Tens of thousands of Snickers and Mars chocolate bars have been withdrawn from sale in Australia’s New South Wales after the manufacturer was sent a letter threatening to poison a member of the public. The letter warned that up to seven Snickers and Mars bars in the metropolitan Sydney area had been contaminated. Police believed the products were randomly chosen and may have been tampered with.

You may have heard about Schappelle Corby, the Australian surfer who has been arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison for smuggling in 4.5 kgs of cannabis in her boogie board case into Bali. Some people say that the drugs were put inside her case by luggage handlers in Australia – and if true, this is not the first time Australian baggage handlers have come under suspicion for this kind of thing. It makes you wonder about how just safe your luggage is from tampering. Many airports offer plastic shrinkwrap around suitcases and yet the US advises that luggage should be left unlocked so that customs can make routine inspections. What to do – what do you think?

Pretoria was named after Andries Pretorius, a Boer settler and a folk hero of Afrikaners who later set up the apartheid racial discrimination system. The city council approved the switch to Tshwane in March as part of moves to make place names more African, but opposition campaigners say they feel marginalised. Hundreds of predominantly white South Africans have staged a demonstration against plans to change the capital’s name from Pretoria to Tshwane which means “we are the same”. and was the name of pre-colonial local chief.

Spanish travel group Marsans, which owns Aerolineas Argentinas, plans to create a new unit in Peru and begin flights there within five months.

An Aerolineas spokesman said they expected the debut of the new Peruvian company, called Aerolineas del Peru, to take no longer than five months because of the Peruvian government’s warm welcome.

As we previously reported, one of the key competitors in Peru, Chilean airline LAN, has become unpopular with the Peruvian government due to a scandal over an in-flight video depicting images of Lima considered offensive.

A completely new family of rodents, a kind of rat has been found in Laos. The animal has long whiskers, stubby legs and a tail covered in dense hair and was on sale in a hunters’ market. Dr Robert Timmins working with the Wildlife Conservation Society in Thailand saw that it was probably unknown to science and brought it to the attention of his colleagues. “It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables,” said Dr Timmins. “I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before.” “To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary. For all we know, this could be the last remaining mammal family left to be discovered,” Dr Timmins said.

Two former America West pilots Christopher Hughes and Thomas Cloyd were removed from an Airbus A319 in Miami on July 1, 2002, and charged with operating a plane under the influence of alcohol.

They were in the cockpit as the aircraft was being towed to the runway for takeoff from Miami International Airport on a flight to Phoenix, Arizona. But after a security screener reported the pilots were red-eyed, flushed and reeking of alcohol, air traffic controllers ordered the plane back to the gate.

The jury were told that the pair had played pool at a bar until 5 a.m. before the 10:30 a.m. flight and consumed 350 ounces of beer between them, the equivalent of nearly 22 pint glasses (10 litres), after earlier sharing a bottle of wine with two flight attendants.

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

The Peruvian government is to sue a unit of the Chilean airliner LAN over an in-flight video it showed allegedly depicting Lima as not a very nice place to go. The in-flight video is said to include old images of a man urinating in the street and gutters filled with litter. Peruvian officials say that the material misrepresents the capital Lima. The airline has apologised and withdrawn the film and three of its senior executives have resigned.

Disney's theme parks were launched 50 years ago this year. It is believed that 4% of all amateur photographs in the US are taken in a Disney park. Walt Disney was not impressed by American amusement parks, finding them “awful, smelly, dirty, and not particularly safe” so he decided to open his own. The Disneyworld resort in Florida opened in 1971, five years after Walt Disney died. The first Japanese park opened in 1983 and Hong Kong's park opens in September 205 and there are rumours, though denied by the company, that India could be next.

Flying into Iran? Iran opened its new international airport, the Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran at the end of April 2005, despite warnings from Britain and Canada who fear that the runway may be unsafe. Neither Britain nor Canada said exactly why they were concerned about the safety of the runway. “We are aware of reports that the runway at the new Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran may not yet be suitable for use,” the British Foreign Office said in a travel advisory. We are in contact with the Iranian authorities about this. Until the situation has been clarified, we advise British travellers to travel by flights using the existing airport.”