TR EMERITUS

Echoing the words of Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, the Temasek Review has become a "victim" of our own success as our surging readership far outstripped our limited resources to maintain the site. The Temasek Review was previously run by rotating teams of volunteers who contributed to its servers out of their own pockets, but its astonishing climb in readership means that it is no longer feasible for it to rely solely on advertising in the long run. Referring to the post by our reader Forecaster Extraordinarie II dated 25th August 2010 entitled, Temasek Review has Singapore Press Holdings to thank for their success, Temasek Review was then ranked 74,089 in the world and 199 in Singapore. Ranking as of 26th August 2010 Our readership have multiplied ten-fold since our last appeal for donations towards a new dedicated server on 16th August 2010 (Temasek Review needs a new server urgently). Temasek Review is now ranked 63,930 in the world and 162 in Singapore, moving up the charts to surpass TodayOnline who is now ranked 203 in Singapore, considering the fact that TodayOnline is owned by MediaCorp and has full-time journalists and techinical staff manning it. Ranking as of 7th September 2010 With the rapid increase in readership, our servers are constantly running at near its maximum capacity during peak hours causing a noticeable decline in access speed and longer site loading time. Success comes at a price and Temasek Review urgently needs a new server to offload and balance the increase in traffic which is expected to increase tremendously with Election Day being only months away. The deployment cost of the planned new server is US$1,300.00 and we have only managed to raise US$974.85 in donations as of 15th September 2010 (excluding the cost of the TemasekVPN server which is on consignment arrangement). The monthly lease of US$1,800.00 for all our servers will be paid for by our advertising revenues. As much as we would prefer not to, we are now stuck in an awkward situation whereby we may be forced to start banning accesses by Country instead of just network blocks. We might even need to continue banning Singapore ISP's netblocks if the situation worsens. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do at the moment due to financial constraints but in the meantime, we would like to say a big "THANK YOU" to those who have donated towards our new server and would like to appeal to our other readers to please support our site by making a token donation if you believe in our cause. Readers interested in making a donation can do so with their Credit or Debit card which will be processed by our payment processor, MoneyBookers. All information submitted will be kept strictly confidential, none of your payment information will be stored on our server except email address.   Alternatively you may also support our site by ordering a TemasekVPN from us at a discounted price of US$60.00 for 6 months, click for more information.   While we badly need the donations to deploy another server, please do not donate if you have any reservations or is worried about online security or personal safety. There are other ways of supporting our site like contributing articles, ordering services and products from our advertisers (CPL). Thank you in advance for all your support towards Temasek Review.   Molina Han Managing Editor, Temasek Review   * Please note that we DO NOT accept PayPal and our previous PayPal account is no longer in use.  Read More →

Dear TR, Today I feel like ending it. I was jobless since I was let go by my previous company last November. I was surviving on the last of my savings and when that ran out, I had to apply for a temporary loan on my credit card. I have a lot of financial burdens as my mother was diagnosed with cancer and it was a painful 2 year period of expensive treatments and surgeries till she passed away in 2008. But my problems did not end there as my father too was retrenched and my younger brother was still studying in university. The bills and debts kept mounting up. But finally I had some ray of light in mid August when I was finally hired. I got a half month's salary just last week and a lot of it was already earmarked to pay off some outstanding bills and loans. I made a call to UOB, my current biggest creditor. As my credit cards were discontinued when I had no choice but to default on my payments, I asked to speak to someone in the credit card division with regards to arranging for a payment plan on Monday. The credit officer who spoke to me said that she would look into arranging for a repayment scheme, but asked if I could make a lump sum payment first. I said that amount was not possible and asked for another arrangement. She said that she would get back to me. Today when I went to the ATM to draw on my funds to begin paying off the bills, to my shock my entire bank account was emptied, leaving less than $50.00 behind. I rushed home to discover what happened, only to find that UOB had deducted everything on its own accord. Right now it is only month beginning and I am already broke, with no funds and no resources to even travel to work. How am I supposed to survive and work to pay off my debts if the bank can do this to me? I have no where to turn.   Nic LY Mobile: (65) 8492-2677   Editor's note: Contact information published with writer's consent. Those who wish to contact the writer can do so directly. As with all online pleas, readers please excercise due care and diligence.  Read More →

That's the number that Singaporeans must wake up to. If it hasn't set off alarm bells in you, you are not paying enough attention. It's the number that the PAP wants to increase our population to. Unbelievable? Here's what National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan: "A recent review of our long-term land use and transportation plan concluded that we have enough land to cater to a population of 6.5 million." Let's start with the obvious. Singapore is already the third most densely populated country in the world with a density of 7,023 persons/sq km. Even Hong Kong - long known for its crowded roads and housing estates - is less dense (6,349 persons/sq km). That was the data for 2009 where the number of people on this island was 4.98 million. The Govenment announced last week that the new number is 5.08 million - an increase of 100,000 in just a year. Out of the 5.08 million, only 3.23 million are Singaporeans which makes 36 percent of the population foreigners. In other words for every three persons you see around you, one is not a Singaporean. And because of the PAP's very deliberate policy of flooding this country with foreigners, we have housing prices shooting through the roof because non-Singaporeans continue to buy property here like there was no tomorrow. The MRT trains are at bursting point. One netizen reported that a station was so crowded that people coming up from the escalator could not get off safely because the train platform was filled with commuters. Our roads are getting ever more crowded despite ERP gantries sprouting up like mushrooms. We're digging more and more tunnels for the trains without knowing whether they are contributing to the unprecedented floods that we have had. Foreign Minister George Yeo admitted that we needed a masterplan to figure out how to house all the foreign workers here. We're beginning to see fights breakout between the foreign nationals. Violent crime is on the rise. With all these problems still unresolved the PAP is, quite incredibly, bringing 80,000 more foreigners this year. This will continue until we hit 6.5 million over the next several years, by which time we will see more foreigners than Singaporeans in Singapore. That is quite a statistic. But it is more than a statistic. It is our lives and our future that the PAP is playing wth. Whether our infrastructure will be able to cope with such a load no one really knows. What social impact the mass immigation will have on society is anybody's guess. The Government has not conducted any study or produced any evidence that this small island can cope with 6.5 million. All we have is Mr Mah Bow Tan's proclamation on his party's website that "so long as we have a leadership that has the foresight to anticipate challenges," having 6.5 million people here will be good for Singapore. This coming from someone who could not even properly anticipate the supply HDB flats to meet the needs of the population. We have the environment minister who can't keep the floods out and the home Minister who can't keep terrorist suspects in. Then we have the sports minister who, even with an over-sized budget of $387 million, can't properly organise a mini-Olympic games. We also have the trade and finance ministers who could not see the looming global financial crisis in 2008 despite clear warning signals. As a result,  Temasek and GIC lost $140 billion from bad investments. Then there is the trade union minister who in the depth of the recession tells us that he feels so rich. Leadership? Foresight? There has been no public consultation, no debate and no proper scrutiny over this so-called foreign talent policy. All we have is Mr Mah's banal promise. If this dangerous 6.5-million experiment fails, it will be too late. We, the ordinary folks, will be the ones paying for the mess. The ministers who live in their Gurkha-guarded homes, far removed from the daily stresses that they place upon us, will not be affected. They will ask us to "bear with it" like the prime minister did in his ND Rally. Singaporeans must rally around this issue. We must check the PAP's recklessness and stop it from increasing our population by another 30 percent!    Singapore Democrats  Read More →