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Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
Week of August 23, 1996
Party Fever in Singapore
If someone is going to get chicken pox, the earlier the better. The virus causes skin eruptions and fever, but no longer-term effects for children. In adults, however, it can, in extreme cases, lead even to brain damage. While there is no guarantee of contracting the highly contagious disease at a young age, Singaporeans are trying to in-crease the chances of doing so. How? By organizing chicken-pox parties, reports The Straits Times. Parents send their kids to the home of a sufferer and let them huddle for a few hours - an extension of the practice of exposing siblings to each other. Favored periods are school holidays, so studies are not disrupted. But vaccines approved elsewhere are likely to be available in Singa-pore by the end of the year - which may mean one less excuse to party.
INVESTMENT
Singapore sound-card maker Creative Technology and South Korea's Samsung Electronics will develop and make CD-ROM drive products together. The partnership combines Creative Techno-logy's R&D strengths in multimedia with Samsung's expertise in manufacturing. The joint venture comes just weeks after Creative Technology posted its first full-year net loss of nearly $40 million.Week of August 16, 1996
Almost one out of five Singaporean teenagers is sexually active by the age of 19, says a 1994 survey published recently in the Asian Journal of Psychology. Half of them also admit they do not use protection to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.Opposition MP and Singapore Democratic Party chairman Ling How Doong has backed down from his claim that the nation's health care system "was hardly subsidized at all." A typing error was apparently to blame: an SDP chart that showed government health expenditure at 5% in 1990 should have read 25%.
Week of July 26, 1996
Aviation Aero International Asia - made up of two Airbus Industrie partners and an Italian group - and Singapore Technologies Aerospace have won the contract to build 100-seat passenger planes in China. The deal may also help boost Airbus sales. Excluded was South Korea, which had originally been involved in talks with Beijing to make the jets. That arrangement was called off over disagreements on the production site.Health Minister George Yeo said that government subsidies for heath care were calculated on the actual cost of providing the services. He was responding to opposition claims that subsidies were insufficient and pegged to higher market rates.
Week of June 28, 1996
GETTING TOUGH
The Singapore government says it plans to introduce tougher laws aimed at hard-core drug addicts. Under legislation that will probably become effective next year, hardened addicts could face 13 years in detention and six strokes of the cane. A government official said many addicts were turning to crime to support their habit - and this could no longer be tolerated.Week of June 21, 1996
BARINGS' FALLOUT
Auditing can be risky. Because they failed to detect Nick Leeson's hidden bank account, Price Waterhouse, the company liquidating Barings PLC, sued two of the failed bank's auditors - Deloitte & Touche and Coopers & Lybrand - in Singapore. Meanwhile, ING, the Dutch company that bought up Barings is in trouble: 44 of its Latin American specialists resigned recently.Week of June 14, 1996
ELDERS' RECOURSE
A light flurry - not a flood - of people filed claims or got information from Singapore's Tribunal for the Maintenance of Parents when it opened for business. People aged 60 and above, or younger if infirm, can claim financial help from their children if they are unable to look after themselves. If a mediator fails to reach a compromise, the case can go in front of a tribunal.Week of June 7, 1996
BOLT FROM THE BLUE
They may be angering the gods, but now they are doing something about it. Singapore's Meteorological Service will set up a $1.06 million dollar lightning detection system which could eventually be able to predict where the bolts will hit. Singapore has one of the highest rates of lightning strikes in the world - up to 20 hits per sq km each year.Week of May 31, 1996
PUBLIC DECLARATION
The controversy surrounding the discounts on two deluxe condominiums given to Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and his son Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong continues. Premier Goh Chok Tong rejected opposition calls for all cabinet members to reveal their assets to the public, saying the private declarations he requires of them are sufficient.Week of May 24, 1996
SEVEN-YEAR CALL WAITING
Singapore has a seven-year itch to crank up telecommunications competition. To stay at the front of the information-age pack, it is ending Singapore Telecom's monopoly seven years before the originally planned 2007 deadline, mandated when SingTel was listed. "We are a major banking and financial center. Banks, forex dealers and commodity traders depend on telecommunication services of the highest quality and the lowest cost," says Communications Minister Mah Bow Tan. SingTel's Ivan Tan says it is ready to meet the competition head-on: "We had already begun to change the corporate culture to one that will ensure our success in a competitive environment." SingTel has been offered $1.07 billion by the government to compensate it for its lost monopoly. Meanwhile, the Telecommunication Authority of Singapore will start taking applications from new competitors early next year.Week of May 17, 1996
MEDICAL DECISION
Singaporeans above the age of 21 now have the right to state in advance if they want to refuse "extraordinary life-sustaining treatment" when they are terminally ill, death is imminent and there is no hope of recovery. Parliament approved the Advance Medical Directive Bill after more than a year of expert debate and feedback from the public.Week of May 10, 1996
BIGGER FLEET
Two more state-of-the-art patrol vessels -- the fourth and fifth in a projected fleet of 12 -- were launched at the Singapore Technologies Shipbuilding and Engineering yard in Tuas. Half of the PVs will be capable of anti-submarine warfare; all of them will be carrying French-designed Mistral surface-to-air missiles. The ships are locally designed.Week of April 19, 1996
BAD-FOOD FEVER
Paratyphoid fever, a milder, less fatal version of typhoid fever has health professionals concerned in Singapore. Over the past three weeks, 91 cases have been diagnosed, up from an average of one or two per week. Symptoms of the food-borne disease: prolonged fever, headache and diarrhea, sometimes a rash on the chest and stomach.Week of April 12, 1996
DRUG PROBLEM
"Hard core drug addicts can be criminalized and put out of circulation for a long time" -- tough talk from Singapore's Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng. He says new laws are being finalized and prisons are being prepared for the long-term detention of drug users. They should be ready to face sentences of up to 13 years, Wong warned.Week of April 5, 1996
THANK YOU, IHT
What did Premier Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Deputy Premier Lee Hsien Loong do with the $674,000 they received from the International Herald Tribune? They gave it to five community organizations. The IHT paid the sum after a court found it guilty of libelously alleging "dynastic politics" are practiced in Singapore.Week of March 22, 1996
ARCHIVAL EVIDENCE
Hayashi Hirofumi, researching archives in London, has found evidence that Japanese troops under Gen. Yamashita Tomoyuki killed at least 5,000 "anti-Japanese" Chinese residents of Singapore between Feb. 18 and Feb. 23, 1942. The killings have been known; the new evidence is the strongest linking responsibility through the Japanese chain of command.Week of March 15, 1996
GIVEAWAY IN SINGAPORE
Packed with concessions, Singapore's budget is the kind that would help any government at election time. Shortly after Finance Minister Richard Hu unveiled the plan, the Singapore Democratic Party and the Singapore Malay National Association jointly charged the government with "giving out enough to win votes" rather than being genuinely concerned about the working and middle classes. The budget is filled with financial breaks: top bracket income taxes were cut from 30% to 28%; public housing residents will get rebates of two to three months' rent and up to $106 back on utility charges. It will also "top up" citizen's Central Provident Fund holdings, adding up to $350 to each person's account. The plan looks after businesses, too: the corporate tax rate will be cut from 27% to 26%. PM Goh Chok Tong has until April 1997 to hold general elections, but said last month he intends to conduct them after the current budget session which ends March 21.Week of March 8, 1996
INTERNET IN COURT
It is most likely the first Internet-related legal action in Singapore. David Tan Yeow Hee is suing Chan Tuck Ying for impersonating him in a Singapore on-line discussion group. The messages posted by Chan in Tan's name implied he was a sexual deviant. Chan's verbal apology is not enough: Tan wants a public statement and a monetary payment for damages.Week of March 1, 1996
REGIONAL COOPERATION
When it comes to currency, things look better. "Repo" pacts -- repurchase agreements between countries to help defend their currencies from attack by speculators -- are becoming more common in Asia. When, near the end of the Lunar New Year, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore announced they had reached a deal on dollar-yen trading, it was seen as a mutual-interest pact to support the dollar by buying U.S. currency when necessary. If Tokyo, for example, finds its yen becoming too strong, the three countries will now pool resources to buy dollars, secretly, to stop a slide in the yen vs. dollar rate. In November, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand signed a similar agreement for their currencies. In December, Hong Kong and the Philippines signed a bilateral deal. China joined the list in early February. Until now, critics said the agreements did not have much significance; most of those countries' central banks do not have sufficient buying power to make a large enough difference in international money markets. But with Japan's entry into the field -- this is the first time Japan has signed a repo pact -- it is possible that real stabilizing power can be brought to bear if currency trading in yen becomes uncomfortably volatile.SAFE SINGAPORE
With crime down 0.7% to a ten-year low, police in Singapore say the rise in murders (51 last year, 48 in 1994) is due to foreigners in the city-state killing each other more frequently. Car theft is up by about 4%, too, but the overall crime rate declined for the seventh straight year. However, "We must not be complacent," Police Commissioner Tee Tua Ba warns.Week of Feburary 23, 1996
POWERING DOWN
Because of its poor return on equity -- 7.6% -- the plan to publicly list Singapore Power will be postponed for this year. The public utility's profits are minimal be-cause of its low rates. For an acceptable ROE, around 11%, it will have to raise the price it charges users by 12%-14%. Those increases are scheduled to be phased in over the next three or four years.Week of Feburary 9, 1996
CREDIT CRAZINESS
It has banned the advertising of incentives. It has threatened and pleaded with banks to stop luring customers. It has tried just about everything, but the Monetary Authority of Singapore cannot get consumers to stop running up record amounts of credit card debt. For the last quarter of 1995, the amount card users were rolling over was up 17% to $581.3 million.Week of Feburary 2, 1996
LONGER LINE
Expecting it to break even by 2003, Singapore is starting work on a 20-km extension to its Mass Rapid Transit network. The $3.5-billion project will run from the World Trade Center in the south to Punggol in the northeast. Passengers on the new line will be paying slightly higher fares to make it economically viable as soon as possible.Week of January 26, 1996
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Back up. Singapore was not made a "developed country" on Jan. 1 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It only removed Singapore from its "developing country" list, it did not promote it. Singapore won the clarification, fearing competition from low cost "developing" nations if it is grouped with wealthier "developed" countries.Week of January 12, 1996
PHONING AHEAD
Chinese and Singaporean companies have invested $800 million to start a consortium that includes Japanese and Thai corporations in a plan to start up a new mobile phone system. The Asia Pacific Mobile Telecommunications Satellite Ltd. project will handle satellite-routed calls from anywhere, not just urban centers, and should be on-line by 1998.NOT OVER YET
Price Waterhouse, the firm liquidating Baring Futures (Singapore), has gotten a court order to force six BFS managers to discuss any of the firm's undisclosed assets. If they refuse, the court could issue a warrant for their arrest. Nick Leeson, meanwhile, has decided not to appeal his six-and-a-half year sentence for his role in the $1.3 billion trading fiasco.Week of January 5, 1996
RENEWAL OF TIES
After a nine-month hiatus following the execution of domestic helper Flor Contemplacion, Singapore and the Philippines have agreed to exchange ambassadors. Singapore also agreed to allow Manila to participate in the investigation of the death of a Filipino maid, Angelina Palaming, 28, who fell nine floors, holding a four-year-old child, on Dec. 7 in Singapore.News from Singapore in 1995
