The Great Express, a luxury overnight train for rich Russians and foreign tourists is now running between Moscow and St. Petersburg.  The cost ranges from 3,150 roubles, or $110, for the nine-hour overnight trip in a first-class seat to 12,500 roubles for a luxury compartment with a bed and bathroom.  All compartments are fitted with flat-screen televisions showing satellite channels and have wireless Internet connections.

The US government is dropping plans to collect data from commercial data bases to identify potential terrorists on passenger lists. The main reason cited is concern over privacy.

You don't have to go far to encounter trouble!  New research from the UK's Direct Line Travel Insurance indicates that over one in 10 Britons has been robbed while on holiday and a further 27 percent know someone who has. Spain is the country with the highest number of thefts with 38 percent of those who have experienced robberies claiming it happened there.  France is next on the list with 14 percent, Italy seven per cent and Greece five percent.

Money is the most frequently stolen possession (41 percent), followed by purses, wallets, cameras and jewellery.

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.”

A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?

Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?

Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we'll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!

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.

Ever worried about being able to access your cash whilst overseas?  These two websites allow you to locate Visa and Mastercard ATMs.

A monk has travelled from China to Ruabon, near Wrexham in Wales to help open a special temple to teach the ancient discipline of Shaolin.  Shi Xing Du will draft a syllabus for students to learn the Shaolin way, which includes kung fu, Chinese medicine, Buddhism and meditation.  The centre of the discipline's teaching is the Shaolin temple in the Henan Province of China, which is a Buddhist temple.  Shi Xing Du said he knew instinctively that north Wales was the right place to create a temple. “Wales is beautiful and I think it is the right place to set up a school,” he said.  Speaking through his disciple Pol Wong, he said the area surrounding the school in Ruabon was similar to the area around the Shaolin temple on the Song Shan Mountain.  To find out more information, see: http://www.chenloong.com/school.htm

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.

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

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.

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

Since 2001, in Swaziland, teenage girls have had to wear large woollen tassels as a sign of their chastity. Now news comes that Swaziland's King Mswati III has ended a five-year sex ban he imposed on the kingdom's teenage girls a year early and there is to be a ceremony where all tassels are burned. The sex ban was allegedly imposed to fight the spread of HIV/Aids.

The king fined himself a cow for breaking the ban by marrying again – he married a 17-year-old girl as his ninth wife just two months after imposing the sex-ban in September 2001, sparking unprecedented protests by Swazi women outside the royal palace. Swaziland has one of the world's highest HIV infection rates, at about 40% of the population. Meanwhile, the health ministry has released new figures which show that 29% of Swazis aged 15-19 are HIV positive and for pregnant women, the figures were 42%.

British airline bmi plans to launch daily services to Mumbai. Bmi, which hopes to compete with larger rivals British Airways and Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic, starts the four-times-a-week service from London to Mumbai this Saturday.

Kenya Airways will start direct flights to Istanbul in June 2005, hoping to serve an increasing number of African traders visiting Turkey. The twice weekly flights to Istanbul will make Kenya Airways the only airline from sub-Saharan Africa to fly to Turkey, the airline said.

Mexico's government is privatising top carriers Mexicana and Aeromexico, and has recently handed out concessions to low-cost airlines. A Mexican billionaire called Carlos Slim and broadcaster Televisa are joining forces in a new low-cost airline to be called Vuela. Vuela already has a concession to operate and expects to begin flights in the first half of next year from the international airport in Toluca, west of Mexico City. Earlier in July 2005, Brazilian airline Gol said it planned to launch a low-cost carrier in Mexico. Another new airline, ABC Aerolineas, also plans to begin service in the low-cost market, which has quickly grown in the United States and Europe with mixed results.

Yes, it is possible to tour one of the most famous television centres in the world. The tour lasts up to 2 hours. You'll see into the studios, visit BBC News, play in the interactive studio and be shown around by well-informed, entertaining guides.

Please note that Television Centre is a working building so no two tours are ever the same.

Pre-booking is essential. Regular tours Monday to Saturday. They are open to anyone over 9 years old.

Prices – Adult £8.95 Concession £7.95

Students £6.50

Children (over 9 years) – £6.50

Family ticket (2 adults & 2 children or 1 adult & 3 children) £25.00

Group rates available
Prices valid until 31st March 2006

To book tickets:

Please call: 0870 603 0304

Outside the UK call: +44 28 9053 5904

Textphone for hearing-impaired callers: 0870 903 0304

If you have any special interests or requirements please state them at the time of booking.

The Inka Porter Project has issued a new set of environmental guidelines for trekkers on the Inca Trail in Peru and other Andean hiking circuits. Visit their website at www.peruweb.org/porters for the full guidelines, which give advice on dealing with rubbish, washing with biodegradable soap, using refillable water bottles, toilet etiquette while trekking, and how best to respect flora and fauna.

Reunion Kingston London Sunday 11th Sept 2005 for any member of Globetrotters who travelled overland to India or on the rail tours organised by Butterfields. Please e-mail butterfieldashley@yahoo.co.uk

In a speech accusing the South African government of failing to make crime a priority issue, a South African politician claims that the murder rate in South Africa is roughly the same as the death rate from terror attacks on civilians in Iraq. “The murder rate in South Africa, at about 43 murders per 100 000 people, is roughly the same as the death rate from terror attacks on civilians in Iraq” were the figures quoted. “So, despite the government's claims that crime is 'stabilising', South Africans are still living in what amounts to a state of civil war between criminals and law-abiding residents.

According to the South African Law Commission, only 6% of violent crimes reported to police result in a conviction, and 75% do not even make it to court. South Africa's overcrowded prisons were described as “universities of crime”. and said they are not rehabilitating criminals. An alarming recent trend is the rise in crime involving youths. “Forty-four percent of the children under 14 who were taken to Durban mortuaries in 2004 had been shot dead, for example.” Young people are also, increasingly, the perpetrators of crime. “The number of children convicted of violent crime jumped by 5% from 2003 to 2004, according to the National Institution for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders.

Spotted by Webmaster Paul, here's a satellite photo from Google of the Lake District.

French President Jacques Chirac has again urged world leaders to impose a levy on airline tickets to finance extra aid for Africa. If accepted, the tax would be imposed on tickets of planes leaving from airports in participating countries.

Chirac, who told the World Economic Forum in January that a tax of USD$1 per airline ticket could raise USD$10 billion a year to fund campaigns against diseases in Africa, pressed his case in a letter he wrote to more than 140 world leaders.

“I offer you to associate yourselves with the establishment of an international solidarity contribution on plane tickets, aimed, particularly, at financing the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria”.

The Group of Eight industrialized nations have decided to consider imposing a levy on airline tickets to finance extra aid for Africa, a proposal which has run into opposition in Europe and the United States.

Chirac's idea has received support from Germany, but even though talks so far have centered on a voluntary tax, some other European governments, including tourist destinations Greece and Italy, have given the idea an icy reception.

Every September the annual Open House London event takes place and this year the dates are 17th & 18th September 2005. Over 600 buildings are opening their doors to everyone and turning the capital into a living architectural exhibition. And it's absolutely free!

Two former America West pilots have been convicted of operating a packed passenger plane while drunk and sent to prison on Thursday by a Florida judge, who called their crime “outrageous and horrendous.”

Judge David Young sentenced Thomas Cloyd, 47, to five years behind bars — the maximum term — and Christopher Hughes, 44, to 2-1/2 years in prison for trying to fly from Miami Airport on July 1, 2002, after a night of beer drinking.

The pilots' Airbus A319 aircraft was being towed to the runway for takeoff to Phoenix with 124 passengers and three flight attendants aboard when it was ordered back to the terminal. A security screener had reported that the pilots smelled of alcohol. They had spent the evening before playing pool and drinking at a Miami area bar. They left the bar around 5 a.m. after running up a tab for 14 jumbo glasses of beer — the equivalent of nearly 22 pints (10.5 litres) — and showed up late for the 10:30 a.m. flight. FAA rules bar pilots from consuming alcohol for eight hours before a flight.

Unusually high concentrations of jellyfish have appeared along Spain's Mediterranean coast this summer. The Red Cross said its lifeguards had treated almost 11,000 people for stings on beaches so far this season in the north eastern region of Catalonia alone, twice the number from the same period last year, when the jellyfish count had already begun to rise. Factors like drought, heat and over fishing contribute to a rising jellyfish count, according to the international environmental group Oceana.

France: water-rationing is in place across more than half of France, with the west particularly affected by drought. A plague of locusts in the south of France, around Aveyron, has been put down to the continuing dry, hot weather.

Spain: is suffering its worst drought since records began in 1947, with the east particularly badly hit. Temperatures have risen to 40C (104F) in parts of Andalusia, in the south. Water is also being rationed across half the country, including in major tourist centres.

Portugal: Portugal faces its worst dry spell since the 1940s. Some 97% of the country is suffering a severe or extreme drought, ministers say. Shortages are particularly acute in the Algarve region, where the population more than doubles during the peak tourist season.

Italy: the temperature has topped 35C (95F) in cities including Milan, Florence and Turin. Several people have died in northern Italy as a result of the intense heat.

According to the Nepal Tourism Bureau, in the first four months of this year, covering the peak spring tourist season, Nepal logged roughly 72,000 tourists, a reduction of 34 percent from the same period last year. The Tourism Board has also tried to lure back trekkers, slashing fees by half – to about $5,000 for a team of seven – for some prime peaks, including Kanchenjunga, which at 8,600 meters, or 28,200 feet, is the world's third-highest mountain. Government tourism officials have said that Nepal, after King Gyanendra's emergency proclamation, is safer than ever before.

The Maoist insurgents, who have been fighting the government since 1996, officially welcome foreign tourists. Well, they would – a significant part of their income is derived from charges or tolls extracted from individual tourists, lodges and other tourism-related industries.

Many foreigners have stayed away from Nepal. Peace Corps activities were suspended in September because the U.S. government lists the Maoist rebel group as a terrorist organization so American citizens are forbidden to contribute funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Maoists, according to the State Department.

Huge parts of the countryside are effectively no man's land, where the rebels or government troops may be found. On the Annapurna trail, there are plenty of rebels who try to collect their taxes from tourists and it is considered dangerous to refuse the demands of the guerrillas. The Mount Everest trail from Lukla onward remains untouched by fighting, according to trekking groups that organize tours to Everest.

Sometimes a tourist hotel is bombed, but it is said that this some of these attacks are staged because the hotel owner's payments to the guerrillas have been regarded as unsatisfactory. The latest incident came on May 20, when a hotel in Pokhara, in the foothills of the Himalayas and a stop on the Annapurna trail, was attacked with a homemade bomb, injuring two waiters.

Educational travel conference at York St John College in York, UK on Saturday 15th October 2005 from 9.30 am to 5.00 pm. Tickets cost £15 (£10 for students) including lunch and refreshments.

A practical day of advice and guidance to help prepare and support young travellers on their gap year travels.

Young travellers, educators and parents are
encouraged to attend this one day Educational Travel Conference & Exhibition which will provide information & options on how to get the maximum out of travel experiences whilst keeping safe.

Full programme of experts including former BBC war correspondent and independent MP, Martin Bell and Deidre Bounds, founder of Leeds-based i-to-i the UK's largest company specialising in volunteer travel.

For further information, see:
www.carolinesrainbowfoundation.org

When the first modern humans evolved in Africa, they lived mainly on meat hunted from animals. Scientists had always thought the exodus from Africa around 70,000 years ago took place along a northern route into Europe and Asia. Now, according to a new genetic study, it seems that early modern humans followed the beach, possibly lured by a seafood diet. The study believes that humans quickly reached Australia but took much longer to settle in Europe. Dr Martin Richards of the University of Leeds, who took part in the study, says the first humans may have moved south in search of better fishing grounds when stocks in the Red Sea dwindled due to climate change. The new research suggests they moved along the coasts of the Arabian peninsula into India, Indonesia and Australia about 65,000 years ago. An offshoot later led to the settlement of the Middle East and Asia about 30 to 40,000 years ago.

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.

Potential good news for those wishing to travel to Spain. According to newspaper ABC, Spain's flag-carrier Iberia will launch a low-cost airline at the beginning of next year. The new airline may be called “Mediterranea” and will have its hub in the Mediterranean city of Barcelona, the paper said. An Iberia spokeswoman said it was still considering the option of a no-frills sibling, but nothing had been decided yet. “We still don't know whether we're going to do it or not,” the spokeswoman said. “It's something that will be covered in the strategic plan we'll unveil in September.”

Pieces of a man’s body including the right leg, part of the spine and a hip, struck a garage roof of the home in South Floral Park, New York, before landing in the backyard are believed to have fallen from the wheel well of a South African Airways passenger plane bound for New York’s Kennedy Airport. A US customs inspector discovered the rest of the man’s body after Flight 203 landed in New York from Johannesburg. A South African Airways spokeswoman said it appeared to have been a stowaway attempt and that the plane had stopped in Dakar, Senegal, on its way to New York. During the flight, Smith said the pilot felt more “vibrating sensations and heard pounding, but nothing appeared wrong with the plane.”

A Chinese boy died after falling from the landing gear of a passenger jet on take-off in north China. The stowaway, believed to be aged around 10, fell from a China Eastern Airbus A320 at the airport in Dunhuang, a popular tourist spot for Buddhist grottoes in Gansu province, Xinhua news agency said without elaborating. The jet, en route from Dunhuang to the provincial capital of Lanzhou, landed safely.

Last November, a 14 year old homeless boy who stowed away in the landing gear of a plane survived a 700 km (430 miles) flight across southwest China. A friend riding with him fell from the plane and died.

John from London wrote in to share some information about getting to London Stansted airport. He says:

I share your frustrations about the cost and unreliability of the train service to Stansted, but do you know about the National Express bus service from Stratford BR/Underground station?

It costs £7 single and £12 for a return, (a saving of £2), it leaves every half an hour, even during the night and takes 45 minutes because it’s only a spit from Stratford to the M11.

For more information, see: NationalExpress.

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.

Have you ever wanted to present a travel programme? Do you see yourself as a budding Judith Chalmers or Michael Palin? Or, do you just have a passion for the Island of Ireland? If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then this is the challenge for you.

We’re on the lookout for two friends to front Ireland’s first ever online ‘travelmentary’, filming daily reports on the trip of a lifetime for thousands of Internet users. A camera crew will follow the lucky winners as they are chauffeured around Ireland in their very own Tourism Ireland luxury ‘taxi’ and given the chance to win up to г10,000.

To enter, just send a one-minute video clip of you and a friend explaining why you should be chosen to enjoy the Taxi Challenge. For further details on the challenge and how to enter visit www.tourismireland.com/taxi

So, find a friend, get out your video cameras and send us a one-minute clip telling us why you should front the Taxi Challenge.

Remember all you have to do is visit www.tourismireland.com/taxi

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

Camels were introduced to Australia in the 19th Century as desert transport creatures. Australian officials say the country’s camel population has grown to about 700,000 in recent years and because they have no local predators, their numbers are growing by an estimated 11% per year, and population size has been doubling about once every eight years. State land officials decided a cull was the most efficient way to manage camel numbers. “The simplest, quickest and most cost effective way of doing that is an aerial cull,” said rural lands inspector Chris Turner. Marksmen riding in helicopters would track the camels and shoot them from the air, Mr Turner told Australia’s ABC radio.