<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV>I am hesitant to post this given the paranoia about terrorism in the US (where the chances of being killed in a criminal or accidental shooting are thousands of times greater than the chance of being targeted by a terrorist abroad), but there is an interesting piece in <A href="http://www.slate.msn.com">http://www.slate.msn.com</A> "The Bombs in Spain Fall Mainly on the Tourists" by June Thomas. The piece is a digest of recent articles in the <U>London Times</U>, the <U>Observer</U> and <U>El Pais </U>about ETA bombs, especially an apparent ETA goal of targeting tourist areas after the electoral defeat of the separatist party Euskal Herritarrok in recent regional elections. Given that one walks through the Basque country for many days enroute to Santiago, and a few of the places on the camino (notably Santiago itself) are major tourist attractions, the issue of ETA terrorism is not completely irrelevant. !
</!
DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The London Times "counseled British travellers to 'support the Madrid government by ignoring ETA's threats.'" As an unanticipated opportunity to again walk all or part of the camino has just come up, I am not letting this information have any impact on my plans to walk from Somport ( probably starting in Pau) to Santiago, or as far as I can get in the somewhat limited time available, this autumn.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Eldor Pederson</DIV>
<DIV>Seattle, WA</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href='http://go.msn.com/bql/hmtag_itl_EN.asp'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></html>