Is Singapore playing Santa Claus again?

Temasek was reported to have set up panel of advisers for the Americas and Europe with the biggest names that money can buy. In the ST on 17 June, it reported, ‘The Temasek Americas Advisory Panel(TAAP), …has seven members, including PepsiCo chairman and chief executive  Indra Nooyi, Honeywell Internation chairman and CEO David Cote, and former US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner,…former DuPont chairman and CEO Ellen Kullman, online education platform  Coursera CEO Richard Levin, Mr Ronald Sugar, former chairman and CEO of defence giant Northrop Grumman, and former chairman and CEO of agribusiness Bunge, Mr Alberto Weisser.

The report also said Temasek had set up an European Advisory Panel in January but did not name the panelists, presumably also high powered who’s who in Europe.  Temasek has big investments in these continents and needed good advices that money can buy. And these eminent people would not serve for free and would definitely be paid handsomely. I am presuming of course. They may be doing charity for Temasek by asking for peanuts and being in the Panels would be a great honour itself that is more rewarding in non monetary terms. It is more likely and realistic that such high powered people would not spare their precious time for free. The big question is how much?

How many of such Panels have been set up world wide and hopefully the returns are worth it. A better panel to pay for would be membership to the illuminati if money can buy membership to this cloak and dagger mysterious organization.

Has Singapore become a better and economically more sound in the management of its economy and hundreds of billions of dollars of investments? Or Singapore is still throwing money at anything that moves? How many of the failed bankers and financial professionals made redundant after the subprime and world financial crisis have landed here and given lucrative jobs, with Singapore being the Santa Claus in another form? The number of academics flooding the academic and non academic institutions in Singapore and the money paid to them is no small change. What is the return or benefit to Singapore for spending so much of the public’s money on such academics? Are they worth the money spent? Or they are just like hobbies to be collected to boost one’s ego, that we have so many trophies to wave around?

Would be good if this is discussed in Parliament, to conduct an audit and to assess if it is money well spent? Does Singapore have a bottomless pit of gold that we can just keep sharing with the rest of the world just to feel good?

Singapore is getting to become a very exciting fine city

Parking fees going up in December or HDB will lose $100m yearly despite a report that the two agencies, URA and HDB ‘earning a total of $667 million from their carparks in their latest financials for 2014/15. This piece of information is in the mypaper on 5 Jul.

Now why the fear mongering that HDB is going to lose $100m yearly? Maybe the $667m were mostly made by URA and not HDB. Maybe HDB’s share of the $667 was negligible or miserable and easily wiped out by the increasing cost of managing and maintaining carparks.  Actually HDB’s share was $595m and URA’s was $62m, total added up $657m, $10m missing from the $667m.

The report also said HDB’s operating cost was $700m. Can it then be concluded that the total revenue for carpark operation was $700m + $595m or $1,295m? And HDB claimed that it would lose $100m if the fees or revenue did not go up. What does this mean? Operating cost will increase so much to wipe out the revenue of $1,295m and ended with a loss of $100m? So the total operating cost will be $1,395m, tiok boh? I not accountant or finance expert, can only make simple deduction.

HDB operates 2,000 carparks and recently installed electronic pricing equipment and system that cost $150,000 each to save on manpower cost and to be more efficient in collecting more money. This works out to $300 m in initial capital expenditure. Then the savings from carpark attendance walking the car parks would be transferred to hiring more technicians and software engineers to maintain the $300m system. Not sure the savings from terminating all the carpark attendants would be enough to pay for the technicians and engineers. Very likely not that is why HDB is talking about losing $100m a year with the new equipment and system.

And who should pay for this capital expenditure and new hires, the carpark users? Did the carpark users have a say whether to invest in this costly equipment that would raise the cost of carpark management? No, the HDB decides what is good for them (or for the HDB?) and how much they should pay for the equipment. Great thinking and great philosophy!

And this is not enough. There is a forum writer, a Francis Cheng Choon Fei, who wrote to the Today paper that increasing carpark fees without increasing parking fines is not an efficient way to manage car population. I am not going to ask if he is a car owner with a deep pocket or someone that could not afford to own a car, so increasing fines does not affect his pocket, but I think many Singaporeans would agree with him. Singaporeans just love to pay fines and the bigger the fines the finer would be their lives.

I hope the govt would accept this ground up suggestion and raise all kinds of parking fines and car related fines to make this a finer city. We not only have to pay for the most expensive cars, but car related fines. Our parking fees are still not high enough compare to the price of car ownership. Let’s go for it, increase all the carpark fees and fines.

My eye balls are rolling because this kind of suggestions is music to the ears of the people that believe in nothing wrong with collecting more money.

PS. Happy Hari Raya Aidilfitri to our Muslim citizens. Or is it Happy Hari Raya Puasa? I saw that in Channel News Asia.

Productivity of the Ang Mo Kio TB cluster

Results from the screening of 225 people living in the same block of the 6 TB patients in Ang Mo Kio have produced 2 possible active TB cases and 45 with latent TB. These work out to be a 1 percent positive and 22 percent latent hits. The latent cases are reported to be not infectious and would not spread the disease until they turn positive. The Ministry also reported that normally 90 per cent of latent TB, ie 45, would not develop TB in their life time. So only 4 would likely contact TB eventually. All are now being treated for positive and latent TB.

The causes on how they contacted the TB have not been determined but likely, and must be due to some contact with the TB patients. All have been reported to have no direct contact with the 6. Then how could they possibly get into close contact or proximity with the 6? One likely possibility must be the lifts, in instances when one of the 6 was using the lift and the unaware went in after them.

The other higher possibility areas must be the trains or the offices they were working in. But these are unlikely the case for those screened positive in this exercise. But this does not rule out the 2 positive cases spreading in the trains or in their offices, or the 6 that may have travelled in trains and their work areas.

So far never heard of screenings in the work areas of the affected TB patients. It is almost impossible to screen commuters who happened to take the same trains.  Would the Ministry attempt to screen those working in the same offices, using the same toilet cubicles or pantry?

This is not the end of the Ang Mo Kio cluster and the people that may be affected or infected through other means of contact could be out there. We are so lucky that there is no widespread of TB in the island when the jam packed trains are so conducive contraptions for the spread of communicable diseases like TB and what else.

IS attacks now more targeted

According to Rita Katz, the director of the SITE intelligence group, there is a big change in the tactics of IS coming out from the latest attack in Bangladesh. IS used to adopt a kill all tactic, a kind of indiscriminate killing that can be expected from mindless people, regardless of who the victims were, just kill and create havoc, terror and fear. The order to its operators in Europe was to go out and kill ‘anyone and everyone’.  The order given to the terrorists in Bangladesh was ‘to kill a white foreigner at random.’

Reports coming out from the Bangladesh attack said the terrorists separated the locals from the foreigners before hacking them to death, sparing the locals. The IS and Al Qaeda were at loggerheads on the tactics to kill at random or only kill the non Muslims. Al Qaeda has been attacking the IS tactics especially in the triple suicide bombing in Istanbul. To quote the NYT report reproduced in the Today paper on 4 Jul, this was what the Al Qaeda twittered. ‘The Turkish people are Muslims & their blood is sacred. A true Mujahid would give his life for them, not massacre them….’

The earlier tactic of wanton attack had let to Muslims and Muslim countries being the target. And it would be tough to explain to their fighters and supporters should their families and homes be hit. They were making enemies of everyone, indiscriminately and wildly. This change in IS tactics would have very serious implications on who they would attack and what kind of establishments or targets would be hit.

The Bangladesh attack was an attack on foreigners and foreign establishments. The NYT report said, ‘The bakery is in what expatriates affectionately call the “Tri State” area of Dhaka…that are popular with foreigners. It was founded to provide expatriates with the comfort foods they missed, including American bagels and cream cheese.’

With this new development, would IS attacks be more predictable, attacking foreigners or establishments of foreigners or their enemies instead of hitting at anything anywhere? How would this relate to the safety or high risk areas or establishments here in our little island?  Would Muslim countries like Malaysia and Indonesia be safer, be spared from IS and Al Qaeda attacks or if it so happened, would be against the so called, ‘nationals from Crusader nations in Bangladesh’?

Singapore is not really a Muslim state but has a substantial Muslim population and a bigger presence of ‘nationals from Crusader nations’.  How would this play out and how would our anti terrorist organizations respond to this tactical change? Would the Puchong bombing in Malaysia be a sign of things to come in the Asean countries? Our intelligence and security agencies would now be under pressure to monitor closely the numerous establishments, particularly the ‘sinful’ types in the Clark Quay, Boat Quay and Mohammed Sultan areas. What about MacDonald and Kentucky, the comfort food providers?

Kausaikan and his personal thoughts about Asean - Russia relations

Subject: Kausaikan and his personal thoughts about Asean - Russia relations

In "TODAY" paper, Thursday,30th June, Kausaikan wrote an article on "Fulfilling the potential of Asean - Russia relations." The article is an exercise in frivolity. Separately each Asean country or Asean as a whole will never be able to influence the big powers action and behaviour How then, does Kausaikan think he can influence Russia's policy in East Asia and South China Sea in the way he thinks Russia should do? Personally I see nothing commendable and positive in his writing. He has given me and perhaps the public at large the impression that he relishes in creating more choas and turmoil  in East Asia and the South China Sea.

He said he was once an ambassador to Russia. All the more he should not denigrate himself with outrageous speech and frivolous writing. He should be more circumspect as he is part of the govt. What he says and what he writes should best avoid offending the big powers as the repercussions may adversely affect  his country and Asean.

He regrets that Asean-Russia relations do not develop far enough into a strategic partnership.He slights at Russia for wanting to hold an Asean-Russia summit in Sochi with no purpose but just because other powers have been holding summit meetings with Asean.

He wants to know how Russia relation will fit into his Asean plan and vision. As his article drags on it reveals his agenda of trying to drive a wedge between the good and friendly  relations of Russia and China. He looks at the good relation between Russia and China with jaundiced eyes. It reveals his prejudicw  ill feelings toward China. He  claims that Western rebuffs of Russia has caused Russia to be driven thoughtlessly into the arms of China, " locking Russia into a subordinate relationship with China and an essentially passive regional role."

He is very clever in veiling his dislike for China with nuances and insinuations. I quote what he writes on Russia's stance regarding the South China Sea issue. "Some signs of this are already discernible.China recently appropriated Russia's position on the South China Sea. Russia's stance on this issue is in fact more nuanced than China made it out to be , but Moscow had to bite its tongue and did not clarify its position. But fortunately the situation is not yet irreversible." Here he reveals himself that he still harbours his insidious thought that it is not too late for Russia to turn against China in the South China Sea issue. Why would he want to take such a stand? Is this his personal view or the position of Asean.

Did he really want Russia to play a strategic role in South China Sea issue so that Asean can manipulate Russia vis a vis China and USA?  I quote him, " Russia as an active and autonomous participant in regional diplomacy will widen our scope for manoeuvre, particularly , as I think will occur sooner or later , the US and China reach a new modus vivendi over South-East Asia." He thinks of nothing but using Russia to disrupt the modus vivendi between USA and China.  Kausikan should show his bravery in the front line if war breaks out in the South China Sea and not talk bravado in the cool comfort of his airconditioned room.

He wants Russia to concentrate its strategic military in the East against China rather than in Europe against the West. I quote, " But the Western security system in East Asia is no longer directed against Russia, unless Moscow makes it so by its position on  the maritime disputes in the East and South China seas. Moscow should not let anger with the West drives its policy in East Asia." and again,  " The West in particular USA , must encourage Moscow to make this differentiation in its interest by itself differentiating its approach to Russia in Europe from its approach to Russia in  East Asia.The current blanket systems of sanctions against Russia only promotes Moscow's dependence on China by depriving it of alternatives." These comments are openly very unfriendly to China. Again  is this his personal view or that of Asean?

He wants Russia to play a security role in East Asia as casually uttered by US Defence Secretary Aston Carter.He says it is in Moscow's interest for Russia to make "a new articulation of Russia's position on the South China Sea and clear support for United  Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea when the Arbitral Tribunal reaches a decision on the legal issues that the Philippines brought before it."

He further asks, "Will these conditions be met? Only one is within Asean's control. The most important decisions are clearly going to be made in Moscow."

He thinks he is influential enough to guide Russia to make decisions which are anathema to China. He gives the public readers of his article the impression that his antagonism towards China is so deep that he is blinded by the fact that The Tribunal has no legal right at all and it is nothing but a farce. Anyone reading his article will know where he is coming from. He is openly against China and for the USA. If this is said in his personal capacity, fair enough. If this is the stand of Asean fair enough. If not, Asean should comment or distance itself from Kausikan's views?

Kausaikan is intentionally ignoring the basic facts both historical and legal that  the South China Sea islands and reefs have been China's sovereign territories since centuries before him. The big question, what is Kausikan's motive or agenda?
  
Southernglory1

Monday,4th July,2016