# 5 Melaka, Malaysia

• Male Cats in Singapore often have one ear clipped to show that they have been spayed, and are owned. Stray cats in possession of both ears are periodically rounded up and destroyed by authorities. [Conservation with owner of "Pete", seen above.]
  
• 35 million Indians pay income tax. The country has a population of around 1.1 billion. [Against the Gods, by Edward Luce]
• 1/10th of humans rely on the gangees river for water. [Report on BBC World]

• Singapore has begun to build a spaceport. The $115m facility will be the world’s first commercial port for space travel, and will feature sub-orbital flights at a cost of roughly $100,000. It will be completed in 2009. [Short article in a magazine in the back of a Singapore taxi.]
• The 621 mile Straits of Melaka, the stretch of water between eastern Malaysia and Indonesia, suffers from the world's highest rates of sea piracy, with estimates up to 40% of the world's pirate attacks occuring here. The International Maritime Bureau rank the stretch of water as the most dangerous on earth. [Conversation on a boat, confirmed in various reports including here.]