Air passengers to be relieved of luggage and queues
In the UK, it is proposed to relieve air passengers of queues at airports by offering them to fly without luggage. These plans will be discussed at a parliamentary conference with the participation of heads of the Ministry of Transport and the operator of British airports BAA (British Airports Authority), writes The Daily Mail.
The new system assumes that luggage will be collected directly from home or hotel and delivered to the destination separately from the passenger. This will significantly reduce check-in time at the airport. In addition, fuel savings will allow airlines to reduce ticket prices by an average of 30 pounds sterling. Luggage is planned to be transported by cargo planes. Control over its delivery will be carried out using the same computer technologies used by postal courier services.
Currently, the "door-to-door" luggage delivery service is offered by airlines BA and Virgin Atlantic. Approximate rates for delivering a 30-kilogram suitcase from the UK to France are 69 pounds, to the USA - 129 pounds, and to Australia - 319 pounds. It is expected that due to increased scale, the cost of the service will drop to 20 pounds.
Netherlands legalizes 30 thousand immigrants
The Dutch parliament has adopted a new law granting legal status to foreigners who came to the country before 2001, applied for residence permits, but for some reason have not yet received them. Excluded from the list are persons wanted for war crimes, or sentenced to more than one month in prison for crimes committed in the Netherlands.
Such measures contradict the policy of the previous Dutch cabinet. Former Minister for Immigration Rita Verdonk as early as last year insisted on the deportation of 26 thousand illegal immigrants. Dutch immigration laws are among the strictest in the European Union. However, this issue largely contributed to a split in the previous government. And, as EuroNews notes, after the change of the ruling coalition in November last year, deputies began to talk about a more lenient attitude towards newcomers.
For flights to the USA, Europeans will undergo online registration
The United States, in order to prevent possible terrorist attacks, has introduced new rules for citizens of 13 countries of the Schengen zone of the European Union who enjoy the right of visa-free entry to the USA, reported the newspaper "Libre Belgique".
According to these rules, citizens of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and France must fill out a special online questionnaire 48 hours before departure to the USA. "With the help of electronic authorization, we want to increase the level of security," said US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff to journalists in Brussels. According to him, the visa-free regime for European citizens is "one of the aspects that makes (Americans) vulnerable."
Currently, the US and the EU are negotiating an agreement on the exchange of data on airline passengers to combat terrorism. This agreement would allow storing new passenger information for three and a half years, old information for eight years, and providing counter-terrorism agencies with direct access to such data through airline computers.
For its part, the European Union insists that airlines provide passenger information themselves. According to Brussels, such information can be transferred to US law enforcement agencies for counter-terrorism investigations only if the data protection standards of those agencies match those in the EU. EU countries want passenger information to be declassified only if its contents match data in the terrorist database.
Initially, the US and the EU signed an agreement on data provision in 2004, under which European air carriers were obliged to transfer 34 items of information about passengers traveling to the US to the American side. However, two years later, the European Court declared this agreement illegal, as, according to the judicial authority, it violates human rights and has no clear legal basis. After that, the parties entered into negotiations to develop a new agreement, reports RIA Novosti.
Moscow guests pay more
Moscow remains the most expensive city in the world for visitors, reports France Presse citing a study by Mercer HR. London rose to second place in the ranking, third was the capital of South Korea, Seoul, fourth and fifth places went to Tokyo and Hong Kong, respectively. The cheapest city for the fifth time in a row was recognized as the capital of Paraguay, Asuncion.
Researchers compared the cost of more than 200 different goods and services - rental housing, transport, food, clothing, household items, entertainment - in 143 cities around the world. The cost of this set in the most expensive city in the USA, New York, is used as a benchmark. Compared to it, Moscow turned out to be 34.4% more expensive - this figure is 11% higher than last year. Mercer employees believe that this growth is due to the fall of the dollar against the ruble and an increase in rental housing prices. London is 26.3% more expensive than New York; since last year it has risen in price by 16%.
Due to the decline of the US currency, US cities have ceded to European ones. In particular, reports Lenta.ru, the top ten included Copenhagen, Geneva, Zurich, and Oslo. Japanese Osaka was seventh, and St. Petersburg overtook Paris (13th place) and became 12th in the ranking. The cheapest European city for visitors turned out to be the Bulgarian capital Sofia.
Riga fights sex tourism
On June 18, the campaign "Stop, Sex Tourism!" started in Latvia, aimed at changing the image of Riga. The campaign organizers – a number of Latvian public associations – are concerned that local and foreign media regularly describe Riga as a city attractive to sex tourists and nightlife enthusiasts.
The organizers see the reason for the dubious reputation of the Latvian capital not in the growth of tourist numbers, but in easily accessible sexual services, which are offered in nightclubs, bars, and other entertainment venues. Combining their capabilities and resources, public organizations and the media organized a campaign whose goal is to change the indifferent attitude toward this problem, as well as to raise public awareness, especially among young women, making them think about whether it makes sense to engage in casual relationships for a paid cocktail.
As NEWSru notes, Latvia's favorable location and cheap services attract more and more tourists from Europe to Riga. Young people come here for the weekend to drink cheap beer and have fun in local strip clubs. After discount airlines came to Latvia, a London tourist can fly to Riga and back for less than £50, so on weekends you can sometimes see more Brits than Latvians in Riga's nightclubs.
Tallinn to tighten "dry law"
The Tallinn City Government has sent the City Council a draft regulation according to which retail sale of alcohol in stores in the Estonian capital will be banned from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM starting July 1. In addition, during outdoor events and sports competitions, only low-alcohol drinks with a strength of no more than 22 degrees will be allowed for sale.
On June 29, 2004, the City Council already approved a ban on retail alcohol sales from 11:00 PM to 8:00 AM. Prior to that, alcohol was sold in Tallinn stores around the clock. According to the city's mayor, Edgar Savisaar, the current alcohol policy of the country is nevertheless too liberal. He noted that many offenses, including road accidents, are committed by intoxicated people. "Something must be done about this problem, and the first step of local government could be to restrict alcohol sales," Savisaar believes. "I know that the police would like to ban alcoholic beverages altogether."
At the same time, he does not share forecasts of a possible decrease in tourist flow and store closures due to the tightening of alcohol policy. "This raises the question: what kind of tourists do we want to see as guests? There is so much beautiful and valuable in Tallinn and throughout Estonia that is worth seeing with sober eyes," Savisaar said.
The draft regulation is based on paragraph 42 of the "Alcohol" law, which allows local governments to restrict the sale of alcohol on their territory. The Tallinn City Government expresses hope that neighboring municipalities will follow the capital's example.