After mentioning the positive deeds resulting from the “new Angola” development plan in the political, economic, scientific, cultural and social spheres, the ambassador spoke of the challenge of the executive led by the president of the Republic to reduce the dependence on oil and diamonds and invest in the diversification of the economy.

The numbers of Israeli tourists travelling to Slovenia and Croatia are growing in recent years, peaking especially in the summer. According to the Slovenian Tourist Board, approximately 28,000 Israeli tourists visit the central European country annually. The number of Israelis in Croatia in 2011 was 34,000.

Lake Plitvice in Croatia

The two countries have also teamed on a promotional event – “Experience Croatia, Feel Slovenia,” where Croatian and Slovenian tourist companies will meet with Israeli tourism operators and travel agents.

Slovenia is bordering the Alps and offers a variety of historic sites, Natural reservations, ski sites and spas. The leading tourist attractions are the vacation towns Portoroz and Piran, and the largest in Europe karst caves in Postojna and Skocjan.

Slovenia is also known to host international cultural, sporting, and other events. This year it will host European Capital of Culture

in Maribor with several festivals and cultural events.

Croatia, neighboring Slovenia, stretches between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea, and offers an array of activities for tourists and travelers. Bordering the Adriatic Sea, Croatia is nearly three times the size of Israel. Thousands of islands and rocky lagoons spread out almost across the entire length of the coastline, most of them rocky and uninhabited.

Croatia is also home to the city of Dubrovnik, which is a UNESCO world heritage sites. The old city walls hide within them beautiful alleyways and many cultural treasures.

Following in the footsteps of the Shangri-La, Paris and Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris (opened in late 2010) and the Mandarin Oriental, Paris (summer 2011), Starwood’s W Hotel group makes its Feb. 14 debut in a 19th-century Haussmann-era building. Just down the street from Opéra Garnier (the oldest opera house in Paris), this 91-room hotel is Old-World on the outside and playfully modern on the inside. Original architectural details are preserved (think ornamented columns, vaulted ceilings and marble staircases) and are mixed with the sleek silhouettes and textures for which W hotels are known.

The rooms at W Paris – Opéra are as flashy as those in the New York City flagship hotel, but also include a few artful Parisian touches (chandeliers, local artwork, elaborate moldings and high ceilings). The contemporary guest rooms are outfitted with W mainstays: the W signature bed, vibrant colors, slick surfaces, Bliss bath products and plenty of modern amenities such as iPod docking stations and flat-screen TVs. Proving the brand isn’t afraid to push cultural boundaries even further, acclaimed Spanish chef Sergi Arola will debut his first restaurant, Arola, in France. The ground-floor eatery will serve Spanish cuisine, Pica Pica style (bite-size dishes similar to tapas).

A total of 223 people have died from the cold weather in the past seven days, according to Agence France-Presse,  in what has become the harshest European winter in decades.

Ukraine suffering the highest toll — with 101 deaths recorded since the cold snap began. Temperatures plummeted as low to -16.6 degrees in the capital Kiev. Poland, Bulgaria and Romania also recorded high death tolls.

According to AFP, the dead included hundreds of homeless people who have frozen to death.

The cold has extended as far south as Serbia, where thousands were trapped under heavy snow and blizzards in the country’s mountain villages.

In Italy, up to three inches of snow fell in some districts of the Italian capital, and the Colosseum was closed to prevent visitors slipping on ice or damaging the structure.

Daytime temperatures in Paris hit 23 degrees, and Marseilles was uncharacteristically frigid.

According to Al Jazeera, temperatures had dropped to -22 degrees and below in other parts of Europe, causing power outages, traffic chaos and the widespread closure of schools and airports.

However, the lowest temperatures recorded were in the south-west of the Czech Republic, where the mercury hit -36 degrees overnight.

Amid the freeze, vital Russian gas deliveries were curtailed in nine countries for a third straight day, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Under the network, iPass business travelers will be afforded 24/7 Wi-Fi access at all participating hotel conference centers, including Intercontinental, Hilton, Marriot, Renaissance, Radisson, Holiday Inn and Westin hotels. The cloud-based iPass Open Mobile Platform allows for a seamless Wi-Fi connection to the iPass Mobile Network for mobile employees, through laptops, tablet devices and smartphones, while IT departments will be ensured of total visibility and control of their network security, usage and costs.

Graeme Powell, iBAHN’s Managing Director, told reporters that today’s new expansion reflected the ever-increasing demand among conference delegates for higher bandwidth.

“iBAHN’s Wi-Fi services will ensure that users gain 24/7 access to the internet, along with full support in several different languages, something that has long been seen as essential by modern business travelers,” explained Powell.

Marcio Avillez, iPass’s vice president of Network Services, added more about the extensive nature of the iPass Mobile Network’s coverage:

“With 675,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in 117 countries, the iPass Mobile Network provides customers with coverage at crucial business locations such as conference centres and hotels during their business travel. We’re delighted to expand our partnership with iBAHN with their compelling technology solutions across thousands of events annually, ranging from small group meetings to major industry conferences.”

iPass is a global mobility service provider, helping service providers and business enterprises to stay well connected on their travels via its iPass Mobile Network, the largest commercial grade Wi-Fi network in the world.  With more than 675,000 connection hot-spots, iPass ensures seamless, cost-effective and secure connectivity to its clients, anywhere in the world.

iBAHN is the world’s only dedicated IP platform-based solutions provider for the hospitality and meeting industry, serving almost two million business travelers and providing them with high-speed, reliable and secure internet access options in almost 3,000 hotels across 40 countries globally.

Air Canada and Air Transat have confirmed to QMI Agency they have not yet applied any surcharge even though the European Union now charges airlines landing at EU airports for carbon emissions.

But that could change.

“Airlines are going to be looking at what they’re going to do now in terms of mitigating that cost impact,” George Petsikas, president of the National Airline Council of Canada, said.

He adds Canadian airlines are complying with the EU’s emissions trading scheme “under protest” and by early 2013, airlines will know how many carbon credits they’ll have to buy under the European scheme.

Germany’s Lufthansa expects its compliance costs to surpass $167 million, which it will pass on to passengers, while Air France/KLM could be forced to shell out up to $130 million.

Canada’s transport minister has already warned Canadian airfares to Europe could rise.

“This new tax will hurt an industry that is important to all of our economies and is expected to drive up prices on consumers by as much as $15 a ticket,” said Denis Lebel in a statement last month.

China has said its airlines refuse to pay an “emissions tax” while the state-run Xinhua News Agency has warned of a possible trade war over the issue. The idea of Canada also threatening a trade war doesn’t fly with Petsikas.

“Our view is that we hope it doesn’t come to, obviously, a major trade war,” he said. “Nobody wants that – certainly not consumers, certainly not airlines.”

Instead, Petsikas says he hopes the Europeans will change course and come to a carbon emissions agreement acceptable to non-EU countries in discussions with the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Since U.S. airlines can’t exactly boycott Europe — it’s far too lucrative a market — they’ve started hiking their ticket fares to pay the carbon price. (The new rule could add an estimated $15 to $57 to the cost of a flight from New York to London.) The Obama administration, however, appears to be contemplating a more forceful response. Accordingto Reuters, one option under discussion would be for the United States to slap a retaliatory fee on any European airlines that want access to U.S. airports.

So this could get ugly in short order. But lost in all the squabbling is an underlying question: Is the airline fee actually a good policy?

Airline emissions aren’t insignificant. While aviation accounts for just 3 percent of humanity’s carbon-dioxide emissions, it’s one of the fastest growing sources, and the true climate impacts may be two to four times that of carbon-dioxide alone, thanks to the added warming effects of nitrogen-oxide emissions and contrails that planes produce.

A recent World Bank draft report on “Mobilizing Climate Finance” found that a modest carbon tax — at around $25 per ton — would be a straightforward way to cut aviation emissions. The tax would raise ticket prices 2 to 4 percent, the World Bank estimates, while emissions would fall by 5 to 10 percent. Slightly fewer people would fly, but most of the gains would come from airlines finding more efficient routes and sending their older, dirtier aircraft into early retirement.

The World Bank report also notes that a tax on air travel wouldn’t impose an unfair burden on aviation. Quite the opposite; it would level the playing field, given that aviation fuel goes largely untaxed. (The same holds true for ocean shipping — another sector that Europe and other countries are looking at as an area ripe for emissions reductions.)

Now, the European plan isn’t quite a carbon tax. Instead, airlines have to buy into Europe’s cap-and-trade system, and the aviation sector as a whole has to reduce its emissions 3 percent in 2012 and 5 percent by 2020. Airlines are initially given most of the pollution permits for free and can either reduce emissions directly (and make money by selling off excess permits), purchase additional permits from other sectors, or fund green offset projects in developing countries. Jake Schmidt has a fuller rundown here. Note that the carbon price in Europe is currently about $10.50 per ton, so this is more modest than the World Bank’s proposal.

Airlines, for their part, complain that the carbon cap is too much too soon. A spokesman for Boeing told Greenwire that plane manufacturers tend to make modest efficiency improvements in their designs — say 3 to 4 percent — every few years. The European plan, by contrast, would force airlines to make those gains immediately in 2012. The ideal way to meet the targets would be for planes to use jet biofuels, which could, in theory, cut airline emissions dramatically. But jet biofuels were only first approved in 2011 and won’t be ready on a large scale for years.

Of course, these headaches becomes moot if China or the United States can convince Europe to back down. Right now, airlines around the world have rallied behind a voluntary goal by the International Air Transport Association to cut aviation emissions in half by 2050. But that’s entirely voluntary — the EU plan, clumsy and unilateral as it is, is the only rule out there actively pushing airlines to change.

New Zealand’s dollar came within touching distance of the highest level it has traded against the euro since the currency, used by 17 European Union countries including Germany, France, Italy and Spain, was formed in 2001.

The kiwi hit 0.6151 about noon yesterday, just below the record 0.6170 reached in 2011. Just before 6pm last night it was trading at 0.6147 as markets awaited news from a meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Berlin overnight.

Currency strategists yesterday predicted the New Zealand dollar could move significantly higher against the euro, the world’s second-largest currency behind the US dollar.

BNZ’s Mike Jones said in the coming months the kiwi could reach 0.65 as the region plunges into recession this year.

“With growth in the eurozone collapsing into recession, and no end in sight at the moment to the sovereign debt crisis, you could expect the euro to weaken … We could push a fair bit higher yet.”

A strong exchange rate makes the kiwi buy more overseas, but makes our exports more costly.

Europe’s significance to New Zealand exporters is declining. The region took $5.2 billion in exports in the year to June 30, 2011, down from $5.9b two years earlier.

However it remains a major source of tourism, in both directions. Excluding Britain, about 76,000 Kiwis went on holiday in Europe in the year ended June, while 220,000 Europeans came here on short visits, although the number is in decline.

Brent Thomas, retail manager at House of Travel, said forward bookings for travel to Europe were more than 20 per cent ahead of a year ago, and they could reach the pre-recession levels of 2008.

Travellers had deferred trips for several years over economic concerns. However, they were now booking, discovering their budgets would carry them further than expected because of the strong dollar and weakness in markets elsewhere.

“Even beyond the currency, because the Americans aren’t travelling, there’s been some fantastic pricing out of both the airlines and the hoteliers in Europe,” Thomas said.

“If you’ve got a hotel or a plane, it doesn’t make any money unless you’ve got someone in it.”

Thomas said the strong kiwi was also boosting travel to the United States and Asia.

“The whole long-haul sector has increased.”

The euro had been falling sharply since Christmas as the markets digest the possibility that some member states will default on their debts, and the expectation that authorities will attempt to inject more money into the financial system, Westpac currency strategist Imre Speizer said.

“Visitor arrivals to the Philippines continued to yield positive gains during the 10-month period by generating 3,185,866 visitors and posting 11.96% growth rate compared to 2,845,573 arrivals for the same period in 2010,” the government agency said in a recently released statement.

The DoT said the industry’s growth is due to the “consistent positive growths recorded on a month-to-month basis.”

“The month of July produced the biggest arrivals [for this year] with 360,784 while the month of February posted the highest growth at 18.52%,” the agency stated.

Benito C. Bengzon, Jr., DoT assistant secretary for internal tourism promotions, elaborated that the uptick in tourist arrivals for the first 10 months of this year was due to the strong performance of the country’s short-haul and new tourist markets.

“[The growth] can be attributed to the strong performance of our short-haul markets including Korea (27.85% growth rate), Taiwan (26.21%) and China (25.97%); and our new markets such as India (61.49%), Russia (35.13%) and Saudi Arabia (28.69%),” he said in a text message yesterday.

“The increase in flight frequencies, including chartered flights, more interesting and diverse tourism products and additional room capacity helped fuel the growth for the period,” Mr. Bengzon added.

According to the DoT’s data, most of the tourists in the country came from the East Asian region, which accounted for 1,283,965 visitors or 47.44% of the total tourist arrivals in the country during the 10-month period.

It was followed by North America with an 18.97% share of the total number of visitors.

The region covered by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations came in third with 8.49%.

The fourth top contributor of visitors to the Philippines was the Australasia/Pacific region taking up 5.65% share of arrivals.

“Arrivals from this region grew by 14.85% against its arrivals of 156,617 the previous year. It comprised 5.65% of the total visitor volume,” the Tourism department said. Northern Europe was fifth largest tourist contributor accounting for 4.06% share of total arrivals in the country.

The DOT noted that the region “recorded an increase of 10.38% versus its output of 117,182 arrivals the previous year.”

Ranking visitor markets by volume, the deparment’s data showed that Korea still remains to be the biggest source of tourists in the Philippines.

“It shared 23.76% of the total or 756,863 arrivals. It registered a double-digit growth of 27.85%,” the DOT said in its statement.

Last year, Korea brought in a total of 592,004 visitors to the Philippines.

Korea was followed by the United States which brought in 512,436 visitors, or a share of 16.08% of the total number of tourist arrivals in the Philippines; Japan with 311,402 visitors or a share of 9.77%; China with 195,982 visitors or a share of 6.15%; and Taiwan with 153,575 visitors or 4.82% share.

Mr. Bengzon said they expect tourist arrivals in the country to continue increasing in the following months with the recent inclusion of the Puerto Princesa Underground River (PPUR) in Palawan in the new Seven Wonders of the World. “The inclusion of PPUR in the list of new seven wonders will help increase the number of foreign and domestic visitors in the area,” he said.

He added that “the DOT is expected to accelerate the implementation of the National Tourism Development Plan as it moves toward its target of 10 million foreign visitors by 2016.”