TR EMERITUS

Times Live, 8 December 2009 His wife has moved out, his mother-in-law has been rushed to hospital, and his mistress list has grown to 10. The sex scandal in which Tiger Woods is embroiled shows no sign of abating. The golfer's dramas intensified yesterday when his mother-in-law, senior Swedish politician Barbro Holmberg, was rushed to hospital by ambulance after complaining of stomach pains, gossip website TMZ reported. Holmberg, who had flown to the US on Friday to be with her daughter, Elin Nordegren, was said to be in a stable condition. Earlier yesterday, Nordegren, the mother of Woods's daughter Sam, 2, and his 10-moth-old son Charlie moved out of his mansion into a home he owns nearby. The prenuptial agreement in which she was previously offered a divorce settlement of $20-million if she stayed married to him for 10 years was reportedly increased to $75-million last weekend. But now it appears that no amount of money - or marriage counselling by a therapist who moved into their home - was enough to make her stay with the man who bedded at least 10 other women during their relationship. Adding to Nordegren's humiliation is news that Woods SMSed mistress No 1, New York party planner Rachel Uchitel, shortly after his car crash nearly two weeks ago when the scandal broke. nuffnang_bid = "197ccc2fcf15082b02b9056643ea4a8d"; After the National Enquirer reported on Woods's two-month affair with Uchitel, he crashed his car into a fire hydrant and a tree in his attempt to flee Nordegren, who was hot on his heels in a golf cart. TMZ reported that in the days after the crash, Woods repeatedly SMSed Uchitel, saying he wanted to find a way to see her. It also reported that on the night of the crash, Nordegren saw her husband SMSing his mistress, grabbed his phone and called her herself. Uchitel - who was sneaked in for trysts with Woods while he played in a tournament in Melbourne, Australia, last month - reportedly told anyone who would listen that their affair was an "intense" and "real relationship". And to cap Nordegren's humiliation, Woods also put her health at risk by having unprotected sex with at least two of his mistresses. Jaimee Grubbs, a 24-year-old cocktail waitress, told gossip magazine Us Weekly that he never used a condom and didn't ask if she was taking birth control pills. "It wasn't even discussed. He just never used one," Grubbs said. The sister of another mistress, restaurant manager Mindy Lawton, told Britain's News of the World he never wore a condom. "I was so worried she might catch a disease, especially as we suspected he was promiscuous," said Lynn Lawton. Nordegren's friend, tennis champion Lyndsay Davenport, told the US TV programme Entertainment Tonight that the blonde Swede did not attack her husband with a golf club on the night she discovered his affairs. "She's incredibly hurt by what has gone on, but she handles herself with class, and she's working it out as best she can," she said. Davenport says she has spoken to the "very loving, very loyal and level-headed" Nordegren since the scandal broke. "Although she is having a tough time, she's really trying to get through it for the kids. Nobody wants to go through divorce, especially when there's young children involved," she said. - Times Live Republished from Times Live on 9 December 2009  Read More →

For the past thirteen years, Singaporeans were led to believe that opposition MP Mr Chiam See Tong was "ousted" from the Singapore Democratic Party which he founded in 1980 by his protege Dr Chee Soon Juan. Dr Chee joined SDP in 1992. His hunger strike to protest against his sacking from NUS by his boss who was also a PAP MP S Vasoo was strongly opposed by Mr Chiam who came to conflict with the SDP CEC as a result. Mr Chiam and a splinter faction left SDP in 1996 to set up the Singapore People's Party. The state media had been propagating the myth that Dr Chee had "engineered" the departure of Mr Chiam in order to seize control of SDP. As the longest-serving opposition MP in parliament, Mr Chiam is held in high regard by ordinary Singaporeans. The erroneous public perception generated by the mass media not only smeared Dr Chee's name and character, but led to diminishing support for SDP in subsequent elections. The media campaign to distort the truth about what happened is so successful that even an experienced and astute politician like MM Lee Kuan Yew himself was hoodwinked by it. In his testimony in court over a defamation lawsuit he had brought against Dr Chee, MM Lee said: " The SDP was doing very well under Mr Chiam See Tong, and at one time captured three seats (in Parliament), and it became the de facto leader.You (Dr Chee) came in, and destroyed the SDP. As a result, the Workers’ Party has become the de facto leader." [Source: Straits Times, 28 May 2009] Even as late as February this year, the media tried to play up the purported differences between the two men to continue its veiled attacks on Dr Chee. TODAY's Loh Chee Kong wrote a highly inaccurate and biased editorial on Mr Chiam which containd disparaging remarks about Dr Chee: "Fresh from leading the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) to three parliamentary seats in the 1991 General Election, Mr Chiam soon found himself ousted from the very party he had founded in 1980. The long-drawn saga — set in motion after Mr Chiam brought his one-time protege Dr Chee Soon Juan into the party — had obviously scarred him." [Source: TODAY, 28 February 2009] Dr Chee wrote a reply to TODAY which only published it on its online version and not in the printed one with a larger readership and where the original article by Loh Chee Kong was first published: "Mr Chiam was never ousted from any party. He had resigned as secretary-general after he was out-voted over a motion he had tabled in a Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting. Each CEC member is entitled to a vote on all matters governing the party. Mr Loh equates this with the "darker side" of politics..... My Loh describes me as Mr Chiam's protege who had come into the party and subsequently kicked Mr Chiam out. This is the kind of propaganda that the PAP has been spouting all these years in the state media to turn the people against me. I had not met Mr Chiam before I joined the party and had minimal contact with him or any one in the SDP before I stood for the by-election in 1992. I could not have been anyone's protege because a protege is someone trained or groomed by another for a particular line of work........ Mr Chiam and I have spoken cordially to each other at a luncheon at the US ambassador's residence last year and we met again at the Reform Party's inauguration dinner in 2008. I have on separate occasions indicated that while we may have our differences, my colleagues and I bear no ill-will towards Mr Chiam. In fact we wish him and his party all the best in their endeavours." [Source: TODAY, 10 March 2009] Straits Times journalist Kor Kian Beng finally set the record straight by publishing the truth of what really happened in his article on Mr Chiam's dinner bash this Saturday: "In 1993, Mr Chiam lost control of the party he founded, following differences with its central executive committee. He resigned as SDP's secretary-general and his protege, Dr Chee Soon Juan, took over as acting head." [Source: Straits Times, 9 December 2009] Without the new media to offer an alternative view to counter the spins, half-truths and propaganda churned out by the state media on the daily basis, the smear campaign against Dr Chee is likely to continue for much longer. Dr Chee will be attending the dinner held at Potong Pasir this Saturday to celebrate Mr Chiam's 25 years of service to its constituents. It does appear that the two men have long buried their differences and are on cordial terms now.  Read More →

OPINION Following the outcry over the introduction of another ruse by the ruling party to tilt the playing field in its favor in the next elections, the Straits Times predictably runs a column to allay concerns and anxieties on the ground that the proposed "cooling-off" day will handicap the opposition. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced last week that a "cooling-off" day will be introduced on the eve of polling day in the next election due by 2011 to allow voters to make a "calm" and "rational" decision. All mass rallies, door-to-door visits and public campaigning will be banned on the day including podcasts on political party websites and the new media. However, the traditional broadcasts of election messages by various political parties on television and news reports of the election will still be allowed. Straits Times journalist Kor Kian Beng wrote an lengthy article today to defend the "cooling-off" day on the grounds that it exists in various forms in other countries as well: "This idea is not novel. It is already found in various forms in many countries, including Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Italy." It is disgenuous of Kor Kian Beng to omit a crucial fact in his article to hoodwink and mislead unsuspecting readers, that Australia's version of "cooling-off" day or "black-out" period applies to all broadcasters equally: "Black Out Period - Broadcasters must comply with the “blackout” period (from midnight on the Wednesday before polling day to the close of polls on polling day)" [Source: Id. Schedule 2, clause 3A, Australian Law Library of Congress] In Singapore, the broadcast time given to the ruling party is disproportionately longer than other parties because that it fields more candidates than them which gives it an unfair advantage to influence voters. There is only one broadcaster in Singapore - Mediacorp, which is owned by Temasek Holdings, a government sovereign wealth fund whose CEO is the wife of the Prime Minister. However in Australia, all broadcasters are required under the law to give equal access to all political parties and they are not owned by the government: "Equal access – where any election matter is broadcast during an election period by a broadcaster, that broadcaster must give all parties contesting the election a reasonable opportunity to have election matter broadcast during the election period." [Source: Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Cth) Schedule 2, clause 3(2), Australian Constitution] Furthermore, the Australia media is relatively free and independent compared to Singapore's. The Australia media is ranked 16th on the World Press Freedom index this year by respected International NGO Reporters Without Borders as compared to the Singapore media's pathetic 133th ranking. [Source: Reporters Sans Frontiers, World Press Freedom Index 2009] All the printed newspapers in Singapore in the four national languages of English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, are owned by one single press company - the Singapore Press Holdings whose Chairman is none other than a former deputy prime minister Dr Tony Tan. As NCMP Sylvia Lim puts in succinctly, the boundaries between the party and the state are blurred in Singapore and the ruling party can make use of the civil service to clarify certain policies brought up by the opposition or introduced last-minute changes to appease the voters on the "cooling-off" day thereby swaying the fence-sitters to its side. Instead of highlighting Australia's "black-out" day to justify Singapore's own "cooling-off" day, why not educate Singaporeans on other aspects of Australian elections which provide a fair and level playing field to all contestants unlike Singapore's lop-sided one? For example, the campaign period for Australia is much longer than Singapore's nine days which enables important national issues to be aired and discussed and adequate time for the parties to reach out to the voters: "Federal election campaigns are traditionally approximately six weeks.  Polling day for federal elections must occur on a Saturday, at least 33 days and no more than 58 days after the issue of the writs." [Source: Australia Electoral Commission] Australia's electoral commission is an independent statutory board headed by Chairperson (a Judge or a retired Judge of the Federal Court), the Electoral Commissioner, and a non-judicial member (usually the Australian Statistician): "On 21 February 1984 following major amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (the Act) the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) was established as an independent statutory authority." [Source: Australia Electoral Commission] Singapore's electoral commission as well as the electoral boundary review committee in charge of drawing electoral boundaries are under the purview of the Prime Minister's Office headed none other by the Prime Minister himself when both should be independent entities in the first place. The election deposit for Singapore is a hefty $12,500 which is a relatively large sum for ordinary Singaporeans to cough out thereby enabling only the rich and power who are more often than not PAP candidates to take part in the elections. The minimum winning margin is also set at a high 12.5 per cent unlike in Australia: "Senate candidates pay a $1000AUD deposit upon their nomination, and House of Representatives candidates pay $500AUD.  These deposits are returned if a candidate gains more than 4% of the total first preference votes, or if the candidate is in a group of Senate candidates which polls at least 4% of the total first preference votes." [Source: Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth) §§ 294-297. Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth) § 294, Australia Constitution] Until the ruling party relinquish its control of the print media and electoral agencies, it is both inappropriate and unreasonable to compare Singapore's "cooling-off" day with Australia's "black-out" period. Australia conducts free and fair elections where no political parties will have an edge over the others unlike Singapore's which are engineered to ensure an overwhelming victory for the ruling party. Related articles: >> How will "cooling-off" day been forced in cyberspace? >> "Cooling-off day" for PAP to do last minute campaigning >> PAP MPs jump to defence of "cooling-off" day >> No need to sweat over "cooling-off" period >> "Cooling-off" day not needed due to lack of genuine political competition >> Real purpose of the cooling-off day >> SDP opposes “cooling-off” day and calls for a genuine electoral process >> Low Thia Kiang: Cooling-off period will give PAP an extra day of campaigning >> PM Lee: 24 hour “cooling-off” period at next GE >> Websites of political parties will be bound by cooling-off day rules  Read More →