By Renee Maltezou and Peter Graff

ATHENS |
Thu May 24, 2012 11:22am EDT

ATHENS (Reuters) – Andreas and Emilia Karabalis, who are both 80, feared their bank in Greece would collapse, so they withdrew their 80,000 euros ($100,000) savings and stashed it at home for safety.

Days later, the thieves came in the night.

“We were sleeping. The two masked burglars came to our bed and tied us up. They hit us. They robbed us – they didn’t leave anything, it was torture,” said Emilia, who still trembles when she recalls the attack this month on the island of Lefkada.

Husband Andreas added: “Our life is black now. They took our life’s savings. We lost everything.”

No one knows just how much cash lies stashed in Greek homes, secreted in cupboards, at the back of the ice-box, beneath the floor or under the mattress. But by any guess it is well in the billions, and burglars are after their share of loot which is both highly portable and virtually impossible to recover.

Greece’s debt crisis has plunged it into five straight years of economic contraction, thrown half of its young people out of work and may see it ejected from the euro zone. In the past two years, Greeks have withdrawn from banks more than 72 billion euros – or close to 7,000 euros for every man, woman and child in the country. And much of that has been taken in cash.

NO MONEY IN ROBBING BANKS

Police say that gangs who may have once eyed “hard targets”, – like the banks themselves, or jewelers – are now going after homes of ordinary people, where there is far less risk and often large stashes of cash freshly withdrawn from savings accounts.

“Many people have withdrawn their money from the banks fearing a financial crash, and they either carry it on them, find a hideout at home or in storage rooms,” said national police spokesman Thanassis Kokkalakis.

“We urge people to trust the banking system, leave their money there, or at least in a safe place, not hide it at home, where they must anyway take the basic security measures,” he said. “Some people don’t even lock their doors and windows.”

The unexpected bonanza is attracting foreign crime networks, he said, including two from ex-Soviet Georgia which police dismantled in recent months, blaming them for 300 burglaries.

Crime is just one hazard for people storing unusually large hoards of cash, most of which are not insured. There are tales of

Article source: PRNewswire

MILAN |
Thu May 24, 2012 2:58pm EDT

MILAN (Reuters) – Europeans are putting holiday plans on the back burner this summer as the crisis hits “sun belt” economies in Greece, Spain and Italy, a study showed on Thursday.

Only six of 10 people polled by Ipsos for Europ Assistance said they were planning to go on holiday between June and September this year, the lowest level in eight years.

The estimate compares to 66 percent in 2011.

Italians were the most reluctant to travel despite their usual long holiday season, with 63 percent willing to leave compared to 78 percent last year.

Spaniards were second in the poll, with more than half saying they will remain at home.

France is the only exception to the gloomy picture, with 70 percent of respondents preparing for a summer break against 68 percent last year.

The survey polled 3,500 people, including Germany, Britain, Belgium and Austria.

(Reporting by Antonella Ciancio; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Article source: PRNewswire

ABONY, Hungary |
Thu May 24, 2012 10:12am EDT

ABONY, Hungary (Reuters Life!) – As a child, Hungarian zookeeper and owner Tibor Toth dreamed of having lots of animals around him and his life was forever changed the day he petted a tiger cub.

Over the past 15 years he has slowly fulfilled his dream.

He owns a small zoo in the town of Abony, 90 km east of the Hungarian capital of Budapest, which has gained fame for taming lions and tigers and which is now raising three female Siberian tiger cubs.

The cubs were born near Hamburg in Germany, but came to Hungary when they were only two and a half weeks old, after their mother became ill and could not feed them anymore.

They are six weeks old now and growing fast, fed on goats’ milk and special tiger food.

Toth, 49, said he was inspired by Austrian-born naturalist and wildlife preservationist Joy Adamson, who in her book “Born Free” told the story of how she and her husband raised a lion cub and trained it to fend for itself. The famous cub named Elsa was later released back into the wild.

“Once I got hold of this book by Joy Adamson, where she writes about the loyalty of the lions and raising lions…and I was captivated by this and I really wished I had animals around me like she did,” Toth told Reuters.

“But Africa is very far away.”

So in the middle of the 1990s, only a few years after the collapse of communism, Toth decided to start building his zoo.

He got a plot of land from the town and his zoo, which at the start had only a few animals, had more than 60,000 visitors last year. It is financed from entry fees and personal donations, without any support from the state.

Toth says the tiger cubs will stay in the zoo and he even hopes to breed tigers, so the cubs will soon get company.

“We will bring a male tiger for them and then we will have lots of small Hungarian tigers,” he said.

The liveliest of the three cubs has been named after the Russian river Ussuri, while the other two have more girlish names: Reika and Nadinka.

(Reporting by Krisztina Than, editing by Paul Casciato)

Article source: PRNewswire

By Victoria Bryan

FRANKFURT |
Wed May 23, 2012 2:59pm EDT

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Mexico is relying on travelers from countries like Russia and Brazil to boost its tourism numbers this year after the drug war plaguing the country deterred U.S. visitors, its largest source of tourists.

The number of international tourists arriving on flights is expected to rise between 9 and 10 percent this year from the 22.7 million in 2011, Tourism Minister Gloria Guevara told Reuters in an interview in Frankfurt.

“We are diversifying by promoting culture and gastronomy and broadening the base of nationalities who visit,” she said. “Before we were too dependent on the U.S., and sun and sand.”

She said international arrivals by air had risen 7 percent between January and March, with tourist numbers from Brazil up 70.5 percent and Russia up 63 percent, helped by easier visa application processes.

The rise in tourists from Russia is similar to that seen in Tunisia and Egypt after the Arab Spring uprisings shattered bookings from traditional markets like Britain, France and Germany, while the increased spending power of the Brazilians has made them attractive consumers.

However, the arrival figures given by the minister do not include ‘excursionists’ – those coming in via car across the U.S-Mexico border.

While the number of people flying in has increased over the last few years, arrivals from across the border have slumped from around 80 million in the early 2000s to under 60 million, according to ministry statistics.

“Yes we have an issue, but you can’t generalize,” Guevara said. “There are of course towns near the U.S. border that have problems, but does that mean the whole border area is unsafe? No.”

The minister did not give an outlook for ‘excursionist’ arrivals in 2012.

Accounting for 9 percent of gross domestic product, tourism is a vital source of income for the country. But gangland decapitations, kidnappings and extortion have tarnished the image of once glossy resorts like Acapulco.

Among recent incidents, 49 people were decapitated near the northern city of Monterrey, and nine victims were hanged from a bridge in the city of Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas.

Overall, more than 50,000 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on drug traffickers after taking office in late 2006.

Guevara said Mexico’s task was to try to educate people that Mexico was a huge country, with distances between northern troublespots and certain tourist areas equivalent to those between Madrid and Moscow.

“We have 2,500

Article source: PRNewswire

By Li-mei Hoang

LONDON |
Wed May 23, 2012 9:25am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) – Welsh poet Dylan Thomas left a pittance when he died, Winston Churchill bequeathed a small fortune to his wife Clementine and “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” author Beatrix Potter gave almost all her land to the nation.

Britain’s wartime prime minister left nearly 4.8 million pounds ($7.5 million) in today’s money to his beloved “Cat”, while the dipsomaniacal Dylan had just 2,300 pounds to leave the long-suffering Caitlin when he died in New York, according to data compiled by family history website Ancestry.co.uk.

The records are just a few snippets from the online release of six million probate records from 1942 to 1966, which form part of the England and Wales National Probate Calendar 1858-1966.

“These new records give fascinating insight into the final estates of some of Britain’s most recognizable faces and reveal that money and fame did not always go hand in hand,” said Miriam Silverman, International Content Director at Ancestry.co.uk.

“They also provide a rich source of information for anybody interested in uncovering the finer details of their ancestor’s finances and exactly what, if anything, they decided to leave and to whom,” she added in a statement.

“Lady of the Lamp” Florence Nightingale, famed for her mission to nurse British soldiers wounded in the Crimean war, left a fortune worth more than 3 million pounds in today’s money to her family, the records show.

T.S. Eliot, winner of the Nobel Prize, poet and playwright died of emphysema in 1965 with a personal estate totaling about 1.6 million pounds in today’s money.

“Alice in Wonderland” author Lewis Carroll left 440,000 pounds in today’s money to his brother Wilfred when he died in 1898. Other famous people who died without much to their names include “1984″ and “Animal Farm” author George Orwell, who is listed as only having just under 280,000 pounds in today’s money when he died in 1950.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Article source: PRNewswire