Singapore is following London's lead and plans to build a giant Ferris wheel.  Designers estimate that it will be 142 feet taller than the London Eye and say that visitors will be able to enjoy views of neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia from the 587ft-high wheel when it is completed in early 2008.

Campaigners organising Malaria Awareness Week say that British tourists are too complacent about contracting malaria as they travel to more and more far flung locations.  In particular, last minute bargain hunters are at risk because they don't leave time to arrange medication.  Last year around 5m travelled to risk areas, but 60% did not take the right health advice before they set out. Around 2,000 Britons get malaria each year, and deaths are low but rising.

Clarence House stands next to St James's Palace and was built between 1825 and 1827 to the designs of John Nash for Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence.  He lived there as King William IV from 1830 until 1837.  During the second world war, the War Organisation of the British Red Cross and Order of St. John of Jerusalem for the duration of the war. Two hundred staff of the Foreign Relations Department maintained contact from Clarence House with British prisoners-of-war abroad, and administered the Red Cross Postal Message Scheme.  In 1949 Clarence House was returned to Royal use, when it became the London home of Princess Elizabeth, elder daughter of George VI, following her marriage to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten on 20 November 1947. The couple could not move in straight away since the building needed complete refurbishment. Wartime restrictions on building work made progress slow. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, as they were then known, moved to their new home in June 1949.

It was the London home of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother from 1953 until 2002.  A story goes that she once (probably often) rang down to the butlers after getting no response from her bell pull and said in a very camp way: “I don't know what you old queens are doing down there but this old queen up here is dying for a glass of gin.” For a time Princess Margaret lived there too.  After the death of the Queen Mother, Clarence House became the official London residence of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall. It is open to the public during the summer months each year.

According to a recent study, some 30% of European flights from London Heathrow were delayed in 2004.

The average delay per flight was 33 minutes.  Zurich and Vienna were the second and third most affected at 26% and 24% respectively.

The lowest number of delays was reported at Oslo, where 13% of flights were delayed more than 15 minutes, with an average delay of 38.5 minutes. Helsinki, Brussels and Copenhagen airports also reported low delays.

Worst airline performer in the survey was Turkish Airlines with 100% of flights delayed out of Paris Charles de Gaulle, with an average delay of 428 minutes

On Wednesday, 29th March 2006, the shadow of the Moon will sweep a band starting from Brazil, through Atlantic Ocean, Gold Coast of Africa, Saharan Desert, Mediterranean Sea, Turkey, Black Sea, Georgia, Russian Federation, northern shores of Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan; ending in Mongolia. The duration of totality will be less than 2 minutes near the sunrise and sunset limits, but will be as long as 4 minutes and 7 seconds in Libya, at the moment of greatest eclipse.  The partial phases will be witnessed by all of Europe. All Asia west of Yakutsk, Mongolia, central China and Myanmar, and north of the line joining Bombay and Calcutta will see some of the Moon in front of the Sun. Also, only the south eastern parts of Africa will miss the partial eclipse.

Zimbabwe is said to be about to import four endangered Siberian tigers from China for captive breeding.  China had received zebras, elephants and impala as part of an “exchange programme”. Yes, this comes from a country that is rapidly imploding, people being displaced from their homes and land, rampaging inflation and there is not enough to eat.  A local biologist working in Bulawayo, said the plan was “a complete load of garbage”, adding that the country even lacked the resources to look after its own wildlife.

We have seen four fatal plane crashes this month in Europe and South America claim the lives of hundreds of people.   On 6 August at least 13 of 39 passengers and crew were killed after a Tunisian passenger plane made an emergency landing in the sea off the Italian island of Sicily.  On 14 August, all 121 passengers and crew on a Cyprus airline flight bound for Prague died when it crashed into a mountainside near Athens.  Two days later, a Colombian plane operated by West Caribbean Airways crashed in a remote region of Venezuela, killing all 160 people on board.  In the latest crash, a passenger plane came down in Peru's Amazon jungle, causing the deaths of at least 40 of the 100 people on board.  Investigations continue into what went wrong on these flights. 

The Operations and Safety editor of Flight International magazine says that airline safety worldwide is now six times better than it was 25 years ago.  In 1979 there were three fatal accidents per million flights, compared with one fatal accident per two million flights by last year, according to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) figures.  Safety improvements are due to better technology, compulsory industry audits and tougher competition, he said.  When compared with all other modes of transport on a fatality per kilometre basis, air transport is the safest, insists the Civil Aviation Authority.

Be careful what you write whilst on-line in China.  Yahoo was accused last week of helping Chinese authorities identify and imprison a reporter who described government fears about pro-democracy activists.  Shi Tao of China's Contemporary Business News attended a meeting at which an official read a government memo warning of possible social unrest during the 15th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.  Using an Internet alias, Shi described the government memo in an email sent to a U.S.-based pro-democracy website, incurring the anger of Chinese authorities.

According to Reporters Without Borders, Yahoo's Chinese division helped local authorities crack Shi's alias, leading to his arrest, two-hour trial, and 10-year prison sentence.  Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are all competing for a share of the Chinese internet market and all three come under criticism for lowering ethical standards when it comes to free speech.  In June, Microsoft fended off criticism for blocking Chinese bloggers on its sites from using words like “liberty,” “capitalism,” and “human rights.”

Need help? Want a travelling buddy or advice about a place or country – want to share something with us – why not visit our Mutual Aid section of the Website: Mutual Aid

Spotted by Webmaster Paul, here's a satellite photo from Google of the Stonehenge

British health officials are concerned that UK citizens are not taking E111 forms with them when they jump on a plane to EU countries.  Form E111 covers medical treatment at public health centres at the 25 EU countries, plus Switzerland. The forms are currently being replaced by European Health Insurance Cards – the same system under a different name, with neater credit card-sized identification. The Department of Health website (www.dh.gov.uk) has information on the changeover, and how to apply for the new cards.

Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, the third and fourth-largest US air carriers, both declared bankruptcy in September citing rising oil prices and low-cost competition among their reasons.

The latest in a series of setbacks for the $1.8bn (£1bn) Hong Kong Disneyland occurred after Health Inspectors were called in after three cases of food poisoning.  The two health officials were asked to take off their uniforms to avoid scaring clients.  Hong Kong officials, angered that food inspectors were asked to remove their uniforms told Disney it is “not above the law”.  Disney has apologised and has promised to comply with local laws.

An editorial in the Ming Pao Daily News says Hong Kong residents suspect Disney “wants to engineer special rights and turn the theme park into an independent kingdom that Hong Kong laws can't reach”.

The park faced criticism from animal welfare groups in July, after reports local officials had been called in to destroy at least 40 dogs roaming the site.  A month earlier, it withdrew shark fin soup from planned banquet menus after campaigners condemned the dish, a local luxury, as cruel and ecologically destructive.

A restaurant in north east China was closed down for listing stir fried tiger meat with peppers for US $98 or a kilo of tiger meat for US $ 863.  Maybe it was the fact that the sale of tiger meat is outlawed in China or that the restaurant was less than a mile away from a Siberian Tiger Park that attracted the attention of local authorities.  Police raided the restaurant to find that actually the tiger meat was donkey marinated in tiger urine – to give it “a special flavour”.  Hhhmm, nice.

Ministers from 23 countries in Africa and south-east Asia have appealed for international help to save the world's great apes from extinction.

Urgent action was needed to protect the great apes and provide sustainable ways of living for local communities, the UN-backed meeting in Kinshasa agreed.

Poaching and damage to forest habitats have led gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo and orang-utan numbers to fall sharply.

Need to convert currency?

Take a look at The Globetrotters Currency Converter – get the exchange rates for 164 currencies The Globetrotters Currency Cheat Sheet – create and print a currency converter table for your next trip.

Spotted on the Globetrotter's forum: http://milvetstravel.net/virtualtours.html is a website that allows you to take virtual tours of a whole host of places – check it out, it's pretty interesting!