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Weekly UpdatesAug 9, 2009
A regional tourism expert has warned it would be OtragicO if the ferry disaster which may have claimed 60 lives in Tonga deters tourists from visiting the island nation. The countryOs inter-island ferry, the Princess Ashika, sunk 86km from the capital NukuOalofa just before midnight on Wednesday with 117 people on board. Rescue boats have picked up 53 survivors and the bodies of two people, including Briton Daniel Macmillan, who had been living in New Zealand. Aug 7, 2009
La Palma
La Palma is called OLa Isla Bonita,O but these days, a raging wild fire is anything but beautiful. Dozens of tourists are among 4,000 people evacuated from SpainOs La Palma in the Canary Islands due to a huge forest fire raging since the weekend. A change in wind direction and cooler temperatures Monday helped firefighters to try to control flames that erupted over the weekend on La Palma, one of SpainOs Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Aug 4, 2009
Tambo Airport
"The situation has improved slightly and indications at this stage are that by the end of this week reserve levels would have risen to three days," -- airport spokesman Solomon Makgale. Jet fuel reserves at South Africa's main international airport fell sharply this week due to supply interruptions, forcing airlines to reduce their intake by 30 percent, but the airport said the problem was easing. Fuel reserves at the O.R. Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, the hub of air transport in southern Africa fell to as low as two days on Monday from the normal five days, but the airport's spokesman Solomon Makgale said in a statement on Tuesday that supplies were rising. Makgale said airlines were asked to cut their fuel intake by 30 percent. The airport had asked passengers not to change their travel plans, because fuel supply was improving. "(The airport) is experiencing low levels of fuel reserves as a result of interruptions in the supply network in South Africa... the situation has improved slightly and indications at this stage are that by the end of this week reserve levels would have risen to three days," Makgale said. "The request to airlines to voluntarily reduce their fuel intake will remain in place until the stock levels are back to normal." Makgale declined to say the cause of the supply constraints, and it was not clear what caused them. The airport receives 70 percent of its fuel from the country's Natref refinery, a joint venture between Sasol, the world's biggest make of fuel from coal, and Total's South Africa unit. The jet fuel is supplied via pipelines owned by South Africa's logistics group Transnet. Sasol's spokeswoman Nothemba Noruwana said the company had experienced a three-day technical problem with jet fuel production at Natref in mid July, but said the hitch at the refinery had no link to the airport's supply problems. Transnet's spokesman John Dludlu said the group's rail division, which supplies some fuel via wagons from the country's eastern port of Durban, faced temporary interruption in the last few weeks, but this had been resolved. Most major airlines including British Airways and Air France operate flights from the airport, which serves about 17 million passengers each year. Aug 5, 2009
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