Kunming to roll out free public bicycles
The Kunming municipal government has announced a plan to provide bicycles for free use by the public, according to a Dushi Shibao report. The report said the plan has been received by the public with approval, tempered with a skepticism that the bikes will all be stolen.

Dali posts record holiday numbers
During this year's eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival 'Golden Week' holiday, Dali set new records for holiday visitors and tourist revenue, according to a Kunming Information Hub report.

Approximately 590,000 domestic and international tourists visited Dali in the first eight days of October, an increase of 44.9 percent over the same holidays one year ago. Revenue from tourism was 355 million yuan (US$52 million).

In addition to the traditional draws of Dali's old town and Three Pagodas, tourist visits to nearby Eryuan (洱源), Heqing (鹤庆) and Bingchuan (宾川) also reached new highs. Tourists driving their own vehicles – primarily from Kunming as well as Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi – accounted for more than 90,000 of the visitors to the Dali area over the holiday, the report said.

Yunnan banana joins Millennium Seed Bank
The Yunnan banana, aka Musa itinerans aka bajiao (芭蕉), has been added to Kew's Millennium Seed Bank at the Royal Botanical Gardens in the UK. The bajiao seeds were provided to the seed bank by the Kunming Institute of Botany.

The addition of bajiao seeds from Yunnan also marked the 10 percent mark for the seed bank, which now has seeds of 24,200 species in its possession, with a goal of ultimately collecting seeds of 242,000 species. The seed bank is aiming to mitigate the possibility of extinction for the world's flowering plants, 70 percent of which are under threat.

The bajiao plant, which exists in an area spanning from Yunnan into Southeast Asia and India, is threatened by the increased clearing of jungle for agriculture. Despite not being a major crop for human consumption, it can be used to breed disease-resistant hybrid banana varieties. It is also a staple for the endangered Asian elephant and other animals in the region.

The bajiao seeds have been dried and are now being stored at -20 degrees Celsius in a US$131 million facility, located in Sussex. The seed bank estimates that as many as one quarter of the world's flowering plant species may be on the brink of extinction by the middle of this century.

Construction on the rail line connecting Dali with Lijiang has been completed and will be running in time for the National Day holiday during the first week of October, according to a YunnanNet report. Construction on the rail line began in 2004.

The 164 kilometer rail line passes through some serious mountain country, with more than half of the trip made up of bridges or tunnels. Bridges account for 22 kilometers of the journey, with 78 kilometers passing through tunnels.

The Dali-Lijiang (大丽) line will begin at Dali East Station, traveling along the eastern shore of Erhai Lake with stops at Shangguan (上关), Xiyi (西邑) and Heqing (鹤庆) before arriving in Lijiang. At present, information about departure times and trip duration is unavailable.

Lijiang is one of China's most popular tourist destinations – in the first half of this year it was visited by 3.44 million tourists. The opening of a new rail connection with Dali and Kunming should translate to even more travelers visiting the city, which features attractions including its old town (a UNESCO World Heritage site), Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the nearby Tiger Leaping Gorge.

The extension of the Kunming-Dali rail line to Lijiang brings a proposed Kunming-Lhasa rail line one step closer to reality. The line will next be extended to Shangri-la and then to Lhasa.

The Kunming-Lhasa rail link would make Yunnan's capital the third provincial capital in western China with a direct rail link to Tibet after Xining in Qinghai and Chengdu in Sichuan, which will begin construction on a Chengdu-Lhasa rail line this month.

Dali-Lijiang rail line to open in December
The long-awaited Dali-Lijiang rail line (大丽铁路) is scheduled to commence operations on the last day of this year, according to a Dushi Shibao report.

Of the rail line's 164 kilometers, 22 kilometers are on bridges and 78 kilometers are tunneled – 62 percent of the line travels over bridges or through tunnels. At present, work crews are boring through Heluo Shan (禾洛山), the final mountain to be tunneled before the line enters Lijiang.

Work on the Dali-Lijiang line began in 2004. The line will begin at Dali East Station, traveling along the eastern shore of Erhai Lake with stops at Shangguan (上关), Xiyi (西邑) and Heqing (鹤庆) before arriving in Lijiang.

The rail line will eventually be extended to Shangri-la (Zhongdian) and then on to Lhasa.

Kunming to crack down on electric bicycles
Starting tomorrow, Kunming police will be cracking down on illegal operation of electric bicycles around the city and will be issuing fines ranging from five to 50 yuan, according to local media reports. Fineable offenses will include carrying multiple passengers, going the wrong way, riding in car lanes, riding on sidewalks and running red lights.

The combination of rapidly growing numbers of electric bicycles on Kunming's streets – there are an estimated 700,000 electric bikes in the city today - and the legal gray area the vehicles occupy have led to increasing safety problems.

In 2004, two people died in electric bike accidents in Kunming, compared to 20 last year and 13 in the first four months of this year. So far this year, electric bikes have been involved in roughly 25 percent of the traffic accident calls received by police.

The crackdown on electric bicycles will last 100 days, during which it is evidently hoped that vehicle owners will become accustomed to obeying traffic rules.

Man tests negative for swine flu, released from quarantine
The final passenger from a Mexican airline flight containing people infected with the H1N1 virus tested negative for the disease - more commonly known as swine flu – and was from quarantine in Kunming prior to the weekend.

Two days after news of the man's release, China's Health Ministry announced that the first suspected H1N1 case on the mainland - a thirty-year-old man returning from studying in the United States – was under quarantine in a hospital in Chengdu.