TR EMERITUS

MEDIACORP artiste Quan Yifeng has made headlines again - but for the wrong reasons. A 52-year-old taxi driver, identified only as Mr Tan, has accused her of hitting him, thrashing his taxi and taking his car keys. The incident happened on Saturday. Quan who is filming in Mauritius, has denied his allegations and hit back by saying that she was the one who got hurt by his violent behavior that the 52 years old slammed his car door and swore on her. In Wanbao's report, Mr Tan was quoted as saying that the star lost her temper after he did not help her load her luggage into his taxi and asked 'what sort of service attitude is this?'. He claimed she also swore at him in Hokkien, kicked him in the groin and locked herself in the taxi for 15 minutes, after accusing him of braking hard on purpose and throwing her forward. According to the sources, the taxi picked up a male passenger around 8: 45 AM who asked to go to Hua Xin Condominium to pick up more passengers and then head to Changi airport. 36 years old Quan Yifeng and her 11 years old daughter were the other passengers. All of them were on the way to Mauritius. The problem started when Mr Tan, the taxi driver refused to help the lady with her luggage which said to allegedly made her angry and repeatedly swearing, shoving and hitting him. On the exit point, she kicked his groin and locked the car for 15 minutes to thrash it.   Police have classified the case as theft because she allegedly took off with his car keys.   Francis Koh    Read More →

Barely a week after Upper Thomson Road, Boon Lay and Ang Mo Kio were hit by flash floods, some parts of Singapore are submerged today in knee-high flood water due to another heavy downpour which occurs “only once in fifty years”, in the words of PAP Minister for Environment Mr Yaacob Ibrahim. Floodwaters were seen along Paterson Road, near Wheelock Place in Orchard Road, the scene of the worst flooding in 26 years two weeks ago, as well as in Tai Seng Road, Kampong Ampat Road and MacPherson area. The National Environment Agency (NEA) warned of heavy showers with thunder between 1 pm and 2.30 pm on Thursday but there was no warning of possible flood. Not surprisingly, Mr Yaacob was nowhere to be found, heard or seen let alone present at the sites of the flooding but according to his earlier statement, he and his ministry are “still learning from the experience”. Mr Yaacob is the most expensive Environmental minister in the entire world. He earns about $2 million dollars a year, or more than 4 times the annual salary of U.S. President Barack Obama. It is ironic that Singaporeans are actually paying millions of dollar a year for Mr Yaacob to “learn” instead of coming up with solutions. How many more floods do Singaporeans need to put up with before Mr Yaacob finally learn from the experience, only God knows.   John Doe  Read More →

Out of an island of 4.98 million, less than 3.5 million are born domestically. Some unofficial sources even claim that this figure can be as low as 3.0 million. The rapid influx of foreigners without any adequate policy to accommodate the increase in population in terms of housing and transport, together with heightened job insecurity due to the foreigners vying for the same jobs local held have all indeed led to a large proportion of Singapore population having doubts about PAP for the first time in 50 years. The disillusioned group simply have lost all hope and prayer in a party that they voted in religiously election after election with majority votes. In a country where the slightest criticism of PAP could land anyone into deep troubles and where fear of expressing any dissatisfaction was widespread, there has been a phenomenal change. There are websites such as TOC and TR challenging state fed news and opinions. There is a facebook group with a large membership calling for PAP to be voted out. An 18 year old teenager started a petition to demand LKY apologise. There is a greater number of privileged individuals stepping into opposition parties which used to be perceived as political landmines fit for the hot headed. As to the question of whether all this will lead to a political outcome of PAP loosing substantial seats or even power, the answer is a clear and simple NO. This is due to the extreme disunity amongst Singapore born Singaporeans. We are not talking about the group that supports PAP versus the group that wants change. This division will always be around. It is the disunity within the latter group that is troubling. Amongst those who want to see change in Singapore and who want to see PAP ousted, they are extremely divided within their ethnic communities. Within the Chinese community, one group has formally recognised that the minorities are not given equal economic opportunities. This group recognises that the way forward is to make the playing field more levelled. The other group however still refutes this and still argues the economic backwardness of the minorities is solely due to their lower educational attainment levels etc etc which have proven otherwise in numerous reports and studies. This group do not see a need for any major reform. Within the Chinese community one group truthfully admits the marginalisation of minorities especially Malays and Muslims in the armed forces and senior government positions. They recognise security can be preserved without the need to resorting to these kind of tactics. However another group in the Chinese community insists Singapore’s security lies in how well it restricts minorities’ access to the security forces and senior government positions. Likewise one group of Singapore born Chinese who want change recognise that the PAP have set up a host of organisations such as MUIS, WAREES, Hindu Endowment Board etc solely to control the endowments and spaces of the minorities. They also recognise PAP have set up a totally racist law Administration of Muslim Law Act (AMLA) in order to control Muslims through a code of unfair laws and a proxy group of Muslim stooge agencies and individuals. However another group of Singapore born Chinese are unaware of this and/or uninterested in all this. Even when they come to hear about such unfairness the minorities are subjected to, they are no less interested to see a change. Rather they are indifferent to the status quo. Similarly one group of Singapore born Chinese who want change recognise the PAP restrict the freedom of the minorities to practise their languages and religions. The other group simply toe the national propaganda and refuse to accept these realities exist. The former group also recognise that the way forward is to give the minorities the freedom they had before 1959 and the freedom they will have if they migrate to any civilised western country. The latter group strongly opposes any change to status quo. This division is only isolating the support for the Chinese community that wants change from the minorities who also want change. Unless the Chinese community who want change learn to accept the harsh realities the minorities are facing and make an offer of reconciliation and unity as the way forward, they solely will never be able to unseat PAP in even a single GRC. Similarly the Singapore born minorities who want change are equally divided in how they want to move forward with the Singapore born Chinese. One group do understand the anxieties and struggles of the Singapore born Chinese community. This group empathises and is keen to help. They are interested to see a change in the outcomes. However another group is simply oblivious to all this. They are not sure nor keen as they are totally unaware. Majority of Singapore minorities actually do not support PAP though the support for PAP is rising. Even the Chinese Singaporeans are unaware of this as they conveniently believe PAP’s fast one that Malays support PAP. Despite the widespread opinion amongst minorities to see change, one can hardly find much participation of the minorities in the opposition political parties, alternative web news channels like TOC & TR. There is indeed some significant representation of Indians and some Malay youths but the overall minorities who want change are heavily underrepresented in the world wide web and political parties. Unless these minorities step forward and unite, their position is not going to improve. Within each religious group, there is also a strong undercurrent of sentiments that want change to Singapore. Yet you will hardly find any unity amongst the Christian groups, Buddhist groups, Hindu groups, Muslim groups etc who want change. Even amongst each religious group there are deep divisions amongst those who want change. Actually the division amongst the opposition parties is the same nature. Each is obsessed with their own ways. To sum up the situation, a large proportion of Singaporeans want change and do want PAP ousted. However each group wants change in their own way and does not want to unite for a change to occur. It is of course nonsense to suggest all must have a single objective. Instead what all of them should have is a single overarching vision and they must unite for that vision. Singaporeans being Singaporeans, they are too preoccupied with the smaller objectives and they live in fear that if they unite for the mega vision, their smaller objectives will be lost. As they work towards that vision, they must be willing to make compromises which of course is a herculean task for Singaporeans. They ought to look at how Singaporeans co-existed before PAP, Singapore migrant communities co-exist abroad and successful examples of multiculturalism abroad. They need to draw inspirations from these. This culture can change within a month or a century. It all depends on the will of Singapore born Singaporeans.   Singaporean2010  Read More →