usa searching for a candidate to succeed annan

the usa is searching worldwide for a replacement for kofi annan, the secretary general of the united nations, says us ambassador john bolton. let me figure out for a while. the united nations must be a state of the united states of america. so the usa is going to appoint someone to that post. cannot be. i clearly remember that the un is world body and does not belong to the usa. how come the rest of the countries have no role to play in the search for a secretary general. or is the secretary general an appointee of the usa? may i nominate two of our renowned politicians for considerations. both well qualified and with experience and great credentials as prime ministers.

US cannot win against china: tokyo governor

this is the title of an article from washington covering the visit of shintaro ishihara to the usa. the article is reposted in the straits time on 5 nov. the reasoning of ishihara is that usa will lose to china because beijing 'holds no value at all for human life.' what a crap coming from a japanese nationalist/militarist who insisted on visiting the yasukuni shrine to hero worshipped war criminals. and it gets the temperature boiling after watching elizabeth choy on channel newsasia recounting her harrowing experience while being tortured by the barbaric japanese during their occupation of singapore. strip the japanese of their well tailored suits and all the trappings of wealth and respectability, you will find a vicious animal beneath. since the communist chinese came to power in 1949, it has never started a war with any nation except when provoked. compares this with the number of countries that the japanese invaded during the second world war and the atrocities and cruelties they inflicted on the people of the invaded countries. did they value the lives of the invaded nations? also compares how many countries the americans have invaded or started a war since the end of the second world war. the vietnamese just protested to washington a few days ago not to whitewash the gulf of tonkin incident, that it was the us navy that created that incident to launch a massive military campaign in vietnam. and now the invasion of iraq under a false premise of wmd. and next will be saudi arabia, under the pretext of protecting the royal family from an internal rebellion. next on the line for invasion could be syria, iran and north korea. very likely syria and iran will be invaded first under some false accusations. and the usa is famed to be the policeman of the world, the most peace loving nation. the most dangerous development is the sinister alliance between this evil empire and japan, the wolf in sheepskin. the world is going to be very dangerous with abe and aso and ishihara backing up the modern day samurai in the name of koizumi. the rise of japanese militarism is on the card and all the players are in place. and in washington there is a cowboy that behaves like hitler and surrounded himself with a gang of mafia chieftains. the protest in argentina is a sign of how the rest of the world is seeing through the american hypocrisy.

chok tong's take on the role of media

while ho kwonping's position was confusing, chok tong's is perplexing. his opening shot is that to hell with western opinion on press freedom here. and, press freedom does not guarantee good govt. or in an indirect way, we don't need press freedom to govern well. many western liberals or advocates of press freedom or freedom of expression will definitely frown on these remarks. can't blame the outgoing us ambassador lavine for his comments on this issue. then again chok tong made all the remarks that are deemed proper and correct in the same breath. things like the press must not be a mouth piece of the govt and parrot whatever the govt said or it would lose its credibility. and that he did not favour a subservient press...an unthinking press is not good for singapore. he added that the media is free to put across a range of worthy different viewpoints to encourage constructive social and political discourse. ho kwonping better take note of this last point and not churn out a press that has no opinion of its own and no view to express except to borrow other people's view to make a point. so what did choktong really said? maybe with regard to press freedom, if there is a choice, lesser freedom is acceptable as long as the country is governed well. and the press should play a constructive role to engage the people in issues that concerned the nation. otherwise, we will continue to have an apathetic people and press for a long time to come. now comes the tricky part. how could the media navigate through this maze, to be constructive, relevant and credible and without stepping on the govt's toe? or to tow the line without being seen to be so, and not to lose its credibility in the eyes of the people. in fact warren fernandez has described in his article this morning (5 nov) that the bbc was able to play a constructive role during the bombings in london because the readers believed in its objectivity. do our readers believe in what is reported in the straits times with respect to govt policies and positions? comments from the kopitiams is very negative. that it is a very biased paper that does not have an independent view. with ho kwonping's confirmation of its role as a passive paper, it is very difficult for the media to change the perception of its readers or the people. then should it be bothered? or should it adopt the position that press freedom is not important as long as the govt is governing well?

malaysia, 60,000 female malay graduates unemployed

the 60,000 female malay graduates registering for employment is a govt policy that has gone seriously wrong. and the number could possibly be more. what is more pertinent is that despite the reporter claiming that the graduates possessed irrelevant degrees, which at first impression were either religious studies or some cultural or artistic subjects, but not true. these were graduates with degrees in business studies or information technologies. very marketable degrees. their problem is the inability to converse in the english language at a reasonable level. this is only the tip of an enormous problem of a govt policy that emphasises on political objectives at the expense of economic considerations. the malaysian govt finds it acceptable to level down, to dispense away with real talented people with technical abilities and think that by awarding as many bumiputras with a piece of paper and all problems will be solved. what they could not comprehend is that in a world that is increasingly knowledge based, you really need technical expertise to be relevant and competitive. the latest time higher education supplement (THES) is a rude awakening of sort. the premier university, the university of melaya, has its ranking dropped from 89 to 169. and compares this with nus and ntu at 22 and 48 place respectively, it is quite stunning and embarrassing. the malaysian govt will need to do some serious soul searching and take some decisive and painful actions to rectify a generation of errorneous affirmative actions. in terms of mistakes in educational policies, it will take a generation or more to feel the damage and it will take more than a generation to catch up for the lost time.

why the need for a crooked bridge

there are always the daily grind and jam at the causeway and the second link. maybe these jams are used as the ultimate proof for a crooked bridge. why don't both immigrations just open all the custom/immigration counters for a month and see whether there is any more jams? provided of course all the officers actually perform their duties normally and not go on a work slow campaign to prove a different point. i think the singapore side has most of the custom booths open most of the time. it is the malaysian side that often has only a few booths open. if they cannot find the manpower to fill up all the booths, how are they going to fill up all the additional booths in an enlarged immigration checkpoint serving a presumably more efficient crooked bridge with more traffic? this is like forcing a square peg into a round hole. by hook or crook, the square peg must be made to fit.

singapore is a land of big personal sacrifices

my earlier post talked about the huge sacrifice of all full blooded singapore men to perform national service as a duty to the nation. the greatest personal sacrifices actually came from our politicians. these rare talents have stepped forward to serve the nation instead of remaining in the private sector where they could earn 3 or more times what the state could afford to pay them. the state should remember the sacrifices of these humble but talented men and honour them, maybe in a house of fame. such great sacrifices for the nation are rare among leaders of the world today. we shall start to honour great men like goh keng swee, hon sui sen, rajaratnam, toh chin chye, yusoff ishak etc etc.

china, a US paranoia

why is the usa so paranoid about a rising china? the reason, a general perception among the americans that china is a potentially hostile nation with aggressive intention. this forms the basis of us policies towards china. how fragile and clumsy could it be for the world's number one superpower to behave in such a callous manner towards another nation on a preconceived idea not based on facts and realities but a feeling, a gut feel. gut feeling was also the same reason for the usa to invade iraq. the chinese had been a battered nation for more than a centuries, almost colonised by the western powers, including, and yes, the usa. and of course japan, the most aggressive and expansionist country next to germany during the second world war. and since china had broken free from the western power domination, it has been self reliant and developing its own economy and all the necessary functions of statehood, and a strong military force, just in case the foreign powers will do another 8 nation league of nation invasion of china. china has all the right to build its defence force to ward off any foreign invasion. has china acted in anyway to show that it harbours expansionist ambition since its return to some respectability as a nation? it fought a war with the usa in korea, to assist the north koreans and to ward off american advances to the yalu river bordering china. after the war all its forces returned to china. the american forces remained in south korea, turning south korea into an american protectorate. the chinese fought a border war with india, marched its troops to the outskirt of new delhi. it could march into the capital city. but the chinese withdrew, after teaching the indian army a lesson not to attack chinese border guards. it fought the vietnamese and could march into hanoi. but it withdrew after proving to the vietnamese that it could do so, despite suffering heavy casualties. it went into vietnam to halt the vietnamese expansion into laos and cambodia. it curdly proved a point to the vietnamese that though the vietnamese could defeat the mighty americans, they could not defeat the chinese. the point is that it did not stay on in vietnamese soil. all its troops returned promptly back to china. these were not good enough evidences to prove to the americans that the chinese do not harbour expansionist goals. but the american gut feel is good enough for the americans to pursue a hostile and provocative foreign policy towards china. and the american found the expansionist and aggressive japanese a more docile ally to sleep with. maybe japan is meek in the eyes of the americans. after all it is still an american protectorate, with a hugh american military base in okinawa.