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India: Jet Airways’ demise leads to spike in airfares, massive hotel cancellations

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The abrupt shutdown of Jet Airways operations has left Indian tourism industry a worried lot as it has led to an average 25 percent spike in airfares across the sectors leading to massive hotel cancellations, says industry experts.

Some key sectors like Mumbai-Hyderabad, Mumbai-Delhi and Delhi-Mumbai have seen the fares flying by 62 percent, 52 percent and 49 percent, while the Bengaluru-Delhi sector has had the lowest impact with a 10 percent surge shortly before and soon after the grounding of Jet.

Financially struggling for months, Jet Airways decided to call it quits from Wednesday night, leaving 22,000 jobs at stake and inconveniencing lakhs of passengers both domestic as well as international as Jet was the single largest airline out of and into the country.

“The impact of grounding of Jet Airways is not only restricted to the airlines sector as tourism has taken a severe beating due to the massive surge in airfares during the peak demand season. The impact is unlikely to fade away anytime soon and may continue into the rest of the year,” Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) president Sunil Kumar said Friday.

He said, both the domestic as well as international travel and related sectors are affected as travelers are cancelling their hotel bookings as airfares have surged by over 25 percent on average.

Leading tour operator Cox & Kings’ Karan Anand said the shuttering of Jet has upset the travel plans of many who have booked on Jet.

“This is the peak travel season and the airfares for the next 10-12 days are up by at least 25 percent as the capacity has fallen massively dissuading last minute travelers,” he added.

However, online travel aggregator Easemyyrip.com co- founder Nishant Pitti tried to downplay the impact saying airfares normally fluctuate as the aviation industry is always unpredictable.

“It is true that passengers are in panic now but going forward there will not be much impact as other airlines like Spicejet and Indigo are adding more planes into their fleet which will help balance demand-supply gap,” he said.

Train booking and discovery platform Confirmtkt cofounder Sripad Vaidya said due to the flight charges going up, there is a huge surge in people opting for trains and buses.

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New US Cuban sanctions target tourism, remittances and banking

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The US is targeting Cuba with additional sanctions, including restricting travel to the island nation, limiting remittances, and sanctioning additional entities, White House national security adviser John Bolton said.

US citizens sending remittances to Cuba will be limited t $1,000 per person per quarter, Bolton said on Wednesday. Non-family travel will be restricted to reduce “veiled tourism” that benefits the Cuban government and military, he added.

“Through the Treasury Department, we will also implement changes to end the use of ‘U-turn transactions,’ which allow the regime to circumvent sanctions and obtain access to hard currency and the US banking system,” Bolton said in a speech to veterans of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, when Cuban exiles tried to overthrow Fidel Castro’s regime.

The move comes a day after the White House announced it would stop issuing waivers on implementing the Helms-Burton law, which would penalize anyone in the world who did business with Cuban entities using property seized from US owners following the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Treasury has not officially announced the new sanctions, but Bolton said five entities will be added to the Cuban blacklist, including the military-owned airline Aerogaviota.

The US cut diplomatic ties with Cuba in 1961, and over the following decades imposed a wide range of sanctions on the island nation, just 90 miles south of Florida. Former president Barack Obama sought to soften the US policy in 2015, leading to the reopening of the US and Cuban embassies and loosening of travel restrictions.

In June 2017, however, Trump rolled back all of Obama’s changes, returning to a hardline policy on Cuba. Additional sanctions were introduced this year, as Trump administration has accused Cuba of and its military of occupying Venezuela and helping Nicolas Maduro’s regime to stay in power.

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WikiLeaks founder Assange arrested in London after Ecuador axes asylum deal

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he has spent the last seven years. That’s after Ecuador’s president Moreno withdrew asylum.

That’s only a day after WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson claimed that an extensive spying operation was conducted against Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy. During an explosive media conference Hrafnsson alleged that the operation was designed to get Assange extradited.

Assange’s relationship with Ecuadorian officials appeared increasingly strained since the current president came to power in the Latin American country in 2017. His internet connection was cut off in March of last year, with officials saying the move was to stop Assange from “interfering in the affairs of other sovereign states.”

Assange garnered massive international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks released classified US military footage.

The footage, as well as US war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan and more than 200,000 diplomatic cables, were leaked to the site by US Army soldier Chelsea Manning. She was tried by a US tribunal and sentenced to 35 years in jail for disclosing the materials.

Manning was pardoned by outgoing President Barack Obama in 2017 after spending seven years in US custody. She is currently being held again in a US jail for refusing to testify before a secret grand jury in a case apparently related to WikiLeaks.

Assange’s seven-year stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy was motivated by his concern that he may face similarly harsh prosecution by the US for his role in publishing troves of classified US documents over the years.

His legal troubles stem from an accusation by two women in Sweden, with both claiming they had a sexual encounter with Assange that was not fully consensual. Assange said the allegations were false. Nevertheless, they yielded to the Swedish authorities who sought his extradition from the UK on “suspicion of rape, three cases of sexual abuse and unlawful compulsion.”

In December 2010, he was arrested in the UK under a European Arrest Warrant and spent time in Wandsworth Prison before being released on bail and put under house arrest.

His attempt to fight extradition ultimately failed. In 2012, he skipped bail and fled to the Ecuadorian Embassy, which extended him protection from arrest by the British authorities. Quito gave him political asylum and later Ecuadorian citizenship.

Assange spent the following years stranded at the diplomatic compound, only making sporadic appearances at the embassy window and in interviews conducted inside.

Assange argued that his avoidance of European law enforcement was necessary to protect him from extradition to the US, where then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that arresting him is a “priority.” WikiLeaks was branded a “non-state hostile intelligence service” by then-CIA head Mike Pompeo in 2017.

The US government has been tight-lipped on whether Assange would face indictment over the dissemination of classified material. In November 2018, the existence of a secret indictment targeting Assange was seemingly unintentionally confirmed in a US court filing for an unrelated case.

WikiLeaks is responsible for publishing thousands of documents with sensitive information from many countries. Those include the 2003 Standard Operating Procedures manual for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The agency has also released documents on Scientology, one tranche referred to as “secret bibles” from the religion founded by L. Ron Hubbard.

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A Japanese castle, Sanjuro the cat, and a remarkable recovery in tourism

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Bitchū Matsuyama Castle, also known as Takahashi Castle, is a castle located in Takahashi, Okayama Prefecture, Japan. It is not to be confused with Matsuyama Castle in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture.

The Takahashi City Tourist Association is upbeat, with an official of the association saying: “We want to liven up the whole city with Sanjuro.”

A feline “lord” of Bitchu Matsuyama Castle in Takahashi, Okayama Prefecture, is contributing to a recovery in tourism that was dealt a heavy hit from natural disasters last summer.

The name of the cat lord of the popular castle, which is nicknamed “castle in the sky”, is Sanjuro. He settled in the precincts of the castle in the wake of torrential rains in western Japan in July last year.

Because Sanjuro is super-friendly to people, he has attracted attention on social media.

The number of tourists coming to the castle, that fell at one point after the torrential rains, recovered rapidly, thanks to Sanjuro. He is now serving as a living “beckoning cat”, the auspicious cat statue often displayed in stores and other businesses.

Sanjuro is a male with white and brown fur. He is thought to be three or four years old.

On July 21 last year, castle cleaner Ryoichi Motohara found the cat wandering in the castle’s Sannomaru area. “At the time, I thought he was an abandoned cat, because he was very skinny.”

After observing the cat for several days, the cleaner started feeding him. From then, he began appearing in the castle’s Honmaru main area, mingling with tourists.

The cat never got angry when people would touch him. He responded to people with cute manners while purring. He became widely known through word of mouth and via online sites.

The tourist association gave the cat the name Sanjuro in tribute to Tani Sanjuro, a samurai warrior of the Bitchu Matsuyama clan who served as a troop captain of Shinsengumi, a samurai squad in the last years of the Edo period (1603-1867).

As the number of newspaper articles and TV programmes reporting about Sanjuro grew, his owner was identified around October last year.

Ms Megumi Nanba, 40, who lives in the city about 6km from the castle, said that she had been searching for her cat, who ran away from their home on July 14.

As she loved her cat and he was also was attached to her children, Ms Nanba at first wanted to take him back home. Eventually, though, Ms Nanba and her family members discussed the matter and decided to hand over their cat to the tourist association.

“I was really relieved when I found out he was alive. If he likes living in the castle, it is good for him (to stay there),” she said.

In November last year, an official of the tourist association took him home to prepare for a media presentation, and Sanjuro ran away again.

Although the association tried to find him by distributing leaflets and other means, Sanjuro could not been found, which made officials of the association increasingly worried.

Sanjuro was finally found 19 days later. Since then, the officials have kept him inside the castle’s administrative office building in the Honmaru area so as not to have such a painful feeling again.

In December last year, the association officially appointed Sanjuro to the post of “castle lord cat”. His duty as the castle lord is to stroll around in the castle twice a day, with officials holding him on a leash.

Sanjuro is highly popular for his friendliness towards visitors, such as rubbing against people’s legs and neatly sitting down on their knees.

According to the tourist association, the number of visitors in July last year in the wake of the torrential rains fell to about 20 per cent compared with that in the previous year. But in February this year, the number passed 4,000 – 40 per cent higher than that in the previous year.

The association designated March 16 as the “Day of Sanjuro” as a play on words – 3 (san), 10 (ju) and 6 (roku) – and held an event.

Tourists from across the nation swarmed to take photos of Sanjuro that day.

Ms Miho Hatanaka, 44, from Otake, Hiroshima Prefecture, said: “He is so friendly and tame. I wish I could hug him a long time.”

Her daughter Nanami, a nine-year-old elementary school student, said: “He’s so cute. I hope he keeps playing the role of castle lord.”

The association produces official items with his photo such as key chains and postcards, as well as digital stamps which can be used on LINE, a free communication app.

Manager of the tourist association Hideo Aihara said: “With Sanjuro at the core, new movements including developments of items and event plans have been occurring.

“We want to expand this positive trend while cooperating with various entities.”

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Korean Air abandons teens in South Korea

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Two unaccompanied teenage minors, ages 15 and 16, were left stranded in South Korea after being booted from their flight from Seoul to the Philippines before takeoff.

The sons of Rakesh and Prajakta Patel had gone to visit their grandfather in a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, and were on the return journey to Manila, where their father is working a temporary job. They were making the transatlantic trip on their own.

The return trip began with a 14-hour Delta flight from Georgia to Seoul, South Korea. This first leg of the journey went fine, but their travel plans took a turn for the worse when the boys attempted to board a second flight from Seoul to Manila with Delta partner Korean Air as a result of one of the boys having a deadly peanut allergy.

Prajakta Patel, the mother of the teens, had informed Delta of her older son’s severe peanut allergy ahead of their big trip, so the brothers were shocked when a gate agent told them that peanuts would be served in the high skies. The boy’s allergy is so severe that even airborne particulates from peanuts could be extremely dangerous.

 

After explaining the situation, the teens were allegedly told that they could either take the flight or exit the aircraft and miss the trip. Though the Patel’s sons chose to board the plane, they were soon booted off.

“The gate agent came on the plane and told my sons to get off,” Mrs. Patel said. “One of my kids was shaking — they’re alone in a different country. Where were they supposed to go?” Mrs. Prajakta claimed that the gate agent even pulled on her son’s shirt “to encourage him to move” off of the aircraft.

Confused, the teens found themselves back in the gate area and told flight officials that they were willing to sit in the back of the plane with the brother with nut allergies wearing a mask. Despite their offer to compromise, a gate staffer reportedly told the boys that were not allowed to get back on the plane that was now “closed.”

Shaken, the boys called their parents, who tried to help them get to Manila without success. The mother spoke with a Delta representative who told her the boys could fly on a different carrier, however, not knowing other airlines’ nut policies, it was decided to fly the boys back to Atlanta, Georgia, on Delta.

Mrs. Patel is pushing for more than just an apology with the hopes that airlines will improve their employee education policies on nut allergies. She has filed a complaint with Delta and Korean Airlines and is reportedly seeking a refund.

Delta and Korean Air issued the following statements regarding the matter: “We’re sorry for this family’s ordeal, particularly during what is already a difficult time for them. Delta and our partner Korean Air are communicating with the family and examining the processes surrounding this incident; we will use our findings in our work to create a consistent experience for customers flying Delta and our partner airlines.”

A spokesperson for Korean Air, too, offered similar sentiments: “Korean Air is aware that peanut and food allergies are an industry issue and no airline can guarantee a food allergy-free environment. But we are reviewing ways to deal with this issue in a safe and feasible way. We totally understand the risks faced by passengers with nut and food allergies and will certainly try to accommodate them better in the future.”

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Five challenges confronting Meetings Industry in 2019

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Tight meeting budgets, time pressures, organizational issues, a lack of creativity from hotels, increasingly complex and costly mandates in catering, a need for more dynamic and enriching experiences and resistance to change – these are among the major challenges confronting the meetings industry in 2019.Teneo Hospitality Group surveyed 150 meeting planners and hoteliers on the challenges they faced in effectively competing in today’s changing and complicated marketplace. Interestingly, some of the challenges planners faced are internal, within their own organizations. All identified limited meetings budgets, lack of time and somewhat inflexible corporate cultures that gave rise to additional problems such as a lack of innovation and poor cost control.

“‘Many of these challenges – and their solutions – are interdependent,” says Teneo President Mike Schugt. He notes that meeting professionals are saying that they have concerns within their organization and corporate cultures which contribute to resistance to change, resulting in budgets that are impacted negatively. Planners are also saying that these challenges, coupled with the many demands on time, inhibit creative strategies that could otherwise help solve the obstacles pointed out in Teneo’s most recent survey.

“Teneo and its hotel and DMC members have a unique opportunity to step up and help solve the challenges of our planner partners,” says Mike Schugt. “We can introduce creative, time-saving offerings that can also meet their bottom line. By understanding the needs that go beyond rates, dates and space, hotels can provide innovative, solutions to the challenges planners face behind the scenes.”

Challenge #1 Budgets. Inadequate budgets headed the challenge lists for all survey participants. Planners cited rising costs, especially concerning food and beverage, with no comparable increase in budgets. The complexities of gaining budget increases from various corporate departments impact every aspect of the meeting process from training staff to negotiating contracts. Despite a strong economy, some planners reported budget cuts. Respondents noted that the inability to obtain adequate funding reflected a lack of understanding of the profound changes in the meetings industry that demanded more, not less, investment. Needs of attendees are very different today, especially among Millennials and Generation Z who require a high degree of technical services, greater engagement and entertaining activities – needs that are difficult to meet on a tight budget. Yet management and attendees had extremely high expectations.

Suggested Solution: The fundamental way planners can achieve their budget is to be transparent and in open communication with a property. Though the tendency may be to play one’s cards close to the vest, transparency from the beginning of negotiations is key to effective planning and keeping costs in check. While many planners feel they must keep back some of their budgetary concerns until further on in the planning process, an honest and comprehensive view of the meetings objectives and resources will enable hoteliers to present a realistic budget.

Challenge #2 Lack of Time. Time pressures impact every business and organization, but some concerns have particular ramifications for the meetings industry. Virtually all respondents cited a lack of time and identified challenges that could have far-reaching consequences. With sweeping advances in technology impacting the industry, hoteliers and planners noted that they often lacked the time to keep up with technical developments. This problem was amplified when attendees were ahead of the planners and hotels in their own use of technology. Training a new generation of meeting planners and hotel staff is key to the industry’s progress. But few had time to develop effective programs, tailored to meet the different viewpoints and technical skills of a new generation. Most significantly, respondents worried that the overwhelming details of day-to-day work left little time for long-term, strategic planning. And the top time waster? Too many unnecessary e-mails.

Suggested Solution: Hotels are often inundated with leads and may not always be able to reply in 24 hours. Planners are encouraged to indicate their timeline for response up front so hotels and resorts can offer a higher quality of response. For planners, they can then gather their lead responses all at one time and be assured that the quality of response is going to be higher if a little more time is allocated to the properties of interest. Planners that source more than 6 or 7 hotels per lead and in multiple cities will tend to be taken less seriously by a hotel. So planners can save time and drive up quality of response by reducing the number of hotel sources they contact.

If planners can share flexibility with dates early in the process, they will save time and the hotels can provide multiple options, which will likely have differences in pricing leading to greater value with the budget. Giving the hotel as much information as possible saves everyone time and can save on the budget.

Challenge #3 Keeping Up with Technology. In a technological environment that is moving at lightning speed, staying current and knowledgeable of technology’s impact on meeting productivity can be daunting. Realizing that millennial attendees may be way ahead in their technical knowledge, technology applications and expectations can be intimidating. Even leadership within select organizations don’t always seem to grasp how technology is revolutionizing the meetings experience today.

Suggested Solution: Staying current and out front with technological progress is critical to the successful outcome of every meeting, conference or social gathering. Yes, some long-term practices are still prized such as white boards and LCD players. But engaging with attendee devices puts the meeting’s learning literally in the hands of conferees in a way that resonates within a generation who grew up on texting, social media posts, interactive apps and more. These are the tools they use for their everyday living, and should be the tools they can expect to use within meetings important to their and their employer’s success.

Challenge #4 Lack of Creativity. Big brand hotels’ corporate bureaucracy partially accounts for planners’ demand for greater creativity in the meeting process, and a far more flexible business environment. Larger hotel brands often have corporate policies that may place limits on pushing the boundaries of creating the ultimate meeting experiences for planners. But the need for innovation and original events, imaginative use of technology, effective teambuilding exercises, new experiences in even the most tried and true destinations, and diverse, sustainable and healthy food cannot be ignored.

Suggested Solution: Partner with a hotel or resort that creatively works with planners and groups to construct a meeting itinerary customized to a specific group and set of meeting objectives. Independent and small brand properties, by the very nature of their independence, have proven to be expert in creatively discovering and helping plan for achieving meeting goals of professional planners and groups, doing so with out-of-the-box thinking, highly unique group initiatives, and far from run-of-the-mill teambuilding programming. Private destination management companies can also be an important resource, and Teneo suggests partnering with them to help make a city or destination come alive for meeting guests by maximizing local resources and attractions in a way that is meaningful to the group.

Challenge #5 Increasing Complexity and Rising Costs of Food & Beverage. As the population becomes more diverse, food preferences and dietary requirements have become more complicated. Growing awareness of wellness and sustainability issues add to a mix that could become more problematic and costlier. Paleo, keto, pescatarian, vegan and religious dietary requests are among the newest trends in conference dining in 2019. Respondents also called for better management of food ordering to keep costs down and eliminate waste.

Suggested Solution: This is an area where independent and small-brand hotels can get ultra-creative for the planner as they are in a more entrepreneurial and creative mode, less restricted by big-brand requirements and constraints. They can typically offer a more creative product with reduced costs. By working with chefs and banquet managers from these properties at the beginning of the planning process and being candid about budget constraints, it’s possible to obtain serious savings on food and beverage while achieving maximum creativity.

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Uganda travel and trafficking

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Sub-Saharan Africa has enormous tourism potential: leopards lounging in acacia trees, elephant herds drifting across vast savannah plains, gorillas and chimps rioting in deep forests, the earliest traces of human beings and their works. But according to the World Bank, the region receives a mere 3% of global tourism arrivals.

What scares tourists off may have something to do with an unfair, continent-wide reputation for lawlessness. There is a way around this. During the 1970s, entrepreneurs created the idea of eco-tourism as an alternative to the sun and sand package tours that wreaked havoc on the environment and local communities. Perhaps the eco-tourism concept could be expanded to encompass human rights more broadly, focusing not just on the ethical conduct of companies but on governments as well. Thus, travelers could be assured that their fees, taxes and entertainment dollars aren’t being used to support regimes engaged in grand corruption, human rights abuses, wildlife trafficking and the persecution of minorities.

Uganda’s new tourism push is a case in point. The government hopes to welcome four million visitors in 2020, more than double the current number. The Uganda Investment Authority is expediting bids from eco-tourism companies to develop ten sites in the nation’s national parks, including Queen Elizabeth, Masindi and Kidepo Valley. The World Bank has lent Uganda $25 million dollars to build a new hotel and tourism school, purchase equipment such as buses, game drive trucks, boats and binoculars and hire public relations firms to market Uganda in US, Europe, the Middle East and China. In October, Kanye West boosted the publicity effort by recording a music video in one of Uganda’s fine resorts and also visited Statehouse where he presented President Yoweri Museveni with a pair of his patented sneakers. Then in January, Tourism Minister Godfrey Kiwanda launched a beauty contest to identify Miss “Curvy” Uganda, whose zaftig figure will appear in tourism brochures.

The downside of Uganda’s tourism campaign is that every safari-goer it attracts will pay fees to government agencies such as the Uganda Wildlife Authority, which is currently engaged in a program of violent evictions that have left thousands of people in northern Uganda’s Acholi region destitute, and has also been implicated in trafficking in ivory, pangolin scales and other illegal wildlife products, both inside Uganda and in neighboring countries.

Since 2010, thousands of huts in Apaa, northern Uganda have been burned to the ground, and animals and belongings stolen by UWA officials and members of other security agencies. The government claims the area is gazetted for a game reserve, but residents say their families have lived in the area for generations and have nowhere else to go. Sixteen people have been killed and thousands, mainly women and children are now homeless. Some of the raids appear to have been carried out by members of the neighboring Madi ethnic group, and government officials have characterized them as ethnically motivated. However, the Madi and Acholi have lived in peace for generations and some suspect that senior government officials may be inciting the attackers.

Meanwhile, CITES, the international body that tracks endangered species has named Uganda as a global hub for the illegal wildlife trade. After damning reports about the scale of poaching in Kenya and Tanzania revealed that elephant populations were plummeting in both countries, stricter laws and better enforcement resulted in a nearly 80 percent decline in poaching in Kenya since 2013. Tougher enforcement has also resulted in steep declines in poaching in Tanzania. But between 2009 and 2016 an estimated 20 tons of ivory were trafficked via Uganda, along with over 3000 kilograms of pangolin scales.

The trade in wildlife products appears to be organized by senior officers of the army and UWA. Ivory traffickers working along the Uganda-Congo border told Belgian political scientist Kristof Titeca that much of their loot came from Congo and the Central African Republic, where the Ugandan Army, with US support, unsuccessfully tried to track down the notorious warlord Joseph Kony between 2012 and 2017. Thus, US taxpayers may have inadvertently facilitated Uganda’s wildlife crimes.

Uganda’s recently established Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court, which is supposed to deal with trafficking crimes has begun prosecuting and convicting low level traffickers—the men who transport the goods to Kampala for export – but as yet there have been no prosecutions of those suspected of organizing the trade. When 1.35 metric tons of confiscated ivory disappeared from a Uganda Wildlife Authority storehouse in 2014, the director was suspended for two months and then reinstated. According to a 2017 Enough Project report, two senior Uganda Wildlife Authority officials quit the force in despair after apprehending traffickers and then being ordered by officials in President Yoweri Museveni’s office to drop the cases.

Uganda’s own elephants have largely been spared, and their numbers may even have increased in recent years. But other animals have not been so lucky. In 2014, the UWA granted a local company a license to collect thousands of pounds of scales from the shy, aardvark-like creatures known as pangolins. While officials claimed that the intention was to purchase the scales from people who’d collected them from animals who had died of natural causes, there’s little doubt that huge numbers of pangolins were killed as a result.

Unfortunately, the World Bank’s assistance to Uganda could be making things worse. It’s $25 million Tourism Sector Competitiveness and Labor Force Development loan, approved in 2013, is part of a larger $100 million Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project which, according to project documents, allocates 21% – or $21 million, to government agencies, including the Uganda Wildlife Authority. World Bank spokespersons declined say how much of that will go to the UWA, and what the money will spent on, other than “systems strengthening and procuring tourism assets.”

Before the World Bank launches any project, it commissions an environmental impact assessment, as well as a review of safeguards to protect habitats and indigenous people who might be affected by it. In this case, the safeguards and Impact Assessment documents don’t consider the risk that Ugandan security agencies, including the army and UWA, might use funds raised from the project to engage in human rights abuses and trafficking.

This matters because countless development groups, including the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, the Red Cross and the World Bank itself– have seen millions of dollars in funding sink into Uganda’s swamp of corruption. Billions more have been siphoned out of the Treasury and the workers’ pension fund and or in inflated bids for infrastructure projects such as roads and dams.

In power for 33 years, Uganda’s leader Yoweri Museveni has hung on in part by spending funds looted from various development projects on voter bribery and harsh repression. In 2017, he sent Special Forces troops into Parliament to beat up MPs who were trying to block debate about a bill that would enable him to rule for life. One of the victims, MP Betty Nambooze, may never walk unaided again. Then in August, the same Special Forces arrested and tortured four other MPs and dozens of their supporters, including the famous pop star-politician Bobi Wine

Some of Museveni’s opposition-politician-victims, if allowed to govern, might – like the leaders of Tanzania and Kenya–do a better job of protecting Uganda’s people and its wildlife than he has. But as long as the World Bank and other donors keep allowing Museveni’s government to get away with corruption, human rights abuses and wildlife trafficking, these activities will only continue. While the World Bank continues to ignore this reality, Uganda’s prospective investors and tourists should steer their dollars towards less odious regimes.

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Pilots frantic search for fix while Boeing Max8 went down

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Ethiopian Airlines and Lions Air most likely have the same deadly scenario accordsidng to a report Reuters today reported about the 31-year-old Lions’ Air captain was at the controls of Lion Air flight JT610 flying the Boeing Max 8 when the nearly new jet took off from Jakarta. The first officer was handling the radio, according to a preliminary report issued in November.

The report said:

The pilots of a doomed Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX scoured a handbook as they struggled to understand why the jet was lurching downwards but ran out of time before it hit the water, three people with knowledge of the cockpit voice recorder contents said.

The investigation into the crash, which killed all 189 people on board in October, has taken on new relevance as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other regulators grounded the model last week after a second deadly accident in Ethiopia.

Investigators examining the Indonesian crash are considering how a computer ordered the plane to dive in response to data from a faulty sensor and whether the pilots had enough training to respond appropriately to the emergency, among other factors.

It is the first time the voice recorder contents from the Lion Air flight have been made public. The three sources discussed them on condition of anonymity.

Reuters did not have access to the recording or transcript.

A Lion Air spokesman said all data and information had been given to investigators and declined to comment further.

Just two minutes into the flight, the first officer reported a “flight control problem” to air traffic control and said the pilots intended to maintain an altitude of 5,000 feet, the November report said.

The first officer did not specify the problem, but one source said airspeed was mentioned on the cockpit voice recording, and a second source said an indicator showed a problem on the captain’s display but not the first officer’s.

The captain asked the first officer to check the quick reference handbook, which contains checklists for abnormal events, the first source said.

For the next nine minutes, the jet warned pilots it was in a stall and pushed the nose down in response, the report showed. A stall is when the airflow over a plane’s wings is too weak to generate lift and keep it flying.

The captain fought to climb, but the computer, still incorrectly sensing a stall, continued to push the nose down using the plane’s trim system. Normally, trim adjusts an aircraft’s control surfaces to ensure it flies straight and level.

“They didn’t seem to know the trim was moving down,” the third source said. “They thought only about airspeed and altitude. That was the only thing they talked about.”

Boeing Co declined to comment on Wednesday because the investigation was ongoing.

The manufacturer has said there is a documented procedure to handle the situation. A different crew on the same plane the evening before encountered the same problem but solved it after running through three checklists, according to the November report.

But they did not pass on all of the information about the problems they encountered to the next crew, the report said.

The pilots of JT610 remained calm for most of the flight, the three sources said. Near the end, the captain asked the first officer to fly while he checked the manual for a solution.

About one minute before the plane disappeared from radar, the captain asked air traffic control to clear other traffic below 3,000 feet and requested an altitude of “five thou”, or 5,000 feet, which was approved, the preliminary report said.

As the 31-year-old captain tried in vain to find the right procedure in the handbook, the 41-year-old first officer was unable to control the plane, two of the sources said.

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The flight data recorder shows the final control column inputs from the first officer were weaker than the ones made earlier by the captain.

“It is like a test where there are 100 questions and when the time is up you have only answered 75,” the third source said. “So you panic. It is a time-out condition.”

The Indian-born captain was silent at the end, all three sources said, while the Indonesian first officer said “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is greatest”, a common Arabic phrase in the majority-Muslim country that can be used to express excitement, shock, praise or distress.

French air accident investigation agency BEA said on Tuesday the flight data recorder in the Ethiopian crash that killed 157 people showed “clear similarities” to the Lion Air disaster. Since the Lion Air crash, Boeing has been pursuing a software upgrade to change how much authority is given to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, a new anti-stall system developed for the 737 MAX.

The cause of the Lion Air crash has not been determined, but the preliminary report mentioned the Boeing system, a faulty, recently replaced sensor and the airline’s maintenance and training.

On the same aircraft the evening before the crash, a captain at Lion Air’s full-service sister carrier, Batik Air, was riding along in the cockpit and solved the similar flight control problems, two of the sources said. His presence on that flight, first reported by Bloomberg, was not disclosed in the preliminary report.

The report also did not include data from the cockpit voice recorder, which was not recovered from the ocean floor until January.

Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of Indonesian investigation agency KNKT, said last week the report could be released in July or August as authorities attempted to speed up the inquiry in the wake of the Ethiopian crash.

On Wednesday, he declined to comment on the cockpit voice recorder contents, saying they had not been made public.

Travel News | eTurboNews

Starbucks Hawaii: Rotten food from the garbage and warm left over coffee

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Starbucks is not the only one to blame when human decency in America is under attack. Pearlridge Mall on the Island of Oahu is the second largest shopping mall in the State of Hawaii.  It’s far enough from the resort hotels, so visitors taking a bus or renting a car to explore the rest of Oahu don’t really find a lot of desire to visit Pearlridge Mall. This business center remains a very popular place for locals to shop, eat and to get entertained.

Tourism stakeholders love for homeless people to remain on this part of the island. After all, hungry dirty and mentally challenged people are bad for Waikiki, bad for white sandy beaches and terrible for tourism business.

Starbucks is a popular place not only in Waikiki but also in Pearlridge.

This afternoon a well-groomed and well-dressed lady is sitting on a chair outside and by the entrance of Pearl-Ridge Starbucks asking everyone walking by for a Dollar. She is very polite, humbled and obviously desperate.

Right in front of the Starbucks entrance is a not so well dressed local homeless man searching through the garbage can Starbucks customers fill up. After checking 3 or 4 thrown away cups, he gets lucky and finds some leftover coffee to drink and even a once delicious frappuccino drink with some whipped cream left. The coffee may be lukewarm, but no complaints here.

It’s 3 pm now, and the obviously hungry homeless man found a container with leftover breakfast, someone threw away hours before. It appears to be hash browns and eggs. The man tried to eat it but had to spit it out. Apparently, it was already bad.

Welcome to the State of Hawaii, welcome to where America needs to be great again urgently. This is a part of the Aloha State today in midst of a homeless emergency.

As long as homeless people stay away from Waikiki and the tourist beaches the world is ok. It enables hotels and resorts to charge $500 = $1000.00 for a room night, pay minimum wages to staff, and later wire all the profits to their mainland-based headquarters.

Laws and city ordinances give the police power to make it illegal to remain on beaches at night, sleep in cars or on public land. Homeless are turned into vagabonds having to move their shopping cards belonging constantly. They have no friends, they feel no Aloha.

On the other hand, tourism Business is good.

Unfortunately, minimum wages are not living wages and cannot buy a roof over someone’s head in Hawaii.

Hotels sometimes donate to the food bank or to other charity, but overall the attitude remains, “It’s not the problem of the Hawaii tourist industry to take care of the homeless and drug users.”

The State is wasting billions for a rail system that has been in the making for years. There is no money to fix the thousands of potholes everywhere on the island, and there certainly is no money to seriously address the homeless problem.

In 2015 homeless people had a solution: Get naked! 

WRONG, it’s everyone’s problem. It includes Starbucks of course.
Tourism is everyone’s business in a place like Hawaii, where this is the number one money earner and business. Where is the Aloha Hawaii is so famous for?

www.starbucks.com

 

Travel News | eTurboNews

Older travelers still want adventure

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While much adventure travel information is aimed at young backpackers, recent research revealed travel is not just the domain of the young with middle-aged Brits still working their way through a wish list of destinations.

Older travelers haven’t lost their adventurous spirit

The poll of 2,000 adults aged 40 and above showed the average 40-something still has 7 countries to visit on their travel bucket list. In fact, over 40s reckon they have only visited a quarter of the countries they dream of going to around the world with popular backpacking destinations New Zealand, Canada, and Australia top of the list.

It also emerged that more than 6 in 10 are already looking forward to at least one trip abroad in 2019. Three in 10 over 40s even reckon they are more adventurous with their holiday choices now than they ever used to be with 38 percent preferring to go off the beaten track when they travel abroad. And rather than sitting by the pool, a fifth of over 40s have tried snorkeling on a trip abroad and more than one in 10 have been on a safari.

Why it’s better to travel in the later years

The study also found nearly half of over 40s polled say they go on more holidays now than at any other point of their lives with 6 in 10 putting this down to having more money now than they did in the past. And a quarter think it’s easier to get away and go jet-setting around the globe because their kids are older, while 46 percent have more time, according to the research.

Another 40 percent think their lives have simplified enough so they now have more freedom – in their 50s or beyond – to see the globe. And more than one in 5 have also gone travelling and taken a month or more off from work to visit different countries.

Aimee of Rough Guides who conducted the research said: “Travel is no longer the sole preserve of the young. It is important that the travel industry gives older travelers the same opportunities to have adventurous travel experiences as younger people if they want to and not dismiss them as being too old or boring.”

Travel News | eTurboNews