TR EMERITUS

By Melvin Chen from Kent Ridge Common The first thing that strikes you about Seelan’s gallery is its off-the-beaten-track, sequestered nature. Tucked away in a humble corner of Little India, this underground exhibition immediately exudes a certain bad-ass aura, since it is being conducted under the radar of the authorities, and invitation to the gallery is by-appointment-only, and for good reason. Seelan is an artist and political activist who wears his criminal record (for his involvement in local protests for the SDP and the Burmese monks) like an artistic badge of courage. The starkly controversial nature of his work means that its essence may only be faintly discerned by reading between these lines, and will reward a firsthand vewing. ‘Walking the Streets, Haunting Ghosts’ deliberately transposes the much-feted cult-like aura of the artist onto the figure of Singapore’s political enfant terrible, J B Jeyaratnam. Seelan playfully toys with Benjamin’s concept of authenticity, by incorporating a placard gleaned from J B’s best friend and by using audio recordings of J B Jeyaratnam’s speech at the Reform Party’s inauguration dinner. Through revisiting popular haunts of the iconoclast in his placard-waving heyday (with shots of Raffles City being included for good measure), Seelan presents a video montage sequence which both lauds J B as a martyr for a cause and indicts an entire society which has been raised in a culture of fear and repression. Just as Benjamin politicized the aesthetic in his seminal essay, Seelan, with Lacanian fervour, returns his message in inverted form, by aestheticizing the political with his local namesake, creating imaginative topoi through a collage of visual (placard) and audio (voice recording) traces of the (repressed) figure who is always already under the process of erasure. Read rest of article here  Read More →

By Wong Ka-chun and Yvonne Liu from South China Morning Post The Hang Seng Index breached the 20,000 threshold yesterday, a phenomenal recovery from last year's slump that has raised concerns that another speculative market bubble is in the making. Loans for property, meanwhile, surged last month to the highest level since records began 14 years ago, adding to fears over-enthusiastic investors may be ignoring the realities of a recession and rising unemployment. The Hang Seng closed 1.35 per cent higher at 20,251.62 points, the first time since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last September that the blue chip benchmark ended above the 20,000 level. The H-share index rose 1.71 per cent to 12,189.62. The Hong Kong market has almost doubled in value from the global financial crisis induced low of 10,676.2 last October, boosted by hot money inflow and increasingly bullish prospects for earnings. Asian markets are moving in tandem with consumer confidence, according to a Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Survey released yesterday. The survey, conducted in 28 markets last month, showed the consumer confidence index rising to 82 from 77 in March. Some experts warn that both Hong Kong's stock and property markets risk overheating, given the shaky global economy and concerns Beijing may be preparing austerity measures. "Although the market is full of good news, investors should be careful," said Winson Fong, managing director at SG Asset Management (Hong Kong). The Hong Kong Monetary Authority yesterday said new loans approvals for all types of property transactions surged by 36.5 per cent to HK$38.4 billion in June. That tops the HK$33.7 billion recorded in the middle of 1997, just before the onslaught of the Asian financial crisis. New home loan approvals rose 34.4 per cent to HK$20.4 billion last month compared with May. Raymond So Wai-man, an associate professor at Chinese University's finance department, said a bubble had formed in the property market and for many people real estate had become unaffordable. "It is abnormal for property prices to rise when the unemployment rate is also increasing," he said. "It shows that the strong property sales of recent months have been driven by an influx of investors, not end-users." SG's Mr Fong said stocks gains were driven by investors' hopes about better company earnings, but this scenario was no sure bet. "Everybody knows the global economy is yet to fully recover and companies" could well report weak earnings, he said. Mainland markets continued to strengthen, with the Shanghai Composite Index closing 1.86 per cent higher at 3,435.21, double last year's low. Beijing is now attempting to put the lid on gains by launching a series of big initial public offerings, including China State Construction Corp, the world's largest IPO this year. "There's really too much speculation, apparently propelled by excessive liquidity in the system," said Huatai Securities analyst Zhou Lin. "Strong corporate listing prices will boost an 'easy-profit' mentality." The Hong Kong market has advanced 40.76 per cent since the beginning of the year and now is trading around 16 times price-to-earning ratios - the highest since the start of the financial crisis in 2008. Source: SCMP  Read More →

The exiled leader of China's Uighur minority arrived in Japan Tuesday for a visit that has angered Beijing, which accuses her of masterminding recent ethnic violence in the country's remote northwest. Rebiya Kadeer, the US-based head of the World Uighur Congress, was expected to use her five-day visit to call for support for the mainly Muslim minority, following deadly clashes in the Xinjiang region this month. She smiled and told waiting reporters that she did not speak English after arriving at about 3:30 pm (0630 GMT) on a commercial flight from Washington. Kadeer was to hold a press conference Wednesday and meet members of Prime Minister Taro Aso's party, according to her supporters here, although a ruling party official said he was unaware of any planned official contact. "Her itinerary is not completely fixed and may change," one of her supporters earlier told AFP. "We are a bit worried about ensuring her safety as she has been attacked by mobs in the past elsewhere." Any official contact between Kadeer and Japan's ruling party would be certain to anger China, which has accused her of orchestrating the clashes in Urumqi between Uighurs and Han Chinese that left more than 190 people dead. She denies the allegation, and cites reports of far higher death tolls. China's foreign ministry on Monday expressed "strong dissatisfaction" about Japan's decision to allow entry to Kadeer, who spent around six years in a Chinese prison before being released under US pressure in 2005. "Ignoring China's repeated and solemn representations, the Japanese government persisted in allowing Rebiya (Kadeer) to engage in anti-China separatist activities," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said. China's ambassador to Japan, Cui Tiankai, also warned in an interview with Japanese media that relations between the two countries could be damaged if Tokyo allowed her to visit. "She is a criminal," he was quoted as saying by Kyodo News. "How would the people of Japan feel if a violent crime occurred in Japan and its mastermind is invited by a third country?" Japan and China, major trading partners, have worked in recent years to improve ties often strained by rows over history and territorial disputes. Japan's government has said the deaths caused by the unrest in Xinjiang were "very regrettable" and called for a peaceful resolution of the situation. Japanese diplomats earlier this month urged China to protect the human rights of Uighurs after days of bloody unrest in the region. China's state-run media have said the violence left at least 192 dead, most of them members of the country's dominant Han ethnic group. Kadeer has said the death toll could be in the thousands, and that she had heard accounts of "mob killings" across Xinjiang. Kadeer is the subject of a documentary called "Ten Conditions of Love" which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival on Sunday. Festival director Richard Moore accused Chinese officials of trying to bully him into pulling the documentary, while Chinese directors withdrew their films in protest and hackers attacked the festival website. Event spokeswoman Louise Heseltine said the website remained partially disabled Monday because of the cyber-attacks, in which hackers replaced information with the Chinese flag and left anti-Kadeer slogans. Source: AFP  Read More →