A row is brewing over the renewal of the Singapore Airlines advertising contract, worth in the region of SGD$50 million (USD$33 million). The current image projected by Singapore Airlines in all their ads is of an Oriental girl wearing a tight fitting sarong kebaya uniform, created by French designer Pierre Balmain. Singapore Airlines have said that it will not give up the iconic image and uniform of its Singapore Girl flight attendants. Critics say it is sexist and outmoded and the images are passé and largely intended to serve male passengers’ fantasies of desirable, subservient Oriental women.

Royal Nepal Airlines has apologized to Peru after mistakenly putting a picture of Peru’s tourism icon, Machu Picchu, on a poster under a slogan “Have you seen Nepal?” This was noticed by Peruvian mountaineer Ernesto Malaga, who was visiting India last month, and saw the poster hanging on a wall in the airline’s office in New Delhi. Peruvian authorities requested explanations from the airline via the embassy. “The airline … offered apologies to Peru for using the picture of the Machu Picchu Sanctuary on a poster to promote their country and assured that the lamentable error has been corrected,” the statement said.

In this e-news, we have Nepal advertising Machu Picchu, more news of mistaken identity – this month Serbia’s first PR campaign since the end of the Balkan wars in the 1990s has gone horribly wrong. The commercial called “Serbia – Moments to Remember” which was not received well by Serbians for being boring, misleading and showing Serbia as a land of rolling hills, churches and nature reserves full of wildlife, but no people. Worse than that, CNN used the soundtrack for a Kazakh tourism ad as backing music o the Serbian advert by mistake. Serb viewers also spotted that one medieval church featured prominently in the ad was not Serbian but Romanian, on the wrong side of the Danube river on Serbia’s eastern border. Officials said they will edit the commercial to highlight the fun side of Serbia, including the vibrant cafe culture and nightlife of the capital Belgrade.

A recent American survey of over 2,000 gay travellers, 21 and older, found that San Francisco was the top “gay-friendly” destination, followed by Key West, Fla.; New York City; Fire Island, which is part of Long Island in New York; Provincetown, Mass.; Los Angeles; Miami-South Beach, Fla.; Las Vegas; New Orleans, and Palm Springs-Palm Desert, Calif. Nearly half of gay and lesbian travellers said that whether a destination has a “gay-friendly” reputation matters when they are making leisure travel choices. A place where “they can hold their partner’s hand in public” without fear of harassment was cited as an example of something that more than half of gay men and more than two-thirds of gay women look for when they are choosing a destination, according to the survey.

Police in India’s Western state of Gujarat are to wear new uniforms impregnated with the fragrance of flowers and citrus to help improve their image. “Most policemen look hassled, drenched in sweat after coming from any scene of crime,” said Somesh Singh, a designer at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad that drew up the uniforms on request of the state government. “They are surely not the best person one would like to meet, but if they smell good and fresh one might as well approach them,” said Singh. The cotton fabric will not only have a fragrant finish, but also an optic technology to make the uniform glow in the dark so officials can be located easily.

A Mauritanian man hijacked a plane to France and demanded that it go to France. The man was unable to speak French and spoke only Arabic. The pilot told him that he did not have enough fuel to go to France and that they would land in the Canary Islands. Then, over the loud speaker system, the pilot told the passengers, in French, that he would land very hard on the runway and speed up, so when the armed hijacker was knocked over on landing, please could the passengers jump him. They did. “When the pilot landed he deliberately braked very hard. The man fell to the ground and was jumped on by passengers. He fired two bullets but there are no serious injuries,” the Mauritanian sources said.

If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites

Valentine’s Day has been and gone, and if, like the Beetle you did not receive any declarations of undying love, there’s always some of America’s most desirable felons who are lining up to send you love letters, poems and even proposals of marriage. If that is your cup of tea, take a look at: www.hotprisonpals.com. Inmates, both heterosexual and gay, pay $19 to post their photograph and a short note on the site. Women inmates are also invited to join hotprisonpals, but none has applied so far.

With no access to the Internet, letters are often the only contact U.S. prisoners have with the outside world. “Prisoners have real abandonment issues. Friends and family often stop writing after a couple of years,” said Bangkok based Jason Rupp, a 30 year old photographer who built the Web site in 2003.

British Airways seem to be going all Ryanair on us. The latest hoo-hah is going to hit travellers with more than one check in item of luggage hard. Passengers flying with British Airways could face an additional cost of $470 if they choose to take an extra bag with them on a return flight. The airline has announced that from February 13, 2007 the cost of checking in an extra bag on a one-way long-haul flight will be $235 (£120). Short-haul travellers will face a $118 (£60) per bag fee, while those taking UK domestic flights will have to fork out $90 (£42) for each additional case.”

Hundreds of Russian fishermen were recently rescued from ice-floes which began to drift after breaking away from the shore off Sakhalin island in the Sea of Okhotsk. The anglers had been fishing through holes drilled in the ice, a traditional winter pursuit for many Russians. The Emergencies Ministry rescued all 442 people who were adrift, although about 70 had initially refused to leave without their gear. One ministry official was quoted as saying many of those rescued were in a state of “heavy alcoholic intoxication”.

Machu Picchu is a Unesco World Heritage Site and currently attracts as many as 2,500 visitors a day. A controversial 80-metre (262ft) bridge, due to open in February 2007 will create a new route to the Incan ruins and enable locals to take produce to Cusco in three hours instead of 12. Critics, however, say that the new bridge could have a damaging impact on tourism to the ruins by increasing tourist numbers, which could damage the ruins and lead to an increase in drug trafficking in the region. Unesco inspectors are due to inspect the site later this year to ascertain whether its status is endangered

My name is Christina Yang, and I wanted to introduce you to the organization I am volunteering for as I think it would be a great resource for independent travellers to know about.

CICERONES DE BUENOS AIRES is a non-profit organization that offers a free tour guide service. It is a greeter program, to help visitors explore the city through the eyes of a porteño (Buenos Aires resident.) The service is similar to the “Big Apple Greeters” in New York, and as it is a non-profit it is completely free. It is a great service for everyone, but especially for independent travellers because it is essentially a way to make a friend in an unknown place. For more information, visit www.cicerones.org.ar, or you can e-mail at contacto@cicerones.org.ar.

Professor Stephen Hawking, the eminent professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, author of erudite books recently warned that future generations would need to leave the planet to ensure the survival of the species. He is quoted as having said that space rockets using Star Trek technology like the ‘warp drive’ would be needed to colonise hospitable planets. Professor Hawking also spoke of his desire to go into space, and appealed to the Virgin tycoon, Sir Richard Branson, who is planning a “space tourism” venture, to realise his ambition. “My next goal is to go into space. Maybe Richard Branson will help me,” he said. “Sooner or later, disasters such as an asteroid collision or nuclear war could wipe us all out. But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe. There isn’t anywhere like the Earth in the solar system, so we would have to go to another star.

MTV and Frommer’s travel Guides

MTV has teamed up with Frommer’s travel guide to publish a series of travel guides specifically for young holidaymakers and those studying abroad. The guides offer a unique perspective on popular hotspots such as Ireland, Italy and Europe in general. In addition, further travel guides on Spain, France, England and road trips in the US are planned for April next year. The MTV Travel Guides can also be downloaded in podcast format from Frommers.com and iTunes.

If you, like the Beetle have a yen to go and visit the gorillas, it is disheartening to learn from a recent survey that over 5,000 gorillas may have died in recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus in central Africa. Scientists warn that, coupled with the commercial hunting of gorillas, it may be enough to push them to extinction. One of the most virulent viruses known, Ebola has killed more than 1,000 people since it was first recorded in 1976. Scientists are still working on a vaccine and there is no known cure. In 2002 and 2003, several outbreaks of Ebola flared up in human populations in Gabon and Congo. Outbreaks of the disease in humans have sometimes been traced to the bush meat trade.

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