The kampong boy grew up

The kampong boy grew up, worked very hard and was successful in building a small fortune for himself. He is now big and financially able to further develop his business empire. He looked around his backyard and saw a large tract of waste land, neglected, undeveloped and overgrown with secondary forest. Then he remembered what his father told him. The land belonged to the family for several generations, dating back to his great, great, great grandfather. But their family fortune had waned and they were unable to do anything to that piece of land.

The boy, now an entrepreneur, started to redevelop the piece of land handed down by his forefathers. The secondary forest was leveled and several new estates rose from the piece of land. It was a big piece of land and still have potential for many developments.

In the neighbourhood, several young punks also grew up and formed gangs among themselves. Seeing the young man developing the land, these gangsters began to have ideas to have a piece of action, a piece of the land. They too started to build houses on the land nearest to their respective houses. They simply claimed the land belonged to them in view of proximity. The land next to their houses must be theirs since no one has claimed ownership of the land, ignoring whoever was the original owner.

Disputes soon broke up when the young man went on to claim rights to the land but was rebuffed. The gangsters simply asked for proof of ownership. But the young man had difficulties as during the time of his forefathers, it was a time when documentations were not the norm and also many evidence of ownership were lost over time. The only evidence could be the markers left on the land, like tombstones of family members and some rundown huts.

The gangsters set up a kangaroo court with the help of bigger gangsters, hired their own middle men as mediators to decide who have the rights to the land. The young man refused to participate in the kangaroo court. The gangsters were cunning enough not to take the case to the official courts of the land.

After paying the middle men/mediators, the latter ruled in favour of the gangsters, that since the young man could not produce any documents, the whole piece of land is now no longer his and all the gangsters have the right to claim the whole piece of land. The gangsters even accused the young man of encroaching into their land illegally. The gangsters bought advertising space in the local newspapers to claim that their kangaroo court’s ruling is legal and binding and arrogantly sat on the lands they took from the young man’s estate and now are claiming for the whole piece of land as theirs.

The young man would now have to stand up to the gangsters. But the local media kept reporting that the kangaroo court is legitimate and the young man is a bully, has no right to claim his inheritance from his forefathers. The gangsters are very successful in buying the local newspapers to play up on the issue and keep repeating that the kangaroo court is a legitimate court and not one is willing to talk about the official courts of the land that could rule otherwise.

The issue of ownership as far as the gangsters are concerned is settled by the kangaroo court. Now the young man would have to take matters into this own hand, to reclaim the land he lost to the gangsters and more to lose with the ruling of the kangaroo court. The gangsters won the first round with the local newspapers on their side, making farcical news and comments against the young man.

The ball is now in the court of the young man, to use his financial muscles and whatever to chase out the usurpers of his grandfathers’ land.

British experts urge arbitral tribunal to review position to avoid being joke in legal history

LONDON - Two British experts said lately that the arbitral tribunal in The Hague should not have agreed to hear the South China Sea case unilaterally initiated by the Philippines against China.


The government of former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III filed the arbitration against China in 2013, ignoring the agreement his country had reached with China on resolving their South China Sea disputes through bilateral negotiations. The tribunal issued its final award on Tuesday, sweepingly siding with Manila's cunningly packaged claims.


"There is a current anticipated crisis in the South China Sea prompted by a Court of Arbitration decision to hear a one-party claim to a part of the South China Sea," said Stephen Perry, chairman of the 48 Group Club, in a recent interview with Xinhua. "Arbitration is defined in the dictionary as a dispute where the parties have agreed to settle it by arbitration. Clearly China does not accept arbitration to settle the dispute, so the Court should not have agreed to hear this dispute presented by only one party," he said. Noting that the two nations should pursue other means they agreed to settle their dispute, Perry explained that "the dispute cannot be settled ... by a process which only includes one party. It is not an arbitration." "I have been involved in many hundreds of arbitration and always both parties agree on arbitration, or there is no arbitration," added the businessman.


Shahid Qureshi, London Post's editor and political analyst, said the fact that "the tribunal has allowed the case to go ahead in spite of its lack of justifiable jurisdiction" poses a big question mark to the tribunal's "intention" and "interest." "I am of the view that the tribunal must review its position and jurisdiction for the sake of institution it stands for; otherwise it will become a joke in the legal history as they did not follow the due process of law," Qureshi noted. He pointed out that the Philippines, filing the case without consulting with China, failed to fulfill its obligation stipulated in the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), a document signed by China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations including the Philippines in 2002."I think under the terms and conditions stipulated in DOC, the Philippines seems to have jumped higher than necessary and must review its position," he said. Stressing that "local solutions" are always the best, Qureshi argued that "the Philippines could talk with China about the matters arising about the situation in the South China Sea."


The analyst also said the real reason behind the so-called "militarization" in the South China Sea is the military involvement and "war profiteering" of the United States, which in recent years has sent military jets and warships on close-in reconnaissance in the nearby waters and air space of China's islands and reefs. "The US has a policy of creating wars or disputes within the countries and also in the neighboring countries of the targets (based on its long term objectives), starting from Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq," he explained. "One can ask a simple question to US officials: 'What are you doing in my neighborhood in the first place'?" Qureshi said.

Gangsters Govt – 黑社会政府

Many years ago, gangsterism in Taiwan was so rife that there appeared to have a parallel govt run by the gangsters in the island. I am not too sure what is the situation today but it is quite often to see senior govt officials paying respect at the funerals of gangster chiefs. In the Chinese vocabulary, the secret societies are called 黑社会, or Black Society. This has become a friendly joke even here when wearing black becomes a fashion among the young and they were affectionately called 黑社会.

The pervasive presence of the Black Society in all walks of life emboldened them, particularly in the movie industry that they started to make movies to glorify their lifestyles, playing up on values like brotherhood, loyalty and honour and how good they were. I could still remember a movie starring Tony Leung as a secret society chief.  And they were having their clandestine ‘cabinet’ meeting in the spa pool. Several secret society chiefs were present.

Tony Leung proposed that they should go into politics, run for election and hold their meetings in Parliament in the next round. His idea was shockingly realistic. He told them that being members of the 黑社会, their main business was related to finance. They controlled the gambling dens, prostitution, drugs, smuggling people, and yes, money lending and money laundering in a big way. And there were similar legitimate organizations in the main stream society, casinos, stock exchange, social escort agencies, night clubs, pharmaceuticals, employment agencies, banking and finance and money laundering in a big way by the banks.

If only they were in Parliament, they could appoint their own finance minister, CEOs of banks, of casinos, of stock exchange, and all the related money making agencies legally. In other words, if the黑社会 was the govt in charge, they could take over the whole island. They could own the island by appointing their own secret society members and clans men themselves. Oh, the fighters, the hit men, can take over the police and the army as police commissioners and generals. If I am not mistaken, the黑社会  also has their justice system too.

The secret society chiefs gave him a standing ovation. They said, let’s do it and the stupid govt would not have a clue what was happening when they had taken over everything. And Tony Leung would be the natural President of the island. This was some thirty years ago. Obviously they did not succeed or the Black Society, 黑社会, would be running the island today.

It was a great practical thought then and they could succeed if the govt was weak and careless and did not know what was going on. The 黑社会 was well organized, and could conspire to achieve what they set out to do. They were not only as well organized as the political parties, except without legitimacy, they could be very ruthless working under cloak and dagger to get their ways and put their members in position of power.

Tsai Ing Wen or her predecessor Ma Ying Jeou don’t look like gangster chiefs from whatever angle you view them. Thank God it was only a movie. Can’t imagine what the island would become if the 黑社会, succeeded. They would be wearing black ties, black shirts and black suits in Parliament and making themselves very rich, controlling all the financial institutions and the casinos and the stock exchange in the island.

More transparency on the cheating under CHAS and PG card schemes

Would our MPs be asking more questions for more transparency and accountability in the cheat cases by medical and dental clinics? Or would it be that the question and answer session is over and everyone can go home and have a good sleep? Case aired in Parliament and case closed? How much have been claimed, how much have been cheated or falsely claimed by the clinics have yet to be established.

If people can be tarred and branded for life for a few dollars of indiscretion, what about the hundreds of thousands being pilfered from these two schemes? As Seah Kian Peng said, it is public money and a lot of public money at stake.

A few questions came to mind, what is the total amount of claims made by these

clinics since the scheme came into effect? How much were supposed to be subsidies? Can we have some numbers? Calling a few patients up to verify what kind of treatment they received in some suspicious cases would easily reveal the seriousness and pervasiveness of this scam.

How much public money have been wasted or cheated under the CHAS and PG

card schemes? Anyone think this is important enough to know?

All my rotten teeth can bear witness for nothing was done do them to improve their condition and well being. I am not accusing anyone of wrongdoings, but some verifications like audit checks on the patients, on what they were treated and the claims made on their behalf would remove all the doubts and expose any wrongdoing. Too difficult to do, not enough manpower? Don’t make aunty angry again.

Melania Trump’s speech

Melania was a Slovenian. Does that ring a bell? Third World?  She is beautiful and charming, an ex model and wife of Donald Trump, Republican’s nominee for the President of the USA and potentially the next first lady. She had to make a speech. In the US and in many countries, such speeches are written by professional speech writers, experts in crafting words that could work on the emotions of the audience.

Two experts were commissioned to write her speech. These are the equivalents of the straight As students here, the no bluff academic nerds that are really good in their stuff. It was reported that Melania turned to someone she trusted, a ‘Meredith McIver, a New York City-based former ballet dancer and
English major’ to rework the draft by the two professionals. Not sure if this Meredith is also from the third world, but she must have been impressive and trusted by Meredith. You need people with third world intellect or mentality to trust third world talents. This is our experience. If not there would not be so many third world ‘talents’ in high places hiring more third world ‘talents’ to replace our straight As daft.

Ok, back to the story. This brings me back to the sophomore years as students. Writing essays is a serious challenge to first or second year students. Many would copy profusely from what they read and patched them together as their essays. What plagiarism? What is that? Never heard of! And good stuff written and accepted by authors cannot be wrong.

How could the words of a first lady, so well praised be wrong? And I am going to be first lady and saying the same thing cannot be far wrong.  Good stuff. Anyway speeches are all written by speech writers, so what’s the dif?

Melania’s speech is going to be just a speech. When it is practiced country wide, to rely on third world ‘talents’ instead of daft straight As locals, that is a real serious problems. Being impressed by third world ‘talents’ reflects the intellect or or lack of intellect of the person being impressed. But that is a small consolation. The country or organizations and the people will be the victims of such stupidity.

This is a Kodak Moment at a mammoth scale. Melania’s Kodak Moment is just a flash in the pan, nothing to worry about. It is understandable for Melania to be impressed by someone she admired or trusted if you know that she was born in Slovenia. If she was born an American, brought up in the US and went through the educational system, she may have done differently, to trust the professional speech writers instead.

I will trust our daft straight As than the fakes of the third world with their glib tongues.