The Cheonan Incident

Below is an article which was forwarded to me. The readers shall read it objectively and find his own conclusion. I will try to attach the photographs that came with it. If the facts are proven to be true, my God, the South Korean naval personnel were simply sacrificial lambs and Lee Myung Bak being led to run in circles. The article is by Wayne Madsen. Online Journal Contributing Writer. Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report. Copyright © 2010 WayneMadenReport.com Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report Beijing suspects false flag attack on South Korean corvette Carried : Friday, 28-May-2010 http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5930.shtml Navy soldiers stand guard near the wreckage of the naval vessel Cheonan, which was sunk on March 26 near the maritime border with North Korea, at the Second Fleet Command's naval base in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, May 19, 2010. South Korea said on May 20 that evidence was overwhelming that a North Korean submarine fired the torpedo that sank the navy ship in March, killing 46 sailors WMR's intelligence sources in Asia suspect that the March attack on the South Korean Navy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) corvette, the Cheonan, was a false flag attack designed to appear as coming from North Korea. One of the main purposes for increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula was to apply pressure on Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to reverse course on moving the U.S. Marine Corps base off Okinawa. Hatoyama has admitted that the tensions over the sinking of the Cheonan played a large part in his decision to allow the U.S. Marines to remain on Okinawa. Hatoyama's decision has resulted in a split in the ruling center-left coalition government, a development welcome in Washington, with Mizuho Fukushima, the Social Democratic Party leader threatening to bolt the coalition over the Okinawa reversal. The Cheonan was sunk near Baengnyeong Island, a westernmost spot that is far from the South Korean coast, but opposite the North Korean coast. The island is heavily militarized and within artillery fire range of North Korean coastal defenses, which lie across a narrow channel. The Cheonan, an ASW corvette, was decked out with state-of-the-art sonar, plus it was operating in waters with extensive hydrophone sonar arrays and acoustic underwater sensors. There is no South Korean sonar or audio evidence of a torpedo, submarine or mini-sub in the area. Since there is next to no shipping in the channel, the sea was silent at the time of the sinking. However, Baengnyeong Island hosts a joint US-South Korea military intelligence base and the US Navy SEALS operate out of the base. In addition, four U.S. Navy ships were in the area, part of the joint U.S-South Korean Exercise Foal Eagle, during the sinking of the Cheonan. An investigation of the suspect torpedo's metallic and chemical fingerprints show it to be of German manufacture. There are suspicions that the US Navy SEALS maintains a sampling of European torpedoes for sake of plausible deniability for false flag attacks. Also, Berlin does not sell torpedoes to North Korea, however, Germany does maintain a close joint submarine and submarine weapons development program with Israel. The presence of the USNS Salvor, one of the participants in Foal Eagle, so close to Baengnyeong Island during the sinking of the South Korean corvette also raises questions. The Salvor, a civilian Navy salvage ship, which participated in mine laying activities for the Thai Marines in the Gulf of Thailand in 2006, was present near the time of the blast with a complement of 12 deep sea divers. Beijing, satisfied with North Korea's Kim Jong Il's claim of innocence after a hurried train trip from Pyongyang to Beijing, suspects the U.S. Navy's role in the Cheonan's sinking, with particular suspicion on the role of the Salvor. The suspicions are as follows: 1. The Salvor engaged in a seabed mine-installation operation, in other words, attaching horizontally fired anti-submarine mines on the sea floor in the channel. 2. The Salvor was doing routine inspection and maintenance on seabed mines, and put them into an electronic active mode (hair trigger release) as part of the inspection program. 3. A SEALS diver attached a magnetic mine to the Cheonan, as part of a covert program aimed at influencing public opinion in South Korea, Japan and China. The Korean peninsula tensions have conveniently overshadowed all other agenda items on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visits to Beijing and Seoul.

More condos in CBD

And more residents will call Shenton Way their home. The developers are all smiling with rental in CBD commanding a high premium as well as the properties commanding high prices. But what is it for the citizens? The residents calling Shenton Way home may all be foreigners, or the majority may be foreigners. And who are the locals buying up these properties, not many HDB upgraders but the rich who have already many properties in their pockets. It is great news for profit generating. How does it fit in to nation building, to the welfare and living standards of the citizens? How many citizens will benefit from such grandeur and high living lifestyle and expensive homes? With no checks and balances, with no links to nation building and the uplifting of the people, who would enjoy all these beautiful condos? Sure, some citizens are laughing all the way to the banks. The CBD will be more vibrant, but for who and for what?

Towards a more equal world

The Third World countries shall rejoice with the rise of China to challenge the US and European dominance of world affairs and unequal relationships. Gone will be the days of Unequal Treaties. The Chinese will stand up to the US and the West for their arrogance and domineering relationship vis a vis the rest of the world. An ugly example of such a relationship was pronounced by Robert Gates himself at the recent Shangri La Dialogue when he claimed that the US has been selling weapons to Taiwan openly all these years. So it must be right. He could not see anything wrong with it. He might as well say that the US had perpetuated a slave trade enslavings millions of Africans for several hundred years. So it must be ok to continue to do so. Or he might as well say that colonisation is acceptable since the Western powers colonised and ruled the rest of the world for several centuries. The Chinese did the right thing by cancelling Robert Gates visit to Beijing to remind him that selling weapons to Taiwan is not right. The Western world would accuse China of being arrogant for standing up to the US and them, for demanding to be treated equally, and all international relationships be on par, not the empire/subject kind. The Third World countries would stand to benefit if China could shift the present unfair relationship to one that is more equal to the smaller and weaker nations. The Americans and the West cannot keep talking down to the rest of the world and dictate what a relationship should be in their favour and according to their terms. If they can build military bases at the doorsteps of other countries, sail navy ships in their seas and fly spy aircraft or satellites over their territories, these are not friendly acts, so can other countries do the same to them. For a better and more equal world, all countries shall be treated equally and have the same rights to determine their own affairs.

More remisiers needed?

SGX wanted to boost the strength of remisiers by another 1000. Several broking houses are in the market looking for another couple of hundred remisiers each. Aren't these going against the conventional wisdom that the stockmarket shall go online and there is no need for remisiers? There was a time when the mantra was that machines could replace the role of remisiers but now we are hearing calls for more remisiers. Wonderful! Does it work to have more remisiers? Looking at the volumes traded in the market, at times as high as 2 billion shares daily, many of the remisiers were waiting for their phones to ring. Long were the days when the phones were ringing non stop once the trading volume hit 1 billion shares. What's happening? And the past few days the volume dwindled to less than a billion, and yesterday was the lowest to date, at 788 million shares. What were the remisiers doing? Swapping mosquitoes? Now, if the volume is going to be so anaemic, what would the addition of another 1000 remisiers do to the market? More volume or the same volume divided by another 1000? I have written in the past that once the retail investors have been sent to the cleaners, the next will be the remisiers. And when the remisiers too are emptied of their pockets, the funds and trading houses will only be trading among themselves. And looks like this day is getting nearer than I anticipated. How did the market get to this pathetic state? What is wrong with the market or the system? Is the system healthy or sick?

Yes we are world champion!

The WTTF victory has generated many discussions in the media and cyberspace, including mysingaporenews. The main argument centres on foreign talents versus local talents. Let me take the issue a little further by asking why are we doing this? What are we trying to achieve and for what? Is the glory of being world champion something so important to us that we should devote so much energy and resources to recruit foreign talents to make us feel good? Is it about national pride or is there an economic angle to it? Or would someone say it is about nation building, or a way to motivate our future champions? In Europe, particularly in football, buying foreign talents is a big thing and big money. It is big business, a big industry that generates economic activities and income, jobs etc etc. It is a business that extends beyond national boundaries. We too are spending hundreds of millions to watch football. The bottom line is big profits. I think we are very far from that in table tennis. It is still a national cost, a big hole where money is being poured into it when it could be used better in other areas. Maybe we have too much money and this small sum is insignificant and we can do without. Even in football, when players are bought and sold like assets, when it comes to the World Cup, the players, or most of them, will return home to play for their national teams. Not many national teams would want to field non nationals or newly bought nationals to don their colours to win football glory. It is unthinkable for Brazil, Ivory Coast, India, Japan, Korea or even Malaysia, to flirt with buying foreign footballers to win the championship. Table tennis is exceptional because many countries are doing it, from the US, Europe, across Asia to Oceania, the Chinese are exporting their table tennis players to these countries who are willing to pay for them. To the Chinese, it is an economic activity, and also they have an abundance of talents. Any difference between football and table tennis? In football, it is the commercially run football leagues that are trading talents. In table tennis, what league, representing who? What are we in for? Why are we importing foreign talents in sports for?