New York Times mistakes dwarf park employees for Clinton, Chilean president
Kunming theme park Dwarf Empire has been receiving increasing attention from foreign media, even spurring ethical debates, but it is now part of a gaffe which may be in the running for one of the bigger blunders made by the New York Times.

Earlier this month, the Times ran a photo of two female Dwarf Empire employees dressed as angels, with the incorrect caption "Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet".

The error, which has since been corrected, was initially caught by the Times' rival The Washington Post and gained wide attention after being noted in the popular blog Boing Boing.

Report: China, Bangladesh to build Kunming - Chittagong transport corridor
China and Bangladesh are set to agree on a plan to develop a transport corridor between Kunming and port city Chittagong this week, according to Indian media reports.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh will meet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao this week seeking assistance for a US$8.7 billion deepwater port at Chittagong and accompanying rail and road links. Hasina arrives in Beijing tomorrow.

Also on the itinerary for Hasina's visit to China is a weekend stop in Kunming to examine the prospect of extending Yunnan's highway network into Bangladesh via Myanmar.

Indian media has taken interest in the development which, should it come to fruition, would be a significant Chinese foothold in the Bay of Bengal, which has traditionally been India's backyard.

In addition to its geostrategic ramifications, the transport corridor would make it easier for some goods shipped eastward to China to enter the mainland, avoiding the narrow Malacca Strait, home to pirates and US warships.

If rail links are built they would run through Myanmar and might eventually be part of the vast Eurasian rail network centered around Kunming that Beijing is currently promoting.

Kunming-Lhasa flights to resume this month
On March 28 China Eastern Airlines will resume flights from Kunming to Lhasa, Tibet, which were suspended in September of last year.

The daily flights will depart Kunming at 7:00 am and arrive in Lhasa at 10:35 after a stop in Zhongdian, according to the Beijing-based Global Times. Returning flights will retrace the same route and are scheduled to depart Lhasa at 11:25am and arrive in Kunming at 3:00pm.

Little more than two years after becoming the third mainland city to have a direct air link with India, there is talk that regular weekly flights to Dubai, according to a Kunming Information Hub report.

The emirate, whose tanking economy has made markets tremble in recent days, has already become a favorite winter destination for outbound Kunming tourists who prefer luxury travel, according to Zhu Bowei, general manager at Kunming Fengguang Travel.

Kunming Overseas Travel Center director Hao Xianzhong told reporters that China Eastern Airlines may be announcing the addition of a Kunming-Dubai route as soon as this month.

Hao added that given Dubai's current economic woes, Chinese travelers would likely be able to take advantage of better deals than before.

Kunming is currently building a new airport that will serve as a major international gateway airport for China, with direct flights expected to destinations in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Australia and North America.

Dubai image: tripadvisor.com

Kunming foreign trade up 43.6% in July
Kunming Customs announced that in July the city's foreign trade grew by 43.6 percent over July of the previous year, according to a Kunming Daily report. The total value of Kunming's imports and exports reached US$790 million, making July the city's biggest month for foreign trade so far this year.

Buoyed by a growing manufacturing sector, Kunming exported US$380 million in goods last month, with the total value of imports reaching US$410 million. Kunming's foreign trade for the first seven months of this year totaled US$3.71 billion.

Four injured after hospital sword attack
Four men are injured with three in critical condition at Kunyi Number Two Affiliated Hospital (昆医附二 院) after a group of men with swords attacked them at the hospital, the Yunnan Information Times is reporting.

According to eyewitnesses, four or five men wielding knives with blades as long as one meter attacked four men, during which time hospital security guards reportedly fled. Neither the men's identities nor the reason for the attack have been made clear.

A hospital spokesperson said its best staff were attending to the injured men. Some of the men's relatives have complained that the hospital is responsible for the attack because its security staff abandoned their posts.

China Eastern to launch Kunming-Jinghong-Bangkok route
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced that China Eastern Airlines has applied to serve a new route linking Kunming and Bangkok through Jinghong in southern Yunnan's Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, according to a Flightglobal report.

The new route, which is scheduled to be launched in October, is expected to operate seven times weekly.

India's national government has decided not to go forward with plans to rebuild the Stilwell Road connecting northeast India's Assam State with Yunnan in China, according to a BBC report.

The decision follows a continuing impasse regarding the long-disputed border shared by China and India. Recent talks between the two countries ended with no resolution of border issues and a promise to talk more in the future.

The Stilwell Road is a former World War II supply route built in 1944 under the supervision of US General 'Vinegar' Joe Stilwell. The 1,700-kilometer (1,000-mile) road once connected Kunming with the city of Ledo in Assam state, with most of the road passing through northern Myanmar's Kachin state.

Several prominent officials in Assam state had been pressing for the reopening of the Stilwell Road in recent years, which they had viewed as being a potential source of economic growth which could stabilize India's occasionally restive northeast.

In 2006, more than 10,000 demonstrators demanded that the government reopen the road. Some analysts have estimated that as much as one-fifth of bilateral trade between China and India could pass through a revived Stilwell Road.

In addition to New Delhi's reluctance to reopen the Stilwell Road, the government of Myanmar has been cool to the idea of an international highway passing through Kachin state, much of which is controlled by the Kachin Independence Army, which has had a ceasefire with Myanmar's ruling junta since 1994.

The Chinese portion of the road, which heads westward from Kunming, has been completed for several years. Progress in Myanmar, where more than half of the road is located, has been slow. In 2007, India became the last of the three countries to start work on the road.

The Indian government's reversal of its decision to rebuild the Stilwell Road suggests that despite recent diplomatic breakthroughs between the two Asian powers, there are concerns bubbling beneath the surface. These concerns are likely to include Indian worries about China diverting the Brahmaputra River, Chinese involvement in the arms trade around Assam and China's stance toward Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing calls 'South Tibet'.

Nazeeb Arif, a native of Assam state and former secretary-general of the Indian Chamber of Commerce who is a major proponent of rebuilding the Stilwell Road, told the BBC that trade with China would be a boon to the region's economy, which lags behind much of the rest of the country:


Although New Delhi's unwillingness to rebuild its portion of the Stilwell Road is a major setback to pan-Asian transport integration, China will likely continue to increase its connectivity with the rest of South Asia, especially Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Earlier this week, the Nepalese government recently approved the launch of direct flights between Kathmandu and Kunming. The thrice-weekly flights will be plied by China Eastern Airlines and will make Kunming the third mainland city after Beijing and Guangzhou to have direct air links with the Nepalese capital.

Local party paper Kunming Daily is trumpeting the record amount of passenger traffic in the skies of Yunnan – the province's 12 airports now serve a total of 237 routes.

Breaking down the numbers a bit, Yunnan serves 204 domestic passenger air routes and 33 international routes. In terms of international flights, Kunming is connected to Southeast Asian destinations by 21 routes and South Asia by five routes.

This year Yunnan's airports, especially Kunming's, have been busy adding new passenger routes, in the first half of the year the following routes have been launched:

• Kunming-Yancheng-Harbin (China Eastern Airlines)
• Kunming-Tengchong (China Eastern)
• Kunming-Taipei (EVA Air)
• Kunming-Chongqing-Wuxi (China Eastern)
• Kunming-Chengdu-Kangding (China Eastern)

In addition to the above stable routes, the following temporary routes were launched earlier this year:

• Kunming-Chengdu-Beirut (China Eastern)
• Kunming-Phnom Penh-Nanning (China Eastern)

China Eastern is also preparing to launch direct passenger services between Kunming and Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, on July 17.

Beginning July 17, it will be possible to fly from Kunming directly to Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, according to a China Hospitality News report.

The thrice-weekly flights to Kathmandu will depart Kunming every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.

The Kunming-Kathmandu route is the third direct flight from Kunming to a South Asian city. There are already flights from Kunming to Kolkata, India and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The new route is the third international flight added by China Eastern's Yunnan branch this year. The branch airline has also launched flights from Kunming to Siam Reap, Cambodia and Phuket, Thailand this year.

South Asia is one of the fastest growing trade partners for Yunnan – Kunming now hosts an annual South Asian Commodities Expo alongside the Kunming Fair.

Airfare for the new route has yet to be released. For information about Nepal visas, check the Nepalese Department of Immigration website.

Kathmandu image: journals.worldnomads.com

The Yunnan provincial government and the parent company of China Eastern Airlines have reached an agreement to form a new joint venture airline to serve the high-potential but relatively undeveloped Yunnan aviation market, according to a China Daily report.

The company, 65 percent of which will be owned by China Eastern Air Holding Company with the remainder held by the Yunnan State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, will begin a new chapter in the historically strained relationship between the airline and the Yunnan government.

During a 2005 restructuring of China's domestic aviation industry, Shanghai-based China Eastern took over Yunnan Airlines from the Yunnan government, after which it ceased being an independent company.

China Daily sources said that relations between the two parties soured after China Eastern reallocated most of Yunnan Airlines' capacity to serve the Shanghai market, thus reducing the company's local market share. According to the source:


According to the agreement, the new airline's fleet will reach 40 planes by the end of this year and 50 by 2011. Financial terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed.

The deal's announcement comes as Kunming is building a new airport that is expected to significantly increase its domestic and international air links. The new airport is officially scheduled to launch operations by 2011.

In recent years, the relationship between Asian giants China and India has gradually shifted from vocal distrust to guarded optimism. With the political thaw between the two countries, an economic relationship has grown rapidly – in 2002 bilateral trade was a mere US$2 billion, last year that number surpassed US$51 billion.

As China and India continue to open up to each other, the lack of sufficient transportation links is hampering trade and tourism. With both countries eager to increase interconnectivity, Kunming is emerging as China's de facto gateway to India.

Beginning in June, China Eastern Airlines will increase its flight services between Kunming and Kolkata, capital of eastern India's West Bengal state, from four to seven flights weekly, according to Indian media reports.

Li Ji, general manager of China Eastern's Kolkata operations, told reporters in India that more flights will be added to the Shanghai-New Delhi route, which currently has only three flights weekly.

Li said increasing tourism between the two countries was the driving force behind the decision to increase flight services. At present, China Eastern flights between the two countries have full occupancy, he added.

Local politics in India, particularly the country's occasionally restive northeast, are also beginning to focus on increasing connectivity with Kunming. MP and parliamentary election candidate Sarbananda Sonowal, from Assam state's Dibrugarh constituency in the Lok Sabha (LS) – India's directly elected lower house of parliament – has become one of India's most vocal proponents of a road to Kunming.

Sonowal has been arguing for a reopening of the Stilwell Road, a former World War II supply route built in 1944 under the supervision of US General Joe Stilwell. The 1,700-kilometer (1,000-mile) road once connected Kunming with the city of Ledo in Assam state, with most of the road passing through northern Myanmar.

Rather than serving as a military supply road, Sonowal imagines a resuscitated Stilwell Road as becoming a new channel for trade between India and China. China's portion of the road – all of it located in Yunnan – has already been upgraded to a modern six-lane expressway.

The main obstacles to the road's revival have been the fact that it passes through Myanmar's politically volatile north, plus a general reluctance by the Indian government, which has voiced security and drug trafficking concerns about the road in the recent past.

"The reopening of Stilwell Road is important not only for people of ... Dibrugarh LS constituency, but also for entire (Indian) northeast, as it would re-establish this region's old trade links with China and other countries in Southeast Asia," Sonowal recently told Indian reporters.

Goods transported between India and China via a new Stilwell Road would take two days to make the trip. At present, sea cargo between the two countries must pass south of Singapore and through the Malacca Strait. Reopening the Stilwell Road would cut the distance between China and India by 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles).