Newspaper Clippings
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For the latest news and interesting articles.
McDonald's loses trademark battle
By Elena Chong
A SINGAPORE food company has won a battle against United States fast-food giant McDonald's Corporation.
The restaurant chain had wanted to stop listed Future Enterprises from distributing products named 'MacNoodles', 'MacTea' and 'MacChocolate'.
However, the Court of Appeal, in a unanimous decision yesterday, did not find that the three trademarks were deceptively similar to the chain's distinctive 'Mac' or 'Mc' prefix.
Chief Justice Yong Pung How, together with Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin and Justice Tan Lee Meng, dismissed the suit with costs.
The three instant food and beverage products are packaged with an eagle logo and sold mainly at NTUC FairPrice and Mustafa supermarkets in Singapore. Their exports are mainly to Russia and Vietnam.
'McDonald's has spent millions to create goodwill and instant public recognition for its 'Mc' series of marks.' - Senior Counsel Davinder Singh for McDonald's Corporation
Said the company's lawyer, Senior Counsel Tan Tee Jim: 'There can be no likelihood of confusion or deception. The marks are different in appearance, sound and concept.
'Our marks are visually and aurally different. Our colour scheme, font and typeface are different.'
Also, the Singapore products are uncooked and unprepared food, whereas McDonald's sold prepared or cooked food that is consumed in its restaurants or as takeouts.
The ruling is the third time that the US chain has lost in its bid to stop the Singapore company, which had applied to register the three trademarks in July 1995.
It was allowed to do so by the Principal Assistant Registrar of Trademarks in April last year.
In April this year, Justice Belinda Ang threw out McDonald's appeal in the High Court.
Yesterday, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, for McDonald's, argued that the proposed trademarks were calculated to deceive or to cause confusion.
'McDonald's has spent millions to create goodwill and instant public recognition for its 'Mc' series of marks, for example, McChicken, McNuggets and McMuffin,' he said.
He said Future Enterprises' managing director Tan Wang Cheow had copied McDonald's well-known 'Mc' marks, to leverage on its tremendous worldwide reputation and to ensure instant brand recognition and appeal for his new range of products.
After the court's decision, Mr Tan said in a statement: 'We have invested substantial time and resources, over the years, to develop our own brands into global market leaders.'
The company makes over 170 types of products which are sold in more than 40 countries, the statement added. -
Thats a interesting way of raising funds.
ALL FOR A GOOD CAUSE:
These children at the Assisi Home and Hospice day centre will benefit from the S$314,600 raised by the teddy bank project initiated by the hospice. Donors were asked to take home the coin banks and save a dollar a day for three months. Most of the more than 700 cancer patients at the hospice do not pay for the services, which cost S$3 million a year. -- LIM WUI LIANG -
im lovin it
jus finished my SME! -
Mcdonald is just pathetic. I mean, what are the chances of winning? In Singapore?
Maybe they would win in US. -
anybody know whats the brand ?
Texas bulb clocks up 96 'light' years
DALLAS - They sure don't make things like the Texas lightbulb anymore. It sold for a few cents and has burned for 96 straight years.
The North Fort Worth Historical Society will have a birthday party today for its famous household fixture - a lightbulb that has burned continuously since Sept 21, 1908. It was first illuminated when a stagehand at a local opera house flicked a switch and posted a sign that the light over a stage entrance was not be turned off.
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'We have no idea why it has lasted so long. That is the wonderful mystery of it,' said Ms Sarah Biles, the administrator of the museum where the bulb burns, complete with its own independent power supply.
The Texas bulb is about 40 watts and made of thick glass that houses a sturdy carbon filament.
Despite having lasted 96 years so far, the Texas bulb does not hold the record for the longest continuously burning bulb in the world.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, that honour goes to a 4-watt bulb that has been burning at a firehouse in Livermore, California, since it was turned on in 1901.
Ms Biles said the keepers of the Texas bulb feel no luminescence envy with the California model because their bulb has had a much more celebrated history.
The Texas bulb was touted - wrongly - in the 1930s as the longest-burning bulb in the world. The opera house where it burned became a cinema and actors would stop to admire the bulb's glow.
'Our bulb has a unique past and can hold its own, even if it is No. 2,' Ms Biles said. -- Reuters -
Man mistakes wife for monkey and shoots her dead
KUALA LUMPUR - A 68-year-old woman was shot dead by her husband after he mistook her for a monkey raiding their fruit trees, the New Straits Times reported yesterday.
Madam Meah Hamid was plucking mangosteens from a tree behind their house in Pahang when her husband came by and saw the branches moving, the paper reported.
Thinking it was a monkey, the 70-year-old man took a shotgun and fired at the tree only to hear his wife cry out in pain, it said.
He rushed her to a clinic, but she died on the way.
Police said shotgun pellets hit Madam Meah's face and chest. They have detained the man for causing death through recklessness.
Initial investigations showed the man did not know his wife was in the tree, police said. He was allowed to attend his wife's funeral.
The couple, who have been married for four decades, have 13 children, more than 100 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, news reports said. -- AFP -
Armed guards on ships 'not viable option'
Maritime experts say shipowners can't afford hiring cost and suggest increased patrols
By David Boey
STATIONING armed guards on board merchant ships plying pirate-prone areas, such as the Malacca Strait, is not a viable option, especially for small ships, said international maritime watchdogs yesterday.
The cost of hiring the guards would wipe out their daily earnings.
A more viable option, suggested maritime analysts, is to intensify naval or police coast guard patrols and to encourage the merchant ships' crew members to be more vigilant against pirates.
Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan, who is also the Coordinating Minister for Security and Defence, said Singapore and Malaysia had floated the idea of having 'some security presence' on ships passing through vital straits in the region. But he did not say if the guards would be provided free.
Four guards - the minimum needed to maintain a 24-hour watch on a merchant vessel - can cost US$2,000 (S$3,400) a day, said Captain Jayant Abhyankar, deputy director of the London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
According to his calculations, most shipowners can ill-afford such costs.
'It's not economically viable. The sum is more than the freight earnings for a small freighter or can form a significant portion of a larger ship's earnings.
'Armed guards should be used only if there is no other alternative to ensuring the safety and lives of the ship's crew,' said Capt Abhyankar.
He is also not in favour of arming the crew to defend themselves, as some analysts have suggested.
'We believe the crew are not trained to shoot to kill. They are not psychologically prepared so it may be risky to arm them,' he said.
Capt Abhyankar was speaking to The Straits Times on the sidelines of a two-day workshop, titled Maritime Security, Maritime Terrorism And Piracy In Asia, organised by the Institute of South-east Asian Studies and held at the Orchard Hotel.
Yesterday's talks were attended by about 120 maritime analysts, diplomats and people from the marine trade.
Ms Carolin Liss, a postgraduate student from Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, noted that 'private military companies' are increasingly angling for contracts from shipping companies and shipowners.
She noted that some cruise liner operators have hired former soldiers to protect their ships.
Capt Abhyankar finds the growing number of companies offering armed services worrying because they are unregulated and their credentials can be suspect.
He said the IMB is approached 'every two weeks or so' by people formerly in the military keen to start such services.
'Obviously, the most effective way to meet the problem is to prevent the pirates boarding the ship in the first instance,' he added.
He highlighted how increased vigilance by security forces in the 10 days following the Sept 11 terror attacks led to safe seas everywhere.
'There were no piracy incidents all over the world. This had never happened before,' he said.
'The pirates were probably as shocked as we all were, but it could also be due to heightened security worldwide after the attacks.' -
There must be respect for plurality
Cultural and political diversity, built on the foundation of common values, is essential for human progress. The UN can be the platform to bring out the best in global plurality, said Foreign Minister George Yeo when he addressed the UN General Assembly on Friday
THE human condition has not changed. There is in human beings a restless, competitive spirit that strives to get ahead, make discoveries and order or re-order the world according to our values and worldview. It is this spirit which drives us to achieve the three Gs of gold, glory and God, a compulsion which can lead to great good or great evil.
'What we need... is an environment which encourages mutual learning and healthy competition. For this, we need to respect one another.' -- FOREIGN MINISTER GEORGE YEO
The greatest evil is committed out of a sense of self-righteousness. This has been the case throughout history. Al-Qaeda carries out its actions in the name of Islam which is a gross perversion. Religious wars are the most cruel because human beings are maimed and killed in the name of the divine. Ethnic and ideological conflicts sometimes turn genocidal when one side believes right is completely on its side.
Not a long time ago, the Khmer Rouge turned against fellow Cambodians with unbelievable ferocity in an absurd attempt to re-create human society. Ordinary people can be brutalised after long years of conflict, which was the case in Indochina. More bombs were dropped on Laos alone than on all of Europe during World War II.
Untrammelled economic competition can also lead to grave injustice. Without rules, ruthless economic competition will return us to the jungle. Without the World Trade Organisation (WTO), globalisation can become a means through which the strong dominate the weak around the world. In an earlier period, this resulted in entire continents being carved up by imperial powers. Global organisations like the United Nations (UN) and the WTO give us hope that this century can be better than previous ones. We need rules which put limits on our competitiveness in the political and economic arenas.
Rules to spur positive achievement
LIKE the Olympic Games, clear rules and rigorous policing of the rules enable individuals to compete fiercely and triumph within a framework of sportsmanship and fairness. The rules are not there to dampen our competitive spirit, which is in the nature of man, but to channel it towards positive achievement.
The rules have to be determined by common consensus. Their legitimacy is derived from shared values which bind participants together. The rules have evolved over the years along with our collective sense of what is fair and proper. They cannot be imposed. If they are imposed, what we have will not be the Olympics but the gladiatorial pits of the Roman Colosseum.
At the most fundamental level, discussions and debates in the UN and the WTO are really about the values which bind us together as human beings.
As the world grows smaller, our sense of interdependence grows. As we interact more, we discover we are more similar than we think. So many problems like global warming, epidemics and terrorism can be overcome only if we work together. So many opportunities made possible by new scientific discoveries can be fully exploited only if we combine our efforts.
Yes, we have become closer. We celebrated together when for the first time the entire human genome was mapped a few years ago. We grieved as one when Sept 11 happened. The slaughter of children at Beslan outraged us all. But will we ever become the same? That is not possible. It is neither in our biological nature nor in the nature of the historical process for human societies to converge and become identical. Even the same society changes over time in response to changing conditions.
There is in each and everyone of us a deep desire to be free, to experiment and to do better than others around us. Like all forms of energy, human energy must be channelled so it is constructive and not destructive. This is the challenge of governance at all levels, from the village to global institutions.
With the world becoming a village because of ease of travel and instant communication, the design of global institutions is very important. They help us solve problems which each of us cannot solve by himself and set limits on unacceptable behaviour.
The problem of Palestine, for example, cannot be solved without the participation of the larger global community. All of us are aware of the rights and wrongs, and sometimes particular issues are right or wrong depending on the perspective we take.
However, we should never lose hope. We should always look for new and creative ways to break old deadlocks. After all, it was only a few years ago that the prospects for peace seemed so much brighter.
I remember as Singapore's Trade Minister meeting the Israeli Trade Minister at Davos, Switzerland, in 2000. He said he would like to visit me in Singapore with his Palestinian counterpart and, together with me, take a boat to the Singapore industrial park on a nearby Indonesian island where he hoped we could all be received by the Indonesian Trade Minister. I worked on this project of understanding and goodwill with my Indonesian counterpart immediately. Unfortunately, within half a year, the intifada (Arabic for uprising) started and the cycle of violence got steadily worse, with each side blaming the other.
However, we must not give up. With goodwill and statesmanship on both sides, and the support of the international community, it is possible to re-establish trust and start again.
The international community should also not allow the deteriorating relationship across the Taiwan Strait to get out of control. The push towards independence by certain groups in Taiwan is most dangerous because it will lead to war with China and drag in other countries.
At stake is the stability of the entire Asia-Pacific region.
The relationship between China and Taiwan was much better in the not-too-distant past. In 1991, Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), which is a grouping of economies around the Pacific Ocean, admitted China, Taiwan and Hong Kong based on certain agreed principles. In 1992, I remember chatting with the trade ministers from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong over an informal lunch in Bangkok. Later in 1993, representatives from China and Taiwan met in Singapore for informal talks with both sides acknowledging 'one China, to each its own interpretation'. All problems seemed soluble then.
However, in 1994, Taiwan's then president Lee Teng-hui gave a shocking interview to a Japanese magazine, describing himself as Moses leading his people out of Egypt. From then on, cross-strait relations went from bad to worse as pro-independence forces in Taiwan became increasingly adventurous. -
continue ....
Moral authority of the United Nations
LIKE in the Middle East, the international community has a strong vested interest in supporting a peaceful resolution of cross-strait conflict, based on the 'one China' position adopted and settled by the UN in 1971.
Even when the UN has no legal authority to enforce its wishes, its views carry moral weight. This legitimacy of the UN is derived from its wide membership, its transparent processes and the active participation of member states. It is important that the Security Council, which has the power to pass resolutions binding on all UN member states, be reformed and enlarged to reflect the reality of the current international environment, not that of 60 years ago.
We need rules which enable us to make decisions and express our collective judgment of right and wrong. These rules must evolve according to our collective moral sense. If any party believes it has a monopoly of truth or wisdom, that is the beginning of evil.
While there is much we share in common as human beings wherever we live, there will never be a unanimity of views on all matters. Human society is changing all the time. New scientific discoveries throw up new challenges to which different societies must respond differently.
On matters of religious belief, for example, no one should expect convergence. Our disagreements over issues like the death penalty, abortion, the nature of democracy, gay rights, animal rights and therapeutic cloning are in a sense inevitable and necessary.
What we need profoundly is a respect for plurality in the world, one that is built on a common substrate which defines us as civilised human beings in the 21st century. In the 19th century, slavery was abolished. In the 20th century, gender equality became the norm. In this century, we must add more layers to what we share in common.
Upon this shared substrate, however, we must not only accept diversity, we should encourage it. Indeed, like biological diversity, it is essential for human progress that there should be cultural and political diversity in the world. Without diversity, our ability to respond to new challenges will be weakened.
Respecting plurality does not mean we stop recognising strengths and weaknesses. That would be hypocrisy. Some cultural values are more suited to modern times than others. Some economic systems are more productive. Some political systems are better able to mobilise the creative energies of their people. We must be honest enough to recognise that others can be superior to us in this or that area, and that it is therefore in our interest to learn from them.
But no one should force his views on others. We should never impose a particular political or economic system on societies with different histories and traditions. What we need instead is an environment which encourages mutual learning and healthy competition. For this, we need to respect one another.
Over four centuries ago, a wise man from the West visited the East. The Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, went to China with the goal to convert China to Catholicism. He had a deep respect for the civilisation which he wanted to Christianise. Realising the only way to impress the Chinese was to interact with them on their own terms, he proceeded to study the Chinese language, master the Chinese classics and employ Chinese philosophical concepts in his discourses on Christianity.
Instead of talking at them, he talked to them in conceptual terms they could relate to. The Lord's Prayer, for example, was rendered as if Jesus was preaching in a Chinese environment. Although Father Ricci did not succeed in converting the Chinese, he left behind a lasting legacy. When he died, the Chinese emperor consented to his burial in China and his tomb, inscribed with his Chinese name of Li Ma Dou, is to be found today in the compound of the Party School of the Beijing Municipal Committee.
History is unending. We need wise men like Father Ricci from the West and the East, and from the South and the North, to help us prevent the clash of civilisations through debate and dialogue.
Respecting diversity should never reduce us to cultural relativism as if all points of view are equally valid. We should never stop trying to influence one another, and here in the UN we are always trying to, but we must always be prepared to see the same issues from the perspective of others. Here in the UN, we have an institution which can help us create this better world. -
Open university doors to more students from polytechnics
I AM about to graduate from a polytechnic and I would like to further my studies in a local university. However, the chances of my doing so are rather slim.
I understand that the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University take in only the top 5 to 10 per cent of polytechnic students.
This means that only the top few students in each of the polytechnic courses will have the chance to enter one of the local universities.
Unfortunately, my grades are not in the top 5 per cent and I do not have much of a chance of making it. That led me to question whether the education system could be changed for the better.
Now, the general consensus is that better students go to junior colleges and weaker ones, to polytechnics. Thus, the difference in the priority given to JC students when it comes to admission to the local universities.
A look at the syllabus studied by college students and polytechnic students is illuminating. The former focus on subjects that are more academic while the latter learn skills that are relevant to the workplace.
It is evident that students in polytechnics are better equipped to study in a university as they have acquired skills earlier, compared to college students. If so, why the lack of opportunity for polytechnic students when it comes to admission to university?
Is it because once polytechnic students graduate with a diploma, they can go out to work, with the skills they have acquired? Is the current system to provide assurance to junior-college students that they have a relatively higher chance of entering local universities?
If the system is to provide an automatic route to universities for JC students because they do not have the necessary technical skills, I would say that it would not be very fair to students studying in schools other than JCs. A friend of mine who graduated from a JC told me that polytechnic students can step into the working world once they graduate but JC students cannot achieve much with an A-level certificate.
If so, why waste two years in a college? Would it not be better to learn relevant skills in a polytechnic and, after getting a diploma, continue to upgrade oneself by furthering studies in a university?
This brings me to my point. If more priority is given to polytechnic students, would more people choose a polytechnic education? Would there be a need for college education anymore? Would one go to a JC or a polytechnic if equal priority is given to both?
LUA SWEE WEI -
Islamophobia creates the very monster it fears
By Mafoot Simon
THE clock was ticking close to 11pm but American scholar John L. Esposito was still fielding questions at a public forum in Singapore - and this after a long day of talks and meetings elsewhere. The founder of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding in Georgetown University, Washington, is seen by many as a champion of Islam. But a member of the audience accused him of being an Orientalist - used as a derogatory term for a Western scholar who studies and distorts Islam.
Most Muslims in the west are like other people - they want prosperity, freedom, a place to raise their family. So why see their demographic increase as a threat, asks Prof Esposito. -- BERITA HARIAN
This was swiftly debunked by someone else in the audience, who commended him for what he had done for the Muslim world. Professor Esposito's voice cracked when he thanked his backer, and ignored his accuser. That was in 1997.
Four years later, in 2001, Prof Esposito was the butt of criticism in a book by another American academic, Dr Martin Kramer. The book, Ivory Towers On Sand: The Failure Of Middle Eastern Studies In America, asserted that Prof Esposito gave wrong advice to the Clinton administration by underplaying the danger of Osama bin Laden and Islamic fundamentalism.
When the Brooklyn-born Roman Catholic was in Singapore last week, we asked him about what he has described as Islamophobia in Europe.
Talk about the Islamisation of Europe - that Europe will become part of the Arab West or the Maghreb - is growing. Historians Francis Fukuyama and Bernard Lewis are among the most prominent doomsayers. What's your view on this development?
These doomsayers are wrong in their approach. They regrettably wind up contributing to this post-9/11 hysteria about Muslims.
We ought to be concerned about extremists, but we also need to distinguish extremism from mainstream Islam. If we're not careful, we in Europe and America will end up seeing the significant presence of Muslims in our countries as somehow a threat or a potential threat.
In America, we have elements of the Christian right, what I call the militant Christian right. In some ways, they are like the right-wing nationalists in Europe in terms of their attitude towards others, and particularly Muslims.
The radical nationalists in many ways are 'anti-foreigners', and Muslims get put in that category, even those Muslims who have lived there for a long time. This is something that many of us need to speak out about and counter.
Their worry is that the Muslim population in Europe is increasing faster than the non-Muslim population. One estimate is that there are already more than 23 million Muslims in Europe.
Why should that be an issue? If you're talking about the growth of extremists, whoever they are, that's one thing. But why should the growth of a religion like Islam, with a growth of Muslim population, become an issue?
The majority of Muslims in America and in Europe are like other people in terms of what they want - economic prosperity, freedom, a place to raise their family. Muslims make significant contributions as professionals and workers, the same as other ethnic and religious groups do. So why see their demographic increase as necessarily a threat?
The fear is that it'll turn Europe into a Muslim ghetto.This argument is coming from people who are right-wing - who are not just anti-foreign, but in many ways anti-Muslim. It's Islamophobia. If - this is an important point - you were to write about the Jewish, for example, and substitute the word Judaism for Islam and Jews for Muslims, and you were to write the same kinds of pieces that these people write, use all the rest of the words, you would be accused of anti-Semitism. You couldn't do it. So why is it okay to write about Muslims that way?
There's also a fear that anti-Semitism in Europe may be increasing.
Some people try to equate anti-Semitism with the demographic increase of Muslims. But anti-Semitism in Europe existed long before Muslims came to Europe. Think of World War II and Hitler in Germany. In America, anti-Semitism has existed for a long time.
At the end of the day, people who make these arguments have their own agenda. They are concerned that if you have a large Muslim population, it might become an influential political lobby.
Isn't that a reality?
Well, why shouldn't that be the case? In the United States, if you have a significant Italian or Greek or Turkish or Indian population, they then obviously influence politics. It's normal. The American Jewish community is also a significant influence on American elections and a major influence on America's policy towards Israel.
So what's wrong with Muslims having influence? There is nothing wrong in principle.
If we espouse in America and Europe things like citizenship rights and the duties and freedoms that come with it - such as freedom of speech, self-determination and human rights - then Muslims should have the same dignity, the same status and respect.
When people deny these rights to Muslims, they are in fact feeding the notion that Islam equates with extremism.
If they are concerned about the growth of extremism, they have to address the causes of extremism - and the causes are both foreign policy issues as well as domestic issues.
That's what Muslim European scholar Tariq Ramadan tried to do, and he got into a problem in Europe. Now the US has denied him a visa to teach there.
That's the irony. American and European authorities want to hear the moderate Muslims, but they also fear the moderate Muslim voice.
Look at the problems that Professor Ramadan got into in France. He criticised some of the intellectuals saying that their support for America's invasion of Iraq was not based on universal values, but because they were of Jewish background. It was their Israeli sympathies, he said, that led them to see the invasion of Iraq as good for Israel.
Now, one can disagree with Prof Ramadan on that, but he had a right to say what he believed. If a non-Muslim had said it, would he have been accused of being anti-Semitic? Probably not.
It's not just Muslims who come under fire when they criticise the Iraq invasion. In the US, for example, members of Congress, members in academia, intellectuals like myself - we will all be accused of being unpatriotic or even anti-Semitic.
Among Muslims, it's not just Prof Ramadan bearing the brunt. Look at what just happened to Mr Yusuf Islam (the former singer Cat Stevens who was deported to Britain by the US last week). What does that deportation say? What message is it sending to the Muslim world? Muslims must be asking themselves: Is there any Muslim who's 'acceptable'?
They said he's on a watch-list and that he gives money to 'groups that might potentially support terrorists'. They weren't even saying that he gives money to groups that support terrorists.
That means that anybody who gives money to a Muslim charity is going to worry. 'Well, wait a minute, if I give money to the Muslim charity and they're not supporting terrorists right now, will somebody in the American government say, 'Yes, but potentially they might support terrorists in the future'?' I think that this raises issues.
You are saying that they are sidelining the very moderate Muslims they want to work with?
Exactly. The danger is that they play right into the hands of radicals because what radicals will say in this situation is, 'See, they say one thing with their mouth, but they don't really mean it.' And so what radicals will say to moderates is: 'It doesn't matter whether you are moderate or not, these people are really anti-Islam. Well, this isn't a war against global terrorism, it's a war against Islam and the Muslim world.'
That lends credence to the talk about the clash of civilisations.
Absolutely right. Regrettably, it can contribute to a clash of civilisations.
It gives opportunity to the extremists to say to the moderates: 'Look, this is the way they really are. They say they don't believe in a clash of civilisations, they say they distinguish between Islam and extremists, but don't just look at what they say, look at what they do: who they arrest and why, who they refuse visas to and why. Doesn't it look like they're equating extremism with simply being critical of American foreign policy?'
If you're critical of American foreign policy, does that make you anti-American? -
Jimmy Carter celebrates 80th birthday
Former president Jimmy Carter celebrates his 80th birthday Friday, basking in newfound respect both abroad and from his own Democratic party, which shunned him for many years.
Carter is to celebrate at a low-key ceremony in the museum and bookshop of the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, spokesman Jay Hakes said.
"The event is going to be thrown up into the public, no ticket charge, and we expect a large crowd of people who want to come and enjoy the day; no effort to send out a lot of invitations, it is not orchestrated that way around big names, no attempt to urge people to come in from outside," Hakes said.
Although he has long been known for his work supervising foreign elections, Carter has re-emerged recently as a player in US politics, with a month to go before the November 2 presidential elections.
In an opinion piece Monday in the Washington Post, Carter said that "basic international requirements" for a fair vote are missing in Florida, scene of a bitter dispute over votes in 2000.
Carter, a Democrat who was president from 1977-1981, led a bipartisan commission charged with recommending changes to US electoral processes following the 2000 vote dispute. The dispute ended when the US Supreme Court halted recounts of contested ballots in Florida after a weeks-long draw.
He also was given a feature role at the Democratic party convention in July, where he delivered a stern attack on Republican President George W. Bush.
For years, however, Carter was shunned by Democrats, who remembered him for a presidency marked by an energy crisis, the humiliation of US diplomats being held hostage in Iran and his defeat by Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election, ushering in 12 years of Republican control of the White House.
"That's someting they rather forget," said Eric Davis, a political science professor at Middlebury College in Vermont.
Carter prefers to publicly evoke the Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel, the normalization of relations with China, and his administration's promotion of human rights. Since leaving office, Carter has been an advocate for a number of causes, written 19 books and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
"In the Democratic party there is a respect for the way he handled his life after the presidency, that instead of playing golf or charging a lot of money for making speeches in front of business groups, he tried to use his personal visibility and his skills to promote socially beneficial programs," said Linda Fawlert, a professor at Darmouth College in New Hampshire.
"He was given a feature role in the convention this year in part because he has become an elder stateman, there was enough time and distance between his presidency and the present, there was also offense that the party should be ignoring him which is what they have tried to do for a long time, this was a change, there is a sense he is old enough now, he has done enough of his work in the international arena that they should reclaim him."
Added Douglas Brinkley, author of "The Unfinished Presidency," a book about Carter's post-presidency years: "The Democratic party spent the last 25 years fleeing the legacy of Jimmy Carter, so it is significant that the party is embracing him in a new way. They are finally recognizing that he gives them something they sorely need. He represents the integrity of the Democratic party." -
Counsel idiosyncratic teachers too
THE Ministry of Education has plans for more full-time counsellors to help students with various issues. May I suggest that the ministry extend the scheme to teachers, to teach them how to interact and communicate with students, particularly teenagers, and to respect students as fellow beings whose feelings are as easily hurt as theirs. Teachers should also be taught anger management.
I am a mother with four school-going children. The older two are in a top independent boys' secondary school and the younger two are in primary school.
I have noted that there is an increasing number of young teachers who lack the most essential qualification of an educator - the human touch. They have poor rapport with students; they lack interpersonal skills; they do not treat students with respect but expect respect and total obedience; they behave as if a teacher has the intrinsic right to yell, shout and scream at students whenever the mood strikes; they believe that imparting values and morals is done through scolding and punishment.
My eldest son's co-form teacher is a tyrant to her students. She doesn't let a day go by without scolding somebody. They wonder why she chose to teach. It has come to the point where the boys actually look forward to being sent out of the class.
She has certain standards of behaviour of which the boys are ignorant. For instance, when she scolds the boys, they are expected to look at the floor. When my son was scolded by her for not doing corrections, he looked at her. She took that as, and I quote her words in her correspon-dence with me, 'aggression' and 'defiance'.
I explained that I teach my children to look at adults when talking to them. Looking elsewhere or at certain parts of the anatomy might be interpreted as disrespect or disinterest.
However, the teacher accused him of being defiant, scolded him and sent him out of the class. In our correspondence, even though I offered an explanation for my son's behaviour, her reply was that she expects a student to look at the teacher only when the teacher is talking.
In addition, her students feel that she is self-righteous. It is always the students who are at fault. During one lesson, she held a whiteboard marker in her right hand while gesticulating to make a point. She inadvertently pointed her middle finger at the class and the boys laughed. She saw red. She ordered the boy who had laughed the loudest to stand beside her and deliberately pointed her middle finger at him and told him to laugh. It became the student's fault. His crime? Laughter.
Nobody is perfect. Stu-dents make mistakes. Teachers, too, make mistakes. Students are expected to apologise but what about teachers?
Do teachers punish students because they feel that the students had done wrong or is it out of anger?
My son's class dislikes this teacher so much that they rejoice when she is absent from school. One boy even goes to the extent of reading the obituary every morning to see if her photograph is there. The whole class is afraid of her following them up to Secondary Four next year.
Mind you, this is a top independent school. The boys are grounded in such subjects as Philosophy and Character Development. The irony is that this teacher also teaches Character Development.
I have corresponded with this teacher. She is a good teacher only in the sense that she delivers her lessons well and she chases students for corrections and late work. She says that she does not always scold the boys. She only talks to them to teach them right from wrong. Her intention is good, but her mode of delivery is obviously undesirable.
Another teacher in the school has the unpleasant habit of pulling students by the back of the collar or using whatever she has in her hands to hit the boys when they pass by her without greeting her. She would then stare at them and they are expected to know the reason for her stare and greet her. Is this another idiosyncrasy or the prerogative of teachers to be rude and disrespectful?
There are teachers who complain that students nowadays are defiant, disrespectful and difficult to handle. These teachers generally have poor rapport with students, are unpopular and are disliked.
However, at the other end of the spectrum, there are teachers who have fantas-tically good rapport with students, who are able to gain their trust and confidence and who have the knack of scolding without being judgmental, without harsh words and with their students accepting their punishment because they feel that they deserved it.
What can the Ministry of Education do to help teachers enjoy teaching, to see teaching not just as a well-paid job, but also as a fulfilling profession?
NG KIM YONG (MRS) -
The game Singapore can play
By Alvin Pang
THE greatest opportunity for Singapore's games industry may not come from home-grown offerings.
The problem with Singapore's nascent games industry, a game development executive remarked, is that it attracts too many hopeful young gamers.
A good thing, surely? After all, the industry players behind new initiatives such as last week's Games Creation Community (GCC) must want to see a flood of eager new talent take up the trade, to meet their ambitious target of 20 home-grown titles in two years.
HIGH-RISK GAMBLE
APPARENTLY, fresh-faced talent is all well and good in its place, but the multi-billion-dollar games industry is no playing field for the faint of heart. Less than 10 per cent of all games ever break even. And like many start-ups, the majority of games in development - overtaken by financial woes, business concerns, technological advances and rapidly changing consumer tastes - may never even make it to launch.
Tech-savvy teens everywhere dream of cooking up the next Halo or Tomb Raider. A decade and a half ago, my more prodigious peers were concocting computer games of surprising sophistication in the secondary school computer club. Nowadays these would-be game gods number among our senior IT engineers and chief technology officers, their tech-savviness put to more conventional, and lucrative, uses.
Do Singapore's emerging game creators have the stomach to tough it out in the real-world games industry, where even their best efforts, imagination and sleepless nights may not see a payoff?
Like the film industry to which it is frequently compared, the games sector is a high-glitz, high-risk gamble in which those with the deepest pockets survive. Globally, it has reached a consolidation phase that has seen off several big players in recent years. Development and marketing costs have risen sharply - buoyed by consumer expectations and hype, as well as the emergence of new computer technologies promising faster, smarter and better gaming.
The most successful offerings are less often original offerings than sequels and spin-offs of proven hits or movie tie-ins. Top-shelf games such as Doom 3 and Halo routinely cost millions, and often years of effort to produce: and even these may fail in the fickle marketplace. At the end of the day, the cut of profits taken home by the game creators themselves might be quite small.
Sceptics point out that Singapore's games industry lags by at least a decade behind regional competitors, such as South Korea, whose success has been attributed not least to aggressive government intervention. Still, the Economic Development Board has had successes in wooing giants such as Lucasfilm, Koei and Vivendi here.
These and other recent efforts mean that a critical ecology of supporting services might well take root here. They will bring in much-needed business and global expertise in development, publishing, distribution and marketing. Their presence could also yield solid and sustainable commercial benefits - regardless of the uncertain success of home-grown games in future.
THE SURE WINNERS
BIG-NAME, high-quality offerings, produced in our facilities employing local talent, and licensing home-grown technologies would bring in steady revenue and useful experience, whether or not the end products succeed or fail in the market. It's a hub model similar to that adopted by cities such as Sydney, which has pitched itself successfully at Hollywood as a film location of choice.
Opportunities abound. For instance, games development is increasingly dependent on middleware - versatile third-party software components which let developers simulate advanced physics or artificial intelligence without having to reinvent costly techniques. Industry leader Renderware makes a roaring trade in licensing its technology to developers. It's like the spade business in a gold rush: Everyone needs one, whether or not one strikes gold at the end.
Home-grown discoveries in physics, audio and visual software from our research institutes could be retooled and commercialised for use by the gaming industry - either to give local game-makers an edge, or as a business in its own right. Our small, network-saturated environment is an ideal test-bed for cross-platform gaming technology - think games you can play on your home PC and continue outdoors on 3G mobile. There is also room for growth in the use of games in advertising and marketing as novel communication tools.
The Infocomm Development Authority's Games Bazaar platform - a flexible, low-cost hosting infrastructure for regional testing and distribution of games - is another initiative that could put our under-utilised IT infrastructure to wider productive use, even as game development finds its feet over the coming years. And then there's translation, porting and other auxiliary services.
To maximise local game-makers' chances, the GCC is betting ahead on mobile games, giving our folk a longer lead for the industry's next big thing.
But the competition is cut-throat and our traction on the global entertainment and cultural landscape is limited as always. The real money in this volatile field might not be in games made by Singapore, but games made in Singapore. That's not a bad way to play either.
The writer works in the creative industry. -
Land authority welcomes suggestions on sites for community and recreational use
THE Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is glad there has been much positive media and public feedback on the opening up of state land for community and recreational use.
Public-spirited readers like Mr Patrick Tan ('Open up state land now for recreational use', ST, Sept 25) also support the SLA's efforts to open up more state land for community and recreational use.
So far, the SLA has opened up 153 plots (251ha) of vacant land, equivalent to about 200 football fields, to the public for community use.
For the convenience of the public, they are generally located near residential estates.
Mr Tan feels the 'Enter at your own risk' sign is over-protective.
These signs are erected to remind users they are responsible for their own safety when on the land. They are not meant to deter anyone from using the land for their recreational activities.
In the Straits Times of Sept 15 ('More state land to be opened up for recreation'), it was reported another 100 plots of vacant land will be made accessible to the public over the next two years.
The SLA typically consults and receives feedback from the ground before deciding on sites for community and recreational use.
Our target is to identify another 100 sites over the next two years.
We look forward to public suggestions on the location of suitable sites, as they are the ones who will benefit from their use.
Readers can e-mail their suggestions to [email protected]
Besides opening up vacant land, the SLA has facilitated the sharing of school fields with grassroots organisations at two schools - Fuchun Secondary and Temasek Secondary.
Similar initiatives are being undertaken by the Ministry of Education and the Singapore Sports Council (SSC).
The SLA has also partnered the SSC to make available sports fields in Marina South and Dunearn Road for public use.
Last year, we assisted Ayer Rajah constituency by granting a licence to the grassroots organisations to use a large plot of vacant land at West Coast Road for sports and recreation.WE WOULD like to thank Mr Lee Kip Lee ('Convert vacant plot into playing field'; ST, Sept 25) for his feedback on the vacant land at the junction of Dunearn Road and Eng Neo Avenue.
We are pleased to inform Mr Lee we are carrying out grass cutting and other general improvement works on the site in the next few weeks.
When completed by the end of this month, residents will be welcome to use the field for community and recreational purposes.
NOORAINI HAMZAH (MS)
Senior Manager
Corporate Communications
Singapore Land Authority -
Disclose return on government-managed assets
I REFER to the article, 'S&P estimates S'pore's returns 'markedly inferior' to HK's' (ST, Oct 1).
It says that S&P estimates the Singapore Government's annual returns on its assets averaged between 1.7 and 4 per cent from 1999 to 2003, in contrast to Temasek's compounded annual rate of return of more than 16 per cent over the past 30 years, and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation's annual returns that have exceeded its targeted 4 to 5 per cent above inflation, since the agency was formed in 1981.
The Economist magazine of Aug 14-20 said that Temasek's return was 1.7 per cent.
So, is the return 1.7 to 4, 16, 5.5 to 6.5 (if inflation was 1.5 per cent), or 1.7 per cent?
I wrote to the Forum on Aug 12, suggesting that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) change its policy of not disclosing the return on Singapore's foreign reserves. MAS replied on Aug 14, that 'our policy of not disclosing the annual rate of return on the reserves is to avoid undue emphasis on year-to-year variations in returns that would detract from MAS' core objectives'.
Like all Singaporeans, I am very proud of our achievements and reputation, and am dismayed whenever I see organisations like S&P and The Economist taking a dig at Singapore's returns and the issue of non-transparency.
This may affect perceptions of Singapore globally, and make it harder to attract business and investment into Singapore.
Since the Prime Minister's National Day Rally speech on Aug 22, many 'sacred cows' have been slaughtered, resulting in the five-day week for the civil service and schools, among others.
Perhaps it is time to do away with the 'sacred cow' of not disclosing the returns, as in a sense every Singaporean has a stake in the reserves.
This, in a way, underscores the Prime Minister's comment on the need to change and adapt, for the sake of Singapore's future.
LEONG SZE HIAN -
OCT 3
When more may be bad
Chua Mui Hoong
Competition, usually good for consumers, can result in perverse outcomes in the media sector. If unregulated, it spurs a race to the bottom and provokes biased coverage, writes CHUA MUI HOONG
FOUR years ago, when news of the 'media liberalisation' first broke in The Straits Times, a colleague said: 'I give them two or three years, and we'll be back to square one.'
I disagreed. I argued that the trend of injecting competition into former monopolistic industries (like telecommunications and power generation) would not be reversed. In a few years' time, I ventured rashly, there would be more players, possibly a foreign company as a junior joint-venture partner.
Well, my colleague was right and I was wrong.
If I had known then what I know now about the economics of the media sector, I would have ventured a different opinion.
I'm an interested party in this issue, as an employee of print giant Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). But emotion and partisan interest aside, it's hard to gainsay the basic laws of economics. And what economics predicts about media competition, I would argue (with the benefit of hindsight), is more or less what transpired.
Competition in a duopoly
FIRST, economics suggests there is market failure in the media sector. That is, that economic laws of demand and supply do not work and the sector needs mediation, or even regulation.
Much has been said already about the media sector's tendency towards a natural monopoly. In fact, it can be argued that the media sector has more of the features of oligopolistic competition (just a few big players) than a natural monopoly.
The requirement for broadcast or printing facilities keeps fixed costs high and creates high barriers to entry, which is a classic condition of a natural monopoly.
But unlike telecommunications or power, media products - newspapers and TV programmes - are not identical. A natural monopoly occurs when products are good substitutes for each other: it doesn't matter who the provider of gas is, so long as the gas is piped to your home when needed.
But the media market is differentiated: that is, each company comes up with newspapers and TV programming that is different from the other.
This gives the media market room for some competitors. But the high fixed costs involved rule out the easy entry of competitors. Hence, a market with a few big, dominant players may work best for the media. Indeed, many cities have just one or two, or at the most a handful, of media players.
In Singapore, the media market until 2000 had a monopolistic structure: SPH was a print monopoly and MediaCorp a broadcast monopoly. The so-called liberalisation that year introduced duopolistic competition: each was allowed to cross into the other's territory.
Several things can happen when you turn a monopoly into a duopoly. As predicted by Bertrand's Law, the two companies can compete on either price or product differentiation.
To differentiate itself, the newcomer will analyse the market positioning of its rival and try to capture a market segment not catered to by the incumbent.
It's no secret that SPH newspapers tend to be pro-establishment. Using a spatial model of product differentiation, where 'anti-establishment' is on the extreme left of a horizontal axis and 'pro-establishment' on the extreme right, SPH papers congregate towards the right. A smart newcomer would position itself towards the left, as being more edgy, in order to capture market share.
That's precisely what the new MediaCorp newspaper, Today, did. It has continued to position itself as an 'alternative' to SPH's establishment paper, The Straits Times. (Whether its editorial content merits its claim to be an 'alternative' is another question).
In so doing, Today is trying to differentiate itself from SPH newspapers to capture the market segment to the left of the spatial spectrum. This explains why Today may want to be seen as an 'alternative' even when its parent company MediaCorp is 100 per cent owned by state investment agency Temasek Holdings.
Despite those initial attempts, media analysts have suggested that the two media companies were not able to differentiate themselves sufficiently.
The Bertrand theorem predicts that if duopolies can't differentiate their products properly, they'll compete on price and undercut each other. There'll be a price war, which stops only when price goes down to marginal cost - when profits are zero. In the case of a media industry with high fixed costs, zero profits mean not being able to recoup the massive costs sunk into setting up the infrastructure.
This is what happened with SPH and MediaCorp, which engaged in bidding wars to acquire TV programmes and price wars to reduce advertising rates to get customers.
The result: both companies bled red ink from day one of competition. Both were forced into talks to merge their mass market TV and free newspaper operations, to curb the losses. The deal was announced two weeks ago. -
Advertising distorts consumer demand
APART from the market failure caused by high barriers to entry, advertising also distorts the media market.
In most markets, consumers pay a price for the goods they want. If you want a chair, a car, or a handbag, you decide if you're willing to pay the asking price for it, and you fork out the money.
Producers who make the merchandise get direct feedback on their wares and prices. Consumers' purchases act as powerful signals of what they want and the prices they are willing to pay.
The media market is different because it's mediated by advertisers. Readers don't signal how much they would be willing to pay to read an article; nor do viewers say how much they would pay to watch a TV programme (except for pay-per-view ones).
Instead, media companies depend on advertisers for much of their revenue. Advertisers want to reach as many people as possible, so prefer programmes or newspapers that have a mass reach. The result: media outlets churn out newspapers or TV programming to draw the mass audiences or readers advertisers want.
Niche preferences for, say, opera performances, or long commentaries like this one, do not draw large audiences or readership and are usually shunned by advertisers.
In advertising-driven media, it's the law of numbers that counts.
This would not be the case if consumers (readers and viewers) could signal the intensity of their demand: that is, how much they are prepared to pay for a TV programme or newspaper article.
For example, one million people may be willing to pay 50 cents each to watch a wrestling show, which would give the TV station $500,000 for showing wrestling.
But 100,000 people may be willing to pay $10 each to watch an opera performance, giving the TV station $1 million.
If viewers could aggregate what they were willing to pay to watch, then the TV station would broadcast the opera programme, instead of wrestling. But the typical media market doesn't allow that. Instead, advertisers will pay more to reach the one million viewers.
Result: a tendency for media programming (and newspaper content) to cater to the masses, which often translates into catering to the lowest common denominator. (It need not always be that way, of course, since some advertisers want to reach well-heeled niche audiences.)
But most of the time, media companies face very real pressure to put out products that draw in the crowds - and a very real temptation to go downmarket to bring in the numbers.
Some decision-makers have alleged that mainstream newspapers in Singapore - especially the ST - went 'downmarket' after 2000, in response to competitive pressures.
What does going 'downmarket' mean? Usually, when people use it as a derogatory term, they are talking about the use of scandal, sex or soap (human drama) to sell newspapers.
But the truth is that scandal, sex and soap may not be what readers want.
Some empirical studies in the United States, such as surveys by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press, suggest that audiences favour entertainment programming over news. Within news programmes, audiences like crime and human interest stories, as well as disaster stories. Health stories also attract high ratings.
'Hard news' stories about politics or government, or policies, draw smaller audiences.
If viewer preferences are similar in Singapore, then going 'downmarket' to attract larger audiences would require TV and newspaper executives to include a large dose of entertainment, and 'soft' news programmes, and decrease the coverage of politics and government.
In the ST, however, the number of pages devoted to political commentaries and news analyses has gone up and will increase further when the newspaper is revamped on Oct 19. (This is just one of many possible indicators of whether a paper is going 'downmarket'.)
In the absence of empirical data, the question of whether Singapore newspapers and TV channels have gone 'downmarket' in response to competition remains just that: a question, on which there are different points of view.
Without empirical data, we rely on economic theories to predict what may happen. In this case, economics tells us that the temptation to get large audiences is pretty much inherent in the advertising-driven media market. So, whatever moves to inject more competition into the media sector must take that dynamic into account. If too much mass content is seen as socially undesirable, then the regulator has to take steps to influence the outcome, in a way that does not censor content. -
Less competition, less choice? Not always
AS THE above analysis shows, competition in the media market can result in a race to the bottom.
What of the argument that competition increases consumer choice? This is behind the negative reaction of consumers to the media mergers announced two weeks ago: There's a feeling that the loss of competition will reduce consumer choice.
In fact, some studies in the US have shown that competition can reduce product variety. One study way back in 1952 by Peter Steiner showed that separate ownership of (radio) media outlets leads to duplication of news offerings: more of the same, rather than more variety.
A 1992 study by Bruce Owen and Steven Wildman, contrasting monopoly and competitive TV markets, was inconclusive: it could not show that either type of TV market yielded better social welfare.
Apart from the temptation to go downmarket, and the possible result of more of the same, there's another negative outcome of media competition: the tendency for a company to engage in self-promotion.
When media companies own multiple platforms (TV, newspapers, Internet websites, movie studios), they often favour their own products in their reports.
Examples: In November 1999, the American network ABC's programme Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was heavily promoted and mentioned by 80.2 per cent of news programmes belonging to ABC network affiliates. There were zero mentions on competitor NBC's news programmes. When Fox network introduced Greed, a rival quiz show, it was mentioned on 37.9 per cent of Fox news programmes and none of the CBS or NBC-affiliated programmes.
(The examples and some of the concepts above are based on research by Duke University professor James Hamilton; shared with a class he taught at Harvard University in 2002, which I took. The material has been published in a ground-breaking book, All The News That's Fit To Sell, that looks at news as economic goods.)
Again, I'm not aware of Singapore studies on this issue, but there is no shortage of anecdotal examples of self-promotional outcomes.
In the media, more doesn't mean better
THE media market appears like any other market for a good. But as the above analysis shows, there is a tendency towards market failure.
Many of our deepest instincts as consumers say competition is good. It's completely counter-intuitive and runs against some of our own instincts, but the truth is that, when it comes to the media, more competition isn't necessarily better.
It can result in perverse outcomes: cut-throat competition arising from below-marginal-cost pricing; pandering to the lowest common denominator; and more self-promotional and, therefore, less objective coverage.
This analysis so far assumes that competition is unregulated. Introduce rules and the outcome can be very different.
What the past four years of experimentation has shown is that the market failures inherent in media markets do not allow unfettered competition to improve social welfare. Competition has to be regulated.
The hope among some media professionals - this one included - is that a hard-headed look at what went wrong will help the regulator and those in the industry do better when the next dose of liberalisation comes along, so that competition in future will result in greater product variety and better-quality journalism. -
Let's not confuse art with artifice
By Cheong Suk-Wai
ON ASSIGNMENT in Illinois three weeks ago, I spent an afternoon at the Art Institute of Chicago staring at a 3m x 2m canvas made up of thousands of dabs of oil paint.
Ogling that masterpiece by the 19th century French impressionist Georges-Pierre Seurat alongside me were some 50 people in designer togs, in bohemian garb, in workday suits and even in wheelchairs.
But I like to think we were more than just a group of strangers going potty over a painting of French hoi polloi shooting the breeze in a Paris park. Bonding through our love of Seurat, namecards were exchanged, invitations to tea issued and accepted and aspiring artists and poets happily flipped open their leather-bound sketchpads and moleskin notebooks for new friends and, yes, potential backers.
I mused about the lack of such creative buzz here, and wondered if our enthusiasm for the arts have not been dulled by repetitive themes - particularly that of sex.
In the past two years (2002-2004) or so, Singaporean theatre audiences here had occasion to choose from such productions as Bent (gays tortured by Nazis); Shopping And F***ing (an orgy, gang rape and drug abuse); Asian Boys - Volumes 1 and 2 (gay themes again); Fireface (masturbation, necrophilia and incest); and WWW (which made use of video images of prostitutes - dressed as superheroes - in sexually compromising positions). There was also the revival of playwright Michael Chiang's gender-bender script, Private Parts, in early August.
Even Malay theatre troupe Teater Ekamatra slated as one of its main productions last year a play by Nor Effendy Ibrahim titled Haus (Malay for 'thirsty'), which explored the dynamics between a father and his son as they tried to regain their, ahem, manhood by tussling over a maiden in their midst.
Why this driving need to provoke, to shock, to rebel by riffing inexorably on sex in all its lurid glory? Should sex inform life or life inform sex?
A Reuters report earlier this week, quoting artist Vincent Leow and fashion designer Wykidd Song, confirmed my concern.
It characterised the relationship between the Government and the arts as 'an awkward embrace', while noting that the former was 'under pressure to drop its stuffy image and promote freer expression' because, among other things, creativity is this century's prime engine of growth.
Referring to themes like homosexuality, Mr Gaurav Kripalani, artistic and managing director of the Singapore Repertory Theatre, told Reuters: 'I think everyone is enjoying being able to stage works like that.'
But he acknowledged that 'provocation for provocation's sake in the arts could have a serious backlash on everyone'.
Well said. After all, when does drumming up support for a cause end, and beating one's own drum begin?
Now, it is entirely the artist's prerogative how he chooses to beat his tom-tom which, perhaps, is also a good way for him to find, or learn more about, himself.
But how much can one learn from banging out the same rhythm all the time? At the very least, he should be plugging into what his peers elsewhere are doing to great critical and popular acclaim - and pushing creative envelopes meaningfully.
Taking the example of theatre further, in the past two years, Malaysian theatre exponents like Krishen Jit, Huzir Sulaiman and Jit Murad have examined the fates of political dissidents, lives rocked by urbanisation, interracial couples and gonzo family squabbles with liberal dashes of irony and good humour.
In Australia, notable productions in the same period include Life x 3, in which Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush and his real-life wife Jane Menelaus explore marital breakdown; the revival of American composer Stephen Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd (about a vengeful barber); and, believe it or not, a play about the Malaysian constitutional crisis of 1988, when the country's government sacked Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas.
In London next month, audiences can thrill to Cuban playwright Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Anna In The Tropics, which chronicles the consequences when a woman reads Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina to quarrelsome cigar factory workers in Florida.
In New York, one of the hottest tickets on Broadway now is Avenue Q, a musical featuring Muppet-like puppets in the old chestnut plot of finding oneself in a big city. Other recent critically lauded productions include Caroline, Or Change, which examines race and the struggle between opportunity and pride via a black maid who plays surrogate mother to a young white boy; and, arguably, Sixteen Wounded, which is about a Jewish baker and his Palestinian kitchen hand.
Back here, among other ventures, Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble is adapting the Japanese erotic cult movie In The Realm Of The Senses - in which a prostitute and married man indulge in their lust for each other - for the Singapore stage.
In this, I am reminded of a March 1993 essay by United States-based academic Geraldine Heng and my colleague Janadas Devan, in which they pointed out that relaxing the rules on censorship here often seemed to produce not serious forms of social and political exploration and questioning - as so often happens in countries where censorship laws are suddenly liberalised - but an obsessed fascination with sexual experimentation instead.
It must be noted, though, that they also stressed that the fault lay not just with local artists, but with the Government and the man in the street as well, because, for many years, 'almost all discussion about censorship has centred around sexuality'.
As they put it: 'The challenge we have inadvertently posed our writers is: Try and see how far you can get with rubber duckies, even when what really concerns you is free speech, detention without trial, or the price of beans.'
So, artists and audience alike, let's not confuse passion with obsession or, worse, art with artifice. -
On marriage, mergers and the dangers facing the PAP
MR NGIAM TONG DOW, (right) former permanent secretary and currently corporate adviser to Temasek Holdings, was keynote speaker at the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry luncheon last week. The Q&A session included discussions on Singapore's changing economic strategies and new political styles:
SUPPOSING you were to start your career all over again, doing the same job you were given in the 1960s or 1970s, do you think you would be as successful today in drawing another Maruzen Toyo or Sumitomo Chemical to Singapore?
The economic landscape for Singapore, as for the whole world, has changed. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has ushered in a new era of global knowledge-based competition.
In the 1960s, Singapore was one of a few developing countries that went out of their way to welcome foreign direct investment. Today, every country welcomes foreign direct investment. Under the WTO rules, all countries compete on equal terms. Being a small country, a mini-state, Singapore has learnt to compete globally. The rise of China, and soon India, has unleashed a seismic shock on Singapore and other Third World countries.
Though Singapore is said to have gone from a Third to First World country, the fundamentals of competition remain the same. These are political and social stability, rising levels of education, high rates of savings, hard work without a five-day week, thirst for knowledge, daring and drive.
If Singapore continues to have these qualities, we will continue to attract new industries; the Maruzen Toyos and the Sumitomo Chemicals of a new age.
You suggested that the Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) effort to consolidate the local banks is misguided. Can Singapore accommodate more than two local banking groups when in Japan we would virtually be down to only three major banking groups soon?
In banking, as in any other field of enterprise, skills count more than scale. In fact, McKinsey, the management consulting firm, has advised a Singapore bank of which I was a director, that a bank must first skill up before it can scale up. In other words, people count more than size.
Back-room operations can be scaled up easily, but not business relationships, which have to be built up by real people.
I am a believer in growing our own timber, not in transplanting trees through acquisitions.
Cast your mind back to the front covers of Fortune magazine in the 1970s, which featured the stars of expansion through acquisition. Where are the conglomerates of yesteryear?<
Mergers, like marriages, will take place when both parties find a fit. It should not be driven by regulators or investment banks. The fees paid by Singapore banks involved in bank mergers around 2000 easily amounted to over US$100 million (S$170 million). This is the cost of what I consider to be MAS' mistaken policy on merging Singapore banks.
Have our banks become more profitable? More efficient? More effective? It has only led to a saturated, riskier mortgage housing loans market.
As business people operating in Singapore, we face a dual challenge. On the one hand, we want our head offices to bring more business to Singapore. On the other hand, there seem to be fewer business opportunities in Singapore now than in other countries. If you were in our position, what would you do?
This is really a question for the chief executive officers of multinational corporations and small and medium enterprises to answer.
One way to start is to identify the markets or market niches that Singapore is best placed to serve. Is it experienced manpower, logistics or financing? What is the unique asset that Singapore has, or can be found in Singapore?
I know of a Singapore company that has invested successfully in fruit farms in northern China. This company has been able to consolidate small peasant farms into a large-scale operation by providing central marketing, purchase of fertilisers and packing material, and research into better root stock. Most important of all, it provides the individual farmer tending his lot with the incentive to produce both in quantity and quality. The central company guarantees to purchase the out put at predetermined prices.
Singapore entrepreneurs and their foreign partners have to search long and hard for a workable business model. The Government can only point the way. The individual has to find the route.
Now that you're no longer involved in day-to-day government decisions, do you see government policies differently?
Yes and no. Government is good at setting macro-economic policies, but is quite hopeless when it comes to the nitty-gritty, which is what business is all about. The Government should resist the temptation to micro-manage the economy. For instance, it should leave banking to bankers.
Supposing you have a choice to be a Japanese Administrative Vice-Minister or a Singapore Permanent Secretary, which would you choose and why?
I have never worked in Japan's Ministry of Trade and Industry, so I do not know what (they) do or do not do.
My brief acquaintance with them shows that the Japanese Administrative Vice-Minister and the Singapore Permanent Secretary share one common overriding value, which is to serve our country with all our might and soul. We believe passionately in the progress and prosperity of our nation.
You have worked under two different prime ministers, namely Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong. Please elaborate on their styles and characters.
Yes, I have had the privilege of serving under prime ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong. I can tell you that their hearts beat strongly for Singapore.
About elitism, what is your personal assessment of Singapore's new generation of leaders?
As I will be saying elsewhere, only the People's Action Party (PAP) can defeat itself. The two greatest dangers for the PAP, which has governed Singapore since 1959, are complacency and elitism.
By complacency, I mean flying on auto-pilot. Elitism means setting the national agenda only through the eyes and perspective of the upper middle-class educated elite.
Fortunately, the incoming Government, under Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, is learning to set policies by the pulse of the Housing Board heartlands. The recent changes in our baby policies is an example of leading with the heart rather than the head. -
German court bars nuns from wearing habits in schools
It rules that ban on teachers wearing Islamic headscarves must apply to nuns
BERLIN - A German federal court has ruled that a regional ban on Muslim teachers wearing headscarves in public schools must also apply to Christian nuns, news weekly Der Spiegel reported in an advance copy of its latest issue.
The magazine wrote that the Federal Administrative Court had ruled that a law passed in April in the south-western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg was unfair as it only applied to Muslim women yet permitted Christian symbols.
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Nuns, who often work in public schools in the predominantly Roman Catholic Black Forest region of the state, will now be barred from wearing their habits in the classroom.
'Exceptions for certain forms of religiously motivated clothing in certain regions are out of the question,' the federal judges of the court based in Leipzig, eastern Germany, wrote in their ruling as quoted by Der Spiegel.
A copy of the ruling could not be obtained yesterday.
The author of the state legislation, law professor Ferdinand Kirchhof, told Der Spiegel that nuns' habits were considered to be 'professional uniforms' in the region, and thus exempt from the religious symbols law.
Germany's highest tribunal, the constitutional court, ruled in September last year that Baden-Wuerttemberg was wrong to forbid a Muslim teacher from wearing a headscarf in the classroom.
But it said Germany's 16 states could legislate independently to ban religious apparel if it was deemed to unduly influence children, which has subsequently created a patchwork quilt of varying rules throughout the country.
Muslim groups have fiercely criticised the bans as compromising their freedom of religious expression.
Germany is home to more than three million Muslims, making Islam the country's third religion.
The German state laws tend to stop short of limits set by controversial new legislation in neighbouring France, which outlaws Islamic headscarves and other religious insignia in state schools outright, applying to both teachers and students. -- AFP -
Revamp of civil service quality drive
A CIVIL service movement to encourage workplace innovation and service improvement has been revamped this year in response to last year's frank critique by a top civil servant.
Permanent Secretary Bilahari Kausikan, who heads the ExCEL movement, declared last year the movement had lost its way.
He did so after a survey found that one in two civil servants preferred to stay away from the many Work Improvement Teams (Wits) set up to improve workplace efficiency.
The ExCEL movement - which stands for Excellence through Continuous Enterprise and Learning - includes older movements such as Wits but puts more emphasis on learning.
Mr Kausikan's diagnosis: Too many man-hours were wasted on elaborate preparations for the annual ExCEL convention, which included a competition between teams from various ministries and agencies.
As a result, this year's convention will be markedly different. According to a press release issued on Saturday by the ExCEL convention organising committee, the event on Wednesday will do away with the element of competition.
It will take just one day, unlike last year when it took four days for 100 judges to select 48 award winners from 400 teams.
Ministries and agencies will also be free to choose their tools for problem-solving and project format.
This is in contrast to the past, when teams had to stick to a standard format as laid out by the competition rules.
The committee said the revamped convention is intended to 'refocus attention on the fundamental purpose of ExCEL, which is empowerment'.
'ExCEL is about enabling public servants, regardless of rank, to contribute to improving the quality of public service in Singapore,' it added. -
Court pressed to shed light on freedom of religion
A Christian convert who can't register her marriage because she was once a Muslim demands her constitutional right
By Carolyn Hong
KUALA LUMPUR - When Ms Azlina Jailani wanted to get married several years ago, her life got complicated with court hearings and whispers behind her back.
The Christian convert could not register with the Registrar of Marriages because she is legally a Muslim.
In Malaysia, where a Malay is constitutionally also a Muslim, such complications are not new.
But increasingly lawyers say the country has to set clearer ground rules to govern all religious conversions.
Both Ms Azlina and her lawyer declined to be interviewed as her case is before the civil court.
She is seeking a declaration that she is free to practise the faith of her choice, and have the word 'Islam' dropped from her identity card.
The normal procedure would be to apply to the Syariah Court for approval, often a lengthy process.
Ms Azlina is trying to avoid this by falling back onto the constitutional guarantee on the freedom of religion.
Islamic and constitutional law professor Shad Faruqi told The Straits Times that there is a legitimate reason for requiring legal approval for conversions - prevent Muslims from evading the law by leaving their faith when caught for a religious offence.
Religion also carries a particular significance in Malaysia because of its implications for ethnicity, he said.
Former National Mosque imam Pirdaus Ismail said that as Islam has a special status in the Constitution, the country's laws are designed to protect the sanctity of the religion and its followers.
'However, the laws are implemented with a spirit of tolerance,' said the Umno Youth executive member.
The courts have seen several high-profile conversion cases recently. Earlier this year, a court heard a custody battle for two young children converted to Islam by their father after he became a Muslim. Their mother remained a Hindu.
The couple was awarded joint custody but daily care was given to the mother who must, however, bring the children up as Muslims.
Another recent case was that of four Muslims in Kelantan who renounced Islam after the Syariah Court ordered them to stop following deviationist teachings. They were subsequently jailed for violating this order.
Conversions from Islam, while few in number, have thrown up painful issues for Malaysia where religious differences often cause family and community rifts.
Reluctance to discuss this taboo subject has left uncertain how the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of religion applies to Muslims.
'We need the law to step in to provide clarity,' Prof Shad said.
Ms Azlina's case, to be heard by the Court of Appeal on Thursday, is seen as an opportunity for the court to shed light on the constitutional provision on religion.
'So far, there hasn't been any definitive pronouncement by the court on its application to Muslims,' said lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar who represented the four defendants in the Kelantan apostasy case.
That case ended in the Federal Court without a clear indication on this issue, and he is applying for a review. -
Bilingual policy to stay, but will be adjusted
Changes are needed to help students engage new economies, says MM Lee
THE bilingual education policy, despite its weaknesses, has benefited Singapore and will remain.
The challenge is to look at how to adjust it so students are given language skills to engage with the new world economies, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.
Without the bilingual policy, Singapore's ethnic communities will not be able to interact with each other and build understanding.
Nor would Singapore have been able to develop a core group of people who can pass on vernacular languages and cultures to future generations, for example as teachers, writers and journalists, he said.
Also, if Singaporeans spoke only English, or Chinese, or Malay, or Tamil, Singapore's usefulness to the world would diminish, he noted.
Mr Lee launched into this defence of Singapore's 40-year-old bilingual policy during a meeting with clan association and trade union members, teachers and media editors.
He called the meeting to hear their views on proposals to make Chinese teaching more enjoyable, made by a committee set up to review Chinese language teaching.
He stressed several times that the focus on learning Chinese did not spell an end to the bilingual policy.
English remained the dominant, working language in Singapore, he assured his audience of more than 70, who included non-Chinese editors.
It remained government policy to equip students with English, as well as their mother tongue, whether Chinese, Malay or Tamil.
Singapore needs a group conversant in these languages, as well as Arabic, to engage the emerging economies in the region, he said.
'I assure you we are not going back to Chinese. This is only for specific purposes and we'll do whatever we're doing for the Chinese, for the Malays, the Indians... We must have the ability to reach out to China, to India and others... and the region around us, Indonesia.'
Mr Lee acknowledged that making students learn two languages means many Singaporeans cannot master both.
Citing his own experience, he said his children became fluent in both languages, after attending Chinese-stream schools for 10 years, and speaking English at home.
But now all three work in an English-speaking environment, English has become their dominant language.
He joked that friends such as former Cabinet minister Lim Kim San told him if his children had not become bilingual, he might have learnt earlier that most people cannot master both languages, and the problem would not have taken so long to resolve.
Learning two languages and not being able to master both is a trade-off that must be made.
For example, if Singapore became totally English-speaking, it would lose its value to the world. Its values would also be different.
Even if Singaporeans learnt only English in school, they could not be as fluent as native English speakers.
Similarly, no amount of language instruction in school can turn out Singaporeans who are as eloquent in Mandarin as those from China.
'What we're trying to do today is to find a way to maximise the trade-off for our children.'
A modular teaching approach allows schools to tailor teaching to students' needs, and gives parents options in choosing the kind of bilingual education they want for their children, said Mr Lee.