Pedra Branca, Singapore ceded by the Government of the State of Johore or in any other way disposed of". The Acting State Secretary of Johor replied on 21 September that "the Johore Government does not claim ownership of Pedra Branca". This correspondence indicated that as of 1953 Johor understood it did not have sovereignty over Pedra Branca, which had therefore vested in the United Kingdom. The Colony of Singapore became a self-governing state in 1959, and left the British Empire to join the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. Two years later, in 1965, Singapore became a fully independent republic. In 1959, in an
Federation of the Left Federation of the Left The Federation of the Left (, FdS) was an electoral alliance of communist political parties in Italy. The coalition was the evolution of the Anticapitalist and Communist List. At the start, in May 2009, the federation included four distinct groups: In the 2009 European Parliament election the list won 3.4% of the vote. Its strongholds were in Central and Southern Italy: Calabria (6.7%), Umbria (6.2%), Tuscany (5.1%), Basilicata (4.5%), Abruzzo (4.3%) and Marche (4.2%). The support for FdS followed a similar pattern in the 2010 regional elections, despite losing votes to Left Ecology Freedom. The coalition