TR EMERITUS

I refer to the CNA’s Commentaries, “Trump-Putin deal on Ukraine will be Europe’s moment of reckoning” (Feb 20) and “Ukraine can survive with the ‘least worst’ peace” (Feb 22). Now, In the eyes of European Union, they have lost trust and confidence in the United States, it is solely due to the flip flop foreign policy whenever there is a replacement of political power, especially when Trump is in power. For the sake of the United States' own interests, Trump will use all means to escape from the EU. Trump believes that the United States should not and is not worthy of spending large amounts of military expenditures to defend the EU. He is also determined to force Ukraine to cease war with Russia. At the same time, Trump also insisted that EU member states must step up and insisting that the EU to increase its defense spending. Relations between the United States, Ukraine and the European Union took a sharp turn for the worse when it began with the Putin-Trump telephone conversation on 12 February and their presidential pledges to kickstart relations. It continued with the Munich Security Conference that took place from 14 February to 16 February 2025 in Munich, Germany. In this conference, there were obvious signs of schism between Europe and America. Next stop Saudi Arabia for the Russia-US talks: the first high-level in-person contacts between the two countries since the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This has shown Trump deliberately skipped the EU and deliberately did not want the EU to participate in the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations. This move undoubtedly angered the EU. That was why Zelensky, who reacted to US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia from which Kyiv was excluded, said the US president was "living in a disinformation space" governed by Moscow. And, President Trump has called Zelenskyy a "dictator" and deepening the rift between the two leaders. In fact, Trump has kept two hidden agendas in his sleeves for ending this three-year long Russia-Ukraine war: One is to repair the damaged relations between the US and Russia. Trump doesn’t want to see Russia leans too close to China, as US treats China as its present and future robust competition rival. Undeniably, these competitions are in terms of military strength, technology, AI and science, space race and cultural influence. This is a key point that the United States will never ignore. Next, once achieving the closure of Russia-Ukraine war, Trump expects the global supply of crude oils will be persistently smooth and oil prices will drop. This will greatly relieve the pressure of domestic inflation in the United States, and it will fulfil his earlier presidential promise of bringing the country’s economy upward. Secondly, Trump will effortlessly obtain the rights to develop and operate Ukrainian mines after the Russia-Ukraine war ends. As Trump predicted a minerals agreement with Ukraine would be “signed hopefully in the next fairly short period of time”. The White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said on 21 February that Zelenskyy was expected to sign a deal imminently. Anyway, Ukraine suffered a major defeat in the Russia-Ukraine War. On February 15, 2025, President of the Republic of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky announced that Ukraine would lose 4,000 square kilometers of territory in 2024 (including Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, followed by Ukraine's loss of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye). At the same time, 65 square kilometers of industrial town - Toretsk is also in danger under the onslaught of the Russian army. As a result, the morale of the Ukrainian army was depleted. In short, Zelensky has lost his bargaining chip for Russia-Ukraine peace. Even although Zelensky on Wednesday rejected US demands for $500bn in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, saying the US had supplied nowhere near that sum so far and had offered no specific security guarantees. Ukraine has never been able to escape the tragic fate of failure. In the end, Ukraine was still unable to join the NATO camp, and at the same time it paid a heavy price in the lives of hundred thousand of soldiers and civilians. Despite this, many ordinary people may ask, is the world dominated/dictated by hegemonic powers like the United States and Russia? Then, what is the ultimate goal or functions of the United Nations? The way Trump administration bypasses or excludes the European Union, Ukraine or China at the planned schedule of Russia-Ukraine peace talks is really incomprehensible, ridiculous and unacceptable as well as making the whole world “blood boil”.   Teo Kueh Liang (Mr)    Read More →

Two opposition leaders received their court sentences, on the same day. Thankfully both Pritam Singh and Lim Tean were not disqualified by their sentences, else Democracy will take many steps back. Dr Ang Yong Guan was found guilty of professional misconduct after his appeal failed and he was suspended from his love and passion, his practice as a psychiatrist. Although he was not DQ by this suspension but PSP decided not to field him as a candidate in coming GE. All these high profile lawsuits may not impede on the qualification of candidacy of the individual opposition members but it will effect a chilling impact on many potential budding and aspiring individuals who want to join the rank and file of opposition parties. The lingering fear of "fix the opposition" starts to ring through the hearts and minds of the young ones. Granted that no opposition member is perfect, but none of the PAP politicians is God as well. In fact the Iswaran corruption case and adultery saga of 2 PAP MPs are the testimony of this Golden Truth. As a young and small nation, we must understand that to maintain Democracy, we need opposition. And good people should not be deterred by all these sagas and refrained from coming forward to serve, else politics as a whole, regardless whether it's opposition or ruling party, will be left to the mediocre and dishonorable. Throughout my 24 years of political participation, I am always open to share my values, policy ideals and experiences to whoever come to me, regardless of party affiliations. I would even extend my help to those who need it and ask for it, especially during GE, even though they are not from my party. Why? It's because I know, without their meaningful participation, there will be no opportunity for voters to vote and there will be no Democracy. Politics is about People and Policies, not Politicking. I spent much of my waking hours to explain simple as well as complex policy issues to both my limited audience on FB as well as those aspiring candidates. I believe it is only with a growing numbers of people who are well grounded and learned on different policies, then we will have hope in building a truly Democratic Society for Singapore. Beyond the wayang sophistry of politicking, it's the hard choices and debates we make on policy options that will really affect the welfare and interests of our people. I would urge every aspiring individuals out there, do not be deterred by all these lawsuits you are seeing right now. If you have both the heart and brain to serve the Nation, just step forward. The Future of this country and its Democracy depends on you, nobody else.   Goh Meng Seng    Read More →

I comment as a concerned citizen and a lay person. I have listened to Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's budget speech online and among the predictable, more or less usual budget allocations, one new subject caught my attention and that is the pap government's push to study and explore the use of nuclear energy. Nuclear power and energy is one area that very, very few people can claim to know enough or are expert enough to stamp their authority on. I understand that in the years ahead, given our physical land constraints on one hand and our growing need for clean energy on the other, especially our industrial needs, cost effective and I will put it this way, 'as safe as possible' clean nuclear energy seems to be the best way out. Apart from learning from other countries that are more advanced with their nuclear energy experiences, scouting the world, getting the best brains and most knowledgeable experts that money can buy to educate, advise and help us with our nuclear aspirations, certain natural factors are also in our favour such as Singapore does not have earthquakes, no tsunamis, no cyclones etc. I remember Fukushima. At the moment, I only have one question and I believe that it is a fair question. If in the event of a nuclear accident be it accidental leakage, terrorist drone attack or whatever, what is the possible worst case scenario for us, Singapore? Given our small land area and our high population density, would half of our population in an instance be exposed to nuclear radiation that would lead to them contracting cancer and more or our little red dot would disappear in the blink of an eye from the world's map etc? Of course the scale and severity of the accident matters much. Unlike many other people who are ever ready to agree with whatever the pap government says or does or are more inclined to say yes, I say do not get carried away by all the hype, the clever and the seductive arguments for and logical rationalisation without fully, fully satisfied with each and every question answered. To call it an existential issue or more precisely our collective existential issue is definitely not an exaggeration.   Simon Lim    Read More →