Police have busted a gang who used their jobs as baggage handlers at New York’s John F Kennedy Airport to avoid inspection of mail bags filled with cocaine and transported on commercial planes from South America. Police officers officials announced that detectives arrested 13 people and seized USD$400,000, five vehicles, three guns and 110 pounds (50 kg) of cocaine in a series of raids. They were part of a drug trafficking and distribution ring believed to have sold more than 1,300 pounds (600 kg) of cocaine a year in New York with a street value of USD$75 million. Last November, 23 mostly airport employees in the New York area were arrested on charges of conspiracy to smuggle tens of millions of dollars of cocaine and marijuana into the country on international cargo and passenger flights. Cocaine was bought in Guyana in South America and sent to New York on commercial airliners. The members of the gang who worked as baggage handlers circumvented inspection of mail bags containing the cocaine. Profits from the gang’s cocaine sales were returned to Guyana where other gang members laundered the cash.

Here’s a little Beetle quiz based on capital cities. See how many you get right! Go on, have a guess!

What is the capital city of the following countries:

1. Botswana
2. Gabon
3. Armenia
4. Turkey
5. Norway

For the answers, see at the end of the e-newsletter.

South Korea has just launched its new bullet train service which travels at 300 kph (185 mph. The Korea Train Express will nearly halve the near five-hour trip, by conventional train, from Seoul to Korea’s second biggest city, Busan, in the southeast. A spur line connects the city of Mokpo in the southwest. After years of delay, the KTX is finally coming online when neighbouring China has built a high-speed Maglev train in Shanghai. Riding on a cushion of air and driven by magnetic fields, that train tops 430 kph as the world’s fastest. The government says that some day, the KTX will be a vital link to train services in China and even the trans-Siberia railway. However, before this happens, North Korea will have to cooperate to have tracks across its borders.

The Beetle is often asked for advice on how to go about getting a job teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) overseas. My best advice is to look up TEFL courses in your area and get qualified as an English teacher, and then get some experience. This website has a huge number of jobs for qualified TEFL teachers and provides career advice etc.

http://www.tefl.com

If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites

It is now possible to take a train from Vienna airport to Wien-Mitte train station. The journey takes 16 minutes and runs every thirty minutes. Single tickets cost 8 euros and return tickets cost 15 euros. This makes life a lot easier to get to and from the airport. You can also buy a ticket on-line: Vienna city airport train_

In China, looking for an internet café? There will be fewer around. China has closed more than 8,600 cybercafes over the last couple of months because of fears that the Net could corrupt the minds of youngsters. This latest crackdown on unlicensed Internet cafes began in February after authorities warned that cybercafes can affect the “mental health of teenagers” while spreading “unhealthy online information”. As part of China’s bid to protect youngsters, authorities also ruled that Internet cafes are not to operate in residential areas or within 200 metres of primary and high schools.

Take a look at modern day adventurer John Pilkington’s website. In this, you can see details of the latest and most exciting of John’s journeys which took him up the world’s twelfth longest river from the South China Sea to Tibet and beyond. Starting among the rice paddies of Vietnam, he made his way via Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Burma and through the gorges of China’s Yunnan province, meeting river-people of seven nationalities along the way. In a climax to the trip, he and two Tibetans reached the glacier on Mount Guosongmucha, north of Tibet, where the Mekong rises at over 17,000 feet.

Be careful using the internet in Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe has suggested the internet, widely developed in Zimbabwe, is a tool of colonialists. The Zimbabwean government is in the process of asking the country’s internet providers to divulge details of e-mails deemed offensive or dangerous. They would be required, in the event of an investigation, to pass to government officials user details relating to material featuring anything from obscenity to “anti-national activities”. It is already illegal in Zimbabwe to “undermine the authority of the president” or to “engender hostility” towards him as well as to make abusive, obscene or false statements against him.