Need to convert currency?
Take a look at The Globetrotters Currency Converter - get the exchange rates for 164 currencies The Globetrotters Currency Cheat Sheet - create and print a currency converter table for your next trip.
Globetrotters interested in travel writing have two inspiring opportunities to learn this November with Travellers Tales, the UK’s leading travel writing and photography training agency. We’ll be in Granada, Spain, with best-selling author Chris Stewart (’Driving Over Lemons’) on November 18-20; and in London with Wanderlust editor Lyn Hughes on November 14-16. Both courses include writing practice, feedback on your work, and insiders’ advice on how to get published. Full details from www.travellerstales.org.
In January, 2007, our Legacy co-ordinator Jeanie Copland will be taking part in an ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro, 5895 metres, to raise money for VSO and would welcome your support. (All Jeanie’s expenses to Africa and the trek itself are self-funded).
Need help? Want a travelling buddy or advice about a place or country - want to share something with us - why not visit our Mutual Aid section of the Website: Mutual Aid
Did you know that Australia is suffering a drought, now in its sixth year, and the worst in over a century?
Australian farmers have been hardest hit, forced to make a living sometimes in very harsh conditions, raising emaciated cattle. The severe drought has led to an alarming increase in the number of suicides among farmers, now at twice the national average.
According to the Australian national mental health body Beyond Blue, one farmer takes his life every four days. The group has called for psychologists to tour agricultural areas to combat anxiety, stress and depression. Australian Prime Minister John Howard tried to address the growing problem of rural poverty by announcing a $263m aid package for farmers.
A German art student briefly fooled police by posing as one of China’s terracotta warriors at the heritage site in the ancient capital, Xian. Pablo Wendel, who is studying in China dressed up, very convincingly, as an ancient warrior and jumped into a pit showcasing the 2,200-year-old pottery soldiers, standing still for several minutes. He was eventually spotted by police and removed from the scene. “I got to the area where he was supposed to be, looked around and didn’t see him - he looked too much like a terracotta warrior,” Hong Kong newspapers quoted a security guard as saying.
If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites
A report from Amnesty International from Guatemala: Amnesty’s latest report cites police figures which show that 229 women and girls were killed in Guatemala in the first six months of 2006. Many of the murders were exceptionally brutal, with the victims suffering sexual violence, mutilation and dismemberment. Amnesty says that it knows of only two convictions out of 665 murders of women in 2005. The Guatemalan government appears to be slow in investigating. Up to 70% of murders of women are not investigated and no arrests are made in 97% of cases, Amnesty says. Contrast this to the response of the Thai government when a British girl was murdered on a beach in Phuket – in this case, the police may have appeared to be over zealous, and maybe their motives were influenced by the cost of adverse publicity to the country’s tourism coffers, but even so. A similar problem is happening in Mexico with the killing of street boys and girls.
UN officials and aid workers say that millions of North Koreans will face famine and starvation during the country’s winter if the international community cuts off humanitarian food aid in retaliation for their government’s nuclear test. Before the recent test explosion the people of North Korea face a food crisis after a long-term decline in foreign food aid and summer floods that killed hundreds and washed away fields of rice and wheat. Aid communities fear that a cut in aid could lead to a repeat of the famine of the late 1990s when up to three million are estimated to have starved to death.
Does no-one realise that N Korea’s mad despot leader, Kim Jong Il simply does not care what happens to the people of N Korea? Sanctions are not an effective way to curb the mad and despotic powers of a crazed megalomaniac.
Dubai’s ruling family says a legal case filed against it in Miami in the United States for allegedly enslaving thousands of young camel jockeys is without foundation. The law suit accuses Dubai’s ruler, his brother Hamdan and 500 others of being involved in trafficking and enslaving young children from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan and Mauritania.
The case alleges that tens of thousands of boys as young as three were kept in poor conditions against their will and forced to take part in camel races. The Dubai family say they have overhauled the sport, banning the use of child jockeys and have been helped by Unicef in providing a rehabilitation programme for the child jockeys. It has been illegal to use children as camel jockeys in the UAE since 1993, but only recently has the law been rigidly enforced. When the new racing season begins in November, remote control robots will ride the camels in place of jockeys.
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