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Italian police are hunting a pack of stray dogs which killed a boy aged 10 and mauled a 24-year-old woman in the Ragusa area of southern Sicily.
They caught about 30 strays after the boy was dragged off his bicycle and killed on Sunday but about 20 dogs are believed still to be running wild.
The priest at the boy's funeral accused society of turning animals into icons.
It is an offence to kill a dog in Italy and the country lacks properly funded pounds in which to collect strays.
Reports suggest the dogs had been neglected and starved by a man entrusted with caring for them. A suspect has been arrested.
Animal rights groups estimate there are up to half a million stray dogs, mainly in the south of the country, many of them abandoned by their owners and left to run wild.
Although local town councils are supposed to round up strays and put them in public kennels, the law is often ignored as public funds are not provided for building dog pounds, the BBC's David Willey reports from Rome.
Health officials in Sicily are to meet on Wednesday to decide how to cope with the killer dog emergency. Deep wounds / / / In the latest attack, the 24-year-old, a German tourist, was seriously injured while walking on a beach near Ragusa on Tuesday. "Her face was particularly disfigured," said Christian Ilardi, a rescue official who was on the helicopter that rushed the woman to Catania.
"Her life is in serious danger due to the wounds, which are very deep."
Local police killed two animals which tried to attack them during the day.
Some 7,000 mourners attended the funeral of Giuseppe Brafa, the boy killed on Sunday.   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7949181.stM

CARE2 GROUP: Activists 4 Abandoned Animals > TOPIC: ITALY - something is hidden...  http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=4617&pst=1335204

Indicators used include Political Risk, Business Environment Risk, Forecast International Tourism Receipts, Visitor Arrival Growth, Investment Environment and Shock Factors (taking account of any special factors such as terrorism, natural disasters and disease). Company SWOTs for leading resort, hotel, airline, travel and tourism operators in each market, including competitive intelligence on overall geographic presence, competitive positioning and relationships with international operators; % share of operator markets; % share of international arrivals and departures; % share of busiest domestic routes; main products and services; panregional expansion, merger and acquisition strategies. >>>>
2008.
following an impressive recovery in foreign visitor arrivals in 2007, with growth of 17.8% year-on-year (y-o-y), the most recent data for H108 show continuing buoyant growth in arrivals of some 17% y-o-y to over 11mn visitors.
However, in July, unconfirmed data suggest growth in foreign arrivals slowed somewhat. In the hospitality sector, meanwhile, there are signs of a slowdown in the tourism sector.
In Q208, the total number of tourist room nights amounted to almost 64.5mn nights, up just over 9% y-o-y (compared with almost 13% y-o-y growth in Q207).
Over the same period, the number of foreign tourist room nights – which accounted for some 75% of the total – was up a relatively strong 7.2% y-o-y to around 48.3mn nights (after growth of nearly 17% y-o-y in Q207).
The outlook for the Turkish economy has worsened steadily through the first five months of 2008.
Amid spiralling inflation, renewed monetary tightening, a weakening external climate and a spike in import values owing to energy costs, real GDP growth is now expected to fall further to 3.8% in 2008.
While we have extended our downward economic growth revisions through the long term, maintainING that rising purchasing power and lower interest rates, alongside an improving external climate, should continue to accelerate economic expansion in 2009-2012.
On the back of these data, revised up tor forecast for foreign visitor arrivals this year but maintain that there will be an overall slowdown in growth in 2008 and, in particular, 2009.  

The background economic scenario is holding to long-term positive view on the Turkish lira – which is likely to dampen growth in visitor arrivals to Turkey over the next few years – with end-2008 forecast of TRY1.1400/US$ and long-term forecasts are TRY1.06/US$ and TRY1.36/EUR in 2012. In the short term, this is likely to be compounded by the global economic outlook, with a further slowdown in demand anticipated in key European economies, including Germany, Russia and the UK – major source markets for Turkey.
 In the eurozone forecast for real GDP growth at 1.4% in 2009, revised down from 2.0% (with 2008’s projection unchanged at 1.6%), as believed that the knock-on from the US slowdown will become evident toward the end of 2008.
Turkish Airlines
 In financial results for H108, Turkey’s national airline, Turkish Airlines (THY), reported a substantial 219% y-o-y increase in net profit to US$208mn. This was despite fuel price increases, which resulted in additional costs of US$258mn (fuel costs accounted for 34% of overall operating costs, compared with 26% a year earlier). Operating revenue, meanwhile, increased by 37% y-o-y to US$2,131mn, with 76% of revenue derived from international traffic and 24% from domestic operations. Latest figures for the period January to August 2008 show passenger traffic up a healthy 15.4% y-o-y to 14.9mn.
Hilton Hotels Corporation
Following a similar arrangement with another local developer in 2007, Hilton Hotels Corporation (HHC) signed an agreement with a Turkish conglomerate, in June 2008, to introduce around 25 hotels (3,500 rooms) over five years. The majority of the hotels will be under the Hilton Garden Inn brand, the first of which will be opened in Kütahya (in western Turkey) in Q210.

here, here- Hilton hotels!
Paris Hilton would be verry happy to see all those killed dogs all over Turkey!?

TURKEY 2009. ( CATS & DOGS )

http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/Saving_Abandoned_Animals