Malaysia to go ahead with "crooked" bridge

KUALA LUMPUR, Sunday (Reuters) - Malaysia has decided to go ahead with plans to build a bridge to replace its half of a causeway linking the country to Singapore, despite objections from its neighbour, Malaysia's New Sunday Times said on Sunday.

The issue could test the current strength of Malaysia-Singapore relations, which have warmed since Malaysia's outspoken ex-premier, Mahathir Mohamad, handed power to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in late 2003.

"Singapore is expected to be informed of the decision at a two-day meeting of senior officials in Putrajaya on Tuesday," the newspaper said in a report that quoted unnamed sources. Putrajaya is Malaysia's administrative capital.

Mahathir had unveiled the unusual plan to build a bridge to replace half of the 500-metre causeway spanning the strait in 2003, after the island state rejected his original plan to jointly build a bridge to replace the entire causeway.

Malaysia says its "crooked" bridge, so called because of its convoluted design, would boost traffic flow and ease jams on its side of the 81-year-old causeway, allow ships to pass beneath and improve water quality by unblocking the waters of the strait.

Singapore opposes the original plan on cost grounds and has raised its own environmental concerns over the crooked bridge, which would merge with Singapore's half of the causeway.

As talks on the issue have dragged on, Malaysia has gone ahead with a key part of its 1.1 billion ringgit ($292 million) project, a customs, immigration and quarantine (CIQ) centre at Johor Baru, the main gateway to Malaysia from Singapore.

"Malaysia has waited too long for Singapore to respond," the New Sunday Times quoted an unnamed source as saying. "We have no choice but to go it alone because work on the new CIQ complex in Johor Baru is reaching an advanced stage of completion."