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By Andrew PK Yap
Singapore 24 January 2010

Are they trying to kid five year old children?

Quote:
AFP – ?Jan 22, 2010?
SINGAPORE – Singapore on Friday rejected allegations by a US-based human rights group that it is a “politically repressive state”.
Unquote

If that is true, that the country is not run by despots, why don’t they come out with a statement saying they welcome any business or media organisation operating in Singapore to openly support any political parties including opposition parties?

If that is true, that the country is not run by despots, why don’t they come out with a statement saying they welcome for example, The Law Society, to openly support any politician including opposition politicians?

You and I know that if they do not oppress entities that support opposition politicians, hell will soon freeze over.

By Andrew PK Yap
Singapore 18 January 2010

It is so disgraceful for a self-titled Minister Mentor to the government of Singapore to promote a casino and casino gambling

How did Singapore fall to such a state of desperation and greed that one such as that has to stoop so low as to promote casino gambling?

Quote
MM Lee visits Sentosa IR
Straits Times – ?Jan 14, 2010?
MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew paid a visit to Resorts World Sentosa on Wednesday, a week ahead of the opening of its first phase on Jan 20. … End of Quote

By Andrew PK Yap
Singapore 17 January 2009

They charge the people exorbitant prices for public housing under the housing debt board.

In a time of recession, they raise electricity prices by 21%.

In the name of “retirement savings”, they take massive amounts of the people’s money in CPF and keep changing the rules to delay the payout.

They raise the Goods & Services Taxes.

They build casinos as a means to induce people to lose their money through gambling.

Instead of letting the people keep their own money in their own pockets, what do they do with it?

They let their relatives and cronies gamble with it.

Nevertheless, like all gambling addicts, the amount of money that they have for gambling is never enough. When they cannot forcibly take more from the people using the police and military to enforce the money grabbing laws they make, they borrow the money.

“Temasek Considering Selling More Bonds
Wall Street Journal – P.R. Venkat, Costas Paris – ?Jan 15, 2010?
“There is investor demand for Temasek bonds and we are getting lots of enquiries,” a banker familiar with the situation said. Temasek announced a US$5 …”

1 December 2009

In my previous article “Your Party might lose the 3rd vote then” dated September 2nd, 2009, I mentioned that

“The Summer Olympic Games which, will be held from August 14 to August 26, 2010, would imply that the GE would be held no earlier than November 2010. Either Hsien Loong would capitalize on the success of the Games and hold a swift GE in November or December, or that it will be as planned in 2011.”

My latest intelligence shows that Hsien Loong has decided to hold next GE in Nov/Dec 2010, after the success of the The Summer Olympic Games which would presumably make every Singaporean very high and happy!

And of course, we look forward to his new pet – the Cooling-Off Day in GE2010.

=)
BN

Ejected from Singapore
One correspondent ponders why his working visa was not renewed by the city-state

Ejected from Singapore | Media | The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/30/singapore-press-freedom

By Andrew Yap
Singapore 24 Nov 2009

Quote
AsiaOne – Rachel Chan – 1 hour ago

HDB does not price its flats on a cost-plus-profit basis, he reminded the House. Taken together with the additional housing grant, which varies from $5000 …

HDB does not price flats on cost plus profit basis: Mah Bow Tan Business Times (subscription)
Unquote

The HDB buys the land from the government. The government makes exorbitant profits from the land sales and in the same breath says HDB does not profiteer from the selling of the flats.

The reason why Singapore is governed in a “Do-as-I-say” style, is primarily because we have a Lawyer personality in Politics.

Should we have had a Teacher or Pastor in politics, our society would be founded on the virtues of grace and mercy.

Lawyers go by the book, and they are experts in doing things legally and politically correct.

About PK Yap’s query into why we need a racial composition in HDB flats allocation, i would say it is a political decision.

At every election, this HDB rule would make a difference in the ways votes are cast.

By having a racial composition, every constituency looks similar for there are about the same racial-ratio.

If kampongs were not dismantled, the scenario would be that each contesting parties would have to send in Malay candidates to that particular zones to secure a victory.

And sad to say, in politics, race does matter.

We look at Malaysia where “the Chinese are marginalised”, said Kuan Yew some time back, and we probably would wonder should one day we have a Malay Cabinet, would Indians and Chinese be marginalised?

Why do we have such a worry? Is it my own propaganda or is there some truth to it?

Have you ever been at a Malay Nasi Padang stall and you witness the stall holder selling things at a discount to their fellow Malay brothers and sisters (during which they communicate in Malay), but charge a higher rate to non-Malays (when they communicate in English)?

Do you see Indians and Chinese stallholders doing it at large?

Forgive me but I am not trying to be biased.

Just that over the years, my observation coupled with my understanding of the perpective of that of the PAP leaders, the Malay Community does help their fellow people in a more generous manner.

Indians and Chinese are less likely to have that “Our small community” mentality, and because of that they are less likely to mix business with personal small community welfare.

Would a Teacher or a Pastor as PM do what Kuan Yew did? Probably They will allow kampongs to continue with the belief that cultures can be preserved.

There might be many policies which are wrong.

But as far as this HDB rule is concerned, I am on the same side as our dear Kuan Yew.

by Andrew PK Yap
Singapore, Friday 20 November 2009 0845am

Quote:
Insistence on bilingualism in early years of education policy was wrong: MM Lee
Date Posted: 17 Nov 2009 2142 hrs (SST)
SINGAPORE: Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said his insistence on bilingualism in the early years of education policy was “wrong”. Instead it caused generations of students to be put off by the Chinese language.

Mr Lee said: ‘A language is first listened to, heard and then spoken. It’s not read or written – that follows later. (But) we started the wrong way. We insisted on spelling and dictation (in Chinese).’
End of Quote

You might say that I am really rude for saying that it was a stupid mistake. It is because I am a victim and I am really angry.

All that misery trying to learn mandarin amounted to nothing. There were so many that could not go on to university, because of the amount of time learning mandarin that they have no aptitude in and the insistence that they must pass it to move on.

Those whose parents had the money sent them overseas into universities that do not need you to excel in mandarin. Just imagined how many lives were thwarted as a result of his social engineering rubbish.

The lesson is simple.

The government’s role is to provide. It is to provide opportunities for the people to learn, to develop and to shine. It is not to dictate to people how they should live their lives, and in so doing, cause great misery, and stifle their development.

Yet Lee Kuan Yew did not learn the lesson. The newspaper reported that he said and I quote:

“So Mr Lee became determined to right his wrongs, which led to changes in how Chinese is taught in schools.”

Instead of learning his lesson and promising not to interfere, he “became determined to right his wrongs”.

If you are a Singaporean, I am sure you are familiar with the various social engineering policies that he made.

Let me cite one social engineering policy that is still in force. The racial composition of HDB flats.

Humans are social animals and living in a large community helps them to be happy and rooted.

Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote a book: “It Takes A Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us”

It is from the saying: “’It takes a village to raise a child’”

More than the Chinese which were mostly migrants, the Malays lived in kampongs and villages. The community brought up the children. It was their way of life. It was their culture.

The social engineering of Lee Kuan Yew broke apart their kampongs and forced them to live far away from each other with the HDB racial composition policies.

Is it any wonder that the Malay children in Singapore more than any other races have the most problems? Their culture and lifestyles were shattered not by natural (with time to adept) forces but by the social engineering work of one that thinks too highly of himself.

I was grateful that he recognized his stupid mistake but then I remain angry because it would seem that he is still as arrogant as ever and thinks he knows best how people should live their lives.

Edited 22 Nov to add: If “ends” can justify “means”, even Hitler had his reasons. Law is “amoral”. An immoral lawyer on the other hand will face retribution/karma depending on the degree of the harm and misery he causes.

If you look at the family of “some” people, you cannot help but wonder if the punishment on the wife (prolonged death/dying), the 1st son (cancer), the 1st daughter-in-law (dead at a very young age) and the first grandson were not “retribution”.

JB Jeyaretnam on the other hand can only be described as dying in a manner that is “Ho See” (literally in the Hokkein dialect, “Good Die, a good way to die”). On waking up he felt chest pains and died shortly after. I want to go like that too.

Singapore government must be given credit for recruiting the popular local cyberspace funny man and its one time critic, Mr Brown, to produce a drama for its “Speak Good English Movement”.

Yes, learning language or anything, should be made fun to pique interest and develop curiosity in the subject matter. Fun, however, plays a minor role in the learning of English which is not an easy language to master.

To improve the standard of English of our school children, our current way of doing things must be changed.

The curriculum must be revised to bring back the intensive drilling in the basic rules of grammar and the rigorous weekly exercises on comprehension and essay writing.

All teachers who conduct classes in English must be proficient in the language themselves. Those not up to mark should be given an intensive refresher course.

Our attitude towards learning English must also change. We must not treat it as a means to acquire knowledge so as to increase our competitiveness in the job market. By adopting such utilitarian attitude towards learning English, we will not see the need to learn it well much less to appreciate it.

Dear Hsien Loong,

You said that See Tong made use of PAP to mislead the poEast PaWest electorate into believing that they could have a “dual-MP” situation… are you insinuating that the electorate have no brains?

At the end of it, people have a choice, and it is Politics.

Why don’t we talk on PAP’s infamous “I upgrade your area, and you vote for me!!!” election approach instead?

Could we say you are trying to mislead the electorate?

Of course not!

You are just buying votes, like See Tong.

One last time, I reassure…. what goes around comes around.

=)
BN

Singapore, 27 October 2009 0739am

It was reported today that Law Minister Shanm went so far as to say the rankings of press freedom and the spot Singapore is in, in particular is “”quite absurd and divorced from reality”.

Just one thought, how is it that in a country with so much press freedom, I have never read or heard the “free press in Singapore” asks how much Temasek loses to foreigners and since Temasek claims to be profitable, how much of the profits are from Singapore?

Some people are so steeped in their own illusions they are the ones “quite absurd and divorced from reality”.

He claims that the poor rankings are solely because of the libel suits brought against the press by his government.

Is he willing to have these suits heard in an international, independent court?

I wonder which publication and reporter of the “free press in Singapore” even dares to ask him that.

~ Man in the Cabinet ~

Happy holiday in the States, papa!

=)
BN

(To download the song for free, you need to register an account with the host…)

To stream the song, click Hifi (as opposed to Lofi) for better resolution. Any problems with downloads, kindly email breakingnewsspore@gmail.com for a FREE copy, while stocks last…

hey, Najib just made 16 September a public holiday for Malaysia starting year 2010. He said they want the joy and sorrows of the people in Sabah and Sarawak to be felt by the people in the peninsula.

But we, being so near the peninsula, cannot feel the joy of the holiday unless you leave behind your legacy too!

Coincidentally, this date will mark YOURS, forever.

Please do consider ya?

=)
BN

Doctors let ‘living will’ woman die for fear of being sued

By Rebecca Smith in London
Thursday October 01 2009
Doctors allowed a young woman to kill herself because she had signed a “living will” that meant they could have been prosecuted if they intervened to save her life.

Kerrie Wooltorton (26), who was suffering depression over her inability to have a child, drank poison at home and called an ambulance. However, she remained conscious and handed doctors a letter saying she wanted medical staff only to make her comfortable and not to try to save her life.

Doctors said her wishes were “abundantly clear” and although it was a “horrible thing” there had been no alternative but to let her die.

They feared they would be charged with assault if they treated her because they believed she was mentally capable of refusing treatment.

It is thought to be the first time someone has used a living will to commit suicide. The documents are more commonly used by terminally ill patients who want to refuse treatment.

By Andrew PK Yap
Singapore 27 Sept 2009 7pm

In March, in this website, (Today Marks the End of the US Stock Market Rout Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 16:38 ) I said that the down moves in the stock markets have ended. This is six months later and the markets have moved up from March to year highs. Where do we go from here?

Now that the markets have move up six months, taking the risks / reward into consideration, it would be prudent to take out at least 50% of your stock investments. I am taking out more and positioning myself for a sharp stock market correction.

The stimulus and other economic packages have so far stopped the world economy from falling down a bottomless pit. The stock market moves up reflects this.

The problem is, the data shows only that the world economy is not going into depression but it shows also that neither is there any economic growth to speak of.

The stock markets on the other hand moved up as if we are back in the good old days. It is unlikely that the world will go back to the good old days.

In the brave new world, it will not be the USA borrowing money from China and Japan to buy stuff from them.

The USA has little to lose borrowing from China and Japan (and all others that lend to them) for the simple reason that they borrow not in Renminbi or Yen but in US dollars. If you stop to think about it, the situation is highly ridiculous. All the US needs to do when push comes to shove, is to print US dollars to repay them.

Yet for the sake of their own domestic economies, they have no choice but to do that, lend the US money in US dollars.

If they were smart, they would have reformed their economies while selling to the US with their own money (that they lend the US) but this crisis has shown that they were not that smart. They did not reform their economies not to be so dependent on the US at all.

The last few decades were the lost decades for China and Japan; lost in their failure to reform their economies. Japan tried for sure but was not successful.

Both China and Japan tried but on hindsight, they did not try hard enough. This crisis has shown that their efforts were failures.

They are now stuck between a rock and a hard place, between the devil and the deep blue sea.

When the US prints money to repay her debts, one would expect the US dollar to drop if not plunge and it has been doing just that. That it has not plunged like the Thai Baht during the Asian financial crisis is because it is still the world’s reserve currency and China and to a lesser extent Japan is propping up the US dollar.

They are still propping up the US dollars simply because their attempts in the last decades to reform their economies to wean their dependence on the US were a failure.

If they do not lend the US money (the ridiculous lending the US in US dollars), the US will not have the money to buy their produce; if they dump the US dollars they are holding, the US dollars will fall to a point that China, and Japan cannot sell to the US because their goods will be too expensive. Not only are they still holding and not dumping, they are still lending more!

This then is the devil and the deep blue sea they face.

Japan is not as desperate as China (because it is a democracy) to prop up the US dollars. Even as the US dollars fall against the Japanese Yen (the Japanese are trying their level best to ensure a smooth adjustment) the painful adjustments are taking place in their country. By the way, Russia, which was never dependant on the US for their economic growth, is dumping the US dollar.

China cannot afford to have a faltering economy. Despots run it. The despots will cling on to power at all costs and there are many risks to their hold on power if the US dollar falls too far against the Renminbi.

Last week President Obama threw a spanner in China’s work. The Chinese figured that they would be able to buy themselves more time by not letting their Renminbi appreciate so fast against the US dollars like the Japanese Yen and the European Euros.

In a move that shocked everyone for its sheer, apparently, fruitlessness President Obama raised tariffs by 25% to 35% on Chinese tier three tires. All the analysis I have read on this issue is consistent in that it, the tariffs, will not, have the expressed effect.

The expressed reasons for the tariffs are to if not restore jobs lost in tire manufacturing, stem further losses. All the independent analysis shows that it will not do that. Some people suggest that president Obama caved in to demands by the Steel Unions that brought up the complaint.

I look at it as, if China wants to manipulate their currency to ensure that what they produce remains cheap, the US is no longer willing to buy even if China lends the US money (again, ridiculously, in US dollars) to buy.

What all this adds up is that the world is looking at painful economic adjustments that will last at least a decade. In the meantime, the stock markets behave as if it will take a year or two to adjust.

As I said, I am more than 50% out of the stock market.

16 September 2009

you look good today, ky

ilu

~ BN ~

~ BREAKING NEWS ~

7  Sep 2009

One month ago…

“The search for the next prime minister is still going on and he will have to be someone in his 30s right now, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said yesterday.

The reason is that the person will need to be in government for at least a decade before he is ready to take over, he added.

But Mr Goh made it clear that he did not mean there was no one to succeed the Prime Minister. There are candidates, he said.”

Of course there are candidates. But from the way things are going, it seems that Ser Luck is going to be THE ONE afterall.

It would be pretty juvenile to believe that no one in the parliament right now is capable of taking the highest office in the cabinet.

Just think, who has been on TV, Radio and Papers most often? Who has built the best rapport with the media workers.

In order to be a good PM, public appeal will be the most important criterion that a candidate must have. Ser Luck has it. And he has been given opportunities to shine by Hsien Loong. On top of this, Ser Luck speaks well, and is sporty and Good-Looking. He will appeal to the ladies.

Watch him in Summer Youth Olympics 2010.

=)

BN

~ BREAKING NEWS ~

3 September 2009

SINGAPORE – Singapore’s elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew said Wednesday that he expects his People’s Action Party to win the next two elections to extend its grip on power by as much as 10 more years.

This is good news to me. I forecast PAP to last another 4 GEs at least, but your insecurity helps to bring up my optimism.

“I don’t see any problem in the next election or probably in the next one after that,” Lee, 85, said at a dinner to mark the fifth anniversary of a college named after him.

Which in a way implies you do see ‘some problem’ 10 years later, probably by then you won’t be around, or even if you are around, you would make much difference to the party.

“But if we don’t find a good team in the election after that, and the opposition gets a good team together, we are at risk.”

You know, somehow you and I both feel that from the change in political powers in neighbouring countries, and especially that of Japan on 30 August 2009 when Yukio Hatoyama replaced Taro Aso, the idea of a shakeout in our own little island might actually happen after all. Remember, all dynasties come and go. It is a matter of time.

Lee, who founded the PAP and was Singapore’s first prime minister from 1959 to 1990, remains a powerful figure in the Cabinet and in the party. The PAP is the only party to have ruled Singapore.

50 years is a long, long time in modern politics. Which makes it even more likely that a change will so take place, by the law of Mathematics, a field specialized by the incumbent PM.

The current government was elected in 2006. The next elections are set for 2011.

See Tong forecasted GE early next year. I say unlikely. The Summer Olympic Games which, will be held from August 14 to August 26, 2010, would imply that the GE would be held no earlier than November 2010. Either Hsien Loong would capitalize on the success of the Games and hold a swift GE in November or December, or that it will be as planned in 2011.

Lee, who now has the title of mentor minister, said even if the opposition took power by a “freak result,” it won’t be allowed to fire top police, army and other officials without the approval of the president, who is appointed by a committee of government officials.

As a matter of fact, if I were the leader of the opposition who seize power after a GE, I don’t really have “fire” top police, army and other top officials. There are ways to make people powerless without having to officially remove their ranks.

Lee, who is the father of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said an opposition government would by law also need the president’s approval to tap international reserves, indicating it would not be given.

You seemed to be very worried of people touching the reserves. You missed the point and you have made too much assumption that the new government, if any, will squander them away.

Otherwise “all our hard-earned savings could go in five years,” he said. “I spent 15 years thinking up these safeguards.”

Like you, I have spent the last 15 years trying to think of ways to improve the lives of the people. You might want to consider my proposal of removing some unnecessary ERP gantries. They are really annoying, you know?

=)
BN