singapore defends its record against hrw

the human rights watch group, hrw, has published a report condemning singapore's record of maid abuses and the lack of legislations to protect them. this has elicited a strong response from the mom who protested that the report is a gross exaggeration and the conditions for maids are improving. no matter how much we shout about how good we are, if we think it is reasonable to give maids one off day in a month, this tells very badly on the values we placed on decency. even when we work 5 and 1/2 days with 1 and 1/2 days off we are already complaining. and we can argue that it is ok for maids to work 29 days out of 30/31 days. how are we going to defend our position as being reasonable and a fair and kind employer who treats another human decently?

my public apology

the 4 singaporeans who made a public protest at robinson road had their case thrown out of court because of 3 letters, n k f. the judge ruled that by linking the cpf board and other entities with nkf, 'the protesters had used insulting and abusive words against "persons responsible for the finances of those bodies".'...He called their actions "tantamount to insinuations of mismanagement and financial impropriety." since the nkf saga, i have made many posts here referring to the 3 letters n k f. and if these letters were found in the same post where some reputable organisations were also mentioned, i would like to deny any intention to insinuate anything unfavourable. now i am not sure whether mentioning the name of the late president nair together with other founding fathers of singapore will be deemed unacceptable. in the papers today, there have been good words about his past contributions.

al zarqawi's iraq force in china

according to debka weekly, dec 7, a small unit of al zarqawi's iraq force (part of al qaeda) has been assigned a new mission: to a start a campaign in china. it then went on to describe in detail how the small potent force smuggled into a chinese border town of kushi in xinjiang in nov, absorbed into the muslim extremist cells there. the fine details were astonishing, with names of places for secret rendevous, names of some terrorist leaders were also mentioned. this gives the impression that someone was closely monitoring all their movements, tracking them and knowing exactly what these secret forces were up to. funny thing is that no one was able or willing to nab them along the way. and the information was passed on to the russians and the chinese who were all caught by surprise and stumbling all over to pass the information around and trying to intercept them. with such detail information, no one can afford not to take them seriously. it is better to assume that it is true than to be sorry. one question to ask is why would the iraqi forces fighting the americans in iraq want to mess up china and drag china and russia into the fray to wallop them? are these arabs that stupid? that if russia and china were to standby quietly on the side lines, they would have more rooms to play with against the americans, only one enemy and one front? the second thought that comes to my mind is that this could be another disinformation paid by the americans to drag the russians and chinese into the conflict. ask a simple question. who is going to benefit from this information? why or how could such a covert operation by the iraqi forces becomes public knowledge? it is like news of a boys scout excursion trip rather than a serious discreet cell whose movements are meant to be very secretive. if the americans are so good in all their intelligence and monitoring of the insurgent activities, the war in iraq and afganistan would have long been over. osama would long have been caught. now, is this news genuine or another story from spin doctors. just wondering. this news is available at littlespeck.com today.

shall i support abolishing capital punishment

the last few weeks there have been many letters and voices in support of abolishing capital punishment. the singapore govt has been labelled as cruel, barbaric, inhuman, and all things bad and unkind because of the death penalty. we cannot be so cruel and barbaric to a criminal. this brings back memories of the hours when the two saf scholars were bashed to death in australia. during the last few minutes of their tragic lives, i could only hear the sound of a baseball bat whacking on their bodies, wham, wham, bonk, bonk... the latter sounds were from metal bats hitting the skull. and you could hear the cries and plea to stop, the fear and anguish in the two helpless young men, fear, shock and crying for mercy. did the killer show them any mercy? was the killer any less cruel or barbaric? should we show mercy to the killer if he did not show mercy to his two victims? and there were many badly beaten up victims, children, women and old folks, being bashed and banged till their bodies limp....and died a painful and frightful death. can anyone feel the pain of the parents and wives of these two young men, knowing how helpless they were at the mercy of a cruel killer? wham, wham, thud, thud...pleeeeese no, no, help...........pl who shall we show our mercy to? the reasoning put forth in several of the arguments is that the death penalty will not deter those who are bent to kill. but itsn't that the point? it is exactly meant for this group of incorrigible killers, that nothing can stop them from killing that they should be put away before they go on to kill more people. and for the fearful group that would have been deterred from killing because of the death penalty, and avoided killing, then the death penalty has helped to save some lives and prevented some from taking lives. at times i think it is more evil and wicked to let an incorrigible or senseless killer on the lose again, all because the law spared his life. and he went out to kill again, to inflict more pain to the innocent. those who supported the abolishing of the death penalty must share the sin and guilt of these criminals and be answerable to the victims and their love ones. there are times when one has to be hard to be kind. and let not trying to be kind and ended up perpetuating cruelties, pain and suffering on the innocents. who is more evil?

where greed will take man to

During the hours of creation..... He said to the cow: "Ah Gu (cow), today I have created you! Your job is to go to the field with the farmer all day long. You will provide the energy to pull things! You will also provide milk for people to drink! You are to work all day under the sun! In return, you will only eat grass. For that, you will have a life span of 50 years." Ah Gu objected. "What.. I work all day in the sun and I get only to eat grass! On top of that, I have to give my milk away! This is tough and you want me to live 50 years! I'll take 20 and you can have the remaining 30 years back!" God agreed. On the next day, God created the dog. He said to the dog. "Ah Kow (dog), I have created you for a purpose. You are to sit all day by the door of your master's house! Should anyone come in, you are to bark at them! In return, you will eat your master's leftovers. I'll give you a life span of 20 years." Ah Kow objected. " What! I have to sit by the door all day and will need to bark at people, and what do I get...LEFTOVERS... This isn't right, I'll take 10 and you can have the remaining 10 years back!" God agreed again. On the third day, God created the monkey. He said to the monkey. "Lao Kao (monkey), your job is to entertain people. You will make them laugh, act stupid and make faces! You will also do somersaults and swing on trees to amaze them. In return, you will get to eat bananas and peanuts. For that, I'll give you 20 years to live." Naturally the monkey objected. "This is ridiculous, I gotta make faces and make people laugh? Let's not even come to the part about the trees and somersaults. Tell you what, I'll give 10 years of my life to thank you for my existence and I'll take 10. What do you think?" God agreed again. On the forth day, God created humans. God said to the man. "You are my best piece of work, for that, you will only need to sleep, eat, sleep, play, eat, sleep again and do nothing else.You will get to eat all the best things and play with the best toys. All you need to do is enjoy all your life. For this kinda of life, I'll give you 20 years." Just like the rest, the man objected. "What, all I need to do is relax and enjoy myself and I have only 20 years to live? Tell you what, you've 30 years back from Ah Gu, 10 years from Ah Kow and another 10 from Lao Kao and you probably don't know what to do with all those lifes. Why not I take them all and I'll have 70 years to live?" God being such good natured, agreed with a smile..... AND THAT IS WHY..... We eat, sleep, play and enjoy for the first 20 years of our lives when we are growing up. Work like a cow for the next 30 to raise our family. Sit outside the door and bark at people for the next 10 when we are retired. And finally, we make faces and perform monkey tricks to entertain our grandchildren for the final 10 years. GET IT ?????