Siemens sees wind business up 30 percent this year: report

Reuters 1 Dec 07;

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Siemens expects sales at its wind power business to grow 30 percent this fiscal year to end-September and its profit margin should reach double digits, the head of the wind business told a newspaper.

"We want to be in the top three in the industry by 2011," Siemens' Wind Power unit chief Andreas Nauen told German weekly Euro am Sonntag in comments released on Saturday ahead of publication on Sunday.

Siemens does not break out separate results for its wind power business. Last month, it said it won wind turbine orders from North America worth more than $1.1 billion euros in the year to date.

Nauen said wind power sales and orders had been growing at an annual rate of more than 50 percent and the business's profit margin was more than 9 percent last fiscal year.

He saw great opportunities in offshore wind farms. "We expect that offshore will have a breakthrough in Germany, too, next year," he said.

Germany is one of the world's leading players in onshore wind power but its offshore ambitions have been beset by red tape and environmental concerns.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Robert Woodward)

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Tall Stories: from hut to housing estate

Straits Times 2 Dec 07;

FROM wooden walls, mud floors and congested shophouses to concrete units in a planned housing estate, the early residents of Queenstown certainly had a lot to learn and adapt to.

One such 'lesson' was learning to deal with the height of these new blocks of flats - 14 storeys at Forfar House, 10 storeys at Tanglin Halt and 16 storeys at Commonwealth Close.

Or new facilities such as running water and flushing toilets, commonplace today.

Mr Calvin Low, aged 49, moved to Tanglin Halt in 1964 when he was five. He recalled: 'From afar, they looked like giant pigeonholes - stacked-up concrete boxes, some with impressive columns of stairs at either end - arranged with military precision on an angry, red and ochre landscape of exposed earth.

'As we approached on our rickety lorry, with all our family and possessions in the back, the clean, sweeping lines of corridors rising to the sky and the distinct smell of new concrete and fresh paint brought a spring to our step. We were finally moving into our very own flat. It may have been small, but it was our castle in the sky.'

Hailing from Kampung Batak in the Eunos-Kaki Bukit area, his family moved to a three-room flat in an eight-storey block in Queenstown. 'I'd never been that high up in the air before in my life and the adults were anxious that I didn't take a liking to peering over the precariously thin, four-inch parapet wall for a better view,' remarked Mr Low.

Nor were they keen on him riding the lift for fun in case it got stuck, or yelling when playing, for the neighbours were a mere hollow concrete block thickness away.

For a long while, this was all part of the novelty of living in a high-rise block of flats. The faces of new neighbours, the half-finished roads and buildings in the neighbourhood, the newly planted saplings and even the raw earth itself, awaiting development, lent a sense of frontier fervour to the residents' lives.

It was a singular experience mirrored across a whole segment of Singapore society who had moved from rural villages, slums and the chronically overburdened inner city to the frontier town that Queenstown was in the early 1960s.

For many Queenstown residents, overcrowding still remained a fact of life. Not that they really minded. Mr Dominic Teo, 61, a retired army regular, moved to a three-room flat in Margaret Drive in the 1950s. It was home to 16 members of his family, including Mr Teo's grandmother.

'That time, I was not sleeping on a bed; I was sleeping on a plank. My grandmother was sleeping on the bed. Still, it was better than in the kampung. It was all muddy, and dark without street lights in the kampung. It was cramped in our flat.

'But we all didn't feel it because we were young. They would just put down a plank and we would just sleep, all squeezed together,' said Mr Teo.

'When I was living in an attap kampung house, it was scary. Because, when you hear fire engines, you worry about your house getting burnt,' he added. His wife Margaret Lim, 59, knows that fear first-hand.

Her family survived the Bukit Ho Swee fire in 1961 and was resettled at Strathmore Avenue in Princess Estate.

Princess Estate was also where the family of Associate Professor Koo Tsai Kee, 53, Minister of State for Defence, moved to in 1959, when he was five, leaving behind the Killiney Road workers' quarters where he was born.

'We were on the third floor and it transformed my parents' lives. They told me because they used to have to queue for long periods to use the toilet and then also to use the kitchen. So there was a schedule like a military schedule.

'When they moved to Queenstown in their own flat, to them it was heaven. They had their own bedroom; own kitchen, own toilet; they separated the toilet and the urinal. So they were very happy.'

High-rise living - a fact of life for most Singaporeans today, made its debut in Queenstown. When the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) developed its first neighbourhood in Princess Estate in the 1950s, it built the 14-storey Forfar House, Singapore's tallest housing block at the time. It was the estate's crown jewel.

Forfar House was also known as chap si lau (Hokkien for 14 storeys).

'Chap si lau was also famous for another reason,' said Prof Koo.

'It's called tiao lau (Hokkien for committing suicide by jumping off a building). In those days, if people wanted to commit suicide, they would go to a high building.... So they would go to Forfar House. That place became very famous for suicide.'

Mr Ronald Pereira, 54, director of a printing company who lived in the area since 1957 remembered stepping into Forfar House only a couple of times for fear of the place.

'I don't think suicides happened very often. People talked about it. But it became a place you'd be scared to go to. When you're a kid, ghosts, everything comes to mind,' he said.

10 Stories: Queenstown Through The Years, by Calvin Low, is a joint collaboration between the National Heritage Board, Central Singapore Community Development Council and Queenstown Citizens' Consultative Committee. It is on sale at major bookshops for $30.

From huts to high rises
Straits Times 2 Dec 07;

Queenstown consisted of hills, swamps and cemeteries before it was transformed into Singapore's first high-rise housing estate.

Below are edited excerpts from a new book - titled 10-Stories, Queenstown Through The Years - charting the 55-year-old estate's colourful history as seen through the eyes of its residents.
WHEN Ang Beng Teck was born in Boh Beh Kang (Hokkien for No Tail River) in 1928, he was just one more bawling addition to an extended household that comprised six families living together under one attap roof. He did not want for minders or playmates, growing up in close quarters with the families of his five paternal uncles.

'Hut', however, was not a fitting description of the Ang abode. It had 'over 10 rooms', and a large living room and kitchen - all built by his uncles and his father, who was just seven when he arrived in Singapore from China.

In those days, births and deaths, and every life event in between, were shared experiences of joy and grief for the whole kampung (Malay for village).

'Last time, people were so close. If anything happened, all the kampung people would gather,' Mr Ang recalled.

Not any more. 'Now, if anything happens, nobody would even know about it,' he lamented.

But his wizened features reveal no hint of surprise at this loss. After all, Mr Ang has witnessed far more tumultuous changes in his 79 years - with World War II putting an abrupt end to his kampung days and the transformation of the physical landscape itself into today's Queenstown.

Boh Beh Kang was relatively remote, and deliberately so, for its earliest residents sought to escape the chronic congestion of the city for the relative peace of this backwater area.

Whole lives were enacted within the shadows of Hong Yin Sua (Hokkien for Hong Yin Hill) and Hong Lim Sua (Hokkien for Hong Lim Hill), the two hills that dominated Boh Beh Kang.

Before the War, people spent more time interacting with one other at work and play. There was no electricity. There was no radio or television; and certainly no Internet or online gaming to keep one away from others. After dark, the most one could do was to read a book by the glow of a kerosene lamp, as the former Boh Beh Kang villagers recalled.

Other pastimes involved socialising. After the day's toil in the farms, at the nearby Hock San brickworks or the quays of the Singapore River, where some villagers worked as coolies and odd job labourers, the adults - mainly men - would visit the local coffee shop to catch up with friends.

The humdrum of farm work was occasionally interrupted when someone got married. 'Last time, getting married was different. It was like in the movies - the newly-weds would wear red clothes and sit in a rented horse carriage,' Mr Ang Kok Tee, 84, a relative and fellow Boh Beh Kang villager said.

Wedding feasts were self-catered. 'We'd slaughter the chickens, ducks and pigs and cook them. There usually weren't many tables - just for people in the kampung,' recalled Mr Ang Beng Teck.

'Then when the bridal couple arrived and everyone was seated, they'd set off firecrackers,' Mr Ang Kok Tee recalled. The men and womenfolk attended the wedding feast separately.

'The women would be invited to attend in the afternoon. The men, in the evening,' said Mr Ang Beng Teck. But both men and women would sit together at the gambling table, playing card games and reviewing the day's chap chi ki (Hokkien for local lottery) results.

'Nowadays, people play with dollars, but in those days, they'd wager only three or five cents. People were more thrifty,' Mr Ang Kok Tee recalled. Not that there was much money around, nor a bank in sight.

Whatever cash they owned was hidden in a quiet corner of the home, Mr Ang Beng Teck explained.

The idyllic, if spartan, life of the Boh Beh Kang villagers was rudely interrupted when the Japanese invaded during World War II.

'When the Japanese bombed this place, the whole stream was on fire! When the artillery shells came, you couldn't see them. But you would hear their sound 'shiu shiu shiu shiu'. And you'd know they are here,' Mr Ang Beng Teck said.

Life was even more difficult under the Japanese.

'Food was hard to get. Everything had to be registered before you could get your rations. If you want rice, oil, or kerosene, you have to register with the kampung chief and show him your ration card.

'Even to get roti (Malay for bread) you need to register. The roti was as hard as rocks because they used red palm oil to make them,' Mr Ang Beng Teck said.

Resourcefulness saw the farmers of Boh Beh Kang through those lean times.

Mr Ang Kok Tee recalled: 'There was not enough rice, so we grew our own tapioca and sweet potatoes in the hills and mixed these with rice.

'Children today are so lucky! If food is dropped onto the floor, they wouldn't eat it. Last time, we would just pick it up, blow blow, and eat it.'

Post-war life was no easier. Mr Ang Kok Tee, who worked as an odd-job labourer at the brickworks and later at the ABC Brewery, said: 'We earned just over 10 cents a day. Of this, we spent two cents on rice with some curry gravy on it. And then, we had to get back to work. No kopi (Malay for coffee), no drinks. There was no money for kopi. We just drank tap water.'

Despite this, the old men still miss the simplicity of life in the old days.

'Life in the past was better. We didn't earn much, but things were cheap too. No need to pay water or electrical bills, nothing!

'Just $2 a year for the address, that's all,' Mr Ang Kok Tee said.

But village life at Boh Beh Kang was quickly drawing to a close. The British government had made plans to develop the land for Queenstown. And by the 1960s, the villagers had to move out.

Mr Ang Beng Teck moved to Tanglin Halt where he opened a grocery store. The transition to an urban existence was hard for the former farmers.

'Of course, in the beginning, we were all very sad and frustrated. We were really not used to the new environment,' Mr Ang Beng Teck said. 'When we moved to Tanglin Halt, the rent was $380. But it kept increasing every three years. In the kampung we didn't have to pay for water.

'Everything became a financial burden - the bills, the rents. Even to go out, you needed transport fares."

But Mr Ang Beng Teck was resigned to the change. 'Even if you were not used to it, you had no choice in the matter.'

How 'Boh Beh Kang' and 'Chap Si Lau' came to be
QUEENSTOWN was developed from swampland that was home to a famous Hokkien village called Boh Beh Kang, which means No Tail River in Hokkien.

Boh Beh Kang refers to the stream that flowed between two hills, Hong Yin and Hong Lim. The name came about because the villagers could not identify the source of the stream.

The stream branches off in two directions; south-east to the Singapore River, and north-west to Sungei Pandan and eventually to West Coast. Hence, it appeared that there was no 'tail' to the stream.

The residents were mostly immigrants from Tong'an in Fujian, China. Many were members of the Ang extended family.

When the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) started planning Queenstown in the 1950s, engineers reclaimed the swamp and the Boh Beh Kang stream became a large concrete monsoon drain running between Commonwealth Avenue and Stirling Road. The drain still exists today. Older residents still refer to the canal as Boh Beh Kang.

The canal was partially covered when the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) viaduct was built in the mid 1980s. Today, it re-emerges as the Alexandra Canal after the Queenstown MRT station, flowing east towards Kim Seng Road.

In the early days, Queenstown was distinguished by the 14-storey Forfar House, (see facing page). That is how the place became known as Chap Si Lau, Hokkien for 14 storeys.

FAMOUS QUEENSTOWN RESIDENTS

Wonders of modern living

'When I first moved to Queenstown, the thing that amazed me most was the modern sanitation...to move into a flat where you could just pull the flush and everything disappeared. That was the most, to me, amazing thing because I had never experienced it.'
SENIOR MINISTER GOH CHOK TONG, 66. Moved from Pasir Panjang, where the family had no electricity and no modern sanitation, into a three-room flat in Commonwealth Drive in 1962. Lived there for 21/2 years with his family before moving out when he got married in 1965.

Outdoor fun

'The Stirling Road side, among the Mei Ling estate. It was a cemetery and we used to go up there, fly our kites, catch spiders.'
MINISTER OF STATE FOR DEFENCE KOO TSAI KEE, 53. Moved into an SIT flat in Princess Estate in 1959.

Neighbours who spread the joy

'My neighbour had a TV set. We couldn't afford to buy one. And I used to ask, 'Uncle, can I come and watch TV?' So very proud, I will come in and sit down, watch the movie or whatever it is. And then go back to my home.'
DJ BRIAN RICHMOND, 60. Grew up in Block 80, Strathmore Avenue in the 1960s.

Childhood inspiration

'When I wrote my essays, songs, poems, short stories, etc, the subjects which I used, quite a lot of them were derived from my growing-up days in Queenstown.'
XINYAO SINGER-SONGWRITER LIANG WERN FOOK, 43. Moved into a rented two-room flat in Margaret Close in 1964; then to Block 6C, Margaret Drive in 1971. Moved out of Queenstown in 1987.

Treasure trove of life stories

'I wanted to give the sense that there are a lot of stories in every household, but when you walk past each window or gate, you might not be immediately aware of the stories.'
FILMMAKER WOO YEN YEN, 36. Grew up in Mei Ling Street, Commonwealth Avenue and Stirling Road. Singapore Dreaming, the movie she made with her husband Colin Goh, is based on her grandmother's flat in Commonwealth Avenue.

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Farm Feasts in Singapore

Eating at a remote, rustic location is becoming a draw for the Singapore urbanite
Huang Lijie, Straits Times 2 Dec 07;

SINGAPOREANS, it seems, will do anything for a unique dining experience.

And this includes travelling 30 minutes to a far-flung farm in Mandai Agrotechnology Park to eat in a greenhouse surrounded by orchids.

Since opening in May, Forrest at Orchidville in Lorong Lada Hitam, off Mandai Road, has seen customer numbers grow from fewer than 10 to more than 100 on weekends.

Three other eateries on farms here are also thriving, thanks to customers who are drawn by the novelty of dining in the lap of nature.

For instance, Poison Ivy Bistro in Bollywood Veggies, a farm in Neo Tiew Road in Kranji run by the former Netball Singapore president Ivy Singh-Lim, attracts some 500 diners on any given Saturday.

Each food outlet was opened at a cost of between $100,000 and $500,000 and seat on average 50 people each. Forrest at Orchidville, converted from one of six orchid greenhouses on the farm, has room for 300 diners.

Restaurants near farms have been around since the 1970s. Think the seafood outlets at Punggol jetty near the pig farms that have since closed and, more recently, Farmart, a farmers' market in Sungei Tengah Road, which includes a handful of food stalls selling everything from barbecued seafood to chicken wings.

The new eateries that have sprouted in the last five years are, however, located on the farms themselves and offer a dining experience that is more than just about eating in a lush environment.

Mr Kenny Eng, 33, director of Gardenasia, which operates the two-year-old Petals and Leaves Bistro in the Nyee Phoe Flower Garden in Kranji, says: 'We're offering customers a holistic lifestyle choice, an opportunity to indulge in countryside living that cannot be replicated elsewhere. Dempsey Road has greenery but it doesn't have farms.

'So people who come here to dine can admire the plants growing in our nursery or explore neighbouring goat and fish farms.'

Business consultant Tan Lay Li, 31, who dines at the Petals and Leaves Bistro monthly with her two sons, aged three and one, says the Western-style eatery offers a 'great nature getaway'.

She says: 'Instead of shopping in a toy store after a meal, which is what happens when my family eats out in a mall restaurant, my kids can get close to nature in the gardens.'

These farm restaurants, however, were mainly set up not so much as newfangled alternative dining spaces but rather as a solution to keep visitors happy.

Mrs Singh-Lim, 58, whose bistro opened in 2004, says: 'Bollywood Veggies, which was completed in 2002, was an oasis for visitors seeking the countryside, but they needed sustenance, a place to eat and drink while spending the day here.'

Indeed, the way-out location of these farms and the lack of food and beverage options in their vicinities discouraged visitors from lingering.

This prompted Mr Heah Hock Heng, 72, owner of Mandai Orchid Garden in Mandai Lake Road, to start Cafe Vanda in 2002, which sells beverages and simple snack foods. The following year, he opened Vanilla Pod, a restaurant serving contemporary European cuisine, to complement the cafe.

And because of Forrest, customers are lingering at Orchidville after their meals, resulting in walk-in sales at the orchid wholesale exporter increasing fourfold, says its director, Mr Joseph Phua, 54.

The owners admit that growing a crowd at their eateries took time, but word-of-mouth recommendations helped boost business.

Vanilla Pod, according to Mr Heah, broke even in a little over a year without aggressive marketing.

In fact, with the word spreading about these eateries, its diners are no longer just families or visitors in search of a weekend retreat.

Mr Eddie Ng, 52, manager of a manufacturing company in Woodlands, for example, was enjoying a casual business lunch at Forrest on Tuesday.

There on a recommendation, he says the relaxing ambience and good food make the place worth a return visit.

While these eateries are doing well, other farms are not racing to start opening food outlets.

Mr Jimmy Yap, 45, business development manager of fish farm Qian Hu in Sungei Tengah in Choa Chu Kang, says that the company has no plans to expand its small refreshment area, which sells mainly tidbits and snacks to visitors.

This, he says, is because opening a formal eatery on the farm would take attention away from its core business - fish rearing.

lijie@sph.com.sg

Where to eat
# Bollywood Veggies: Poison Ivy Bistro
100 Neo Tiew Road,
Tel: 6898-5001

Open: 9am to 6pm, Wednesdays to Sundays and public holidays

Most of the vegetables on the menu are harvested from the farm. With Lynn Ee, a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, helming the kitchen in recent months, diners can expect a more sophisticated use of herbs and flavourings in the dishes. Popular items include the papaya chicken and banana curry (above).


# Mandai Orchid Garden: Vanilla Pod
200 Mandai Lake Road,
Tel: 6368-0672

Open: 11.30am to 3pm and 6.30pm to 11pm, Mondays to Fridays; 9am to 11pm, Saturdays and Sundays

Contemporary European cuisine such as hot pot mussels and braised lamb shank are offered at this restaurant, which gets its name from the fact that vanilla is an orchid.


# Cafe Vanda
Open: 8am to 11pm daily

Simple snack foods from the Vanilla Pod kitchen include sandwiches and fried chicken wings.


# Nyee Phoe Flower Garden: Petals and Leaves Bistro
240 Neo Tiew Crescent,
Tel: 6793-6500

Open: 11am to 10pm, Saturdays; 10am to 6pm, Sundays and public holidays

Comfort Western-style food keeps the diners happy here. Recommended items include fish and chips and chicken chop with mushroom sauce.


# Orchidville: Forrest
10 Lorong Lada Hitam,
Tel: 6552-7003

Open: noon to 2.30pm and 6pm to 9.30pm, daily

This air-conditioned greenhouse restaurant boasts an insulated roof that allows light in but keeps heat out, making it more energy efficient. Most of the restaurant staff, including the chefs, are from the recently shuttered Dragon City Sichuan Restaurant in Copthorne Orchid Hotel. Specialities include Sichuan drunken chicken and pork knuckle noodles.

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AVA says vegetables in markets safe to eat: following checks on vegie farms with 'red spots'

Channel NewsAsia 1 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE: The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) says all vegetables sold in Singapore are safe for consumption.

This follows checks at vegetable farms in Sungei Tengah and the Lim Chu Kang Agrotechnology Parks, where red spots were found on crops there.

The spots were caused by a dye released from an RSAF aircraft being tested at Tengah Airbase in preparation for an upcoming aerobatic display.

AVA said the red spots were only found on crops in six farms in the Lorong Semangka area in Sungei Tengah.

The farmers have three days to destroy the affected crops, which come up to some 200 tonnes of vegetables.

Dr Paul Chiew, deputy director of Veterinary Public Health at AVA, said: "AVA's priority is to assure the safety of food, including vegetables. As the red dye is not approved for use in food, AVA is requiring all the vegetables in the 6 affected farms to be destroyed as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of our consumers."

AVA said that once the affected crops are destroyed, the farmers must irrigate their land to flush out any remaining trace of the dye.

AVA also assured the public that all vegetables sold in wet markets and supermarkets are safe for consumption.

The Defence Ministry said the amount of red dye deposited will not cause adverse health effects when inhaled or when in contact with the skin.

MINDEF said the RSAF conducted a ground trial which involved producing red smoke from one of its stationary aircraft at the airbase on 23 November.

Strong winds may have dispersed the residual dye from the smoke to the farms.

It is looking into the case and has suspended all such trials.

MINDEF said all reasonable claims arising from this incident will be considered and compensation will be paid accordingly.

Members of the public requiring assistance on this matter can call the MINDEF hotline at 1800-760 8844. - CNA/ir

200 tonnes of 'dyed' veggies to be dumped
Precautionary move should not affect market prices, says AVA
Mavis Toh , Shuli Sudderuddin, Straits Times 2 Dec 07;

VEGETABLE farmer Wong Kok Fah is seeing red these days - hard not to, given that the lush crops of kailan, chye sim and Chinese cabbage of farms in the area are being destroyed because of a red dye.

Normally Mr Wong, 45, would be harvesting his prized vegetables but yesterday, he and five workers were disposing of over 200 tonnes of produce from the 3ha he farms.

'It's such a waste,' Mr Wong said. 'Some of the crops are practically ready to eat, but I guess safety is more important.'

Farmers on five other plots were facing the same heartbreaking task, one that will eventually see 200 tonnes of vegetables dumped.

The farm plots in the Lorong Semangka area of Sungei Tengah were collateral damage from a Republic of Singapore Air Force training exercise on Nov 23.

The elite Black Knights aerial display team was testing red dye used to create a plume of smoke from the exhausts of their F-16C jets, but some was blown over crops, trees and vehicles.

Mr Wong discovered the problem last Tuesday when he saw that his farm netting was speckled with red spots.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) stepped in and told farmers on Friday night that all their crops had to be disposed of.

Dr Paul Chew, AVA's deputy director of veterinary public health, said: 'We have to take the precautionary measure...as the dye is not meant for consumption.'

Vegetable prices are not expected to be affected. The 200 tonnes of produce - about 10 lorry loads - that will be incinerated in Tuas comprise less than 1 per cent of Singapore's consumption, said Dr Chew.

Farmer Tan Bock Tat, 40, will lose 1.3ha of crops but he remains business-minded: 'The price of vegetables is very high now and I hope we will be compensated at market rates.'

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: 'We are in direct contact with the affected farms. All reasonable claims...will be considered and compensation paid accordingly.'

Vehicles were also affected. Mr Jason Sia, 29, unemployed, said his white Honda Civic was covered with droplets.

'I might have to polish it, which will cost $60 to $100. Worse still, I might need to repaint it,' he said.

Four other vehicles in the area were also affected.

Mindef has a hotline for queries: 1800-760- 8844.

RELATED ARTICLE

Farmers told to destroy 200 tonnes of greens after red dye from airbase falls on them
Mindef says dye was from an aircraft being tested on the ground last Friday
Jessica Jaganathan & David Boey, Straits Times 1 Dec 07;

Read more!

ABC Waters project to usher in cleaner waterways throughout Singapore by 2009

Channel NewsAsia 1 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE: The PUB wants to work with the community to beautify and maintain Singapore's pristine waters through the ABC Waters project.

The Active, Beautiful and Clean Waters project will involve all 32 major rivers, more than 7,000 kilometres of canals and drains and 17 reservoirs by 2009. Launched in April this year, the project was piloted at three locations - Kolam Ayer, Bedok Reservoir and MacRitchie Reservoir.

More than just shoring up river and canal banks or providing clean water,
the PUB wants to find out what residents want.

On Saturday, the PUB held the first community workshop on the project, engaging residents at Kolam Ayer.

As part of their plans, Kolam Ayer residents want to enjoy concerts and watersports on their stretch of the Kallang River.

"My wishlist for Kolam Ayer is to have a place where people can enjoy and de-stress themselves....have some time to enjoy the sun and the sea," said a resident.

The Kolam Ayer project will be completed by March next year.

While Singaporeans can expect beautiful waterfront facilities, they must also exercise responsibility over them.

Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Environment and Water Resources Minister, said: "It is not sustainable for the Ministry, or the PUB, or NEA to do everything that we want to do. We have to get community participation and ownership. As we open up our waterways, we beautify them, it's not something that we just go, have fun and go back. You must feel that you are part of it." - CNA/ir

Read more!

Highest bridge in Singapore links Mt. Faber and Telok Blangah Hill

Channel NewsAsia 1 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE: The highest bridge in Singapore does not have a name yet, and Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has orgainsed a naming competition for those eager to leave their mark.

From now until the middle of January 2008, the public can visit the URA's website at www.ura.gov.sg to cast their votes.

The bridge across Henderson Road, which stands at 37 metres above ground, is Singapore's highest pedestrian bridge. Its centre portion was lifted into place just before dawn on Saturday.

The centre portion was put together in around 2.5 months, and took about five hours, at a speed of 10m per hour, for it to be lifted 37m above ground and fitted into place.

The cautious speed was due to the bridge's tilt, which meant lifting operations had to be done carefully, with engineers constantly checking the hydraulic jacks and cables.

Linking Mount Faber and Telok Blangah Hill, the bridge is part of the government's project to join the Southern Ridges.

One thing passers-by will notice about the bridge is that it has been built at an incline.

The structure is as such to accommodate the height difference between Mount Faber and Telok Blangah Hill, while allowing easy access for wheelchair users.

The bridge was mostly completed at about 5.15am on December 1. However, the pedestrian access will only be opened in February next year.- CNA/yb

RELATED ARTICLE

Take the bridges to the hills
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 12 Aug 06

Read more!

Loss of 'goddess' a grave warning sign

John Yeld, The Cape Argus, Independent Online 30 Nov 07;

"What does that say about our values and priorities? And it's not likely to be a unique event in the next few decades."

One marine mammal - the Chinese river dolphin, or baiji - has gone extinct in the past 50 years and others are likely to follow in the coming decades, a leading marine scientist has warned.

The baiji, a white dolphin found only in China's Yangtze River and nicknamed "the goddess of the Yangtze", is considered extinct after scientists failed to find a single animal during a six-week search on the river last November and December.

Speaking on Thursday at the opening plenary of the 17th biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Society for Marine Mammalogy president John Reynolds made a plea for scientists to also promote conservation of the species that they worked on and cared about, which was "far more difficult" than science.

"We're losing species, we're losing stocks - the standard (scientific) operating procedures are not working well," he warned.

The conference, co-hosted by the Society for Marine Mammalogy and Pretoria University's Mammal Research Institute, has attracted more than 900 delegates from 57 nations. It is the first time it has been held in the southern hemisphere and only the second time outside north America.

Reynolds noted that the recent extinction of the baiji - the small, nearly blind white dolphin - had been foreseeable and could have been prevented.

"What does that say about our values and priorities?" he asked, and added: "And it's not likely to be a unique event in the next few decades." The Caribbean monk seal had also been "irrevocably lost", and at least another 22 species or particular stocks of species - including the killer whales off the North American coastline - were on the verge of becoming extinct unless urgent conservation programmes were implemented, he pointed out.

"And based on recent history, I don't know if we will (be able to implement such programmes)," he warned.

There were some success stories, such as the Alaskan bowhead whale whose numbers were increasing at more than three percent a year, which was "great news".

However, marine mammals were facing a number of risks in the future, including global climate change.

"It's a really daunting picture, and there are no guarantees that all stocks and species will make it."

Reynolds said conservation was "more difficult, more elusive" than good science, and he challenged society members to augment their science by also practising conservation advocacy, "for what you think is right".

"All that is needed is a collective will to preserve."

Reynold's theme was echoed by eminent Japanese marine mammal scientist Dr Toshio Kasuya, who was presented with the society's second Kenneth S Norris Career Achievement Award, in honour of his "exemplary and sustained contributions to science and society through research, teaching and service in marine mammalogy" over 46 years.

Kasuya, who retired last year, spoke of two marine mammal "tragedies" in Japan's fisheries history.

These were the failure of the government fisheries agency to take the scientists' advice to regulate the annual catch by coastal fishermen of as many as 21 000 dolphins, most of them striped dolphins, and the hunting of sperm whales off Japan.

Officially this hunting killed 88 000 whales between 1910 and 1988, but the true number could have been two or even three times greater because of poaching by Japanese coastal fishermen and Soviet pelagic fishing.

Kasuya said there was "no doubt" that whales had culture, with experience transmitted among members of the group.

"Whales can learn, they live long enough to accumulate experiences and they have a social system to transmit it to others."

He was opposed to Japan's recent approach of evaluating science in terms of economic benefit and said no marine mammal science was free from the conservation imperative.

"We are responsible for the future of marine mammals, even when we are paid by organisations with other objectives."

This article was originally published on page 13 of The Cape Argus on November 30, 2007

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World's largest mangrove badly hit by cyclone: official

Shafiq Alam Yahoo News 1 Dec 07;

Environmentalists said they believed the forest would regenerate on its own and warned that human tampering with the rare ecosystem could prove disastrous.

A quarter of Bangladesh's Sunderbans forest has been damaged by a deadly cyclone that left a trail of devastation in the vast mangrove swamp, a top forestry official said Saturday.

The world's largest mangrove forest bore the brunt of the cyclone that smashed into Bangladesh on November 15, killing more than 3,200 people and wiping out thousands of villages.

"The cyclone has left huge devastation in the Sunderbans unseen for decades. Some 1,500 square kilometres (600 square miles) of the forest was damaged," chief government forest conservation official A.K.M. Shamsuddin said.

"At least seven percent of the (Bangladeshi portion of the) forest was severely damaged... while another 17 to 18 percent was partially damaged," he told AFP, adding initial satellite images showed the extent of the destruction.

The 10,000 square kilometre forest straddles the borders of Bangladesh and India's West Bengal state and lies on the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta.

The Bangladesh portion comprises 60 percent of the total area. The Indian side was untouched by the cyclone.

A UNESCO team was visiting the delta of lush forested islands, separated by a complex network of tidal rivers and creeks, to survey the destruction, Shamsuddin said.

"We're figuring out how we will tackle the damage," he added.

"If necessary, we may have to opt for assisted natural regeneration in some areas and planting in others," he said.

Under assisted regeneration, workers clear away fallen trees and other storm debris to allow new saplings to grow.

But environmentalists said they believed the forest would regenerate on its own and warned that human tampering with the rare ecosystem could prove disastrous.

"This is not the first time that the Sunderbans has been hit by a huge cyclone," said Niaz Ahmed Siddiqui, known as a world expert on the Sunderbans.

"We have recorded history of such cyclones hitting the forest in the last 200 to 300 years," he said.

"Every time the forest has been battered, it has regenerated on its own," said Siddiqui, who headed the Bangladesh government's mangrove forest research unit for 15 years.

"Any human intervention to regenerate trees is unwarranted and would be suicidal," he said.

Some less severely hit areas could start regenerating in three to four months' time, added mangrove forest management specialist Fariduddin Ahmed.

"It's a unique eco-system. It does not need any human touch -- any human disturbances would make regeneration difficult," he added.

Although not inhabited, the jungle is a magnet for thousands of impoverished villagers who live along its boundaries and work there as fishermen or collect honey or wood.

The Sunderbans is also home to an estimated 500 Royal Bengal tigers. There are only an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 of the endangered species left worldwide, down from 100,000 in 1900.

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Earth Observations: working together could protect against droughts, natural disasters and disease

Earth monitor meeting makes progress
Clare Nullis, Associated Press, Yahoo News 30 Nov 07;

The Group on Earth Observations aims to link up the myriad satellites, ground stations, radar systems and ocean monitors that often operate in isolation.

Working together, the monitoring systems could boost the capacity to predict — and protect against — droughts, floods, hurricanes and disease.

"The goal is to provide the right information in the right format at the right time to the right people so they can make the right decisions," U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said Friday during the group's annual conference in Cape Town.

China and Brazil promised to distribute their Earth observation satellite data free to Africa, while the European Union has also launched a project to help Africa close its Earth observation gaps.

Enormous strides in the sharing of technology and pooling of ideas have been made in the past few years. There are tsunami alert systems to prevent a repeat of the 2004 southeast Asian catastrophe that killed 230,000 people.

But the challenges associated with global warming, overpopulation, deforestation and desertification are growing. There are glaring gaps in poor, heavily populated countries, and too little overall coordination.

The warnings for a recent Bangladesh cyclone came from a Bangladesh-born hurricane expert in the United States who made his own calculations about the impact of the storm and send word home.

The 3,500 killed were a fraction of the toll of earlier years.

A Global Earth Observation System was devised in 2005 for completion in 2015 with the aim of allowing access to a vast quantity of information on changes in the Earth's land, oceans, atmosphere and biosphere through a single Web portal.

The system envisages common technical standards to ensure that data emanating from one country can be received and understood in another. One of the items up for discussion Friday was a common alert protocol that would include a single radio frequency for disasters — such as operates for air traffic control.

If authorities were able to predict drought three to six months in advance, this would enable them made decisions on planting crops and water resource allocation way ahead of time.

In the United States, this could help save billions of dollars, and in Africa it would save untold lives, Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press.

Tracking and combating the spread of infectious diseases like malaria and cholera could be improved if early warning systems were developed for infected areas, according to South African Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena.

Similarly, early warnings of likely epidemics in Africa's "meningitis belt," would allow health experts to integrate user-friendly climate forecasts into vaccination and treatment programs for the disease.

Kempthorne said information and expertise gleaned from the North American Drought Monitor program developed by Canada, Mexico and the United States would be made available to other continents.

"Each of the nations represented here holds pieces to a puzzle which, when the different pieces are assembled, we get a total view of Earth," Kempthorne said.

"More people will be fed, more diseases mitigated and more lives saved from natural disasters," as a result.

He said the sense of cooperation at the conference was overwhelming, far removed from the bitter politics surrounding global warming.

The United States has been seen as slow to even acknowledge man was causing global warning, and has balked at the 1997 Kyoto accord requiring 36 industrial nations to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2012.

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Another Whale Falls Ill At Georgia Aquarium

WSBTV 30 Nov 07;

ATLANTA -- Marina, the second oldest beluga whale at the Georgia Aquarium, has recently fallen ill and is being watched twenty-four hours a day. Marina has lost her appetite and has become disoriented.

“Every resource is being given to the team to ensure that Marina is receiving the best possible care,” said Jeff Swanagan, president and executive director, Georgia Aquarium.

“She has a variety of ailments being treated, but her lost sense of direction is the primary concern of the veterinary and husbandry team treating her. Without regaining her ability to navigate, she will not be able to survive in any environment.”

She has already suffered an injury to her rostrum (chin). More than 100 staff will be involved in covering shifts to ensure Marina’s safety, according to aquarium officials. Veterinary and husbandry teams are continuing diagnostic procedures to further understand her condition. Marina, estimated to be 25 years old, is currently being cared for off-exhibit.

In November 2005, three beluga whales, including Marina, were transferred to the Georgia Aquarium on a breeding loan. The Georgia Aquarium team is collaborating with veterinarians from the University of Georgia and the University of Florida.

The three other beluga whales at the Georgia Aquarium, Nico, Maris and Natasha, are all eating normally and responding to the husbandry team.

Officials said an update on Marina will be released Monday afternoon or sooner if her condition changes.

Gasper, one of the Georgia Aquarium's five beluga whales at the time, was euthanized in January after months of declining health.

Whale sharks Ralph and North also died at the Aquarium this year.

Aquarium fights to save ill whale
Mark Davis, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 30 Nov 07;

A beluga whale at the Georgia Aquarium is not well and has been taken off exhibit, officials said Friday.

Marina, a 25-year-old female, has stopped eating and has been swimming erratically since before Thanksgiving, the aquarium said. She also has ulcers and a bump on her snout, and is on 24-hour care, employees said.

The announcement highlights the death earlier this year of Gasper, a popular, bubble-blowing beluga who contracted an incurable disease. The two cases are not related, aquarium officials say.

Marina is the second-oldest whale in the exhibit; Natasha, 28, is oldest. Belugas may live to 35 or older in the wild.

Veterinarians aren't sure what caused Marina to stop eating or swimming like her three tank mates in the Arctic Quest exhibit, said Jeff Swanagan, the aquarium's president and executive director. Nor do they know how serious the 1,570 pound whale's afflictions may be.

"Animals are so good at hiding their symptoms," he said.

Marina's symptoms prompted the aquarium to begin a ceaseless watch Thursday afternoon, when veterinarians placed her in a separate tank adjacent to the beluga exhibit. The aquarium lowered the water and placed 14 people in wet suits in the pool's 55-degree shallows.

Since then, more than 100 people have taken four-hour turns helping the Delphinapterus leucas swim in a tight circle, keeping her away from the pool's edges. Swanagan called it "an incredible effort."

The care will continue for as long as it takes for the whale to improve, he said. The aquarium has also called experts from the Universities of Georgia and Florida to help assess Marina's condition.

That condition, he said, first became apparent just before Thanksgiving when her swimming no longer mirrored the graceful loops and dives of Nico, Maris and Natasha, the other belugas in Arctic Explorer. The aquarium took her off the exhibit, but periodically let her rejoin the others. They quarantined her after she turned sideways and banged her rostrum, or snout, on a rock.

The whale's symptoms don't appear encouraging, said Lori Marino, an Emory University neuroscience lecturer who is a specialist in whales, dolphins and porpoises.

"Those are two cardinal things: off-feed and not swimming well," she said. "That's bad."

Marina, Maris and Natasha came to Georgia in November 2005 in the hope they would breed with males Nico and Gasper. They are on a breeding loan from the Wildlife Conservation Society's New York Aquarium.

Since then, Nico has expressed interest in the females, especially Maris, 13 and the youngest of the trio. He's frequently mated with her this year.

Gasper wasn't as fortunate. The aquarium euthanized him in January after determining he would not recover from a bone disease he contracted at another exhibit. Marina's woes, Swanagan said, "are a totally different situation."

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Sunken Antarctic cruise ship leaves oil spill, threatening 2,500 penguins

Canadian Press 1 Dec 07;

SANTIAGO, Chile - About 2,500 penguins en route to their Antarctic mating grounds could be sickened by a diesel fuel spill from a Canadian cruise ship that struck an iceberg and sank last week.

A marine biologist says areas surrounding the almost two kilometre-long spill site include breeding grounds for Antarctic and Adelia penguins, and the largest mating colony for Papua penguins.

Maria Jose Rosello, a Chilean marine biologist, says: "The danger is that this fuel spill will impede the journey that species like Papua penguins make at this time of year.

Rosello says the area is also home to seals, petrels and other sea birds.

The MS Explorer, an adventure travel ship operated by a Toronto company, was on a 19-day cruise off Antarctica when it hit an iceberg on Nov. 23.

The ship's 154 passengers and crew had to get into lifeboats in the middle of the night. They waited more than three hours in unusually calm, icy waters until they were rescued by a Norwegian cruise ship.

About 190,000 litres of diesel, 24,000 litres of lubricant and 980 litres of gasoline were on board when the Explorer then sank hours later.

Chile's navy said Thursday that bad weather has kept clean-up experts from containing the spill, which is for now penned in by large chunks of floating ice in the Bransfield Strait, about 80 kilometres east of King George Island.

"The diesel oil continues flowing" from the ship, which now rests 1,460 metres below the sea, Veronica Vallegos, an official at the Chilean Antarctic Institute, told Cooperativa radio.

Vallegos and other Chilean experts who toured the spill site reported seeing no contaminated birds this week, but noted they hadn't been able to assess damage the diesel might have done to fish, krill, algae and plankton colonies, a key part of the Antarctic food chain.

"There's always environmental danger when fuel leaks, and even more so in a zone with high biodiversity," Vallegos said.

Studies by scientists who regularly conduct research in Antarctica at this time of year will be key to establishing the extent of the damage, she said.

Diesel is the least harmful type of hydrocarbon product, scientists told a news conference Thursday.

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High tides affect Indonesian fish farmers

Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post 30 Nov 07;

Rising tides in Indramayu regency, West Java, have forced farmers to harvest their fish ponds earlier than expected to avoid huge losses.

Reports Thursday indicated farmers were forced to harvest hundreds of hectares of traditional fish farms early because they had been engulfed by seawater from high tides in the Java Sea.

"The farmers had to harvest early to avoid further losses," said leader of the Indramayu Fish Farmers Association (PPTI), Nono Sudarsono.

Nono said high tides had gradually inundated some 100 hectares of traditional fish farms from Nov. 27.

The majority of damaged ponds are located in the coastal areas of Kandanghaur and Indramayu regencies.

"Most of the damaged farms consisted of milk fish raised traditionally by farmers," he said.

He added the high tides had caused farmers to suffer hundreds of millions of rupiah in damages.

"They usually harvest fish into the third month of raising, but due to the floods, many farmers were forced to harvest earlier to prevent huge losses, even though they had only raised the fish from between one to two months."

Farmers can yield 1.5 tons of fish per hectare under normal conditions, but due to the premature harvest, they have only been able to harvest half the volume.

"They can only harvest around 800 kilograms of fish per hectare at most," Nono said.

An environmentalist from the Workers and Environment Foundation (YLBH), Yoyon Suharyono, has urged fish farmers to replant coastal areas with mangrove.

According to Yoyon, replanting coastal areas with mangrove trees is crucial, since mangrove forests act as barriers against high tides. He said pounding waves could easily reach land and damage residents' homes and fish farms due to the chronic condition of mangrove swamps.

"A mangrove forest can block waves and minimize the damage, but if it's damaged, seawater can easily reach the shore and cause extensive damage," he said.

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