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Will H1N1 feed me to the fish?
First, I'd like to thank my readers who enquire about my wellbeing after I've stopped blogging for about 2 months. For the benefit of those who read and commented on my last post [link], please be informed that the article was actually written on 29 May but only posted on 29 June 2009 with some update.Lately, apart from the H1N1, the other news that attracted my attention includes:
- The one who defended Chee Soon Juan has left us too soon.
- The one with the Moon Walk writes, sings and dances no more.
- One of my favourite angels has gone to join the real angels.
Through what I've read from his articles and books and those who know him, Mr Anthony Yeo's not a very 'Singaporean' Singaporean. He took the road less traveled by being himself without fear or favour to the power that is. I strongly recommend everyone to read what he wrote here [must read link]. His guts in defending Chee Soon Juan whom LKY and CLH consider "seow" (and wishes everybody will treat) as a "psycopath'' is something worthy of my respect.
While reading again another article he wrote on the subject of the 'graciousness' of local politicians [another must read link], I'm saddened that his life has been cut short before he sees his dream come true.
These letters from Sam's thought blog [link] shows Anthony's thoughts on various social issues. I look up to him for what he stood for and his courage to tell it like it is. The only thing I have in common with Mr Anthony Yeo is we choose to be fedtothefish.
Meanwhile, I've been dazed and confused by the directives given by various ministries and ministers and their spokesperson onH1N1. The different games played out by the various 'top guns' are simply amazing!
I've been told yesterday that a fitness class that I'm supposed to attend is canceled due to H1N1. On the other hand, I've been told by Mintster Vivian Balakrishnan to help him cheer on his AYG Singapore team at the various sports venues.
Just which direction are we heading?
Exercise class not allowed but gather in big crowd to cheer and scream for Singapore's AYG team strongly encouraged?
So, which is which?
On a personal note, based on the advice of MOH, due to my heart condition, my chance of getting whacked by H1N1 is much higher than the average Joe.
With the current confusion of some H1N1 cases being treated at clinic, some at hospital and some at home and whatever; some entitled to expired Tamiflu drugs and others not, let's hope that H1N1 is kind to us and not feedustothefish before our time is due
feedmetothefish
TOC Exclusive: Death of Bangladeshi worker in 2008
Never-before-seen footage of scenes at dorm where worker died of chicken pox.Free meh?
The ministry should state clearly what one must expect to be the minimum cost of an H1NI test at the Communicable Disease Centre, because it cannot be free if there is an $85 charge. Denis Distant, Straits Times forum pageHDB Resale Prices hit record highs!
The prices of HDB resale flats have reach a record high[Link] defying analysts prediction that it will fall during this recession as unemployment climbs to 4.9%. What is going on here?
A number of colleagues of mine have been 'looking' for HDB flats in matured estates at locations that are close to work or their parents. They have been 'looking' since 2007 and they thought that the recession would give them a chance to buy at a lower price but they told me that prices held up and there is no shortage of buyers when it comes to resale flat in good locations. If you look at the resale flat index, which is now at the all time high of 140, the recession only slowed the rate at which the index was rising. It fell only slightly once in Q1 2009 by 0.6% since the last recession.
A friend of mine bought a 30 yr old 5-room HDB flat at Marine Parade for $600K recently. He told me he has been looking for 2 years. He gave up waiting for 'better' prices.
This recession is the most severe in the past 10 years yet the impact on HDB resale prices is minimal. One possible explanation is the expansion of our population. In 2008, our population grew by 5.5% to 4.84M[Link] that is an addition of roughly 250,000 people. There were 100,000 newly minted PRs and citizens in 2008 and these people become eligible to buy resale HDB flats. Even in this severe recession demand is up possibly because of new immigrants.
High HDB prices may be good for home owners who bought their property earlier but it burdens young couples who have to shoulder high mortgage debts to buy them. Some may argue that young couples can buy cheaper flats if they are willing to stay further from where they work and where their parents stay - places like Woodlands and Ponggol are cheap but this is a trade off between convenience + quality of life and affordability.....so life cannot be good and affordable for everyone in Singapore. As for the new immigrants, I know many of them and befriended many over the years. I've worked with many of them and most of them are honest hardworking individuals. However, we as citizens have to understand the impact of the govt's immigration policy on the life of Singaporeans. There is no question that some level of immigration is desirable however adding 250,000 people into the population in 1 year may be highly excessive relative to rate of growth of our population if our birthrate is normal. The large number strains our housing, public transport and hospitals.
Thoughts of a contented Singaporean who has lived in Singapore
for 40 years.
Burger King ad in Singapore comes under fire
Oral sex innuendo advertisement is "misogynistic to women".S’poreans are spending again
SINGAPOREANS are getting more optimistic about the future, with fewer planning to cut back on their spending, a survey has shown. Straits TimesAnthony Yeo, the lion content to be only a little mouse
"I am going to learn so I can come back to help people’.” Yeo Toon Joo pays tribute to his brother.Why Hong Kong?
By now, readers of my blog will find it strange that I have put up quite a lot of information on Hong Kong's democratic movement.I shall explain it next week after I have time to put up more information on the 1 July protest march.
Goh Meng Seng
Hong Kong Minibond Victims 7.1 Protest
Demanding resignation of Chief Executive Donald TsangThe Hong Kong Minibond Victims Alliance has organized its first largest protest march since last October today. It is basically very well organized with bamboo stick placards all prepared in advance and all supporters mobilized to take part in its first ever 7.1 protest.
The main theme of the protest is to demand the resignation of the Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang for not able to settle the Minibond saga after so many months of fact finding and investigation.
DBS is naturally one of the main bank the protesters have targeted. There are total of 16 main banks that were involved in the selling of the toxic structured financial products and recently they have made proposals to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority for partial settlement of Minibond investors.
Apparently they are more aggressive in verbal demand
The Alliance has claimed that the mis-selling of minibond should be considered as a case by case basis because it is basically a systematic problem in the marketing of such toxic financial products.
The Alliance has pointed out that the fact finding from the Legislative Council has shown that there are evidences of systematic failure of regulative oversight as well as the internal controls within the banks' marketing protocols.
The Leader of the Alliance addressing the crowdI estimated the size of the crowd to be about 8,000 to 10,000. Many of the protesters are elderly and fragile victims who have lost their entire savings. In spite of advice from organizers to ask their family members to come as representatives due to the expected hot summer weather, they have insisted to participated in the protest personally.
The protest march created a small commotion on their way to the government house. Some of the protesters deviated from the planned route to the HQ of Bank of China to demonstrate against the bank. Otherwise, the protest is generally peaceful, orderly and very well organized.
This protest is separated from the main 7.1 protest and it is carried ahead of the main 7.1 protest march. Although they lack manpower and funding in setting up big sound system, but generally speaking, in terms of cohesion and preparations, they are better off as a small and highly motivated group of people.
All the best to them.
Goh Meng Seng
Democratic Progress in Hong Kong Part 1 - 6.4 Protest
I have originally wanted to write about June 4 2009 candle light protest in early June but unfortunately due to heavy work commitment and time constrains, I have to postpone it till now.I shall do a series of write up of June 4 and July 1 protest march along with my thoughts on the democratic progress that Hong Kongers have achieved since 1997's handover of the ex-British Queen Colony to China.
4 June 1989 is a sad day for China as well as Hong Kong. It was even a fearful day for Hong Kong which was anticipating the eventual return to China's sovereign control in 1997. Many Hong Kongers have decided back then to plan for their eventual departure from their homeland for fear of the communist iron fist rule.
The massacred of Tianan Men protesters, who were mainly young students, has casted a terrible shadow of fear on Hong Kongers. From then on, there was a consistent outflow of Hong Kongers to all over the world, including Singapore, which eventually created the exodus all the way till 1997 which Hong Kong has not experienced before.
Amidst the fear of the Communist rule, the first candle light memorial service for the 1989 Tianan Men massacred was held in 4 June 1990. It was reported that tens of thousands of Hong Kongers attended the event and from then on, Hong Kong democratic and human right fighters have continued to organize such event annual for the next 20 years.
I have attended a few of such gathering in the past but this 20th anniversary memorial service is the biggest ever gathering I have seen so far. I estimated about 170 thousand people attended the event.
I was just a teenager when the massacred happened back then. My tears were rolling when I read about students being killed and how soldiers fired upon students and civilians who were totally unarmed. It was a sheer political awakening for me on how an authoritarian government with unchecked power could do to its own people. It is a mindless massacred just for the sake of power.
These students stood up against corruptions of that their country faced back then and demanded accountability of the government via democratic changes. It was out of pure patriotism that they took on to the street to demand change to the political system. But their demand was met with cold blooded massacred.
These students might be over zealous in asking for democracy but in my view, the massacred is totally unnecessary. There were advance anti-riot gears and tools to handle such demonstration and protests. To use guns to attack their own citizens who were just civilians is totally unacceptable. Guns, tanks and military machineries are supposed to be used on criminals and for defending the country against external invasion, not on civilians.
Besides, to me, these students are patriots, not traitors nor trouble makers. They are people who are concerned of their country's future. And I think it is about time that the Chinese Communist Party should put this part of the history right and admit their past mistakes in handling these protesters.
Unfortunately, some of the Pro-CCP people have asserted that there were no bloodshed, no massacred when army troops drove in Tianan Men. These blatant lies were told despite of the many evidence shown in various newspaper reports on the event.
The worse thing to happen is that the Chinese government has tried to blackout all news with regards to the 4 June event. Many forums and websites which are critical about the Chinese government were shut down. This reflects very badly on China especially so when it claims that it wants Shanghai to develop into an international financial center by 2020.
It is impossible to convince international investors to invest in Chinese listed companies or have any confidence in the whole system when the government itself could carry out such massive blackout of news and information over anything it deems undesirable!
The primary fundamental pillar of any international financial centers in the world is freedom of information flow. It is amazing that the Chinese government has done something so damaging to its future development plan without even knowing it! Distortion of information or total blackout of information is something intolerable for any world class financial centers.
China will have a long way to go to become the international financial center that it so desired if it carries on having such mindset over information control.
I am very impressed by Hong Konger who are well known for their very calculative mindset when it comes to business dealings. Part of the reason for such large turnout this year was due to the Chief Executive Donald Tsang's assertion that China has made great economic progress since 1989 and his view represented most Hong Kongers. What he meant explicitly was that Hong Kong have benefited from China's economic progress since 1989 and most Hong Kongers would not be bothered about what happened in 1989.
On the other hand, Hong Kong government has denied entry for few democratic activists which include those student leaders of the 1989 Tianan Men protest.
His view and his government's denial of entry for these people has angered many Hong Kongers who are usually more concerned about their livelihood than political events like this one. Many Hong Kongers participated in this candle light memorial service just to make a point to Donald Tsang that they do care about democratic development for the whole China, including Hong Kong, despite of enjoying economic concessions from the Chinese government.
They do not wish such draconian massacred to happen again in China, least Hong Kong, for any reason at all. Even economic development is not a good reason for such cold blooded massacred and human right violations.
More importantly, all these happenings had reminded Hong Kongers the importance of passing on the baton of democratic fighters to the younger generation. One of the main theme of the 20th anniversary gathering is passing on the memories of truth happening of 1989 Tianan Men massacred to the younger generation.
It is a thought provoking sight to witness young secondary school students taking their own initiative to participate in this gathering. And they demanded the truth to be taught in their history book instead of hiding the crucial fact of such massacred from them and the future generations.
I think Hong Kongers will continue to fight and push for more democratic progress, not only in Hong Kong itself, but for the whole China. It may become the important base for democratic fighters in China to push for their agenda in the years to come.
On the other hand, I believe that China should stop its desperate move on information control. It has issued a law to make it mandatory for PC makers in China to install a censorship program but met with strong resistance from the Chinese internet community, as well as PC makers.
The process of democratic liberation is inevitable when the market economy is to be further enhanced. If Chinese companies are to grow into bigger MNCs, they would need foreign funding and this could only be done with an assurance of transparency by means of free information flow.
Hong Kong may well continue to play an important role in pushing the boundaries of democratic development in the whole China. It would be interesting to see how things turn out in the next decade or so.
Goh Meng Seng
