Venice gets 20 million visitors every year - but soon tourists may have to pay just to visit the city.  Locals are tired of day trippers who do not spend much money in the city, so now the authorities are proposing a daily fee of $40.

The total number of tourists in Mexico hit a record in the first half of the year, with more than 14 million foreigners touching down, almost 20 percent more compared to last year, the Tourism Department said.  The spike in visitors, especially Americans, comes after several years of stagnation in the travel sector here amid a slow global economic recovery and fears of gory cartel violence.

Media outlets in the Maldives have raised nearly $2 million to help Gaza residents affected by massive destruction caused in the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas, a fundraising organizer said Saturday. “About 10 media institutions, including on-line and print, came together to raise this money,” spokesman Ahmed Zahir said by telephone from Male, the capital of the Sunni Muslim archipelago.

Tanzania expects tourist numbers to double to 2 million by 2017, the state tourist board said, challenging regional rival Kenya where Islamist attacks have scared away visitors. Tanzania, famed for its pristine beaches and safari parks beneath snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, has always played second-fiddle to Kenya, which has a more developed tourism industry and better air links to the key markets in Europe and United States.

As Skopje 2014 nears completion, it continues to divide Macedonia over its cultural legacy and role in society. “The new area is just about making money – it isn’t anything about culture,” says one older merchant in the Old Bazaar, the heart of the former Ottoman city, dismissing the new development. “That is one thing, this is another.” Mr. Nikoleski disagrees. “Skopje 2014 will be great for Macedonia," he says. "With cheap flights and this new development more and more people will visit here and see our own culture.”

Google “Kosovo”, and Petrit Selimi knows exactly what you’re going to see: dry, diplo-speak scouting reports at best, and depressing references to past conflicts at worst. It’s not exactly the promotional buzz a fledgling country with sights set on global integration would hope for*. To Selimi, Kosovo’s Deputy Foreign Secretary and a pioneer in Digital Diplomacy, this is a major problem.

Nepal's increasing willingness to take such steps shows China's growing influence in the country, an influence that some see as posing a threat to India, which has traditionally held sway over its small northern neighbour. And while scholars disagree on whether Delhi or Beijing currently has the upper hand, there is certainly growing pressure on India's new prime minister, Narendra Modi, to redress the balance.