Chok Tong to India to reaffirm ties

‘In a statement yesterday (7 Sep), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Emeritus Senior Minister (ESM) Goh Chok Tong will visit India from 7 to 11 September 2014 to reaffirm the close bilateral ties between Singapore and India.
 
“To promote stronger links between the next generation of ministers from both countries, ESM Goh will be accompanied on his visit by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade and Industry S Iswaran and Minister of State for National Development Desmond Lee,” the statement said….’
 
What does the above statement mean? To promote stronger links, does it mean the current links are not strong and intimate enough? What would stronger links mean? Is it because the Indians are not happy with the CECA and Chok Tong has to go there to renegotiate or to assure the Indians that things could be better?
India used to have two strong men in the Singapore Govt in full support of stronger bilateral relations, ie Chok Tong and George Yeo, who were instrumental in the signing of the CECA. In the absence of George, is Chok Tong the only strong lobby left and the Indians are feeling insecure and need to be reassured that someone will replace George in this relationship?
 
Which country must Singapore send the ESM to reaffirm frail ties? Or which country needs to be regularly hugged to tell them that ties are good and no need to worry? Or it is the other way, that Singapore is feeling the coldness from India and needs to be embraced by India to feel good? Have we not have had enough of the Indian Fever, or are we asking for more? I already started to imagine Chok Tong doing the John Travolta routine, Indian Fever once again, minus George Travolta. Who is the next George Travolta in line to build strong Singapore Indian ties?

Kopi Level - Green

Hillary Clinton: ‘We came, we saw and he died’

The above is the famous joke from Hillary Clinton often quoted to describe how callous and cavalier the Americans are of the lives of Arabs in the Middle East. They came, they saw and they executed Saddam Hussein and many more Arab leaders as if it was a natural thing to do, a fun thing. The hypocrisy of the American and western policies in the Middle East is best described by Jeffrey Sachs in his article, ‘Let the Middle East govern itself’ published in the Today paper this morning. No one, I mean no Afro Asians, would bother about what I say. They would even pooh poof it as nonsensical and hysterical if I were to write what Sachs had written. It is best that it comes from a western intellectual to say the truth.
 
Basically what Sachs said was that all the wars of intervention in the Middle East were never about democracy or human rights. It was all about oil, about control of a real estate and transit to Asia. All the Arab leaders and parties are dispensable and would be disposed off when they turned against American and western interests, meaning too ‘nationalistic, anti Israel, Islamist and dangerous to America’s oil interests’. The Americans have been supporting practically every group and party in the region and also in their destruction.
 
Sachs quoted the Sykes-Picot Agreement between the British and French that ‘ formed a lasting pattern of destructive outside meddling. With America’s subsequent emergence as a global power, it treated the Middle East in the same way, relentlessly installing, toppling, bribing or manipulating the region’s govts, all the while mouthing democratic rhetoric.’ These few sentences summarized the ugly intentions of the Americans and the West in the Middle East. The Americans would only install a regime that is acceptable to them. Period.
The invasion of Iraq has led to its ‘destruction as a functioning society in an ongoing civil war, fuelled by outside powers, that has caused economic ruin and collapsing living standards’ and the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Not to dismiss or ridicule the beheading of the two American journalists, how could the lives of two Americans be more precious than the hundreds of thousands of death inflicted by the Americans on the Arab nations in the Middle East? The hypocrisy must stop here.
 
But no, the Americans are hell bent to topple another Arab leader in Bashar Assad. ‘More than 190,000 Syrians are dead and millions have been displaced as a result of an insurrection supported by the US and its allies.’
 
Everything in the Middle East is about brute force. And as Sachs said, the rise of ISIS, another creature that Hillary Clinton has been credited as the grandmother, America intervenes again with more bombings, and violence rule the day. How does this relate to the article by Thomas Friedman that the Russians and the Islamic States were all about violence and brute force when the real culprit of violence and brute force is none other than the Americans and the West?
 
Sachs was calling for an end to American and western hypocrisy in the Middle East, to leave the Arab states alone to deal with their problems and find their own status quo. As a consoling gesture to the Americans he said, ‘There is enough hatred, corruption and arms in the region to keep it in crisis for years to come.’ He knew that this is what the Ameicans and the West would want to see, a region in perpetual conflict, dysfunctional economies and govts, and not able to become a threat to Israel and American/western oil interests in the region.
 
How much more explicit does it takes to understand what is going on in the Middle East? Is it about democracy, human rights and about America and the West helping to keep peace? Don’t be naïve.

Kopi Level - Green

US has magic bullet

Thomas Friedman used to be quite notable and respectable in his views on the American economic and political policies. Lately he has become more and more jingoistic in his articles on American policies and becoming more like the rough neck Americans on the streets, talking without thinking, and having views that are so screwed without knowing it.
 
His latest post in the Mypaper, reproduced from the NYT, titled ‘US has magic bullet for Russia, Islamic State’ is a case in point. In the article he was lambasting the Russians and the Islamic States for using war and violence as the only solution for all their problems. The Russians and the Islamic State are all about power. What he also meant without saying it, is that the Americans are all about being civilized and never about power and the use of brute force to solve their problems. Clap, clap, clap.
 
Could you believe it, Thomas Friedman could only see one side of the coin, that America is so peace living? Where are his empirical data to show that the Russians and the Islamic State are using more violence than the Americans, or violence means? Does he not know that the number of wars and the number of innocent people killed by the Americans far exceeded what the Russians and the Islamic State combined?
 
And I quote, ‘Both (Putin and the Islamic State) are clearly motivated to use force by an intense desire to overcome past humiliations.’ So, what were the motivations for the Americans to use force in everything it is involved, everything is a nail? A friendly super power walking around with a hammer?
 
As a reputable political commentator, does he not think it is proper to use statistics to back up his claim instead of using his mouth to blast it away? What have the Americans being doing before Putin and the Islamic State decided to meet the American force with force? What was Bush doing in Iraq and Obama in Libya? Not being rude and insensitive, what are two beheadings compared to the hundreds of thousands of victims of drone and cruise missile attacks on children, the women and the old civilians? Less brutal and less barbaric because you don’t see the pain and the body pieces all over the streets?
 
Is this the same Thomas Friedman that won the same prize Obama had, for peace?

PS: The Americans are starting another Coalition of the Willing. Just pray that we are not going to be dragged in to murder innocent people like what George Bush did to us. Living in SE Asia, we better know what we should be extremely careful in doing.

Kopi Level - Yellow

The Govt must come clean and be accountable for the CECA

Below is part of a report by Business Standard on the CECA between Singapore and India. Though it was stated that the Singapore Govt was in no hurry to review the pact, the point is that the CECA is still in effect with all the unfavourable terms affecting the lives of Singaporeans. Many of the controversial and damaging terms have been highlighted and denounced by the netizens as ridiculous and stupid. It would be better for the Govt to rescind this agreement immediately and renegotiate a new agreement minus the adverse terms and conditions that are detrimental to Singapore. The existing CECA terms must be declared null and void pending a new agreement. They are politically untenable and skewed against Singapore but highly favourable to India.
 
The Govt must come clean and be transparent with the new terms it is going to sign with India. They must be held accountable and must obtain the consent of the people for such a sweeping agreement. It cannot sign another agreement with terms similar to the existing CECA. It would need some people with wisdom and the interest of Singaproeans at heart to negotiate the new terms. Just plain good grades in schools have been proven to be useless or dangerous if the terms of the first CECA are to be witness to the stupidity.
 
A rally at Hong Lim is appropriate to express the wills of the people and what the people deem unacceptable for the Govt to take note of. I almost faint when I read the CECA. Cannot believe that our super talents could agree to those stupid terms.
 
Phillip Ang and Leong Sze Hian and their teams must put the CECA under the microscope to remove all the offending terms to ensure that they are not in the new agreement. Being hit by the first CECA in the dark is bad enough. To repeat the same mistakes in silence is unforgiveable.

Below is the Business Standard’s report.
‘Singapore in no hurry to review economic pact with India

The second review of CECA has been pending for more than 4 years

Nayanima Basu | September 02, 2014 Last Updated at 00:52 IST, Business Standard

Singapore is in no hurry to conclude the second review of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), even as India is pushing for entry of its banks and professionals into the Singapore market for more than four years.

“Yes, it (the second review of CECA) has taken a bit longer. We are in no hurry. These sort of negotiations take time. The Indian government is yet to come to terms with our laws. If CECA review takes over 10 years then also it is no big deal. Life goes on,” a senior Singaporean government official told Business Standard.

India had signed its first ever CECA with Singapore in August, 2005, under which both sides have a preferential tariff arrangement for over 80 product lines. Besides, India and Singapore enjoy greater access in services and investment under CECA.

The CECA's second review was launched in May, 2010, but since then the review had been held up mainly on two important issues. One is allowing Indian banks to Singapore and second the free movement of Indian professionals.

India had been consistently raising this issue with Singapore at all high-level meetings. The matter was even discussed during the recent meeting between external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and her counterpart K Shanmugam in Singapore last month.

The Singapore government, in its effort to reduce reliance on foreign workers, passed the ‘Employment Pass Framework’ in 2010 under which the foreign share of the total workforce has to be brought down to around one-third by the companies located there, while encouraging employers to invest in productivity in return for incentives in the form of tax breaks.

However, India has argued that while Singapore has done this to address its own domestic concerns, it had committed a separate provision under CECA, exempting India from such a rule. The matter has taken a political colour now….’

Kopi Level - Yellow

Singaporeans have another stake in this island

It was the govt’s policy to make sure Singaporeans have a stake in this island, at least owning a HDB flat. This was the old govt’s policy. Never mind those Singaporeans that were banned from buying a stake in this city state. Never mind if they have served their NS and still kpkb caused they could not buy a stake in a city state they have pledged and trained to defend. Never mind if foreigners turned new citizens are allowed to buy and have a stake in this island without having to serve NS.

The govt now has created a new stake for all Singaporeans here. The govt is making sure that the citizens will have a lot of money in the CPF, as another stake for them to feel there is something to protect and die for.

Now NS men will have to protect their CPF until their die, maybe 90 or 100 years. The govt has worked it all out to make sure you will always have CPF money, a lot of money,  in your CPF account. This is a new stake in addition to your HDB flat.

So for those not allowed to buy HDB flats and claimed that they have no stake in this city state to protect, there you are, now you have a stake in the CPF. You can’t take it all out when you need it at 55, so you better defend it with all your life and not allow anyone to take it away.

Kopi Level - Yellow