Cabinet Reshuffling - Old Wine In New Bottle

The announcement of the reshuffling of the cabinet yesterday by PM Lee Hsien Loong was an anti-climax, a great disappointment.

Though several lucky individuals have strike lottery jackpots and will soon join the Multi-Millionaires Pyramid Club, on the whole the insignificant significant event did not produce any orgasm whatsoever.

Many had expected it to be a big fanfare to usher in the 4-G leadership with an Oomph, setting in motion the gears and wheels of succession, to strengthen public confidence in the future leadership of the PAP and Singapore.

Alas! It was not to be. It was just a normal cleaning up and re-arrangement of the same musical chairs, with a few new colorful smaller chairs added in and a few old chairs sent to the junk yard.

It is quite clear that there was a crisis of confidence in the 4-G leadership - a loss of trust in their competence and capabilities even by the Power Supremo himself.

It is quite clear that PM Lee Hsien Loong has intended to stay on to hold the reins "until the economy has recovered", a situation similar to what the previous PM, Mr Goh Chok Tong had responded (he had like to stay on as PM until 2007 until the economy recovered), before being elbowed out to make way for DPM Lee Hsien Loong in 2004 at that time.

GE2020 had appeared to many voters as a referendum for the acceptance or rejection of the 4-G Leadership, and in particular the leadership of the PM-Designate DPM Heng Swee Keat.

There are several key factors that run counter to the wisdom of choosing Mr Heng to lead Singapore into an unknown, uncertain and unstable future due the devastations caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The following are four of the key factors :

1. Mr Heng clearly has a speech problem in delivering speeches both in the Parliament and in public. This could be the residue of the side-effects that followed the stroke he had suffered not too long ago. For a PM to have such a problem does not enhance Singapore's image and standing internationally.

2. Mr Heng does not inspire confidence in the masses. This has been displayed by the pathetically marginal 53.41% of votes he has managed to garner in his East Coast GRC, despite running against a weaker team from the Workers' Party, led by a young woman. If not because of the predominance of the beholden new citizens mainly derived from the CECA-imported Indians residing in East Coast GRC, I think Mr Heng could have easily lost the race to Nicole Seah. In 2011, when Mr Heng first contested under the umbrella of Minister Mah Bow Tan in Tampines GRC, PAP lost 11.29% of votes, scoring only 57.22%.

3. The way Finance Minister Heng spent money in his 4-budgets Budget, dishing out more than $90 billion of hard-earned taxpayers' money so freely like water, not only left some in awe but many taxpayers in serious worries. The big chunks of that huge sum of taxpayers' money went to huge organizations like SIA and foreign banks like Citibak, but only a meagre sum has been distributed to those who are really struggling to survive in this unprecedented COVID-19 Pandemic. Not only that, Heng's freebies have not bought him much popularity nor effective enough to check the free reign of the COVID-19 Pandemic, that still inflict 400 to 500 victims per day relentlessly.

4. DPM Heng does not seem to command the total and full respect and loyalty of the other PAP MPs and Ministers, including the PM himself. For example:

When asked whether the 4-G leaders had reviewed their plans about backing DPM Heng Swee Kiat, PM Lee Hsien Loong swiftly tai-chee (deflected) the question to Trade & Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing (ex-Army Chief). Mr Chan was taken aback but, after composing himself, he gave this unconvincing deflective reply:

"We are entirely focused on helping the country in overcoming the economic challenges and saving the jobs at this point of time. We have no plans to do otherwise and we have no plans, no discussions on any change in plan."

Mr Chan was implying that they are too busy to discuss the important leadership succession issue at this juncture. What Mr Chan did not reveal was that there had been a soul searching deep into the nights during the post-mortem conducted after the election. Can anyone believe that there was no discussions on the performance of the various constituencies and their respective leaderships?

Agonisingly, they could not find any soul left! All the souls are gone. So, the only choice left is for them to wait until the 'All Souls Day' to try and search for them again.

Whatever it may be, the game of musical chairs have been played once again; leadership transition has been put on hold; and daft Singaporeans have to LIVE WITH the consequences of choice, with open eyes, in the next five years suffering in silence till the bulls shit on their heads or keep whining until the cows come home.


By SSO - 26 July 2020.

PS. Posted on behalf of SSO.

SCMP - Trump’s America has become an unstoppable, out-of-control bully

Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.

Listen to the screams of panic-stricken passengers, children's voices among them, crying in terror and calling out prayers, as an Iranian airliner is intercepted and harassed by US warplanes over Syrian air space just the other day.

Passengers were left bruised and bloodied after the pilot of the civilian aircraft suddenly changed altitude to avoid a collision with one of the F-15 jets, although the US claimed it kept a safe distance and was only protecting its military base below.

There's nothing that Iran " already debilitated by US-led sanctions and ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic " can do about it, except complain to a United Nations that is powerless to confront the world's biggest bully as it gets more belligerent.

This is the new world order as US President Donald Trump, facing the growing prospect of a drubbing in an election he is desperate to win at all costs, seeks to distract voters from blaming him for the social and economic carnage wrought by the pandemic and his own abject failure to contain it.

On the home front, his administration has sparked a potential constitutional crisis by sending federal forces to crack down on anti-racism protests in cities that don't want that kind of interference upending the separation of powers between state and national governments.

To those who would argue that protest violence justifies federal intervention and media reports have misrepresented demonstrations as being entirely peaceful, that's exactly what happened in Hong Kong, remember, and yet the same US government painted every attempt by authorities here to restore order as "repression". How do you like them apples?

And now, in addition to cutting off Hong Kong's nose to spite Beijing with punitive acts that only serve to hurt the city, China's weakest link, the Trump administration has gone into overdrive to ostracise and stigmatise Beijing as the ultimate bogeyman. Washington's escalating and reckless provocation seriously risks triggering a military confrontation that could prove catastrophic for the whole world, but there is no power on the planet to counter its hegemony and aggression.

While openly coercing America's cronies and lobbying other nations to gang up against China, Trump's thuggish top diplomat Mike Pompeo made an unhinged rant of a speech this week that was beyond appalling in its ignorance and Sinophobia.

"The truth is that our policies, and those of other free nations, resurrected China's failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that fed it," he said. "We must also engage and empower the Chinese people " a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party." Really.

The most eloquent and fitting response to this nonsense came from former diplomat and veteran China hand Robert Daly, who told US News & World Report magazine: "China is not a land of innocent captives and evil master trolls. US-China relations are not a children's story. In China, the United States faces something far more formidable than Secretary Pompeo suggests: China is a vast, complex, wealthy, ambitious, aggrieved nation ...

"In confronting China, we're not dealing with a wholly good people who have been 'imprisoned' or 'enslaved' by a purely malign party. Chinese are often frustrated by a government (that) ignores their wishes, moves too slowly or moves in the wrong direction, but the available evidence is that, as citizens of the PRC, most Chinese people feel proud and enabled, not constrained."

All that's left to say to Pompeo and his master is what Boston lawyer Joseph Welch once famously told anti-Communist witch-hunter Joseph McCarthy during one of his Salem trials-style hearings: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Yonden Lhatoo is the chief news editor at the Post

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

PS. Above post is reproduced here in full.  It is an article worth reading to see the madness and viciousness of the Americans in their lies in pursuit of American supremacy, to control the world as they like it, as their empire. I will remove this post if SCMP has objection to my reproducing it here without their consent.

Covid19 -Travellers to high Covid19 infection countries serve stay home notices

SINGAPORE: Travellers entering Singapore after 11.59pm on Sunday (Jul 19) with travel history to Victoria in Australia, Japan and Hong Kong within the last 14 days, including transit passengers, will have to serve their stay-home notices at dedicated facilities rather than their own home, announced National Development Minister Lawrence Wong on Friday.

They will also need to take a COVID-19 test before ending their stay-home notice, in line with current requirements....

Mr Wong emphasised that this was “not something new”, as the Government has “repeatedly emphasised our border measures are not static”, adding that the taskforce is “constantly reviewing, updating” border measures based on their assessments of the viral situation around the world.

“We really need to remain vigilant both at our borders, in terms of the measures we have in place at our borders, as well as within our community to continue to ensure that we control the infection and control the spread of the virus within our community,” he said.

Above is from CNA.


Are the measures on Victoria, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong additions to an already existing list of countries that have serious Covid19 infection like the USA, India and Brazil. Are people from these countries, and people been to these high risk countries, also subject to the same restriction or more severe restriction?

China cannot report 14 new Covid19 cases daily

BEIJING: China reported 14 new COVID-19 cases for Tuesday (Jul 21), up from 11 cases a day earlier, the health commission said on Wednesday.

Of the new infections, nine were in the far western region of Xinjiang, according to a statement by the National Health Commission. The other five were imported cases.

The above report by Reuters is unacceptable, humiliating to Trump and his gangsters in the White House. When the Americans are reporting 70,000 or 80,000 cases a day, how can China make this kind of report, 14 cases! This cannot be, this must be fake news. China is hiding something. China please be transparent.

Yes, China must be transparent and report as many cases as the Americans. Only then would the Americans say the Chinese are telling the truth. Never mind if the Americans were lying, under reporting, under testing when the daily cases in the USA could be in several hundred thousands daily.  The Americans always tell lies as truth. China always tells truth but reported as lies by the Americans. Remember Saddam Hussein and his WMD? The idiot Colin Powell went to the UN and wave a pack of washing powder to accuse Saddam Hussein of having chemical weapons, using chemical weapons, as the truth. And 911, another big lie used to invade Afghanistan and to kill Osama Bin Laden.

China, please tell the truth that the Americans want to hear. If China does not know what the Americans want to hear, or what to report, ask the professional fat liar called Pompeo. He is an expert in telling lies as truth.

Oh, are countries still banning Chinese from travelling to their countries when the daily cases have dropped to single digit as some of the cases in China are imported? What about countries banning the Americans from travelling to their countries since Americans are having nearly 100,000 cases daily? 

Or Chinese are banned but diseased Americans are welcome, never mind if they bring in their Covid19 virus to spread around?

It is so painful to hear China only had 14 cases. It is so unbelieveable. It must be a lie. Only Americans tell the truth even if they under test and under report their infected cases. Just believe that the lying Americans, from top liar Trump, a congenital liar, to professional liar Pompeo as the truth tellers.

Unity and solidarity among Asians is vital for the survival of all Non-White people

1.     White men speak with fork tongues and can never be trusted."
2.     White men try to rule all non-white people and countries by division, pitting tribes against tribes, countries against countries, religion against religion and when they are all weakened the white imperialists will attack them one by one with full force of their military might.
3.      White men's war against Islam started long ago on 2nd November, 1917, with the Balfour Declaration that England and the United States would establish a Zionist Jewish state in Palestine at the expense of the Arab muslims.   

 Unity and solidarity among Asians especially among the Arabs, the Indians, Chinese and Japanese is
vital to the survival of all non-white people in Asia, Africa, Central America, South America and Australia since the white supremacists in the US, UK and the West have openly uncovered their evil plot and scheme to eventually destroy and decimate the non-white populations in all the aforementioned continents. The Anglo-Saxons and the Deep State in the Neo-cons Jewish Zionist Rothschilds Illuminati Cabal are the powers behind Washington, London, Paris and the West in deciding all the evil decisions and evil deeds against all non-white people all over the world. At present the Jewish Zionists and the Neo-cons have hijacked all the leadership in all the vital departments in the United States administration and they are making all the draconian policies and decisions that will destroy all non-white people and countries and by their sinister evil acts they will plunge the world into destruction of a nuclear Third World War.

The white supremacists, industrialists and big pharma companies have tried to decimate the populations of Africa, Asia and Latin America with genetically modified insecticides, germicides, fertilisers and drugs and medicines. The Americans have successfully carried out their draconian system of genetically engineered Coronavirus in their biological lab in Fort Detrick in North Carolina to target non-white races all over the world though however through their miscalculation it backfired and attacked the whites too.

   For thousands of years the great civilizations of Egypt, Arabia, Persia ( Iran ) India and China lived by and large in peace other than the  sporadic insignificant local strives and fighting among the tribes of Egypt, Arabia and Persia. But for India and China there was always peace and never was there any wars and fighting between them. In fact China went out of the way to import and adopt Buddhism from India.

The whole peaceful scenario changed with the advent of the Evil White Race in Asia in the Middle East, India and China in the fall of the 17th Century to the present. The Evil White Races from Europe which invaded Africa, Asia, the Middle East, North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand were from Spain, Portugal, Holland, England, France, Belgium, Russia and Germany.

Before the Evil White Race went out to plunder Europe was a very poor continent with very few natural resources. Their lives were very miserable and pathetic. But after the invasion of the Mongols they were fired with imaginations of the rich civilization of China especially with stories and reports by the Italian spy Marco Polo. The endless stories of the wealth, glory and splendour in  China was the catalyst that sparked the European Renaissance and more important their Reformation .

Genghis Khan in his invasion of Europe and Russia in the 13th Century,  had brought with him thousands of Chinese artisans, scientists, engineers and technocrats to help him in building the technical and engineering support for his conquests. For the first time European kings and rulers never feel safe in their fortified castles. They were easily attacked and destroyed by Chinese guns and cannons.

In the aftermath of the Mongol conquests the Evil White Race learnt and copied many of the Chinese scientific and technological inventions. They learnt to make gun powder, guns and cannons, the mariner compass, paper making, printing especially block printing and many other technical gadgets.

Then from the 15th Century and armed with guns and cannons the Evil White Race set out on their voyages of conquest. They created companies in partnership with their kings, prince and rulers. Every company equipped their voyages with guns and cannons which terrorised the lands they set on and invaded. Then in every land they invaded they built fortified forts in towns and cities to maintain their rule. Then armed with their militant religious doctrine and policy they claimed their Christian God gave them the divine power and right to conquer other non-Christian lands and to have the full domineering control over all non-white people. Wherever the white men went they wantonly killed the natives by the millions without remorse as they claimed their God and their lord Jesus Christ would always bear the burden of their sinful evil deeds. Armed with this same demonic principle and policy they set out to invade India, China and the Arab lands of the Middle-East.

India was attacked and invaded by the British East India Company in the 1760s. The British invasion happened during the decadence of the Indian Mughul Empire whose military was greatly weakened. The British invasion faced no strong opposition from the Indians and it soon established many towns and fortresses especially in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Under very brutal and rigid British military rule the Indians suffered tremendously. The many different Indian tribes were not united in their resistance to British imperial rule as the British had sown seeds of hatred, suspicion, hostility,enmity and dissensions among these diverse tribes and local chiefs or rulers. Many times they revolted against the British but as the Indians were not united they were easily and violently put down by the might of the British army. In all the British white imperial army slaughtered many millions of Indians mercilessly.

As the supreme ruler of India, England secured full control of India's economy - industries, trade, commerce, agriculture, banking and finance. England exploited India to the full and all the wealth and resources of India were appropriated and sent to England. India was a great producer of cotton but the Indians were not allowed to have cotton and textile industries. All the cotton was sent to England to feed the hundreds of textile mills there to be manuafactured into textiles and then reexported to India with tremendous profits. In the 1830s to 1930s large swathe of agricultural lands planted with rice and other food crops were forced by imperial decree to change to planting poppies for the production of opium which was illegally exported to China at very huge profits. Opium was then forbidden by the Chinese government and so the trade was illegal. However, the British then imposed the Opium Wars on China in the 1830s and 1850s to continue their illicit opium trade.

But in 1857 - 1858 the Indians revolted and fought a very fierce and bloody war against the British. The Indian rebellion was brutally put down by the vastly superior weaponery of the British forces. The failure of the revolt was also largely due to the seeds of division, hatred, suspicion and atagonism planted among the various Indian tribes,  kings, prince and rulers by the ruling British. In short the British adopted a policy of divide and rule.

Being very secured in India the British was looking for imperial territorial expansion into China. In the 1830s to 1930s China was weak and in decadence. All the European imperial powers were coveting for a part of China to conquer.   Imperial zarist Russia was stealing Chinese territories in Siberia. Japan took away Chinese territories in the island of Sakhalin north of Hokkaido, Liu Chiu Dao ( Japan renamed it as Okinawa ) and Taiwan. France took large parts of South-eastern China in Indo-China. In the meantime in 1912 to 1915 England illegally acquired large swathes of Chinese lands in Tawang and in Auk Sai Chin just along the border north of India as well as large tracts of Chinese lands in Yunnan to British ruled Burma ( now called Myannmar ).

England under its officer General MccMahon  arbitrarily drew the boundary line separating China and British ruled India and called it the McMahon Line. This political boundary line, the McMahon has always been objected by China. England and China had agreed to negotiate for a final settlement. But as negotiations were going on it was interrupted by the First world War and the Second World War. At the end of the Second World War England intentionally dragged its feet and gave independence to India in 1947 before settling the border question with China. So the present quarrel and dispute over the boundary between China and India was due to the historical baggage left over by the evil British imperialist. The British imperialist was wicked in refusing to settle the China - British India boundary prior to giving India independence. It was evil white British imperialist wicked intention to plant the future seeds of dissension, suspicion, hostility, quarrel and even wars between independent India and China. Thus the present India - China border dispute has its roots in British imperialism.

But China managed to settle the boundary issues peacefully with fourteen out of sixteen countries which have disputed boundary problems with China. Only Japan and India have yet to negotiate a peaceful settlement with China on the border dispute.  China, India and Japan are all Asian nations and it is imperative that they should unite against aggressions by Western Imperialist hegemonists especially the United States and England. The Western imperialists especially the Anglo-Saxon United States and the British have always thought of Asians as inferior race to be dominated by the white race in peace or in war. To achieve this evil objective they are using their traditional loathsome and wicked means of sowing suspicion, dissension, enmity, hatred and quarrels among the Asians so that they can continue to lord over the Asians even in peace time by way of being domineering in political, economic, banking and financial control over all Asians and non-white people. India and China  and Japan knowing the evil ways of the white race must negotiate a peaceful settlement of their borders in a give and take spirit. Though India and China are not to be blamed for the border problem as it was the result of British imperialism yet future generations should not have to bear the suffering of this problem if the present Indian and Chinese governments do not have the wisdom to have a give and take spirit to accommodate each other for a final peaceful settlement.  To successfully achieve that both India and China need to let go their false pride and egos which is the actual stumbling block to a final settlement. Also India and China must realise England, the United States and the West will always try to put a damper to their negotiation for a peaceful settlement so that a divided India and China will allow them to exploit the two countries forever. India, China and Japan can be sure that the white race in the United States and England strongly believe in white supremacist policy and will forever harbour ill-will towards Asians hoping that Asians will always be divided so that they can dominate and lord over Asians forever.

If only the Indians, Chinese and Japanese have solidarity then the 21st Century will belong to Asia and the the Asians will have a bright future which will have positive prospect for the rest of all undevelope countries in Africa, Central America and South America.


Southernglory1

Saturday, 25th July,2020