State Department warns of travel to Turkey, Lebanon

On Sept. 6, the State Department issued a warning for southeastern Turkey, recommending that U.S. citizens “defer non-essential travel” to that area. The department allowed non-emergency personnel and families to leave its consulate in Adana. Adana is about 600 miles southeast of Istanbul and about 200 miles from Aleppo, Syria.

The State Department also issued a warning on Sept. 6 recommending that Americans defer all travel to Lebanon, citing security and safety concerns. “U.S. citizens living and working in Lebanon should understand that they accept risks in remaining and should carefully consider those risks,” the State Department said. More than 1 million Syrians have fled to Lebanon because of the conflict in their homeland.

A State Department travel warning issued last month said “crime and violence levels in El Salvador remain critically high.” Besides a high per-capita homicide rate, “armed robberies of climbers and hikers in El Salvador’s national parks are common,” the State Department said.

In Leipzig, Germany, breweries are bringing back gose, an ale that has a salty-creamy-sour taste. The drink, unique to the area, died out as a result of the world wars and Cold War. (Leipzig fell within East Germany.) But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, brewers started making it again.

In Greece, tourism revenues increased more than 5% in the second quarter, bolstering the country’s recession-plagued economy. Greece is expecting 17 million visitors this year, an increase of 1 million from last year.

Dennis Rodman paid a return visit to North Korea, whose leader Kim Jong Un called the former National Basketball Assn. player a “friend to the nation.” Almost concurrently, Kim canceled an invitation to a U.S. State Department official who wanted to discuss the fate of an imprisoned Korean American tour operator.

The newest tourist attraction in Havana: Pancho the Pelican, a bird nursed back to health by a Havana family. He’s been with the family since 2011 and shows no signs of wanting to leave. The 2-foot-tall Caribbean brown pelican hangs out on 23rd Street, where he has endeared himself to neighbors.

Sources: U.S. State Department, McClatchy Tribune, Associated Press, Bloomberg