TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent The recent "hijacking" of a SBS Transit bus by a PRC family of five caused a massive outroar in cyberspace with many netizens lampooning their antics and police inaction against them. The family was not allowed to carry their wheelchair to board the bus due to safety reasons as it is not wheelchair accessible. Though the bus captain had explained to them earlier, they refused to bulge and went up the bus. The bus captain had no choice but to park the bus alongside a road and after consulting his superiors, transferred the other passengers in the bus to another one. The PRC family continued to protest vehemently on the bus for five hours and even the police who arrived later was unable to do anything about it. The fiasco was settled eventually when SBS paid a cab to send them home. The ugly saga made a mockery of the ruling party's much criticized "foreign talent" policy and its vain attempts to "integrate" the new citizens, many of whom hail from mainland China into Singapore society. Netizens were up in arms when hearing the story with more than 50 comments posted on The Temasek Review in less than three hours questioning why they were not arrested on the spot for unruly behavior. WTF wrote: "If they were singaporeans, we can bet your last dollar that the Singapore foolish force will have them arrested for disorderly behaviour." Myanmar not welcomed added: "Shouldn’t these people be hauled to the police station for disorderly behaviour? If they were Singaporeans, they would have been arrested immediately by the police. What the hell is wrong with the police these days? Only know how to bully Singaporeans? Police, shame on you!" BiasedGovt was peeved with SBS for paying their cab fare: "Why paid the taxi fare for the PRC? If they are our citizens, we are already locked up by police. Because PRC are 过江猛(凶)龙?" Some netizens made use of this incident to criticize the ruling party's pro-foreigner policy which is destroying Singapore bit by bit. An anonymous poster said: "Remember this type of behaviour has happened in MOE and the next place it could happen is hospitals where someone urgently needed tranfusion to save his/her life and a bunch of street tough hooligans obstructing A & Es regardless of lives at risk and the Police cowered in fearful submission. Do we really want to integrate another 3 million of the same behaviour type into our society? I would say seriously “No thanks” Any law-abiding Singaporeans disagree?" Wat? felt the ruling party will get a "taste" of its own medicine one day: "The MIW will regret the day they decide to import all these people in thinking they will vote for them. these people are more trouble to the MIW than MIW thinks. There you go …. “hard-driving” ones for you. i would like to see more of them making a fuss of everything and putting up protests and the whole she-bang. Good times are coming!" Over at SPH-owned Hardwarezone forum, the topic sparked an active discussion among netizens on the aggressive behavior of these "Ah Tiongs", a derogatory Hokkien term for mainland Chinese. leaving_footsteps disagreed with their antics: "Can charge them for protesting without permit bo? Anyway, I think they should have complained through other means lor. Causing trouble for other passengers ish really too much. Aren't they too self-centred and selfish?" Lao_funker thought they were ridiculous: "This is a bit ridiculous. Many different buses of the same number would have stopped at that bus stop over a period of 5 hrs. I don't really get it - what kind of moron would tussle with the same bus driver for 5 hrs instead of choosing another bus with the same number ?" poolzz was obviously infuriated after reading the article: "After reading this thread, I hate Ah Tiongs more ! ! !  Go back to ur country . Don't come to Singapore to take our jobs." The ruling party has resorted to mass importing foreigners from overseas, especially China to boost Singapore's declining birth rates over the last few years. Unfortunately, Singapore is not getting the best talents from China who prefers to emigrate to the U.S., France, Canada, Australia and South Korea and we end up, but uncouth peasants from the poorer inland provinces instead.  With more and more of them flooding Singaporeans, it is little wonder that MM Lee is concerned that native Singaporeans, who are described by SM Goh as "sheep" will be unable to compete with these more "hard-driving" and "hard-striving" "lions".  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent An irate Singaporean by the name of Lua Eng Chuan has written to the Straits Times Forum today demanding that PRs be banned from selling their HDB flats at a profit. Mr Lua was writing in response to Law Minister Shanmugam's remarks yesterday that it is wrong to accuse foreigners of driving up costs and criticize him for not addressing "th "the consequences on single Singaporeans or offer more effective ways to help all citizens." "In dismissing the perceived impact of foreigners, Mr Shanmugam noted that foreigners cannot buy HDB flats and that there are too few permanent residents (PRs) to affect prices. He also noted that the Government gives Singaporeans a leg up with concessionary loans and housing grants, and is ready to launch up to 12,000 build-to-order (BTO) units to meet demand. But concessionary loans and housing grants are not enough to offset rising flat prices, and single Singaporeans cannot buy BTO units.," he added. Though HDB flats are supposedly public housing for Singapore citizens only, PRs are permitted to buy resale flats and to sell them at a profit later with no restrictions imposed. There are currently about 500,000 PRs in Singapore. In 2008 alone, there are more than 20,000 PRs. According to Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng, two out of every three PR applicants are successful, an astonishingly high rate for a developed nation. Due to the ruling party's liberal immigration policies, foreigners, especially those from mainland China and India, now make up 36 per cent of the population, up from 14 per cent in 1990. The relentless influx of foreigners between the years 2005 - 2008 coincided with the rise in the prices of HDB flats as illustrated by the graph below courtesy of the moderator of 3in1kopitiam Kojakbt: However, the number of new HDB flats built between 2006 - 2008 is only slightly more than 10,000, which is grossly inadequate to meet the increased demand caused artificially by immigration: [Source: HDB Financial Report 2008/2009] As public housing is a basic necessity in Singapore which HDB enjoys an absolute monopoly in, Singaporeans have no choice either to buy them directly from HDB or the resale market. The prices of resale HDB flats hit a record high in June last year and continues to climb. In an interview with Straits Times a few weeks ago, Propex CEO Mohammad Ismail revealed that 20 per cent of the buyers of resale flats at his agency are PRs, a figure which contradicts Mr Shanmugam's assertion that PRs form only a small percentage of the buyers. Some PRs also "spoil" the market by over-paying for resale flats. For example, an Indonesian PR paid $653,000 for a 4-room resale flat at Queenstown though he could well afford a private condominium. After selling their HDB flats at a hefty profits, many PRs are able to retire relatively comfortably in their homelands due to the lower cost of living. The issue of PRs allowing to purchase and sell HDB flats freely has been a sore point among many Singaporeans, but National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan defended the policy on the ground that PRs need a place to live in as well. Mr Lua ended his letter with a suggestion to Mr Shanmugam: "PRs should also be banned from renting out their flats or putting them up for resale at a profit. The price at which PRs resell their flats should not be higher than what they paid for them. Such a rule will prevent PRs who do not intend to take up citizenship from reaping a windfall when they return home after a few years. It will indeed ensure that foreigners are not responsible for high flat prices." It is highly unlikely that the pro-foreigner ruling party will listen to him. To them, foreigners, PRs and new citizens are the "future" of Singapore, never mind the fact that some of them are uneducated housewives, cleaners, masseurs, construction workers and even freelance prostitutes. Related articles: >> Shanmugam: Singaporeans likely culprits for driving up HDB flat prices >> Mah Bow Tan: HDB flats remain affordable >> Means testing for PRs to buy resale flats >> Immigration and public housing: should the govt or people plan ahead? >> Grace Fu: hard to predict demand for housing >> Indonesian PR bought 4-room flat at $653,000 >> Mah Bow Tan asks home buyers to be realistic >> PAP MP blames young couples who cannot get a flat for not planning ahead >> Home affordability: HDB versus the public >> Demand vs supply: so many applicants, so few flats >> Number of applicants exceed number of flats >> HDB to increase supply of flats >> Mah: don’t compare with prices in the past >> ERA: 40 per cent of HDB flat buyers are PRs  Read More →

By Seah Chiang Nee from The Star (Malaysia), 16 January 2010 Many tech-savvy Singaporeans expect the next national election to be fought mainly in cyberspace, hopefully through superior logic rather than using high technology to silence the other. AT A time when the government wants to take on its online critics, two of Singapore’s most popular and outspoken websites have come under cyber attacks. In the latest case last week, The Online Citizen (TOC), which regularly criticises government policies, said it had become a victim of a denial of service assault. It posted a brief announcement on its main page on Wednesday. “Hi everyone, we’ve been under a DDoS (denial of service) attack in the last few days which incapacitated our website. We apologise if you had difficulty in accessing TOC.” It appealed for patience as it worked on the problem. This was the second major website to be hit after Temasek Review (TR), a hard-hitting critic of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), was shut down for 24 hours last September. For three months, the assaults on it continued intermittently until it strengthened its defences. It said these “well coordinated simultaneous attacks” on the two sites were an attempt to disrupt their smooth operations and affect plans for expansion. The Temasek Review has grown rapidly in the past two years with readership rising 50% to six million hits. A DDoS attack involves overwhelming a target site with thousands of connections per second, rendering it inaccessible. In some countries, the warfare is more sophisticated and often launched, or encouraged by, a government agency against a foreign foe. The apparent offensive here against the two rising web stars – at least in the eyes of its fans – could be a danger for this smart island, which largely depends on the Internet to earn a living. “If we resort to a culture of web warfare to shut out rivals, Singapore will pay the price,” said a software engineer. “You can’t win because somebody else will hit back.” This is one of the few cities that is fully wired up for fast broadband access that is used by a tech-savvy population for study, commerce and networking. But it also poses a huge challenge to the ruling People’s party’s firm control on the media. Some two-thirds of Singaporeans in their 20s either blog or participate in online forums. The attacks followed a condemnation of the new media as “adversarial” and “one-sided” by Acting Information, Communication and the Arts Minister Lui Tuck Yew. At the moment, the websites’ reach lags far behind that of the mainstream newspapers. The predators who hit The Online Citizen and Temasek Review have never been identified. There is no evidence that the PAP is behind the attack and it has not commented on them. But given the rising online threat to it and the PAP’s intention to fight back, some suspicion has fallen on political supporters, possibly in the party’s youth wing. “Mark my words, this is just the dry run for the next election, when the Internet will hot up,” said a surfer. “I wouldn’t be surprised if both websites are knocked out (again) then.” It’s a fight the PAP cannot afford to lose. Taming its online foes and winning over the new generation of Singaporeans are crucial to it staying in office. It was only a year ago that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong took his party’s first major step to join the new media war by evolving itself to deal with it. He said in a TV interview: “We are still learning. It is not easy to make this transition. It is like going from sea to land or vice versa, you are changing your medium and you need to get comfortable with it. But we are working hard at it.” Many of the older leaders know little about it. A 50-member new media team has been set up to do the work. One of the tactics was to place people into some of the anti-government forums to engage the critics. “If we see things that are not correct on websites which are respectable and reliable, then we have to be there to put across our point of view so people will be able to know the facts and to respond to it,” Lee explained. Ironically, this story coincided with two headlines abroad. First, Google announced it might pull out of China because of a sophisticated computer network attack originating there that targeted its e-mail service and corporate infrastructure. “A primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists,” it said. At least 20 other large companies, including finance, media and chemical firms, had been targets of similar attacks. In the second story, the Iranian Cyber Army paralysed China’s biggest search engine, Baidu, allegedly over support given by some Chinese surfers to Iranian reformists. The Chinese retaliated. Singapore is watching with some concern in case of worldwide spillover. Although the incidence in Singapore is small in comparison, some business people are concerned that it may set a precedent for a future in which digital warfare becomes a national habit. They believe that the Internet works on trust and reliability and if these are compromised, people may want to go back to the slow paper-shuffling ways. That would be a disaster for this business hub. Meanwhile, the PAP is still on the lookout for young Members of Parliament who are of the Internet generation. “(They should) be quite naturally comfortable with it and with the population who are also operating there,” PM Lee said. That will come naturally anyway. The hope is that they – and opposition groups – will fight with superior logic, rather than use high technology to silence each other. INSIGHT: DOWN SOUTH By SEAH CHIANG NEE  Read More →