TR EMERITUS

(21 June)     Chinese government ‘unflustered’ about reaction to it placing vessels in South China Sea. China has sent four more oil rigs into a disputed area of the South China Sea less than two months after it placed a giant drilling platform in waters claimed by Vietnam, ratcheting up regional tensions. The largely unpopulated Paracel islands are administered by China but claimed by Vietnam, and they have become the flashpoint in an increasingly aggressive territorial row between the two neighbours, ideological allies as fellow communists but with stark divisions. A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said the rigs were in waters close to Guangdong province and Hainan island. “There is no need to over interpret the recent deployment of four oil rigs in the South China Sea,” Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing. China claims 90 per cent of the 3.5-million-square-kilometre South China Sea. The Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim some of the Spratlys, while China, Taiwan and Vietnam claim the whole chain. ‘Normal activities’ “There is no need to make a fuss about normal activities,” she said, adding the co-ordinates of the rigs can be found on the website of China’s Maritime Safety Administration, which issued details this week about drilling operations of oil rigs Nanhai 2, 4, 5 and 9. The dispute is the most serious threat to relations between the communist rivals since a brief war in 1979 following Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia. They are rapidly becoming the South China Sea equivalent of the equally uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands to the Chinese.   Read more:    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/anger-in-vietnam-as-china-sends-four-more-oil-rigs-into-disputed-waters-1.1840407    Read More →

(21 June)     More than half a million votes were cast for full democracy in Hong Kong by the second day of an unofficial online poll organized by activists and labeled illegal by China. Since the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997, a pro-Beijing committee has selected Hong Kong’s leader. China has promised some form of universal suffrage for the next chief executive election in 2017 with the caveat that candidates must be vetted. The poll, which began yesterday and runs until June 29, offers three chief executive election plans for voters to choose from, all involving a popular vote. “I voted because I want the people of Hong Kong to be heard,” said a man who would only provide his surname, Ng, and said he was a 53-year-old architect. “Just because they don’t want to give me a voice doesn’t mean I shouldn’t express my opinions,” he said after voting online yesterday.   Read more:     http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-06-21/hong-kong-democracy-poll-gets-half-a-million-votes-by-second-day    Read More →

A blogger by the name of Gemini wrote an article on this issue and posted in the TRE. He/she quoted an ST article as THE good reason, and I repost a bit of it here, Sunday Times, March 12, 2006  - Mistress island Welcome to Pulau Amat Belanda, second home to many Singapore men who visit their ‘weekend wives’ there There is an island near Batam that receives, almost exclusively, male Singaporean visitors. When the men get off the boat, they pay 25,000 rupiah (about $5) to register with the security men. Their passports are checked, and details such as their names, IC numbers and Singapore addresses noted. Then they head to the homes of their ‘weekend wives’, rooms rented in stilted wooden houses. This is Pulau Amat Belanda, 30 minutes by boat from Sekupang port in Batam, an island that is a red-light district all on its own. Almost every male visitor to the Indonesian island has an ‘exclusive’ relationship with a woman there, to whom they give a cash allowance of between two million and five million rupiah ($350 to $900) every month to keep them from straying…. The reason to hold back the people’s life savings is because they kept mistresses, not because they lost their money and begging the govt for financial assistance. Let’s be very clear about the justification of Gemini’s rationale. It is the men’s amorous activities that justified holding back their money in the CPF. From the article, these men are rich and can afford it. Their scandalous lifestyle is not acceptable to many on legal, moral or social grounds, but is that a good reason to hold back their life savings in the CPF? Is this not a judgment call on moral grounds to keep the men from straying? Can this be the reason to be a blanket cover to hold all the men’s money in the CPF just because of a few sexy men? And can this be a blanket cover for the holding back of the CPF money of women as well? This is really frightening. Imagine if the govt are made up of men and women who think like Gemini. The next thing they will do is to freeze the accounts of rich men and women in the banks. Come to think of it this is quite possible given that there are so many priests and priestesses among the few good men and women in power. And if such a reason is seen as good, right, logical, acceptable, I have many more good reasons to keep the men and women from withdrawing their monies in the CPF at 55. My list will be so long that it will fill a library and will take 56 man years to write them down. So I will spare you people the agony and time reading them.   Chua Chin Leng aka redbean * The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenew.blogspot.com    Read More →