one issue...many essay questions

1 conflict is avoidable
2 environment and pollution
3 one country's actions/development can spell potential loss for another
4 why singapore has to pedal harder and be super efficient...because we can lose out to malaysia since they are so much cheaper....

Malaysia assured Singapore that it would observe international law, amid concerns over two massive reclamation projects on the Malaysian side of the Johor Strait.

"The Government of Malaysia remains committed to fulfilling its obligations under the general principles of international law and in particular, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea," Malaysia's Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said in a statement on Tuesday in response to Singapore's concerns.

The minister added that Malaysia has engaged Singapore on the issue through a Joint Committee on the Environment, which was co-chaired by the heads of Malaysia's Department of Environment and Singapore's National Environment Agency.

He also said that Malaysia's federal government has been in close consultation with the Johor state government and the property developers involved, reported the New Straits Times.

One of the two reclamation projects, a 1,410ha man-made island near Jurong Island, is intended to be furnished with oil storage facilities to capture the spillover energy business from Singapore, marine construction firm Benalec told The Straits Times.

The other project, the 2,000ha Forest City near the Second Link, is being developed by China's Country Garden Holdings and a Johor state company, Kumpulan Prasarana Rakyat Johor.

This island is intended to be turned into a tourist hot spot, complete with hotel, luxurious apartments and recreational facilities.

Singapore had last Saturday voiced concern over possible transboundary impact from the massive projects, given its proximity to Johor.

Back in 2002, Malaysia had similarly objected to Singapore's land reclamation works in Tuas and Pulau Tekong, arguing that the projects could potentially impinge on Malaysia's territorial waters, causing pollution and destroying the marine environment in the Strait of Johor.

The dispute was resolved after the two countries appeared before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and signed an agreement in 2005.

- See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/premium/top-the-news/story/kl-assures-spore-it-will-observe-rule-law-20140626#sthash.75KxJQbW.dpuf

the power of Art to sustain hope

http://vimeo.com/78199925

Shine Global is dedicated to ending the exploitation & abuse of children worldwide through the production of films and other media that raise awareness, promote action, and inspire change.

Since its founding in 2005 as a non-profit film production company, Shine Global has given voice to some of the world’s most at-risk children, shared their stories, inspired millions of viewers, and won more than 30 major film awards including an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short, an Academy Award® nomination for Best Documentary, Best Director Documentary at Sundance, and two Emmy Awards®.
Shine Global’s upcoming films include the 3D documentary 1 Way Up about two teens who overcome poverty and discrimination to reach the world championships for BMX bike racing and Selling Our Daughters about the complex issue of child trafficking in Thailand.
Shine Global is a 501(c)(3) non-profit film production company. All contributions to Shine are used to produce films and are tax deductible. Net profits are returned to the children documented through local non-governmental agencies.

GOOD INTRO FOR TOURISM....ANYONE NEEDS MISERY?

You have your photos against the background of every conceivable  landmark. The pyramids make you yawn. You've been to luxury resorts. You've tried eco-tourism. You've gone to working trips abroad. You've done sex in Thailand and drugs in Amsterdam. You've taught English and teeth brushing techniques to flee-ridden children in Zimbabwe. You've stayed in Hymalayan buddhist monasteries and hand-fed penguins in the Antarctic. You've seen it all. People and places, cultures and countries no longer amuse you.

Realization that in six thousand years of civilization humanity hasn't generated enough entertainment for just this one lousy lifetime of yours makes you dangerously bored.  

For the sophisticated misanthrope you've become we are proud to present the new revolutionary conCept of

Misery Tourism©

THE BOMZH EXPERIENCE
A view from below

The Bomzh (Outcast) Experience. An exercise in transcending social roles. See how the world looks from the bottom in the guise of a Moscow homeless ("bomzh"). Rags and eau de bomzh made of our own organically grown partly decomposed potatoes, beans and onions is supplied and applied for a small extra fee that reflects the fact that some of us are cleanliness freaks. If you are a wimp, someone will be appointed to observe you at all times to give you a sense of security. Ask about the macho option...

tit for tat

Iran's parliament plans to ban Iranian tourists from visiting European Union countries as a counter-measure for EU sanctions against the Islamic state,

MALAYSIA BOLEH (CAN)

two Singaporean women were handcuffed and made to do squats naked by Malaysian immigration officials.

Two Singaporean women who drove to Johor Baru for supper were questioned by Malaysian immigration officials, handcuffed, thrown behind bars and made to do squats while naked, the Singapore Straits Times reported today.

The two women said they had driven into Johor Baru without getting their passports stamped, through an unmanned immigration lane.

Following their punishment, they were allowed to return to Singapore after 48 hours with a warning.

“People won’t want to come to our country anymore if this kind of practice occurs ... this will affect the country’s image as a tourist destination.

MAG - HELLO!!! THESE WOMEN WERE MANHANDLED AND YOU ARE WORRIED ABOUT MALAYSIA'S REPUTATION - WHERE IS SOCIAL JUSTICE?

CECELIA - THEY ARE LOOKING AT LONG TERM AND BIGGER IMPACT, SILLY! THIS IS CALLED CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS OF SUCH ACTIONS

SANE THOMAS - THIS IS QUITE BIZZARRE!! THAT THEY DARE TO DO SUCH THINGS IN THE FIRST PLACE SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT THEIR INSTITUTIONS...DON'T THEY HAVE WATCHDOG GROUPS AND LEADERS OVERSEEING THEM? PERHAPS ITS TIME TO RESORT TO "STAYCATIONS" RATHER THAN VACATIONS ... JUST VISIT ANY OF OUR OWN ISLANDS...

have sex will travel

China Times Weekly reported that porn tourists are so desperate for three dimensional titillation, they are preparing to fly from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan for the Hong Kong-produced sex flick, "3D Sex & Zen: Extreme Ecstasy".

According to the source, it is 99.99% likely not to make release on Mainland screens, so quick-witted travel agencies have launched a tourist package to Taiwan that climaxes with a two-hour ogle at what is said to be the world's first 3D porn film.

Said to be loosely based on Li Yu's 17th century classical Chinese erotic literature "The Carnal Prayer Mat", this HK $20 million 3D re-update of the 1991 HK classic erotica stars HK porn star Vonnie Lui, Japanese AV actresses Yukiko Suo and Saori Hara opposite HK-based Japanese male model Hiro Hayama.

The film will reportedly chronicle the adventures of a young man who, after being introduced to the erotic world of a duke, realises his ex-wife is the love of his life and features "orgies, swinging and some very graphic sex scenes."

orwell birthplace - another tourist attraction

Orwell's birthplace to be saved

PATNA (India) - AFTER being neglected and forgotten for decades, the birthplace of George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm and 1984, is finally set for a makeover.

Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903 in Motihari, a tiny town in the impoverished eastern Indian state of Bihar, near the border with Nepal.

His father, Richard W. Blair, worked at the time as an agent in the opium department of the Indian Civil Service during the height of British rule over the subcontinent.

For years, the family's simple white colonial bungalow has been left to decay; damaged in an earthquake it was an occasional home to stray animals and, more recently, a state school teacher.

Now, after years of dithering and failed attempts by Orwell enthusiasts to restore the building, the provincial government says it is coming to the rescue in a bid to lure tourists to one of the most underdeveloped areas of India.

'The house has been in a bad condition for years. The government has decided to initiate work to protect it,' Bihar's art and culture secretary, Vivek Singh, told AFP. 'We will not allow George Orwell's ancestral house, where he was born, to be lost to history. The government priority is to protect it followed by renovation.'

space tourism anyone?

Billionaire to make second trip into space
His $52m ride may be last chance as Russians intend to stop tourist flights to space station

Recession or no recession, billionaire Charles Simonyi could not pass up another shot at outer space - even if it meant shelling out US$35 million (S$52 million) for the privilege.
computer genius who helped build Microsoft, he will become the world's first two-time space tourist when he leaves Earth behind on Thursday. He will be accompanied by two professional astronauts - a Russian and an American - who will be going up for a six-month stint at the space station.

Mr Simonyi will return on April 7 in a Soyuz capsule. His own trip will last less than two weeks, and it will be his last.
Russian space officials have indicated that after this year, there will be no more seats available to tourists. That is because the space station crew is about to double in size to six - hopefully by the end of May - and professional fliers will fill all the slots.

Because the training for his first flight was so recent, he got the abridged version, three months at cosmonaut headquarters in Star City, Russia, versus six to eight months previously.

WOULD YOU SPEND THIS MUCH TO MAKE A DREAM COME TRUE?

one-event wonder

BEIJING - JUST six months after the breathtaking opening of the Beijing Olympics, the Bird's Nest stadium is looking a lot less glamorous.
The paint is peeling and stains have appeared on its famous lattice design.

Accelerating the deterioration of the iconic National Stadium is the absence of a permanent tenant. It has not hosted a big event since the Paralympics last September and is in real danger of becoming a big white Chinese elephant.

'It's such a pity that it has been empty all these months,' said tourist Gao Qiuling, who was visiting from the northern Tianjin port city, as she toured the venue with her family last Friday.

Visitors like her, paying 50 yuan (S$11) each to enter the stadium, are the only ones warming the Nest these days.

The city's main football club Guo'an backed out of a deal to make the stadium its home because the rent was too high. That deprived it of an anchor tenant.

India is about to create what may be the biggest mass eviction of indigenous people ever. All in the name of conservation

In the spring of 2003 about 8,000 tribal people and low-caste farmers living in the Kuno area of Madhya Pradesh, India, were summarily uprooted from the rich farmlands they had cultivated for generations and moved to 24 villages on scrub land outside the borders of a sanctuary created for a pride of six imported Asiatic lions

Is it fair to do this to 1,600 families for a few lions?

Wildlife conservation in India has generally emulated the early American (Yosemite/Yellowstone) model which regarded forests as pristine wilderness, excluded human beings from national parks and other protected areas, and saw its aboriginal people as “marauders,” “poachers” and “encroachers,”

....while sanctioning the lifeways and hunting practices of elite sportsmen and urban tourists.

FERTILITY TOURISM IN INDIA

'We have been doing IVF since 1991, and perform about 300 IVF cycles every year. You can take a guided tour of the clinic online.'

And while Mumbai's Malpani Infertility Clinic, run by doctor couple Aniruddha and Anjali Malpani, was responsible for those claims, it is just one of many which have sprung up across India as the country becomes a hub for 'fertility tourism'.
And they all make similar claims, of offering ' healthy young fertile Indian women', 'superovulated exclusively for you'.
Some patients, lured by such promises, come looking for egg donors, while others come in search of surrogate mothers.
And according to doctors, an increasing number of them are from Singapore.

china bans HIV AIDs sufferers

CHINA has defied calls to lift its ban on foreign visitors with HIV-AIDS ahead of the Olympics, highlighting a restriction that critics say fuels prejudice against those with the disease.
Despite last week removing a ban on visitors with leprosy entering the country - a move state media highlighted ahead of next month's Games - the long-time block on people with HIV or AIDS remains in place.

The ban would mean that basketball legend Earvin 'Magic' Johnson - who won an Olympic gold with the US 'Dream Team' in Barcelona in 1992 a year after announcing he had contracted HIV - would not be allowed entry to Beijing as a tourist.

Dr Connie Osborne, a senior World Health Organisation's advisor on HIV-AIDS in China, said she had hoped that China would review the 'sensitive issue' ahead of the Games.

She added that reducing the stigma of HIV sufferers was one of the most crucial steps in China addressing its patchy record on the disease.

beijing olympics - clean up

LIKE countless other Beijing prostitutes, 'Kelly' had viewed the Olympic rings as akin to dollar signs, expecting a big pay-day as the city shifts into party mode for next month's Games.
But those dreams are in doubt now thanks to a police offensive aimed at preventing the city's rollicking sex industry from tarnishing the Games.

'The police are suddenly much more formidable now. We have to be very careful,' the waif-like 23-year-old said, stirring a watered-down drink in a dim bar frequented by sex workers but notably empty on a recent Saturday night.

The crackdown has closed up many of the most notorious bars and other prostitution centres.

Kelly, who hails from nearby Hebei province and declined to give her Chinese name, said many of her fellow sex workers had recently been thrown in jail before being sent back to their home provinces.

'We have to be careful. If I get thrown out of Beijing, I won't be able to get back in because police are putting up roadblocks into Beijing,' said Kelly, who formerly prowled hotel lobbies but was chased out by management.

The crackdown is part of a hurried makeover aimed at sweeping the city's less savoury elements under the rug, at least until the August 8-24 Games conclude, and which has seen campaigns against drug offenders and even spitting and queue-jumping by the general public.

Tighter controls and more frequent checks on the visas of foreigners - apparently aimed at preventing security threats to the Games - have also cleared out the many prostitutes from neighbouring Mongolia and Russia, Kelly said.

'We are closed for fire inspection. Come back after the Olympics,' said a man who answered the phone at Maggie's, a bar in the city's embassy district normally filled nightly with freelancing Mongolian hookers.

Its front door has been padlocked for about three months for the 'fire inspection'.

Basically stamped out during the puritanical Mao Zedong era, prostitution flourishes in today's more open China, with estimates of the country's sex workers ranging as high as US$10 million (S$13.7 million) or more.

Sex workers ply their trade with virtual impunity in bars, massage spas, karaoke parlours and the 'barber shops' that are found in many Beijing back alleys and which have nothing to do with haircuts.

Male travellers typically receive phone calls shortly after checking into Chinese hotel rooms, asking whether they want a girl sent up.

Periodic anti-prostitution campaigns have been launched but nothing like the capital's current operation, say observers.

'The city is in big clean-up mode,' said a posting last month on the website Internationalsexguide.info, which bills itself as 'The Internet's Largest Sex Travel forum' and features graphic, member-submitted updates on where to buy sex.

Berlin's buzzing arts and cultural scene

With more than 50 theatres, three major opera houses - the Deutsche Oper, the Berlin State Opera and the Komische Oper - and 153 museums, the German capital is the perfect destination for arts buffs.
The city is also a major centre of European politics, media and science. It ranks as the third most-visited tourist destination in the European Union as well.

The Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park. This one is for history buffs. It is the main war memorial of East Germany and was opened four years after the end of World War II on May 8, 1949. The most incredible feature is a set of 16 stone carvings, each depicting military scenes from the war. It is definitely worth looking at. They do not make monuments like these any more. Not on this scale.

space and tourism

July 26, 2008

Space tourists to get peek at mothership
Excitement ahead of Monday's partial unveiling of Branson's commercial project
FLASHBACK: The White Knight, with SpaceShipOne underneath, on the runway at Mojave Airport in September 2004. On Monday, Mr Richard Branson and aerospace designer Burt Rutan will show off White Knight Two. -- PHOTO: AP
LOS ANGELES - A TOP-SECRET aerospace project that will launch rich tourists into space will be partially revealed on Monday.
Aerospace engineers have been holed up in a Mojave Desert hangar, fashioning the commercial spaceship for the past four years.
But come Monday, British billionaire Richard Branson and American aerospace designer Burt Rutan will show off their mothership, which is designed to air launch a passenger-toting spaceship out of the atmosphere.
More than 250 wannabe astronauts have each paid US$200,000 (S$270,000) or put down deposits for a chance to float weightless for a mere five minutes.
'Having invested all my faith in it, I'm so excited to see the actual thing,' said artist Namira Salim, a customer who is lined up for a ride on the world's first spaceline.
In 2004, throngs of spectators gathered at the high desert north of Los Angeles to witness the launch of SpaceShipOne, which was the first private manned craft to reach space.
Its successor, SpaceShipTwo, which can carry up to six passengers and two pilots, is being designed out of the public eye, along with the carrier aircraft White Knight Two.

about libya's development

Libya

Good for essay on tourism, foreign investment

1 TRIPOLI (LIBYA) - SENIOR Minister Goh Chok Tong hopes Singapore companies will be able to contribute to the development of Libya.
2 Libya will be making investments in housing, airports, seaports and tourism infrastructure.
3 With a population of four million citizens and over two million foreigners from neighbouring countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and beyond, its population profile is fairly similar to Singapore's.
4 Its land mass is, however, 2,500 times bigger.
5 The country is also rich in oil, with reserves estimated to be the ninth largest in the world and most of it untapped.
6 The economy, dominated by the hydrocarbons industry, is one of the most prosperous in the Middle East region.
7 A key focus of attention is tourism, as Libya is home to magnificent ruins, some dating back 3,000 years.
8 Remnants of the Phoenician, Greek and Roman empires and, more recently, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, can be found in various parts of Libya, including just outside Tripoli.