TR EMERITUS

Former Romanian diplomat to Singapore Silviu Ionescu said he would appeal to the Romanian High Court of Justice after the Bucharesst Court of Appeals quashed his request to cancel an arrest warrant issued against him by the Singapore government. He added that he will go to the European Court for Human Rights to appeal his case if the issue is not resolved in Romania. Singapore issued the arrest warrant to bring Ionescu back to stand trial for a double hit-and-run traffic accident last year December which killed a 31 year old Malaysian man. Ionescu was allowed by the Singapore police to leave the country three days after the accident though he was a prime suspect on the grounds of "diplomatic immunity". Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs later backtracked and claimed that Ionescu did not enjoy "diplomatic immunity" at the time of his departure which raised questions on why he was not detained then. The case has sparked a massive outcry in Singapore and is a source of embarrassment for the government. The Foreign Minister George Yeo did not comment on the matter till a month later when he told the media that "what happened was very bad." In contrast, he issued a statement on his blog immediately after his buddy Jack Neo's extramarital affair was leaked to the press, calling on all Singaporeans to rally around the adulterer. With no extradition treaty between Singapore and Romania, there is a good chance that Ionescu will never be brought back here to face justice.   Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us  Read More →

By Art Harun from The Malaysian Insider It was sometime in the late 1990’s. And it was in Singapore. A trailer driver was delivering some goods to a Singaporean buyer. While doing so, he hit some tree branches which fell onto a car behind the trailer and slightly damaged the car. Both men stopped their respective vehicle. While they were “settling” their “dispute”, a traffic police officer came by and stopped. Upon his inquiry, the trailer driver related what had happened to the officer. The officer then told the car driver that perhaps he should make a claim from his insurance company as it was not the fault of the trailer driver that his car was damaged. Noting that the damage only involved some minor scratches, the car driver relented and drove off. The trailer driver was so relieved. He was also glad that the officer supported his case and was filled with gratitude to him. In true Malaysian fashion, the trailer driver took out S$20 and gave it to the police officer. The police officer took it and rode off. On the way back to Malaysia, the trailer driver was arrested at the Immigration checkpoint and detained. The next day he was charged for giving bribe to a police officer. I was then advising the transport company for whom the driver worked. A Singaporean Counsel was engaged and he advised that it was an offence to do so. He advised the driver to plead guilty. He did and was punished, fortunately, with a just rather hefty fine. Fast forward to last Monday, May 3, 2010. Time: 1.15am. Location, Jalan Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. The Sun newspaper (May 6 2010), on page 4, reported of two incidents at a police road block along Jalan Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. The report was entitled “Cop held over alleged bribery, sexual harassment.” The first lady was driving alone at 1.15am when she was stopped at the roadblock. The police said she was driving beyond the speed limit. According to her, the police officer said the matter could be settled on the spot. She then offered RM15 and the officer agreed to take that sum as “settlement”. Money exchanged hand. The officer than allegedly told her that she was sexy. He allegedly asked her to lift her t-shirt and pull up her skirts. She immediately drove off. But not before she performed her side of the agreed bargain. She paid him the 15 bucks and drove off. Next was a nightclub singer about 30 minutes later. The same thing happened. This time the lady gave RM20. The same officer allegedly made similar advances. The lady also paid him and drove off. It was reported that the two women were “riled over the incidents.” The report, however, does not specify whether the two ladies were “riled” over the alleged sexual harassment and the fact that the officer had allegedly asked them for money or whether both of them were only “riled” over the alleged sexual harassment alone. Read rest of article here.  Read More →

Associated Press, 7 May 2010 The Conservatives captured the largest number of seats and the ruling Labour Party suffered substantial losses Thursday in Britain's national election, according to television projections based on exit polls. The projected result did not bode well for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister since 2007, and triggered widespread uncertainty over who will form the next government. The country's top three parties — the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats — immediately began jockeying for position in possible coalition. Frustrated voters, meanwhile, said they were turned away from polling stations and some stations appeared overwhelmed by late voter turnout — a sign of the intense interest in this election. An analysis by Britain's main television networks suggested David Cameron's Conservative party will win 305 House of Commons seats, short of the 326 seats needed for a majority. The projections also showed a substantial drop for Brown's ruling Labor Party, giving it 255 seats — its smallest number since 1987. Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats were seen as winning 61 seats — far less than had been expected. Smaller parties got 29 other seats. The projection suggests that the Conservatives will gain 95 seats, Labour will lose 94 and the Liberal Democrats will lose one. If the vote does not give any party a majority, that could produce a destabilizing period of political wrangling and uncertainty. Brown could resign if he feels the results have signaled he has lost his mandate to rule, or he could try to stay on as leader and seek a deal in which smaller parties would support him. "Let's see how it pans out. Gordon will know whether he should stay on or not," Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson said. "I think Gordon deserves the dignity to look at these things and make up his own mind." Hard results began to trickle in about an hour after polls closed. The first seat to declare, Houghton and Sunderland South in northern England, was retained by Labour. Hundreds of British voters across the country claimed they were unable to vote because they were left still standing in long lines when polls closed at 10 p.m. (2100 GMT, 5 p.m. EDT). Police in London said they were called to a polling station in east London when about 50 angry voters denied the chance to cast their ballot staged a sit-in protest. Voters in Sheffield, Newcastle and elsewhere in London also complained that they had been denied a vote because of lines as polls closed. Theresa May, a senior Conservative Party lawmaker, said the exit poll result showed Labour's heaviest losses since 1931, and that the incumbent party had lost "the legitimacy to govern." But Labour's Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, pointed out that the sitting prime minister is traditionally given the first chance to form a government. "The rules are that if it's a hung Parliament, it's not the party with the largest number of seats that has first go, it's the government," he said. "I have no problem in principle in trying to supply this country with a stable government." He extended an olive branch to the Liberal Democrats, who have called to end the first-past-the-post system, where the number of districts won — not the popular vote — determines who leads the country. "There has to be electoral reform as a result of this election," Mandelson said. "First-past the-post is on its last legs." The results may yet change. Projecting elections based on exit polls is inherently risky — particularly in an exceptionally close election like this one. Polls are based on samples — in this case 18,000 respondents — and always have some margin of error. Britain's census is nine years out of date and the polling districts haven't caught up to population shifts. Many voters also refuse to respond to exit polls. Thousands have also already cast postal ballots but those results don't factor into the exit polls. About 12 percent cast postal ballots in 2005. The election result would be disastrous news for the Liberal Democrats, Britain's longtime third party, who enjoyed a big poll surge after the charismatic Clegg appeared in televised TV debates. Liberal Democrat deputy leader Vince Cable described the outcome of the exit poll as "very strange" and insisted they had been "horribly wrong" in the past. The Tories are hoping to regain power for the first time since 1997, when they were ousted by Labour under Tony Blair. After three leaders and three successive election defeats, the party selected Cameron, a fresh-faced, bicycle-riding graduate of Eton and Oxford who promised to modernize the party's fusty, right-wing image. Whoever wins faces the daunting challenge of introducing big budget cuts to slash Britain's huge deficit. In late trading in New York, the British pound sank to its lowest point in a year to trade at $1.4715. - AP  Read More →