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FOC Has No Value

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Govt will continue free education

Dinesh DE ALWIS
Though other countries have given up the free education system, Sri Lanka will continue with it with improvements in the future, said Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake addressing the "POH" scholarship awards ceremony held at the University Grants Commission on September 2.
Countries in the Asian region has also quit giving free education. In India there are already moves to privatize education.
Thailand also charge money from school students above year nine.
Our Government gives education 100 percent free but our students don't understand the value of it.
In some universities student unions force other students to keep off libraries, skip lectures, and not to speak in English etc. I will change this situation soon," he said. This year Singaporean donors Mr and Mrs Poh have selected five top students of each stream of the Advance Level examination in 2009 for scholarships. The Deans of the relevant faculties and Principals of the relevant schools, POH scholars and their parents were present at the occasion.
 

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Rising resentment

5,000,000
Rising resentment
Ruling PAP fights its toughest new battle to win back people angered by housing shortage and mass immigration. By Seah Chiang Nee.
Sept 5, 2010

BURSTING at our seams. This is a frequent phrase used to describe Singapore these days, after its population crossed the five million mark.
Hardly a day passes without a citizen or two complaining about over-crowdedness or shortage of amenities or rising costs associated with the mass arrival of foreigners.
With immigration continuing to rise, the controversy could become the hottest issue in the general election that is expected to take place within the next 12 months.
What is annoying Singaporeans is, not their being here, but the large number allowed to come to work and live in this overstretched city.
The sentiment is, however, not one way.
Support is coming from a section of society which is greatly benefiting from cheap manpower and the larger customer base that the foreigners bring.
For them, the newly-released statistics are encouraging.
A new census report released last week shows the population reaching 5.08 million, with foreigners making up 36.4%, or more than a third.
The number of foreign workers has risen some 75% from 750,000 in 2000 to 1.31 million currently.
Adding to the over-crowdedness is the 1.1 million tourists who set foot on this 711 sq km island every month.
The immigration policy has expanded the population by 25% in 10 years, one of the highest rates in the world, surpassing even the traditional migrant societies.
Canada’s population, for instance, is 19.8% foreign-born, New Zealand’s 23% and the US 16%.
In Japan, one legislator recently suggested raising the foreign content of its declining population to 10% within the next 10 years.
Singapore’s record, as far as its citizens are concerned, is less than welcomed.
The new arrivals have strained its infrastructure, creating a shortage in public housing that was once Singapore’s showcase to the world.
As a result, thousands of graduates who plan to settle down are compelled to wait for years – or jostle with foreign PRs to pay a lot more for a resale flat.
Roads and shopping plazas are jammed during weekends, and hospitals as well as buses and trains are packed.
“People have to queue for a restaurant table and queue again to pay the bill,” one shopper moaned.
Timmy lamented: “I remember Singapore was not like this a few years ago.
“Now our standard of living is dropping every day.”
Many are complaining of spiralling prices in the wake of growing demand.
Another Singaporean, Daniel, said: “I find it unsettling just to note how fast our society is being taken over by foreigners.”
Last week, a foreign correspondent based here wrote that Singapore is showing symptoms of urban stress as more immigrants and guest workers jostle for space with the locals.
He named some of them – “flash floods along posh Orchard Road; packed subway trains; traffic gridlock in the morning and evening rush hours and intensifying competition for public flats.”
They have affected Singapore’s image as a squeaky-clean, smooth-flowing city that has earned it the reputation as one of the world’s most livable, he added.
Businesses and motorists recently complained about road closures or diversions for major public events.
Motorists were asked to give way to buses transporting athletes taking part in the Youth Olympics; shops in the city centre were affected.
To cope with increasing demand and shrinking supply, property developers have happily been reducing the average size of flats, making buyers pay more to get less.
A 1,600 sq ft flat which was the average in the 80s is today regarded as a luxury.
In fact, some under-300 sq ft apartment dwellings have made an appearance for S$500,000 each – and sold like hot cakes.
Singapore architect Khoo Peng Beng, in a speech last week in Venice, said that urban planners who were bracing for a influx of people should look to Singapore as a “model compact city”.
The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) is evidently concerned about the rising public resentment.
“It is fighting its biggest political battle in modern history,” said a company consultant. On the outcome will decide the long-term future of the party, he said.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week announced a number of important measures to improve sentiments, including:
* Making it easier for first-time buyers by building a total 38,000 more government flats in 2010-11, as well as cutting down on owners having more than one such flat.
* Spending S$60bil over the next 10 years to double Singapore’s mass rail network to relieve over-crowding.
* A top up of S$9,000 to S$10,500 over 12 years in their study grant and retirement fund for those Singaporeans who complete their 12-year national service cycle.
It is apparently aimed at convincing Singaporeans that they come first before foreigners.
The move to increase the chances of first-time buyers to get a subsidised flat is well received by some young Singaporeans, but few believe Lee has changed the overall political landscape.
For the estimated 1.8 million foreign residents here, the uppermost question is whether it will lead to any deterioration of public sentiments towards them.
In recent years, there had been increasing conflicts between locals and foreigners but rarely any violence. Political leaders have repeatedly appealed to citizens to help the new arrivals integrate.
Prominent blogger Lucky Tan said that until the arrivals turned excessive, Singaporeans were the most open people in the world.
“Nowhere else in the world can you find such a high level of acceptance of foreigners,” he noted.
It was only when they crossed the 25% mark and structural unemployment emerged that Singaporeans began to react, he added.
(This was published in The Star on Sept 4.)
 

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Fewer men for women in Singapore

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</TD></TR><TR><TD>News @ AsiaOne
Fewer men for women in Singapore
2010 Census showed that there are now less men than women in Singapore. -Diva

Mon, Sep 06, 2010
AsiaOne
Will Singaporean women have less of a choice when it comes to their life partner now?
The advance release of the 2010 Census last week showed that there are now less men than women in Singapore, or 974 men for every 1,000 women, against 998 for every 1,000 women in the 2000 Census.
Traditional figures where there were always more newborn girls than boys in Singapore have also been reversed.
<!-- The tilt in favour of women came in the 25 to 44 years age band among Singapore-born residents, which refers to both citizens and permanent residents (PRs), born here. There are 417,410 women against 394,187 men, a difference of 23,223 more women. Another age band where there are more women than men are among elderly folk aged 65 and above.
However, foreign-born residents made a difference to the 25 - 44 age band - 617,131 women against 583,660 men, with a difference of 33,471 more women. These foreign-born women are mainly from Malaysia, China and Indonesia.
-->
As for foreign brides, official figures show that eight out of 10 marriages last year between a citizen and a foreigner involved a local man. Around 7,000 local men married foreign brides in total, mostly from Asian countries.
One demographer, Yap Mui Teng of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy noted that sons of immigrant families may not have opted for PR because they would have to do national service if they did so, but this was not an issue for girls.
Another factor could be biology, since women tend to outlive men.
There are 20,136 women more than men in the above 65 age band, or 117,457 women to 97,231 men.
One concern was that local women may have more difficulty marrying, and end up remaining single. This was raised by sociologist and Nominated MP Paulin Straghan. The other scenario was that Singapore may lose its female residents to foreign spouses.
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Singapore ready to embrace new citizens

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  • Singapore ready to embrace new citizens: Deputy PM
<HR class=fulstorydivider>STAFF WRITER 7:44 HRS IST Singapore, Sep 12 (PTI) Singapore will continue to seek professional and working class foreigners to be a better country, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean has said.

He also dismissed Singaporean concerns about foreigners working in the country and competing with Singaporeans, saying it would be better to have someone doing the job that Singaporeans are not willing to do, according to local media reports.

Addressing some 400 people attending Singapore's Young Sikh Association forum yesterday, Yeo reiterated the government stand on foreigners, saying Singaporeans needs to attract foreign professionals and foreign workers.

He said: "Some work here and go back. They make a contribution to Singapore and they earn a decent living for themselves.

Others come here to work for longer periods of time, and finally others, they come here and they finally decide to sink roots.
 

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A Pipe Dream

<TABLE class=contentpaneopen><TBODY><TR><TD class=contentheading width="100%">Singapore aims for manufacturing at 20-25% of GDP: Tharman </TD><TD class=buttonheading width="100%" align=right> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=contentpaneopen><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>Written by Bloomberg </TD></TR><TR><TD class=createdate vAlign=top>Sunday, 12 September 2010 10:55 </TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD width="95%"></TD><TD width="5%"><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 align=right><TBODY><TR><TD> </TD><TD> </TD><TD> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Singapore aims to keep its manufacturing sector contributing between 20 and 25 percent of gross domestic product in the long term, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said today in an interview in Copenhagen.

<HR>“It means moving up the value curve towards more R&D and design-intensive activities,” Shanmugaratnam said, adding that the target was “very ambitious,” although the city-state is close to the 25 percent level currently.
“Singapore is a very good place for prototyping, particularly for companies aiming at Asian markets,” he said. “Singapore provides the safety for intellectual property.”



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<STYLE type=text/css><!--.quote {width:350px; padding: 6px; border: solid 1px #456B8F; font: 10px helvetica, verdana, sans-serif; color: #222222; background-color: #ffffff}.quote a {font: 13px arial, serif; color: #003399; text-decoration: underline}.quote a:hover {color: #FF9900; }//--></STYLE>Singapore aims for manufacturing at 20-25% of GDP: Tharman
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Freeloader On Corporate Pay

<CITE>By Channel NewsAsia, </CITE>Updated: 16/09/2010
SPH VP sacked for receiving illegal payments, misappropriating shopping vouchers

SPH VP sacked for receiving illegal payments, misappropriating shopping vouchers
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SINGAPORE: Singapore Press Holdings Ltd (SPH) said it has dismissed Mr Peter Khoo Chong Meng, a senior vice—president in the English & Malay Newspapers Division, after he voluntarily admitted to receiving illegal payments and misappropriating shopping vouchers handled by his Editorial Projects Unit.
These vouchers were intended for branding and promotion activities of The Straits Times, which his unit organises.
Mr Khoo, who has served 22 years in SPH, has made restitution of S$196,500 for the payments he admitted to receiving illegally and for the vouchers he misappropriated.
A police report has been made and investigations are ongoing.
Mr Khoo also chaired the organising committee which coordinates events and activities to raise funds for The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund (STPMF). He has been replaced in this role with immediate effect by Ms Bertha Henson, Associate Editor of The Straits Times, who will also head the Editorial Projects Unit.
The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund is administered by the National Council of Social Service (NCSS). SPH said in the statement that to the best of the company’s knowledge, none of the donations made to the Fund has been misappropriated.
Mr Han Fook Kwang, Editor of The Straits Times, said: "This is a big setback for us. While we do not believe the STPMF was involved, I would like to assure our many donors and supporters that it is our top priority to maintain the integrity of the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund."
Ms Ang Bee Lian, Chief Executive Officer of NCSS, said: "NCSS has in place administrative and audit processes including the engagement of external auditors to ensure that the STPMF has been appropriately disbursed to Voluntary Welfare Organisations for the clients."
— CNA/ir
 

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Feeding The 3rd World

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</TD></TR><TR><TD class=padlrt10 align=right>>> Back to the article</TD></TR><TR><TD class=padlrt10>Sep 16, 2010</TD></TR><TR><TD class=padlrt10>$191m maternity leave payout
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=padlrt10>By Vanessa Jalleh </TD></TR><TR><TD class="marginbottom8 padlrt10">THE Government paid out $191 million in maternity leave benefits in the last two years as part of effort to encourage more Singaporean women to have babies.
Last year, about 15,000 working women gained from the payout of $126 million, much higher than the $65 million disbursed in 2008.
This was due to the four extra weeks of maternity leave and extension to include the fifth child and above in maternity benefits since Oct 2008.
The Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan revealed these figures in Parliament on Wednesday when replying to a question for Jurong GRC MP Halimah Yacob.
The majority of the 15,000 women (63 per cent) who benefitted were aged 30 to 39 at the point of delivery, while another one-third (34 per cent) were 20-29 years. By educational profile, 44 per cent were degree-holders, 31 per cent had post-secondary education while 24 per cent had secondary or below education.
Asked if the maternity leave perks could be extended to more working women, Dr Balakrishnan said he was in favour of 'helping working women reduce the opportunity cost of having children.'
But he added: 'In doing so we must make sure that the employability of women, as well as viability of businesses are not unduly affected.
'Given the significant enhancements made to the Marriage and Parenthood measures in October 2008, we should allow more time to assess the impact of these measures. The Government would review if, how and when further enhancements can be made later on.'
A similar suggestion was made by Seah Kian Peng in Parliament in January this year.
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19 Sep, 2010, 11.33AM IST,PTI

Singapore invites Indian investments in pharma, solar energy

NEW DELHI: Singapore has invited Indian businesses to collaborate with its local players in sectors like solar power, pharmaceutical and chemicals.

"There are huge opportunities available for Indian business community there. Indians can collaborate with Singaporean player to set up research and development centres in areas of solar energy and pharmaceuticals," Singapore Economic Development Board (SEDB) International Director Engkeat Lee said.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6583874.cms?prtpage=1

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</TD></TR><TR><!--spacing td gone--><TD colSpan=2>India: World's worst industrial disaster

Saturday, 21 August 2010, 4:39 pm
Press Release: Asian Human Rights Commission

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India: Obama administration official supports corporate interests over victims of world's worst industrial disaster

Deputy National Security Advisor Froman reveals administration’s double standards on corporate accountability for victims of Bhopal Gas Disaster At a time when the world is focused on corporate accountability in the wake of the BP's Gulf Oil Spill, a leaked email from the Obama administration shows that it values profit over people, when the profit benefits American corporations. The victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster were disappointed to see today that the White House is not pursuing the same levels of accountability from American Dow Chemical as it has from BP. When Dow purchased Union Carbide in 2001, the corporation acquired outstanding liability for the ongoing disaster in Bhopal, which has led to the deaths of an estimated 25,000 people in Bhopal, India following the 1984 Gas Disaster.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/prin...41/india-worlds-worst-industrial-disaster.htmhttp://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6583874.cms?prtpage=1
 

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Government urged to sink Singapore warship bid

Government urged to sink Singapore warship bid

By Simon Santow
Posted 6 hours 40 minutes ago
The Australian warship HMAS Success has been sailing the seas for more than 25 years and is due for a major refit, including the building of a second hull. (www.navy.gov)


An Australian defence contractor and the industry's unions say the Federal Government will put national security at risk if it awards a contract to refit an Australian warship to a company in Singapore.
They are also warning that up to 200 jobs are at stake in New South Wales if the work heads overseas.
The Defence Department says it is still evaluating the tenders, but a spokesman told ABC Radio's The World Today that there is no reason - security or otherwise - to exclude an international bidder from the process.
The Australian warship HMAS Success has been sailing the seas for more than 25 years and is due for a major refit, including the building of a second hull.
The contract is said to be worth around $40 million and the battle is on between Singapore and Sydney's Garden Island facility to secure the work.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union NSW secretary Tim Ayres says although the project would be cheaper if carried out in Singapore, it would come with risks.
"The Singapore product will be cheaper on paper ... because it's underwritten by the Singapore government," he said.
"It'll be cheaper because Australian standards of occupational health and safety and entitlements for workers don't apply on this project."
Mr Ayres says he is fighting hard for his 200 members he says are at risk of losing their jobs if the contract is not landed in Australia.
"I don't believe that, ultimately, the Australian taxpayer will get value for money for this project if it goes offshore," he said.
Defence contractor Thalis Australia says it is similarly concerned about the potential job loss.
It is also worried that if the work is moved offshore, highly-skilled employees will over time lose the expertise necessary to maintain what is known as industry capability.
Mr Ayes says if the Australian Government moves the work overseas it will threaten the viability of the Garden Island facility, as well as the jobs and skills of the workers.
He says while the facility may survive despite losing this contract, it will damage Australia's ability to maintain and repair warships.
"The Commonwealth Government identified Garden Island as a priority industry capability. We've got to make sure, in the national security interest, that we maintain the capability to maintain and repair Australian warships if they're damaged in battle," he said.
Mr Ayes says Singapore does not send its navy assets offshore to be maintained and neither should Australia.
The Defence Department has been considering the merits of both bids for some time.
While the Minister responsible, Jason Clare, and the bureaucrats were unavailable to speak to The World Today, they did release a statement.
It says no decision has been made and contract negotiations with either tenderer are yet to begin.
But the Federal Opposition says it understands this is not true.
Opposition defence spokesman Senator David Johnston says he believes the contract has already gone overseas but was kept secret during the election campaign.
"Obviously, when 200 jobs in Sydney are being put at risk or lost because of a contract going to a Singaporean company employing Bangladeshi workers that don't comply with [International Labor Organisation] conventions, I am absolutely appalled," he said.
"This is a scandal of the most classic proportions."
Mr Johnson says a number of senior officials have told him that there was a $10 million saving in the project and that the contract had been completed.
The Opposition says it is overwhelmingly in the national interest to maintain the defence maintenance jobs in Australia, both for security reasons as well as economic ones.
 

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Black Gold Hub

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September 22, 2010

<NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" ">Seeking Bank Secrecy in Asia</NYT_HEADLINE>

<NYT_BYLINE>By LYNNLEY BROWNING

</NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT><NYT_CORRECTION_TOP></NYT_CORRECTION_TOP>For centuries, Switzerland has been the sanctuary of choice for wealthy people seeking to hide their fortunes and evade taxes. Now, amid a growing crackdown on Swiss private banking, the rich are flocking to Singapore and Hong Kong, which still offer some of the world’s most secret accounts.
But there is a twist in this shift to the East: Many of the banks growing in these low-tax oases have Swiss pedigrees. And their clients are not only Asia’s growing number of millionaires but also wealthy Americans and Europeans who, lawyers say, have been spooked by mounting scrutiny from the tax authorities in their own countries.
From UBS, which operates a training center in Singapore from Lord Mountbatten’s former compound, to smaller private banks like Julius Baer, Swiss banks and those with Swiss-based operations are tripping over themselves to expand in the region.
“We have seen a massive uptick in hiring hundreds of private bankers” in Singapore and Hong Kong “to take the business leaving Switzerland,” said Raymond Baker, the director of Global Financial Integrity, a research institute in Washington.
Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, director of the international tax program at the University of Michigan Law School, called the two Asian locations “the new alternative” to Swiss bank secrecy after the shackles placed on UBS by the U.S. authorities last year.
UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, has lost an estimated 200 billion Swiss francs, or about $200 billion, in assets from private banking clients over the past two years. But in Asia, it has won more new money than it has lost, according to an August presentation to investors by the bank’s chief executive of wealth management, Jürg Zeltner.
The bank would not give actual figures. But it did say it was planning to hire an additional 400 “client advisers,” or private bankers, for its Asia-Pacific region, on top of the current 867.
In February, UBS raised bonuses for Singapore bankers bringing in new clients. The Singapore government is one of the bank’s biggest shareholders, with about 9 percent, since diluted, bought in late 2007.
Credit Suisse’s top private banking executive, Walter Berchtold, said this month that net new assets coming into the bank from rich clients in Asia would grow more than 20 percent a year, more than triple the global average the bank has forecast.
At Julius Baer, whose headquarters are in Zurich, the board of directors met in early September in Singapore, the first such convening there.
“We call it our second home market,” said Jan Vonder Muehll, a spokesman for Baer, adding that the bank planned to double its assets there and in Hong Kong, to 25 percent of its total, within five years. “Swissness is highly regarded in Asia,” he said.
Ronen Palan, a professor of political economy and an offshore finance specialist at the University of Birmingham in England, said that “all the evidence suggests that Singapore is making a concerted effort to replace Switzerland as the global center for private banking.”
The shift has taken place amid an attack on Switzerland’s private-banking industry, long the country’s crown jewel and world leader.
In 2007, the U.S. Justice Department began a criminal investigation of UBS and, later, other Swiss banks for selling private banking services to wealthy Americans that allowed them to evade U.S. taxes.
Last year, UBS paid $780 million to settle the charges. It later agreed to lift the veil of Swiss bank secrecy and disclose the names of 4,450 American clients to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The settlement concerned clients courted on U.S. soil and pertained only to accounts held in Switzerland because it involved a U.S.-Swiss tax treaty.
Around the same time, European tax officials began gaining possession of discs stolen from Swiss banks that held data on thousands of clients, and a strengthened E.U. savings directive required banks to withhold a minimum level of tax even on secret accounts.
Richard Murphy, a founder of the Tax Justice Network, a British research firm focused on offshore havens, said that amid the changes, “Singapore is where the Swiss can now find the banking secrecy they’ve lost at home.”
Hong Kong, he said, is a close second.
Critics, including Mr. Murphy, call Singapore and Hong Kong offshore tax havens. They point to Singapore’s Swiss-style secrecy provisions; lack of taxes on capital gains and most foreign dividends; and system allowing depositors to open accounts in the guise of corporations, trusts and limited liability companies.
While Hong Kong does not have formal bank secrecy laws, it allows the formation of opaque companies that often serve as conduits for tax evasion. It also does not tax capital gains or deposit interest, and for corporations, it taxes only Hong Kong-sourced income. “Both are serious players. Both offer serious opacity,” Mr. Murphy said.
But the “offshore haven” label bothers both countries.
“Banking confidentiality provisions in Singapore’s laws protect the privacy of legitimate investors while allowing for banking information to be provided to foreign authorities where crimes or investigations are involved,” said Jacqueline Ong, a spokeswoman for the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country’s central bank and financial industry regulator.
Terry Wong, a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Financial Services and Treasury Bureau, said that Hong Kong “should not be compared” with jurisdictions that set out to make life easy for tax evaders.
“Hong Kong maintains a simple and highly transparent tax regime,” she said. “Our relatively low tax rate is a result of our prudent fiscal policy.”
But the U.S. tax authorities are increasingly wary.
Several UBS clients snared in the criminal investigation of the bank used Hong Kong offshore companies or had dealings with unidentified banks based in Singapore, according to court papers. Last July, the U.S. Justice Department began investigating whether certain U.S. clients of HSBC, which has its headquarters in London but has large Swiss operations, had failed to disclose accounts in Singapore and India. In the spring, the Internal Revenue Service said it was hiring 800 new employees to root out tax evasion, with a focus on Hong Kong and Singapore.
Switzerland is still the global capital of undeclared offshore wealth, with about $2 trillion.
But since 2008, an estimated $520 billion has left European offshore centers, mainly Switzerland, because of the pressure in the United States on UBS and other Swiss banks, according to Wealth Bulletin, a trade publication.
“It is my impression that lots of the money that left Switzerland went to Singapore,” said David Rosenbloom, a tax lawyer at Caplin Drysdale in Washington.
Surreptitiously made recordings by members of the household staff of the heir to the L’Oréal fortune, Liliane Bettencourt, that were leaked this summer suggested her advisers were planning last year to transfer millions in undeclared accounts from Switzerland to “either Hong Kong, Singapore or Uruguay” to avoid taxes under a new French-Swiss tax cooperation agreement.
“That way you will be at ease,” Ms. Bettencourt’s wealth manager, Patrice de Maistre, is heard telling her on the tapes, which caused a public outcry after they were posted on the French Web site Mediapart.
Ms. Bettencourt, 78, said in a television interview in July that she intended to repatriate and declare the money.
Singapore’s private banking assets grew sixfold, to $300 billion, between 2000 and 2008, according to Calamander Group, an investment boutique. Singapore now has about $500 billion in private banking assets, while Hong Kong has $200 billion, according to the Boston Consulting Group.
In Singapore, UBS is one of the leading private banks, with $146.5 billion in assets in the area as of last December, according to company filings.
Last year, UBS shut down what it and prosecutors called its “United States cross-border business,” which was offshore, undeclared private banking services for Americans.
The agreement, according to Allison Chin-Leong, a UBS spokeswoman, covers UBS’s cross-border services for Americans anywhere in the world. A senior U.S. government official said that UBS had “cleaned house” and stopped offering the services to Americans through non-U.S. locales.
But cross-border banking at UBS is still available in Singapore and Hong Kong. In its 2009 annual report, UBS said that “in Asia, we are directing our cross-border business on leading financial centers within the region, specifically Hong Kong and Singapore.”
The cross-border market in Singapore and Hong Kong will swell to about $800 billion in assets by 2012, UBS estimated earlier this year. Two UBS spokeswomen did not respond to further questions over several days on whether the bank sells undeclared banking services to Europeans and other non-Americans through Asia.
 

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State Sanctioned Invasion


Sat, Sep 25, 2010 | Updated 03.59AM IST


25 Sep, 2010, 03.46AM IST, Amiti Sen & Souvik Sanyal,ET Bureau
India presses Singapore to open up services sector



NEW DELHI: India has asked Singapore to open up more services to allow a greater number of Indian professionals access the island nation’s cost accountancy and hospitality sectors. A comprehensive bilateral trade agreement between the two countries is being reviewed. “We want to take advantage of the second review to get more in services and are exploring all possibilities,” a commerce department official told ET.

Besides requesting Singapore to take deeper commitments in medical, health-related and education services, India needs to ask for expanding the existing list of 127 occupations by which professionals are allowed entry into Singapore, pointed out Amit Mitra, secretary general, Ficci. “The additional list has to include chefs, physiotherapists, nurses, school teachers, nutritionists, professionals in entertainment and hospitality sectors,” he said.

India has stepped up pressure on professional bodies from services sectors such as chartered accountancy and architecture to engage with their counterparts in Singapore to create conditions for implementing liberal rules already provided for in the bilateral pact entered into in 2005.

What is weighing on India’s mind most is the inability of professional councils from both sides to take advantage of what has already been offered in the CECA. According to estimates made by industry body CII, services exports from India to Singapore has gone up by 143% in 2008 to $1.5 billion after the implementation of the CECA.

The potential of increasing services exports to Singapore is huge as the country’s annual imports of services stands at around $80 billion. The second review of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement or CECA started in May this year and is likely to continue for a year following which changes would be made to the existing agreement.

The CECA provides for mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) allowing professionals in nursing, dentistry, medicines, architecture and accountancy to practice in the other country purely on the basis of the qualifications acquired in the home country. Rules for finalising MRAs have not been framed as professionals in the respective sectors have not shown much initiative to take the process ahead.

“During the second review, we are very serious about ensuring that professional councils meet and the rules get framed,” the official pointed out. The governments finally made a few of the professional councils meet during the first review meeting last month in Singapore and they will meet again in New Delhi later this month.

India’s accounting regulator Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, which participated in the meeting, is upbeat about the future but believes that MRAs could take more time. “While regulators of both the countries have concurred on the need to allow their respective professionals to work in their territories, the Singapore institute has asked us to wait because they are making some revisions to their curriculum,” said ICAI president Amarjit Chopra. He added the commerce ministry has called for signing of the bilateral agreement even though the process of revision of curriculum may be continued.

ICAI holds that since both Singapore and India are emerging economies, MRAs will be beneficial for both. The nursing councils also had a good meeting. The dentistry and medical councils, however, have not met, and the chances of MRAs in these sectors are not very bright as they lack integration in the domestic market, the official added.
 

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RWS casino to gambler: Return your winnings

RWS casino to gambler: Return your winnings

By Ion Danker – September 27th, 2010
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A 67-year-old man was told to forfeit his winnings at Resorts World Sentosa’s (RWS) casino after finding out his exclusion order from the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) had taken effect.
Retired cabby Mr Teo Thiam Kee told The New Paper (TNP) that he knew his son had applied for an exclusion order but was not told when the order would take effect so he continued going to the casino to gamble.
He said, “I’d won about S$200 but they made me cough up the money before I was allowed to leave. This is unfair. They allowed me to enter but took away my winnings.”
According to the same paper, Mr Teo and his family appeared before the committee of assessors at the Family Link@Lengkok Bahru on Sept 8. The committee hears cases before deciding whether to grant the exclusion order.
He then went to RWS after the session ended and continued to do so over the next few days as he was told that it would take some time for the order to be granted. However, he was stopped on Sept 11 after he scanned his identity card to exit the casino.
Mr Teo returned his S$200 winnings and told TNP, “I didn’t know I had to forfeit my winnings. If I knew, I wouldn’t have gone there.”
RWS spokesman, Ms Lee Sin Yee, said the exclusion order for Mr Teo showed up in the system at the time of his exit and not when he entered.
Mr Teo claimed that the letter from NCPG informing him that the exclusion order had been granted was dated Sept 9 and delivered by hand after he returned home that same day.
It was also reported that the notification of the exclusion order is sent by courier to the respondent and once it is issued, the exclusion order will be deemed effective, regardless of whether the respondent has received it.
According to the Casino Control Act, an excluded person or those below the age of 21 must forfeit their winnings if they are caught in the casinos here. The forfeited money goes into the Government Consolidated Fund.
Thank you for the incredible, amazing response to Yahoo!’s Fit-To-Post blog so far. We continue to welcome your views and comments but please don’t abuse this opportunity. Be nice. Be courteous. Be sensible. Respect the feelings of others and refrain from using any kind of offensive language.

 

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Too Fast Too Furious

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=10 width=620><TBODY><TR><TD>The Electric New Paper :</TD></TR><TR><TD>Ex-SLA deputy director charged with cheating bought $1.5m Lamborghini</TD></TR><TR><TD class=font12>Ex-SLA deputy director spends $2m on 3 cars</TD></TR><TR><TD>FAST car or not, Koh Seah Wee, 40, couldn't get very far. </TD></TR><TR><TD class=font12><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" align=left><TBODY><TR><TD class=font12w>By Melvin Singh and Benson Ang</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=font12>29 September 2010</TD></TR><TR><TD class=font12>
FAST car or not, Koh Seah Wee, 40, couldn't get very far.
The former deputy director at the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) bought himself a supercar worth more than $1.5 million – but with money he's alleged to have siphoned out of SLA by abusing the government procurement system.
In all, Koh is linked to more than 240 cases of cheating involving $11.8 million. The police have recovered much of his alleged spoils, which included everything from shares to luxury cars.
The police applied the Confiscation of Benefits Act, which allows them to seize items which were believed to have been bought with money from the alleged fraud.
So the Lamborghini, with about 2,000km clocked, sits in a showroom for sale at $1.4 million. Koh is alleged to have committed a string of offences involving cheating over a 27-month period between 2008 and 2010. He remains in custody, unable to make bail at $1.5million, and was yesterday in court for a pre-trial conference.
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A rankings downturn

Universities

A rankings downturn

Singaporeans are finding out that however much their varsities have improved, others may have done more. By Seah Chiang Nee.

Oct 3, 2010


A FRIEND was rankled by a colleague’s remarks when he told her that his son had been accepted by a top US university: “Why? You mean he couldn’t qualify to study here?”
This happened six years ago.
The father, a media executive, had saved hard for it and was overjoyed by his boy’s admission into the US university.
Instead of congratulations, he had received sympathy from friends who actually believed his son was forced to go abroad because he couldn’t get enough marks to study here.
“Many Singaporeans never heard of Washington University or France’s Ecole Polytechnique but they know everything about Singapore’s universities, which demand good grades,” he said.
This faith was a little shaken by the latest – significantly revamped – Times Higher Education (THE) rankings of the world’s top 200 universities, which showed a decline of Singapore’s two top institutions.
Released last week, this widely-followed ranking showed The National University of Singapore (NUS) dropping from 30th to 34th position.
The newer Nanyang Technological University (NTU), formed in 1956, fared worse, tumbling 101 places from 73rd to a shocking 174th.
For most societies, universities moving up and down is accepted as normal and evokes little excitement, but not in Singapore, which takes higher education and rankings very seriously.
This city, which has few natural resources, depends a great deal on human resources, spending more on education (2010 budget: $8.7bil) than anything else except defence.
The perceived decline is a major concern not only to parents but also to the country, which is building an education hub and bidding to attract 150,000 foreign students to study here by 2012.
Universities are assessed by THE in their teaching or learning environment, citations and research, international mix of staff and students and industry income (amount of innovation).
The complete revamp, said THE publishers, would raise it to “a new level of sophistication” that would be followed from now on.
“We believe we have created the gold standard in international university performance comparisons,” it added.
The National University has not commented. NTU, which suffered the biggest drop, attributed it to the revamp and said it was no cause for alarm.
Its president Dr Su Guaning wrote in a published article that THE had designed a completely different methodology, and that its criteria had not yet been accepted by many universities.
“Universities know that their rankings do not tumble overnight.
“It takes years to build up a university; its standing will not swing wildly within a year or two,” Dr Su said.
Dr Su’s explanation placated some people but it failed to satisfy the public’s general concern about Singapore’s declining academic ranking in recent years in the face of an improving outside world.
==
THE rankings since 2004 show a gradual decline: -
(Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings
TOP 200 World Universities)

Year NUS NTU
2004 18 50
2005 22 48
2006 19 61
2007 33 69
2008 30 77
2009 30 73
2010 34 174
==
The achievements of colleges and universities here have been substantial given their short history, but others are moving even faster.
Stronger rivals are emerging in many countries, especially China and India that will make it very hard for Singapore to hold on to its global position.
Others like Japan, South Korea and Malaysia are also moving up the ladder.
As in my media friend’s experience, they could also be facing another obstacle – Singaporeans who truly believe their institutions are better than even premier universities in the West that they never read about.
To its credit, NUS is regarded as comparable to a second or third level premium university in the West, depending on who you ask.
NTU, despite its fast track, has a long way to go.
As foreign universities get better and competition gets hotter, Singaporean public expectations has moved higher than the realities on the ground.
Some analysts believe that part of the decline is Singapore’s rapid demographic – and in turn, tertiary – expansion.
From two, the number of universities here has grown to four (total enrolment: 78,000) with a fifth being planned. The proportion of foreign students in university is capped at 20%.
With its goal of attracting 150,000 international students by next year, recruiting enough PhDs with good quality has been a strain.
Without mentioning names, some graduates wrote of their personal experiences with poor quality foreign lecturers, whose English was so poor that they could hardly comprehend them.
One anonymous critic said some blame must be put on entry relaxation of foreign students, especially in English.
“Having more, bigger, faster – whether recruiting professors or students – must invariably mean a drop in standards.”
The other cause could be the relaxed entry requirements for foreign students – especially in English, a few critics said.
So far the hardest hit, psychologically speaking, are former NTU students.
“We hope they can quickly work to pull the rankings back up or else it may affect our effort to get a job outside Singapore,” one former NTU student said.
It is obvious there is no such thing as a perfect ranking or a flawless assessment system.
But like it or not, the credible or larger ones will continue to have an impact in Singapore – of universities and students assessed.
What is important is how credible these rankers are regarded in the world employment market.
On the other hand, blogger Kelvin Teo cautioned against taking the competitive culture too seriously.
“An obsession for ranking can be unhealthy from the social and educational perspectives.”

(This was first published in The Star)
 

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You Aint Seen Nothing Yet

Sengkang stink lingers


Huge compost heap from Punggol Way site fouls mood of residents; contractor working to clear the air
Amresh Gunasingham & Ted Chen Straits Times 8 Oct 10;

THE stench was unbearable. It was so smelly some people could not sleep. Others felt nauseous and dizzy. Two weeks after it was reported that a stink had enveloped pockets of the Sengkang estate in the north-east, the smell still lingers.

Residents have complained in droves, and the National Environment Agency (NEA) is now taking further action.

It had earlier pinned the blame for the smell on a 200-tonne mound of rotting food and woodchips dumped at a construction site in Punggol Way.

The NEA served a nuisance order under the Environmental Public Health Act on the contractor - construction giant Koh Brothers - to clear the mound immediately. But this warning was not heeded, and now the agency says it will fine the contractor - as much as $10,000, said an NEA spokesman yesterday.

Mr David Tay, group public relations manager of Koh Brothers, said lorries have been deployed since last Friday to cart away the excess compost, a week after the original report.

The NEA spokesman said the stench could have spread while the compost was being excavated. 'Removal work is ongoing and the contractor has since engaged more lorries to increase the number of trips made to the incineration plants.'

But Mr Tay said the stink cannot be helped. He said the source of the smell is compost, which is needed as fertiliser to turf the land.

In January last year, Koh Brothers was awarded two contracts worth about $200 million by the Housing Board (HDB) to develop the area into housing estates.

Compost is needed to fertilise land being developed for the upcoming Punggol Waterfront project, the company said.

It is understood that a large amount of compost is needed as the site has been zoned an eco-precinct by the HDB, meaning the environment will be replete with more greenery. Mr Tay said sub-contractors employed by Koh Brothers may have 'overestimated' the amount of compost needed.

But he admitted the mound may not have been properly covered in the evenings. And it certainly has raised a stink among residents in the area.

Over the past two weeks, some 169 complaints have been lodged with the NEA, with 49 of them made yesterday.

Residents have also aired their gripes online. The community forum on Sengkang.com shows more than 100 postings about the odour.

Student Sufiyan Hassan, 15, of Compassvale Secondary in Sengkang, said his entire school compound stank yesterday morning for several hours.

'We couldn't concentrate on work, and all of us had to cover our noses with our shirts,' said the student, whose school is about 1km from the site. 'Have you ever been to Mandai Zoo? That's what it smelt like.'

Madam Charinee Wongkat, 25, who lives in Sengkang East Way, 1.7km from the construction site, said the smell was at its worst last week. 'It was very smelly and we couldn't sleep. It lasted the whole night,' said the housewife, who had to resort to closing her flat's windows.

Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC MP Charles Chong told The Straits Times he received complaints as recently as last week, though none yesterday.

He intends to gather feedback from residents at today's Meet the People session about the latest occurrence and survey the site personally.

Professor Phillip Eng, a consultant respiratory physician at Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre, said the odour was unlikely to be harmful as it would take a cumulative inhalation of toxics over an extended period to cause any harm.

Koh Brothers said it will moderate the amount of compost used at the construction site and make sure the mound is covered properly.
 

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Minimum wage? Not us, we are Singapore

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<HR>Minimum wage? Not us, we are Singapore

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:00


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By Maxwell Coopers

COMMENT Singapore has made its position on minimum wage as clear as those jousting for it: there will be none of it as far as the city-state is concerned.
That much came became clear when the Republic’s labour chief, Lim Swee Say, argued forcefully against the implementation of such a scheme.

In excerpts carried by the nation’s only “visible” broadsheet, The Straits Times, Lim, who is also a minister in the Singapore Cabinet, said a minimum wage policy will “not work”.

Instead what he advocates is a so-called regime of promoting minimum skills for the nation’s workforce -- a typical throwback to Confucian precepts of teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish every day!

There is nothing morally wrong with what Lim had proposed. Even ideologically, too, such a scheme is very much in keeping with the city-state’s preference for self-reliance over any remotely perceived notion of taking hand-outs.

But as matters stand, today’s world is far more complex than the medieval China the sage extolled.

And today’s world is also certainly more economically dynamic than the pastoral world from where Confucius preached.

Minimum wage will almost certainly be a hot political potato in the run-up to the general election, which the city-state must call by February 2012.

A similar bread-and-butter issue which became a hot topic in the 1984 general election was the mandatory retirement age. The same ruling clique of the Peoples’ Action Party (PAP) announced that it would defer the mandatory retirement age.

This controversy in Singapore some 26 years ago caused a swing in votes. It was a “watershed” of sorts because for the first time in many years the Singaporean electorate was riveted to highly-charged political debates, something never before seen in the nation’s long history.

Disparity in treatment

According to the Temasek Review, “inequalities can only expand” if a minimum wage policy is not followed through.

The website’s main grouse has been of the disparity in treatment meted out to landlords and the minions (workers) serving their bosses meekly.

“You never hear Lim (Swee Say) urging landlords to keep rents low or that electricity tariff, which is the second highest in the world, should be reduced to keep Singapore competitive. Lim believes in making workers 'cheaper' to stay competitive as part of his CBF (cheaper, better faster) strategy.”

Yet, based on anecdotal and empirical evidence, it cannot be dismissed that an underclass in Singapore is indeed growing.

And that, according to the website, has largely to do with the “influx of cheap imported labour, regressive taxation policies and erosion of labour rights and benefits”.

Singapore has always opined that it does not have the natural resources that Malaysia and other neighbouring countries have for it to hand out largesse.

Hong Kong, too, does not have the kind of resources that Malaysia has.

But if Hong Kong is able to make a pact that takes into consideration the plight of its peoples, then there sure is a lesson for the tiny city-state to take a leaf from.

Maxwell Coopers is a freelance writer based in Singapore.
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Fewer foreigners wanted in Singapore

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Fewer foreigners wanted in Singapore
By Megawati Wijaya

SINGAPORE - Singapore's open-door immigration policy for foreign labor is closing amid persistently high unemployment in Europe and the United States. The island state has recently relied on foreign talent to propel its competitiveness but local politics and global economics have motivated a tightening of [COLOR=green !important][COLOR=green !important]immigration
[/COLOR]rules.

One in three of Singapore's five million people is a foreigner. Last month, the government adjusted the rules on qualification for permanent resident (PR) status, which can be granted under a number of categories, most relevant for foreigners being those covering (i) investors and entrepreneurs, and (ii) professionals and skilled workers.

For investors and entrepreneurs, the government raised the minimum [COLOR=green !important][COLOR=green !important]investment[/COLOR] required to qualify for PR status. Under the city's Global Investor Program (GIP), foreigners aiming to become PRs will need now to fork out at least S$2.5 million (US$1.9 million) in Singapore-based investments, more than twice the previous $1 million requirement.

Their registered companies must now report an annual turnover of $30 million, up from $10 million previously. The GIP scheme was first implemented in 2004 to ease the way for foreign entrepreneurs to establish and run businesses here. A parallel Financial Investor Scheme offers a package of incentives, including PR status, to attract foreigners with net worth of $20 million or more.

Professionals applying for PR status or citizenship now also face more stringent eligibility criteria, including higher minimum[COLOR=green !important][COLOR=green !important]incomes[/COLOR][/COLOR] and residential requirements, several said, telling this correspondent that they recently received one-year PR renewals instead of the five years many received before 2010 and the 10 years commonly given prior to 2008.

One foreign professional who has worked in Singapore for six years said his PR status was recently extended for only one year. "It feels that the government has decided not to extend my PR after it expires next year and for the time being has only given me a grace period to look for jobs elsewhere outside Singapore," he said.

Others, it appears, will be given stay-or-go ultimatums. During a National Day rally event last month, senior minister Goh Chok Tong said the [COLOR=green !important][COLOR=green !important]government[/COLOR][/COLOR] might consider offering citizenship to select PRs and not renew the PR status of those who decline the offer.

"In the past, we could just give you permanent residence without taking up Singapore citizenship. Moving forward, we are going to approach some of them to take up Singapore citizenship. If they don't, then their PR will be not renewed. That's a better way," said Goh. As not all countries recognize dual citizenship, opting for Singapore citizenship could pose a difficult dilemma for some PRs.

Goh said that of the 500,000 PRs currently in Singapore, "maybe 50,000 can be selected to become Singapore citizens, the rest can be PRs contributing to the economy."

Goh's comments raised hackles in expatriate circles. A day after his comment, a thread on the website ExpatSingapore ran under the header: "Singapore to expel 10% of permanent residents". Goh later hedged his statement, saying that the 10% figure mentioned was "only for illustration purposes" and that his comment was a "general observation to illustrate the point that the government would be managing the inflow of PRs and would encourage some of those who are already here to become Singapore citizens."

The changes mark a significant policy reversal. As recently as 2008, the government recruited foreign white-collar workers to fill up vacancies in its various high-end [COLOR=green !important][COLOR=green !important]industries[/COLOR][/COLOR], including the finance, biotechnology, biomedical, and alternative-energy sectors. Low levies on foreign workers also made it easy for companies to hire low-cost unskilled foreign workers to work in manufacturing, construction and service industries.

But the global financial crisis has resulted in sharp competition for well-paid jobs and with many companies in retrenchment mode a divide has opened between locals and foreigners. In 2008, a poll carried in a local newspaper revealed that nine out of 10 Singaporeans feared losing their jobs to foreign professionals and opposed government efforts to attract more of them. Nearly 43% said in the same poll that they believed the government was more concerned with the welfare of foreigners than its own people.

The National Trade Union Congress (NTUC), a local labor movement, has publicly told Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that local workers are increasingly worried about new immigrants taking their jobs, reducing local wages and generally increasing workplace pressures. The local Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao has gone a step further through advocating the implementation of pro-local policies.

Local over foreign
The government has apparently taken onboard that nationalistic advice. In July, foreign levy rates on work permits for low-skilled workers were raised by between $10 to $30. The levies are scheduled to continue rising through 2012 to around $100 per worker for foreign manufacturing and service sector workers.

Rates for first- and second-tier labor were raised to $100 and $120, up from the previous standard rate of $50. Those rates will rise as high as $250 by 2012. The purpose of the higher levies is to encourage Singapore companies to rely less on foreign workers and upgrade their productivity, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said.

Singapore's [COLOR=green !important][COLOR=green !important]trade[/COLOR][/COLOR]-geared economy has boomed its way out of crisis. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 18.8% year-on-year in the second quarter and 10.3% in the third quarter. The government has forecast GDP growth this year will hit between 13% to 15%, a dramatic uptick from last year's 2% shrinkage.

Yet the local-versus-foreign debate has not subsided and has become fodder for the political opposition to hit the People's Action Party (PAP)-dominated government. Locals vent their frustrations anonymously in online forums, often blaming foreigners for the country's 2.2% unemployment rate, declining local wages, inflated residential rental rates, and stretched public resources such as health care facilities.

An article in the Straits Times last month underscored local perceptions that foreigners are fickle, fleeing the city-state during times of crisis and arriving in waves for economic booms. Alvin Yeo, a member of parliament, recently echoed those nationalistic views: "Among the local community, they are saying: 'These [PRs] are treating Singapore as a hotel.'

"We citizens live here. If anything happens, we can't go anywhere else. But PRs have the best of both words: they can pack up, go back to their own countries," said Steve Chia from the opposition National Solidarity Party. "[Only] if they take up citizenship, they'll cut their ties to their home countries and sink roots here."

Brian Dalby - a British PR who has been in Singapore for 16 years, wrote to local paper putting the other side of the case. He said that despite "a deep respect" for Singapore and that he contributes "fully to the economy", he cannot erase the identity, relationship or culture from the country of his birth, Britain. He must also remain British to keep its pension. "While I desire to take on Singaporean citizenship, I have no desire - nor can I financially afford - to renounce my British citizenship," he said.

Tighter immigration regulations are already taking effect. Last year, 132,200 foreigners applied for PR status, but only 59,500 were approved. That was a significant dip from the 79,200 who were given status in 2008. Over the 12-month period from April 2009 to the end of March this year only 46,300 foreigners were granted PR status.

"I think we should consolidate, slow down the pace," Prime Minister Lee said at a National Day rally in August. "We can't go on like this, increasing our population 100,000, 150,000 a year indefinitely. We should give Singaporeans time to adjust."

Striking a similarly nationalistic note, Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said in parliament last month that the government must "ensure the number of PR is not going to be significantly large and overwhelm the Singapore citizen population".

At the same time, the cost of being a foreigner in Singapore has risen substantially. On top of existing citizen-only privileged policies in housing, childcare, and education, the government has recently raised the school fees for PRs and other foreigners, widened the gap between healthcare subsidies for citizens and PRs to 20%, and excluded PRs from buying new Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats and from receiving government housing [COLOR=green !important][COLOR=green !important]grants[/COLOR][/COLOR] and state subsidies for property upgrades.

With general [COLOR=green !important][COLOR=green !important]elections[/COLOR][/COLOR] expected within the next six months, some see the government's pro-local policies as part of the PAP's election strategy.

"The timing for fine-tuning may be coincidental to be near the election time. But this is also because the Singapore government always gathers information from the public," said Yohanes Eko Riyanto, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological University's economics department. "They know about the [locals' unhappiness with] foreigners in competition for jobs and realize they must deal with it soon before the situation gets out of hand."

Megawati Wijaya is a Singapore-based journalist. She may be contacted at [email protected]

(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication andrepublishing.)
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Singapore's New Weapon Against Dissent

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Singapore's New Weapon Against Dissent

<TABLE style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none; WIDTH: 615px; BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px" class=contentpaneopen><TBODY><TR><TD style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 12px; PADDING-TOP: 5px" vAlign=top width="70%" colSpan=2 align=left>Written by Paul Karl Lukacs </TD></TR><TR><TD style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; TEXT-TRANSFORM: uppercase; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; COLOR: rgb(171,171,171); FONT-SIZE: 11px; PADDING-TOP: 5px" class=createdate vAlign=top colSpan=2>WEDNESDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2010</TD></TR><TR><TD style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 12px; PADDING-TOP: 5px" vAlign=top colSpan=2>
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Where Never is Heard/A Discouraging Word


Trademark infringement action now will do the job

The government of Singapore has revealed its new weapon against political opponents: trademark infringement lawsuits.

Singapore is synonymous with "soft authoritarianism," a system under which dissent is quashed principally through co-option, self-censorship, gerrymandering and the strategic filing of civil lawsuits against opposition politicians.

While the Singaporean regime is not above imprisoning its critics, the authorities prefer to use courtroom procedures that appear superficially to be content-neutral applications of typical laws. The island nation's activists can expect to be sued for defamation or campaign violations, to have financially debilitating court judgments entered against them and to be barred from running for Parliament after they are forced into bankruptcy.

Now the country's long-time rulers, the leaders of the People's Action Party, are attempting to use trademark infringement claims to identify anonymous critics and to squelch oppositional speech. So far as can be determined, despite the fact that the government keeps a tight leash on the mainstream media, it appears to be the first time the island republic has gone after an Internet publication although the opposition Singapore Democratic Party delivers a steady diet of anti-government rhetoric over the Net and an incessant stream of angry bloggers deliver up daily fare.

The Temasek Review is a more formidable operation. In 2009, one or more unidentified anti-PAP dissidents began publishing news, analysis and opinion on the website. The site's domain name (www.temasekreview.com) was registered by proxy, and the site indicates it operates through a business entity in Panama, far outside the jurisdiction of the Singaporean courts (in which government-backed lawsuits against political opponents have been consistently successful).

On October 9, 2010, a state-aligned tabloid, The New Paper, reported that the site's founder was a Singaporean physician named Joseph Ong Chor Teck. Six days later, the current controversy began in earnest, when Temasek Holdings, Singapore's principal sovereign wealth fund, served a cease and desist letter on Dr Ong.

"The purpose of this letter is to request, if you are the founder of the website, that the website stops using the good name of ‘Temasek Review' and that its name be changed," the letter stated. The fund explained that it had used the name "Temasek Review" since 2004 as the title of its annual report and that the web site was "capitalizing on the good will and reputation" of the name in a manner that was "misleading and irresponsible."

Dr Ong, for his part, has said he is not currently involved in the site's ownership or management, but the government-linked Temasek Holdings maintains that Dr Ong is in touch with the site's personnel and can communicate the fund's demands to them. In response to the well-publicized cease and desist letter, the independent website temporarily changed its title to New Temasek Review, transferred its domain name to an unidentified non-Singaporean and now appears to be publishing as normal under its original title.

There is little question that Temasek Holdings is speaking on behalf of the government. Although the fund prefers to present itself as an independent profit-seeking enterprise, Temasek is recognized as a "government company" by the Singaporean Constitution, and it is owned by the Ministry of Finance. Moreover, personnel is policy, and Tamesek is near the heart of the regime. Temasek's CEO is Ho Ching, the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the daughter-in-law of the island's paramount leader, Lee Kuan Yew.

The cease and desist letters were sent under the name of Goh Yong Siang, a Lee family loyalist. After graduating from Singapore's Flight Training School in 1970, Goh rose through the ranks, ending his military tenure in 1998 as the head of the Air Force. Since then, Goh has served as a member of the board of directors of Singapore Airlines, was involved in an unsuccessful US venture named Patriot Air and, in 2006, was named to Temasek's Thailand office as part of Ho's purchase of the Shin Corporation telecommunications concern.

Although Temasek has not yet filed a lawsuit, the cease and desist letters indicate that a trademark infringement action is contemplated – as do certain other maneuvers by the company. And as dissidents and international press organizations have discovered, Singapore has a long history of following through with its threats of lawsuits.

A plaintiff preparing for an infringement action will often apply for registration of the disputed mark (or a similar one) in the specific fields of commerce in which the defendant is operating. Thus, it is probably not a coincidence that in November 2009 – after The Temasek Review started publication and obtained its current domain name – Temasek filed an application in the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore to register the mark "Temasek Review" in the fields of printed and electronic publications.

In addition, Temasek filed applications in May 2010 to register the similar mark "The Temasek Report" in Singapore, the European Union and the United States in the same fields of commerce. These filings certainly give the appearance of a litigant preparing its case.

That said, formal registration of a trademark is not necessary for a mark holder to prevail in court. Trademark rights accrue through use – specifically, through the public's identification of a mark with a good or service's source of origin – so, in common-law countries like Singapore, an unregistered mark can be protected.

Under Singaporean law – and it would be unprecedented for the government to file a lawsuit against a political opponent anywhere other than Singapore's own courts – an unregistered mark can be protected if the good or service has an established reputation among the Singaporean public, if the defendant has made a misstatement which will confuse the public as to the source of the product, and if the plaintiff has been damaged. The fund's cease and desist letters attempt to demonstrate these criteria.

In a courtroom which provided a level playing field, there would be several obvious weaknesses in Temasek's case. Most importantly, there does not appear to be any evidence that members of the public are likely to confuse the once-a-year report of an investment firm with a continuously updated online publication that analyzes swaths of Singaporean life and politics. A "likelihood of confusion," to use the American phrasing, is necessary to impose a judgment of trademark infringement, and it's difficult to discern one in this situation.

The word "Temasek" – which, according to custom, is Old Javanese for "sea town" – is an early place name for Singapore, and geographic marks can be particularly difficult to monopolize. Courts can issue injunctions or refuse registrations if the use of a place name is misleading, but there doesn't seem to be anything deceptive about a publication named Temasek Review which literally reviews the government and society of the island previously called Temasek.

The unmistakable trajectory of Temasek's argument is that only the Singaporean government or one of its sub-units would be able to use the word in the title of a publication. Taken to that extent, the Singaporean government's claimed intellectual property rights would be a cover for censorship and the bullying of competing voices out of the media marketplace.

The regime has other legal arguments it could make. It could claim that the "Temasek Review" mark is so famous that – like the marks Coca-Cola or Hyatt – no one could use them in any field of commerce. That's a tough argument to make with a straight face about the name of an annual report (which appears to have been discontinued, since the fund's 2010 report is titled "Temasek Report," not "Temasek Review").

The fund could ask for arbitration before the international body which administers domain names, but that would place the burden of proof on the fund to establish that the website had a confusingly similar name, had no legitimate interest in its name and was acting in bad faith. More to the point, a domain name arbitration would place the dispute in a neutral international forum, which the PAP has tended to avoid in political cases.

In the end, the publishers of the website are probably correct in stating that the agenda of the government is to identify the site's editors so that they can be investigated and discredited. And trademark and other intellectual property claims are the newest, superficially legalistic methods the PAP will use to protect its hegemony and the privileges of its leaders.

Paul Karl Lukacs, a practicing media and business attorney, is legal affairs correspondent for Asia Sentinel. He blogs at The Nomad Lawyer.
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Young people worried about Singaporean identity

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</TD></TR><TR><TD>News @ AsiaOne
Young people worried about Singaporean identity
They don't feel comfortable in their own country anymore. -RazorTV

Mon, Nov 01, 2010
RazorTV
By Amanda Wong
With the influx of foreign talent, are Singaporeans losing their sense of belonging?
This was one of the key issues raised during the annual Nanyang Technological University Students' Union Ministerial Forum on Friday (October 29). The guest-of-honour was Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong.
"I feel that there's a sense, there's a dilution of the Singapore spirit in the youth. We don't really feel ownership of our country, we don't really feel comfortable in our country anymore," said 23-year-old Lim Zi Rui, a final year aerospace engineering student at NTU.
SM Goh's response: "We've got to find out the core reasons. It's a serious question. The minority will never feel they belong here, fair enough. But if the majority feels this place doesn't belong to them, they don't belong here, we've got a fundamental problem."
Another student asked SM Goh what he thinks are the qualities which make Singapore home.
SM Goh said a combination of family, memories and shared values.
More on the question and answer session on RazorTV.

<TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Other videos:
» Singapore's fourth Prime Minister?
» What makes Singapore our home?
» Do Singaporeans have a say?
» Coping with an ageing population
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