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An Israeli couple were fined 500 Indian rupees ($11) each for
embracing and kissing after getting married in a traditional
Hindu ceremony in the northwestern Indian town Pushkar.
The Israeli Embassy in New Delhi confirmed the incident and
identified the couple as Alon Orpaz and Tehila Salev, who decided
to get married while visiting India.
A local newspaper said that priests at Pushkar's Brahma
temple were so cross when the couple smooched as hymns were still
being chanted that they filed a police complaint. A court in
Pushkar then charged them with indecency and ordered them to pay
the fine or face 10 days in prison, the newspaper reported.
The couple decided to pay, it said. “We will not tolerate
any cultural pollution of this sort,” the newspaper quoted a
priest, Ladoo Ram Sharma, as saying.
Skytrax have conducted the world's “largest”
passenger survey, was conducted over an 11 month period (June
2004 - May 2005) to find the world's Airline of the Year. The
results are as follows:
AIRLINE OF THE YEAR 2005
Beetle: I don't see Ryanair in this list.
At September's World Tourism Day, the the United Nations
Today said that more and more people can afford to travel. In
1950 it was 20 million, last year 760 million, and by 2020 it is
expected that the number of international travellers will exceed
1.6 billion a year.
The Danish Air Force admitted last month that it paid about
$5,000 in compensation to a part-time Santa Claus whose reindeer
died of heart failure when two fighter jets roared over his farm.
The reindeer, named Rudolf, was grazing at the farm of Olavi
Nikkanoff in central Denmark when the F-16 jets passed overhead
at low altitude earlier in the year. The reindeer collapsed and
died, leaving Nikkanoff with only one animal pulling his sleigh
next Christmas. Mr Nikkanoff complained to the Danish air force,
which agreed to compensate him for the cost of the reindeer and
veterinary expenses. “We got a letter from Santa complaining
about his reindeer's death and looked into it
seriously,” air force spokesman Capt. Morten Jensen said.
The air force checked flight data and veterinary reports and
concluded the planes had caused the animal's death. Mr
Nikkanoff said he would use the money to buy a new reindeer
before Christmas.
An independent media watchdog group, the Committee to Protect
Journalists, (CPJ), says press freedom was under siege in every
corner of the globe last year. The CPJ says Iraq remained the
most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist in
2004. In its annual report, entitled “Attacks on the
Press,” the CPJ said 56 journalists were killed worldwide
last year as a direct result of their work.
At least 23 journalists and 16 media support workers were killed
in Iraq last year. Another 22 journalists were abducted while
trying to report on the Iraq conflict. 122 journalists were
imprisoned in 2004, three-quarters of them in just four countries
- China, Burma, Eritrea, and Cuba.
Eight journalists were murdered in the Philippines last year,
allegedly for criticizing the government or reporting on
corruption.
Eleven journalists have been killed in contract-style killing
since President Vladimir Putin came to power.
Zimbabwe was named one of the world's worst places to be a
journalist because of the government's continued crackdown on
private media and Bangladesh was found to be the most dangerous
county in South Asia for the media.
Spotted by webmaster Paul: “Because your first trip to Tokyo
can be like going to another planet.
Planet Tokyo is here to guide you through the culture shock that
many western travellers experience upon arrival in Japan. If
you're planning a trip, or just hoping to learn something new
and interesting in this western traveller's guide to
Japan”
Pilots of a chartered jet carrying 289 Gambian soccer fans faked
the need to make an emergency landing in Peru so that passengers
could watch their nation's team play a key match. The plane,
claiming to be low on fuel, landed in Peru's northern coast
city of Piura, where Gambia played Qatar in the FIFA Under-17
World Championships later that night. The fans were allowed to
watch the soccer game in Piura, which Gambia won 3-1. The fans
apparently would have been late or missed the game if the flight
had first gone to its scheduled destination of Lima, 550 miles to
the south. “It truly was a scam,” said Betty Maldonado,
a spokeswoman for Peru's aviation authority, CORPAC.
“They tricked the control tower, saying they were low on
fuel.”
The US businessman and scientist Gregory Olsen is the third
person to pay to be a space tourist, after American Dennis Tito
in 2001 and South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2002. If you have
something in the region of £11m ($19.3m) to spare and are fit,
perhaps you could apply too.
Spotted by Webmaster Paul, here's a satellite photo from
Google of
York Minster:
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