January 4, 2008 (LPAC) - Maglev development has received prominent endorsements in Canada and Australia, and implicitly also in Britain, since the beginning of this year. On the official webpage of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Prof. Tae Oum wrote yesterday, that a clean alternative to pollution-creating jet travel is "floating speed trains that can travel 500 km per hour and will help spur a great shift from air to rail travel." He pointed to the Japanese and Chinese maglev plans, advising: "Rail enthusiasts take note."

And on the website of the Brisbane Journal on Australia, Chris Hale of the University of Queensland wrote on January 1, 2008 that "for too long we have lived with the results of incremental maintenance to what is fundamentally a 19th-century rail system. Many transport pundits and planners are seriously underestimating the viability and implementation-readiness of the Maglev system." Technologies like these would help Australia connect its remote regions from coast to coast, Hale suggested.

In Britain, the former Transport Secretary's call, on January 2nd, for modern high-speed rail grids connecting the remote north of the island with the south, are also expected to revitalize the pro-maglev debate, especially in Scotland, which, when it reached its peak before the May 2007 elections for national parliament there, was very much inspired by the debate about maglev systems in Denmark, initiated by the Schiller Institute.