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Why Socialism

2008-11-05T23:13:00.000Z

by Albert Einstein

This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called "the predatory phase" of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?"

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept "society" means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.

Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists' requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.

Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service

DBS May Compensate Some High Notes 5 Investor

2008-10-23T05:32:00.006+01:00

This is a written response to Straits Times Article Help for Minibond Investors. Hong Leong Finance, Maybank and DBS may offer full compensation for vulnerable customers. This is first posted here by Daniel Tan on Facebook.

Dear DBS High Notes 5 Investor,

Beware! This sounds too good to be true. Could banks be attempting to destroy our will to fight and break down our unity? Remember it is unity that brought us together so far. It is unity that gives us strength. Without unity, we are nothing.

The vulnerable group (aged 55 and above, non-English educated) is the leading pack for compensation claims. This has 2 effects:

Firstly, this is a psychological attack on our compassion. The very same compassion that have driven us onward and together for fair compensation. We are in this together to push the financial institutions to provide a decent compensation for our losses, that was resulted from their alleged mis-representation. It is an attack to make us loose our will to fight.

Remember that if mis-representation is proved in court, the contract which you have signed is voided. Consequently, the financial instistution is not only required to pay you 100% of your compensation, but also the interest (most probably at the fixed deposit rate) that represents the opportunity cost you had lost. If banks take the position that they wish to compensate the group of vulnerable investors because of mis-selling, then mis-selling must have occurred to the general population who bought these investment products as well.

To date, no numbers and timelines have been released. DBS claims it will compensate, but it has not released any figure publicly that it will compensate 10%, 30%, 50% or 70% of your losses. It has also not said that if DBS will compensate immediately or via a small installment over a fixed period starting in 1 year´s time. How can any of us here reasonably judge that DBS has indeed given a compensation deal that is fair and rightful in our hearts in face of such opaque dealing?

Secondly, those outside the favoured category may get a lower percentage of compensation than the vulnerable pack, resulting in double injustice for the unfavoured people. Everybody is equally affected by the alleged mis-representation. A younger person who speaks English and is highly-educated is not necessary financially-sophisticated to handle investment schemes.

Would you expect a medical doctor to understand the same investment prospectus that have confused so many people? Do you think doctors study investment analysis and finance theories at medical school? Don´t let the fight for rightful compensation become a class struggle between the educated and the less educated. Such class struggle is counter-productive to our objectives! A 65-year-old lowly educated old lady is just as susceptible as the doctor.

Confidentiality may be used as a tool to continue the divide-and-conquer strategy to quell our fighting spirit and enhance the sense of helplessness among DBS High Notes 5 investors. By only giving in to the demands of the vulnerable group, this may lead to division of our group unity. DBS had said that it expected compensation to be in the range of S$70-80M, yet it has not actually hand out the compensation monies or release details of the compensation payment schemes.Confidentiality is barrier to verify DBS´ promise.

Moreover, the S$70-80M pay-out is not necessary limited to DBS High Notes 5 Investors from Singapore. This includes compensation for DBS High Notes 5 Investors from Hongkong too. Singapore and Hongkong investors had bought a total of S$360M of DBS High Notes 5. This represents an average of 25% compensation per investor, which suggests that most investors are entitled to much less than 25% of their original capital.

Banks have so far left many investors unhappy with the complaint process. The responsiveness of each bank and the independence of the complaint process still remains questionable. It is only after many weeks of immerse public pressure on MAS and DBS, then DBS has given in and is now considering compensation. However, It is not possible that while the banks have changed their mind on compensation policies, the bankers would have changed their heart for the better too. A leopard does not change its spots overnight.

An insider claimed that many relationship managers have been told to stop force-selling investment products. Even if the relationship managers hit their monthly quota, they will not get their due bonus too. I sincerely believe this is the result of the investigation petition that had been submitted to MAS. I also believe the same petition is responsible for reversal in position on compensation to DBS High Notes 5 Investors. But more must be done.

Hence, I stress collective group unity must be maintained until all pay-out schemes for each DBS High Notes 5 Investor have been finalised. I hope many of the High Notes 5 Investors, through this crisis, have discovered many good people and many good friends. In times of hardship, it is only such ties that we can truly depend on. A friend in need is a friend indeed. We must remain united till DBS has provided us a solution that satisfy all of us.

Unity is strength. Without unity, we are nothing.

Best regards
Daniel Tan

Foreign Workers in Singapore: Integrating or Segregating Them

2008-10-22T19:43:00.005+01:00

THE RECENT saga over the housing of foreign workers in land-scarce Singapore has forced its citizens to take stock of what it means to live in multicultural harmony. Singaporeans generally appreciate the economic contribution of this transient workforce who are a cheap, but critical source of odd job labour that most Singaporeans themselves shun. Moreover, with a current 577,000 foreign workers – mainly in the construction and manufacturing sectors – and 180,000 foreign domestic maids, there can be no doubt that Singaporeans have to learn to live with these guest workers in their midst.

As such, the question is not over whether to tighten the control over the number entering Singapore but how best to manage their presence in the already densely-populated city-state. In this respect, the discussion has polarized Singaporeans into two camps – those calling for integration and those for segregation.

Although integration – giving them access to common spaces in Singapore – is possibly the more morally defensible doctrine of the two, it is segregation – the situation in which interaction between the host population and guest workers is kept to the minimal – that is the more likely option to prevail.

The Integration Arguments

Aside from the obvious fact that the notion of segregation is anathema to Singapore’s multicultural policy, the case for Singaporeans to be more accommodating to foreign workers has by and large been anchored by the economic logic. Singaporeans are repeatedly reminded of their critical contribution to the good life in Singapore – not only do they perform the 3D jobs (dirty, dangerous and difficult) that most Singaporeans shirk from, they do so at very low wages that keeps Singapore’s economy flexible and competitive, attracting business investments that in turn keeps Singapore’s unemployment rate in check.

Appeals on humanitarian grounds have also highlighted the invaluable contributions of foreign workers to Singapore’s thriving economy despite remaining marginalized and vulnerable to exploitation. In this respect, as beneficiaries of the fruits of their labour and sacrifice, Singaporeans have an ethical obligation to share their common spaces with foreign workers.

Moreover, many others also point to the irony that Singapore’s meteoric rise from a sleepy fishing village to a thriving port city was built on the blood, sweat and tears of our immigrant forefathers, a significant number of whom came as penniless labourers with hopes of a better life for their dependents and themselves. They eventually sank their roots in Singapore soil and their descendents now form the core of the Singapore heartbeat. Hence Singaporeans intolerant of the foreign workers’ presence have obviously forgotten their migrant roots, the argument goes.

The Segregation Reality

While the integration rhetoric makes for stirring speeches and inspiring national narratives, it is not likely to win over many from the segregation camp. This is because it does not address the deeper issue at hand – the good life enjoyed by Singaporeans is premised to a large degree on the unequal treatment of the foreign worker community.

An obstacle to the genuine integration of foreign workers lies in Singapore’s utilitarian immigration policy that evaluates a foreigner’s worth based on his usefulness for business. Consequently, foreign workers satisfy this criterion by accepting low wages and skeletal rights to keep business operation costs competitive. They are thus allowed to enter the country to work.

However, this also means that from the get-go, they do not enter on an equal footing. This is because the very provisions that qualify them in the first place are the very same ones that undermine their odds for sustaining the level of affluence that will allow them to interact with the majority of Singaporeans as equals. As a result, policy dictates that their presence be regarded as temporary in anticipation of the challenges to integrating them fully into Singapore society.

Following from this, it is arguably a tall order to expect the relationship between Singaporeans and the foreign worker community to be anything deeper than that between a consumer and service provider respectively, to be terminated once the business transaction is completed. To alter this relationship will in turn undermine the very economic grounds on which they are allowed to enter our shores to begin with. Hence, from a cost-benefit analysis standpoint, it does not make sense for both parties to invest in forging any enduring and meaningful relationships.

Shared values and economic policy

In sum, the integrationists cannot depend on humanitarian rhetoric alone to win over those who advocate segregation. This is because the problem does not lie in the lack of compassion among Singaporeans for the underprivileged – the consistently generous donations of Singaporeans to various charities bear testament to this.

Rather, the deeper issue that needs to be addressed is the grim reality that the affluence Singaporeans enjoy today is to no small degree indebted to the unequal treatment of the low and unskilled temporary workforce. Acknowledging this inequality not only requires Singaporeans to take a long hard look at their shared values, the logical course of action that follows may entail Singaporeans to compromise the material comforts they are already accustomed to.

Put differently, Singaporeans have been handsomely rewarded for closing a blind eye to the inequality built into their country’s policy towards foreign labour. If advocates of integration are serious about advancing their cause in a more convincing manner, they will have to wean the nation’s economy away from this reliance on cheap labour in a manner that will not undermine the good life which is regarded by many Singaporeans as their birthright.

An Overseas Singaporean Student Union

2008-10-20T00:46:00.040+01:00

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the UK Singapore Students´ Council (UKSSC) took place last Sunday (19 Oct 2008) at the Singapore High Commission in London. The UKSSC is the highest representative body that represents the interests of Singaporean students studying at universities in the UK.

Having been involved in the Imperial College Union and the United Nations Youth and Student Association for the past 3 years, I realised that my interest in campaigning for general student welfare, the Millenium Development Goals and UN Reform have shifted towards defending the interest of fellow Singaporeans over the years.

This was further reinforced by my experience of defending Singapore and ASEAN at various Model United Nations conferences in Europe and Asia. My accumulated experience led to my decision to run for the Treasurer Position of the UKSSC Secretariat.

Although the UKSSC was formed under the auspices of Contact Singapore as an information dissemination mechanism to the Singapore Societies at each UK university, it is also a Singaporean student union. It serves as an umbrella organisation that includes 24 Singaporean Student Associations and 16 other alumni groups such as the Hwachong Alumni and the Victorian Alumni.

Due to manpower constraint and skewed distribution of Singaporean students all over the UK, the UKSSC faces a geographic divide which segregates the UKSSC into 3 regional directorates: London-Oxbridge, the Midlands and Scotland. Each directorate functions independent of each other, but plays an important role in coordinating the various Singapore Student Associations in each region. This was especially emphasised by Nicholas Foo, the outgoing Regional Director for the Midlands.

Nicholas Foo stressed that the UKSSC plays an important role in supporting new university-based Singapore Student Associations and this should not be overlooked. He further added that the efforts of each directorate to facilitate communication and promote interest of the UKSSC and the individual student groups varied, which fails to present a cohesive picture on the relevance of the UKSSC to the general Singaporean student community in the UK.

The UKSSCś top-down approach in communicating to Singaporean student community in the UK faces a substantial challenge. While there has been no competing interest between the UKSSC and the university-based Singapore Student Associations on assisting fellow Singaporean students in seeking jobs in the UK and Singapore, there are competing interests in the arena of social events. While student gatherings, parties and dinners organised by local Singaporean student groups are generally well-publicised and well-attended, the UKSSC found it difficult to get its own plans off the ground because of a lack of support from the local Singaporean student groups.

The type of social events that the UKSSC can organise and promote falls within a very narrow scope, given the dinner parties, dinner-and-dance (eg. Singapore Night organised by the Hwachong Alumni) , ski trips and sporting events (eg. Nottingham Games organised by the Nottingham University Malaysian & Singaporean Society) have already been taken up by the various student interest groups.

Successful UKSSC events so far include the Confluence 2006, Confluence 2007 and the Student Network Forum. These events were held in Singapore and they serve the career interest of the Singaporean student community in the UK, yet they do not have any impact on the Singaporean students´ day-to-day life in the UK.

Clearly, the long-term relevance of the UKSSC to the general Singaporean student community lies in promoting the strategic interest of the Singaporean student community, and not competing with the university-based Singaporean student associations to organise social events in the UK.

Strategic interest is divided into the following categories:
(1) Immigration;
(2) Employment;
(3) Civil Rights;
(4) Welfare

(1) is provided for through the International Student Office of each UK university. While the International Student Office provides an advisory role in applying for UK Student Visa or a UK Work Permit, it does not provide feedback to the UK Home Office on the ease of application and the applicant´s experience.

From 25 November 2008 onwards, the UK Border Agency will require Singaporean students in the UK to have a biometric ID Card. This adds an additional £100 to the visa cost. The International Student Office does not have any vested interest to lobby the UK government to lower the fees, while this will affect new waves of Singaporean students coming to the UK for further studies every year while existing students have to pay £100 for the biometric ID card. The UKSSC is well-positioned to advocate for lower biometric ID card fees via the National Union of Students and the University of London Union.

(2) is well provided for through the Career Advisory Service and the International Student Office of each university. Yet at the same time, Contact Singapore , the Overseas Singaporean Unit and various corporations would advertise recruitment events and workshops with the UKSSC and the individual Singaporean student groups. However, in lesser well-known and smaller univerisites, the Career Advisory Service would be ill-equipped to advise overseas Singaporean students. This is where UKSSC can fill in the stop gap to assist Singaporean students in their career development.

(3) may seem to be an alien concept to Singaporeans. It is hardly surprising since the Singapore government has yet to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, the Singaporean student community is residing in the UK and therefore is entitled to these rights in the UK.

In 2007, the UK Parliament almost passed a terrorism bill that requires all foreign students studying science and engineering to report their daily movements to their individual universities. This is draconian and adds on hassle to our daily lives as a student. If not for the united student opposition from the National Union of Students (NUS), Labour Students and Tories Students, this bill would have been in effect today and affect many Singaporeans studying science and engineering in the UK.

This example highlights the importance of having a student union that represents foreign students´ interests and the UKSSC is in fact such a student union. It is well-positioned to advocate for civil rights of Singaporean students should the need arises. The UKSSC could potentially work with the UK Singapore Student´s Law Society to monitor the UK Parliament should the violation of Singaporean students´ civil rights take place through discriminatory policy-making.

(4) is typically provided through the university student union or NUS. The University of London Union (ULU) provides free legal aid to all University of London students. This service is especially useful if the student would like to understand rental contracts in greater details and negotiate with the landlord on the various terms and conditions. It is also applicable in situations when students may need to go to Small Claims Court to make a case. However, due to the geographic distribution of the UKSSC constitutents, It is not practical to provide free legal aid to Singaporean student community.

Legal aid has demonstrated that empowerment of students is a very pragmatic form of student welfare. Empowerment can also take place through dissemination of essential information with regards to the cost of living. For example, the liberalised electricity market in the UK may have the potential of providing consumers with cheap electricity through competition, yet the downside lies with information asymmetry at the consumer level. Often, the electricity & gas retail vendor provides a series of rate and payment packages but these prices are useless if you cannot tell which numbers are applicable for the type of electricity usage meter you are using. Also, should the prices of electricity & gas goes up, the UKSSC can join in other student unions in condemning the price hikes.

Opportunities for the traditional form of welfare still exists. Typically, the university has a hardship fund that helps to tide a student through difficult times. Being an overseas student, Singaporeans are not entitled to social security benefits in the UK and the hardship fund should the need arises. The UKSSC could be potentially be acting as trustee and administrator of a hardship fund that targets the Singapore student community. The fund could provide a short-term loan with a one-off bursary to tide over a difficult period should the need arises.

Despite my grand vision, I actually did not the win the election. The Treasurer position is still open. People opposed my vision because they felt that I was not of the same ideology with the President. Some mentioned that because of my idealogical difference with the President, I might make things difficult for him given my lobbyist and activist background. I strive to be a world-class leader, and not being able to put aside idealogical differences in the name of the common good is a sign of an inferior leader and third-class politics.

The whole idea of having a single-ideological UKSSC secretariat is irrational because the secretariat is responsible for policy-making affecting Singaporeans. Different idealogies exihibit different sensitivity to different issues and concerns, thus a multi-idealogical secretariat would be able to capture a wide variety of issues that are relevant to overseas Singaporean students.

Overseas Singaporeans studying abroad tend to shun away from lobbyist and parliamentary politics. Some feared that I would turn the UKSSC into a partisan organisation, when all I really want to do is to promote and defend the interest of fellow Singaporeans in the UK. There is no taboo in being non-partisan and political simultaneously.I cannot be partisan because the political parties in the UK represent British interest. I will run for Treasurer again at the next Ordinary General Meeting (OGM). I don´t think overseas Singaporean students still constitute a lost cause.

The Economic Case for Promiscuity

2008-10-16T01:05:00.002+01:00

It's true: AIDS is nature's awful retribution for our tolerance of immoderate and socially irresponsible sexual behavior. The epidemic is the price of our permissive attitudes toward monogamy, chastity, and other forms of sexual conservatism.

You've read elsewhere about the sin of promiscuity. Let me tell you about the sin of self-restraint.

Suppose you walk into a bar and find four potential sex partners. Two are highly promiscuous; the others venture out only once a year. The promiscuous ones are, of course, more likely to be HIV-positive. That gives you a 50-50 chance of finding a relatively safe match.

But suppose all once-a-year revelers could be transformed into twice-a-year revelers. Then, on any given night, you'd run into twice as many of them. Those two promiscuous bar patrons would be outnumbered by four of their more cautious rivals. Your odds of a relatively safe match just went up from 50-50 to four out of six.

That's why increased activity by sexual conservatives can slow down the rate of infection and reduce the prevalence of AIDS. In fact, according to Professor Michael Kremer of MIT's economics department, the spread of AIDS in England could plausibly be retarded if everyone with fewer than about 2.25 partners per year were to take additional partners more frequently. That covers three-quarters of British heterosexuals between the ages of 18 and 45.

If multiple partnerships save lives, then monogamy can be deadly. Imagine a country where almost all women are monogamous, while all men demand two female partners per year. Under those conditions, a few prostitutes end up servicing all the men. Before long, the prostitutes are infected; they pass the disease to the men; and the men bring it home to their monogamous wives. But if each of those monogamous wives was willing to take on one extramarital partner, the market for prostitution would die out, and the virus, unable to spread fast enough to maintain itself, might die out along with it.

Or consider Joan, who attended a party where she ought to have met the charming and healthy Martin. Unfortunately Fate, through its agents at the Centers for Disease Control, intervened. The morning of the party, Martin ran across one of those CDC-sponsored subway ads touting the virtues of abstinence. Chastened, he decided to stay home. In Martin's absence, Joan hooked up with the equally charming but considerably less prudent Maxwell--and Joan got AIDS. Abstinence can be even deadlier than monogamy.

If those subway ads are more effective against the cautious Martins than against the reckless Maxwells, then they are a threat to the hapless Joans. This is especially so when they displace Calvin Klein ads, which might have put Martin in a more socially beneficent mood.

You might object that even if Martin had dallied with Joan, he would only have freed Maxwell to prey on another equally innocent victim. To this there are two replies. First, we don't know that Maxwell would have found another partner: Without Joan, he might have struck out that night. Second, reducing the rate of HIV transmission is in any event not the only social goal worth pursuing: If it were, we'd outlaw sex entirely. What we really want is to minimize the number of infections resulting from any given number of sexual encounters; the flip side of this observation is that it is desirable to maximize the number of (consensual) sexual encounters leading up to any given number of infections. Even if Martin had failed to deny Maxwell a conquest that evening, and thus failed to slow the epidemic, he could at least have made someone happy.

To an economist, it's clear why people with limited sexual pasts choose to supply too little sex in the present: Their services are underpriced. If sexual conservatives could effectively advertise their histories, HIV-conscious suitors would compete to lavish them with attention. But that doesn't happen, because such conservatives are hard to identify. Insufficiently rewarded for relaxing their standards, they relax their standards insufficiently.

So a socially valuable service is under-rewarded and therefore under-supplied. This is a problem we've experienced before. We face it whenever a producer fails to safeguard the environment.

Extrapolating from their usual response to environmental issues, I assume that liberals will want to attack the problem of excessive sexual restraint through coercive regulation. As a devotee of the price system, I'd prefer to encourage good behavior through an appropriate system of subsidies.

The question is: How do we subsidize Martin's sexual awakening without simultaneously subsidizing Maxwell's ongoing predations? Just paying people to have sex won't work--not with Maxwell around to reap the bulk of the rewards. The key is to subsidize something that is used in conjunction with sex and that Martin values more than Maxwell.

Quite plausibly, that something is condoms. Maxwell knows that he is more likely than Martin to be infected already, and hence probably values condoms less than Martin does. Subsidized condoms could be just the ticket for luring Martin out of his shell without stirring Maxwell to a new frenzy of activity.

As it happens, there is another reason to subsidize condoms: Condom use itself is under-rewarded. When you use one, you are protecting both yourself and your future partners, but you are rewarded (with a lower chance of infection) only for protecting yourself. Your future partners don't know about your past condom use and therefore can't reward it with extravagant courtship. That means you fail to capture the benefits you're conferring, and as a result, condoms are underused.

It is often argued that subsidised (or free) condoms have an upside and a downside: The upside is that they reduce the risk from a given encounter, and the downside is that they encourage more encounters. But it's plausible that in reality, that's not an upside and a downside--it's two upsides. Without the subsidies, people don't use enough condoms, and the sort of people who most value condoms don't have enough sex partners.

All these problems--along with the case for subsidies--would vanish if our sexual pasts could somehow be made visible, so that future partners could reward past prudence and thereby provide appropriate incentives. Perhaps technology can ultimately make that solution feasible. (I envision the pornography of the future: "Her skirt slid to the floor and his gaze came to rest on her thigh, where the imbedded monitor read, 'This site has been accessed 314 times.' ") But until then, the best we can do is to make condoms inexpensive--and get rid of those subway ads.

A Reminder from the Great Depression

2008-09-30T18:02:00.005+01:00

Reactions of the Wall Street slump

Nov 23rd 1929, Finance & Economics, The Economist

IT'S an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The fall of Bank rate on Thursday by another half per cent is an outward and visible sign that the dramatic and precipitous slump of the last three weeks in Wall Street has definitely relieved the pressure on the world's money markets which the New York situation has been exerting so continuously for the last two years. Very few could have dared to hope, when Bank rate was raised to 6½ per cent on September 26th, that it would be back again at 5½ per cent in less than two months. That advance, indeed, was a by no means negligible factor in turning into the opposite direction the tide of funds which had been flowing so strongly towards New York, and in causing the edifice of American speculation to totter. But that it would collapse so completely was hardly to be expected. In the event the financial strain has been lifted, and money rates have fallen to such an extent that for the last two weeks, Bank rate, which fell to 6 per cent on October 31st, has been ineffective, three months' bills having fallen this week to a bare 5 per cent. In the circumstances the Bank had no alternative but to lower its rate. Indeed, some people had thought that it should be even bolder and reduce the rate to 5 per cent.

This optimistic view, however, did not take sufficient account of the gold situation. Since the end of September the Bank has continued to lose gold to France, and has barely balanced these losses by receipts, its holding today being about the same as when the rate was raised. But there is a vast difference between a situation in which the Bank is fully holding its own and one in which it was losing heavily every week. There is no urgent need for the Bank to embark on a drastic policy for the purpose of rebuilding its reserves. It is clear that we are about to enter on a period of considerably cheaper money, and the rebuilding process can take place steadily when a new world level has been attained.

The slump on the New York Stock Exchange, which has resulted in this great change in the monetary outlook, is one of the spectacular episodes of financial history. A prolonged upward movement, the extent of which is illustrated by some graphs which we print in a later column, has been built up over a series of years on the amazing and unexampled prosperity of America. But some two years ago the speculative movement seemed to lose all touch with reality; and in spite of occasionally vigorous but more often half-hearted, measures by the banking authorities of the United States, speculative fever spread throughout the nation and carried prices, mainly with the aid of borrowed money, to fantastic heights. Writing of the efforts made to check the movement, a high authority observes:

"The market fought its way upward against Reserve banks and member banks, and there was truth in the boast that it defeated them . . . bankers are not the owners of the funds in their custody, and the market defeated them by going round them and inducing depositors to place their funds at the disposal of 'the street.' Democracy triumphed over authority and leadership in the advance, and the orgy at the finish was all its own."

Highly coloured stories of devastating ruin and of paralysis of economic life must, as always in such cases, be heavily discounted; but it is natural that people should be asking themselves how widespread and of what character will be the economic reactions of this slump. The question acquires added importance from the fact that in its later stages the Wall Street movement pervaded the whole world by drawing money, not merely from all corners of America, but from every continent. It resulted in an embargo on the export of gold from Canada and monetary difficulties in the Argentine, while its financial repercussions were painfully felt in every monetary centre. If this was the effect of the boom what will be the effect of the collapse?

Turning first to the direct effects in this country, there are undoubtedly many private investors, as well as trust companies and other financial institutions in London who have suffered substantial losses. But circumstances have somewhat mitigated what might easily have been much more serious effects in Great Britain. There has notoriously been considerable British buying of American securities during the last two years, and the advent of the Labour Government gave an added incentive to those who thought that it was time to escape from the British frying-pan into what, in the event, proved to be a very hot American fire. In September, however, the shock to the London Stock Exchange caused by the Hatry disclosures, together with the growing uneasiness as to the giddy heights to which American securities were soaring, undoubtedly led, in some cases, to forced sales and, in others, to precautionary withdrawals of money invested in the United States. There were signs of a backward movement from the United States even before Bank rate rose in September; but after the rise these withdrawals rapidly increased. London's interest in Wall Street was thus considerably lightened before the slump occurred. After the slump had taken place, large quantities of international securities were offered in the London market at, in some cases, very low prices. These have been absorbed and London has thus done something to stop the rot.

But while the direct effects are not of really serious importance to this country, the influence on the economic situation here depends on more general considerations than the technical position at the time of the slump and, above all, on the answer to the question which everybody is asking but no one is prepared to answer, namely, what will be the economic effect of the slump on business in the United States? It has many times been pointed out that the present slump differs from most of its predecessors in the fact that it has not been accompanied by industrial over-production or rising commodity prices resulting from an expansion of credit. If the industrial situation is unduly expanded, as in 1920, and the whole economic situation is precariously balanced like an inverted pyramid upon its apex, even a moderate shock from the Stock Exchange might produce a general collapse. This is not the situation today. The question presents itself rather in this form: Can a very serious Stock Exchange collapse produce a serious setback to industry when industrial production is for the most part in a healthy and balanced condition?

Optimists say that there is no precedent for such a harmful reaction, and that the worst that need be expected is a slight shock reflecting itself in a short-lived hesitation. Even though some temporary contraction of demand for consumers' goods of the luxury type may be inevitable, it is argued that cheaper money should lead to increased expenditure on capital goods by industrial corporations, and that official encouragement, backed by the steady propaganda of the "sunshine artist," should quickly produce a renewal of the upward trend of industry as a whole. A more serious view is taken by others, who point not only to the heavy "break" in certain commodity prices which has accompanied the slump, but to the danger that Wall Street losses may have gravely shaken the psychological confidence of America in the prospect of unlimited expansion. These observers think that the orgy of speculation in the United States has been so widespread that persons of all classes deceived by, in some cases, real, but in many more cases, purely paper profits from their investments, have been living beyond their means, or, at all events, mortgaging their future by purchasing luxury goods up to, or even beyond, the full limit of their incomes.

It is said that this has resulted in a precarious situation owing to the extensive buying on the instalment plan, and that the slump will lead to widespread defaults and a slowing down of production in the trades chiefly concerned. The ordinary man, however, cannot spend paper profits without realising them, and while it may be true that the confident expectation of large Stock Exchange profits may have encouraged an extravagant scale of living which may have to be reduced, it remains true that the bulk of instalment buying rests upon the income of wage and salary earners which will not be affected by the present slump, unless it extends its ramifications throughout industry and produces unemployment. Indeed, as Professor Seligmann has recently argued, "instalment credit, extended as it is largely to recipients of wages and salaries, is likely to produce less effect on the business cycle than producers' credit, resting upon profits." It may, however, be taken for granted that there will be some curtailment of the consumption of luxury goods, and that this will mean a certain restriction of trade.

How far this will extend must at present be a matter of conjecture. A great deal must in any case depend upon the situation of the banks. The one influence that could throne back the full brunt of the speculative collapse upon industry and produce a real depression throughout the country would be banking trouble. Certain Wall Street banks made some spasmodic efforts to check the slump, but were careful to dispose of their holdings at the first opportunity, and there is no reason to suppose that they have seriously handicapped themselves by efforts which never went the length of attempting to stop the rot by holding large blocks of stock off the market. There are, however, known to be large quantities of securities not yet absorbed by the public which for the time being have to be carried by banks and finance houses. Many banks will, moreover, have made very large bad debts, while others will have to finance customers for a long or short period. Some bank failures, no doubt, are also to be expected. In the circumstances will the banks have any margin left for financing commercial and industrial enterprises or will they not? The position of the banks is without doubt the key to the situation, and what this is going to be cannot be properly assessed until the dust has cleared away. On the whole, the experts are agreed that there mint be some setback, but there is not yet sufficient evidence to prove that it will be long or that it need go to the length of producing a general industrial depression.

It remains to consider what effect a setback, whether great or small, in the United States will have upon other countries. The trade reports contained in our Supplement this month show a not unnatural hesitation as to the effects of the American situation. The fear is, however, expressed that if United States producers suffer from a diminution of their home market, it will, on the one hand, strengthen the demand for an increased tariff at Washington, and, on the other, lead to the exporting of the surplus products at low prices abroad. This last event is one which has long been awaited with some misgiving by European producers. But the expectation that there will be a flood of American exports as a result of the tide having turned in the United States overlooks one or two features of recent American development. In the first place, American technique has developed on the lines of very greatly reducing production for stock and it is the practice today to curtail output schedules at the first sign of reduced sales. Secondly, mass production means production at a very narrow margin of profit per unit of output. Thirdly, the apparatus of foreign sales, except in those products which already have a foreign market, cannot immediately be improvised. We need not, therefore, assume either that there already exist in the United States, or that manufacturers will continue producing so as to create, large surplus stocks of manufactured goods; nor can they afford to sell abroad at less than cost, at the expense of the American producer, more than a small proportion of their output. While, therefore, there may be some sales of goods at low prices, which may prove embarrassing for competing producers, it is not to be contemplated that the great stream of American production can suddenly be switched from the home market into export channels.

In any case, against any disadvantage arising from American competition must be set the great advantage which we mentioned at the outset, namely, the return to cheap money conditions. This should assist trade recovery throughout the world, which has been handicapped for so many months past by the abnormal financial conditions in New York. If we are justified in assuming that the setback in American industry will only be temporary, we may look forward to steady development in 1930, free from the incubus that has of late been hampering world conditions.

PAP's Growing Irrelevance to Singapore's Economy

2008-09-05T04:28:00.001+01:00

2006

Jan 9: Pump prices at all 29 Caltex stations will go up from 11pm on Monday night. Prices will go up by four cents per litre for all three grades. (link)

Feb 13: Polytechnics and ITE increase fees by $50 and $10 respectively (link) (link)

Feb 14: NTU, NUS to raise tuition fees by 3% from next academic year. Tuition fees at both the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University will go up by S$180 for the next academic year. This 3 percent increase comes on the heels of a 5 percent hike just last year. (link)

Mar 6: Expect annual tuition fee increases. Hostel fees will also go up by 10% to 11% from next academic year. (NTU) (link)

Mar 9: Retail pump prices for Synergy petrol and diesel at all Esso and Mobil service stations in Singapore were increased by 6 cents a litre. (link) (link)

June 1: NTUC Car Co-Op raises fuel surcharge: We cannot continue subsidizing the fuel price increase in the long run without compromising the quality of service. Thus, the management has decided to implement a fuel surcharge of $0.30 for every 10km free with effect from 1 June 2006. (link)

June 27: Electricity tariff to go up next quarter. Domestic users, for example, will have to pay 21.15 cents for every kWH of electricity, up from 20.49 cents currently. (link)

July 10: Comfort Delgro raises taxi fares. Besides raising the flag down fare and the peak hour surcharge from $1 to $2, ComfortDelgro is also making distance-related adjustment. (link) (link)

July: Taxi companies raise fares. (link) (link)

July 17: SMRT hikes taxi fares. (link)

Aug: SMRT, SBS apply for fare hike. (link)

Aug: NUS hikes tuition fees by between $180, $220, and $510, depending on faculty. (link)

Aug: ERP rates to go up at six gantries, mainly at CTE. (link)

Oct: Public Transport Council approves 1.7% fare increase for bus and trains. Adult EZ-link fares for buses and trains will increase by 1 to 3 cents, which amounts to an overall fare hike of 1.7 percent. (link)

Nov: SingPost revises postage rate. (link)

Nov 12: Rates for HDB rental flats pegged to income. (link)

Dec: Govt spells out fees to be frozen. (link)

2006: Loan sharks cases rise by 19%, to 10, 221 cases. (link)

2006: A total of 419 people committed suicide in 2006, up from 346 in 2003. The suicide rate per 100,000 residents - a sobering indicator in population statistics - is also on the upswing, growing from 9.3 in 2003 to 10.3 in 2006, figures from the Registry of Births and Deaths reveal. It is the fourth straight rise in as many years. (ST, Aug 13, 2007) (link)

2006: Islandwide, home rentals climbed 10 per cent in 2006. (ST, Aug 6, 2007) (link)

2006: At Alexandra Hospital, A&E charges went up from $55 to $60, as did C-class ward charges — from $21 to $23 — and subsidised specialist outpatient clinic consultation rates, from $18 to $20. (link)

2007

Jan: All diesel-driven vehicles to undergo smoke test. (link)

Jan: NUH’s A&E fee raised from $70 to $80. (link)

Jan: Skilled Foreign workers levy raised by $50, from $100 to $150, for all sectors. (link) (link)

Jan 26: SMU Law Course to cost more, NUS says it may increase fees too. (link)

Feb: KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital hikes ward treatment fees. (link)

Feb 14: Tax penalties from GST audits could increase. With the hike in Goods and Services Tax (GST) by two percentage points, tax analysts said tax penalties arising from businesses making mistakes in GST audits may also increase. (link)

Feb 25: Sunny Cove: Fees to Pulau Hantu Raised - As of 24th February 2007 (Saturday), the operator had increased the price for the chartering of boat to local water. With the price hike, all courses conducted at local water will be subjected to the increase from 25th February 2007 (Sunday) onwards. (link)

Feb 25: Eldershield premiums to go up by year’s end. (link)

April 1: Singapore Medical Association withdraws guidelines on fees. Doctors now have more flexibility to adjust their fees, following a decision by the Singapore Medical Association (SMA) to withdraw its guidelines on fees, as of 1 April. (link)

April 1: URA increase fees for Housing Developers’s Licence – from between $500 to $8,000. (link)

April 2: NUS revise car park charges. (link)

April 8: Means testing for hospital admission to start within a year. Subsidised patients that stay more than five days in a public hospital can expect some questions about their income. (link) (link)

April 11: Ikea to start charging customers for plastic bags. (ST, 11 April, 2007)

April 25: The Singapore American School increased tuition fees by between $425 and $1,000. (link)

April: Within hours of each other, the four petrol companies in Singapore - First Shell, then Singapore Petroleum Company (SPC), ExxonMobil and lastly Chevron - each revised its prices. The retail price of petrol and diesel rose by 10 cents. (Electric New Paper) (link) (link)

May 12: Inflation heads for a higher plane. For now, the major public concern is a rise in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from 5% to 7% in July, which is likely to exacerbate the series of worrying price increases over the past year. (Littlespeck)

May 14: NUH increase ward charges for B2 and C-class wards by $2, increases of 4 and 8 per cent. (link)

May 23: DBS raises its e-transaction fee for initial public offering (IPO) applications. Retail investors who applied for IPO shares launched on or after that date, through the local bank’s ATMs and Internet banking, were surprised that they now have to pay $2. (link)

May 29: New fee hikes at public hospitals and polyclinics. A NEW round of fee hikes is underway at most public hospitals and some polyclinics. Subsidised patients at four public hospitals will now pay $24 or $25 for every visit to a specialist clinic, up from about $21. All 18 polyclinics, which used to charge a standard consultation fee of $8 for adults, now charge anything from $8-$8.80. (link) (link) (link)

May: From milk to Milo, cooking oil to coffee, canned foods, processed foods, wheat products and more, prices have been rising recently at supermarkets and hypermarts here. (link) (link) (link)

June 1: Prices of milk go up. The price increase for condensed milk ranged from $0.10 to $0.50, which means the prices for some brands of condensed milk have gone up by nearly 45 per cent. The price increase for evaporated milk ranged from $0.15 to $0.47, marking a percentage increase of between 18 per cent to 48 per cent. (link) (link)

June 4: Online hosiery shop increases price. There will be a overall price increase on 4th June 2007 for all brands due to increased cost of yarns and cost of shipping. (link)

June 6: Even before the Nets fee hike kicks in, a shoe shop in Parkway Parade has already started charging customers extra to cover the increase. (link)

June 7: Wholesale price of ducks goes up. The wholesale price of ducks has increased by 20 cents a kilogram. (link)

June 7: Eggs price increase. Eggs now cost between 17 cents and 18 cents each. (link)

June 29: Rental space rents rise. Islandwide, rents at Grade A malls have moved up by between 5-7 per cent in the first half of this year and could increase by another 5-6 per cent by end-2007, analysts said. (Business Times, June 29, 2007) (link)

June 29: Fees up by 14% on average at NUS. Two days before the higher 7-per-cent GST kicked in on July 1, prospective students of the continuing education arm of the National University of Singapore (NUS) received news that fees for many courses had gone up — by an average 14 per cent. (link)

July 1st: GST increased from 5% to 7%. (link) (link)

July 1^st: THE Singapore Petroleum Company (SPC) and market leader ExxonMobil became the first companies to raise pump prices at their petrol stations following the GST hike. The two companies increased prices across the board for their three grades of petrol and diesel by 0.23 cents to 0.33 cents per litre from 7am. Caltex will be increasing its pump prices on Monday. (ST, July 1, 2007) (link) (link)

July 1st: NETS announced a price hike for its Electronic Funds Transfer Point-of-Sale (EFTPOS) and CashCard Services to between 1.5% and 1.8%. (link) (link)

July 1^st: Pasir Ris – Punggol Town Council revise penalties for late payment of S&C charges to 2% and absorb 7% GST. (2004 rates) (2007 rates)

July 1^st: Cigarette prices up as bar ban kicks in. Tobacco companies raised the prices of popular brands by an average of 40 cents. This brought the price of a 20-stick pack of Marlboro or Dunhill cigarettes, for example, to $11.60. (AsiaOne)

July 3: Resale price index for HDB flats rise 2.9% from 3 months before. (link)

July 4: The Committee Against GST Profiteering (CAP) has found price changes to be generally moderate since the announcement of the GST increase in November 2006. (link)

July 10: Changi General Hospital increases A&E charges. Following in the wake of earlier hikes by the National University Hospital and Alexandra Hospital, CGH this month increased its A&E attendance fee by $10 — or 15 per cent — to $75. For the B2 and C-class wards, the daily treatment fee went up by $1, representing a 6-to-10-per-cent increment. The daily ward charge for B2 wards also rose by $1, or 2 per cent. (link)

July 11: Starhub raise prices for cable tv packages. SCV subscribers pay $4 more across the board. (link) (link) (link)

July 11: The Committee Against GST Profiteering has received 33 complaints in the past six months about price increases, all dealing with food items. About 10 cases involve chain businesses. (ST, July 11, 2007) (link)

July 15: Electricity tariffs to be raised by almost 9% for July to September. (link)

July 18: Govt raises development charge from 50% to 70% for new building projects from 50 per cent to 70 per cent of the increase in value of the land. (link) (link)

July 21: HDB rents at 10-year high. For the first time in recent memory, monthly rents for some HDB flats have pushed northwards of $2,000 in leases signed in the last couple of months. (ST, 21 July 2007) (link)

July 25: Hospital bills up 10% to 30% across all ward classes. (link)

July: July inflation hits 2.6%, highest in over 12 years. (link)

July (CPI): Housing costs increased 4.9 per cent because of higher housing maintenance charges, electricity tariffs and rented accommodation costs. (ST, Aug 23, 2007) (link)

July (CPI): Food prices went up by 1.4 per cent, mainly due to dearer cooked food, fresh fish, fruits, vegetables and milk powder. (link)

July (CPI): Transport and communication prices moved up by 1 per cent, reflecting mainly dearer petrol and higher car prices. (link)

July (CPI): The index for education and stationery rose by 2.1 per cent as a result of higher fees at commercial institutions and universities. (link)

July (CPI): Prices of clothing and footwear increased by 3.9 per cent. (link)

July (CPI): Health care cost rose by 2.2 per cent on account of dearer chinese herbs and higher charges for general medical consultation and dental treatment. (link)

Aug 2: SBS, SMRT seeking bus, train fare increases. If approved, transport fares could rise by up to three cents from October. (link)

Aug 2: Singapore Airlines raises fuel surcharge – from between US$2, US$5 and US$9. (link)

Aug 6: ERP rates at Orchard, YMCA and Fort Canning Tunnel to go up. From August 6, cars passing the Orchard, YMCA and Fort Canning Tunnel gantries will be charged an additional $0.50. That makes it $1 per entry. Rates for motorcycles will also double to $0.50. Goods vehicles and small buses will now be charged $1.50. Heavy goods vehicles and big buses will be charged $2. (link)

Aug 7: Student made to pay adult fare. (link)

Aug 7: Cost of living in S’pore getting higher compared to neighbours. Singapore retains its 9th position out of 41 Asian locations as the most costly city. (CNA)

Aug 7: Car insurance premiums likely to increase. Higher premium rates for car insurance look almost certain, after the motor sector suffered a second consecutive quarter of losses. Rises could be between 5 and 10 per cent, according to one insurer, as the industry battles higher claims. (AsiaOne, ST, Aug 7, 2007)

Aug 8: 17% hike in Delifrance’s tuna croissant sandwich, from $5.05 to $5.90. (link)

Aug 10: Change of supplier sees spike in price of medicine. A 80ml bottle of Minoxi 5 from Trima Pharmaceutical used to cost $38.50. This time round, the price was $45.50 for a 60ml bottle. Going by volume, the price increase was a hefty 57.6 per cent. (ST Forum, Aug 10, 2007) (link)

Aug 13: Up to 30% levy imposed on hotel room revenues during F1 race. The Trade and Industry Ministry (MTI) has decided a levy of 30 per cent for hotels on the trackside, and 20 per cent for others. (link)

Aug 23: More ERP gantries, extended hours. (link) (link)

Aug 24: By Aug 24, the Committee Against GST Profiteering had received 115 complaints on alleged GST profiteering. In the first two weeks of July, after the GST increase came into effect, 49 complaints were received, surpassing the 30 complaints received in May. (ST, Aug 29, 2007)

Aug 27: Singapore raises 2007 inflation forecast to 1-2 per cent. Singapore’s central bank confirmed an apparent off-the-cuff remark by Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang in parliament that inflation would come in at 1-2 percent this year, above the government’s previous forecast of 0.5-1.5 percent. (Reuters)

Aug 29: Middle-aged suicide rate up. In 2003, there were 14 suicides (of men in their 40s and 50s) per 100,000. In 2006, it went up to 19 per 100,000. For women, there were 8 per 100,000. In 2006, it went up to 13 per 100,000. (TODAY, Aug 29, 2007) (link)

Aug 29: Storage boom as rents rise. Companies which provide self-storage facilities are reporting a rise in rentals by foreigners as rising rental prices force more of them to downsize. (The Electric New Paper, Aug 29, 2007) (link)

Aug 31: Government raises property development charges. For non-landed residential use, the charge was raised by an average of 58 percent with prime areas like Cantonment Road seeing the biggest jump of 112 percent. Areas seeing the highest increase (of over 100 percent) include Telok Ayer, Maxwell, Shenton, Anson and South Bridge Road. (CNA)

Sept 1st: New dog licensing rules. To discourage dog owners from keeping unlicensed dogs, allowing their dogs to stray or not muzzling dogs of breeds² that are required to be muzzled in a public place (eg, the Rottweiller or Mastiff); the maximum fine for such offences has been raised from $500 to $5,000. (link)

Sept 5: Esso won’t go public on fuel price changes. IF YOU are an Esso customer, you will not know if the price of your fuel has changed until you drive right up to a pump. ExxonMobil - the biggest player here with 74 out of the total of about 200 stations - has adopted a new policy against revealing changes in pump prices to the media. Neither does it display prices at station entrances. (Straits Times, Sept 5, 2007)

Sept 11: Adult EZ-link fares for buses upped from October. From 1 October, adult EZ-link fares for buses will increase by between one and two cents. But there will be no increase for train fares. (CNA)

Sept 12: Special needs school raise fees by 100%. I was shocked to receive a letter in July stating that school fees would increase by 100 per cent from this month. No other institution - even private schools - operates in this manner by increasing its fees by 100 per cent. (Letter to ST forum)

Sept 13: Employers to buy medical insurance for foreign workers. From January next year (2008), employers will have to buy and maintain insurance for the medical expenses of all foreign workers on Work Permit or S Pass. (CNA)

Sept 25: Electricity tariffs to go up because of higher oil prices. Barely 2 months after the increase of 9% in July, electricity tariffs will again go up later this year because of higher oil prices. SP Services said electricity tariffs will be raised by an average of 0.86 cent, or 4.29 percent, per kilowatt-hour, for the three months from October to December. (CNA)

Sept 25: Cosmetics costing more? Taking a hit from the Goods and Services Tax hike, prices of consumer products in Singapore grew at a pace not seen since 1994. (TODAY)

Sept 27: Gardenia loaf of bread cost 5% more in three months. “Yesterday we found out that its price has soared to $2. If you work that out against the original $1.90, it means that the total price increased is 5.3 per cent in three months.” (Letter to ST forum page.)

Sept 29: Why higher fees for vacant flat? “MY LATE grandfather, who was the sole owner and occupier of a three-room HDB flat, had been paying $38 a month in conservancy fees to the town council. His estate now has to pay $55 a month (a 45 per cent increase) for the vacant flat, the reason being that the $38 concessionary charge no longer applies as it is now unoccupied.” (Letter to ST Forum Page)(link)

Sept: Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society to increase fees from between $5 to $10 due to the society becoming a GST-registered entity. (link)

Oct: Starhub Cable TV sports channels subscribers pay $10 more. (link)

Oct 1: Public transport fare increase takes effect.

Oct 1: Private home prices in Q3 up by 8%: URA flash estimate. The prices of private residential property in Singapore increased by eight per cent in the third quarter of this year.. (CNA)

Oct 1: HDB resale prices up by 6.5% in Q3: HDB’s flash estimate. Public housing resale prices went up by 6.5 percent in the third quarter of this year, compared to the previous three months. (CNA)

Oct 1: Petrol, diesel price up 3-5 cents. At 10am, Caltex increased its petrol and diesel prices by 3 cents a litre, while Shell upped its rates by 5 cents a litre. By 3pm, Singapore Petroleum Co followed suit by raising its pump rates by 5 cents a litre. The increase is the fifth upward revision since July, as crude oil prices hover at record levels above US$80 a barrel. (AsiaOne)

Oct 1: Hotel room rates expected to go up by 25% in Q4. Hotel room rates in Singapore in the fourth quarter are expected to be 25 per cent higher than that of last year, according to industry players. (CNA)

Oct 3: The price of chickens has risen by 20 to 50 per cent here since last week, caused by the wholesale price hike from Malaysia, among the factors, according to media reports. (Bernama)

Oct 4: Queensway Shopping Centre, Sim Lim Square and sky-high rentals in Singapore. As the leases are expiring about now, get ready for a radical change in Sim Lim Square, the highest�rentals for the shops selling the lowest margin products ever. (C Net Asia)

Oct 19: SIA ups fuel surcharge by between $3 and $9. The new charges, which are between $3 and nearly $9 more than the current surcharges, will apply to tickets issued from Oct 24 and to both SIA and SilkAir flights. (TODAY)

Oct 20: Price of flour up 30%. The price of flour has increased again, but this time it has gone up by thirty percent. This is the biggest ever hike, according to industry watchers. From January, it will cost 20 cents more to buy a loaf of bread. (CNA)

Oct 22: Caltex petrol, diesel prices up. AMERICAN oil company Chevron raised pump prices of its Caltex petrol and diesel by five cents a litre on Monday - the sixth increase since July and the second in about a fortnight. The others - Shell, ExxonMobil and Singapore Petroleum - are likely to do likewise in the coming days. Chevron’s move brings its pump prices to record levels. (Straits Times)

Oct 26: Private home prices up 8.3% in Q3. Singapore private home prices rose 8.3 percent between July and September to their highest level in a decade. (Asia One)

Oct 27: Prices of HDB resale flats keep accelerating. ‘As at end-September, the HDB resale price index has increased by about 11 per cent since the start of the year,’ the HDB said. For five-room flats, the median resale price in Queenstown is the highest at $603,000, followed by Marine Parade at $560,000 and Bukit Merah at $530,000. (Straits Times)

Oct 28: Singapore raises noodle prices. Starting Nov. 1, the price of noodles in Singapore will increase 20 percent to 30 per cent, the Singapore Noodles Manufacturers’ Association announced on Sunday. (AHN News)

Oct 30: ERP rates going up again for third time this year. Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) rates are going up again for the third time this year. There will also be new gantries erected. From November 5, motorists will pay $3.50 from 7:30am to 8:00am. The amount charged goes up to $5.00 between 8:30am and 9:00am. This is a $1.50 increase in the 8:30am to 9:00am period since February this year. (CNA)

Oct 30: 100 bakeries to raise bread prices by up to 20%. OVER 100 bakeries have indicated that they will be raising bread prices by up to 20 per cent, following a jump in flour prices. (Straits Times)

Nov 2: Expect steep hikes in tyre, wheel and battery prices. BESIDES record fuel prices and higher Electronic Road Pricing rates, motorists must prepare to pay more for batteries, tyres and wheels. The Singapore Motor Tyre Dealers Association is preparing to announce sizeable price hikes, with battery prices going up by as much as 50 to 70 per cent. Tyre prices will go up by 20 to 30 per cent, and wheels by 10 to 20 per cent, the association’s assistant secretary, Mr Robert Tng, told The Straits Times. (Straits Times)

Nov 5: A TRIP to the supermarket will cost more now than it did at the beginning of the year. A Straits Times check on a random basket of basic goods sold at supermarkets here revealed price increases in almost every category, from fresh chicken to coffee and milk formula. (Straits Times)

Nov 5: Prices for Singapore Petroleum Company Limited (SPC) motor gasoline across all three grades and diesel will be increased by seven cents per litre. (SPC)

Nov 8: Raffles Place retailers face space crunch, soaring rents. A recent study by property consultant Cushman & Wakefield found rent rises of up to 24 per cent over the past two years in the area. (Straits Times)

Nov 29: Pump prices increase by 5 cents. All four oil companies — Shell, Caltex, ExxonMobil and Singapore Petroleum Company (SPC) — have increased pump prices for petrol and diesel by five cents. In the past 11 months, the price of petrol has shot up nine times and twice just in this month alone. (CNA)

Nov 29: Second Link toll charges to go up next year. VEHICLES from Singapore crossing into Johor via the Second Link Expressway will have to pay higher tolls from Jan 1, the Malaysian government announced yesterday. Passenger cars using the Second Link route will have to pay RM10.80 (S$4.60) next year, compared with RM8.40 now. (Asia One)

Dec 9: Price of luncheon meat soar, from $1 to as high as $3. Prices of luncheon meat have been on the rise since August when the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) rejected and destroyed a consignment of canned pork products from two food processing plants in China. (New Paper)

Dec 10: ComfortDelgro raises taxi fares. Commuters will pay between 18 per cent and 49 per cent more for a taxi ride home from the city from 5pm to midnight. (Straits Times) (CNA)

Dec 11: SCHOOL bus fares will go up by at least $5 to $10 in January, sparked by the increase in diesel prices in recent months. (Straits Times)

Dec 14: Singapore’s second-largest taxi operator SMRT will be raising its fares from next Friday, December 21. The changes are in line with the adjustments made by market leader ComfortDelGro which will be increasing fares from December 17. (CNA)

Dec 14: Hike in POSB coins charge excessive. “IN THE past, whenever I made a deposit or withdrawal in coins, I paid $5 in service charge for every $500. Now, I have to pay $15 for every $500. So if I changed $1,000 into coins, I would lose $30.” (ST Forum Page)

Dec 14: Adjustment rate for housing loan changed unilaterally. “This unilateral change in adjustment rate is an increase in effective interest on the loan, and it is done without changing the loan interest rates. Is it fair for banks to offer adjustment rates as a ‘feature’ to woo customers but, six months into the loan, unilaterally reduce the benefits of the feature?” (ST Forum Page)

Dec 14: Hike in luggage surcharge wasn’t publicized. “When they were at the check-in counter, they were informed that the overweight charge was $20, not $8, and if they did not pay up they would not get their boarding passes. They had no choice but to pay.” (ST Forum Page)

Dec 20: Potong Pasir to raise S&C charges. THE opposition-held Potong Pasir ward is raising its service and conservancy (S&C) charges for the first time in a decade. Residents there will pay between $2.50 and $8 more a month, depending on the size of their HDB flat. (Straits Times)

Dec 20: Expect to pay more for food from next month. SINGAPOREANS should brace themselves for a sharp hike in food prices starting from New Year’s Day, which could affect anything from curry puffs to ice cream. (Asia One)

Dec 24: Singapore’s Nov consumer prices up 4.2% year-on-year. Singapore’s consumer prices rose faster-than-expected in November. The consumer price index - a non-core measure of costs for goods and services - rose 4.2 percent from a year earlier, after rising 3.6 percent in October. (CNA)

Dec 28: Electricity tariffs to go up. Highest since 2001. From next month (Jan 2008), electricity tariffs will go up nearly 6 per cent, to 22.62 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh). (Straits Times)

2007: HDB ups valuation and administrative fees for valuation report of flats. This is to include the new 7% GST. (link)

Quote:

Aug 24:

‘With rents rising, and some retailers not passing on the GST hike until later, we expect CPI inflation to continue to climb, probably close to 3 per cent towards year-end,’ said Citigroup economist Chua Hak Bin.

“Consumers Association of Singapore president Yeo Guat Kwang, who is also MP for Aljunied GRC, said if prices go up because of supply and demand conditions, that cannot be helped: ‘What we need to ensure is that price adjustments are fair.

‘So far, we haven’t seen a phenomenon of businesses profiteering from the GST rise,’ said Mr Yeo, who is the deputy chairman of the Committee Against GST Profiteering.

‘Most importantly, prices of basic necessities have remained stable.’

(Straits Times, Aug 24, 2007)

Other reports:

A relentless spiral by Littlespeck. (link)

CASE survey. (link)

Govt spells out fees to be frozen. (link) (link)

Jan 08: Motorists to face five new ERP gantries. MOTORISTS can expect to pay more over the next few months to use the roads when five new ERP gantries are up, many in the heart of residential areas. (Straits Times) (Straits Times)

Jan 14: Prices of CNY goodies to go up. BE PREPARED to spend 10 per cent to 20 per cent more on foodstuffs this Chinese New Year. (Straits Times)

Jan 15: Inflation in S’pore may hit 6.5% this month. CONSUMER prices in Singapore may surge a staggering 6.5 per cent this month, bringing full- year average inflation to an equally eye-popping 5 per cent, according to Citigroup. (Straits Times)

Jan 18: Lunar New Year dinner prices set to rise by at least 10 per cent. Prices for restaurant dinners are set to rise by at least 10 per cent. (CNA)

Jan 23: Prices of suckling pigs double due to supply shortage in China. The prices of suckling pigs have doubled recently due to a drop in supply from China, and a 5kg pig is going for as much as S$180. (CNA)

Jan 24: Singapore’s consumer price index (CPI) … rose 4.4 per cent last month from a year earlier, with transport contributing the most. (TODAY)

Jan 25: Resale HDB flat prices up 30% above valuation in Q4. BUYERS of resale Housing Board flats found themselves paying $22,000 above the valuation from October to December - a whopping 30 per cent increase more than the previous quarter. (Straits Times)

Jan 29: ERP rates to go up by S$0.50 at certain gantries from Feb 4. Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) rates are set to go up by S$0.50 starting 4 February, according to the Land Transport Authority. (CNA)

Jan 30: ERP rates, more gantries to go up - but road tax cut by 15%. Minister Lim said 16 new gantries will go on between April and November, bringing the total number in operation to 71. This is just the start. The base ERP rate will be upped from $1 to $2, with the increments in $1 instead of the current 50 cents. To make ERP more effective in a rising affluent community, these changes will be made gradually. (Straits Times)

Jan 30: MediShield premiums to go up for better cover. YEARLY premiums for basic MediShield insurance are set to increase - by about $120 for most people - to ensure that subsidised patients saddled with big hospital bills will get better payouts. (Straits Times)

Jan 30: Prime Taxis to raise fares from March. AFTER holding out for over a month, Singapore’s smallest cab operator, Prime Taxis, will raise its fares to come in line with other companies here. (Straits Times)

Jan 30: Prices for tickets for all Cathay cineplexes to go up on Jan 31. Expect to pay up to $10.50 on a weekend. (TODAY)

Feb 02: Prices of vegetables are up between 5 and 10 per cent because higher oil prices. YOUR shopping basket will be a little more expensive this year, no thanks to a rise in vegetable prices. (The New Paper)

Feb 4: Singapore inflation may exceed 5 percent this year - PM Lee. Inflation in the city-state could accelerate to 5 percent this year after rising 2.1 percent in 2007 given rising commodity prices worldwide, the Business Times newspaper quoted Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as saying. (Forbes)

Feb 04: Businesses say new ERP gantries may increase operating costs. The rise in Electronic Road Pricing and increase in the number of ERP gantries is worrying at least one business - the couriers. (CNA)

Feb 14: Varsities up tuition fees by 4% to 20%. TUITION fees at the three local universities will go up by between 4 per cent and 20 per cent for the new batch of undergraduates entering in August. (Straits Times)

Feb 26: INFLATION accelerated last month to a 26-year high of 6.6 per cent with housing, food and transport costs registering steep increases over the past year. (Straits Times)

Mar 3: Caltex increases petrol and diesel pump prices. The company increased all grades of petrol by 4 cents per litre at 11am on Monday. Its Regular 95 petrol is now priced at S$2.046 a litre, Regular 98 at S$2.12 and Premium 98 petrol is S$2.286 per litre before discount. (CNA)

March 10: Park in Orchard area? It’ll cost you even more. Parking fees have gone up at 18 out of 20 malls, in one case by 36 per cent. (Straits Times, AsiaOne)

March 12: Fishball prices increase 20% due to rising cost of raw ingredients. Retailers said the prices of fishballs have risen by 20 per cent since last July due to rising cost of raw ingredients. (CNA)

March 17: Price of Chinese herbs to increase by 10%-20%. The price of Chinese herbs is set to increase by 10-20 percent. (CNA)

March 18: Barely two weeks after an increase in pump prices … all four petrol companies raised prices yesterday. Petrol and diesel prices went up by four cents and five cents per litre respectively, with the exception of Shell’s V-Power, which went up by three cents, and Caltex Platinum Techron, which remained unchanged. Regular 98-octane petrol at all four petrol chains now costs $2.160 a litre, while diesel is $1.613 a litre, before discounts. (TODAY)

March 19: Cost of electricity to go up from April as oil prices rise. Electricity tariffs will go up by an average of 1.26 cents (S$0.0126) per kilowatt starting 1 April. (CNA)

March 25: Singapore’s CPI up 6.5 pct year-on-year in February. Singapore’s consumer price index (CPI) jumped 6.5 percent in February from a year earlier, after gaining a 25-year high of 6.6 percent in January. (Trading Markets)

March 25: Singapore inflation stays at 26-year high. Prices of meat and poultry, cooking oils and dairy products clocked double-digit gains, while rice, cereal and fruit cost almost 10 per cent more than they did last year. High oil prices also made themselves felt in electricity bills and at petrol pumps. Indeed, transport costs jumped 9.6 per cent, boosted also by higher taxi fares and car prices. (Straits Times)

March 25: Prices of coffee, milk, sugar rise. In the past six months, the price of a 40-sachet bag of Nescafe 3-in-1 Regular Coffeemix has risen by 14 to 19 per cent across most major supermarkets. It costs $5.20 at Cold Storage and NTUC FairPrice. Super 3-in-1 Coffeemix is up 5 to 9 per cent, and now costs $4.95 at Cold Storage and $4.80 at NTUC FairPrice. (Straits Times)

March 26: Price of paper up by as much as 40%. The price of paper around the world has gone up by as much as 40 percent over the past year. This has caused the price of recycled paper to increase by 100 percent. (CNA)

March 28: NETS revises pricing for NETS CashCard. Consumers are going to have pay more for their NETS CashCard come May, as it will include the cost of the CashCard as well. (CNA)

March 29: Prices of rice rise. FairPrice raises price of its house brand varieties after Thai rice jumps 30% overnight. A 5kg bag of FairPrice Thai White Fragrant Rice now costs $5.30, up from $4.70, and a 10kg bag of Double FairPrice Thai Hom Mali Rice now goes for $17.90, up from $16.25. (Straits Times)

April 5: FairPrice ups price for one premium rice brand. SINGAPORE‘S biggest supermarket chain, NTUC FairPrice, on Friday hiked the price of one of its in-house brands of premium rice. The rise is NTUC’s second in as many weeks: It hiked prices of three other in-house brands of rice by between 60 cents and $1.65 last week. (Straits Times)

April 23: Pump prices up across all brands. THE OTHER oil companies have all followed Caltex’s move to raise pump prices here. ExxonMobil, Singapore Petroleum Co and Shell on Wednesday upped petrol prices by three cents a litre and diesel by five cents. The latest pump price adjustment is the 10th consecutive increase since July last year - 11th if the GST-triggered increase on July 1, 2007 were to be included. (Straits Times)

April 25: Sharp hike in kindergarten fees. SOME 1,500 students attending the seven PAP Community Foundation (PCF) kindergartens in Woodlands will see their fees shoot up by 30 to 100 per cent. (TODAY, April 25.)

May 3: Rice and cooking oil lead price rise. Yes, the price of rice is going up. But so too are the prices of cooking oil and other items such as instant noodles. (Straits Times)

May 3: SIZZLING HOT: Cooking oil prices on the boil. In the last two months, retail prices have jumped between 9per cent and 56 per cent, depending on the brand.. (Straits Times)

May 9: Expect to pay higher electricity bills. Soaring crude oil prices drove the benchmark market price of electricity to a record last month, and there is not much relief in sight. (Straits Times)

May 16: Caltex pump prices up. Prices at Caltex were increased as of 10.00am today. Prices of Silver, Gold and Platinum petrol grades went by $0.02 to $2.136, $2.210 and $2.336 respectively. (AsiaOne) (TODAY)

May 19: Food operators to charge more for home deliveries. A Straits Times check with 25 food-delivery services found that more than half have increased their menu prices by at least a dollar in the last few months. Five have also upped their delivery fees, while three have increased their minimum order amount. (AsiaOne)

May 23: Singapore inflation rate hits new 26-year high of 7.5% in April. Singapore’s annual inflation rate rose to a new 26-year high of 7.5 percent in April as food, housing and transportation costs soared and is now a risk to the economy, the government said on Friday. (CNA)

May 24: Pump prices up for second time in a week. The latest jump - the 12th consecutive increase since last July - was sparked when oil giant Shell upped petrol prices by five cents a litre and diesel by seven cents at 5pm on Thursday. (Straits Times)

June 5: Poultry prices to rise due to higher transportation costs. The cost of every kilogramme of duck to go up by five cents. The price of chicken products is also expected to increase. (CNA)

June 7: Singapore consumers to feel knock-on effects. THE fuel price hike in Malaysia is going to bite Singaporeans soon, and hard. Prices of a range of goods are set to go up as the cost of trucking them in rises, and fresh food tops the list. (Straits Times)

June 7: Singapore’s poor turn to temples to fill bellies. Many Singaporeans increasingly turning to free meals at temples to fill their stomachs, as surging global commodity prices hurt, even in a country that is one of the richest in Asia. (Reuters)

June 7: Coach fares to Malaysia up. The Express Bus Agencies Association (EBAA), which accounts for six in 10 buses heading across the Singapore border, has raised its fuel and insurance surcharges from a previous flat fee of $3, to between $5 and $16 — that’s up to five times more — depending on your destination. (TODAY)

June 11: Up prices of eggs and some vegetables. The prices of eggs and some vegetables have jumped at wet markets across the island, according to a Straits Times check. This comes barely a week after Malaysia - Singapore’s biggest food supplier - trimmed domestic fuel subsidies. (Straits Times)

June 18: ERP rates in CBD to go up, 5 new gantries added. About half of existing ERP gantries islandwide will see their rates increase from July 7. (CNA) (Straits Times)

June 19: Housebrand rice prices up. The Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) has found that prices for housebrands rose between 14 and58 per cent last month. The most dramatic jump was for Cold Storage’s First Choice Thai Fragrant Rice: :From between $8.75 and $9.10 for a 5kg-pack, to $13.80. (TODAY)

June 25: Pump prices up for 13th time since last July. PUMP prices have risen again, with petrol going up by five cents a litre and diesel, 10 cents.This latest increase, the 13th consecutive rise since last July, started when oil giant Shell raised rates at 4pm yesterday. By evening, Caltex and ExxonMobil had followed suit.(Straits Times) (TODAY)

June 25: Electricity tariffs to rise 4.98% from next quarter. Electricity tariffs will go up by 4.98 per cent or by 1.19 cents per kilo watt per hour (kWh) for all households from the next quarter, beginning July 1. (CNA)

June 28: Premium bus fares to go up. PREMIUM bus fares will soon go up, as operators here feel the pinch from higher fuel prices. SBS Transit, which runs more than half of such services, will raise fares by 30 to 60 cents, up to a maximum of $3.60 per trip. The fare hike will affect all of its 40 premium services. (Straits Times)

July 2: Private bus operators up prices over diesel price hikes. FACED with skyrocketing diesel prices, private bus operators are charging more to transport workers and rent out coaches. Ten bus companies contacted by The Straits Times said they have raised prices by at least 10 per cent in the last few months due to rising rising diesel prices, which have almost doubled in the last year. (Straits Times)

July 6: 5 S’pore River ERP gantries kick in on Monday. The new gantries, which will bring the total number of gantries in Singapore to 65, will charge $2 from 6pm to 7.30pm and $1 from 7.30pm to 8pm. (Straits Times)

July 7: Expect to see more of these gantries in coming months. New KPE will have 16, taking grand total from 60 to more than 80. When it opens fully on Sept 20, it will have the most ERP gantries among all roads here. New KPE will have 16, taking grand total from 60 to more than 80 (Straits Times)

July 12: 30-cent fuel levy for cab rides from Thursday. MOST cab rides will cost 30 cents more from next Thursday, after Singapore’s largest taxi operator ComfortDelGro yesterday announced its decision to levy a fuel surcharge on all trips. (Straits Times)

July 14: School bus fares going up on Aug 1. SCHOOL bus operators, bitten by skyrocketing diesel prices, could soon start charging parents $10 to $15 more a month to ferry schoolchildren. (Straits Times)

July 19: SMRT Taxis to levy 30 cents fuel surcharge. SMRT Taxis will levy a fuel surcharge of 30 cents per trip for all taxi trips from July 26. The fuel surcharge will apply to all flag down trips, as well as call centre and advanced bookings, SMRT said in a press release on Saturday. SMRT’s move came after ComfortDelGro implemented the surcharge on Thursday. (Straits Times)

July 22: High power bills: Record number of cases probed. A RECORD number of complaints about overcharging for electricity were investigated by Singapore Power last month. SP Services, the power company’s customer service arm, said it looked into 1,093 cases where customers had complained that their bills for May were higher than in previous months. (Straits Times)

July 23: S’pore June inflation rises 7.5% on higher food, housing costs. Singapore’s consumer inflation stood at a 26-year high in June, rising 7.5 per cent compared with a year ago, according to latest figures from the Department of Statistics. (CNA)

July 24: Singapore ranked fifth most expensive city in Asia. Singapore is now the fifth most expensive city in Asia, according to Mercer Worldwide Cost of Living Survey. In world standings, Singapore is in 13th position, one notch higher than in 2007. (CNA)

July 30: Heartland shoppers hit hardest by Nets fee hike. SOME mom-and-pop stores in the heartland are passing on an increase in Nets fees to consumers, despite being barred from doing so. (Straits Times)

25 August: CPI for households up 7.1% in first six months. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for households increased by 7.1 per cent in the first half of 2008 compared with the same period last year. (CNA)

Aug 29: More unable to pay electricity bills. 35% of families with power bill woes stay in larger 4- or 5-room flats. As of June this year, about 13,700 households have been put on a pre-paid metering scheme after they had their power supply cut off or were in danger of having the supply disconnected. (Straits Times)

August 30: SINGAPORE‘S public hospitals have raised ward charges in the last two months. The increases at Alexandra Hospital (AH), Changi General Hospital, KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and SGH took effect at the beginning of July. Tan Tock Seng Hospital and the National University Hospital (NUH) raised their fees this month. (Straits Times).

Alternative Olympics Ranking

2008-08-22T21:43:00.012+01:00

The official Olympics medals table is based on the number of gold medals and it puts China top and Great Britain third. But what happens if other factors are taken into account?

The official ranking system is based on the number of gold medals, with the number of silver and bronze medals only counting when two countries have the same number of golds. This system counts against countries like France which, as of 1000 BST on Friday morning, had enjoyed 32 podium finishes but only a handful of wins. Maybe with this in mind, and half an eye on China, media in the US have been publishing a table of total medals won, regardless of colour, and that puts the US top.

Here are five alternative ways to interpret how countries rank, taking into account gold, silver and bronze, population size, gross domestic product and size of the Olympic team. The medal tallies were counted at 1000 BST on Friday.

TOTAL MEDALS WON
RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	United States	100
2	China	83
3	Russia	53
=4	Australia	41
=4	Great Britain	41
=6	France	33
=6	Germany	33
8	South Korea	26
=9	Japan	24
=9	Italy	24

POINTS SCORED (3 FOR GOLD, 2 FOR SILVER, 1 FOR BRONZE)
RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	China	212
2	United States	190
3	Russia	101
4	Great Britain	89
5	Australia	77
6	Germany	67
=7	France	56
=7	South Korea	56
9	Japan	48
10	Italy	45

POPULATION PER MEDAL
RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	Bahamas	307,451
2	Jamaica	311,592
3	Slovenia	401,542
4	New Zealand	463,717
5	Australia	502,459
6	Armenia	593,717
7	Belarus	645,717
8	Estonia	653,803
9	Norway	663,499
10	Lithuania	713,041

GDP – US$B PER MEDAL
RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	Bahamas	307,451
2	Jamaica	311,592
3	Slovenia	401,542
4	New Zealand	463,717
5	Australia	502,459
6	Armenia	593,717
7	Belarus	645,717
8	Estonia	653,803
9	Norway	663,499
10	Lithuania	713,041

NO. OF ATHLETES AT GAMES PER MEDAL WON
RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	Bahamas	307,451
2	Jamaica	311,592
3	Slovenia	401,542
4	New Zealand	463,717
5	Australia	502,459
6	Armenia	593,717
7	Belarus	645,717
8	Estonia	653,803
9	Norway	663,499
10	Lithuania	713,041

Singapore still does not make to the top 10 on this alternative tables!

Apathy has overtaken Kiasu as a Singaporean Characteristics

2007-07-02T02:04:00.000+01:00

Singaporeans are a tolerant lot. They have taken a lot of punishment without complaint. This year alone, Lee Kuan Yew, the dictator of Singapore, announced that he is not satisfied that he is already paid 3 times what the President of United States gets. No matter what the people say, he must have more. This time he has decided to increase his salary to US$3 million dollars a year. As you know, this is about 3 or 4 times the salary of the United States President and more than the combined salaries of the UK, French and German heads of state! Not to forget his Ministers, they too will take US$2 million a year from now on. He says that he is not bothered about what the people think of this, unashamed theft of his people's money. He is, he says, the boss. He will do what he wants and take what he wants. End of chapter.

All Lee's laws are oppressive. The law of Singapore, as ordered by Lee Kuan Yew, states that an gathering of more than 5 people in public requires a permit. Otherwise they are illegal and shall face prosecution and jail. But the problem is that even if you did apply for a permit, say to protest this thieving by Lee Kuan Yew and his friends of the millions of dollars of people's money, you will not get one. So in the end, the people are left with no means to question the government.

The people are prevented from publicly complaining about the injustices they suffer. The government insists that to make a speech in public, one needs a permit. But the Catch 22 appears again, that is, if you applied for a permit to publicly criticize the government, it will be denied. And if you did speak anyway, you face prosecution and imprisonment.

Letters of protest and criticism by the people to the press is routinely ignored because the press in Singapore are completely state owned and controlled. Lee and his government are not interested in the people's views and opinions. As far as Lee and his government are concerned, the Singapore population is nothing more than a nuisance, to be just ignored.

The young in Singapore almost entirely hate the government. They detest having to do national service for a country for which they have no loyalty. They want to emigrate overseas. But if they did, their parents face arrest and prosecution for their sons failure to do national service. Their parents too detest the government. But there is nothing they can do. There is no means for them to legitimately compel the government to listen to them. If they write letters to the government or the press, they are merely ignored. Lee Kuan Yew does whatever he wants. Life is becoming intolerable for the people under this dictatorship.

About 30 years ago, when the government introduced the Central Provident Fund savings system, the government promised the people that they could withdraw their savings at the age of 55 for their retirement. Over the years, the government has raised the retirement age and today it stands at 62. The workers under the new system are only given a small sum each month instead of their being able to withdraw the whole amount. In the case of workers who do not have much in the CPF account, the money that the government pays them in instalments is insufficient to survive on. They have to either continue working at their advanced age or they have to live in poverty. The government does not care about them at all.

The government restricts the information that people can receive. The Singapore newspaper, the Straits Times is state controlled. So are all the other newspapers and other news media. All state controlled. People are forced to read and listen to propaganda. Foreign newspapers which truly report the news such as the Far Easter Economic Review are banned.

The government does whatever they want with public funds. These funds belong to the people as they comprise tax funds and workers CPF retirement savings. With no consultation with the people whatsoever and not even disclosing their actions, the government does whatever they want with the funds. Moreover Lee Kuan Yew and his Ministers steal this money by paying themselves millions of dollars, in what they call salary, but which the people call theft. The people are left with no means of protesting thisinjustice. If they did publicly protest without a government permit, which they cannot obtain, they will be arrested and imprisoned.

If the people had complaints, they cannot seek help through their elected representatives. The 2 opposition elected representatives have become totally ineffective through fear. Fear that if they really took measures to air their people's grievances, they themselves might be arrested and imprisoned. Therefore, the 2 elected opposition Members of Parliament merely make speeches, which the government in turn ignores. The Non Constituency MP makes speeches in Parliament and occasionally goes around the island giving lectures on the Penal Code. She is a Law Professor. And Lee Kuan Yew and his bullies just ignores all that the opposition does in Parliamentary speeches and law lectures. At the end of the day, the people's lives have not changed one bit. They have no choice but to continue to bear the hard life that Lee
demands of them.

In every aspect of life, Singaporeans are being treated no better than "digits" as Lee Kuan Yew once called Singaporeans, to be pushed around any which way he wants. The question is, how much more will Singaporeans have to bear before they realize that they must protest, regardless of the consequences.

CSI for Chemists

2007-05-15T05:43:00.000+01:00

An Overview of Carbon Capture

2007-05-04T16:27:00.000+01:00

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been receiving an unprecedented amount of media and scientific attention since the publication of The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in 2006. The global energy supply is characterised today by structural weakness and geopolitical, social and environmental shortcomings, particularly as regards security of supply and climate change. Energy is the major determinant of economic growth and deficiencies in the energy supply can have a direct impact on growth, stability and the well-being of every citizen. With that in mind, it is imperative that fossil fuel will continue to be used for the foreseeable future. Power plants have to be equipped with CCS facilities in order to mitigate climate change while providing energy to power the economy.

Figure 1: Industrial Carbon Capture Strategies

Carbon in CCS refers to Carbon Dioxide. Industrial Carbon Capture Strategies are divided into 4 categories: Industrial Separation, Post-Combustion, Pre-Combustion and Oxyfuel Combustion. These strategies assume zero sulphur content as desulphurisation is employed in processing coal, gas and biomass prior to utilising them as fuel. It is crucial that the captured carbon dioxide is free of moisture and oxides of sulphur and nitrogen. This is to minimise corrosion of the pipelines that will transport the carbon dioxide to geological storage.

Carbon Dioxide has been captured in industrial processes for many years. Most of the Carbon Dioxide captured, however, is vented to the atmosphere because there is no incentive or requirement to store it. Current examples of Carbon Dioxide Capture in industrial processes include sweetening of natural gas and the production of synthesis gas for the manufacture of ammonia, alcohol and synthetic liquid fuels. Chemisorption of Carbon Dioxide via a base (e.g Monoethanolamine) is usually employed.

Carbon Capture from flue gases produced by combustion of fossil fuels and biomass in air is referred as post-combustion capture. Instead of being discharged directly into the atmosphere, the flue gas is passed into a chemical separation system in which most of the carbon dioxide is captured. The remainder flue gas is then discharged to the environment.

Pre-combustion capture of Carbon Dioxide involves gasification, in which the fossil fuel reacts with air and steam to produce Synthesis Gas (a mixture of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen Gas). The carbon monoxide in Synthesis Gas then reacts with steam in a Shift Converter to produce Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen. Pre-combustion systems produce a hydrogen-rich fuel is then used to generate electricity via combustion or fuel cell. An example of pre-combustion Carbon-Capture Energy Generation System would be the ZECA Process.

Oxyfuel Combustion employs using near pure oxygen to burn fossil fuels or biomass instead of air. This results in a very hot flue gas rich in carbon dioxide and water. To moderate temperature, some of the flue gas is recycled into the reactor. Oxygen is usually produced by low temperature (cryogenic) air separation and novel techniques to supply oxygen to the fuel, such as membranes and chemical looping cycles are being developed.

CARBON CAPTURE TECHNOLOGIES

A recommended methodology employed in selecting what carbon capture technology to use would be the Environmental Assessment and Appraisal of Best Available Technology (BAT), stipulated in the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive of the European Commission. On top of assessing the environmental impacts of the different technologies, key criteria such as the concentration of Carbon Dioxide, the pressure of the gas stream and type of fuel used have to be taken in account too.

Figure 2: (a) CO2 post-combustion capture at a plant in Malaysia. This plant employs a chemical absorption process to separate 0.2 MtCO2 per year from the flue gas stream of a gas-fired power plant for urea production (Courtesy of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries). (b) CO2 pre- combustion capture at a coal gasification plant in North Dakota, USA. This plant employs a physical solvent process to separate 3.3 MtCO2 per year from a gas stream to produce synthetic natural gas. Part of the captured CO2 is used for an Enhanced Oil Recovery project in Canada.

Carbon Capture Systems consumes energy. This means power plants with CCS have to produce additional energy for capturing Carbon Dioxide, as a result the cost of electricity generated for sale increases. The increment in cost of electricity is tabulated in Figure 3. It is clear that the cost of electricity increases by approximately 33% due to CCS. Therefore, it is essential that CCS systems should energy efficient and not energy intensive in order to reduce the cost of electricity and to alleviate fuel poverty. Although no carbon capture system is required for oxyfuel combustion, obtaining near pure oxygen for fuel combustion is energy intensive. Currently, cryogenic separation of air is used to obtain oxygen for oxyfuel combustion. The flue gas from oxyfuel combustion is rich in Carbon Dioxide and moisture. Moisture has to be removed from the flue gas before transporting.

Figure 3: Comparing Cost of Electricity ($/kWh)

The most common form of carbon capture technology is the sorbent/solvent system. Carbon capture is achieved by contacting the flue gas with a liquid absorbent or solid sorbent that is capable of capturing carbon dioxide. Monoethanolamine is commonly employed as the liquid absorbent. Lime (CaO) is a substance that can potentially act as a solid sorbent. In the general scheme, the sorbent loaded with the carbon dioxide is transported to another vessel whereby the Carbon Dioxide is released (either via heating or pressure changes). In this way, the sorbent is regenerated and can be transported back where it is contacted with the incoming flue gas to absorb Carbon Dioxide. This approached is adopted in industrial processes, post-combustion capture.

Figure 4: Carbon Capture via Chemisorption of CO2 using Monoethanolamine (MEA). CO2 is released by heating rich MEA, thus regenerating the lean MEA solution. HX refers to heat exchanger, which transfers heat from the lean MEA solution leaving the stripper to the rich MEA solution leaving the Absorber.

The challenge with this technology is ensuring high carbon capture rate and reducing energy intensity. In Figure 4, heating the rich MEA solution in the Stripper regenerates lean MEA. This is energy intensive, given the volume of MEA in the system. The MEA solution must be sufficiently lean to maximise Carbon Capture. Moreover, the carbon capture rate can be maximised by maximising the contact area between the sorbent and the flue gas in the Absorber or increasing the residence time of MEA in the Absorber. An approach in maximising the contact area is to use Bubble Pack Column instead of a traditional stage column. Heat integration is key in reducing the overall energy intensity of this Carbon Capture technology.

Membranes are specially manufactured materials that allow selective permeation of a gas through them. The selectivity of the membrane to different gases is intimately related to the nature of the material, but the flow of the gas is usually driven by the pressure difference across the membrane. High pressure streams are usually preferred for membrane application. There are many types of membrane materials, such as polymers, metals and ceramics. Although membrane separations finds many current commercial applications in industry, such as the sweetening of natural gas, they have not yet been applied for large scale and demanding conditions in terms of reliability and low cost required for Carbon Capture. However, membrane separation is the preferential process for extracting hydrogen from a fuel gas stream. Membranes have been used in isotope separation, with specific application in uranium enrichment. It is only in recent years that membranes have found use outside the nuclear industry.

Figure 5: Membrane Separation Schematics

Pre-combustion capture of Carbon Dioxide is a relatively new concept. It is based on the steam reforming of light hydrocarbons, otherwise known as Gasification. Gasification is the conversion of a carbon-containing solid or liquid substance into a gas in which the major components are Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen. This gas is known as Synthesis Gas. Synthesis Gas can either be used as a fuel or a chemical feedstock which products such as Ammonia and Methanol are made from. The defining chemical characteristic of gasification is that it entails the partial oxidation of the feed material. In combustion, the feed is fully oxidised, whereas in pyrolysis, the feed undergoes degradation in the absence of oxygen.

Figure 6: IGCC Power Plant

The oxidants for gasification are oxygen, air and steam. Steam also acts as a temperature moderator as the reaction of steam with carbon is endothermic. The choice of air or pure oxygen depends on a number of factors, such as the reactivity of the feed material, the purpose for which the gas is used and the type of gasifier. For example, the Shell Middle Distillate Synthesis uses air to partially oxidise Natural Gas to produce Synthesis Gas for the manufacture of Synthetic Diesel. In the ZECA Process, steam and hydrogen are used to gasify coal to create more hydrogen gas for power generation in a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cell. Currently, IGCC power plants uses Gasification to generate power from coal, heavy oil residue and waste wood.

The ZECA Process is one of the upcoming power generation technologies of the future. Its baseline efficiency is 68.9%. For a 600MW plant, the total plant cost is $1518/kW. 4090 tons of Carbon Dioxide would be sequestrated per year pear MW. The cost of electricity is $0.0432/kWh without Carbon Sequestration and $0.054/kWh with Carbon Sequestration. The ZECA Process is characterised by the following chemical equations:

C (s) + 2H₂ (g) -> CH₄ (g) + Heat
CH₄ (g) + 2H₂O (g) + CaO (s) -> CaCO₃ (s) + 4H₂ (g)
2H₂ (g) + O₂ (g) -> 2H₂O (g) + heat + electricity
CaCO₃ (s) + Heat -> CaO (s) + CO₂ (g)

Figure 7: ZECA Process

Coal is first gasified in the Gasification Reactor using Hydrogen Gas. Light hydrocarbons in the matrix of coal is also released in the Gasification Reactor. The light hydrocarbon and the synthetic methane is then passed into the Carbonation Reactor. They react with steam in to produce Carbon Dioxide which is absorbed by Calcium Oxide (Lime). Calcium oxide is converted to Calcium Carbonate. Calcium Oxide is regenerated using the waste heat from the fuel cell. Hydrogen gas is generated in the Carbonation Reactor. For every mole of Carbon gasified, 2 moles of hydrogen gas are consumed and 4 moles of hydrogen gas are generated is the Carbonation Reactor. There is a net gain of 2 moles of hydrogen gas per mole of Carbon consumed. Carbon Dioxide is captured before the oxidation (or “combustion”) process.

REFERENCE

IPCC Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage 2005
Parametric Studies of Carbon Dioxide Absorption into Highly Concentrated Monoethanolamine Solutions, deMontigny, D., Tontiwachwuthikul P. and Chakma, A., Can. J. Chem. Eng 79, 137 – 142, 2001
Absorption of Carbon Dioxide at High Partial Pressures in 1-Amino-2-propanol Aqueous Solution. Considerations of Thermal Effects, Fernando Camacho, Sebastian Sanchez, and Rafael Pacheco, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 1997, 36, 4358-4364
Compact Low Energy Carbon Dioxide Management Using Amine Solution in a Packed Bubble Column, Susan Krumdiecka, Jamie Wallace, Owen Curnow, Chemical Engineering Journal 2007
Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide Production Concepts, APR 2004, ZECA Corporation / Nexant Inc
Technology Status Report: Gasification of Solid and Liquid Fuels for Power Generation, DEC 1998, Department of Trade and Industry, Her Majesty’s Government (UK)
Gas To Liquid: Shell Middle Distillate Synthesis, Shell Global Solutions

The Importance of Being Elite

2007-04-28T16:34:00.001+01:00

LOL

RWE N Power Energy Challenge

2007-04-18T11:24:00.000+01:00

It was the RWE N Power Energy Challenge Regional Heats yesterday. There were 8 teams in total, in which 3 came from Imperial College. We all had very different ideas on how to tackle the UK Energy Challenge. As chemical engineers, our perspective was on how to reduce the cost of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) because CCS is not only mandatory for new coal and gas power stations, but also it increases the cost of electricity production by a third.

It is clear the UK will have to plug its impending energy gap with new coal and gas power stations but how would power stations pay for the increased cost of electricity production? It was the intention of my group to present a solution that can solve this dilemma. We first define the UK Energy Challenge according to the DTI Energy White Paper 2003 "Our Energy Future - Creating a Low Carbon Economy".

Next, we highlight that CCS is a mandatory component of all coal and gas power stations in the future. Using a 1200MW Coal Power Station as a basis, we estimated that the cost would be $3.9B using values from the IPCC Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage 2005. The rationale for including CCS is to extend the life of the oil fields on the UK Continental Shelf in the North Sea. Injecting Carbon Dioxide has been proven to increase the recoverable reserves from 40% to 45%, which is equivalent to $60B annually. This is known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).

The aim of showing the historical prices of carbon dioxide emission credits is to emphasise that carbon trading alone is not sufficient to offset the cost associated with CCS. In fact, carbon trading is only sufficient to offset 15.7% of the total CCS cost.

In fact, it is the perspective of my group that CCS itself is the barrier to plug the UK impending energy gap and we aim to overcome CCS. In this way, we not only can combat climate change, but also ensure the energy security of the UK.

This is our simple solution. However, designing the plant is not a simple task.

This is a pictorial representation of our solution to overcome the CCS barrier. We intend to offset the cost associated with CCS by 2 mechanisms - the sale of synthetic crude and savings generation due to the fact that less carbon dioxide is needed for cleaning before transporting it to the North Sea for EOR. A 1200MW Coal Power Station generates 4.9M ton of Carbon Dioxide annually. My proposed plant will consume 2.8M tons of carbon dioxide annually, so the coal power station only needs to rid sulphur and nitrogen in the remainder 2.1M ton of carbon dioxide before transporting it to the North Sea.

Here is a description of our Synthetic Fuel Plant. All heating power and electricity is derived from the 420MW (Nuclear) Advanced Gas Reactor.

Although the production of synthetic crude is small, it is able to offset the CCS cost by 92.2%. I must emphasise that the strategic aim of manufacturing synthetic crude from carbon dioxide is to make CCS more affordable. Moreover, the fact that this plant processes 2.8M ton of carbon dioxide annually means it effectively reduces the carbon dioxide emission in the transport sector by 2.8M tons - 70% of the 2020 Reduction Target set for Transport by the UK Government.

This is a substantial improvement from 15.7% Offset (using Carbon Dioxide Emission Credits Alone) to 92.2% (using our approach of combining carbon dioxide recycling with Emission Trading).

I must admit the cost of synthetic crude production is high. It cost about $7-10/bbl for a rich oil field, and $12-16/bbl for a depleting oil field.

Our solution to overcoming the cost of CCS does have elements of technical innovation. AGR is 41% thermal efficient for electricity generation. The remainder energy is dissipated as waste heat. However, if we use the AGR as a source of heat to drive chemical reactions, then the thermal efficiency of the AGR would improve to 60-75% efficiency - typical efficiencies of an industrial heat exchanger. This is the key in increasing economic viability of nuclear technology today. If the UK public continue to persist in their anti-nuclear antics, the UK faces a potential strategic loss - the continued decommsion of nuclear power plants without construction of new nuclear power plants would mean the UK would loose an emminent skill base for nuclear technology in the future.

The Chemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Carbon Monoxide can be carried out with Cu catalyst supported by Alumium(III) Oxide. This reaction employs hydrogen as the reducing agent. It is carried out at 600 degree celcius, 50 bars. At this condition, an overall 70% conversion can be achieved with recycle. Without catalyst, this reaction can be carried out at temperature at 1000 degree celcius, 1.013 bar. However, the conversion would be very small.

Both Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis and Direct Methanol Synthesis are well-established technologies today. The Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis is the backbone of many Gas-To-Liquid (GTL) and Coal-To-Liquid (CTL) technologies today. GTL and CTL processes are employed by major oil companies such as Shell, BP, Conocophillips to convert Natural Gas and Coal into gasoline and diesel. Direct Methanol Synthesis is the backbone of the Methanol Industry. The feedstock of Direct Methanol Synthesis is Syngas, which is principally manufactured through steam reforming of Natural Gas.

The flowsheet above demonstrates how synthetic crude is manufactured. Our plant is capable of producing methanol as well. This is to highlight the process flexibility of our plant, given that Syngas (a mixture of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen) can be manufactured into any hydrocarbons. In case that crude becomes obselette in the future, our process is capable of producing alternative valuable products which can aid in offsetting the cost of CCS. In fact, there is ongoing academic research for direct synthesis of gasoline from syngas. I must also stress that hydrogen is manufactured on-site from water.

We believe methanol would be the transport fuel of the future. Why put our faith in methanol? We believe Methanol would be the liquid fuel of the future, replacing Gasoline in time to come. Methanol is a liquid fuel, unlike hydrogen, so there would be ease of transport and storage. In terms of energy density, methanol is 4.6kWh/L unlike hydrogen at 0.405kWh/L. Although the energy density of gasoline (9.7kWh/L) is twice of that of methanol. methanol can be manufactured from a variety of sources with relative ease, unlike gasoline. Moreover, methanol has a higher octane rating (105) than Gasoline. This means improved performance in a methanol-fueld Internal Combustion Engine. Moreover, methanol fuel cells in existence today are at least 60% efficient, running at near ambient temperature (60 degree celcius). Moreover, there is good carbon atom Economy for Methanol Synthesis and less energy intensive than the Direct Synthesis of Ethanol. Methanol can also be dehydrated to Dimethyl Ether which can run in Compression Ignition Engines.

Of course, there would always be limitations with technology. I cannot deny that high crude prices make our process economically viable. As in any fuel manufacture process, it is always energy intensive. The amount of fuel produced is always limited by the capacity of the energy source available.

What do you think of my presentation? Essentially, this is the long-term solution in making CCS a commercial reality without transferring the increment in cost of electricity production to the consumers.

THE END

A Day at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London

2007-03-09T01:38:00.000Z

Imperial College is among the top 10 universities in the world.

Does that mean life at the Department of Chemical Engineering is just all work and no play?

Meet the academic staff of the Department of Chemical Engineering:
Professor Paul Luckham and Dr Frantisek Stepanek putting up a tough fight - sumo wrestling!

The popular champion: Dr Omar K. Mater

Some Chemical Engineers are babes too

Not forgetting the uniquely Imperial-flavoured Miss(s) Centrefold

Aren't all of them lovely?

Meet the Pilot Plant Boys - Our Own Boy Band!

Of Course I am there as well.. LOL..

A Sweet Turn of Event for Temesak Holdings

2007-01-25T22:44:00.000Z

Thai sale of mobile firm to Singapore 'a mistake'
- Jim Pollard, Bangkok
- January 24, 2007

THE sale of Thailand's national satellite and mobile phone company to Singapore was a tragic mistake that had compromised the Thai military because Singapore would abuse their access to the communications infrastructure, a top Australian defence analyst said yesterday. Des Ball, from the Australian National University, said Thailand's new Military Government should shoot down the sale of the national satellite to Singapore and not trust the city-state when it comes to defence communications.

Professor Ball said the sale of the ShinSat satellite to Singaporean state investment firm Temasek Holdings - part of a highly controversial deal negotiated last year by deposed Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - was a tragedy for the Thai military that could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.

Professor Ball said Bangkok should launch a new satellite to ensure the Thai military's signals could not be intercepted.

"It's not in Thailand's interests to allow Singapore control of such a critically important communications system, through the satellite and mobile phone company," he said.

The sale had "given Singapore direct access to the Royal Thai Army's satellite communications". He added: "They are going to have to have their own independent system, otherwise they hand their military and very sensitive (data) traffic to Singapore on a plate.

Figure1: Thai Dictator Club Ousting Ex-PM Thaksin

"It's a tragedy they've handed that away with the Shin deal and will now have to redesign their own system. If they could get out of this, there are national security reasons why they should ... Launching a new satellite could cost $US250 million ($316million)."

Professor Ball said Australia went through a similar debate five years ago when Singtel purchased the Optus mobile phone company. He was one of a series of analysts who publicly opposed the takeover.

The federal Government eventually allowed the sale to go through, partly to ensure continued close co-operation with the island state, but Australia had to spend a huge sum on fibre-optic cables between its defence bases to ensure its military communications were secure.

Part of the problem, Professor Ball said, was "Singapore has a track record of taking advantage of information for commercial and political purposes".

Singapore had "listened to and photographed Australian military facilities", which had created diplomatic rifts with Canberra, he said.

"They have a history of abusing their access to training in other facilities abroad. That is not what friends are supposed to do - they abused their friendship," Professor Ball said.

Donald's Opinion

Temesak, as usual, reflected its ingenuiety in this case. Previously, the illegal Thai military government opposed the sale of Shin Corp to Temesak Holdings by claiming that the sale has contradicted protectionist policy and laws and therefore illegal. However, on what grounds do the current Thai military government claim its legitimacy to rule or even recognise it as a government of soverign state, thus it should have the right to impose a rule of law? It was after all set up by a military coup.

The fact that it is now public knowledge the Government of Singapore, through Temesak Holdings, owns the Thai Military Satellite only shows the lack of foresight among key members in the current Thai Military Government. Moreover, this sale was not illegal, which is demonstrated by the willingness of the Thai's court to let it proceed. It is obviously that now Temesak Holdings has gained an upperhand advantage in negotiating with the illegal Thai government.

Hydrogen gets the boot!

2006-08-27T10:34:00.000+01:00

Physicists recently booted Pluto from the planetary list in our Solar System.

Chemists, in order to be not out done by the physicist counterparts, too booted something.

A Research Fable..

2006-08-09T17:34:00.000+01:00

In the jungle of research, a small white rabbit stumbles upon a wolf.

“What’s a bunny doing here? ” says the famishus famishus wolf.
“I am doing an important piece of research work for my thesis, ” says the rabbit.
“And what is that?”
“It’s all about the superiority of rabbits on wolves.”
“Hin hin.”
“Dont you believe me? Come in my place.”

And no one ever heard about the wolf anymore.

Sometimes after that the rabbit meets a Tiger in the jungle of research. Asked what he is doing in such a perilous place, the rabbit says: “A thesis work on the superiority of rabbits on tigers. And if you don’t believe me, come to my place.”

And no one ever heard about the Tiger anymore.

And then just before his sabbatical year, the rabbit met with a fox in the jungle. He invites the fox, who do not believe in the superiority of rabbits on foxes, to come to his place. And inside the rabbit’s home, the fox sees a small amount of wolf bones, and next to them a not so small mount of tiger’s bones. And next to them, there is a table. Behind it, in an armchair, there is a lion. On the desk a small sign says “Director of Research.”

Moral of the Story:
it does not matter what the subject of your thesis is, it’s what power you boss really has.

My Roadtrip from England to Wales (03 - 07 JUL 2006)

2006-07-08T16:59:00.000+01:00

BATH, ENGLAND


Our Driver Emily and our car Ford Zeota Estate		I'm taking a piss in Bath City Centre


Roman-inspired Victorian architecture is very pronounced in Bath		City Square - where Goth meets Neo-classic

BRISTOL, ENGLAND


Bristol Cathedral		Hamster-like Behavior at the Bristol Science Museum

SWANSEA CASTLE, WALES


BT overpowering what is left of the Swansea Castle		Swansea Castle showing signs of anicent repairs

CAERLEON ROMAN FORTRESS (Isca)


Entrance to the Roman Fort		One of the Roman Barracks

The Amphitheatre		One of the entrances into the theatre

CARDIFF CASTLE, WALES


The Clock Tower at Cardiff Castle		This is where the Stuart Family lived in Cardiff Castle

Lovely Helen & The Stuart's Personal Norman Castle		Inside the Norman Castle Ruins

SOUTHGATE, WALES


Shouldn't the sea breeze mess her hair?		面对大海。。。

Cave Exploration		An Anglo-saxon Castle in the middle of a Golf Course

This used to be the flood plain which the castle was defending from		Inside the Anglosaxon Castle

Celebrating My Beautiful Macbook

2006-07-01T16:14:00.000+01:00

Mac on Messy Desk. Note the matching speakers

I still miss my SAR days at SBAB.
The Yellow Heli is the RAF SAR Heli

Another Frontal View

This is the side profile. The profile of perfection!

A typical screenshot of a chemical engineer at work

My Lovely OS X Dashboard. Quick access to Google,
Translator, Wiki, Weather, Time, etc

Reading the Young PAP Forum

2006-07-01T09:04:00.000+01:00

I found a ridicuous thread at the Young PAP forum today. The thread is titled "The Logic for High Cost Living". The author claimed that high cost is essential for the survival of Singapore because the resultant expenditure would make every generation of Singaporeans to contribute to the national economy, by filling up positions in a foreign-invested plant.

I think my registration at the Young PAP Forum will never be approved. After-all, I wrote this in my signature: "Those who exchange liberty for security deserves neither" - Benjamin Franklin. Oh well.. I guess the ruling party is only interested to hear from people who share the same view as theirs or people who intends to propagate their views.

Think Again: International Courts

2006-05-09T20:45:00.000+01:00

No. The 1993 and 1994 U.N. Security Council resolutions that established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and its sister court for Rwanda (ICTR) both said the courts would contribute to the process of national reconciliation and to “the restoration and maintenance of peace.” Sadly, that has not happened.

In The Hague, the ICTY’s most famous indictee, Slobodan Milosevic, has successfully used drawn-out courtroom appearances to perpetuate the feelings of hatred still harbored by many Serbs. Few Serbs, Croats, or Bosnians think that the ICTY has helped achieve reconciliation. The fragile peace in that region is the product of international troops and diplomacy, not judges and lawyers. In Rwanda, fewer than 36 percent of people polled in a 2002 survey said that the ICTR has promoted reconciliation in their country. And the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) announcement that it would investigate atrocities in Sudan has not ended violence there.

What’s worse, modern tribunals have been prolonged and expensive. As of November 2005, the ICTR had handed down judgments for only 25 individuals. More than $1 billion has been spent on the tribunal so far, or about $40 million per judgment. By contrast, South Africa’s truth commission processed 7,116 amnesty applications for less than $4,300 per case. In postconflict Mozambique, programs to demobilize and reintegrate thousands of former combatants cost about $1,000 per case. Rwandan community leaders aren’t shy about saying that the more than $1 billion the United Nations has so far poured into the ICTR could have been better spent.

“Today’s International Courts Are the Legacy of Nuremberg”

Not really. Supporters of today’s international criminal tribunals say that their work builds on the post-World War II tribunals in Nuremberg and, to a lesser degree, Tokyo. As a matter of legal doctrine, that is true. The category of “crimes against humanity,” for example, was developed at Nuremberg and is now a central element in many prosecutions. But there is a critical difference between now and then.

The courts in Nuremberg and Tokyo were part of a broader political project that aimed to rehabilitate the occupied countries socially and economically, not simply to try guilt or innocence or hand out harsh punishments. The Allies enacted a punitive policy toward Germany a quarter-century earlier, with disastrous results. The U.S.-dominated courts established after World War II were streamlined and efficient—perhaps to a fault. At Nuremberg, defendants were given no meaningful right of appeal, and the prosecution was able to introduce documentary evidence into the record that defendants could not challenge. But the fact that many due-process concerns were swept aside meant the court completed its work in less than 11 months; 10 of the 22 defendants were hanged on Oct. 16, 1946. These were military courts that operated with military efficiency, and the Allies could then focus fully on rebuilding the broken nations.

By contrast, the international courts for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and the new ICC in The Hague operate under civilian law and provide generous protections to defendants. The result is a ballooning of the courts’ timelines and costs. It took the ICTR 10 years to complete the same number of trials that Nuremberg conducted in less than a year. The trial of Slobodan Milosevic is now in its fourth year. Nor have these societies been able to make a clean break with their past. The protracted and always polarizing exercises that are today’s war crimes trials cannot serve the decisive political and social function that Nuremberg did.

“War Crimes Tribunals and Truth Commissions Advance Human Rights”

Not always. War crimes tribunals and truth commissions are well-meaning responses to ghastly atrocities. But the assumption that they advance human rights rests on a deep failure to recognize that nearly all of today’s atrocities are committed in the anarchic, violent atmosphere of war zones. Any strategy for limiting atrocities must prioritize the pursuit of providing a stable, sustainable end to armed conflicts.

In some instances, threats of prosecution can actually impede peacemaking, prolong conflict, and multiply the atrocities associated with them. Consider Uganda. In July 2004, the ICC’s chief prosecutor—responding to a request from the Ugandan government—launched a judicial investigation into the situation in the north of the country, where the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has sustained a barbaric insurgency for some 18 years. In April 2005, two dozen community leaders from northern Uganda went to The Hague to urge the prosecutor to hold off. One delegation member was David Onen Acana II, the chief of the dominant tribe in the war zone. He and his colleagues argued that their communities’ traditional approaches would be far more effective than international prosecutions in ending the violence. In October, the Ugandan government, which had escalated its campaign against the LRA, announced that the ICC had issued arrest warrants against five top LRA leaders. LRA fighters responded by stepping up attacks against civilians and aid workers—just as Acana had warned.

Many successful, rights-respecting peace accords—including those in Spain and Mozambique—were built on tacit agreements not to look back. Is modern Spain weaker and less law-abiding because it did not engage in wrenching and divisive prosecutions of those who committed abuses during its decades of civil war and repression? The logic of prosecution-obsessed activists would say yes; common sense says no.

“Victims of War Crimes Demand Prosecutions”

Only sometimes. When people in rich, secure countries advocate the prosecution of war criminals, they often claim to be acting in the interests of victims. But the actual preferences articulated by survivors of atrocities are varied, and often differ from what many activists suppose.

Because most atrocities these days are committed during violent intergroup conflict, most survivors seek first and foremost an end to the fighting and to regain basic economic and social stability. That is no small matter. Nations have found various ways to deal with perpetrators of violent acts, and throughout history many of these methods have given priority to the reintegration of wrongdoers into normal, nonviolent existence. In Mozambique, the 1992 peace accord that ended 15 years of civil war mandated a blanket amnesty for all those who committed war crimes. It also provided for the demobilization of fighters from both sides and their reintegration into civilian life. In 2003, I talked with a high-level perpetrator who, after the war, participated prominently in the political reintegration of his country. When I spoke with him, he was about to finish his law degree. Nearly all the Mozambicans I talked to between 2001 and 2003 expressed great satisfaction with the 1992 amnesty. Most said they could not imagine prosecuting people who had committed wartime atrocities. “If we did, the whole nation would be on trial,” one man said. Satisfaction with amnesties can be found elsewhere. In South Africa, researchers found in 2001 that more than 75 percent of black citizens were satisfied with the work of the truth commission—which offered complete amnesties to former perpetrators who met its conditions.

Is the cumbersome machinery of an expensive international court operating in The Hague what the people of war zones need most? Of course, there are some victims who demand prosecutions, and activists from rich countries often echo their demands to anyone who will listen. But those who want to help the survivors of atrocities should first ask broad sections of society in an open-ended way how they define their own needs and how they define justice. The international community should be guided by the answers to those questions rather than by the simple assumption that prosecutions are always helpful.

“Giving Amnesty to War Criminals Encourages Impunity”

Where’s the proof? Post-genocide Rwanda has been dedicated in its pursuit of war crimes prosecutions. But it has borne that country little fruit. At one point when Rwanda was still trying to prosecute all those accused of participating in the 1994 genocide, more than 130,000 of its 8 million citizens were detained. Yet President Paul Kagame has also kept all major elements of society, including the judiciary, the government, and the media, completely under his thumb. That undermines the rule of law in Rwanda, no matter how dedicated the regime is to seeking justice. In 1994, Freedom House gave Rwanda a “Not Free” rating for its political rights and civil liberties—basic components of the rule of law anywhere. In 2004, Rwanda received the same rating.

By contrast, when Mozambique and South Africa ended their internal conflicts in the early 1990s, they enacted widescale amnesties—and in both countries, the rule of law quickly improved. In each of them, political leaders opted to move past the violence and injustices of the past and to focus on the tasks of social and political reconstruction. As part of that reconstruction, each country became a multiparty democracy in which the accountability of leaders and other key norms of the rule of law could finally take root. The restoration of public security, meanwhile, allowed the provision of basic services. And though their criminal-justice systems remained woefully underfunded, both were finally able to start providing citizens basic protections, such as an assurance of “habeas corpus.” South Africa’s Freedom House score made impressive improvements between 1994 and 2004. In poorer Mozambique, the improvement was smaller but still marked.

“War Crimes Prosecutions Deter Future Atrocities”

The evidence is weak. Proving deterrence is, admittedly, a tough task. Not many leaders document their intent to commit atrocities, let alone the fact that they decided against them for fear of prosecution. But there is important evidence against the proposition that war crimes prosecutions deter atrocities. Consider Milosevic. He was warned explicitly on several occasions about the threat of prosecution. He had witnessed the ICTY indict the leader and top general of the Bosnian Serbs, and he’d seen NATO troops arrest war criminals in Bosnia. Still, he decided to proceed with abuses in the restive province of Kosovo and, ultimately, the ethnic cleansing of most of its Kosovar Albanian inhabitants in 1998. In the face of such examples, the blithe claims of activists that war crimes prosecutions deter atrocities should be treated skeptically, at best.

“The World Needs the International Criminal Court”

No. We can predict that the ICC will be no more effective than the international courts for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in improving the lives of war-zone residents who are its primary stakeholders. That is, not very effective at all.

In a criminal trial, two sets of facts—those of the prosecution and those of the defense—do public battle with each other. Those competing facts are probed and examined in detail and a winner and loser are ultimately decided. When such a trial concerns events that took place in recent memory, in a society that’s still highly divided and deeply traumatized, the trial itself too often exacerbates existing political rifts.

That was the case with the ICTY and ICTR, and it risks being true of the ICC, too. The ICC shares with the two ad hoc courts the attribute that—unlike the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals—it exercises jurisdiction without being part of any broader administrative body that is responsible under international law for the welfare of the people within its domain. The prosecutor and judges of the ICTY and ICTR answer to the U.N. Security Council, and their counterparts at the ICC answer to the assembly of states that ratified the 1998 Rome Statute. That gives these courts an indirect line of accountability, if any, to the communities they aim to serve.

Meanwhile, these war-shattered communities continue to live under the day-to-day control of their national governments. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, this fact has made it hard (and, in the case of wanted war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, impossible) for the ICTY to arrest some of its highest-ranking indictees. In the case of the ICTR, the Rwandan government’s control over most of the witnesses and physical evidence involved in the court’s cases has given the government a huge bargaining chip. It has used this power to force the ICTR to halt its investigations into well-founded accusations that Kagame’s supporters also committed atrocities. In the ICC’s work thus far on Uganda, the Ugandan government has similarly been able to deter the prosecutor from pursuing cases against pro-government forces.

The idealists who supported the ICC’s creation hoped that it would help check the power of governments and improve the well-being of much-abused people. There is little to suggest it will do either.

When I was in China.....

2006-04-19T20:52:00.000+01:00

The Singaporean community at Peking University (北京大学) taught me a very catchy phrase when I was there attending the Harvard World Model United Nations Conference 2006. The phrase was TIC. It stands for This Is China. It is such an amazing phrase because it explains all that is good and bad in China. TIC pretty much describes my 2 weeks in China. Below is the summary of my trip to China.

1. Being mesmerised by my best friend
I knew her for about 2 years since I enrolled at Imperial College London. I never fancied her seriously. We been always there for each other, taking care and looking out for each other in a foreign land. Perhaps because it was the World mUN farewell party, she decided to go out partying with us. I seen her a couple times in tube and bareback, but I was completely mesmorised by her at the party. The wild party girl attitude simply blew my mind off, seeing her in half-naked state. Deep down inside my heart, I knew this party has changed my perspective. I can no longer see her the way I used to see her. I want her. Below is her photograph. How can 1 trip to China change the way I view her? Because TIC.. It's really TIC..

2. The Chinese Delegates at Harvard World mUN
During the Harvard World mUN Conference, hardly any Chinese spoke up. Was it because the conference was conducted in English? The Chinese delegates had to compete internally to participate at the World mUN Conference, unlike delegates who came from outside China. I would have expected them to be quite outspoken instead of being generally passive. I would expect their English standard to be acceptably good if they are capable of winning the internal competition at their own respective universities to attend the Harvard World mUN. If these delegates actually spoke up, the foreign delegates would be able to exchange ideas with the Chinese delegates and gain a greater understanding of Chinese opinion on international affairs. There is also one more thing that I find baffling about the Chinese delegates. Why should they even compete to attend World mUN in the first place? The United Nations is built on democratic representation. This would imply that any Tom, Dick or Harry would qualify to attend the mUN conference and simply not the best person for the job. If it must be the best person for the job, then the internal Chinese selection competition has replaced the model UN democratic system with a technocratic representation. Sigh.. Really TIC TIC TIC.. On the other hand, the Chinese Ambassador to the UN Commision of Human Rights actually highlighted me as being an outspoken individual and encourage the Chinese delegates to take me as an example to engage into Model UN actively, instead of seating down, raising one's placard to vote in the most passive manner. I never thought I will attract positive attention from a VIP. LOL.

3. Counterfeit RMB (人民币)
We were accused of paying counterfeit RMB for our internal flight tickets. When we handed him the money for the tickets, he had checked the integrity of the notes and said they were fine. 5 hours later, he claimed we had given him counterfeit notes. He even produced the counterfeit notes to back his claim. However, many things could have happened during the 5 hours elapsed. We refused to acknowledge the counterfeit notes was ours. Fortunately, we still manage to get our tickets without compensating the ticket agent real RMB in place of the counterfeit notes. I even took a picture (see right) of the RMB notes. Not only both notes share the same serial number, the texture of the counterfeit notes were much smoother than real RMB. This suggests that a different type of paper was being used to print the counterfeit notes. How can even this happen? TIC.. TIC.. TIC.. TIC..

4. The Forbidden Palace (故宫) is too big
It is the biggest palace in the world. Jeremy, Mustafa and I toured the Forbidden Palace on our own. There were so many exhibitions and attractions at the outer court of the Forbidden Palace. We rushed to there at 10am in the morning. By the time we finished touring the outer court, it was already 1550h. We arrived 20 minutes too late at the inner court ticket booth to purchase tickets to enter the inner court. The outer court itself consumed 6 hours. The inner court (which is much grander) will definitely take hours to tour. Instead of wasting time, we happily went boating at the palace moor. We had so much fun doing ridiculous things, such as jeering at passerbys and saying "hello" to strangers in the most outrageous manner.

This is only one of the outer courts

At the Palace Moor, Mustafa is tired while Jeremy: is trying to steer

There was a park outside the Forbidden Palace. There were a lot of old folks walking around aimlessly, wearing a plague card that states their children's name, date of birth, occupation and their zodiac sign. For a while, my friends and I were shocked. We thought we crashed into a missing person "party". However, it turned out to be a matchmaking event. The parents were busy talking to one another, trying to "sell" their child to a prospective in-law. For a while, we thought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had resorted to kidnap young people for illicit human trafficking for "extra" money. ROFL. How could this happen? TIC TIC TIC..

5. The Female Kingdom (女儿国) by Lake Ru-Kou (泸沽湖) in Li-jiang
I was quite shocked that a maternal society still survives today. Although I was not comfortable with their cultural norms, it did not spoil the beauty of the place. Lake Ru-Kou must be one of the most scenic place in China. Although it is far from the cities, there are still traces of modernity in the village. There were not only televisions, but also electrical sockets, telephones and the most important, internet terminals. It made me wonder for how long will they be able to maintain their maternal society given that the internet is a global meltpot of ideas and values. I do not think that the Mo-shuo tribe of the Female Kingdom will be able to maintain their maternal society for long.Since it is the only one left, it goes to show that the maternal system must be a backward system that cannot stand the test of time.

My window view

Another breathtaking shot

Along the way to the Mo-Shuo Temple

The Mo-shuo Temple

Asking God a Big Question: Where Are You?

The Hotel Properties Limited (HPL) Saga

2006-04-11T16:30:00.000+01:00

The HPL episode that sparked off a political storm in Singapore in 1996 has been buried alive by the PAP. But its ghost will continue to haunt those involved.

INTRODUCTION

It all started when the Stock Exchange of Singapore (SES) censured a publicly listed property development company called Hotel Property Ltd (HPL) for not seeking shareholders' approval for the sale of some of its condominium developments at a discount price.

Dr Lee Suan Yew, Lee Kuan Yew's younger brother, was on the board of directors of the company. He had purchased a unit in a condominium project developed by HPL called Nassim Jade.

Shareholders of HPL had been grumbling about the way business was conducted in the company especially when it came to dealings with the Lee family. Many of the shareholders were waiting to buy units at the said project. When the launch of the property never came to pass, the shareholders saw red and demanded an explanation.

The stock exchange authorities quickly announced that HPL had breached regulations. One day later, Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Lee Hsien Loong, publicly revealed that they too had bought HPL condominiums. The story made headlines and started tongues wagging. The story was then traced back to one Ong Beng Seng, a property tycoon in Singapore, and Managing Director of HPL.

Ong had developed two condominium projects at the choiciest districts of Singapore. One was the abovementioned Nassim Jade situated where opulent and expansive embassies and mansions were located around Nassim Road. The other, Scotts 28, was at the heart of Singapore's shopping and tourist district Scotts Road. Both projects consisted of condominum apartments valued at millions of dollars per unit before the property slump.

MORE RED FACES

It was also revealed that not only had Lee Kuan Yew, his brother and his son purchased these apartments, they were offered substantial discounts to boot. The apartments were due to be put on sale on the open market on 17 April 1995. Three days before the official launch, HPL conducted a "soft launch" where a select group of potential customers were invited to have first go at the apartments. This was not exactly an unheard of practice amongst property developers. The problem was that because HPL was a publicly listed company, it had shareholders to account to. Rules under the SES Manual Listing stated that approval had to be sought for transactions involving "connected persons" of the company involved and those persons' associates. The HPL did not seek the permission of its shareholders. Suan Yew, Lee's brother, was a non-executive director of the company.

At the soft launch, Madam Kwa Geok Choo, chose an apartment to buy. She was quoted a price of $3,578,260 (or $1,583 per square foot) for the apartment. This was a seven percent discount on the list price. Buyers at soft launches are usually given only a five percent discount.

Later, Kwa Geok Choo contacted her son, Hsien Loong, and told him of the Nassim Jade apartments upon which he called Aunty Pamelia Lee, wife of Uncle Suan Yew, and said that he and his wife, Ho Ching, were interested in buying the property as well. Aunty Pamelia then later came back to her nephew and offered him an apartment for $3,645,100 a discount of 12 per cent or $437,412 on the asking price. The Deputy Prime Minister accepted the offer.

This was not all. On the Scotts 28 condiminiums, similar offers and purchases were made. Lee Kuan Yew and son bought two more units and paid $2,791,500 and $2,776,400 respectively for them, each bagging a five percent discount.

All in all, Lee Kuan Yew received from HPL a total of $416,252 whilst Lee Junior got $643,185 in discounts. All the purchases amounted to more than $10 million and were carried out without mortgages and loans.

And yet, this was just the tip of the iceberg.

It was later found out that Lee Kuan Yew's entire family was in on the purchases. Daughter Lee Wei Ling, a medical doctor in a government hospital; sister Lee Kim Mon; and his two other brothers Freddy and Dennis; Kwa Kim Li, a niece of Lee; and Gloria Lee, Lee's sister in law, all bought the condos at hefty discounts. Wei Ling bought two apartments at Nassim Jade and was reported to have sold one off for a tidy profit. Again, all these transactions were carried out without the approval of the shareholders of HPL.

SHAREHOLDERS' ANGER

News was leaking out about the Lee family's purchases of the HPL condominiums and the shareholders were getting increasingly alarmed and disgruntled. When pressure was brought to bear on the management, HPL decided to belatedly seek the approval of its shareholders a full eleven months later.

The SES had no choice but to issue a statement censuring HPL for the breach of regulations. It noted that some of the discounts given to directors and their relatives in respect of the Nassim Jade units were higher than those given to non-related buyers and that the publicly listed companies have a duty to obtain the best price so as to maximise the return to its shareholders.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

In spite of this, there was no investigation nor inquiry, merely a censure for the company. Meanwhile, Lee Suan Yew quietly resigned as a director with HPL. To date, many questions remain unanswered:
1. Who made the decisions to sell the apartments at such discounts to the Lee family?
2. Who authorised Pamelia Lee to sell the units to her relatives?
3. How many more relatives or friends, apart from those readily identifiable, bought the units through such connections?
4. Why did Ong Beng Seng, owner of HPL, offer the units, and presumably the discounts, to the Lee family?
5. Why was there no enquiry into Lee Suan Yew's involvement in affair?

23 AUG 1997 - A date to remember in Singapore's Judical History

2006-03-17T01:48:00.000Z

A Chilling Reminder of Our Judical System... (Unfortunately)

A "FUNDAMENTAL error" had been made in the Tang Liang Hong defamation case earlier this year QC George Carmen told the Singapore High Court, Aug 21. Mr Carmen said this during his submission in the defamation suit by prime minister Goh Chok Tong against Workers' Party leader J. B. Jeyeratnam.

The judge in the Tang case, Justice Chao Hick Tin, had laboured under the impression that it was Mr Jeyaretnam who released the police reports to the press, Mr Carman said.

However, while under oath, on the second day of the trial, Mr Goh told the High Court that it was he who authorised senior minister Lee Kuan Yew to release Mr Tang's police reports.

Mr Carman said the prime minister and Mr Lee, his predecessor, "shot themselves in the foot" by releasing the report over which they are now seeking legal damages.

Mr Carman also accused Mr Goh and his predecessor for ''orchestrating a damage claim when there really hasn't been any damage by (Mr Jeyeratnam). The real loss has been self-inflicted and engineered. This really is standing justice on its head.'' In his written judgment, May 29, Justice Chao said: "The police report was released to the media through the Secretary-General of the WP at a rally that evening..."

Mr Carman said: "That is totally and completely untrue." He demanded that the lawyers for the PAP men explain to the court how the judge had been so "seriously misled".

He added that nowhere in any of their court documents did the plaintiffs mention that it was Mr Goh and Mr Lee who released the police reports, as the Prime Minister had testified on Tuesday. Instead, the documents were drafted carefully to suggest that it was the press which procured the release of the reports.

From the witness box, Mr Goh said that he first read about Mr Tang's plan to file a police report from an interview in The Straits Times. In it, Mr Tang had said that not only was he going to sue Mr Goh and the PAP men, but he would also file police reports against them for defaming him by calling him an anti-Christian Chinese chauvinist.

Mr Goh went on to describe how he had asked Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng to inform him if Mr Tang did file a police report, as he said he would.

On the evening of Jan 1, while attending a PAP rally in Potong Pasir, the report was presented to him about two hours after Mr Tang filed it. A copy was also sent to Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who was attending another PAP rally in Hougang.

At about 9.15 pm, Mr Goh proceeded to the Hougang rally, where he met Mr Lee and exchanged a few words with him about the reports.

"We had to decide what to do with it," he said, noting that at that point of time, Mr Tang had not made public his police reports.

Mr Goh said he saw no need to go public with the reports to benefit Mr Tang's chances at the polls since the WP man would have been seen to have kept his word.

But, he added, after WP chief J. B. Jeyaretnam had made known Mr Tang's lodging of the reports at its party's final election rally that night, he had no choice but to bring the reports out into the open, especially when newspaper journalists began asking for copies of the reports. "If I had not, I would have come across as trying to hide something."

The decision, he said, was made the next day, which was Polling Day. Mr Lee had contacted him to discuss the reports. They spoke for five to 10 minutes, and he authorised Mr Lee to release the reports.

To that, Mr Carman asked: "Did Mr Lee ask 'may I release it? Or 'shall I release it?"' Mr Goh: "No, he said 'should we release it?' I said yes."

Position Paper for World mUN 2006

2006-03-15T01:44:00.000Z

I will be representing the Federal Republic of Nigeria at the UN Commission of Human Rights at World mUN 2006. World mUN 2006 is co-organised by Harvard University and Beijing University. It is held at Beijing, China this year. This is the 15th consercutive year it has taken place. Below is my position paper for the agenda on the right to development.

Topic: The Right to Development
Country: The Federal Republic of Nigeria
Delegate: Donaldson Tan, Imperial College London

1. Recognising the human person is the central subject of the development process
2. Reaffirming the role of indigenous people in sustainable development
3. Agreeing the private sector has a duty to contribute of equitable and sustainable communities and societies

May 1999 is a significant date in the history of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It not only marked the end of the 16 consecutive years of military dictatorship in Nigeria, but also the establishment of the Obasanjo Administration. President Obasanjo has initiated many political and economic reforms in view to improve the human rights situation and to meet international standards. This reflects the commitment of the Nigerian government towards nation building and building an international reputation of abiding to human rights. The Federal Republic of Nigeria would like to take this opportunity to re-affirm our commitment to human rights.

The route to the realisation of the right to development in Nigeria is not trouble-free. Rampant communal violence has not only disrupted the lives of many Nigerians, but also hamper the facilitation by the government to realise the right to development among Nigerians. The Federal Republic of Nigeria would like to take this opportunity to thank the Paris Club for writing off partially the Nigerian debt. However, the written-off sum is not sufficient, but it frees up some financial resources to invest into the local infrastructure and economy. What Nigeria needs is sustainable development fueled by local entrepreneurship. The local entrepreneurship initiative in Nigeria is hampered by marginalisation of minorities and lacks sufficient funding. The Federal Republic of Nigeria welcomes any international financial and expertise aid. This is in view of our committment to nation building and human rights in Nigeria.

The Federal Republic of Nigeria is a developing country. Rapid petrochemical industrialisation has proven to be beneficial to the Nigerian economy, but majority of the population still lives below the poverty line. Chemical pollution, noise pollution and destruction of the landscape has affected the livelihood of many Nigerians, especially indigenous people. It is crucial to protect their right to development. The Declaration on the Right to development states that it is the duty of states, individually and collectively, to formulate development policies to facilitate the realisation of the right to development (Ref: Article 4). The right to development implores that these people are entitled to compensation, so as to restore their livelihood as soon as possible. The petrochemical plants in Nigeria are foreign-owned. Private International Law requires the plaintiffs to engage in expensive and often speculative exercises in “Forum Shopping” and give the defendants ample opportunities to engage in delaying tactics. For example, the leak of MIC gas from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, on 3 DEC 1984, was one of the worst industrial accidents in history. The case for compensation for this incident was initially contested in US Courts to decide if the compensation case should be carried out in India or the United States. It took the US Supreme Court 4 years to arrive at this decision. Consequently, the Indians in Bhopal never received their entitled compensation in time, and their livelihood not restored. Nigeria calls for reformation for International Private Law to be in alignment with the Declaration on the Right to Development. A new system of dealing with major industrial accident compensation in developing countries should display the following characteristics:

(a) it must be supranational in nature, so as to avoid national conflicts between home and host countries' laws and interests, and to allow for international co-operation in the compensation process.

(b) It must make the compensation of the victims the first priority. The applicable principles must reflect this. A “no-fault” liability system would be appropriate as it avoids the need to establish breach of a duty of care, requiring only that a casual connection exists between the harm suffered and the failure of the technology. It should also avoid the problem of the limited liability of the foreign parent company by providing compensation regardless of where, within the structure of the MNC, the ultimate cause of the accident can be seen to rest.

(c) It needs to provide a readily available source of funds from which compensation can be paid as soon as possible after the incident. Thus an international fund from which compensation can be paid seems desirable.

Hence, the Federal Republic of Nigeria calls for the set up of an International Indemnity Fund within the UN to aid such victims. The use of an international compensation fund is not unprecedented. The International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPC Fund) was set up to help compensate victims of oil pollution at sea. This fund came into force by the Merchant Shipping Act 1971 of the English Law. The IOPC Fund will serve as a template for the new International Indemnity Fund. However, this proposed fund should not operate as a “last stop” system, but rather a “first stop” approach whereby the proposed fund acts as the initial source of compensation.

Committee: Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR)
Topic: Woman during War-time
Country: The Federal Republic of Nigeria
Delegate: Donaldson Tan, University of London

Observing the grave offences of numerous human rights violators in the time of war, and the inhumane treatment of both civilians and military personnel in this context, the Federal Republic of Nigeria urges this Commission to seriously address the weighty issue of rights in wartime, specifically for the women of the world. Having ratified CEDAW and its optional protocol in 1992, the Federal Republic of Nigeria will take this opportunity to re-affirm its commitment to the establishment of woman's right as an inalienable human rights.

Strongly adhering to the belief that all humanity is equal, Nigeria particularly condemns the use of abuse tactics in the systematic destruction of a group or culture. The Federal Republic of Nigeria prohibits racist or discriminatory organizations within our borders, and promotes the elimination of such violations of human rights throughout the international community. Nigeria joins the Commission in the condemnation of this violent and shocking infringement of international standards of humanity, and looks forward to a maturity of policy and advancement in protection in this crucial area of human rights.

Nigeria believes that nations must work together to empower women politically and economically, and all other aspects of society, through education and economic opportunity. Only through such action, then the status of woman will be elevated in the eyes of men in general, and therefore act as a stopper that every man is entitled to violate every woman.

Nigeria also calls for increased UN intervention into armed conflicts in Africa, through the African Union. In this way, the African Union can respond fast to an armed conflict situation fast, where the rights of women are being violated. In particular, the current legislature is limited in the sense the the War Tribunal is only held at the end of the armed conflict and not ongoing. By the time the armed conflict is over, most of the victims have been killed, and there will not be any witness left alive to engage in legal debate and to address one's grieves. Nigeria acknowledges that this primary legal mechanistic factor serves to belittle the addressing the rights of woman during war-time at the War Tribunal, and therefore urges for various nations to work together to raise the profile of woman both politically and economically, such that the violation of woman's right in war-time will be minimised.

Book To Recommend

2006-02-13T19:13:00.000Z

Rational Extended Thermodynamics
(Springer Tracts in Natural Philosophy)

by Ingo Muller, Tommaso Ruggeri

Rational extended thermodynamics explores the tenets of non- equilibrium thermodynamics in an efficient and systematic manner; the theory is relevant to processes with rapid changes and steep gradients. After describing the motifs, the early evolution, and the formal structure of this new branch of irreversible thermodynamics, the authors apply the theory to mon-atomic gases, mixtures of gases, relativistic gases, and "gases" of photons, phonons and metal electrons. The disussion brings into perspective the various phenomena called second sound and provides new insight into the role of material frame indifference under Galilean and Euclidean transformations. This new editon has been thoroughly updated and the book as a whole was revised. Much new material has been added, in particular on reacting mixtures, light scattering, radiation thermodynamics and shock wave structure. Moreover, the proximity of the theory to the mathematical theory of hyperbolic systems and to the kinetic theory of gases is revealed. Thus researchers in mathematics and physics, as well as thermodynamicists, may find the book relevant to their work.

Avian Flu: The Next Pandemic?

2005-11-17T05:42:00.000Z

Fear Not.. We have precuations to face off against this bleak future!

New Essay

2005-11-14T16:43:00.000Z

Since I gotta write an essay for my non-credit European History class, I might as well publish it here. It will be entitled Why Was Africa Colonised In The Years 1870-1914?

George W Bush & World History

2005-10-05T14:58:00.000+01:00

I swear George W Bush wrote this. LOL. Just kidding.

The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate in the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, once asked, "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birth mark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the philatelists, a race of people who lived in biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.

Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns-- Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intollerable.

Achilles appears in The Iliad, by Homer. Homer also wrote The Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.

In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought with the Persians, the Greeks were outnumbered
because the Persians had more men.

Eventually the Romans conquered the Geeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero
was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

Then came the middle ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harold mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by Bernard Shaw, and victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged
twice for the same offense.

In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.

The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented
cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen". As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted, "hurrah". Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived at Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies, and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In
another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was known as Pilgrims Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by the Indians, who came down the hill rolling their war hoops before them. The Indian
squabs carried porpoises on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along with their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in the tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. During the War, the Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.

Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand". Franklin died in 1790 and
is still dead.

George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time became the Father of our Country. Then the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength". Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the
ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. It claimed it represented law and odor. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a
supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.

Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest, even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down from the hills and nipped atNapoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear children.

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. Her reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code of telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered
radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history

World history sucks, isn't it? LOL

New Heralds of Free Expression

2005-09-24T01:54:00.000+01:00

Freedom of Expression is not to be taken for granted. Dissidents in some countries have struggled with it. Journalists have been thrown into jails, to never see their families again. In our fight for this fundemental human right and to end tyranny against humanity, please spread this news to your fellow bloggers and dissidents.

PARIS (Reuters) - A Paris-based media watchdog released a handbook on Thursday to help cyber-dissidents and bloggers avoid political censorship in countries as far apart as China, Iran, Vietnam and Cuba.

The guide, published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) with the backing of the French government, identifies bloggers as the "new heralds of free expression" and offers advice on how to set up a blog and run it anonymously.

"Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure," wrote Julien Pain, head of RSF's Internet Freedom Desk.

"Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest."

Blogs are personal Web sites that are easy to set up and are often written in the form of an online diary. The name is a shortened form of personal "Web log".

The "Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents" can be downloaded from the RSF website (www.rsf.org), and the media organization says it is available in English, French, Chinese, Arabic and Farsi.

The guide is based on technical advice from experienced bloggers and experts, and provides personal accounts by bloggers such as Arash Sigarchi, who received a 14-year-jail sentence in Iran last February but is free pending an appeal.

"Internet journalism could advance freedom of expression and wider view points," wrote Sigarchi, who faced charges ranging from spying to insulting the country's leaders.

"Although I have been convicted by Iranian courts, I have not lost hope and I am sure that in coming years the rulers of my country will have to respect the flow of information and freedom of expression."

"TOOLS OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION"

"Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution," RSF said on its Web site

"Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they're tremendous tools of freedom of expression."

The handbook offers advice on how to establish credibility by observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.

One chapter offers advice on technical ways to get around censorship. Others feature bloggers' experiences from such countries as Nepal, Iran, Bahrain and Hong Kong.

Publication of the handbook follows moves in some countries to crack down on Internet use.

RSF said countries which were trying to control what their citizens read and do online included China, Vietnam, Iran, Iran, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world, as well as the right to inform the public and to be informed, in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reporters Without Borders has nine national sections (in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok, Istanbul, Montreal, Moscow, New York, Tokyo and Washington and more than a hundred correspondents worldwide.

Empires Good & Evil

2005-09-09T00:27:00.000+01:00

UCLA professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam discusses the nature and impact of British colonialism in South Asia and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s depiction of it.

The PM has simplified the colonial encounter

On June 1, 2004 The Royal Geographical Society in London held a debate whose motion was "The British Empire was a Force for Good." The motion was suppor-ted, amongst others, by historian Niall Ferguson, who had recently become a one-man industry on the question of empire, both British and American. In extremis, he made use of a shallow but ingenious counterfactual argument: If only Indian soldiers had not fought in the Second World War, he argued, Hitler would not have been defeated. Since these soldiers were recruited by the British empire, therefore the empire was a force for the good. QED! The motion was passed by a popular vote of the audience.

Such an argument has a familiar ring to it. It could be used for example to defend Stalin and the gulag. Without them, surely Hitler would not have been defeated either. We can thus easily see where suchopportunistic arguments take us. Reading through the public debate in India after Manmohan Singh’s remarks to the convocation of my former university, Oxford, puts me in mind of some of these exercises.

As I see it, Singh was careful not simply to praise the British empire. He first criticised it, on the basis of some rather bogus statistics produced by Angus Maddison on the change in India’s share in world GDP, allegedly 22.6% in 1700 compared to 3.8% in 1952. No one knows what India’s GDP was in 1700. But let us admit a part of the premise, and say that India’s share did fall over these years. Three questions then arise. First, was this fall the result of British rule? Second, in the absence of British rule, what was the most plausible alternative? Third, is this the most useful way of looking at the effects of British rule in India, and of British imperial rule more generally?

Singh also implied that while the economic consequences of British rule were negative, the global effects on liberal institutions and political culture were really quite positive. These consequences cannot be measured in numbers, but the issue is worth thinking about. Nor does it imply that the consequences were planned or intended to be positive by the British, which is again unfortunately implied in Singh’s remarks.

Despite periodically using the rhetoric of paternalism, it is clear that British colonial policies were not primarily designed to promote economic growth in India. They often and insistently said so themselves. Growth between 1800 and 1950 was thus slow and fitful, and many other parts of the world (including Japan’s colonies in Taiwan and Korea) clearly did better than India.

It may be argued very plausibly that some institutions that came under British rule, such as the railways, would have come even without such rule. After all, many modern institutions fell into place in Iran, nineteenth-century Latin America, China, Japan or parts of South East Asia (e.g. Thailand) that were not colonised. Why is it a plausible assumption then that Britons, whose primary allegiance was to Britain, would have done better for India than Indians? Would any historian of Britain be willing to accept, say, that Britain would have performed better economically if only she were ruled over by Indians?

So, much depends too on the answer to the second question: If not Britain, then what? Here, each writer will have his own alternative scenario. Had the French under Bussy conquered peninsular India, would French colonial rule have produced a better outcome? Perhaps French revolutionary republicanism would have worked marvels on India. I have my doubts, but we cannot simply measure this by looking at France’s performance in Algeria. Would India not have fragmented into many small states in the absence of British rule? I have my doubts about that too, since I believe that the Mughal empire left a powerful cultural and institutional legacy of cohesion, which we tend to neglect today because of Hindu right-wing rhetoric.

But the most important question is the third one. The British empire was a complex and multi-faceted motor. Two aspects are worth keeping in mind. First, the British practised selective forms of acculturation, which were less brutal than those of the Spaniards in America, but also less nuanced than the Ottomans. However, acculturation is always a many-sided process. It was not just a question of what the British brought to the table, but the cultural resources that other parties disposed of. This is why the British empire produced such different outcomes in different parts of the world, and even within South Asia itself. It is also why nostalgia about British rule is not equally shared. Second, despite Ferguson’s arguments, most historians of even Britain today would admit that ‘modernity’ was not something that the British produced domestically and then exported. Britain and British society were also deeply affected by the empire. Therefore, we cannot see what happened in colonial India simply as a transfer, or a gift - even a poisoned gift.

By making the colonial encounter in India a meeting between rigid, timeless, Indian society and its frozen values, and egalitarian and fair-minded Britons, we are caricaturing India. But we are also caricaturing Britain. There is comfort in this, but only for those who are comforted by cliches.

Sanjay Subrahmanyam is Doshi Professor of Indian History at UCLA. He is also the founding director of the UCLA Center for India and South Asia.

Is IAEA a farce sometimes?

2005-08-14T21:25:00.000+01:00

Tests appear to back Iran on nuke traces - diplomat

VIENNA (Reuters) - Tests by the U.N. nuclear watchdog appear to confirm that traces of weapons-grade uranium found in Iran came from abroad, reinforcing Tehran's assertion it does not seek atomic weapons, a diplomat said on Sunday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said the issue of contamination is one of two main outstanding questions in its two-year investigation into Iran's nuclear program. Tehran insists the program is peaceful, but Western countries suspect it may be a front for developing nuclear weapons.

An analysis of Pakistani components for enrichment centrifuges identical to ones Iran bought on the black market appear to back Tehran's assertion that traces of bomb-grade uranium were the result of contamination, a Western diplomat familiar with the IAEA said.

"There's still some final corroboration to go on but all the preliminary analysis does show that the particles seem to have come from Pakistan," he said, adding that the final result was unlikely to change as a result of work still outstanding.

This appeared to confirm earlier results, reported by Reuters on June 10, that also suggested Tehran did not produce the highly-enriched uranium itself.

Asked whether this cleared up the contamination issue, the diplomat said: "More or less. The contamination issue will never be 100 percent clear."

The IAEA declined to comment.

Diplomats say several other questions about the nature of Iran's nuclear program remain, including the extent of its work with advanced P-2 centrifuges and the scope of its experimentation with plutonium, which is usable in an atom bomb.

"All declared (nuclear) material in Iran is under verification, but we still are not in a position to say that there is no undeclared nuclear material or activities in Iran," IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters after an emergency meeting of the IAEA's governing board last week.

"With regard to the country as a whole, the jury is still out," he added.

France, Britain and Germany called the emergency IAEA board meeting after Iran said it would resume uranium conversion -- the step before enrichment, a process that purifies uranium to levels at which it can be used in power stations or bombs.

Iran resumed conversion last Monday and broke U.N. seals on machinery on Wednesday to make its conversion plant near the central city of Isfahan fully operational.

The 35-nation IAEA board reacted by urging Iran to resume a suspension of nuclear work usable in an atomic bomb program, including conversion, and expressed "serious concern" at Iran's move.

The trio of European states and Iran are due to meet at the end of August, in hopes of defusing a crisis in which Iran has rejected a European package of economic and political incentives aimed at convincing it to abandon sensitive nuclear technology.

60 Years Ago..

2005-08-12T06:47:00.000+01:00

The Beginning of The End?

60 years have elapsed since the first nuclear bomb detonated in Japan. The heartbeats of 250000 Japanese stopped consequently, so did WWII. A popular historic interpretation is that both 'Little Boy' and 'Fat Man' not only stopped the only determined member remained of the Axis Powers to continue fighting, but also ended the WWII. This interpretation is of course valid since then there is no more resistance from any Axis Power member state.

However, that interpretation does not justify that nuclear weapons ensured worldwide peace. An examination into history reveals a nuclear arm race in the midst of WWII among the Americans, Germans, Japanese and Russians. The nuclear arm race continued after WWII. In fact, more countries joined the nuclear club at the end of WWII. The British exchanged their chemical weapon technology for American nuclear weapons technology. In the name of the Cold War and to strengthen Western Europe's position against Communist expansion in Eastern Europe, the American government armed their NATO partners France and Germany with nuclear weapons.

The growth of the nuclear club was built on the basis of nuclear deterrence, ie. if a country possesses nuclear weapons, the country would be less likely to be invaded or attacked. More and more countries want nuclear weapons so that they will be less likely to be invaded. However, if the number of nuclear weapon states increase beyond a critical point, the probability that any invading armed force originated from a nuclear weapon state becomes significant. The nuclear deterrence effect becomes obsolete.

Unlike 60years ago, it is so much easier to assemble a nuclear weapon now. Back then, government must recruit top-notch scientists to research and design nuclear weapon from scratch. It is both capital- and intellectual- intensive. Today, all that governments need is a lot of highly enriched uranium (HEU), and some well-trained engineers to build their own A-bombs. The technological hurdle now ceased to exist. The South Africans were able to create their own uranium enrichment process in less than 5years with simple engineering: the Becker Nozzle Process. This ease allowed even some developing countries to attain nuclear weapon state status.

A-bombs back then required at least 6kg of weapon-grade HEU. Today, we can achieve much greater devastating effect with less fissile material: 4kg of Plutonium-239 to flatten Hiroshima 1.5times over. Plutonium is not only the most efficient nuclear fuel today, but also the most readily-available weapon-grade fissile material. Fast Breeder Nuclear reactors produce weapon-grade plutonium and electricity simultaneously. The plutonium can either be used to fuel reactor or be assembled into a nuclear warhead.

Incidentally, Japan has the highest stockpile of Plutonium in the world. After-all, the Japaneses have been running the world's longest and most successful line of Fast Breeder Reactors to generate electricity for domestic/industrial use. Isn't it worrying that Japan after-all might have developed their own nuclear ICBMs? They have the technology all this while. Mitsubishi has been building unmanned rockets to send Japanese satellites into space. Nuclear science & engineering has always been an integral part of Japanese higher education since the 1960s. Although Japan has been actively promoting nuclear non-proliferation, we must be prudent to take note that the state is not a moral actor. Moreover, Japan's diplomatic relationship with her two nuclear weapon state neighbours (China and North Korea) are far from friendly.

I have attached a chart below that reflects the varying degree of attaining nuclear weapon technology in various countries today. This is taken from Section VI - Nuclear Weapons Technology, NATO Handbook 1998. With so many countries with nuclear weapons today, are we at peace or living through a tenseful period?

Although America has the largest nuclear weapon stockpile in the world, her effort as the world nuclear police has failed. It goes to show the breakdown of the nuclear deterrent effect. The nuclear club today includes developing countries such as China, Pakistan, India and North Korea. Many tensions still exist between various member states of the Nuclear Club today. 60yr ago, the nuclear club consisted of member states with common vested interest. Today, the nuclear club consists of member states with conflicting interest. As the number of nuclear weapon states increase, the probability of a nuclear war becomes bigger.

Witnessing your rival country to equip itself with nuclear weapons provides greater motivation and stirs up nationalistic pride to at least level up on military capabilities. Was this not the case between Pakistan and India? Today, both countries are still waging covert operations against each other, at the expense of the people of Kashmir. In the end, all these activities will develop into a nuclear arm race. Was it not an arm race that started WWI?

In fact, the total destruction associated with nuclear weaponry makes other areas of weaponry more attractive. It also increases the state's threshold to consider what is not total annihilation. Has not non-nuclear warfare become progressively gory in recent times? Does the employment of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and the 2yr-bombing of Chechnya with Chemical Nerve Agents ring a bell? Ebola Outbreaks in Africa are not natural epidemics too.

To worsen things, today's nuclear proliferation is akin to having a bunch of people own guns, and a small handful not having guns. Those without the guns feel left out and want the guns for protection. The people with the guns are afraid that if those without it get them, they'll use the guns on them. Insecurity and distrust are the underlying themes in such international relations.

Firstly, distrust fuels insecurity. Secondly, insecurity breaks down the deterrent effect. Insecurity facilitates the spread of nuclear weapons world-wide and justifies the state's possession of nuclear weapons. The end of the Cold War not only created a multi-fragmented distribution of world power, but also catalysed the spread of nuclear weapon technology. Consequently, international politics is less predictable now. This futhur fuels the insecurity and warrant the need to build a bigger nuclear stockpile to compete for the major centre of world power. Furthermore, insecurity grows with age. That is why war (nuclear or non-nuclear) is therefore more likely today than it was 60years ago.

In conclusion, nuclear deterrence is an obsolete concept now. It saved our parents and grandparents, but it will not save us. The last 15years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall has seen more wars than ever. Does it not make you wonder if the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima, Japan, is indeed the beginning of the end?

The Fifty Year Shadow by Joseph Rotblat

2005-08-07T16:47:00.000+01:00

60yr ago today, Hiroshima was devastated by an A-bomb. It was the first nuclear explosion in East Asia. It also rocked the world into the Nuclear Age. So what if it ended WWII? Such weapon of mass destruction has changed the face of war. In the age of nuclear deterrence, is it more morally right to destroy a place by means of conventional arms, or is a nuclear bomb no better? I have published an article here by Joseph Rotblat - a physicist and emeritus president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Please read and think. We used to bow down to Kings and Emperors. Today we only kneel down to the Truth.

FIFTY years ago, I joined Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and eight others in signing a manifesto warning of the dire consequences of nuclear war. This statement, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, was Einstein's final public act. He died shortly after signing it. Now, in my 97th year, I am the only remaining signatory. Because of this, I feel it is my duty to carry Einstein's message forward, into this 60th year since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which evoked almost universal opposition to any further use of nuclear weapons.

I was the only scientist to resign on moral grounds from the United States nuclear weapons program known as the Manhattan Project. On Aug. 6, 1945, I switched on my radio and heard that we had dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. I knew that a new era had dawned in which nuclear weapons would be used, and I grew worried about the future of mankind.

Several years later, I met Bertrand Russell on the set of the BBC Television program "Panorama," where we discussed the new hydrogen bomb. I had become an authority on the biological effects of radiation after examining the fallout from the American hydrogen bomb test in Bikini Atoll in 1954. Russell, who was increasingly agitated about the developments, started to come to me for information. Russell decided to persuade a number of eminent scientists from around the world to join him in issuing a statement outlining the dangers of thermonuclear war and calling on the scientific community to convene a conference on averting that danger.

The most eminent scientist alive at that time was Albert Einstein, who responded immediately and enthusiastically to Russell's entreaty. And so the man who symbolized the height of human intellect adopted what became his last message - this manifesto, which implored governments and the public not to allow our civilization to be destroyed by human folly. The manifesto also highlighted the perils of scientific progress in a world rent by the titanic struggle over communism. I was the youngest of the 11 signatories, but Russell asked me to lead the press conference in London to present the manifesto to the public.

The year was 1955, and cold war fears and hostilities were at their height. We took action then because we felt that the world situation was entering a dangerous phase, in which extraordinary efforts were required to prevent a catastrophe.

Now, two generations later, as the representatives of nearly 190 nations meet in New York to discuss how to advance the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, we face the same perils and new ones as well. Today we confront the possibilities of nuclear terrorism and of the development of yet more new nuclear warheads in the United States. The two former superpowers still hold enormous nuclear arsenals. North Korea and Iran are advancing their capability to build nuclear weapons. Other nations are increasingly likely to acquire nuclear arsenals on the excuse that they are needed for their security. The result could be a new nuclear arms race.

Fifty years ago we wrote: "We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?" That question is as relevant today as it was in 1955. So is the manifesto's admonition: "Remember your humanity, and forget the rest."

WAKE UP CALL

2005-07-18T04:31:00.000+01:00

Dear Young Singaporeans,

If the NKF farce isn't a sufficient wake-up call, please open your eyes. Can you all see what's fundementally wrong with our society? Economic progress and stability does not justify what a farce our nation has degenerated to. In a matter of 2 years, not only the government has successfully increased GST from 3% to 5%, but also it has justified why the government will not compensate the citizens their CPF cuts. Despite vocal opposition against casinos, the Father of Modern Singapore has turned his back against the citizens in the name of economic gain (or personal gain perhaps).

Are we truly citizens of our own country if we do not even have a say on how our country is run? It's interesting that Wikipedia classify Singapore as procedural democracy. The term procedural democracy is an insult to the ideals of what democracy calls for. Procedural democracy prescribes that the government should make decisions according to a particular principle. This principle address three distinct questions: Who should participate in decision making, how much should each participant's vote count, and how many votes are needed to reach a decision? Although this principle addresses 3 very important questions, it fails to address the most important question: who decide what the governing principle is? Does anyone even know what our national constitution say? What are our basic rights? Ignorance has become the most powerful weapon welded by our political elites.

WAKE UP. MAKE A STAND. YOU ARE THE FUTURE. YOU ARE SINGAPORE.

Yours truly
Comrade-In-Arm
Donaldson Tan

Finally Exams Are Over..

2005-06-18T00:14:00.000+01:00

I will be in Europe from JUN 18 to 6 JUL. I will update this blog ASAP.

PS: I am pretty sure I will get first class grade for freshman year. Do congratulate me in advance. (Chuckles!!!)

Journalism and Blogging: The Search for Common Ground

2005-05-31T12:38:00.000+01:00

I cannot wait for exams to be over. Since I am too busy with revision/catching-up, I decide to post an article from a fellow blogger to stimulate you all intellectually - Donaldson

by Steve Nadis

UNTIL LAST FALL, Evan Thomas had never looked at a Web log or “blog.” “I knew they were out there; I just couldn’t make myself read them,” says the Newsweek editor and visiting professor at the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy (Havard University). His patterns — reading The New York Times, New Yorker, and Washington Post — were well entrenched and allowed little time for exploring this alternative media outlet.

Thomas was not alone in ignoring the so-called “blogosphere” — the Internet realm consisting of millions of blogs, including those started by an estimated 8 million bloggers in the United States alone. Sixty-three percent of Internet users, according to a 2005 Pew Foundation study, still don’t read blogs, nor can they define the term — i.e., a Web site that’s like an online journal, typically characterized by daily postings, an archive of past entries, electronic links to other sites, and a reader comment section.

Yet Thomas was also correct in realizing he might be “missing something.” Whether you peruse blogs or not, love them or hate them, there’s no denying their growing presence in the global media market, competing with the press for readers and sometimes coming out ahead. “The top four blogs today have a larger readership on a daily basis than The New York Times,” claims Joe Trippi IOP 2004, an Institute of Politics fellow last fall. Even The New York Times itself proclaimed, in an article by reporter John Schwartz, that “for vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.”

It’s enough to get observers at places like the Shorenstein Center wondering: How well is the public served by this new communications avenue? And is there some way of ensuring accountability in the anarchic, free-for-all forum of the blogosphere? Those subjects were addressed at a Kennedy School conference, “Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility,” in January, co-sponsored by the Shorenstein Center, Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and the American Library Association.

Before trying to evaluate the credibility of blogs, it’s worth considering why readers bother with them in the first place and why respected journalists like Andrew Sullivan MPA 1986 (former editor of The New Republic) have switched from the conventional media to the other side. Recent tsunami coverage offers a good example of the power of blogs, with vivid firsthand accounts — in text, pictures, sounds, and video — filed from ravaged coastal zones. Blogs also played a vital role in soliciting and distributing aid for tsunami victims. The disaster — wrote Neil McIntosh in the newsblog of the British paper, The Guardian — may be “remembered as a time when citizen reporting, through the force of its huge army of volunteers...finally found its voice, and delivered in a way the established media simply could not.”

Two years ago, the Iraq War sent people tired of stories about “shock and awe” to blogs in droves, says Trippi. “While the networks showed troops parading around in military vehicles, blogs provided different views of the war than readers had been getting before.”

Blogs offer a daily, partisan voice that has been missing in American journalism, notes Kennedy School Professor Thomas Patterson. “It’s good to have voices coming at things from different lenses and angles, rather than being limited to a top-down media controlled by a few outlets.”

Rebecca MacKinnon, a Berkman fellow this year and Shorenstein fellow last year, left her job as a CNN-TV reporter to become a blogger because she saw the future of journalism in this new form of participatory media. Blogging consists of a dialogue between authors and their audience, which contrasts with the traditional, spoon-fed approach of “here’s what you need to know.” One problem with American TV news, MacKinnon says, is how little of the available information actually makes it into a two-minute story. Worse yet, many important international stories don’t even get two minutes; they’re not covered at all. In addition to providing virtually unlimited space to explore neglected issues, blogs can also provide context on what journalists are reporting and why.

Blogging’s most visible role to date has been in the area of fact-checking, serving as a “truth squad for journalism,” as Shorenstein Director Alex Jones puts it. Bloggers hounded Trent Lott over a racist remark he made that was glossed over by the regular media, keeping the pressure on until Lott resigned his post as Senate majority leader. Dan Rather left his anchor seat at CBS News in the wake of a controversy set off when bloggers, and blog readers, determined that some memos concerning George Bush’s national guard service, presented in a September 2004 broadcast of 60 Minutes, were fraudulent. “Nineteen minutes into Dan Rather’s report, bloggers provided detailed reasoning as to why those documents were fake,” Trippi stated at a Forum last October.

As for the accuracy of blogs themselves, Trippi touts their “self-correcting” nature: When a blogger makes a mistake, he explains, “they have thousands of people immediately criticizing them, and they need to correct it within minutes. That’s something The New York Times can’t do.”

The self-correcting mechanism can work up to a point, says Jones, “but sometimes it’s difficult to tell the truth from the screaming. It’s easy to see this devolving into a cacophony of charges and countercharges.”

Last year, he began thinking about whether bloggers might adopt their own set of standards in order to enhance the accuracy of blog renderings — an idea that led to the January “credibility” symposium attended by dozens of journalists, bloggers, and academics. The event, which was publicized on the Web, set off a firestorm of sorts, as some people complained that few hardcore bloggers were invited, while others resented the notion of Harvard experts and old guard media types trying to regulate them.

“Who the _ _ _ _ are journalists to be lecturing bloggers on credibility and abiding by a set of standards?” PhillipG ranted in the official conference blog.

Virtually every aspect of the conference was contentious, including an open session held on the last day to allow more participants to attend. “Trying to buy off ‘the little people’ won’t give your silly conference, which is chock-full of unqualified people...any more credibility,” wrote someone identified as “No Thanks.”

Even a disclaimer on the conference blog that said, “Just because we link to something doesn’t mean we endorse it,” drew flak. “Wonderful. What a great precedent for a conference on ‘credibility,’” wrote “ahem.”

Other comments were more personal and vicious. “It gave us nonbloggers a chance to see some of the shoot-from-the-hip nastiness that’s part of the blogosphere,” Jones says. Yet once bloggers and journalists sat down at the same table, the conversation became civil and productive. “One thing we learned is that many of the qualities that make blogging valuable, such
as its passion and transparency, are things journalism could readily adapt,” he says. The group made less headway on the credibility problem, which Jones now admits cannot be easily solved. “Any standards will have to come from bloggers themselves.”

That’s unlikely, given the diversity of the international blogging community, notes MacKinnon. “The bottom line is that the public needs to become more critical readers of all the media it consumes, mainstream or otherwise.”

Tension between bloggers and journalists is bound to persist, Jay Rosen of New York University — a former Shorenstein fellow and current blogger — predicted in his keynote address. “Journalists have to get used to bloggers looking over their shoulders.” Both now live in a “shared media space,” and some fighting is inevitable.

But it’s not a “zero-sum game,” says MacKinnon. “The two can coexist.” In fact, journalism and blogging complement each other: The material found in blogs is often raw and unprocessed, whereas newspaper and magazine stories are edited and fact-checked to varying degrees. “Blogs are really a conversation about events and facts that journalists are reporting about,” adds MacKinnon. Very few blogs do original reporting. Lacking the same access to
policymakers as journalists have, bloggers tend more toward analyzing existing news reports.

It’s not really a question of one or the other, blogs versus old-school journalism, Jones wrote in a Los Angeles Times essay. “It’s better to have both.”

Evan Thomas, however, still has “mixed feelings” about blogs. On the one hand, he says, “You can never have too many people in this game. When the conventional media blows it, bloggers can catch it. The downside is that there’s a lot of garbage out there.”

Steve Nadis, a writer based in Cambridge, started his own blog, “Call Me Snake,” http://cambridgeguy.blog.com/, in the course of writing this article, though he fears it may be part of the “garbage” Evan Thomas refers to.

Searching for the Third Gender: Part 2

2005-05-20T21:31:00.000+01:00

I have been very busy with my preparations for my exam, thus delay publishing my posts is inevitable. I hope I have not disappointed too many people. I decide to publish this half-written post anyway. I am very convicted to do well academically because of my moral obligation to my parents, their financial committment to our future and most importantly, we believe in bringing out the best of each other. That's what family for, isn't it? I love my parents. BTW, to all fellow Singaporeans at Imperial College (and the UK as well), I would like to wish you all good luck and all the best for your examinations.

The previous post has highlighted that God created only 2 genders, therefore the 3rd gender must be a social extension to categorise people whose gender identities cannot fit the classical description of male or female. This post aims to answer the question "Is strictly classifying people male/female sufficient?" by exploring the feasibility of the third gender in our society.

The third Gender is theologically feasible. Justification for the Third Gender does not lie in Creation, but Free Will. The Third Gender is one of the manifestation of Free Will. There are two levels of Free Will. The first level of Free Will is involuntary choice. Involuntary choice is what we all would deem as natural, because the resultant actions are guided by our body inclination. Breathing is natural. The urge to have sex is natural. The urge to eat is natural. Attraction to somebody is natural as well. All these are involuntary choices that results from the manifestation of Free Will. The second level of Free Will is voluntary choice. The most generic way to describe voluntary choice is that "you can do what you want". This includes choosing whether to take the elevator or walk up the staircase. As much as primary Free Will (involuntary choice) determines that you must eat, the secondary Free Will facilitates you to choose your diet.

Our ideas of gender identity has been built by physical basis of the mode distribution of differences in sexual characteristics throughout history. This idea was chosen not because it is the most comprehensive one, but because it is the most convenient mean of gender differentiation.

In order to extend the gender classification system, we have to build the construct of gender identity on two levels. The primary level is based on this mode distribution. This is in hand with the biblical system because it recognises what God had created. The secondary level, which is determined by social interaction, takes in account of the individual's opinion and society's opinion. The gender identity which we all express spontaneously is in fact the materialisation of the secondary level.

The individual's opinion can be measured easily (eg. the Kinsey's Scale), but society's opinion cannot. Although one can observe the effect of society's opinion of the individual's behavior, it is difficult to quantify the diverse opinions represented in society, because the effect of society's opinion is time-dependent. Perturbation effects must be taken in account for a proper evaluation. It is this tremendous effort needed to overcome the difficulty of measuring society's opinion that makes this comprehensive classification system much less convenient to use. However, we should not carry on imposing gender identities on individuals in the namesake of a liberal civil society. We should not carry on this discrimination.

We shall examine Free Will, Individual's Opinion, Society's Opinion in my next post, in order to extract a more descriptive picture of the Third Gender. Meanwhile, here is a rebuttal to a friend:

"I think most people would agree that males and females think differently, primarily due to social conditioning, but also due to instinctive responces. Faced with dificulty, a male brain is more likely to get excited, and prepare to fight, wheras a female brain is more likely to turn and run. These and other characteristics are not due to social conditioning, and in most cases these characteristics match the genetic and physical make up of the person. each of these characteristics are defined by the hormones present in the body, so surely gender should be determined in terms of hormones. Also it should be noted that males poses varying levels of masculinity due to the ratio's of male to female hormones. Some men will be extremely masculine due to lots of male hormones, wheras some will be more feminine. Yet no man can be completely feminine, due to the presence of some male hormones. Therefore our current clasification of gender implies that the presence of any hormones caused by the male chromosone (Y) defines 'male' and the lack thereof implies 'female'. It would seem that there exists two genders: male and female, but within male there are varying degrees." - Oliver

Oliver's arguement rests on the mode distribution of differences in sexual characteristics as the primary basis of gender differentiation. In fact, he accounts diversity of gender identities with varying degrees of hormonal balance. A recent medical experiment showed that gay men and straight woman showed signs of arousal to male pheromones. Is that due to hormonal imbalance or is it manifestation of primary Free Will? In fact, he ends his arguement with "there exists two genders: male and female, but within male there are varying degrees." The most obvious flaw in this conclusion is that he fails to recognise genetics females are capable of masculine behavior. Free Will (primary or secondary), in no way, hinders females from expressing their masculine side. The arguement of Free Will qualifies better than the arguement of varying hormonal balances.

Searching for the Third Gender: Part 1

2005-04-23T22:40:00.000+01:00

This post had been particularly difficult to write because I had to contend with my religious affilation, on top of my packed revision schedule for exams in June 2005. I am a Christian.

Previously, I had argued that the bipolar gender classification is insufficient on both physical and psychological grounds. This leads us to the crossroad where we have to choose our next route: "Did God create more than 2 genders?" or "Is strictly classifying people male/female sufficient?"

According to the famous 7-day theory (as recorded in the Genesis of the Holy Bible), God created man on the 6th day. Genesis 1:27 (NIV) says "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them". The creation of man is furthur elaborated in Genesis 2:22 (NIV) which says "Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of man, and he brought her to the man."

The second quote is a figurative description of the creation of woman. Is it possible to literally create a woman from a man? The answer is yes. Genetically, woman is someone who possesses the XX sex chromosomes and a man is someone who possesses the XY chromosomes. Examining the genetic structure, it is possible to extract the 2 X chromosomes from a man to create a pair of XX. By inserting this XX pair into a sexless human stem-cell, we essentially engineer a genetic female. Given that God created woman from man, it points out that God first created the X and Y chromosomes in man. In doing so, God had already created male and female when he first created the male man. The terms male and female in Genesis 1:27 therefore must refer to the X and Y chromosomes respectively.

Figure 1 shows that the propagation of genetic sexes will only preserve male and female genetic sexes. Moreover, people with mutant sex chromosomes are barren, thus the mutant sex genes cannot propagate themselves into the next generation. Therefore, we can see there is selective pressure (an act of God) eliminating mutant sexes within the human population and there is selective pressure acting for the preservation of the normal genetic sex. Also, mutation of the sex chromosomes occurs randomly and and not on a rampant basis. All these point out that mutant sex chromosomes are results of pure chance and it is not an intended result of an elaborate design by a higher entity. In conclusion, in creating only X and Y chromosomes, God therefore had meant human to be divided into 2 genetic sexes. In another words, God did not create more than 2 genders.

Now that we have established that God created only male and female, we must remember that biblically, gender and genetic sex are essentially the same. However, the social classification system (which is based on the biblical classification system) fails to accomodate people who cannot fit the classical description of male or female. Does it not point out that our social classification system is not comprehensive enough? To address this discrepancy, gender must be furthur socialised to accommodate the diversity of gender identities, and this no longer depends solely on our physical construct. In this way, we are extending the social classification system, maintaining the biblical classification system and still recognise God's soverignity.

In conceiving the idea of a third gender, we must take caution to remind ourselves that there is no actual creation of a third gender. God, not man, is capable of creation. We had already established there are only two physical genders (created by God). The third gender is therefore non-physical in basis - it is a social concept conceived by man to accommodate people whose gender identities are strictly neither male nor female.

This social concept, aka the third gender, will be discussed and explored furthur in the next post.

Rebuttal to a friend

2005-04-22T09:37:00.000+01:00

This post continues to discuss the topic "Are you sure of your gender?". Some of my friends has made known their comments and I would like to share their opinions with you:

"People tend to take care of girls not merely “because they are girls” but because women are generally weaker in terms of physical strength. Women’s emancipation cannot be complete if they were only given equal opportunities. The physical imbalance is still not compensated. You seldom expect women to win men in a race. Men are simply built with physical advantages compared to women. Therefore, we need a human construct to protect and women and right the physical imbalance so that each one of us is given equal opportunities. We need a social construct to protect the physically weaker sex so they will not be subjugated." - Jolene

Male don't compete against female in physical competitions, so their physical attributes won't contribute to their advantage. Moreover, it's not necessary true that woman is the weaker sex. The female body is more kinetically stable than the male body. The extra-stability conferred by the female physical structure compensates the lack of higher muscular strength exhibited by male bodies. Moreover, statistics has shown that ladies live longer, less likely to suffer from mental illness, and live a better quality life than guys. Having different set of strengths doesn't make woman the weaker sex.

Conversely, I am not suggesting that male is the weaker sex. There's no need for a social construct to protect the physically weaker sex because there isn't one in the first place. The male sexual intercourse technique involves penetration and in its most primitive (and forceful) form constitutes as rape. This contruct leads to the idea that only man is capable of rape, and thus promoting the myth that male is the stronger sex.

One more point to note, is that democracy today promotes equal opportunites for everyone, regardless of sex, unlike the old times when society was biased against women. Democracy aided in dispelling the myth that male is the stronger sex and reinforce that fact that ladies today are on par with guys in terms of physique and opportunities. Fair competition between sexes is the evidence that there is no weaker sex.

"Gender is a social concept, so it would be rather nonsensical to define gender using scientific rules. For a lot of scholars, “gender” and “sex” are different things. Culture and society are non-stagnant. So, given that, gender is “sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture.”, it can be extended from “male and female”. The problem is imagining and creating that 3 gender. So far, all that we see are conjugations and combinations of the two existing genders." - Geraldine

Sex and gender are undifferentiated layman-wise. An average person uses terms sex and gender inter-changeably. Extending the sex/gender of a person to classify the "conjugations and combinations of the two existing genders" makes perfect sense because it acknowledges the lack of proper classification of sexuality in our society today and addresses the diversity of sexuality in our society. The recent increased use of terms such as metrosexual, male lesbian, necrophillics propagates the increasing diversity of sexuality in our society and therefore calls for the need of a new classification system.

"Ideally, one should be free to choose his/her own gender. I’m not very sure about this part. Perhaps, you all can think about why we should or should not be allowed to choose our genders and what the possible outcomes and social implications are." - Tom

Given that our gender/sex is a collective set of opinions, people can work to change the opinion of others, or accept the prevailing forces in society to shape their opinion of their own gender. It implicates that we have the choice to choose our gender. Even apathy is an opinion, by accepting our parents' opinion that we are male or female without exercising independent thought. Our final gender is the compromise between selective pressure and free will. Even Tom agrees that our gender/sex is a collective set of opinion.

Are you sure of your own gender?

2005-04-15T21:20:00.000+01:00

I have a little donut here for you readers to stomach:
Are you sure of your own gender?

Gender defined at http://www.dictionary.com/ describes it as:
gen·der ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jndr)
n. Grammar.
1. Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture.
2. The condition of being female or male; sex.
3. Females or males considered as a group: expressions used by one gender.

Our sex is governed by a pair of sex chromosomes in our DNA. Males are XY by nature and females are XX by nature. If our sexuality is only confined by the condition of our sex, then what are the sex of the people who are borned XXY or XYX? Are they sex-less or they are male, female or both?

X is called the female sex chromosome. When X expresses itself in the human body, it leads to the production of female hormones. The presence of female hormones exert different effects on the host body. If the level of female hormones is high in a fetus during the pregnancy period, the fetus will develop into a girl because high level of female hormone result in development of the female genitals. Normally, high level of female hormones results when there is more than 1 X chromosome present in the DNA.

Y is called the male sex chromosome. When Y expresses itself in the human body, it leads to the production of male hormones. Male hormones not only suppress the development of female sex organs but also bring about development of male sex organs. A normal male contains the XY sex chromosome. The X and Y chromosomes are codominant, ie. they don't completely terminate the expression of the other chromosome. This suggests that he has both male and female hormones present in his body. However, the male hormones suppress the development of female sex organs, thus the male body will not exhibit breasts and a female pubes, but rather a penis.

Considering the sex condition of people borned with a mutated sex chromosome would be very difficult. It would be seem as if there are double standards in our basis of judgement. Essentially, we are people who see, observe, then rationalise. Our eyes cannot see genes directly when we look at a person. However, we can tell if the person is a he or she in virtue of the presence of certain sexual characteristics such as augmented chest of a woman and the adam's apple of a guy. We will consider a XXY person female because she only exhibits the female phenotype due to the high level of female hormones present in the body and the Y chromosome is defective. However, considering her sexuality on the basis of her genes, she is both male and female because she contains XX and XY. Isn't this conflicting? Don't you find it disturbing? It's even more upset to talk about the XYX people.

XYX is a rare mutation and its resultant phenotype is the development of both male and female sexual organs in the body. If you have both a penis and a vagina that is naturally part of you, do you consider yourself a male, female or both? It would be intitutivel to rationalise your sexual identity by yur sexual preference. Being a mutant, you would think "If I like a girl, I must be male" or "If i like a guy, I must be female" or "If I fancy both sexes, I must be bisexual". Considering that you are physically capable of acting as both female and male during the copulation process, why not consider yourself bisexual? Is one's sexual preference truly the guide of one's sexuality? Even I can't decide my own sex, how sure can I be sure about the other party's?

Now that I am finally done with discussing about the physical aspects of our sexual characteristics, this essay is not complete without examining the psychological concept of sex. As we all know it (through our naked eye looking at society around us) we see girls in skirts, guys in jeans, girls with long tresses, guys with crew cut. The psychological aspect of sexual identity is interesting because we can change it, unlike our physical characteristics which is determined by our genotype. If we project ourselves as the opposite sex, we will tend to dress up like what society would expect the opposite sex to wear and try to emulate their behavior. Not everybody has fantastic ability to perform this job, but there is evidently interest among some people. It's not how good they are in projecting themselves as the opposite sex, but rather the interest, the reason and sometimes the natural preference to be the opposie sex.

Why would people want to be the opposite sex? They could be envious of certain characteristics or social advantage inherent that particular sex. eg. People are more willing to take care of girls because they are girls. In fact, girls' clothes are generally much better designed and tastefully coloured, unlike the limited variety of clothes imposed by male fashion around the world. Sometimes it could be a bad memory from the past. Imagine if you are a young girl who was raped by her dad, would you grow up detesting male sexuality? Probably to the extent that you find it unacceptable to copulate with a male, but you find yourself more comfortble to make love to a fellow woman? Perhaps, it's just one reason to act as the turning point for one's sexual preference. Sometimes, we been brought up with the idea of one's sexual gender being imposed by others. Many a time, my sister would consider as herself as a guy because she was brought up as one, expected to behave like one, especially when the rest of her siblings are male and she's brought up in a confuscian family where guys are always given preferential treatment. I consider her as my sister and not my brother because the idea of her being a female has been imposed on me since her birth by my parents.

With the advancement in modern cosmetic technology, it is hard to differentiate male and female based on appearances. Even examining one's genotype to determine one's sex is not conclusive enough to decide one's sex. There is no rule-of-the-thumb or a proper scientific method present to determine one's gender. Only ideas that have been imposed on us while we were growing up. Hence, there is a need for a scientific method to determine one's gender. If no such procedure exists, how can you be sure if you are male? How can you be sure if you are female? Can you accept that your gender is actually a collective set of opinion?

Perhaps differentiating one's gender by male and female isn't sufficient. After-all, there are 30000 types of sex in the mushroom family (due to high level mutation in their genome). Can't we humans extend our sex types too?