JC SiLent:You cant be that far away from me ; if we're looking on the same side of the moon
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Jacky Cheung 
World Tour 2005
16 Sep 2005 (Fri), 8.00 PM
17 Sep 2005 (Sat), 8.00 PM
Singapore Indoor Stadium2 Stadium Walk
A Chinese Musical Extravaganza by Jacky Cheung. The eternal love unfolds 8 yrs ago. Tis year, the myth continues to conquer the world.
A brand-new stage design was created by Cheung, who was director and art director for the Mandarin version of Snow Wolf Lake.
A strong entourage of 200 people includes casts, dancers, make-up, bands, orchestras and production team with production cost of over 10 million Singapore dollars!
The Chinese musical extravaganza is a tragic love story about Wolf, who is a poor gardener and in love with Snow, a girl from a rich family, as he commits suicide with his lover when they drown themselves in the Snow Wolf Lake, the place where they first expressed their passions for each other. Snow.Wolf.Lake has been highly acclaimed as one of the most important Chinese-language musical creations since its debut in 1997. The renowned ���God of Songs���,
Jackie Cheung gave 43 consecutive performances in Cantonese, which set a box-office record in Hong Kong's musical history and marked the peak of his singing career.Snow.Wolf.Lake, the Mandarin version musical world tour kicked off last Christmas Eve in Beijing and has been traveling around China's major cities. This Sep, Snow Wolf Lake will starts touring to
countries like Singapore and the United States. The tour will run until February 2006.
Snow. Wolf.Lake is an extravaganza in all senses of the word. No expense was spared, from the spectacular set to the colorful costumes. ��� SUNDAY MORNING POST, MARCH 30, 1997.
Prices (exclude SISTIC Fee) : S$228, S$188, S$148, S$98
Pls add $2 SISTIC Fee to above price. Charges include GST where applicable.
10% Discount for UOB Credit Card Priority Discount.
* No admission for infant in arms and child aged <> = 2 years old must purchase ticket for admission.
* No Photography, Video recording and Audio recording is allowed
UOB Credit Card Priority Sale from 11 May to 30 June 2005
Internet Booking Starts on 11 May 2005, 9am
Other Sales channels start on 11 May 2005, 10am.
& 2:05 am
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
S'pore slips, but still high in political governance
By and large, its scores on most indicators are in the top rung in World Bank study
Anna Teo May 10 2005 The Business Times
SINGAPORE) The political governance ratings of Singapore have slipped somewhat over the past decade or so, according to a World Bank study. But few among the 209 countries covered in the research have made good progress, and Singapore probably remains among the top ten for good governance.
Of the study's six governance indicators - updated every two years from 1996 to 2004 - Singapore's ratings have clearly fallen over the period in four of them.
These are: voice and accountability (which tracks civil liberties, and political and human rights); rule of law (measuring the quality of contract enforcement, the police, and the courts, including independence of the judiciary); regulatory quality (reflected in market-unfriendly policies); and government effectiveness (competence of the bureaucracy and quality of public service delivery).
On the other two factors - political stability and control of corruption - Singapore's ratings have fluctuated: the 'scores' improved from 1996 to 2000, then fell sharply before picking up a little last year.
The World Bank report, released yesterday in Washington, focuses on the broad global and regional trends over the period, with no specific comments on individual countries. Neither does it provide precise overall country rankings, though each country can track its own progress on each indicator over the study period, and for each indicator, inter-country comparisons and rankings can be made.
By and large, except for 'voice and accountability', Singapore's ratings for the other five indicators are in the top-ranked 90th percentile - that is, 90 per cent of countries rank below. In the 2004 study, Singapore's 2.44 corruption rating - meaning non-corruption, of course - is second only to Finland's (2.53), though Iceland is only a whisker behind with 2.43.
In most cases, the ratings fall between minus 2.5 and plus 2.5, with the higher figures indicating better governance. But, 'under very specific circumstances, a country's rating might exceed these thresholds', the World Bank report says. 'This simply means that the country has an extremely poor record (below minus 2.5) or extremely good record (above 2.5) in that specific governance indicator.'
The other indicator where Singapore has consistently scored above 2.0 is government effectiveness, where it notched up a high 2.59 in 1998. This has now fallen to 2.25 in the 2004 ratings, but that is still - jointly with Switzerland with the same score - the highest among all countries.
Singapore's latest regulatory quality rating of 1.87 is behind Hong Kong (1.89) and Luxembourg (2.02).
And if Singapore is widely seen to be highly politically stable, at least six other economies - Iceland, Luxembourg, Finland, the Cayman Islands, Norway and New Zealand - score well above Singapore's 1.48.
Only on the 'accountability' factor has Singapore fared poorly, slipping back into negative territory in the latest ratings.
The study - by Daniel Kaufmann, director of global governance at the World Bank Institute, and Aart Kraay, lead economist in the bank's research group - uses subjective measures rather than objective indicators. This is because objective data is 'almost by definition impossible to obtain' in many of the key dimensions of governance, such as corruption or the confidence that property rights are protected, the authors say.
Sources for the study include various organisations, such as Gallup International, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, and the World Economic Forum.
According to the report, governance - which it defines as the set of traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised - 'matters enormously'. The authors say: 'We find that a country improving its quality of governance from a low level to an average level can in the long term quadruple the income per capita of its population, and similarly reduce infant mortality and illiteracy. And the direction of causality is clear: it goes from better governance to higher incomes, and not vice versa . . . governance is not a 'luxury' good that only wealthier countries can afford, (and) is not the automatic result of development . . . it requires continuous political will and commitment, and difficult work.'
According to Mr Kaufmann: 'In spite of a number of shining examples, the fact is that, on average, neither the rich nor the poor worlds have improved in their standards on governance over the past eight years.'
On average, the quality of governance around the world has remained stagnant. This 'sobering reality' ought to motivate collective action, he adds, and this means abandoning interventions that do not work, 'such as single-minded anti-corruption campaigns, and focus on voice and transparency reforms instead'.
& 1:47 am
according to some health organisation more and more are suffering fr mental illness.
a thin fine line differentiates depressed and depression. the only difference = those who suffer fr depression will have sucidual thoughts.
stress's an invisible 'killer'. it drive one to a corner & destory one's confidence, motivation, determination.. dun fall into its trap. do sth you like to cheer urself up. be responsible for urself, ur life and ur luved ones.
i have heard more bad news regarding this matter.
i noe i can't really help much. i really sincerely hope tt such incidents won't happen.
though i may be a great listener /frend but i can bring some laugheter @ times.
if you do feel stressed / down / watever -ve thoughts and feeling.. pls get help. tell someone you are comfortable wif. esp guys for some reasons luv to keep everything to themselves. pls dun do tt which's very unhealthy.
you're nt alone.
& 1:11 am