TR EMERITUS

Reuters, 16 February 2010 North Korea celebrated leader Kim Jong-il's birthday on Tuesday with synchronised swimmers glorifying the "kind-hearted father" of the reclusive nation while it made overtures for dialogue with the United States. Kim, 68, is facing pressure to return to disarmament-for-aid nuclear talks due to UN sanctions and a botched currency move that nearly halted commerce late last year and worsened the destitute state’s economic woes. Kim was hailed as “the peerlessly brilliant commander of the present era” who made it “the greatest fortune and privilege... to hold him in high esteem”, the North’s nominal head of state said in a national meeting held in celebration of his birthday. “He underscored the need to put an end to the hostile relations between [North Korea] and the US through dialogue and negotiations,” the North’s KCNA news agency said referring to the head of the country’s assembly. North Korea has called for peace treaty talks with the United States as precondition for ending a year-long boycott of the six-country talks in a move seen by analysts as a delay tactic. Washington has said the peace treaty can come after disarmament. Some analysts said Kim would never give up the country’s nuclear arsenal, but would use it to win economic compensation by making carefully measured moves that appear it is dismantling its atomic programme. Under his leadership, the country has slid deeper into poverty with a chronic food shortage but Ki, who apparently recovered from a suspected stroke in 2008, has relied on propaganda, persecution and a personality cult to sustain a society that is unlikely to collapse as long as he is in power, they said. But in signs the North may be ready to return the nuclear talks, this month it hosted high-profile envoys from the United Nations and its biggest benefactor, China, with reports saying it was going to dispatch its top nuclear envoy to the United States next month. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the North has won a massive deal from China for investment that is worth more than half its annual economic output, which could speed a return to the six-way talks hosted by Beijing. Marking his birthday called the nation’s February Holiday, synchronised swimmers, figure skaters and dancing art troupe visiting from Japan sang gloriously and longingly of Kim Jong-il as the invincible and kind-hearted leader, KCNA said. “They performed on the ice-rink ‘Push Back the Frontiers of Science’, ‘Higher and Faster’, ‘Let Us Meet at the Front’ and other numbers reflecting the iron faith and will of the service personnel and people of the DPRK,” it said. - Reuters  Read More →

By Bryna Sim from The New Paper AN ONLINE video featuring Ris Low “teaching” viewers how to use condoms has upset Espire Condoms, which chose Ris to be their youth spokesman a month ago. It said it had not been consulted on her appearance in the video, produced by an online portal. The video has garnered 90,000 hits since it was uploaded eight days ago. Titled ‘Safe Sex with Ris Low’, it shows the controversial former Miss Singapore-World slipping condoms on bananas of various sizes. The video has drawn flak from netizens, some of whom feel that it trivialises an important issue and teaches incorrect techniques. Said Ms Joy Tan, executive director of Zander Asia, which owns Espire:“They (producers) approached Ris directly and she went ahead without our knowledge. We are also upset by the video as it portrayed Ris in a silly manner.” The three-minute video shows Ris seated behind a table dressed in a white unbuttoned jacket and a clearly visible lacy pink and black bra. She uses bananas of three different sizes – small, medium, and large – as her props. The video shows her trying to slide the condoms onto each of them. Bloopers of her failing to slide the condoms successfully onto one of the bananas, and of her accidentally peeling off the banana skin while trying to remove the condom are left unedited. There is also a scene where Ris applies warm lubricant jelly to her nails, which she calls a “fashion tip”. The show drew about 100 comments from viewers. Most of them called the video “stupid”, “silly”, and “horrifying”. Some viewers said the video was “mean” and seemed to make fun of Ris. One said that there was “a sick vibe of cruel mocking” embedded within the video. Read rest of article on The New Paper  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent A Buddhist monk Venerable Dhammika has expressed his doubts about the effectiveness of inter-faith dialogue to prevent another Rony Tan fiasco from arising. An Australian by birth, Venerable Dhammika have been a Buddhist monk for 32 years and am the spiritual advisor to the Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society in Singapore. Lighthouse Evangelism Pastor Rony Tan was hauled up for questioning by the Internal Security Department (ISD) last Monday for making disparaging remarks about Buddhism and Taoism during a church session which was video-taped and uploaded to Youtube. He has since apologized to the leaders of the Buddhist and Taoist faiths and the government has refrained from taking further action against him out of fear of sending "shockwaves" to the Christian community. The Straits Times carried a report yesterday quoting several religious leaders as saying that inter-faith dialogue may be the way to prevent such unpleasant episodes from recurring in the future. Venerable Dhammika, however, was unimpressed with the inter-faith dialogues as conducted in Singapore. Writing on his personal blog "Dhamma Musings", he shared his experience at such sessions: "I doubt that inter-religious dialogue, at least as it is conducted in  Singapore, really brings about a change in how the different religions feel about each other. I have often attended inter-religious gatherings and I have noticed that everyone is friendly, accommodating and open-minded. The participants are already respectful of other faiths. The ones who could do with a bit of tolerance - the bigots, zealots, fundamentalists and the evangelicals, won’t come. Here in Singapore several major denominations have pointedly refused to join the Inter-religious Organization which they see as fratranizing with Satan." The Singapore government frequently organized such inter-faith dialogues to promote interaction between leaders of various religious faiths in Singapore. As they are not compulsory, the participants are usually those who are tolerant and respectful of other faiths, as pointed out by Venerable Dhammika and as such is "all too often just an exercise in the converted preaching to each other." Venerable Dhammika proposed the government rewards tolerant leaders to marginalize those who are intolerant: "The government should consider something like the Public Service Award, the PBM or the BBM, but to be given for service to interfaith understanding. When such people are looked upon as commendable, socially responsible and worthy, the bigots gradually come to be seen as out-of-step, as a public nuisance, as un-respectable. You can marginalize the intolerant by rewarding and lauding the tolerant." While the state media has been quick to sweep the saga under the carpet, religious fault-lines still lurk beneath the veneer of normalcy in Singapore, waiting to be exposed once more. Pastor Rony Tan's running down of other religions would not have come to light had he not video-taped his preaching and uploaded it to Youtube where it was subsequently circulated in cyberspace. With the combustible situation exacerbated by the relentless influx of foreigners in Singapore, the social tension in Singapore society is set to grow in the years ahead. Read rest of Venerable Dhammika's post here  Read More →