The News Review:

- How to Find Smoke-Free Hotel Rooms Worldwide
- W opens its first European hotel in Istanbul
- … news and business from Indonesia Philippines Thailand…

How to Find Smoke-Free Hotel Rooms Worldwide
thestreet.com – Apr 16, 2008
com although their coverage in Asia can be skimpy. Hotelmagician for example lists smoke-free hotels in the tiny Pacific island nation of Fiji and in Thailand but not the rest of Asia. Thailand is home to a voluntary project called the Smoke-Free Hotel Program launched in 2006 and partly supported by the nonprofit Green Leaf Program and the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Formed to encourage hotels to set aside smoke-free rooms this modest beginning effort enlists 17 hotels and resorts — among them the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok and the Paradise Beach Resort Samui — according to the Thai tourist agency’s. In giant China — whose 350 million smokers are perhaps one-third of the world’s total — smoking restrictions are growing tougher by government edict.

W opens its first European hotel in Istanbul
USA Today – Apr 16, 2008
— in Montreal Mexico City the Maldives and in Seoul Korea. A number of Ws are under construction around the world however from Minneapolis and Florida to China and Thailand. The Istanbul hotel will open May 6 with 134 guest rooms including 26 suites a spa and chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Spice Market restaurant. The hotel is located in a historic building at the end of the Akaretler Row Houses in the Besiktas district which date to the 1870s but have been newly redeveloped. The site is near the Bosphorus Strait and the trendy Nisantasi neighborhood. Domestic locations for W include New York Chicago Atlanta New rleans Dallas Honolulu Los Angeles San Diego San Francisco and Silicon Valley in the town of Newark Calif.

… news and business from Indonesia Philippines Thailand…
Asia Times nline – Apr 16, 2008
While the IDF members were plundering drinking establishments police stood by and watched sympathetic or simply unwilling to intervene. There are calls to make all food “halal”. Now even most of the five-star hotels in the city don’t serve pork despite the fact that officially 10% to 15% of Indonesians are not Muslims. While in the Middle East and North Africa mosques broadcast only short and often artistic calls for prayer Jakarta mosques blast entire prayers through loudspeakers. This “educational” process lasts five hours a day or more making sure that infidels know who is in charge in this once-secular nation. While churches go up in flames periodically atheism is banned as are “deviant” Muslim sects. The ban on pornographic websites is therefore a logical step in the sad development of this increasingly fundamentalist nation.

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