Well, no, not really. In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen reports about an explosion at a Hezbollah arms factory, a military build-up across the border in Israel, an al Qaeda video claiming responsibility for rocket attacks in the south, and 10 people arrested for plotting to attack UN peacekeepers. Oh, and fighter jets have been in the skies over Beirut.

The tension began two weeks ago when a series of blasts in the southern town of Khirbet Silim triggered a slew of conflicting explanations from Hezbollah, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Israelis. Despite being Hezbollah-controlled territory, a friend of mine was told by the group’s spokesperson that he hadn’t heard about the blast – six hours after it had occurred. 

Eventually it transpired that the building had been a Hezbollah arms depot, which the UN quickly highlighted as a violation of Resolution 1701, and when UNIFIL sent a team of investigators to the site they were pelted with stones and forced to retreat with several peacekeepers injured.

Israel said the explosion was a clear sign that Hezbollah was actively rearming and initially responded by massing troops along the border before reportedly moving tanks into the area yesterday. And if that wasn’t worrying enough, there were also claims that a gun-battle between Israel and the LAF had been narrowly avoided last week when Lebanese authorities claimed an IDF watchtower was illegally positioned. For once, it seems the Blue Helmets managed to step in and calm the mood.

And then, out of nowhere, came a video thought to feature the voice of Osama bin Laden claiming responsibility for rockets launched from southern Lebanon into Israel in January. Whether al Qaeda had anything to do with it or not (I’ll save that for another post), it’s never a good thing to hear bin Laden talking about your country. Especially just after 10 suspected terrorists, thought to be members of the al Qaeda-aligned Fatah al Islam group, were arrested.

So there you have it: two weeks in the NYT’s top tourist destination for 2009. And although many Lebanese are adamant peace will hold, when the country’s fighter jets took to the skies above Beirut this week, after last being deployed over 30 years ago, it was hardly surprising that the city’s visitors from the Gulf were scrambling to evacuate.

If the tourism ministry wants to hit its target of 2 million tourists this year, they’d better warn everyone next time the vintage Hawker Hunters are taken for a spin.

The tourism sector, one of the corner stones of the economy of the Indian Administered Kashmir, seems to be in jeopardy. Tourist arrival rates have taken a nose dive ever since concocted media reports of the presence of ‘Taliban’ in the region. These reports dealt such a blow that local tour operators say that the tourism has fallen by 80% while the government authorities say that the fall is more than 50%.

The misleading reports that Taliban had entered the valley in a good number were run by a leading Indian Television Channel. The channel said it got access to some wireless intercept reportedly suggesting that a group of nearly 20 militants, said to be Taliban, were fighting the Army in the Gurez sector of North Kashmir.

The news quickly hit the inflow of tourists and the first causality was the Tulip carnival held at the onset of Spring to signal the arrival of tourist season in the region. The carnival is organized by the state run tourism department along with the floriculture department at South Asia’s largest Tulip garden set up near the banks of Dal lake. These government departments had great expectations that this year the carnival would add to their revenue as the Tulip garden expansion has been criticized for being  wasteful expenditure with less returns.

In 2008 the authorities had projected that the revenues would go up every year and that ‘Tulipmania’ would grip the political class and tourists and bowl over producers from the Indian Film Industry who might also be interested in shooting in the garden.

The tulip garden this year had 70 different varieties imported from Holland spread over several hectares, but the festive mood was eclipsed after the ‘Taliban’ news reports. What these reports produced was cancellations of bookings by the tourists expected to arrive from other Indian Sates and some foreign nations.

The Chief Minister of Indian Administered Kashmir Omer Abdullah who himself is a admirer of this Tulip garden went into the damage control mode saying that the reports were not based on factual findings. After the Indian Home Ministry sought reports from the Army on the presence of ‘Taliban’ the Indian Army Chief, General Deepak Kapoor too cleared the air by saying that there are no traces of Taliban in the region. The army recently paraded a militant belonging to Pakistan, reportedly in caught by them, and maneuvered him to refute Taliban presence in this region.

The tourism department is once again trying to woo tourists, even though the tulips have withered and Taliban presence, such that it was, has vanished, but the result is a big dent in the tourism economy of Indian Administered Kashmir.