World Of Tourism

Bernama.com, 3 Apr 2011SINGAPORE, April 3 (Bernama) -- Singapore may limit the terms of its ministers to two to give opportunities to newcomers, a report here said.Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong hinted that in time to come, cabinet ministers may not serve for more than two terms.Goh was quoted to have made this point at a dialogue in the Ubi division of his Marine Parade constituency today. Full

Asia Times Online, 24 Mar 2011SINGAPORE - Days before Singapore Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced the government's 2011 budget in parliament, the political opposition offered a glimpse of how it would allocate the national finances in a "shadow" budget. The state-controlled mainstream media gave the opposition announcement scant coverage, but it was picked up widely by a number of

IBANET.orgThe International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) is gravely concerned about the recent ruling of the Singapore High Court, in which Dr Chee Soon Juan’s conviction for speaking in public without a permit was upheld. The IBAHRI believes that Dr Chee, leader of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), has been the target of repeated attempts by Singapore’s ruling People’s

AFPSINGAPORE — A vocal opposition leader in Singapore Thursday escaped a jail term after an online donation drive raised enough money to pay a fine instead.Chee Soon Juan, secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), had faced a fine of Sg$20,000 ($16,000) after being convicted of "making an address in a public place without a licence" in 2006.Chee, 48, would have been imprisoned

The Jerusalem Post, 17 Jan 2011Last year I published essays from Tunisia, Kuwait and Singapore, screaming about the human rights abuses in each, particularly their muzzling of free expression. After writing each of these commentaries, I received feedback along these lines: “Since these countries are, to varying degrees, economic success stories, does it really matter that political speech is

Monsters and Critics, 14 Jan 2011Singapore - A popular critical Singapore news website on Friday defied the authorities' plan to register it as a political site, which would impose restrictions on its sources of funding.In letters published on the forum Friday, the TOC editors urged Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to reverse his decision, saying 'the determination is unreasonable' and 'was borne

Asia Times Online, 13 Jan 2011In a clear sign that general elections are on the way in Singapore, the ruling People's Action Party (PAP)-led government has intensified its harassment and regulation of online media, similar to restrictions enforced ahead of previous polls.Earlier this week, authorities wrote to The Online Citizen, providing the citizen journalism news site advance official notice

Reuters, 12 Jan 2011(Reuters) - Singapore plans to impose restrictions on a liberal, popular news website in what appears to be an attempt to prevent it from becoming a political force in general elections Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong may call this year.The Prime Minister's Office plans to designate "The Online Citizen" (www.onlinecitizen.com) as a "political association," which means the

Reuters India, 22 Dec 2010(Reuters) - Asia's economies have been crucial engines of global growth as the world crawls out of economic crisis, but the 2011 outlook is clouded by China's growing clout, the volatile situation on the Korean peninsula and corruption scandals in India. Full story

Foreign Policy, 30 Nov 2010SingaporeGopalan Nair: Nair, a former opposition politician, is known throughout Singapore's embattled blogosphere for his fierce promotion of human rights and blunt criticism of founding leader and current "minister mentor" Lee Kuan Yew. In September 2008, Nair was sentenced to three months in jail for defaming a judge in a blog entry.... Full story

That's how it appears, at any rate. The Spanish political agenda Friday was dominated by debate on legislation about chewing gum, all this whilst the Euro is going through what might be politely termed a 'crisis', Spain's own stockmarket is 'bombing' and in the wider world there has been a dramatic heightening of tensions in the Korean peninsula.It's all a question of priorities, I suppose - or

As expected Spain's opposition conservatives won Sunday's European election, marking its first triumph in a national vote since 2000, but not by the landslide margin some had predicted during the economic crisis.

Spain's Popular Party gained 42.2 percent of votes to the ruling Socialist Party's 38.5 percent, drawing its highest ever support in a European parliamentary election, based on a preliminary count.

"This result calls for a change in government economic policy and many other things because the majority of Spaniards have spoken," PP leader Mariano Rajoy told supporters outside the party's Madrid headquarters.

The victory reinforced Rajoy's leadership, which has been shaken by internal power struggles and corruption scandals.

But the PP lead of 3.7 percentage points was below the 5 point margin analysts said could seriously weaken Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and even lead to early national elections.

The ruling party said the result was "reasonably positive", given governments across Europe had suffered due to the economic downturn and calculated that it won the highest support of any socialist party in Europe.

The Mayor of Puerto Real (Cádiz) has been punished with a fine of 6,840 Euros for insulting the Spanish King - the terms used are certainly offensive, so my own blog's anti-profanity rules do not permit me to quote them here, but you can get the low-down, if this interests you, by viewing this article in El País.Sr José Antonio Barroso holds strongly anti-monarchical (republican) views, but was

Tomorrow (Thursday 4th June) the European Elections start, but they will not be completed until Sunday 7th June. As an Expatica article helpfully explains it's a lot more complicated than that - and of course the whole thing will take several weeks to resolve as the results are digested in the 'carving up' of the top jobs on committees, etc: European Elections- voting timetableThursday 4th

Spain's two main political parties, normally fierce and bitter rivals, have presented a joint front in the face of condemnation in a draft report by Margrete Auken, a Danish MEP from the Greens, commissioned by the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament to report on property and environmental abuse in Spain.Her report includes harsh criticism of 'Spain’s urban planning practices, weak

Fransisco Blaya, Mayor of Mazarron, met last week with representatives of the Association of Owners and of the Community of Owners of Mazarron Country Club. According to the press release issued to the local media by the municipal government, the major topic of the discussion was the problem of the water supply, which according to the press release was 'solved' by the Mayor. Well, up to a point,

There's a very interesting article here about the possibility of renewed water transfers from the Tajo to the Segura river systems, which seem to be based on what is said to be a very surprising change of attitude by the President of the Extramadura regional government. This is a political football in Spain and this is I believe the first recent move by one of the regional governments which

.. back to Spain. I travel tomorrow and hope to reach my house late tomorrow night/early Thursday morning. I'll be back in Nairn at the end of September.There is so much turmoil going on in the world economy and the British Labour Party (this is just the latest body-blow amongst many to hit PM Gordon Brown) at present that one hardly knows where to begin; I have therefore taken the easy option of

Spain is short of water, that's unfortunately not news and it's a situation that has been worsening for some years and, if you believe the direr predictions about the likely effects of the potential effects of projected changes in global climate that may occur in the next fifty years, for example, we ain't seen nuthin yet!Situations like this always highlight underlying regional tensions and the

(Please see UPDATE at end)Newsweek has an interesting article about the still unresolved rivalries and bitternesses remaining from the era of rule by Franco, which ended with his death in 1975. The current Socialist government, soon after coming to power in 2005, created a commission to look into measures which might help the country to move on, but the proposal which flowed from this to enact a