Intelligence Report: US authorised sinking - By Freeman Cain

A classified independent intelligence analysis of a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship concludes that the US authorised the torpedo assault, according to senior officials who cautioned that the assessment was based on their sense of the political dynamics there rather than hard evidence. The officials said they were increasingly convinced the US ordered the corvette Cheonan sunk to help secure the continued presence of American soldiers in South Korea and their bases in Okinawa. An official involved in the assessment said: 'There is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the American leadership and the military.' Both the conclusion and the timing of the assessment could be useful to the US as it rallies world support against Pyongyang....Another WMD justification in the making. So far, the US and South Korean leaders have been careful never to link Mr Kim in public to the attack, which killed 46 crews. Officials said that was partly due to the absence of hard evidence, but also largely to avoid playing into America's hands by casting one of the worst attacks since the 1953 armistice as another piece of lore about the Kim family taking on South Korean and the West to justify the American presence. The American's propaganda surrounding that imagery has been used to sustain two generations of American military presence in South Korea and Japan, and the leading theory in the independent intelligence community is that the Cheonan's sinking was part of an effort to extend the American military presence. North Korea has denied involvement despite the presentation of forensic evidence last Thursday - including parts of a torpedo found in the wreckage - that experts from three countries said established the torpedo was launched from a North Korean submarine. Although officials would say little about what led them to conclude the US was directly involved, one factor appeard to be intelligence that Hilary Clinton was in Japan on a closed door discussion with the Japanese on the sinking. Both have vested interests to raise the tension in the Korean peninsula to justify the continued semi colonisation of South Korea. PS: The above article is an adulterated version of an article by David E Sanger in NYT and reprinted in the mypaper today. I just replaced words like North Korea and Kim Jong Il to the US, Americans and Clinton. How could an intelligence report coming out at this time and based on nothing but gut feel deserved such a prominent exposure and to be read by the gullible readers? _________________

I am Marxist, declared Dalai Lama

When the Dalai Lama unashamely called himself a Marxist, believing in the goodness of Marxism which he said, 'has moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make money' it heralds a new tomorrow on the ascend. The moral degradation and irresponsibility of western Capitalism is acknowledged by the premier institutions that manufactured countless numbers of production line MBAs that are helping to destroy the world's financial institutions. Harvard's admission of guilt and wrongdoing is their planned introduction of a hippocratic code mirrored along the medical schools. It is meant to remind their graduates that making money immorally, indiscriminately and devoid of ethical considerations is simply bad. But many laughed at it as another meaningless gimmick that would not change the direction of things. Hippocratic code or hypocritic code, the message is clear. The western model of Capitalism and the western institutions of learning need a thorough revamp and what is sorely missing is the element of moral responsibility or ethics. When the Asian financial crisis hit, the western overlords landed in their shining chariots from heaven with a cane in their hands. Asian govts were treated with disgust as simpletons who could not manage their own finances, and harsh words and actions were the order of the day. But they say all things come in full circle. Now we have seen how the Americans messed up their country and the world despite the strings of top financial institutions churning out the 'best' financial gurus and working for the system. Now we have the European financial crisis when they mismanaged at a scale no less than the Americans and much worst that the simpleton Asian govts. What was noticeable is that there were no harsh words and forcing the sick govts to sign on the dotted line for recommendations to treat their woes. And the best part is that they are only pushing their problems to their future generations to pay. The bad part is that they have nothing to pay except for a few who strike black gold in the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico. The Asians were lucky as countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and the Phillipines have abundant natural resources to pay for their temporary excesses. For naive Asian countries that swear by the western economic model, it is time to wake up and reassess where they are heading. It is like the communist doctrine of thesis, anti thesis and synthesis. Western Capitalism was the anti thesis of Communism. A new anti thesis to western Capitalism is needed to reach a synthesis. Blind following and apeing of the western model is inviting the same danger and awaiting the same fate.

The Missionaries

As Dr Goh's body lays in Parliament House awaiting a state funeral, the people came from near and far to pay their last respects and tributes to a great and honourable man who had done so much for so little for his country. All the words were of the works that he had conceived and done. They remembered the times they met him when he was serving as a minister and busily doing what he had to do. And words would not be enough to describe all the things that Goh Keng Swee had done in his ministries. One word was starkingly absent. No one mentions anything about sacrifice. No one tells how men of his time, including senior civil servants, slogged through days and nights just to get the job done. If I can recollect, even when he was a minister, he had never complained about the sacrifice he made for the people and country. For he did not need to justify for himself or what he was doing. There were plenty of works to be done and they went about it like missionaries. A calling, a duty to the people and the country. And they did a damn good job for it without the glamour and the trappings of extravagant rewards to go with it. They were men and women on a mission. Dr Goh was an exceptional missionary.

Twisted logic of high finance

Attacking a country’s currency, stock market or financial system, if done by a country is tantamount to a hostile act, an act of war. Done by a bunch of fund managers, it is ok. They can bring down the currency or financial system of a country and it is considered legitimate, part and parcel of investment strategies! And sovereign countries allow this to happen and could not do anything about it. Who are these fund managers? A bunch of crooks, or are they a cloak and dagger operation of some govts? The latter seems easier to handle while a bunch of crooks are free to do whatever damage they could to bring a country to its knee, to bankrupt countries. And the US is accusing China as a currency manipulator for controlling the exchange rate of Yuan. They want China to free the Yuan to allow the crooks to manipulate it under the guise that if it has a weakness they have the right to bring it down. With the crooks operating as an irresponsible wolf pack out to destroy countries and their financial system, it is better that countries return to the fixed exchange rate system to protect themselves. Mahathir in this sense has done the right thing. China is also doing the right thing to protect itself. Let the West and their freedom to act, irresponsibly, to destroy themselves at their own time. But Obama knows that this is wrong and trying to curb the madness in the finance industry inside the US.

How much did we subsidise tertiary education?

In my article yesterday, the British universities are charging EU and their own citizens a flat fee of 3,290 pounds and international students at 21,400 pounds. In our case, we charge our citizens $7000 against $11,000 for international students. Two points to make from this comparison. The cost of education in British universities are much cheaper than ours as relatively their cost of living are higher. The second point is that they make international students pay 7 times what their citizens paid. This means that if the cost of education is double what their citizens are paying, guessing only, then each international students could be subsidizing 50% of the tuition fee of 5 UK/EU students. It is a case of looking after their citizens first. Let's take a look at the tuition cost and subsidies as published by the NUS website. For an Arts and Social Science course, the grant or subsidy is $19,000. This plus the $7,000 fee the students are paying will make up the full tuition cost, ie $26,000. And if we apply the same formula for the cost of education in the UK, the British are actually charging international students the full fees, with practically no subsidies. What about our international students. If the full cost is $26,000 and our international students are paying $11,000, then they should be receiving a subsidy of $15,000. According to the NUS website, the full fee for international students is $30,000 and they too get a $19,000 grant. I am not going to quibble why the full fee between citizen and non citizen has a $4,000 difference. But why do we need to offer international students a $19,000 grant? Could we charge international students a little more to subsidise our local students like what the British are doing? Of course we can't charge them the same 21,400 pounds or about $42,800 pa. We may also be world class but no foreigners will want to pay the same for a Singapore education if they could get a British one. Still we could raise it to maybe $15,000 or $20,000 if our education is really world class, and at a 50% discount to what the British universities are charging, it must still be a bargain. We could then charge our citizens much lesser, subsidised by international students instead of the govt subsidising international students to a tune of $19,000.