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By far, the company most recommended by those who responded to our “Person to Person” request for a good, reliable guide in Cape Town, South Africa, was Africa 2000 Tours (Knysna, South Africa; phone +27 44 3841262), owned and operated by Gill and Graham Maskell. What a find!
Alicante is a small city on the Costa Blanca, part of Spain’s Mediterranean coast. It is a popular stop for many of the large cruise ships traveling between Barcelona and Málaga.
According to the US Department of State, unrest in Tunisia has diminished in general terms since early 2011, but work stoppages and demonstrations still occur and a state of emergency remains in force.
Conditions for overland travel in the interior of the country have improved.
The US Department of State warns that because of Burundi’s participation in peacekeeping operations in Somalia, the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab has threatened to conduct terror attacks in Burundi. It also may target US interests.
The Burundian civil war lasted from 1993 to 2006. In December 2008, the government and the last rebel group signed their final cease-fire agreement. Burundi held general elections in 2010 that were generally considered credible, but political tensions ran high and there were incidents of violence.
In Malawi, two days of protests in the capital, Lilongwe, and the cities of Blantyre and Mzuzu ended in violence and the deaths of at least 18 people. On July 19 and 20 the government called out the army to assist police in quelling the demonstrations, and they were accused of using live ammunition on civilians.
The protests were over the high cost of living; fuel and electricity shortages, and government suppression of political activity.
In the town of Hotan, in the Xinjiang region of far-western China, at least 20 people were killed on July 18 when police fired on a crowd that was attacking a police station.
The monsoon rains triggered another series of landslides in Nepal during June and July, leaving at least 65 people dead in 44 of the country’s 75 districts. The rains left homes destroyed, roads damaged and trails obstructed by slides, with crops devastated by floods.
The Nepalese government states that every year, landslides kill more than 100 people, destroy 3,000 to 4,000 homes and affect 8,000 to 9,000 people, at a cost of US$1 billion. The mountainous country has soft topsoil over rock, and deforestation and its resulting erosion contribute to the problem.
On July 9, 2011, the Republic of South Sudan became the world’s newest nation. Breaking away from Sudan and forming its own government, the new country has survived civil war but faces many challenges.
Issues include resolving a bloody border dispute, settling the economics of oil (South Sudan produces it but must, by agreement, use shipping and refining infrastructures in Sudan) and battling corruption and poverty. The US Department of State warns of the risks in South Sudan and the border region between Sudan and South Sudan.
A car bomb exploded in the government quarter of downtown Oslo, Norway, on July 22, killing eight people and injuring at least 10 while badly damaging several buildings.
In July, Syrian government troops armed with tanks and machine guns suppressed protests in Homs, the country’s third-largest city. On the last weekend, reports claim, at least 100 protesters were killed in Hama.
On July 21-22, more than one million people took to the streets in several other cities, including Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Dayr az Zawr, to protest President Bashar al-Assad’s increasing violence against unarmed protesters.
Human rights groups estimate that over 1,400 people have been killed and thousands detained since protests began in mid March.