SINGAPORE'S Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong touches down in Australia tonight, his first visit since the island state's controversial execution of a young Australian drug trafficker.
Officially, Mr Lee's trip will be dominated by talks on trade and security.
But ongoing concern over Singapore's mandatory death penalty is certain to be a feature of his more public engagements.
Melbourne drug mule Van Tuong Nguyen was executed on December 2 last year after Australia's exhaustive pleas for clemency fell on deaf ears.
Lawyer Lex Lasry, QC, who represented Nguyen, says he wants to send a message to Mr Lee that Singapore should change its policy of mandatory death for a number of crimes.
Prime Minister John Howard will hope continuing public anger over Nguyen's death does not cloud the visit, intended to strengthen ties between the two countries.
Official talks will focus on trade, investment, security and regional issues.
Mr Lee will meet Mr Howard tomorrow, along with other senior members of government.
During those talks, he is likely to address Singapore's desire that Australia review its open skies policy as part of an overall examination of free trade between the countries.
Earlier this year, the government rejected a proposal to allow Singapore Airlines to join Qantas and American-based United Airlines on the lucrative trans-Pacific route between Australia and the United States.
Los Angeles --- Roby Alampay, executive director of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), believes that the only obligation of the media is to be as neutral as possible. In an event last Tuesday at UCLA, he also discussed the importance of understanding individual countries' media policies before expecting media freedom.
"It is impossible to try to capture diverse models for media operations in Southeast Asia in one paragraph, one page, one sentence, one statement," Alampay said. The only fair statement that can be made about the media of the Southeast Asia region is that every journalist, everyone expressing a radical opinion is threatened in one way or another.
For example, he said, it is not widely known that it is illegal to for a group of five people in Singapore to gather without a permit. In August, 2005 four people outside an office building were ordered to disperse or face arrest for public nuisance for protesting the government expenditures public funds.
A key question that Alampay urged the audience to ask applies not just to Southeast Asia, but to every country: Who owns the press? Whoever owns the press controls it; the owner manipulates what is and what is not being reported.
While conglomerates and powerful political figures take ownership of many broadcasting systems, hope lies in cyberspace, he said. Internet news and blogs are increasingly popular and, though many governments aim to tighten their reins on this new media, citizens are finding more freedom to make their voices heard online.
"We know that the Internet is something inevitable, something needed for economies to be competitive in this day and age. Governments know this…everybody knows that it is inevitable that everybody must get on this highway one way or another," Alampay stated. In many areas, such as Singapore, the Internet is becoming a means of social gathering
Still, the Internet is not readily available in all parts of Southeast Asia. Alampay said that Internet access in Cambodia can cost as much as $2 per minute. He cited statistics from Internet World Stats which say that only 9 percent of the population of the Philippines is online. Burma's (Myanmar) online population is just a tenth of a percent. On the other hand, the Internet regularly reaches close to 70 percent of Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore.
More influential in these areas are mobile phones, particularly SMS text messaging. 45 percent of Thailand's population, 65 percent of Malaysia and 43 percent of the Philippines own a mobile phone. Even Laos, a country in which the Internet is nearly nonexistent, has a 9 percent mobile phone user population, according to Telecompaper. From business executives to street beggars, mobile phones are indispensible to many in the region, said Alampay. New media is not limited to the Internet and as the World Wide Web goes mobile, these two technologies could form an incredible resource reaching millions of people.
SEAPA is a coalition comprised of five non-profit organizations was established in November 1998 in Bangkok. It is the only regional organization that exists solely to promote the freedom and protection of the press. SEAPA represents eleven countries.
Alampay began working with SEAPA in August 2004 after twelve years of working in journalism. His first job was reporting for the Philippine Daily Enquirer from 1991 to 1993; he then published and edited for Kampus Magazine from 1992 to 2000, and co-founded, designed, and managed FLIP Magazine from 2002 to 2003.
The significance and complexity of the Southeast Asia's media drives Alampay's work with SEAPA. Though he spent many years as a practicing journalist in the Philippines, he said that his staunch view on the promotion of media freedom is a bias that prevents him from calling himself a journalist today.
Roby Alampay spoke at an event hosted by AsiaMedia with support from the UCLA International Institute. Alampay is also an occasional contributor to AsiaMedia.
It's as though Singapore is a gigantic Potemkin village, yes? That the entire population of Singapore will magically transform into obliging, smiling flight stewardesses to welcome the robber barons of global capitalism? And why on earth would Singaporeans be so docile and obedient to smile for the Prime Minister and his WTO, just because he's asking nicely?
Howard urged to pressure Singapore on death penalty A barrister who represented a Melbourne man hanged in Singapore last year is calling on Prime Minister John Howard to raise the issue when he meets with his Singaporean counterpart tomorrow.
Lex Lasry, QC [pictured], represented 23-year-old Van Nguyen, who was arrested in Singapore in 2002 on drugs charges.
He was executed last year after an appeal for clemency was rejected.
Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong arrives in Australia tomorrow for trade and security talks with Mr Howard.
Mr Lasry says he wants Mr Howard to join a campaign to change Singapore's law regarding the death penalty.
"It operated very unfairly in the case of Van Nguyen," he said.
"Lee Hsien Loong said that the rule of law had taken its course when Van Nguyen was executed but it wasn't the rule of law at all.
"The only thing that's even worse than a death penalty is a mandatory death penalty which takes the courts out of the equation.
"Ultimately I say that Singapore will have to change that law, it's an extraordinarily unfair law."
The Education Ministry is studying whether to hire native speakers to teach English language in schools.
Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said this during a dialogue session at a student education conference.
Questions from the students at the dialogue session were wide-ranging.
But the concern on how to better enhance students' English proficiency cropped up often.
Mr Tharman assured them that his ministry is paying attention to this area.
But he pointed out that it is incorrect to say that the standard of English language has deteriorated.
Mr Tharman said that is because more people are speaking English now compared to 30 years ago and inevitably it gets spoken in a different way.
He said: "If need be, we can bring back native speakers of the English language to help us, especially in the first phase, help us to strengthen the teaching of the English language.
"We have many excellent Singaporean teachers in the English language. But we may need more numbers and this is something which we're looking into as well.
"At the top end, we need to do more, to make sure that those who have the ability to speak it well, really do so and are proud about it, just like how we want students to be proud about speaking the mother tongue well."
Earlier this week, Mr Tharman revealed that the new Minister of State for Education, Lui Tuck Yew, will be looking at improving the teaching and learning of the English language.
During the education conference, the students also presented their proposals such as having more exchange programmes between ITE and JC students.
The conference, organised by Hwa Chong Institution, involved 65 students from various schools.
After listening to the proposals given by the students, Mr Tharman said that he was very impressed with their work.
He called their suggestions constructive and mature.
And Mr Tharman was heartened to note that the students themselves want to broaden their education and develop life skills.
1. If Singapore's standard of English is apparently not deteriorating, then why consider hiring native English speakers at all?
2. Perhaps Tharman would like to clarify what the definition of 'deteriorating' is. If the standards are supposedly "changing", but not "deteriorating", then they are improving? Come on Tharman. As Education Minister, use your proficient language skills and tell us what you're really trying to say: the kids need help.
There is a conclusion posted at the bottom of this post, which I can respond to be asking that if I had never raised the topic in the first place on Thursday, April 21, 2005 would more politically orientated bloggers have emerged? The original assertion was a descriptive interpretation not a prediction.
Aside from the debate it is great to see researchers taking a keen interest in the fascinating Singapore Blogosphere.
It all started when ... Singabloodypore said, "Yes I am aware of some very mature blogs written by anonymous bloggers, to name just two, the likes of Wannabe Lawyer, Singapore Commentator stand out but go read the likes of MrBrown, Xiaxue and other certain blogs that shall not be named, and it is full of infantile sub intelligentia nonesense. I am very sorry for leaving Mr Miyagi out of the list."
A blog post that sparked off an online and offline debate on the voice of Singapore blogosphere ...
Is Singapore blogosphere infantile? I set out to explore the issues arising from Steve's critique of Singapore blogosphere through a series of interviews with three seasoned Singaporean bloggers. This section captures selected excerpts and audio files from these interviews.
Are we infantile? By no means representative of the entire blogosphere or for that matter the featured bloggers in entirety, this section draws on selected texts from Mr Brown, Mr Miyagi and Xiaxue, in an attempt to provide a flavour of the voices of these celebrity bloggers.
More ... Beyond Tomorrow The concluding section of this documentary reviews the role of bloggers in the recent Singapore Election, alluding to emerging issues that will continue to shape te ambivalent future of Singapore blogosphere.
Whilst these developments may appear to disprove Steve McDermott's critique of the Singapore blogosphere, it remains unknown whether blogs in Singapore will persistently serve as alternative sites to diversity the political discourse in Singapore. Rather than heralding the democratic potential of blogs, I would argue that blogs are by nature more of a self-serving means of expression than a representation of popular will. Hence, it remains to be seen whether in a closely monitored Police State, a centralising structure such as Tomorrow and the emergence of celebrity bloggers may serve to amalgamate the collective intelligence rather than privilege the voice of a dominant collective in the Singapore blogosphere. http://raws.adc.rmit.edu.au/~s3090325/beyondtomorrow.html
Below is the article which has resulted in the Lee family winning yet another defamation case behind closed doors. Written by Dr Chee and printed in The New Democrat. Why the closed doors? Might it be that they do not want you to read the article in question.
The Government's Role in the NKF
In all the hand-wringing and breast-beating by the Government over the NKF issue, Singaporeans must not lose sight of one thing: Such a scandal is inevitable given the kind of secretive and non-accountable system bred by the PAP.
The Government now tries to exone-rate itself by playing the innocent and gullible party duped by greedy NKF officials.
It forgets that in April 2004, Minister Khaw Boon Wan had, in reaction to public unease about the NKF, sought to appease Singaporeans by telling them that the Ministry of Finance "would have reacted many years ago" if there was any breach of rules by the NKF.
Mr Khaw categorically endorsed the NKF's dealings and called on the charity to "continue" to remain "transparent" in its operations.
At the same time the Second Minister for Finance, Mr Lim Hng Kiang, said that the NKF had "quite a sound record" because it spends "more than 80 percent of its funds on its beneficiaries" whom we now know are not kidney patients.
Clearly, alarm bells were raised. People could see that something was wrong and they had expressed their unhappiness over the years.
And yet, the Government which had the power to do something, chose not to. Not only did it choose not to rein in NKF but it also continued to praise the charity and encouraged people to donate to it. With assurances from not one but two Ministers, the charity went on its merry way.
The question that is on everyone's lips is: If Mr TT Durai had not taken the legal suit, would the Government have bothered to look into the NKF records? NKF would in all likelihood have continued to operate with the Government's blessings.
The NKF fiasco is not about bad practices. It is not even about negligence on the Government's part.
It is about greed and power.
It is about the idea that the political elite must be paid top dollar, no matter how obscene those amounts are and regardless of who suffers as a result of it.
It is about a system engineered over the decades by the PAP that ensures that it and only it has access to public information and by fiat decides what is allowed and what is not.
It is about what a "democratic society, based on justice and equality" should not be.
Singaporeans must note that the NKF is not an aberration of the PAP system. It is, instead, a product of it.
To ensure that there is transparency and that Singaporeans are kept informed of matters directly affecting them and their future, the Government must:
One, disclose the breakdown of the cost of building HDB flats and the profits HDB makes.
Two, reveal where and how GIC uses our savings.
Three, disclose the salaries of the top executives of Temasek Holdings and other GLCs.
Four, declare the assets and incomes of its Ministers.
Five, reform the election system to ensure that it is free and fair.
It goes without saying that someone must be held accountable over the whole sordid NKF affair. However, real accountability starts much higher up.
Of course there is absolutely nothing to be discerned from the fact that this court case only manages to come to the boil exactly one month after the general election.
SINGAPORE : The National Kidney Foundation's former chief executive TT Durai has filed his defence for the civil suit brought against him by the new NKF board, denying most of the claims made against him.
He also denied that the executive committee had delegated absolute power to him.
The new NKF management has alleged that Durai engineered a structure within the organisation that subverted proper checks and balances which should have acted to restrain excesses.
But in his 40-page defence, Durai claimed he had kept the executive committee informed of all that was going on in the NKF.
He said that the committee had free access to all records and could query anything that was being reported and decide on any proposals put forward.
On his pay, Durai denied that his bonuses depended upon the success of fund raising, saying this factor was only one consideration.
He claimed all salary increases, bonuses, overtime payments and unutilised leave compensation paid to him were decided by the exco.
He added that NKF's policy of not disclosing the salaries of its employees was not to mislead the public or conceal any improper benefits.
Durai claimed, in his defence, that he was never involved in the computation of treatment costs of dialysis patients and that patient numbers were given to him by the various departments, which obtained the information from external administrators of programmes funded by NKF.
The old NKF had also awarded contracts worth over S$5 million to Protonweb Solutions and Forte Systems, both owned by Pharis Aboobacker.
While Durai admitted that Aboobacker is a friend, he claimed he took no part in NKF's evaluation to award an IT contract to Forte Systems.
He added that the executive committee had awarded the call-centre project to Protonweb Solutions because it was the cheapest option.
The new NKF said that both companies were paid despite Forte not delivering the software on time and Protonweb Solutions not fulfilling the contract terms fully.
Durai also denied allegations that former chairman Richard Yong and former treasurer Loo Say San were his associates, and acted on his instructions.
Durai alleged it was Dr Khoo Oon Teik, who founded the NKF in 1969, who invited Yong to become a member of the exco.
As for former director Matilda Chua, Durai claimed it was "not unusual to make ex-gratia payments to departing staff".
Chua had received generous pay performance bonuses after she declared her intention to resign.
Her monthly salary was increased to S$12,500 in June 2000, and backdated to April 2000, without any exco approval.
Durai said this was because of her contributions in running the charity shows, and he claimed that the person who took over her position was paid even more.
As for expensive business trips, Durai said he flew first class as the tickets were available at a price not exceeding business class fares, and it was NKF policy that senior personnel were allowed to purchase such tickets.
Four pages in the defence statement were also spent documenting Durai's contribution to NKF, which included setting up 21 dialysis centres and three prevention centres, tying up with top medical institutions to improve the quality of medical treatment, helping the Health Ministry in setting up an emergency dialysis centre during the SARS crisis, and spearheading a five-year multi-organ donation campaign.
In their defence, Yong, Loo, and Chua claimed Durai was singularly responsible for the NKF's day-to-day operations.
The three are also being sued by the new NKF, which is seeking more than S$12 million in damages. - CNA /ct
The correct title is of course "Singapore's top leaders win defamation suit". So all you MNC CEO's out there can put the emergency red phone to your bosses overseas down.
If the Lee family actually ever lose a court case it would be the death nail in the coffin of authoritarianism in Singapore and an end to the lack of independence of the legislature, judiciary and the executive.
In order to defend themselves against the argument that the judiciary is not independent they should lose one case every two decades just to give themselves 'Plausible deniability'.
SINGAPORE (AP) - Singapore's prime minister and a senior Cabinet minister have won a defamation suit against the opposition Singapore Democratic Party after the group failed to file a defence, the High Court said Thursday.
The judgment came Wednesday in a closed door hearing, according to a court official who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with the High Court's policy.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father Lee Kuan Yew, a former prime minister and a current senior Cabinet minister, sued the opposition party and its leaders in April for allegedly defaming them in the party's newsletter by linking a scandal at a local charity to the ruling People's Action Party.
The SDP announced in May that it would not be defending itself in the lawsuit, meaning the Lees won by default.
Six of the SDP leaders named in the suit apologised and agreed to pay damages.
The damages to be paid will be decided at a later hearing.
Two other SDP leaders - Secretary-General Chee Soon Juan and his sister, central executive committee member Chee Siok Chin - are still fighting the defamation suit.
No date has been set for that hearing.
The lawsuit said articles in the January issue of the SDP newsletter linked a scandal at the National Kidney Foundation, Singapore's largest charity, to PAP governance.
Ruling party leaders have successfully sued several opposition politicians and journalists for defamation.
The leaders have said such actions are necessary to protect their reputations and clear the public record of false accusations.
Aside from infantile topics, political comedy and "scurrilous" anti-Whiteshirt posts, the blogosphere is for serious thinking and a medium for staging discussion.
We turn our attention to blogs operated by GCE A level General Paper teachers.
“Who created this message?” “What techniques are used to attract my attention?” “How might different people understand this message differently from me?” “What lifestyles, values and points of view are represented in, or omitted by from, this message?” “Why was this message sent?”
And far more importantly, “Media have embedded values and points of view.”
Whenever you read a newspaper, a press release, a statement from the Prime Minister's Office, whenever you watch a piece of news, a public forum, a dialogue session on television, or pore through a minefield of survey findings from the IPS or the ST survey team, do you ask yourself these questions?
What conclusion is XYZ article trying to lead me into making? Who does the message assume it speaks to, who is its 'ideal audience'?
The entire ST will lose its power as the propaganda unit of the Whiteshirt Party once Singaporeans are able to deconstruct its messages. Media literacy, the awareness of how messages are massaged and spun, will enable people to be immune from propaganda.
Every time the Party, the State and the Government are conflated, drink once.
Every time you see a stupid ST Forum letter about how democracy and Freedom of Speech are bad for Singapore, drink once. If the letter ends with "Majulah Singapura", drink twice.
Every time you see the archived shot of MM Lee crying, drink once. If it is accompanied with moving music in the background, drink thrice.
Every time a new buzzword is thrown up, drink once. Every time we have a new silly acronym ("SPRING Singapore"), drink twice. Every time a new false dichotomy is introduced ("Stayers" vs "Quitters"; "Heartlanders" vs "Cosmopolitans"), drink thrice.
Every time someone talks about Asian Values, drink once. Every time someone talks about the decadent West, drink twice. Every time we want to emulate the decadent West, drink thrice.
Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to add new rules to the Singapore politics drinking game in your own blogs, and link your post here, as well as add the following HTML code <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/singaporedrinkinggame; rel="tag">Singapore Drinking Game</a>
I'll get the ball rolling now:
Every time someone talks about radical English-educated intelligentsia or ivory tower academics, drink once. Every time someone accuses detractors as armchair critics, drink twice. Every time someone invites critics to start their own political party, drink thrice. Every time someone invites critics to start their own blogs, smash a bottle over your head. If the blogger is found to be evading taxes or being seditious/racist, smash two bottles over your head.
Every time the Whiteshirt party holds elections at the peak of the economic cyle, drink once. Every time the ST reports the stock market rose the next day "because the Whiteshirts won", drink twice. Every time the economy and stock market start tanking 6 months after the elections, drink the entire bottle.
Every time a Whiteshirt MP proclaims that a minor local accident or major international incident (that incidentally never affected Singapore) has brought Singaporeans together, drink once.
Every time NUS attracts an aged genetic researcher past the peak of their careers, drink once. If Papalee becomes the first successful test-subject for a bleeding edge life-extension technology invented by a pharmaceutical MNC based here, smash the bottle over your own head. If Papalee becomes a "negative outcome", buy everyone a round of drinks!!!
I believe a few of our contributors were approached to take part. As I currently have no access to a sound card, I cannot listen to the Danish programme so hopefully someone will come up with a transcript soon.
Singapore er et af Asiens rigeste lande, og er, i hvert fald på papiret, et demokrati. For selvom der er frie valg, så har den siddende regering indført en så skrap medielovgivning, at det faktisk umuligt for kritikere og oppositionspolitkere at kommer til orde. Hvilket selvfølgelig også er meningen, og det er da også en af de væsenligste grunde til, at regeringen vandt det netop overstået valg stort, med ikke mindre end 82 ud 84 pladser i parlamentet.
Men for første gang debatterede almindelig mennesker faktisk valgkampen, for selvom regeringen havde forbudt politiske pod- og videocast, så glemte den at forbyde politiske blogs. Og det har ændret Singaporianernes indstilling til deres politikere.
In English: "Singapore is one of the richest countries in Asia, and at least on paper, a democracy. Even though there are free elections, the government applies so strict media laws that it is actually impossible for critics and opposition politicians to voice their opinions, which of course is the idea, and that is obviously also one of the most important reasons that the government won the recent elections with a huge margin; no less than 82 out of 84 seats in parliament.
But for the first time ordinary people actually debated during the election campaign because even though the government had made political pod- and videocast illegal, they forgot making political blogs illegal. And that has changed the attitude towards the politicians."
A global phenomenon — blogging — has exploded in popularity to the point where there are now more than 20 million blogs being tracked around the world. They have risen in prominence as well as in numbers, with some leading blogs challenging the established order of the mainstream press. Indeed, at times the mainstream media has been put in the unusual position of reacting to news that bloggers generate.
The term 'blog' is a blend of the terms 'web' and 'log,' leading to 'web log,' 'weblog,' and finally 'blog.' Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog has been dubbed 'blogging.' Individual articles on a blog are called 'blog posts,' 'posts,' or 'entries.' A person who posts these entries is called a 'blogger.'
According to online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the term 'weblog' was coined by Jorn Barger on Dec. 17, 1997. The short form, 'blog,' was coined by Peter Merholz. He broke the word 'weblog' into the phrase 'we blog' in the sidebar of his weblog in April or May of 1999.
Since 2003, blogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their role in breaking, shaping, and spinning news stories. Bloggers provide nearly-instant commentary on televised events, creating a secondary meaning of the word 'blogging' — to simultaneously transcribe and editorialize speeches and events shown on television.
In 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political consultants, news services and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming. Appropriately, that year Merriam-Webster's Dictionary declared 'blog' as the word of the year.
'The Blossoming Of Citizen Journalism'
London's BBC (June 5) welcomed the new Internet craze in an article titled, "Why we are all journalists now," which said: "The blossoming of citizen journalism stands as one of the Internet's most exciting developments. With millions of bloggers, tens of millions of Internet posters, and hundreds of millions of readers, online news sources have radically reshaped the way we access our daily news. While mainstream news organizations initially expressed doubt about the news value of online sources such as blogs, in recent months many have launched their own blogs, frequently maintained by some of their most distinctive voices. Indeed, the remarkable growth of the blogosphere is enough to convince even the most die-hard skeptic that something important is afoot. Technorati, a blog search engine, reports that it tracks 75,000 new blogs each day."
A more detailed look at blog growth was provided by British business Web Site, Vnunet.com (May 26): "A new blog is created every second, adding to the 37 million that already exist, according to David Sifry, founder of the Technorati weblog data-set and link tracker/search engine. This staggering rate of increase equates to a sixty-fold growth of the 'blogosphere' within the past three years. There are no geographic or demographic boundaries to blogging. Ray Valdes, a web services analyst at Gartner, observed that the total number of bloggers worldwide makes it difficult to conclude that one geographical region could have a higher concentration of blogging activity than any other.
There are a number of blog formats, but according to Singapore's SDA Asia Magazine (May 25), the dominant computer operating system manufacturer has taken the lead: "MSN Spaces, Microsoft's free blogging platform, launched in Dec. 2004, has taken off in a big way in less than two years of existence. According to a data released by comScore Networks Inc., an independent Internet audience measurement and consulting company, MSN Spaces is the most widely used blogging service worldwide with more than 100 million unique visitors.
People all over the world have discovered profitable ways to incorporate blogging into their personal and business lives. OhMyNews International (May 11) reported: "In Africa, there are ways to extend the Internet as part of other methods of communication. This can be through SMS on mobiles or conventional radio for local relays. There is a flourishing blogging scene, featuring such blogs as Kenyan Pundit by Ory Okolloh. The Mail and Guardian hosted a blog for all politicians in recent local elections. This resulted in many comments and helped to encourage debate. There is also the start of a citizen journalism site at Reporter.co.za. The session started with a protest at the Reuters selection of images about Africa that reinforced assumptions about poverty."
Some blogosphere demographics were provided by India's Hindustan Times (June 2): "According to an Internet survey, blogging has more female addicts than male, with over 68 percent of bloggers being women. Although it is picking up in popularity with adults, blogging is still largely the domain of teenagers with nearly 58.8 percent of bloggers worldwide falling in the age group 13 to 19. … Blogging has its benefits even as far as one's emotional and mental health is concerned. When a number of people worldwide gather to express like viewpoints on an issue, it helps in collective ventilation whereby one derives confidence by sharing the same sentiments with others. Said Rahul Dewan, a blogger and a student of engineering, 'I find it (blogging) better than writing a book, because you can say exactly what you want, without interference from anyone else. You have your own space on the Internet, which people visit, read and comment upon. This way you also receive feedback over your post which can be used constructively.'"
From the Caribbean, the Jamaica Gleaner (May 3) reported: "Blogging, which might be a new word to many readers, is being grasped both here and abroad not only as the future of press freedom but also as an opportunity to develop media careers. … Peter Dean Rickards is a Jamaican photographer who, since 1999, has used his website The Afflicted Yard (www.afflictedyard.com), which includes a blog, as an online portfolio leading to work and recognition from leading international style magazines such as Fader, i-D and Vanity Fair. 'The Web's been a very effective tool for me. It serves primarily as a portfolio and allows me a great deal of independence as it relates to my own work,' Mr. Rickards said. 'It's allowed me to compete with writers and photographers around the world who have the advantage of being able to walk into offices and present their work in person.'"
Free Speech
The issue of free speech is a very important in discussions about blogs and blogging, as noted in London's business-oriented Web site Silicon.com (May 15): "In the same way that the Internet and technology provided the original facility for both sides — those who want to be free and those who want to constrain — it also provides new opportunities for communication and anonymity. IP tunnels, proxy servers, encryption, phantom email accounts and spoof addressing are among the obvious examples — not to mention the hiding and/or embedding of data in apparently passive files! And then there are all the tools used by the spreaders of viral infections and bot networks. All could be turned and used to keep free speech alive and safe."
World events have exterted a major influence on the growth and influence of blogs, according to Australia's The Age (June 2): "Although the technological capacity had existed for some time, and pioneering blogs such as the Drudge Report had been active since the 1990s, Sept. 11 fueled the explosion of what we now call the blogosphere — millions of websites operated by opinionated amateurs with access to the means of digital media production. Today, bloggers and citizen journalists increasingly shape the global media agenda. During the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Baghdad Blogger provided global audiences with a glimpse of what life was like for ordinary Iraqis stuck between an invading army and a brutal dictator. The Asian tsunami of 2004 was a global news story told largely with home video footage."
Reuters South Africa (May 6) reported on one of the hottest blogging scenes: "Blogging is booming in China with the number of bloggers expected to hit 60 million by the end of this year. China is the world's second-largest Internet market after the United States, with more than 110 million users. A survey by Chinese search engine Baidu.com put the current number of blog, or web log, sites at 36.82 million which are kept by 16 million people, the official Xinhua news agency said. But the Communist Party's propaganda mandarins are obsessed with control and have closed down some outspoken blogs. Chat forums and online bulletin boards are routinely monitored for controversial political comments and sensitive words such as 'freedom' and 'democracy' are censored."
As Silicon.com (June 5) reported, the censorship debate has heated up: "… Internet companies have also come under fire lately for some actions in China, including Google for saying it would block politically sensitive terms on its website in the country and Microsoft's MSN for shutting down a blog under Chinese government orders."
Government Censorship
A bulletin from France's Reporters Without Borders (May 3) presented a foreboding look into the possible future repression of bloggers' freedom of expression: "Dictators would seem powerless faced with this explosion of online material. How could they monitor the e-mails of China's 130 million users or censor the messages posted by Iran's 70,000 bloggers? The enemies of the Internet have unfortunately shown their determination and skill in doing just that. Censorship of the Web is growing and is now done on every continent. Traditional 'predators of press freedom' — Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Libya, the Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam — all censor the Internet now. In 2003, only China, Vietnam and the Maldives had imprisoned cyber-dissidents. Now more countries do.
"A score of bloggers and online journalists have been thrown in jail in Iran since Sept. 2004 and one of them, Mojtaba Saminejad, has been there since Feb. 2005 for posting material deemed offensive to Islam. In Libya, former bookseller Abdel Razak al-Mansouri was sentenced to 18 months in prison for making fun of President Mohammar Khaddafi online. Two Internet users have been jailed and tortured in Syria, one for posting photos online of a pro-Kurdish demonstration in Damascus and the other for simply passing on an e-mailed newsletter the regime considers illegal.
"A lawyer has been in jail in Tunisia since March 2005 for criticizing official corruption in an online newsletter. While a U.N. conference was held in Tunis in Nov. 2005 to discuss the future of the Internet, this human rights activist was in a prison cell several hundred miles from his family. It was a grim message to the world's Internet users.
"The situation has worsened in the Middle East and North Africa. In Nov. 2005, Morocco began censoring all political websites advocating Western Sahara's independence. Iran expands its list of banned sites each year and it now includes all publications mentioning women's rights. Some Asian countries seem about to go further than their Chinese 'big brother.' Burma has acquired sophisticated technology to filter the Internet, and the country's cyber cafés spy on customers by automatically recording what is on the screen every five minutes."
In Iran, the situation appears to be particularly dire. According to London's Online Press Gazette (June 5): "Locking up bloggers remains a favorite practice of the Iranian authorities. In January, Arash Sigarchi received a three-year prison sentence for 'insulting the Supreme Guide' and for 'propaganda against the regime.' Sigarchi has kept a political and cultural blog since 2002."
Things are no better in Egypt, as an article in the Middle East Times (May 19) detailed: "As internationally acclaimed blogger Alaa, of www.manalaa.net, sits in prison waiting to be released, bloggers in Egypt have begun a new campaign to educate Egyptians and the entire world on the situation facing Egyptian bloggers. Manal, the other half of manalaa.net and Alaa's wife, told the Middle East Times, 'Lots of bloggers find freedom of expression attainable with blogs.' Last year Reporters without Borders awarded Manal and Alaa the freedom of expression award for their blogging efforts in Egypt. At the time, Egypt had only a few dozen blogs, but since then, an explosion of bloggers has been witnessed in Egypt. The number is now thought to be in the thousands.
"Alaa has snuck messages out of his prison cell and those have been posted online, in Arabic as well as English. His imprisonment has led more and more bloggers across Egypt to join the bandwagon calling for freedom of expression. Since April 27, blogs have sprung up throughout the country, all calling for action in order to free activists from prison. Among the thousands of blogs, Freealaa.blogspot.com and Freedroubi.blogspot.com are the most notorious. These blogs attempt to expose the ruling regime's tactics and call for people to take action in order to free the activists from what they call unlawful imprisonment."
Fighting Back
Fortunately, there are forces fighting back against the tide of Internet censorship. London's The Observer (June 4) reported on a celebrity-led, collaborative effort: "Chris Martin, Martha Lane Fox, Bob Geldof and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are among nearly 20,000 people who have backed The Observer and Amnesty International campaign to end repression on the Internet. This remarkable response to the launch of Irrepressible.info last week included support from around the world. The campaign — 45 years after a powerful article in this newspaper led to the founding of Amnesty International — recognizes the Internet as a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. It demands that governments stop censoring websites, blocking emails and persecuting and imprisoning bloggers. It also calls for major corporations to stop making it easier for them to do so. … More than 1,000 blogs are already linked to the Irrepressible.info website, and the campaign has been welcomed by bloggers who have suffered under oppressive regimes. Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian now living in Canada, whose blog Hoder.com has been censored in Iran, said: 'By censoring the Internet and specifically blogs, governments are depriving themselves of amazing sources of information about what their population thinks of them and what they are up to.'"
Repressive governments are now being called on to account for their Internet policies, as AllAfrica.com (May 24) noted: "Reporters Without Borders has called on Ethiopia's information and culture minister, Hailu Berhan, to explain why several websites critical of the government have been inaccessible in the country since May 17. Ethiopians have also seen all publications hosted by Blogspot.com disappear from the Internet.
"Even though the authorities have made no announcement, it is likely that the disappearance of the sites is the result of political censorship and not technical problems. 'We would like to know if your government has deliberately blocked access to online publications, a list of which we enclose, thus taking the course of filtering the Internet,' the press freedom organization asked Hailu Berhan in a letter. 'The Ethiopian Internet is dynamic and has seen the development of an extremely active blogging community. It is your responsibility to ensure that all opinions can be expressed online, even when some Internet users directly criticise government action. Preventing debate and controlling news and information circulating online will only aggravate an already very tense political climate. … We also wish to draw to your attention the consequences of filtering a blog tool such as Blogspot.com, which is currently inaccessible in Ethiopia. Blocking access to this service has the effect of censoring all publications which it hosts, the vast majority of which do not deal with politics or with Ethiopia.'"
There have already been some successes in the battle for a censorship-free Internet. According to the Philippines NQ7.net (May 6): "Pakistani blogger Dr. Awab Alvi, on May 3, after almost two months since the initial ban was imposed, the Alvi-e Team — supported by bloggers worldwide joining under the 'Don't Block the Blog' banner — are pleased to report that they again have access to Blogspot blogs in Pakistan. Dr. Alvi said that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had blocked access to Blogspot on March 3, disallowing access to a number of websites for the Internet users in Pakistan. The ban was in response to a list submitted by a Supreme Court decision on March 2 that instructed the PTA to ban 12 offending websites which highlighted the blasphemous cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad.
"Alvi and his fellow bloggers said that the collective efforts of dozens of free speech activists of the 'Don't Block the Blog' campaign and the Action Group Against Blogspot Ban in Pakistan had successfully pressured the government to lift the ban."
An important U.S. court decision was also lauded as a step in the right direction in protecting bloggers' rights. Reporters Without Borders (May 30) noted: "Reporters Without Borders today hailed a Californian appeal court's 'historic' decision on May 26 that online journalists and bloggers have the same right to protect their sources as other kinds of journalists. The ruling was issued in a case between the U.S. electronics manufacturer Apple and websites that posted confidential information about some of its products. In his ruling, the appeal court judge refused to make a distinction between 'legitimate and illegitimate' news reports, warning that any attempt to go down this road would jeopardize the goals of the First Amendment.
Enjoy a fascinating trek through blogs from all over the world in Worldpress.org's World Blog section.
Wasn't the charge 'Sedition' and not racism? I am also somewhat stunned into disbelief that the only way the Singaporean authorities can track a blogger down is with a lone police officer sitting at a computer.
Please tell me that the online security system is trying to play down their capabilities?
Station Inspector Mohamed Zulnizan Mohamed Arsis arrested blogger for comments against Malays
Station Inspector Mohamed Zulnizan Mohamed Arsis stayed awake for the better part of two days tracking down the blogger who posted racist remarks in October last year.
For his devotion to duty, he will be among the 335 police officers to receive commendation certificates today from Police Commissioner Khoo Boon Hui.
The 32-year-old inspector started tracking the blogger when a police report was made about his comments against Malays.
Inspector Zulnizan said: "I knew I had to check that particular blog every two hours so as not to miss any posting by the blogger's friends. If not, some of the postings would be replaced with new ones.
"Within a day, I found out what school he was in. Then I found out his address and he was arrested."
The 17-year-old blogger pleaded guilty and was placed on probation for two years and ordered to do 180 hours of community work for Malay welfare organisations to clear his misconceptions about Malays.
Inspector Zulnizan, a father of two sons aged four and two, said his teacher wife used to complain about his irregular hours but has now come to realise how much he enjoys his work.
Sleuthing also suits another award winner -- 32-year-old Staff Sergeant Mohammed Juanda.
"Every assignment requires a different approach -- a different cover," he said.
He is one of the five members of the Orchard Task Force, commended for making 27 arrests last year in cases involving theft, pickpocketing, credit card fraud, robbery and rioting in the Orchard Road area.
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore opposition politician Chee Soon Juan and two supporters have been summoned to court by the police for speaking in public without a permit between November 2005 and April 2006, a police spokesman said on Tuesday.
Chee, leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, and Yap Keng Ho and Gandhi Ambalam have been told to appear in court on June 20, police spokesman Victor Keong said.
Public speaking is prohibited in Singapore unless speakers have been licensed by the government.
"Our officers observed that Dr. Chee and other SDP-related persons were giving extended speeches and not merely making a sales pitch to sell their publications," Keong said.
Chee, who was served eight summonses, could not be reached for comment.
"The SDP is determined to break the PAP's stranglehold on free speech and peaceful assembly in Singapore," the SDP said on its website.
The wealthy city-state has been criticised by Amnesty International for its tight controls on political expression, but the People's Action Party (PAP), which has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965, says that firm regulation of public debate and the media is necessary to maintain law and order.
The SDP did not win any seats in the May 6 general election, but won 23 percent of the votes in the wards that it contested. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's PAP won 82 of the 84 seats in parliament, keeping the same number of seats as before.
Chee's sister, Chee Siok Chin, has appealed to the court to annul the results of the election on the basis that it was not free and fair, but the Attorney-General has asked the High Court to dismiss her application, the Straits Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Chee and his sister also face a defamation lawsuit, which was launched by Lee and his father, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, over an article in the SDP's newsletter.
"The PAP is not out to have a clean sweep. What we are trying to offer is certainty of good government and good people in charge. So my message is this: Have your desire for opposition fulfilled, but never to the extent of changing the government."
--- Peanut Goh
Get your decoding rings ready!
1. "I do not have the calibre to function in a true democracy." 2. "In Singapore, the PAP decides how many opposition MPs Singaporeans are allowed."
Peanut Goh should grow up and accept the challenge of governing in a democratic country, where the voters decide how much of an opposition they want in Parliament. If he's unable to deal with the decision of the voters, he should either step down or work for peanuts.
My question to Peanut Goh: Let's cut to the chase and forget about elections, in this case. How many opposition MPs do you allow us to have, at maximum? Please, I want some more.
3. "We will do what we can to prevent Singaporeans from voting in more opposition MPs."
Peanut Goh admits he wants to control how Singaporeans vote! We need a clarification on what legal or extra-legal means he is contemplating. Does this include fixing opposition candidates? Or finding more ways to buy his supporters votes?
4. "The PAP will never allow voters to change ruling parties."
But Peanut Goh, you have no right to make this kind of statement. It is not your place to dictate to voters who they can and cannot vote for; how many seats the opposition is allowed and not allowed to win. It is not your place to tell voters they can vote in opposition politicians, but not too many.
Need I say that this is scandalous? Peanut Goh should withdraw from Marine Parade GRC for the insult to Singaporean voters he has made. The PAP should take clear, unambiguous steps to do the right thing, to sack Peanut Goh from the party before he damages their credibility any further.
"We can't fight the next battle using today's strategies," says Peanut Goh. But it is clear that the objectives of the Whiteshirt battle still remains the same as yesterday's battle. It is clear that the Whiteshirts still view voters as frightened children who must be told who they can vote for, and how many sweets they're allowed. It is clear that the Whiteshirts continue to be wildly out of touch with reality.
It is, for all who watch and wonder about the Communist world, the ultimate obscenity. Worse even than Hungary or Czechoslovakia or Afghanistan for there the tanks and troops were alien invaders, rolling across borders in the fashion through time immemorial of big powers knocking little powers into line. But in China it is the People's Army turned against the people: shooting them indiscriminately in Tiananmen Square, on the streets, on their doorsteps, crushing them beneath tanks. A bankrupt, desperate, geriatric government, an edifice of ideology and aspiration, flaking and toppling before our eyes. We have been confronted, this week-end, by one of the great punctuation marks of 20th-century history.
No-one in the largest nation in the world will ever forget the first week of June in Beijing. A surge of desire for greater freedoms - not democracy as we know it, but an opening of society, a spirit of glasnost - has posed ultimate questions to a group of old men and, ultimately, at whatever cost, they have moved to stamp it out. There was a chance, only a handful of days ago, that a more liberal strain of thinking within the Chinese Communist Party could, by its success in the backroom struggle for power, have harnessed the yearning for glasnost. But the old men won.
Are the manifest death throes of the Communist monoliths manageable? Can they be predicted and relied on? Could Tiananmen Square come to Red Square and savagely end a period of burgeoning hope?
The point is a starkly simple one. We, sitting comfortably in the West, assume that a spark in the individual human condition - a spark called freedom - must, in the end, make a bonfire of the system that seeks to snuff it out. We assumed, from Nixon on, that China could gradually evolve, that the business culture, the Americans with cheque books, would inevitably bring some form of democracy in their wake. Tell that, this bloody, awful morning, to the marines.
How frail is the Soviet spark? The Soviet people - because glasnost came first - may have acquired a patina of sophistication that the students of Beijing lacked. The Soviet Union is seeking to devolve power, to provoke argument, to manage change. The pensioners of the Chinese establishment had, long since, run out of ideas.
They must not get away with it. In the eyes of the West, because of the spark. And in the eyes of those who watch from Moscow, too, because the nightmare of Deng is theirs as well. We all, at root, know the Chinese march towards liberty must be resumed.
SINGAPORE: Close to 1,000 voters surveyed have said "good governance" is the key factor in shaping how they vote.
Bread-and-butter issues, as well as upgrading, had less sway over them.
The Institute of Policy Studies survey also found that the pre- and post-independence generation were not all that different when it comes to views on the elections system, including whether it was a fair one.
The results of the survey came as a surprise to many political watchers.
The average Singaporean voter was more concerned about having an efficient and fair Government with alternative views in Parliament.
Even the personality of candidates came before bread-and-butter issues like the cost of living and jobs.
Upgrading was dismissed as not too important by more than half of the respondents polled.
"The lower bands of the social class, those who are poorer did not rank jobs, cost of living highly either. The ranking increased as you went through the higher income, that is a bit intriguing as you think those in the lower income band would be more interested in pocket book issues but you will notice that they rank question of fairness of government policy higher. In the end, people don't really look to the Government for their pocket book issues to be settled at the vote or ballot boxes. What they do want is a Government that is fair, that will treat all citizens equitably," said Dr Gillian Koh, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Policy Studies.
Nearly half of those surveyed felt it is important to have elected opposition members in Parliament.
This sentiment was marginally stronger among the pre-independence generation, especially those between 40 and 54, compared to the post-independence generation.
About a third of all surveyed want to see some change, in terms of political reform.
Nearly 1 in 3 above 40 prefer the status quo, and a fifth of the post independence group is similarly conservative.
While the rest have not made up their minds.
The majority felt the election system is fair to all political parties, with no need for change.
This includes those aged 65 and above, the working class, and those with primary education and below.
One in two surveyed were also of the view that the policy to link votes to upgrading was not fair - those under 40 were more inclined to feel that way.
"A big band of the post-65ers are in the swing category, for want of a better term. They haven't decided one way or the other, I suspect then that the other issues weigh more heavily when they cast their vote - the question is where will they land as they move further up the age bands. The post-65ers were not all out-and-out liberals, that the profile among the conservatives, pluralists, and the in-between swing categories was somewhat similar across the band from the post-65ers to the pre-65ers," added Dr Koh.
As for the quality of candidates, voters looked for honesty and people skills, rather than the candidate's credentials and even the party.
Voters continued to rely on television coverage and newspapers to help shape their voting decisions, followed by election rallies.
The Internet was least used for this, but the survey also showed that many in the post-independence generation also went online, while also depending on online sources of information.
On their assessment of political parties, the People's Action Party was deemed the most credible political party - it won strong support from those above 40 and the working class.
Those in the service industries, and a high proportion of those between 21 to 54 felt the Workers' Party was credible, while a bigger group among the 21-29 year-olds felt the same about the Singapore Democratic Alliance and the Singapore Democratic Party.
The Institute of Policy Studies said the results will help to better understand the Singaporean voter.
985 Singaporean citizens aged 21 and above made up of both voters and non-voters were polled almost equally to reflect the fact that 52 percent of the voting population actually exercised their vote in the May 6 General Election. - CNA /dt
Washington DC: The People's Action Party is re-thinking its strategy for the opposition-held wards of Potong Pasir and Hougang in the wake of the recent General Election results.
Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, who had been tasked to help win back these two constituencies in the May 6 polls, shared his ideas with reporters during a news conference at the end of his 2-day visit to the United States.
He also revealed that the defeated PAP candidates might not stand in those wards in the next election.
Over at Hougang and Potong Pasir, it has been quiet on the PAP front since last month's General Election.
There were no Meet-the-People sessions.
And it looks set to continue that way.
For a long time, residents there had enjoyed the so-called 2-in-1 effect - an elected opposition MP and a PAP man who also worked for their interests.
But Mr Goh said that could change as the PAP assesses its next move in the two opposition wards.
He said: "They would have to revise their strategy. For the time being......do what is minimal. That is what the opposition have been doing - do minimal, only criticise and have been able to get support. See what happens for the time being. At least half way through, may change tactic."
The tactic for now, though, is for the PAP grassroots organization advisers to look critically at whatever may not be working in their respective constituencies.
Mr Goh also revealed that PAP's Eric Low and Sitoh Yih Pin might contest other constituencies in future.
Mr Goh said: "While they'll be fielded in the next elections, may not be in Hougang and Potong Pasir because in our view, as party leaders, it's unfair to field Sitoh and Eric Low if we think they don't have a chance."
So who will stand there instead?
Mr Goh said: "Doesn't matter, can field new candidates and after 1-2 elections, that person would have his teeth cut. He would be a better person - he has fought and he can be an MP elsewhere.
"So why not Hougang? Since the residents have chosen to have an opposition MP, let them continue to have an opposition MP because the desire for an opposition is strong and the PAP is not out to have a clean sweep, but at the same time not wanting to let opposition grow."
But at the end of the day, Mr Goh said, he hopes that Singaporeans understand that stability and good governance is important.
Turning to the role of the Internet, he said that the government would have to liberalise the use of podcasting in future and learn to work the system to its advantage. - CNA/ir1. Why was this announcement made in Washington D.C, of all places? It doesn't quite make sense, to be talking about such a relatively small issue over there, when perhaps, the order of conversation should have been FTAs or bilateral relations.
2. Look closely at the bolded words.
For a long time, residents there had enjoyed the so-called 2-in-1 effect - an elected opposition MP and a PAP man who also worked for their interests.
The opposition wards have NOT been enjoying a 2-in-1 effect. They have been deprived of the basic privileges extended to every other constituency in the country. Why aren't the PAP men there campaiging for upgrading, if they were really working to better the constituency?
That is what the opposition have been doing - do minimal, only criticise and have been able to get support.
The opposition candidates have NOT been doing minimal, and simply criticising. If that was the case, the politically seasoned people of those constituencies would not be voting them in every single time. That's the PAP's job - criticising the opposition at every election, and having no real election issues.
Doesn't matter, can field new candidates and after 1-2 elections, that person would have his teeth cut.
So those constituencies don't even matter to the PAP anymore - they are a training ground, it seems.
but at the same time not wanting to let opposition grow.
Oops! Looks like someone let slip the true intention behind PAP.
Cutting through all the rhetoric, one message emerges loud and clear: if the opposition wards want to commit suicide, the PAP will only stand and watch. The exact same message was repeated in 1984, after a particularly "shameful" un-landslide election. See here for details.
Now we know how much they care.
3.
Turning to the role of the Internet, he said that the government would have to liberalise the use of podcasting in future and learn to work the system to its advantage.
Let me translate please, I speak the language of PAP very well. Learn to work the system to its advantage? Clearly, this, coming on the heels of Denis Phua's message about "managing" the internet, is PAP for learning to "control" the internet, and the bloggosphere. And note, this was left at the end of the article, almost as a casual remark. Kind of off-topic too, in what is an article about elections.
SINGAPORE: Political parties have taken stock and are gearing up for the next election.
The Workers' Party wants to build up its pool of candidates, while the Singapore Democratic Alliance wants to merge its component parties.
For the ruling People's Action Party, it will be an all out effort to continue getting a strong mandate in future elections.
Speakers from the four political parties which contested the recent general election acknowledged there is now greater public acceptance of party politics in the country.
"An endorsement of this was seen on Tuesday when the Prime Minister made his swearing in speech and he says this election we have heard the people, we will do something about cost of living, we will look at health care costs. So we make no apology for canvassing the national agenda," said Sylvia Lim, Chairman for the Workers' Party and Non-constituency MP.
When asked what the Workers' Party would do for workers, Ms Lim said, "We will canvass outside of these organisations for issues that matter to workers, not necessarily to their union leadership but to workers themselves, for instance, in our manifesto you will see proposals for unions to be more indepedant and we have also proposed unemployment insurance to take care of workers who may be out of work."
One of the key issues at the Institute of Policy Studies' post-election forum was the future of opposition parties in Singapore come the next general election.
And some political analysts feel it would make good sense for the opposition parties to cooperate electorally and put up a good fight against the ruling party.
For its part, the Singapore Democratic Alliance wants to review the current arrangement, where its four component parties campaign on different platforms.
"We are proposing also that in the next general election five years from now, only an SDA party. We don't want a coalition of parties, in other words there is a likelihood that the NSP may dissolve as well and then we have just one SDA party to contest just like the Workers Party and SDP. The work has to start now and not five years later to be able to be a party to contend with in the next GE. If we don't do that, then we will be out of the running because it takes a lot of time and effort from members to contest the next GE," said Dr Vincent Yeo from the Singapore Democratic Alliance.
For the PAP, the recent general election threw up challenges.
Ms Indranee Rajah said the competition was good and the party's getting ready to take the next step .
"The electorate has different views on certain things. But if we are able to reach them, if we are able to say "ok", this is the scenario, we will take it in our stride and we will offer you the right things which we hope you will agree with and which we hope reflect what people think on the ground, then we would deserve the mandate that is given to us. That's our challenge and I don't think we have any hesitation in taking it on, and we hope we will have a strong mandate in elections to come," said Indranee Rajah, MP, Tanjog Pagar GRC.
And one way the PAP hopes to achieve this, is by making sure people feel that their lives have improved. - CNA /dt/ct
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore's chief censor, Amy Chua, says she loves human interest films -- the kind where the humble protagonist succeeds against all odds.
"Erin Brockovich," "Billy Elliot" and "Million Dollar Baby" are among her favorites. "Cut," in which Singapore director Royston Tan settled a score with the censors for mutilating one of his films, is not.
In "Cut," a film buff chases a frumpy censor as she wheels her cart down a supermarket aisle, and reels off a string of films which the bureaucrat had snipped -- from "Lost in Translation" to "Titanic." "Cut" itself, first shown in 2004, was not censored.
"This film misrepresents the Board of Film Censors (BFC) because we are portrayed as being "scissors-happy" when this is far from the truth," Chua, the BFC's chairwoman, told Reuters. "I'd prefer if we are viewed as classifiers rather than censors.
The film won a following among cineastes in the city-state, where an outing to the cinema often used to be memorable not so much for the film itself as for the jerky edits excising bare breasts, sex scenes and obscenities.
"'Cut' is a plea from the Singapore film industry," said Tan.
However, Singapore's long-standing stranglehold over content is being eroded thanks to technology, now that many films can be downloaded for free over the Internet.
Two years ago, following a review of censorship practices, Singapore revised its classification of films and videos, giving a wider range of ratings. Now there is a category for viewers over 18 years old, in addition to existing ones for 16-plus and 21-plus. Now there is less need to cut "adult" scenes as a film can be rated for a mature audience.
NUDES AND PRUDES
"Censorship is a reflection of a country's social norms and values," said Chua, a demure woman in her 50s who is in charge of content for film, video, broadcast and publications at the information ministry's Media Development Authority (MDA).
"In Scandinavia full nudity (on screen) might not be a problem, but if we had full nudity, parents would complain."
The censors' vetting of videos brought into the country for personal use may be eliminated next, Chua said.
The addition of the category for over 18s gave viewers more choice while protecting younger audiences, she said. As a result, films that deal with controversial issues -- at least for Singapore -- can be seen in cinemas.
The city-state officially outlaws gay sex.
Wong Kar-Wai's gay love story "Happy Together" was shown first at a film festival but was not allowed for commercial distribution under the old rating system.
But award-winning "Brokeback Mountain," based on Annie Proulx's story about two gay cowboys, was shown uncut this year.
"It didn't really glorify homosexuality as a lifestyle, and scenes were tastefully shot," said Chua who, as head of the BFC, reviews controversial films such as "Brokeback Mountain" and "Kinsey," which is based on the life of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey.
But Tan, the Singaporean director, ran afoul of censors with his film about local youth gangs: "15" had 27 cuts for offensive language, violence and gang chants which the authorities feared might incite violence and glorify gang culture.
SEX, VIOLENCE AND POLITICS
Singapore's sensitivities extend beyond sex, violence and swear words to political, racial and religious issues, reflecting more than four decades of one-party rule and a population mix of ethnic Chinese, Malays and Indians.
The People's Action Party, which has dominated politics since independence in 1965, has repeatedly used defamation lawsuits against opposition politicians. In the run-up to the May 6 general election, the government warned Singaporeans against posting political commentary in blogs and podcasts.
Last year, Singaporean film director Martyn See had to withdraw his documentary on opposition politician Chee Soon Juan from a film festival. See was then questioned by police, who confiscated copies of the film as well as his film equipment.
"Political subjects can be treated in a film. It's how you treat it, whether it's balanced," said Chua who spent most of her career at Singapore's state broadcaster making documentaries and managing programing.
The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) said last year that "party political films are disallowed because they are an undesirable medium for political debate in Singapore." MICA said "the ban here is only on films which deal with political issues in a partisan manner."
The See saga prompted a member of the public, Kelvin Lau Jit Hwee, to write to a local newspaper pointing out that the state-owned broadcaster had screened a series about government leaders: Could they also have violated regulations and face investigation by police, he asked.
The government said the series did not breach the Films Act "as the discussions were conducted in a non-partisan manner."
"Things have improved, but it's often a case of two steps forward, one step back," said poet and writer Felix Cheong.
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Netizens believe that the Internet has its own checks and balance, and is best left unregulated by the Government.
For instance, said bloggers, websites that feature wild, baseless accusations or irresponsible content will soon lose their readership and credibility, as readers move to other websites.
And unfair criticisms of other postings on forums or blogs will likely draw counter-arguments, sparing the original writer the need to respond to every comment.
This is how the Internet regulates itself, said those who argued against the need for the authorities to monitor and manage political debate on the Net.
It was a point stressed repeatedly yesterday at the conference on new media by bloggers, or what the Internet calls those who post their thoughts and reports on online diaries called weblogs, or blogs.
Mr Lee Kin Mun, 36, who runs the popular blog Mr Brown, said: "If I became irresponsible and started saying things without basis, people will go elsewhere as there are other bloggers in Singapore."
He was responding to a call by Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lee Boon Yang for Netizens to be responsible.
The consequences of irresponsible comments on race or faith-related issues in multi-racial Singapore, the minister explained to reporters later, could be "horrendous."
Media practitioners agreed that such issues had to be approached with care, but some urged the authorities to take a hands-free approach towards the Net.
At a roundtable discussion, Mr Peter Lim, 67, a former editor-in-chief of The Straits Times, argued for minimal regulation.
He wondered if the 'light touch' that Dr Lee spoke of could evolve into "almost no touch," and if the authorities were bold enough to do so.
Another blogger, Mr Benjamin Lee, 37, agreed.
"I'd rather there wasn't any touch at all. I would prefer the Government to be engaged with the new media rather than regulate it," he told reporters.
One way, he suggested, was for politicians and civil servants to set up their own blogs, or take part in online forums.
Regulation of the Net was one of the hot topics at yesterday's conference, which discussed the differences between traditional media, such as newspapers and television, and new media in cyberspace.
But while bloggers stressed the Internet's built-in checks and balance, they also acknowledged Netizens' responsibility not to break the law in their blogs.
Mr Lee Kin Mun said: "Our slogan is, 'Prison got no broadband'. It is part of our effort to educate, especially the young people.
"We tell them not to be rash. If they feel the content is risky, then we say, 'don't publish.'"
Date Posted: 6/1/2006
Just wondering if MrBrown was misquoted or mis-paraphrased but
"Mr Lee Kin Mun said: "Our slogan is, 'Prison got no broadband'. It is part of our effort to educate, especially the young people.
"We tell them not to be rash. If they feel the content is risky, then we say, 'don't publish.'"
Who is 'our' and is the syllabus available online or do I pick it up at the Today Newspaper? So Mr Brown, is that not self-censorship? 'Publish and be damned' as opposed to 'publish or be damned'.
I am an ordinary Singaporean who is not affiliated to any political party in Singapore. And I live in a PAP-held ward. However, as a concerned Singaporean and a pro-Singapore citizen, I felt compelled to speak up for my fellow Singaporeans in Hougang and Potong Pasir who showed to the rest of Singapore that they have the courage to stand up for the MP who has worked so selflessly for them and also the SOUL to reject material goodies. Aren’t such qualities admirable?
In fact, these fellow Singaporeans at Hougang and Potong Pasir clearly demonstrate that the ‘glue’ that bonds citizens and country is not just endless money incentives and countless upgrading on the façade. We need better heartware and not hardware!
When I watched the press conference during the wee hours of 7 May and I heard you said “Not all who voted for the Opposition reject the PAP programme or the PAP Government,”
“Now that the elections are over, we should come together again as one people,” you said. “Whichever party that you voted for, let’s close ranks, and in the words of the manifesto, stay together and move ahead,” it gave me (and many others) hope.
Yes, Singapore has moved ahead since our independence in 1965. We have come this far because of far-sighted political leadership, as well as all Singaporeans rallying as one to build this nation.
Read the rest of the petition here. The petition was created and written by Tay Lai Hock.
Singapore's increasingly hard-pressed people deserve better than the electoral charade offered by their prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, the recipient of the seventh monthly "bad democracy" award.
We hope it will be taken the right way if we suggest that, in choosing Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore's prime minister, as the winner of the seventh Bad Democracy Award, you, dear readers of openDemocracy, are coming to resemble Holden Caulfield, the disenchanted iconoclast of JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.
It is not the sheer violence of the world that outrages you – you have spurned such fiends as Robert Mugabe and Islam Karimov. You did not punish the ruinous but apparently heartfelt zeal of Tony Blair or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
No, the political trait that leaves you apoplectic with wrath – that which marks the Berlusconis, the Howards and the Lukashenkos of this world – is the same that riled young Holden. Lee, like most of our previous winners, is a phoney.
Lee is keen to be seen as a democrat. He talks like a democrat. He holds elections.
But, beneath that thin veneer, he and the party he leads, the People's Action Party (Pap), have not the faintest inclination to bend to the will of the Singaporean people.
In May's elections, the Pap scooped eighty-two of the country's eighty-four seats, thirty-seven of which were won uncontested. An outpouring of electoral adoration for Lee? We fear not.
His father, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first prime minister who governed with an iron-fistful of dollars for thirty-one years and who many believe continues to pull his son's strings in his post of "Minister Mentor", reproached those who did not vote for the Pap as "ungrateful".
Just to ensure that voters were clear where to direct their gratitude for the Lee dynasty's selfless service, Lee Snr sued Chee Soon Juan, leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, claiming that his campaigning amounted to "defamation".
In a battling but futile repost, Chee has lodged an application to have the election declared void, on the grounds that his activists say they witnessed government officials doling out cash to prospective voters and telling those Singaporeans who live in public housing – about 85% of them – that investment in their estates would run dry if the local Pap was not returned.
"Politics in Singapore is still very primitive. Fear pervades society."
Intimidation may be conducted with more élan here than in nearby Burma or Indonesia, but nonetheless, Chee argues, dissenters are cowed.
He has been bankrupted by the litigious Lees. All the same, his party won 23% of the vote in May – in spite of intimidation that saw hotels refuse to host his press conferences and printers too terrified to ink his leaflets.
"Politics has become a crime, human rights is taboo", he says. "The entire atmosphere is poisoned."
Plainly, this is not the height of democratic behaviour. But, the argument goes, what is a little opposition-bashing when Singapore, a city-state with a population of just 4.5 million, has blossomed into the fifty-fourth largest economic entity on the planet, with a GDP bigger than Ireland's and a turnover in excess of Citigroup's? Shouldn't Singaporeans stop grumbling about a spot of disenfranchisement and just get on with living their fabulous lives?
"If that were true, why is the government so scared?" Chee asks. "If we are all more prosperous, the government should have no problem with free elections.
"But why do they sue oppositionists? They already control all the media, but why did they ban podcasting and blogging for the nine days of the election campaign?
"Yes, Singapore has more prosperity. But you have to ask: prosperity for who?"
A pertinent question – especially when one recalls that Singapore is held up as the glinting model of the "Asian values" by which tough governments deliver their people from poverty.
A recent report in the Asia Times found that all may not be rosy enough in Singapore for Lee to rely on the sheer adulation of a wadded electorate to keep him in power.
Since the Asian financial crisis bit in 1997, the gap between rich and poor has widened dramatically. While Singapore has the world's fastest growing number of millionaires, the poorest have seen their incomes halve over the past decade.
The rising tide, as we are incessantly reminded by those who badger governments to keep their noses out of free-wheeling economies, is supposed to lift all boats. It is odd, then, that Lee recently told many of the most needy among his flock that their boats may soon be scuppered, coolly informing them that the unemployment rate was set to rise.
What's more, in his drive to court foreign investment at all costs, Lee has not seen fit to provide a minimum wage or anything else to soften the buffets to the remaining non-millionaires.
As he swore in his new cabinet on 30 May, Lee made all the right compassionate noises, prompting Denise Phua, a Pap MP, to gush: "What is most impressive to me is that he always promises us that no one will be left behind and I'm very interested in this. I hope to be able to contribute to this end as part of his team."
You get the impression that the burgeoning legions of young unemployed and those who work their fingers to the bone for a pittance in a country whose leaders never stop telling them that they've never had it so good have heard that one before.
And so, speaking of shameless phoneyness, we turn to our next batch of offenders against democracy.
One band of ne'er-do-wells who have shown themselves to be very much of the less-government-more-cash philosophy propounded in Singapore was the senior management at Enron, which heads our latest list of nominees.
Enron's monumental attempts to conceal its crooked ways is in marked contrast to the tactics of our second nominee, the Bulgarian mafia, more given to knee-breaking and extortion but similarly oblivious to any notion of the greater good.
Then we have two real eccentrics of the dictatorship circus: Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, who once observed that "there is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet"; and North Korea's "dear leader" Kim Jong-Il, apparently history's greatest golfer.
The list concludes with those charming rogues of the Taliban and Chad's Idriss Déby, one of Africa's more limpet-like leaders.
As ever, the choice is yours. You can vote for them here and muse on them here. In the meantime, we shall continue to thumb our copy of The Catcher in the Rye and dream up some appropriate way to deal with the winner.
This article is published by Tom Burgis, and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence. You may republish it free of charge with attribution for non-commercial purposes following these guidelines. If you teach at a university we ask that your department make a donation. Commercial media must contact us for permission and fees. Some articles on this site are published under different terms.
KIASU is the term Singaporeans use to describe the unpleasant side of their culture. Acting in a kiasu manner means being greedy, unwilling to share and insensitive to others. Many Singaporeans feel this is a good description of the Government and its approach to power. The winner-take-all attitude is out of step with other nations.
No one can deny that Singapore is an easy place (although not necessarily a good place) to do business, compared with its neighbours.
Singapore scores highly on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index: it is ranked No. 5 of 158 countries. The Global Competitiveness Report ranks Singapore No. 6 of 117 economies.
The Government likes to broadcast these figures. But it doesn't broadcast that it executes more people per head a year than almost anywhere else. Reporters Without Borders has Singapore No. 140 of 167 countries for media freedom.
It is as if Singapore is more a ruthless corporation than a country with a civil society, its people more employees than citizens, and its broadsheet, the Straits Times, more like a staff bulletin than a newspaper. As a Singaporean diplomat once told me, "We don't have journalists in Singapore; only propagandists."
Increasingly, people around the world are beginning to laugh at Singapore; they laugh at its Government's petty and self-serving restrictions on what people can and cannot do. But in Singapore, many people are unaware of this because the Government-controlled media feed them a diet of only good news stories.
Race relations are often used as an excuse for restrictions. But Singapore has one of the most homogeneous race profiles in the world: 77 per cent are Chinese, the rest comprise Malays and Indians. Singapore does not have the racial complexities of many countries.
The Maria Hertogh case is cited as an example of how Singapore is on the edge racially, and used to justify various restrictions. Rioting erupted among Malays after a court allowed a Dutch girl who was raised as a Muslim to be returned to her Catholic parents. This was 56 years ago.
No viable opposition has been allowed to form, and without robust national debate Singaporeans are becoming politically de-skilled. Accordingly, the Government comprises plenty of ministers but few politicians, and there is little elegance to their art. They know only how to clobber: too often alternative viewpoints are responded to with public humiliation, threats, defamation writs and detention. Business should consider these aspects and not just competitiveness when assessing Singapore as a place for investment.
The Singapore Government hates people like me commenting on what it regards as its internal affairs. It hates it because foreigners cannot be controlled. But that does not stop the Singapore Government from intruding in the internal affairs of other countries.
Eddie Teo, Singapore's new high commissioner to Australia, has written letters to The Age critical of my recent columns. This is the first time Mr Teo has lived outside Singapore in 35 years and no doubt he finds a free media refreshing.
In one letter, Mr Teo claimed Singapore's defamation laws follow the English model. He is wrong. The British government does not sue opposition politicians so they are bankrupted and cannot run for parliament. If the British are to be blamed for Singapore's laws, then they can be blamed for Singapore's economic success. It was they who established Singapore as a free-trade port, which has made Singapore rich.
He says Singapore has a good legal system. That is true, but only compared with Indonesia, the Philippines, China and Thailand. Laws that have not had the benefit of open public debate and passage through a robust parliament are not really laws but decrees.
Rule of law becomes rule by law and many things are possible. Execution without a jury trial is one; torture is another.
Geoffrey Robertson, QC, writing last month for the Open Democracy Foundation, describes how torture was used in Singapore in the 1980s. A group of young lawyers, Catholic aid workers and women playwrights were rounded up by Singapore's Internal Security Department and detained without trial because they were suspects in an alleged Marxist conspiracy. They were not terrorists, they were political activists. The worst they seemed to have done was distribute Marxist literature.
They were deprived of sleep, doused with cold water and blasted with refrigerated air. The torture was not physical and left little evidence, which was its point. Instead, it was psychological and left what Robertson terms the Singapore scar. The minister then responsible for the ISD was Lee Hsien Loong. He is now Singapore's Prime Minister.
And who headed the ISD and Defence Ministry's Security and Intelligence Division for much of the 1980s? Eddie Teo, Singapore's high commissioner to Australia, the man who now enjoys our media freedoms, but who has spent much of his career denying Singaporeans similar freedoms. Some might regard that as kiasu.
After using up the entire months transfer usage/exceeded allowance, or whatever the technical term is, in 5 days early in May, Singabloodypore.civiblog is back.
Singapore’s Law Ministry has roundly rejected allegations about a "biased Singapore judiciary," which has come under intense scrutiny in a case in Canada.
The Canadian company making the allegations has already lost a court battle on its home ground in Canada, it pointed out.
Ontario-based EnerNorth Industries, an oil and gas company, is arguing that it never got a fair trial in Singapore after it was ordered to pay US$2.79 million (C$3.1 million) by the courts here to its former Singapore-based partner, Oakwell Engineering.
But Oakwell won in Canada too, pointed out a Law Ministry spokesman.
Justice Gerald Day of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled in its favour when it applied to have the award enforced in Canada last August.
But EnerNorth appealed.
It asked the Ontario Court of Appeal to decide if legal decisions made in Singapore are fair and impartial enough to meet Canadian standards of justice.
The appeals court reserved judgment after hearing the case recently.
Oakwell is a Singapore corporation that supplies engineering works and products in the marine industry while EnerNorth is an Ontario corporation engaged in shipbuilding, engineering, construction and power generation around the world.
In June 1997, the two firms agreed to jointly finance, construct and operate two mobile power plants to generate electricity in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India.
But 14 months later the project soured and EnerNorth bought out Oakwell’s stake in exchange for US$2.79 million, royalty payments, and shares in EnerNorth.
EnerNorth did not stick to the deal and in August 2002, Oakwell sued for US$2.79 million in Singapore.
The case was heard by the late Justice Lai Kew Chai.
EnerNorth brought a counterclaim against Oakwell for US$175 million (C$195 million) but its claim was dismissed and it was ordered to pay the money demanded by Oakwell.
EnerNorth’s appeal in Singapore was dismissed by a three-man court headed by former Chief Justice Yong Pung How in April 2004.
EnerNorth’s allegations in Canada have been dismissed by Oakwell’s lawyers.
"This is not a political case. It is a commercial matter.
"It was heard before the courts of a country built on foreign investment, with an impeccable reputation for fairness to foreign firms like EnerNorth," said Oakwell’s lawyers.
In Singapore, EnerNorth was represented by lawyers from Drew & Napier and Oakwell by Philip Jeyaretnam.
A Law Ministry spokesman said: "These allegations have been roundly rejected by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice."
In deciding the case, Judge Day of the Ontario Superior Court said that he was satisfied "that there is no reason to doubt the impartiality of the judges who heard the case in Singapore."
"Singapore prides itself on having an independent and impartial judiciary," said the Law Ministry spokesman.
She added that the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy in Hong Kong has "consistently rated the Singapore judicial system as one of the best in the region, and emphasized that Singapore has one of the most fair and transparent legal systems in the world."
