Business travel boost

GBTA explained that Europe was now “making up lost ground” with spending on track to rise 25.3 per cent during 2023.

The excellent data follows a strong recovery which began in 2022 with business travel spending increasing by an estimated 61.7 per cent thanks to the removal of border restrictions.

“We are so lucky to be able to access university education because of the women who fought before us, for our rights. Thanks to them I am in the position I am in. I work for myself and I am very grateful for the past. I have so much hope for equality. My mother inspires me, her strength gave me strength.”

Daniella Hunter, Lawyer

Contractors under scrutiny

WITH more than 43,000 now dead following the Turkey earthquakes, engineers examining the devastation have been horrified by building standards.

Since the earthquakes hit on February 6, the Turkish authorities have begun investigating hundreds of building contractors and owners amongst others suspected of criminal negligence.

Now the focus of public outrage, there is a widespread belief that they increased their profits by ignoring regulations introduced over the last two decades to make buildings more resistant to earthquakes.

“Putting the blame only on the contractors would be the easy way out,” Ali Ozgunduz told the international media. A former state prosecutor, he investigated collapsed buildings after another disastrous earthquake in Turkey in 1999.

A former president of Turkey’s Chamber of Civil Engineers, Cemal Gokce went further by accusing the government headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party of over­lenient regulations that have left cities more vulnerable to earthquake damage.

“The government is trying to avoid responsibility by dumping it onto engineers and architects,” he said. “But they are the principal lawbreakers by putting profits over the public interest.”