Of the introductory dramas

Now that the government has dissolved, what we had known to be the incumbent are showing their ugliest side.

Dr Ng Eng Hen (PAP) said it was "a reasonable question from any voter" to question Mr Chen Show Mao's intentions for standing this election.

Mr Chen Show Mao was named the "Dealmaker of the Year". This month's American Lawyer magazine had announced its picks for Dealmakers of the Year i.e. lawyers who worked on the biggest and most significant deals of 2010. Chen has the caliber that the PAP would seek to woo and eventually deign to win over with obese paychecks that would likely relegate a Kate Spade handbag to the repository and bring forth that Birkin bag to the light. On top of it, Chen had served national service even though he wasn't a naturalized citizen yet unlike a certain candidate that the PAP had been trying to get the people to accept. Click on that link to view The Online Citizen's excellent writeup on why Chen is more than qualified to stand for the election.

The PAP's theme this year had been solely focused on "leadership renewal". There have been strings of reports on how the PAP has scoured Singapore over in search of talented people to join the party, how the retired MPs had in their tenure been the most conscientious workers, etc. My concern is, when a party seeks renewal, does it look to better its current policies or merely shoot down suggestions from the opposition parties just because they are on the other side of the play field?

What I don't hear is leaders acknowledging that there is room for improvement.

I agree with the analysts labeling the coming elections as a "Social Media Election". Political parties have used the internet to build their internet presence and also to use it as a medium to interact with voters. So far, imho, SDP has been most savvy in using its website and Facebook page to publish their updates. In this aspect, it seems like PAP has drawn considerable flak. It began with photographs of a candidate that were found online which were exacerbated by her mentor over what seems to be a poor April Fool's Joke, disabling comments on the video of their manifesto and a certain GRC up north had put up an iPad as a mean to encourage residents to get to know their MPs better. That contest has been halted.


Perhaps in an effort not to be outdone, we have Nicole Seah of NSP, caught swearing in her Twitter account. It does portray her as an ordinary human / peasant like you and I. It does mean that political parties can use this against her. Maybe, it's a ploy to demonstrate that ERP has done zilch to ease peak hour congestion.

At the end of the day or the elections for that matter, it is only Singapore because the they would reign beyond their 46 years of power.

But, please don't get too dirty and personal. We are no longer that bunch of "forgetful Singaporeans". Social media can be very unforgiving.

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Of the responses to Singapore Budget 2011

This really isn't my cup of tea. So I'll shut up (I know when to unlike thepersonwhosebooksweresoldoutandrecentlyreplendishedontheshelves) and let the people from the Big 4 analyze it. Caveat: The comments come from companies based locally hence they tend to be *ahem favorable.

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PwC: Numerous Responses to Singapore Budget 2011

The Singapore Budget 2011 was delivered Feb 18 by Finance Minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam and it drew several responses from PwC experts. Gautam Banerjee, Executive Chairman, PwC LLP (Singapore)said it was a budget with something for everyone, and lots more for the low income. He noted that it aimed to share the largesse of government surplus with people at the bottom while at the same time, helping to raise productivity across the board and sharpen the competitiveness of several priority sectors. On the whole, Shanmugaratnam saw it as a smart and strategic move to help Singapore stay relevant and compete on an advantageous footing against other economies.

Koh Soo How, Tax Partner, PwC Services LLP (Singapore) commented on the rebates that were included.

“Rather than reduce taxes such as the GST or the higher personal tax rates, the use of a comprehensive package of rebates and subsidies in this year's Budget is consistent with the government’s traditional approach to direct its assistance to the lower income groups that need the most help," How said.

The Productivity and Innovation Credit scheme brought some favorable reviews as well. Elaine Ng, Tax Partner, PwC Services LLP (Singapore) noted that the Government has reacted quickly and positively to feedback given to enhance the Productivity and Innovation Credit Scheme, and not just to increase the amounts but also the burden of administration.
“This should please the SMEs which were the target of the scheme,” she said.


There were other notable areas including the fact that the Offshore Specialised Risks Incentive Scheme, which is due to expire on 31 Aug 2011 was extended and expanded by the Finance Minister. This scheme is targeted at expanding Singapore as a hub for the writing of certain specialised lines of business, such as terrorism risks, political risks, energy risks, aviation and aerospace risks, and now, agriculture risks. It grants a total exemption to approved insurers on specified income earned from accepting offshore risks of the particular approved specialised line of business.

The overall reaction to the budget was favorable. Alan Ross, Tax Partner, PwC Services LLP (Singapore) even went so far as to say it was “Obama’s envy' – A proliferation of goodies for Singaporeans.”

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Of the gazetting

Are the general elections drawing closer?

I don't know. You tell me?

After all, the authorities i.e. the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Media Development Authority have called for the socio-political blog, The Online Citizen to be gazetted as a political association. TOC has been gazetted.

On 11 January,



In my opinion, in its 4 years of operation, TOC has been a very transparent outfit. They have a Facebook account where they upload photographs of events which they have organized. In the photographs, members of TOC are tagged. Even if you haven’t met them in the flesh, you would be able to recognize the members if you were to past them on the streets. This is the level of transparency that TOC has proactively offered without being requested to.

At the same time, gazetting means to "officialize" the transparency with the authorities. According to the authorities, this gazetting would "give rise to greater accountability". With reference to The Economist, there is "a chill in the blogosphere". This gazetting is a diplomatic way of saying "be careful of what you write about, we are watching you". Then again, it's been 4 years since TOC's inception. Surely PMO and MDA have placed TOC under scrutiny already. I find it highly unlikely that the conscientious civil servants of Singapore have only recently discovered TOC. After all, "Singapore's civil service is world's best", isn't it?


Why gazette now? What is this "funded by foreign elements or sources” business? The authorities seem to insinuate that foreign elements may have an interest in the politics of this tiny red dot. The closest would be skirmish was a purported attempt at "character assassination". Do the authorities think that it is unlikely for Singaporeans to contribute funds to support sites like TOC?

This could also be a facade to justify the demand for gazetting. Journalists in mainstream media are very much constraint by what they can and cannot write about. Yet, the citizen-journalists in alternative media appear to have a freehand in reporting sensitive issues. Gazetting shows who's boss.

So, are the general elections drawing closer? Various ministers have ante up the buzz.

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

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Oh Mas Selamat! U lucky devil

The Minister of Law has decided to come (pseudo) clean on how Mas Selamat was harboured and managed to getaway from watchful eyes.

Without a doubt, it paints a picture of lapses on many levels. We can call it intelligence failure or national security failure. It's like watching an ant crawl through a piece of kueh lapis effortlessly. At the same time, I cannot help but to marvel at how lucky Mas Selamat had been. From breaking out, commuting around Singapore to his arrival in JB. It's like watching Bruce Willis come out with only a few scraps with each installment of Die Hard (though MSK is very much at the other side of the law).

Now we Singaporeans cannot stomach the fact that the authorities had actually let slip that he would go to his immediate family for help. To us commoners, we would think that it is a no-brainer, watch his brother's place damnnit. On MSK's part, it was a huge gamble and it certainly paid off. What's not so fortunate now is that his brother's family is implicated. Kinship? Blood is thicker than water? This presents a moral dilemma. Citizen first, family second, religion third? How many of us have actually called the police so that they can arrest a family member? Many armchair critics have commented online that perhaps the Asmoms could have at least ratted on him after sending him away in the religious headdress. Honestly, what would the rest of the 100+ family members think of the Asmoms if they know that MSK had been betrayed out by his closest kin? Maybe this demonstrates the fact that MSK is the hardened terrorist that the authorities have painted him to be. His obvious priority is to escape and disregard the implications that he would bring upon his closest kins.

At the same time, it is clear that we Singaporeans are more upset with the authorities then the family for allowing the harbouring to happen. Singaporeans are divided on the punishment meted out to the Asmoms. Some say it's too light. Some say it's too harsh. My take is just let Nur Aini (his niece) serve her 18 months. Already, her future looks bleak. Besides, a sentence any longer only means that the taxpayers are paying for her imprisonment and her uncle's detention.

On hindsight, we've got MSK back without having to kill anyone. A certain country I know had gone to war on Iraq for years and still have not the chief yet.

I hate to think of how many of how many people would use the headdress to avoid scrutiny.

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Of the word that Malaysian non-Muslims cannot say

"Allah", meaning God or Supreme Being, applied largely in Islam is now a word reserved for Muslims in Malaysia only. While the most immediate reaction is to attack the religion and the Malaysian government, let's not forget that in other parts of the world, where majority of the people subscribe to one religion, the minorities are affected too. The BBC article below provides an interesting read.

However, the spate of violence that has been taking place in Malaysia proves detrimental to the world's view on Islam. Since the 911 attacks, Muslims leaders worldwide have emphasised that Islam is a religion of love and peace. Yet the attacks against the churches and temples in Malaysia have indicated that Muslims (at least those in Malaysia) are quick to resort to violence to make a stand. Regrettably, the belligerent ones have yet to end their attacks.

It is a tough call. Upon a delicate weighing scale, the Ministers in Malaysia cannot speak out against the ban for it will deem them as "lesser Muslims".

I can only hope that the violence will end soon.

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Faith Diary: Whose God is Allah?

By Robert Pigott
Religious Affairs correspondent

Religion can be a tense affair in Malaysia.

Roughly two thirds of the population is Muslim, and religious minorities have repeatedly accused the government of undermining their rights.

The interception by Malaysian authorities of thousands of Bibles bound for Christians in the country has produced the latest flashpoint.

The reason - the Bibles use the word Allah to describe God, and that's been banned by the government.

It says the risk of causing upset to Muslims is too great.

Muslim groups claim that Christian use of a word so closely associated with Islam in Bibles and children's books could be aimed at winning converts.

Religion is closely associated with ethnicity in Malaysia, with ethnic Malays obliged to be Muslim.

Ethnic Indians and Chinese who practise Hinduism and Buddhism are welcome to convert to Islam, but Muslims are not allowed to adopt another faith.

The Malaysian government confiscated 5,000 Bibles earlier this year as they were imported from Indonesia, and it has now intercepted another 10,000.

But Christian leaders - representing a little under 10% of the population - say Malays have been using the word Allah to refer generally to God for hundreds of years.

Christians are now fighting back.

An Evangelical church launched a legal action in an attempt to win the right to refer to God as Allah in children's books.

The Roman Catholic Church has also gone to court after its newspaper in Malaysia was threatened with the loss of its licence if it continued to use the word.

Christians are turning the issue into one about how minorities are treated in Malaysia.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia says the country's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and it's asking whether that can still be meaningful if Christians are denied Bibles which use their own language.

SWISS DECIDE ON MINARETS

When the treatment of Christian minorities in Muslim-majority countries becomes an issue, Christian-majority countries are apt to compare it unfavourably with the equality they give to Muslims.

But strict equality - at least in the architectural arena - is up for debate in one Christian-majority country: Switzerland.

Later this month the Swiss will vote in a referendum on whether to ban the construction of minarets in the country.

The proposal came from right-of-centre groups and is backed by Switzerland's biggest political party, the far-right Swiss People's Party.

There are about 100 mosques serving some 300,000 Swiss Muslims and small minarets are not unknown - although they're not used for calls to prayer.

Muslims have found allies among Switzerland's Jewish population, who have claimed that the plan would threaten religious harmony and hold up the integration of Muslims.

As in Malaysia, the constitution is being invoked by opponents of the proposal.

The two largest Jewish groups said the referendum infringed religious freedom, a concept enshrined in the Swiss constitution. ITALIANS CROSS ABOUT CRUCIFIXES

Part of the Swiss People's Party's argument against minarets is that they are a symbol of political power - more than they are about religion.

Now with a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights against the use of crucifixes in Italian schools, the same claim is being made for this symbol of Christianity.

Soile Lautsi wants to give her children a secular education and objected to the presence of a crucifix in every classroom at their school in northern Italy.

A law dating back to the 1920s requires crucifixes to be hung in Italian schools.

The European Court said the compulsory display of a symbol of a given religion in public buildings violated the rights of parents to educate their children as they wished.

The ruling has produced an angry response from politicians and church leaders who say the crucifix is much more than a religious symbol in Italy.

Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said the crucifix was a "symbol of our tradition", not a mark of Catholicism.

The Reverend Frederico Lombardi said the European court should not interfere in what was a profoundly Italian issue, and said it was wrong to imply that the crucifix could be a sign of division or exclusion.

Soile Lautsi's case is similar to one brought in 1995 by a parent in the German state of Bavaria.

A German constitutional court decided it was against religious freedom for crucifixes to be imposed in classrooms.

The Bavarian parliament came up with a new law, requiring the removal of crucifixes - but only if a parent insisted.

The US Supreme Court has also had to decide whether religious symbols break the constitution, and its separation of church and state.

It recently ruled against the positioning of framed copies of the 10 Commandments in two courtrooms in Kentucky, because they had a "predominantly religious purpose".

However, the court did acknowledge that even the 10 Commandments - taken from the Book of Exodus in the Bible - could be displayed, if it was done to illustrate the country's legal history.

It said a monument outside a government building in Texas could continue to display the Commandments, which the Bible describes being given to Moses by God.

But even without court rulings some Italian Christians suspect that long-established traditions are under threat by the changing atmosphere.

Among the casualties, they complain that schools are abandoning nativity plays for fear of offending people from other faiths.

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Of the romainian who got away

everyone, and i mean everybody hates hit-and-run drivers

it could be the fault of the driver. it could be the fault of the pedestrian. however, the scenario's abit different. the driver is in a vehicle and relatively unharmed while the one who got hit out there is possibly battling the death gods while lying there on the asphalt

and Silviu Ionescu, Dr Silviu Ionescu, Charge d'Affaires with the Romainian embassy has cooked up a cock and bull story and hiding back home.

his testimony of his stolen Audi not only insults the intelligence of the people, he obviously doesn't give two hoots about the casualties.

could the local government not have prevented Ionescu from leaving the airport 3 days after the accident? so what if the local government have urged the Romanian government to cooperate fully with the investigations? isn't it just saying the diplomatic obvious?

though Ionescu enjoys diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which Singapore is a signatory of, it covers only his official and administrative duties in Singapore.

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