TR EMERITUS

MP of West Coast GRC, Foo Mee Har The High Court yesterday (2 Jun) threw out a suit brought by a mother against her stepdaughter for breaching a gag order against discussing publicly the former’s family. In dismissing Mdm Eleanor Tan Kok Neo’s case against Ms Wendy Chan Mei Yoke, Judicial Commissioner Lee Kim Shin said Mdm Tan had not proven there was any agreement preventing Ms Chan from doing so. Mdm Tan claimed that Ms Chan breached their agreement by making a post on the Channel NewsAsia forum around 13 October 2012, about a discussion in Parliament on rising property prices. In a thread titled “Wow Ms Foo Mee Har wants to know is $1 mil HDB flat a norm in future”, Ms Chan allegedly said: I obviously cannot comment on your bimbo statement but it is a fact that she is with stan chart. A simple google search should also bring up her position in the bank. That aside why would people with plenty investment properties want the price of property to be more affordable? Isn’t the best thing one can do in Singapore is to make money and make more and more and more at all costs? Ms Foo Mee Har is an MP for West Coast GRC. She married one of Mdm Tan's sons and is therefore Mdm Tan’s daughter-in-law. Ms Chan was referring to the following question posed by Ms Foo in Parliament in October 2012 [Link]: In view of the recent record property transactions including a one million dollar Queenstown flat, Ms Foo Mee Har asked the Minister for National Development whether the anticipated fresh flood of liquidity into the U.S. financial system with QE3 announced by the U.S. Federal Reserve will have an impact on property prices and affordability. During the trial, Ms Chan had pointed to a written agreement between Mdm Tan and her made during a mediation session in September 2012, which revised the gag order such that Ms Chan was only not allowed to say anything scandalous, untrue or defamatory about Mdm Tan and her family. At the trial, Ms Chan did not think her post about her half-sister-in-law, MP Foo, was “defamatory, scandalous or untrue”. Ms Chan’s lawyer charged that Mdm Tan brought the suit under pressure from her other children. He said, “You have conflated a legal basis to come to court and an emotive desire to want (the commenting) to stop.” Mdm Tan replied in court then, “I really don’t know, my feelings are all confused.” But she disagreed that she was pressured by people to sue her stepdaughter. Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom after the judgment yesterday, Ms Chan said she felt “vindicated (and) extremely happy”. “It’s like a burden has been lifted as this case has been going on for a year and a half,” she said. “I hope we can all just put this behind us.” Ms Chan was born out of wedlock after her late father, Dr Harold Chan, had an affair. Ms Chan later came to live with the family at the age of 7. Since Bernard Chan, Ms Foo's husband, is the half-brother of Ms Chan, Ms Foo is naturally the half-sister-in-law of Ms Chan too. Despite the civil suit, Ms Chan has expressed her gratefulness to Mdm Tan for looking after her. During a media interview in 2012, Ms Chan said, “She looked after me for 40 years and is mum for me and I am grateful.” An article published by the Straits Times (ST) in 2011 (‘New PAP faces stunned by online vitriol’, 31 Mar 2011) mentioned that a bankruptcy order was served on MP Foo’s husband by Standard Chartered Bank [Link], the same bank that Ms Foo worked for at the time. She was then the global head of priority clients at the bank. However, for unknown reasons, the bankruptcy order against her husband was later withdrawn and he was not made a bankrupt. During the 2011 general election, ST reported that Ms Foo did not want to talk about her husband’s bankruptcy matter and would only say that he works as a general manager at an IT firm.  Read More →

It is an open secret – If the hiring manager is a FT, it is quite certain that Singaporeans will NOT be on the hiring list. Some years back, my company was restructuring the operations here and as a result, some sections were made redundant. My team was affected but was somehow glad that the company gave us support and helped us to look for other openings within the organisation. Fortunately, my team (2 locals, 2 FTs) managed to secure other offers within the company in Singapore. One day, my FT colleague (from my ex-team) spoke to me about an offer from another company. As our skills were pretty much specialised (ok, not rocket science of course but something unique), I was rather surprised when she told me the job scope for that offer because I applied for that position too! When I mentioned that company’s name, she was equally surprised. Through the conversation, I understood that the recruiting manager and my FT colleague were from the same country. In fact, she was asking my opinion (I don’t know why) if she should be taking up the offer as she wanted to try something else. She was so confident telling me that the hiring manager will be giving her top priority, just waiting for her to sign the offering letter. Eventually, she accepted that offer and left the company. A real example that I have experienced and I am sure there are many many other similar examples. So other than some wayang show, I am wondering did our government put in effort to tackle this issue? sad * Comment appeared in: 38% grads can’t find job within 1 year of layoff  Read More →

From China to Singapore, a good girl in a bad business (02 Jun)   She calls herself Jia Wang; pimps and customers call her so. “I serve the low and the medal class,” said the round-faced blonde with gray eyes. “If the guys have money, they can have me for a night or an hour.” Depending on the nature of the service, her rates range from $50 to $70 for an hour. Though women of other nationalities, including Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lankans, still lead the successful sex trade in Singapore, Wang said Chinese like her had pushed many of them out of business. Jia which means (good) in Chinese language said a country woman named Wen Won, who worked as a prostitute in Geylang and Orchard rood two famous red light areas in Singapore, encouraged her to join the field. On Orchard road, the success story of Singaporeans’ development, in a half dark café, in a pinky sexy short, with a half-naked body Jia is completely covered by cigarettes smoke. “My first customer paid me SGD 250 to accompany him overnight. He even took me on a night tour of Santosa.  The following customers were not as good as him. They treated me like a tool to satisfy their sexual desires and that made me feel terrible,” she said. She said her last customer paid her just to chat with her, saying that he wanted to gather information to write a book. “He gave me a book and advised me to quit the job. I couldn’t control myself and started crying,” she said. “I told him that I’m ‘too dirty’ now and that my future is already gone,” she said. Today is international sex workers’ day – a day to bring attention to the more than often exploitative conditions that those working in the industry have to face. What’s the best way to protect sex workers and prevent sexual exploitation that is a question which is very hard to governments to answer it. According to the international labor organization (ILO) annually the income from forced labors reached the level of $150 billion. And prostitution business has a oily part in that income. ILO says that $150 billion in profits by 21 million forced laborers around the world. You have many countries in the world, whose population and GDP do not even match these figures. We are talking about a vast nation of hidden people about whom we are not talking enough and about whom the time has come to take strong action. Jia Wong is also a member of this huge family which is involved in prostitution business in that part of the world. She said she was misused by others and now she is victim of that business and doesn’t know how to leave that field. She said she began regretting her act and she was worried that she might be infected with HIV because she said before I start that business I had no idea what is HIV and how dangerous is it for our life. As a journalist when I first came to Singapore, I was a bit confused about prostitution. I thought it was illegal based on what little I knew about coming here. We heard that Singapore has a strong government; I assumed it would be tightly controlled. However, after just a few weeks of living here and driving around at night, I soon learned the truth. Even the government is not care about how the young generation of this county is going to be in contact with HIV infected girls from poor south eastern Asian countries. “The government of Singapore, a country which means the country of lion knows that, they are lions they want to do business and attract more tourists to this country” she said. There is dozens of prostitutes from several south eastern countries in that red light district in Singapore this night, but nobody knows exactly how many Chinese women like Jia have been sold into sexual slavery. Some girls like Jia are cheated by pimps and sold to traffickers. Others are abducted, raped and psychologically pummeled into submission. As music blared from the loudspeakers in the dimly-lit cafe in Geylang area Jia’s cell phone rang.  Her response was short and straight, (SHEDA SHEDA) “Yes, yes, I’m coming.” She stopped smoking cigarette and got up.  She had a customer to attend to, and a taxi was waiting in front of cafe.  I followed her outside, and before she left, one last question of mine was, did you want to leave your profession? The answer came, wrapped in loud laughter: “Never it is my business now”. Source: www.khaama.com/from-china-to-singapore-a-good-girl-in-bad-business-8196  Read More →