This is a wonderful opportunity to make a truly great film. Lots of of great story material to work with. Great care needs to be taken with casting or it can be ruined.

For those that may wish to see a video of a restored P-40 Tomahawk fighter plane in flight in Flying Tiger markings look here:

www.p40warhawk.cn

Planning is carried out by individuals who often never need to use buses or taxis - or their feet for that matter.

If you're a pedestrian or a bus user you have lower status than a kid on a two wheeler with stabilizers.

Just look at how the young and the elderly, the fit and the unfit, the abled and disabled...... and everyone in between, have to run the gauntlet when attempting to cross a junction on a green light.

Without 'illegal' taxis I'd have problems getting into town. 'You no car? Then you no matter!'

the launch of the new bus stations was rather rushed and haphazard, but i think it is a good move.

now, we just need the rest of the infrastructure to catch up - not just transport links, but also ticketing - downtown ticket offices (like with train tickets), or a ticket infrastructure that any authorised travel agent can interface to (like with air tickets) would be great. having to trek out to the bus station to buy tickets and then trek back a few days later to take the bus is less than efficient.

The proliferation of illegal taxis has stemmed pressure on the city to revamp their woefully inadequate taxi system. Licensed cabbies have a lot of legitimate complaints, but their attitude and the shortcomings of the system are becoming untenable. Drivers frequently refuse to take people to places they deem too far or unprofitable, something which is illegal, and it seems every taxi in the city switches drivers at dinner time, which is when they're needed the most.

For now, people just shrug their shoulders and hop in a black cab. I hope that the crackdown will expose the deeper problems, and the local media will start to follow this story. When I came to Kunming 10 years ago, it had one of the best run taxi systems in the country. The problem is, it's still the same system today.

Almost certainly. Why just not allow them? Or the xiao-gong-gong (Semi-private minibuses)? Waiting 5 years till the El is (supposedly) finished is not a good option.

Let's hope they get some competition soon. Especially since we foreigners often have to pay full price and it can't be right that you can fly to Beijing for half the price of what a ticket for the 40 minutes flight to Xishuangbanna is.

Best use of "tits up" ever

Or is it?

I'm against the dams, but it really hasn't been raining. Really.

What really happened is all in the above article, though the writer doesn't say it outright. A deal must have been struck before the summit: China gives some of the info it wants and plays nice at the summit if the other countries don't come out and point the finger at them.

It was palatable because the current drought really has to do with the lack of rain.

That sounds like quite a lot to stuff in a bra.

Either way, these women will most likely be executed. That's not funny.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, to say that the drying up of the Mekong river is solely the result of the lack of rain is like saying that it's really due to natural evaporation. Of course, without a doubt, the dams are the main reason, and continuing to build these dams will have a catastrophic effect in the very near future.

China's nationalistic bullying tactics of raping the natural environment of other countries in order to develop its own power base is nothing less than criminal.

Do they sell non-padded bras in China, I've only seen padded. Or maybe the unusual sight was them smiling and laughing?

Obviously the unusual sight of a padded bra gave them away.

This has even been picked up by the Economist: www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15826335
The story mentions various recent cases around the country and that the press has been sympathetic:
"The latest flare-up in Kunming has also attracted considerable press attention. One newspaper website described the eruption as symptomatic of public resentment against local officialdom that could blow up like "a bomb at any time". Another newspaper attacked the Kunming authorities for releasing only bare details and not taking questions at a press briefing on the incident. A third suggested the official version of events, that the vendor had simply fallen over, might be a "lie" (a word even used in the headline). It quoted witnesses saying an officer had pushed over her pedicab, pinning the woman under it. A gas canister had then rolled on top of her, knocking her unconscious."

Do you think the cage smashers have some pretty good connections with the Kunming city government? They get paid to tear down the old cages and then get paid again to install the new jail bars. Really seems like a racket to me. Lots of money to be made on this deal!