Senior lecturers at Warwick University have voted against setting up a branch campus in Singapore be-cause of worries about limits on academic freedom in the country.

The vote is a blow to the city-state's ambitions to become a regional hub for higher education. It comes in the week that the outgoing US ambassador to Singapore warned in a farewell speech that Singapore's limits on expression might cause the government to "pay an increasing price for not allowing full participation of its citizens".