Singapore was crowned Asia’s Maritime Capital at the fifth edition of the Asia Boating Awards, held at the prestigious Le Royal Meridien Hotel in Shanghai.

This is the second time the Lion City has been awarded the sought-after accolade – last year’s prize went to Qingdao, China.

The award recognises the tremendous effort that has been put into turning that city into a sailing and boating hub.

It’s a tough business being a billionaire during a credit crunch.

Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia has put the prestigious Raffles Hotel in Singapore up for sale for a price tag of up to $450 million, media reported on Thursday.

Apparently Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia is down to his last $13bn (£8.7bn), which is something of a pittance when you consider he was worth $21bn last year.

Models pose in Gucci dresses before a presentation of the Gucci Spring/ Summer 2009 collection at the Capella Hotel in Singapore March 31, 2009.

Gucci held the collection at Capella, a six-star luxury hotel that opened last week despite Singapore being in recession and the economic crisis affecting tourism numbers across the region.

The $260-million hotel is set within more than 12 hectares of sprawling land and lush greenery. It boasts 111 rooms, including 32 private villas – the first of its kind on Sentosa which come with their own pools.

Construction is underway on the Singapore Civic & Culture Centre, which has been designed by the international architectural firm Aedas.

The nine levels of the Civic and Cultural Zone will complement the range of performing arts venues currently available in Singapore.

It will house a 5,000-seat state-of-the-art auditorium designed by Artec Consultants Inc, the world’s premier performing arts venue design and planning consultants, which will have high quality acoustics and cutting edge technology for amplified music, speech and musical theatre performances.

Founded in 1843, the house of Krug has been providing the world with fine champagnes for six generations now and the legendary winemakers have now collaborated with equally celebrated trunk-maker Pinel & Pinel to create a limited edition Krug Escape Artist champagne trunk collection.

It consists of three different trunk designs, each of which is covered and lined in fine leather. Each also contains, in addition to two bottles of Krug, its owner’s ‘preferred means of escape’ – through gambling, cigar-smoking or music.

The first trunk design features a red calfskin exterior with shiny nickel-plated brass hinges and corners with brown calfskin lining. A drawer contains two packs of poker cards made by ‘Bee’, five casino dice and 200 professional 11g chips, while the doors house two bottles of Krug Grande Cuvée.

The Krug Escape Artist Trunk also contains four Baccarat crystal glasses, a Krug stopper and a Krug champagne cooler, created exclusively for the collection by leading designer François Bauchet. Lastly, a secret drawer holds four Pinel & Pinel nickel-plated brass coasters with leather base.

Moët Hennessy Asia Pacific has made one trunk each of this design available at the DFS Wine Shop in Singapore Changi Airport’s Terminal 3 and Sky Connection in Hong Kong International Airport where it is retailing at HK$188,000 ($24,000 usd).

The second trunk design features a blue lambskin exterior and off-white calfskin lining. It pairs a cigar holder, XCAR cigar cutter and DuPont cigar lighter with two bottles of Krug 1995. The third Krug Escape Artist Trunk has a silver lambskin exterior and pink calfskin lining. Contained within are a state-of-the-art Samsung T9 MP3 video player with Bluetooth technology and a JBL ‘On Tour Plus’ sound system, alongside two bottles of Krug Rosé.

Samsung is all set to launch two new models of its bacteria-killing air conditioners, which use compnay’s proprietary Micro Plasma Ion (MPI) technology.

After launching last year in the US and Europe, they are now set for a launch in Asia. The Vivace Shadow Mirror and Neo-Forte pack enough firepower to kill those germs.

The officials are claiming MPI to be capable of eliminating 78 percent of fungus and 58 percent of bacteria in a 30-minute time frame, within an enclosed environment.