TR EMERITUS

From our Correspondent When the Health Ministry announced its plans to pump in $500,000 more in subsidies for patients in hospices, it was lauded by the sycophantic state media that as "another move to keep healthcare affordable for the elderly sick". (read article here) We have been hearing the word "affordable" pretty often of late in the papers. Just yesterday, Minister for National Development Mr Mah Bow Tan reassured Singaporeans that HDB flats remain affordable despite record rise in prices in the midst of an economic slump. Whenever Singaporeans express their concerns about the rising cost of living to the ministers, they only have one standard reply: affordable. Everything in Singapore is affordable, from HDB flats, public transport, medical bills, food to coffins made by NTUC, including the ministers' pay. Well, everything is affordable to the PAP because they do not need to spend much to make life easier for Singaporeans as this will create a "crutch mentality" and retard our competitiveness. That's why the PAP is able to splash a cool $100 million dollars to host the Apec forum at the end of the year. What is $500,000 to them? A mere 0.5% of what is going to be spent in three days time on entertaining foreign guests. (read article here) Of course being a first world country, we cannot afford to be too stingy. Face is of utmost importance to an Asian Confucian society even when there are homeless elderly scavenging for food in the streets. After all, if Temasek Holdings can blow a massive $40 billion dollars in less than a year, what is $100 million to them? Only 0.25% of the amount lost in overseas misadventures. No worries, our reserves are still intact. So stop whining and have a sense of proportion, Singaporeans! Our beloved PAP government will be most generous to spend billion of dollars anywhere except on you. You should count yourself fortunate (remember: be grateful!) to get one "peanut" now and perhaps three "peanuts" on the eve of the next election. Who can you blame since you are the ones who have been faithfully giving the PAP their "heavenly mandate" to squeeze you year after year?  Read More →

An excerpt from Bagehot's Column, The Economist Ministerial talent is easy to identify but harder to define. It involves sound administration, policymaking flair, judgement, personal presence, a capacity for teamwork combined with a distinct political identity: a tall order, and few in the current cabinet meet it. The shortage of quality is partly a result of recent history. In the past two decades, many politicians have followed a narrow and callow career path. Slick graduates work for MPs or thinktanks before finding safe seats. After a short parliamentary apprenticeship, Labor high-fliers have been distributed, more or less randomly, across ministries with huge budgets and challenges, then reshuffled before they can acquire much experience. The length of Labor's term in office is also a factor. Most of its small group of able ministers resigned in disgrace, fallen out with the leadership or died. The next cohort have had daunting responsibilities thrust on them before they proved themselves equal to humbler ones. But the basic cause of dearth is structural: it is an unhappy function of parliamentary arithmetic. Take the number of MPs who represent the governing party in the House of Commons; subtract those unsuited to government office because of their views, age, disposition or dimness; and there aren't too many left to fill the 100-odd posts at the prime minister's disposal. Sir John Hoskyns, an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, observed that governments are formed from "a talent pool that could not sustain a single multi-national company." The solution is simple. Prime ministers should reach beyond Westminister for more of their hires. The more technocratic departments could be led by captains of industry or accomplished scientists. Some might even survive handovers of power, like Robert Gates, the defence secretary retained by Barack Obama. There are two obvious objections. One is empirical: importing outsiders into British politics has not been universally successful. The slow, consensual, decision-making of the government can be frustrating for some scholled in more pliant environments such as business; the need for obedient line-toeing can evidently grate. The second objection involves protocol. Since Lord Carrington resigned as foreign secretary in 1982, the top jobs have been reserved for MPs because of the feeling that their holders should be directly accountable to the elected representatives in the Commons, the body from which governments derive their legitimacy. It is the sort of reform that a country so shackled by its history would struggle to swallow. But it might mean government ceases to be one of its last bastions of inefficient amateurism. Source: The Economist EDITORS' NOTE: The Temasek Review is a paid subscriber of The Economist  Read More →

By Gordon Fairclough from Wall Street Journal Protesters took to the streets Thursday in downtown Urumqi -- the northwestern Chinese city torn by deadly ethnic riots in July – criticizing the government and Communist Party for failing to protect people after a recent spate of attacks by assailants wielding syringes, witnesses in the city said. The demonstrators were members of China's majority Han ethnic group, witnesses said. Urumqi residents said it appeared that thousands of people were involved. They said the crowds were peaceful -- and shouted for the removal of the region's powerful Communist Party secretary, Wang Lequan. "There are people everywhere," said one woman working near the city's central People's Square. "They are chanting: 'Down with Wang Lequan.'" China's state-run Xinhua news agency, in a brief report, said protests had occurred at several sites in Urumqi, including one at which "more than 1,000 people" were involved. The demonstrations were an unusual public challenge at a sensitive time for China's political leadership, which has tightened security across the country ahead of celebrations for the 60th anniversary of Chinese Communist Party rule on Oct. 1. Tensions have remained high in Urumqi, capital of China's Xinjiang region, since the July riots, which left nearly 200 people dead and more than 1,600 injured in the country's worst episode of ethnic violence in decades. The bloodshed began when Turkic-speaking and predominantly Muslim ethnic Uighurs went on a rampage against Han Chinese, killing more than 130. Revenge attacks by Han followed. Government officials have sought to paint a picture of returning normalcy, touting an international trade fair that opened this week. And President Hu Jintao visited at the end of August, exhorting local leaders to build a "prosperous and harmonious socialist" Xinjiang. But large numbers of paramilitary People's Armed Police remain deployed in Urumqi, a city of 2.4 million. Police were stationed at all Urumqi schools when they reopened for classes after summer vacation this week. And the city's Han and Uighur communities remain deeply distrustful of each other. The immediate trigger of this week's Han demonstrations – there was also a smaller protest on Tuesday – was a recent series of stabbings involving syringes, residents said. Rumors swept the city that the attacks were by Uighurs trying to infect Han Chinese with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, they said. Police in Xinjiang said they detained 15 people in connection with needle attacks, according to Xinhua. Four of them were prosecuted, according to an official quoted by Xinhua. The official didn't specify the ethnicity of the alleged attackers, but said members of nine ethnic groups, including Han and Uighurs, had reported stabbing incidents to the police. Public-health authorities said none of the stabbing victims had been infected with any pathogen or poisoned as a result of the attacks. Local officials tried to restore calm in the past several days by sending a mass text message to cellphones urging people not to believe the rumors, one Urumqi resident reached by phone said. Uighurs complain about government restrictions on their civil rights and religious practices and say they are discriminated against by Han people. July's violence erupted during a protest by Uighurs over the killing of Uighur workers by Han colleagues at a factory in southern China. Those killings followed rumors that Uighur men had raped Han women, allegations police said were untrue. While Uighurs and other minorities feel that they face prejudice, many Han Chinese resent what they see as undue preferential treatment for minority groups by the government. Many Han complain about affirmative action-type policies for minorities in education and say that minorities are treated more leniently than Han when they commit crimes. Xinjiang's Communist Party secretary, Mr. Wang, effectively the highest-ranking official in Xinjiang, is viewed by foreign human-rights groups as an advocate of hard-line policies towards China's ethnic minorities. Thursday's protests in Urumqi indicate that for at least some Han Chinese in the country's west, worried about their safety, his approach doesn't seem tough enough. Source: Wall Street Journal   EDITORS' NOTE: The Temasek Review is a paid subscriber of the Wall Street Journal  Read More →