works to defend people’s rights in the digital world, says it knows of more than a dozen cases in which electronic devices such as cell phones, BlackBerries, MP3 players and laptops have been searched by customs agents. In some cases, they have been confiscated and never returned.

As always it is very tough to judge how far the authorities powers should extend while protecting the masses.

A new report shows a quarter of domestic flights failed to arrive on time in 2007 — the industry’s second poorest performance on record — and analysts say it is likely to get worse.

More than 26 percent of commercial flights in the U.S. arrived late or were canceled last year as rising passenger demand and an industry preference for smaller planes intensified congestion in the skies and on runways. The air-travel logjam, reported Tuesday by the Department of Transportation, comes as a growing number of air traffic controllers near retirement age — a trend the controllers’ union says will magnify the problem.

The only time passengers had more difficulty getting to their destinations on time was in 2000, when more than 27 percent of flights were tardy or canceled. Back then, there were 31 percent fewer flights than in 2007, when carriers operated nearly 7.5 million one-way trips. Excluding cancellations, however, 2007 was the worst on record for flight delays, with 24.2 percent arriving late, compared with 23.9 percent in 2000, according to government statistics that date back to 1995. The worst month of the year for the nation’s 20 largest airlines was December, when more than a third of all flights were late or canceled, mostly because of the weather.

There is no sign of improvement on the horizon, analysts said, because airlines continue to replace larger aircraft with smaller ones. The practice is intended to maximize profit margins by flying with fewer empty seats, but it also means more flights and more congestion and delays.  As the air travel industry struggles with these challenges expect travellers to pay the price.