Rapid Brush Strokes - Straits Times Fri 20 July 2012

Page 1. The prime retail strip on the globe, Orchard Road, to get a new canal and water retention tank to handle the recurrent flooding that mars shopping.
Page 2 - 3. Assault over a parking spot. A Jaguar pictured; old chap hospitalized wearing a shiner. Ferraris, Jaguars, Porsches, Bentleys, Rollers common as orchids here — an inadequate road network to show them to best advantage (as the driver of the Ferrari complained before killing himself running a red-light some months ago).
Foot Page 3 ad from Indigo Collection: thin young long-haired girl in stride chewing the arm of her sunglasses. Nothing exceptional except for the standard choice of white European in such cases. (Comprising 5 - 6% of the population.).
Page 7: $100m cancer machine half the size of a football field due to be built, the most expensive in Asia. The dirt shortage the problem. (Twenty percent of the current land mass of Singapore reclaimed.).
Half of page 9 taken by the blonde in wide-brimmed sun-hat and tight jeans (not a factor in the aircon) closed-eyed in unmistakable orgasmic delight at the thought of Robinsons savings on her Visa card.
In the papers elsewhere the p.10 story revealing half the Taiwanese population is fat might be missing. Opposite Euro louche in suit, open shirt, barefoot and loafers has his own lazy eye on the pickings at Robinsons.
"Liberalism a Threat to Islam", Malay PM Najib, up for re-election shortly, on p. 14.
Airport picture of the suicide bomber with the pack on his back in Sofia from a few days past. (Page 17.)
 Page 27. Sophistication. Street cred. is for the plebs so far as this society hostess is concerned. A brunette. Hand on hip, other on top of a building from the frieze of the iconic city-scape behind. Necklace fit for a queen. The ladies of the island might not be able to own the same skin tone, bone structure, eye-lids and hair, but they can certainly rise up now to the elegance and sophistication at Larry's jewelry.
Chief Op. Ed. a senior editor with the Economist Intelligence Unit; formerly editor of the Starting Well report. "Tackling Preschool Challenges in S'pore": boxed quotation: "Early childhood education contributes to creating the kinds of workforces that are going to be needed in the 21st C."
Page 32, Opinion still: “Become an Asian Intellectual Property Hub? Here's What It Takes”. Thomas Friedman crisp encapsulation.
Nothing on the two industrial foreign worker deaths on one of the new transport hubs from Wednesday. Found later in the Home section: Family entitlement in such cases here "could be... between $57k and $170k." Prominent SG bloggers have thus far raised $2,500 off their own bat—suggesting which end of the government scale might be expected.