Today's Singapore News

The following are stories that are making the headlines over at Topix Singapore News today, edited by yours truly.

-Singapore drops drug trafficking charge vs Australian: Singapore has dropped drug trafficking charges against Australian journalist Peter Lloyd, who will plead guilty to lesser charges instead.
-Singapore restaurant rated top in new Asian guide: Singapore restaurants grabbed top spots in a new guidebook to the best Asian eateries that favours the region's twists on modern European cuisine rather than street stall favorites.
-Eco-park in January: RSP Architects and Jurong Consultants have been commissioned by the National Environment Agency (NEA) to study how to transform a quarter of the Semakau island — some 90 hectares — into an eco-park.
-Government wants to take Gopalan Nair to court again: The Singapore Government is going to take former Singaporean lawyer Gopalan Nair to court again. This time, the 58-year-old is alleged to have said, among other things, "that the courts were being abused for political ends."
-WSJ wages two-decade attack on judges: Singapore's attorney general accused the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday of waging a two-decade campaign to besmirch the Singapore judiciary, at the start of a contempt of court case brought against the newspaper.
-Singapore to replace picture of beggars: The Singapore government has promised to replace a picture of Korean beggars printed in its elementary school textbooks. The picture, printed in a social studies textbook for Singapore's public elementary schools, shows several Korean homeless people sleeping under dirty blankets at a subway station entrance, with the caption ``Homeless people on the street'' next to it.
-Another pump price cut: Oil giant Shell sparked off a price war on Tuesday morning when it brought petrol pump prices one cent lower than the five-cent reduction its rivals initiated on Monday.
-Singapore launches portal to boost games industry: Singapore launched a games resource portal for locally based games companies to feature their products and services and look for business opportunities.
-Singapore benchmarks itself against many global cities: Singapore may have been the first to implement bold initiatives such as the vehicle quota system and congestion pricing, but it gets many of its ideas from other cities.
-Ethics committee proposes how to compensate women: As the authorities attempt to come up with a system to allow compensation for kidney donors, one committee has firmed up a way to do the same for another kind of donation: Human eggs.