Dateline Monday 13th October 2025

Happy Monday, I hope you are healthy, happy, fine, fit, wonderful and well.

OMG do we dare to think the war that Hamas started, and Israel finished is finally over and the hostages will be in the arms of Israel sometime today Monday 13^th October the day in the Jewish calendar that coincides with the start of the war two years ago. It is the last two days of the high holy days of the Jewish Calendar that starts this evening and happens on Tuesday and Wednesday it is Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, the Hamas invasion and killing spree in Israel was at the same time Simchat Torah two years ago. I am not prepared to celebrate until the hostages are HOME in ISRAEL.  It is clear the pressure that President Trump put on both sides of the conflict for a ceasefire has paid off. As the hostages are not yet home my SOAP BOX remains active.  

Normally I send my Monday e mail on Sunday evening but today on this momentous occasion I have waited till Monday morning for the latest news on the release of the Israeli hostages, according to The Today Program on BBC Radio Four SEVEN of the hostages are now in the hands of Israeli officials yyyyaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Soap box time

It is now TWO YEARS AND FIVE DAYS since innocent Israeli citizens were violently kidnapped and held hostage in dark, dank, terror tunnels by a violent, medieval ,barbaric terrorist group Hamas. A total of 48 Israelis are still being held captive by Hamas. Sadly, out of the 48 people being kept in horrific conditions only 24 are still alive although it seems Hamas is starving some of the hostages to a slow death. Hamas took the dead bodies of Israeli citizen they murdered in cold blood back to Gaza because they knew that Israel would stop at nothing to get all their citizens, dead or alive back to Israel.

Off the soap box now

As to President Trump being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that is for next year.

Another week another Kir Starmer the UK’s weak, weak Prime Minister controversy, this time over the two men involved in a China Spy ring who had the charges dropped all of a sudden.

Prince Andrew and his dreadful ex-wife Sarah Ferguson are in yet more trouble of I should add their own making, do they not understand that “royalty” needs to be a shining example to us all or did they think they could get away with anything and everything, what is the saying “a tissue of lies” and some

Such a sad and tragic accident in a factory manufacturing explosives in Tennessee, I guess the people that worked there knew this kind of event could happen, sadly it did.  

Good news

Congratulations to Nobel Peace Prize winner the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

Machado, a 58-year-old engineer and former member of Venezuela’s parliament, has emerged as the main threat to Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime. After being barred from running in the country’s rigged 2024 presidential elections, she appointed a surrogate, Edmundo González Urrutia, who went on to win a landslide victory—only for the regime to refuse to relinquish power and unleash a sweeping crackdown on dissent. Fearing for her life, Machado went into hiding. Since then, she’s continued to speak out about the abuses of a regime that has clamped down on individual freedoms, destroyed the economy, sent the majority of the country into extreme poverty, and left a generation of children with among the highest malnutrition rates in the Western hemisphere.

So far SEVEN hostages are now free

That’s it from a David point of view for this week.

MM and Company news update

IBTM

STEPHANE LOUISE General Manager of Hello Islands DMC Mauritius will be on the Euromic stand P85

Douglas & Erika of Mi Malta DMC will be on the Malta Stand B60

Loic from The J Team DMC Japan will be at IBTM on Stand J50 - the Japan stand

Marc Schwabach of Ambiance Incentives SPAIN will be at IBTM

Eva Hoffmann of Cornerstone Meetings DMC Germany will be at IBTM

IMOLA GORÓ of COSMOS Budapest DMC will be on the Hungarian stand 

Candy Lobo of TRAVCO DMC Dubai Abu Dhabi and Oman will be at IBTM

OMAN

Jyoti Candy Christina and the team at TRAVCO DMC Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Oman are delighted to tell you the Oman is opening up more direct air routes thus giving international delegates more options the team at TRAVCO DM tell us that Oman Air a Oneworld member will continue its direct flight between Muscat and Amsterdam this winter season.

Malta

Douglas, Erika, Claudia and the team at MI Malta Global DMC have told us that the Condé Nast Traveler magazine unveiled that Malta was voted as one of the top 10 cities in the world by readers in the USA in their annual US Readers’ Choice Awards 2025. It was also announced that there will be a Non-Stop Delta Airlines Service from JFK to Malta Starting June 7, 2026

And that is about it for this Monday, you know as much as I know, wishing you an outstanding day and an awesome week ahead.