Talk:Singapore

Welcome! This talkpage is to discuss the article Singapore only. Past discussions can be found within this archive. For discussion regarding Singapore-related articles and issues, please visit the talkpage of the SGpedians' notice board. Enjoy! =)

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Archive 1

Haze

Haze is persistent but intermittent problem in Singapore. How should this be best reflected in the article?

Is it a long-term, permanent situation worthy for comment here?--Huaiwei 15:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Long-term? Yes -- it goes back a decade or so. Permanent? No, but then if a country is susceptible to earthquakes you'd mention that, even though they may not occur every day. At the moment, Indonesia seems unable to control the burning that causes the haze. Asean is impotent. So looking forward, it seems to be a medium-term/long-term issue for Singapore and the region.

I think haze is worth noting because the article at the moment makes a bold claim that Singapore controls its pollution within WHO levels. That is, I think, misleading. Singapore's emissions may be within the limits, but the air that Singaporeans breathe can have officially unhealthy levels of pollution in it, because of haze.

Also, there's no mention of Singapore's high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Per head, Singaporeans are some of the dirtiest people in the world when it comes to CO2 and other emissions related to global warming. Far worse than Americans, for example. (I don't have a link at the moment, but will try to get one soon.)

Biased tag required

The article is biased. It is inappropriate to describe singapore as a democracy.

The above statement is completely untrue and is, ironically, utterly biased itself.

Can you support your statement that Singapore is not a democracy? --Lkc159 08:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think that Singapore is not a democracy? Although in the general elections the People's Action Party wins almost all the parliament seats (because most of the MP candidates stood unchalleged), it is still a democracy (even most of the Singaporeans don't need to go to the polls). Joshua Chiew 13:45, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

"it is still a democracy (even most of the Singaporeans don't need to go to the polls)" Why do I find this statement extremely funny?

Probably because they vote by mail? Voting is compulsory there after all. I can't say whether a forced high voter turnout is any better than the US system of an optional voter turnout. -Amatulic 23:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

No, it is because the PAP stood unchallenged in majority of the electorates. BTW, is voting compulsory? Joshua Chiew 06:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is compulsory. The penalty for not voting include having one's name strike out of the voters registry, i'm not sure if there is any other penalty. In the Singapore general election, 2006, about 1.1 million people voted (91.9% turnout), but that was only 56% of all adult citizens because the rest were in "walkover" districts. In terms of population, that was about 30%, less than the US 2004 presidential election and the recent UK's GE, which were within the 40-50% range. --Vsion 07:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I dont see where the humour is stemming from. Walkovers are not undemocratic in itself. In fact, a walkover is not possible in a state without democracy.--Huaiwei 13:52, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Simple question, simple answer. First, let's look at the definitions of democracy (1) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy (2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy. Unless you are able to change the definition of what is meant by democracy, otherwise, please don't waste our time.

How about *censorship*? I'm surprised that no one mentioned it. [1][2]

What does censorship have to do with democracy? I just did a quick scan of Wikipedia's article on democracy, and it doesn't mention it. --Deon 11:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Imagine an extreme hypothetical country in which the government controls the media and censors the news: there's no bad news published about the ruling party and its policies, and no good news about opposition parties. Voters will only read/see/listen to positive reports about the ruling party, and negative reports on the opposition. On election day, do you think voters will be making a fully democratic decision about which party is best if their information has been censored?

Capital punishment arguments

The statement here needs clarification or citation:

However, defenders argue that Singapore is one of the few countries that does occasionally (most recently in 2003) reveal its execution rate. Some countries which may have higher execution rates are overlooked by Amnesty because they keep their execution records a state secret.

I believe most countries have open courts system and thus the execution rates can always be computed. Singapore's per capita rate fluctuates significantly, partly because the number of executions in Singapore is relatively small and partly because of the drug trades. In the period surveyed by AI, its per capita rate is highest among the countries examined. In recent years, Saudi's rate is much higher. Nonetheless, the main argument used by "defenders" is not about the ranking, but that there is no universal consensus on the issue of capital punishment and that the country has the sovereign right to determine the punishment for serious crimes. --Vsion 14:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is it necessary to state the Singapore government's "response" in the Wiki article as you have done? Their response is essentially the same response that all death penalty governments employ (the issue of sovereignty). I think the AI statistic should be presented at face value, without the blithe commentary. The article should present facts, not opinions of the Singapore government. -- Xaqua 03:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

If you are refering to this edit [3], I was just replacing a misleading and unsourced sentence with one that is accurate and referenced. --Vsion 03:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Education hub

As you know, Singapore is one of the education hubs in Asia important? Like Hong Kong and Japan. If this is imporatant, we may include this.

- Education hub in Asia - Government's tuition grant reduces school fees

It's not that much about Singapore's achievement. All the Education section asks for is a "brief" explanation for the surprisingly high number of foreign students studying there. The explanation should answer some questions, points that may interest foreigners. Afterall, Wiki is an international website. Also, I'm sure you Singaporeans would be interested to find out why.

http://www.education-hub.com/about-singapore/study-in-singapore.php

-Clockword

A few schools in Singapore, such as Raffles Institution, hold exchange programmes. That is to say, students from schools in other countries will send some of thier students over to Raffles Institution, and vice versa. I'm not sure if this answers the question, but it probably does. --Lkc159 08:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Courts

These statements are also strange:

Several former and present members of the opposition, including Francis Seow, J.B. Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan perceive the Singaporean courts as favourable towards the government and the PAP due to a lack of separation of powers. [12] There are however three cases in which opposition leader Chiam See Tong sued PAP members for defamation and sucessfully obtained an out-of-court settlement. [13]

Regarding these two statements, the first states that the opposition perceives courts as biased. The second then attempts to rebut the first by giving a counterexample, but a small out-of-court settlement by weak PAP underlings is a bad counterexample. We should clarify this by adding that no court case has actually ever been ruled (by a judge) in favor of any opposition member. This is much more significant to readers than the minor example of Chiam See Tong's out-of-court settlement and more accurately reflects the true state of the courts in Singapore. -- Xaqua 03:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Similary, my edit here [4] was to clarify and add source, and it stopped an edit war. I'm not sure about the accuracy of the statement that "no court case has actually ever been ruled (by a judge) in favor of any opposition member". --Vsion 03:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

If anyone is aware of a single court case where an opposition member won a judgement (in the Singapore courts) against a PAP member, please let us know. I couldn't find any. If there hasn't been a single case in the entire decades-long history of modern Singapore, then this is significant and should be added to qualify the statement about Chiam's "settlement". As it stands, the article seems to take a biased position that, though the opposition PERCEIVES the courts to be biased, this is obviously not the case because once, a long time ago, Chiam got a tiny out-of-court settlement from some PAP juniors. While we may disagree on the actual amount of bias in Singapore courts, we should be careful about the way these statements are worded. Xaqua 07:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I replace "There are however ..." with "Nonetheless, there are ...". This was my fault, I keep forgeting the proper use of "however". --Vsion 01:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

After waiting for a week, no one has offered any example of a PAP member losing a defamation case in court. This is because there aren't any. Rather than merely state that the opposition perceives the Singapore courts to be biased, including the statement that no PAP member has ever lost in court provides more useful, factual information to readers, rather than just the OPINION of the opposition. This statement is further clarified by the addition of Chiam's out-of-court settlement against a few PAP juniors. Xaqua 04:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

government-invented demographics

The classification of the four "races" is not a neutral classification, nor does it have any scientific backing. For example, the term "Chinese" is highly ambiguous, because it's not specifically "Han Chinese"...there are many ethnicities within India, and thus immigrants from it. Conflating them is merely a propaganda scheme. Neither is "Eurasian" a race. Government policy is run as such, but Wikipedia should not say that these classifications are how Singaporean demographics ae really set up. In fact this classification system has many critics. John Riemann Soong 10:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The Singapore government categorises "Eurasian" as a race? --- Hong Qi Gong 15:23, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

In more recent times, it tends to be CMIO - Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others in place of the word "Eurasian".--Huaiwei 17:25, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Does "Others" just define Eurasians or does it include everybody that is not Chinese, Malay, or Indian? --- Hong Qi Gong 20:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The later.--Huaiwei 08:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Pardon ... which sentence(s) in the article is this issue about? --Vsion 22:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"Chinese" in this sense refers to people of the Chinese race in general, and not targetted at specific chinese groups. Similarly, Indians does not refer to people from India, but to people fron the Indian race. Oh, and "Others" refer to people who are not part of the Chinese, Indian or Malay races. And I don't get your point of this being a propaganda scheme. Also, like Vsion, I have no idea which sentence is taking about, unless it was removed some time ago? --Lkc159 08:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Indians do not constitute a "race". That is merely conflating entire groups of peoples into one, based on bigoted and oversimplified (if not arrogant, conceited and utterly racist) concepts. India has many ethnic groups, languages, heck, entire language families that are distinct. Consider the fact that Indian languages can be divided into two categories: the Indo-Aryan languages of the north (Sanskrit, Hindi, etc.) and the Dravidian languages of the south. India has at least two major ethnic families, though this itself is an oversimplification. There is certainly no "Indian race". Consider for example, that Hindi ultimately traces its roots to Proto-Indo-European, which is the same common ancestor as Latin, Greek, and Proto-Germanic, (the Latin branches and the Proto-Germanic branches will merge into the modern English language via Anglo-Norman (an oil language) and Anglo-Saxon respectively). The Dravidian languages, on the other hand, trace their roots to the Dravidians - the dominant people of India before the Aryan immigration (some say invasion). Because of this, Hindi - the most-spoken language in India - is a distant cousin of French and English. The Tamil language has no genetic relationships with any of the Indo-Aryan languages, never mind the European languages. Consider the Romani language, the language of the gypsies, which traces roots back to India, but has no ancestral relationship with the Tamil language.

In no way can you say "Indians" constitute a single "race" of any sort! It is unscientific - it is only based on bigotry by a Chinese-dominated government who try to deceive themselves that the country is racially harmonious, based on "major ethnic groups". Singapore has far more than 4 ethnic groups. It is like calling a Tibetan a "Chinese". The questioned sentence in particular is "Indian Singaporeans are the third largest ethnic group at 7.9%, consisting of several groups". But I'm afraid changing it is only changing the surface of the problem - the entire article structure, every article which mentions the different peoples of Singapore according to a government scheme this way has to be changed. The government classifies its population according to four ethnic classifications, but the scientific classification is far more neutral and diverse. Just because it's the way the government does it doesn't mean it's a neutral and an acceptable way of classifying people, especially if it's based on racial ignorance. You can't say "an ethnic group further consisting of several groups". It would be sort of saying "the Asian ethnic group, consisting of several ethnic groups, such as the Chinese, Japanese and the Vietnamese" ... despite that they are *separate* ethnic groups. Now, modern India has a lot of mixing ever since the two major groups merged to form one macroculture thousands of years ago (though a lot of mixing is sort of discouraged thanks to the caste system), but still you can't brand them as a "race".

Because of this kind of classification, the government has chosen a single language - Tamil - to represent the "Indian race", despite that Singaporeans with Indian roots, whether ethnic, ancestral, nationality-based or otherwise, are a diverse group of people, with many languages. This has led to the racist malignment of the Indian minority groups - those who speak Punjabi, Hindi, Malayam, etc. John Riemann Soong 18:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The "others" classification still is pretty racist, because it does not recognise the diversity of the individual, especially for those part of the minority groups. What about the Caucasian who is born to Singaporean-citizen parents, and identifies himself or herself in every way Singaporean, but because of the bigotry of both people and government, is treated like an "ang-mo" foreigner, hmm? I've read many such sad cases, and expressions from these people (who are of a significant number) - but fail to be recognised by a racist Singaporean society. There are citizens from South America, etc. but they are treated like outsiders. Why? Because of the entire C/M/I/O scheme, which is racist in its very nature. John Riemann Soong 18:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

to be pendantic, "Han" chinese also constitutes at least 7 seperate ethnic groups and language families but due to a long historical association chooses to call this heterogenious group "one" enthnic group. So you can say there are many ethnic groups, however there seems to be 4 general groups. Chinese originating, India orginanating, other, and native groups.

Singapore courtesy ranking

I remember reading in a newspaper about Singapore ranking poorly in a courtesy survey. Could someone help me find a reference? They could then put it in the article, or let me insert it myself. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 06:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't have it; but please add such rankings in International rankings of Singapore instead of here, as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries and FAC precedences. Placing such rankings in Country X's article generates lots of unnecessary discussion over the accuracy and appropriateness of the ranking criteria and the agenda of ranking agencies. The table of ranking currently in the article should probably be moved to International rankings of Singapore as well. --Vsion 21:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I saw the table of rankings, and that's why I thought of adding the results there. If I'm not wrong, the survey was conducted by Reader's Digest. Besides, I'm not sure if we want to tell the whole world how bad-mannered we Singaporeans are. (But in the interests of NPOV, we must) --J.L.W.S. The Special One 04:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

If it is informative and accurate, then the survey result should be of interest (and I'm a rank-cruft myself). However the length of Singapore article already exceeds the guideline, so we try not to clutter too much here. The article International rankings of Singapore is a more suitable place for these international ranking trivia, and it was in fact created from Singapore following a peer review suggestion. --Vsion 05:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Singapore ranks 30 out of 35."No thank you; That's what you get for opening doors for people here. LifeStyle does its own manners test after a Reader's Digest courtesy poll ranks Singapore 30 out of 35", Straits Times article, June 25, 2006 Sunday by Mak Mun San. Cmyk 18:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Another reader's digest ranking done in 1997 ranks us first in honesty (among 14 Asian cities). "S'pore tops regional honesty test", Straits Times article, March 24, 1997 by Wang Hui Ling Cmyk 18:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Government kind

How can Singaporean Government be considered a parliamentary republic when we cannot vote for our prime minister? Ottokarf

What, then, is a "parliamentary republic"?--Huaiwei 17:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

A republic means that the people can vote for their prime minister, does it not? The president of Singapore is only a figure head. The position of Prime Minister is not for the people of Singapore to decide. In fact, Lee Kuan Yew left the post of Prime Minister to his son. How can this be considered a republic is one canot vote for their leader? If you want to speak up against the government, you have to have a permit to do so, issued by the government, or else you will be prosecuted for what you say that diasgrees with the government. Recently, the head of the opposition party in Singapore was tried at court for speaking against the government in public without a valid speaking license. How can we say this is a republic?

--Ottokarf

A republic elects representatives, not necessarily the chief of the representatives, ie. just like Americans don't choose who the Speaker of the House is. Now, an executive leader like a prime minister doesn't need to be elected directly for this qualification. I can agree that it is a farce, but de jure it is still a republic. In fact de facto it can be still be considered a republic, just with lots of flaws. If you want to demonstrate publicly, a permit is required. If one wishes to criticise the government, generally one is free to do so (it proliferates) although lawsuits are often used against prominent opposition leaders. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 23:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I Disagree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.71.24.66 (talk • contribs)

In countries practising the Westminster System of government (eg UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, etc.), the people do not elect the prime minister directly. The leader of the majority party in the parliment becomes the prime minister. However the prime minister is subjected to be appointed by the monarch or president. Joshua Chiew 14:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Grammar and Standard of English

I have noticed that the grammar and english usage on this Singapore page is becoming ever more and more woeful. Wikipedians, please keep a look out for another any of information, and correct the grammar as required. Problems I've realised include: Tenses, overly long sentences, awkward sentence structure, lack of proper inflections etc. -le petit vagabond 05:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Where my good ami? John Riemann Soong 00:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh I agree. It reads like an essay by 15-year-old who's bought a thesaurus and is trying to impress a teacher. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.117.143.29 (talk) 15:03 02-10-2006 (UTC)

Please account for your comments there please. From what I can see, it reads fine to me. I'll run through it carefully after my tests. Ariedartin JECJY ^Talk 14:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, while I can't put my finger on anything specific, while reading this article I got the distinct impression it was written by Singlish-speaking people trying to write in standard English. The grammar mistakes have been mostly corrected in the past few months, however. -Amatulic 17:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

O RLY? I just find that insulting. Non-specifity = weasel words - hence, your comments have no backing. John Riemann Soong 01:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's nonspecific with no backing — that's what personal impressions are! The impression I described above happens to be what I felt a couple months ago when I first read this article. Sorry if you're insulted by that, but the simple fact remains that this was my impression. The article has improved since then. I've made minor corrections myself. -Amatulic 01:13, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Impressions arent formed based on nothing. Kindly point out specific instances to support your view above, failing which I do not see how your view is contributing to this article in any way.--Huaiwei 11:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

What's the point? As the article stands NOW, the instances that seemed to have the flavor of Singlish have been fixed; one of them by me. -Amatulic 15:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

If you see no point, why mention in the first place? And since you have fixed at least one such instance, mind showing the relevant diffs? I do not see how difficult this can be.--Huaiwei 22:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's a bad sentence. It's 48 words long, pompous, and the key point is at the end:

As a result of efforts to control motorised traffic, the maintenance of natural greenery, strict regulations on industrial locations and emissions, and other pro-environmental initiatives by the government and the private sector, Singapore has been able to control its pollution levels to well within World Health Organization standards.

Thus it reads like a Latin text. How is it like Singlish? Dickens wrote run-on all the time. John Riemann Soong 10:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Dickens wrote fiction on paper in the 19th century. Wikipedia is a 21st century encyclopaedia on screen. Different media, different times require different styles. Also, this bit of Wikipedia is in English, not latin.

Nobody claimed that sentence reads like Singlish (not to me anyway, I associate Singlish with a more abbreviated grammatical format). This section is, after all, titled "Grammar and Standard of English." The sentence above, while grammatically correct, is written in an archaic and rather clumsy style that doesn't fit well with the rest of the article. Suggested alternative: Singapore has controlled its pollution levels to well within World Health Organization standards as a result of initiatives to control motorised traffic, maintain natural greenery, strictly regulate industrial locations and emissions, and other pro-environmental activities.

Another example of sentence structure that needs improvement can be found in the introduction: "The site of several ancient port cities and a possession of several empires in its history, Singapore was a Malay fishing village when it was colonised by the United Kingdom in the 19th century." The clauses joined together in that sentence appear to bear no relation to one another. Suggested alternative: Singapore has been the site of several ancient port cities and a possession of several empires in its history. It was a fishing village when it was colonised by the United Kingdom in the 19th century. -Amatulic 15:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

architecture section

Regarding this sentence in the article:

Due to the lack of available space, few historical buildings remain in the urban areas of Singapore. However, Singapore has become a centre for modern architecture as older buildings are cleared away to make space for newer, larger buildings.

I'm not sure about the accuracy of the above sentence, there are many historic buildings (temples, colonial office buildings, etc) being preserved. Even the chinatown's shophouses are preserved, although they were practically torn down (for safety reasons) and rebuilt. Any comment on this? Also, I suggest merging this section to Architecture of Singapore. --Vsion 04:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Raffles Institution, a historic building, was torn down to make way for Raffles City, a undistinguished building.

I concur with Vision, and totally disagree with the comment above. Singapore is one of the few highly developed Asian cities which managed to keep such a large collection of heritage buildings within its city centre. In fact, Singapore cant exactly be called a "centre for modern architecture"....it is more reknown for being a centre of rejuvenation for giving old buildings a new lease of life with its highly acclaimed restoration projects.--Huaiwei 10:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Clarke Quay is embarrassing, not highly acclaimed.

As a Singaporean, I find it weird I haven't heard of some of the terms here before, eg. Downtown Core. Also, this article is far too long. 219.75.19.164 07:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Downtown Core is the URA term. John Riemann Soong 00:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

International Rankings

I have moved the following table to here because it does not add any reference value to the page. With all the external links, it looks like a spam in disguise. In addition, the contributor has been vandalizing Hong Kong. --Voidvector 12:28, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Table of Singapore International Rankings

Date	Context	Organization	Ranking	Note
2001	World's Best Airports	Skytrax	3/155 countries	Ranked 3rd out of 155 countries
2002	World's Best Airports	Skytrax	2/155 countries	Ranked 2nd out of 155 countries
2003	World's Best Airports	Skytrax	2/155 countries	Ranked 2nd out of 155 countries
2004	World's Best Airports	Skytrax	2/155 countries	Ranked 2nd out of 155 countries
2004	Third annual worldwide press freedom index	Reporters without borders	140/167 Countries	Ranked 140th out of 167 countries
2005	World's Best Airports	Skytrax	2/155 countries	Ranked 2nd out of 155 countries
2006	Corruption Perceptions Index	Transparency International	5/159 Countries	Ranked 5th out of 159 countries
2006	Index of Economic Freedom	Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal: 2006	2/157 Countries	Ranked 2nd out of 157 Countries for a few years in a row, just behind Hong Kong
2006	Worldwide quality-of-life index	The Economist	11/111 Countries	Ranked 11th out of 111 countries (Best quality of life in Asia)
2006	World Competitiveness Yearbook 2006	IMD International	4/61 Economies	Ranked 4th out of 61 economies (countries and regions)
2006	World City's Skyline/Skyscrapers	Emporis Data Committee (EDC)	5/100 Major cities	Ranked #5 out of all the major cities in the World. This listing ranks cities by the visual impact of their skylines.
2006	Global Competitiveness Report - Growth Competitiveness Index Ranking	World Economic Forum	28/117 Countries	Ranked 28th out of 117 countries
2006	World's Best Airports	Skytrax	1/155 countries	Ranked 1st out of 155 countries

I cant find any sources for this, but it does seem to be rather legitimate. I am Singaporean, and can verify that Singapore was ranked 140th out of 167 countries for press freedom, and can also verify that Singapore has ranked highly (Top 3) in the running for a particular airport award for the past 5/6 years. Unfortunately, i'm not very sure if it was by Skytrax. --Lkc159 07:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is by Skytrax. The same one that ranks Singapore Airlines as one of the top airlines, if you would recall. So will we be adding this back to the main article? Ariedartin JECJY ^Talk 14:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I propose that this section be move back to the main Singapore Wikipedia entry. Vision3001 15:32, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

In any case, one more new entry from Singapore Straits Times, 19 Oct 2006, titled "S'pore ranked world's most globalised country again" by Erica Tay (ericatay@sph.com.sg). "SINGAPORE has once again been rated the world's most globalised country, according to a closely watched annual study.

The Globalisation Index, compiled by management consultancy AT Kearney and Foreign Policy magazine, showed that nowhere in the world do foreign trade and investment flow more freely than in the Republic. " Vision3001 15:32, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

we need the disambig

There are a few other things named Singapore ... some towns in the United States, actually are named such (it seems that a lot of US towns like to take their names after other famous countries and cities, calling themselves St. Petersburg, Lebanon, Paris, etc.) ... John Riemann Soong 18:15, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

You've gotta be kidding me... No wonder people think we're in Winconsin... Anyway, the situation where we have is a main article with several related but more minor articles sharing the same name. Hence, the practice is to retain the main article, while adding an italicised header with a link to the disambiguation page. Not make the Singapore page a disambiguation page in itself. An example of this is the page Medicine. Hence, go ahead, create a disambiguation page at Singapore (disambiguation), but the Singapore main article will not be made a redirect to that disambiguation page, but will remain the same and have a link to it. That's all. Ariedartin JECJY ^Talk 14:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

architecture section

Do we really need a separate section for architecture? It should go under culture, and the culture part should be shortened. John Riemann Soong 18:18, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Economy

Generally the treatment of Singapore's economic success is uncritical. Would it be worth considering the criticisms of Andy Xie, who resigned as Morgan Stanley's chief economist in Asia on October 5, 2006, following an email in which he characterised Singapore as an economic failure that was dependent on illicit money from Indonesia and China?

Sources please? Wikipedia is not a virtual email archiving service.--Huaiwei 12:19, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

And an explanation in his email of how he arrived at that too. You can't just quote him like that. Not that I know what the email is about... Ariedartin JECJY ^Talk 14:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The email can be found easily with google, just search for "andy xie email" and you'll find loads of links.

Bloomberg article on the email

full text of email

-Amatulic 20:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The article also needs to cover some of the analysis made by Alwyn Young and Paul Krugman.

Some suggestions

1. The leading part is too big. At least 1 paragraph should be removed/merged down. For example, the fact that people live in housing estates is mentioned in Demography section and can be removed from first part. But it is only a suggestion.
2. The naming states that it is from Sanskrit's singh pur. In Sanskrit it literally means lion city. The article however goes on to say it means lion-city in Tamil which is totally out of context. (Actually, The name part can be forked into 'Etymology' or some other section, just before History. (My idea comes from India.)

   Er, it says, Singapuram - which seems to be just another form, and not the root. (Although I am surprised, since Tamil is Dravidian and Sanskrit is Indo-European). John Riemann Soong 01:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

3. Last picture is black and white. Is it too old?-- Anupamsr|talk |contribs  17:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The last picture is actually a contemporary picture taken in B&W.--Huaiwei 13:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)