What price, peace of mind?

Cisco's Track and Trace system (TTS), to be launched later this year, will enable Singaporeans to trace almost everything — from loved ones to company property. It is the ultimate tool for employers.

Its other service, Safeview, sells "peace of mind" to parents who worry about leaving their children alone at home with their maids, or storeowners who want to check on what the sales staff are doing with just a flip of a 3G mobile phone.

And come Sept 1, a new Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) network set up by the Singapore Land Authority will mean users can track anything or anyone to within half-a-centimetre accuracy.

But all this comes at a price. Just when and where do we cross the privacy line?

Respect for privacy is perhaps the human race's last bastion in the preservation of human dignity. It is one thing to use a tracking device to trace a missing passenger to improve an airline's punctuality, but it is quite another thing to pry into what he purchases at a shop.

Israel halted

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on all countries to stop Israel’s "fascist crimes" in Lebanon here on Sunday.

"What Israel is doing is fascism and terrorism. We call on the world to stop Israel's insanity," he said during a ceremony at the University of Tehran in which he was awarded the Order of the Islamic Republic of Iran, First Grade.

The world must have the ability to stop Israel’s madness, he added.

He emphasized that Iran and Venezuela have adopted a common stance condemning the Israeli crimes.

"Bush claims that he has a connection with God every day, but, in fact, he has a connection with the devil because no other country has put humanity in danger like the United States," he said.

Israel bowed to international pressure last night and agreed to suspend its aerial bombardment of southern Lebanon for 48 hours, after an air strike killed at least 60 civilians - more than half of them children.

"Why have they attacked little children and defenceless women?" asked a bereaved man.

The three unwise men

1) Seeking another recruit for his anti-American movement, Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez began a major international tour yesterday with a visit to the isolated former Soviet nation of Belarus, whose authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has been dubbed Europe's last dictator.

He seems to be on a roll, Chavez. It's not good news for the rest of the peace-loving world. World war seems to be apparent with two sides already forming in the past year or so, and even more obvious now.

2) In spite of the unfolding catastrophe in Lebanon, US President George W. Bush (and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair) have agreed to give Israel at least until the end of the month to achieve its war aims. They have rejected demands for an immediate ceasefire from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, from European and Arab leaders, and from a rising groundswell of outraged international opinion.

These actions will undoubtedly be met with resistance and only produce more violence and chaos. Doesn't matter what the rest of the world says, such is the arrogance of the US and its puppets.

3) The Australian government is to consider boosting its defence force numbers, with Defence Minister Brendan Nelson indicating more soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan and possibly Lebanon.

This is another bad sign. When governments such as that of sleeping giants like Australia are considering this sort of moves, it tells a lot of what to expect in the near future.

I'm not sure if Australia's going to keep its "defensive" status in its military force in the time to come.

A changed world makes next polls tougher: PM

Speaking at the appreciation dinner for retired Members of Parliament (MPs) on Saturday evening, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the People's Action Party (PAP) must expect a much tougher fight in the next General Election, as by 2011, the world and Singapore would have changed.

The Prime Minister said that his party was already starting to look for new candidates for the 2011 election, adding that the second line of leaders should be preparing to take over, while a third one forms.

The former Speaker of Parliament, Mr Tan Soo Khoon, also added, asking the new MPs to respect the "views of those who disagree", and asked the Government to "smile" at itself when confronted with "gentle" jibes.

"So even now as we call on every Singaporean to put on a wide grin come September for our visitors, we too can learn to smile at ourselves, if some choose to poke gentle fun at us."

What does it all mean?

Bush's 'freedom doctrine' is but another secular attempt to justify a political point-of-view.

modern Western thought has been obsessed with ideology, providing a secular substitute for the interpretation of human existence previously provided by biblical religion.

European thought concluded in the 18th and 19th centuries that it was unreasonable to believe that God exists, or that human existence is, in some meaningful way, connected to a divine intelligence.

There has been plenty of progress in science, technology and human organisation and institutions since the presumed death of God more than 200 years ago. But the years since have also given us ideological totalitarianism, the two world wars and many savage smaller wars, genocide in Europe, Africa and Asia, and the war "between civilisations" that George W Bush is now pleased to call the "long war" against global terror and tyranny.

This is the recent record of human progress through reason — although some would object that it is no worse than much that preceded it. But the Age of Reason was supposed to be better. Reason and science were supposed to move steadily toward solution of the great problems of history.

The latest of these to gain international significance was, of course, the Bush "freedom doctrine", saying that everyone everywhere wants American-style democracy, and that when they have it, history will have reached its goal.

We are plausibly told by Washington, the world is only at the start of the "long war" against Evil (itself a theological reinterpretation of a political effort to control the Middle East).

As for my own view, I do not think God is dead, and I think only he knows the meaning of history. The problem for man is not to try to substitute his own for the divine intelligence.

But I doubt many are listening.



by William Pfaff
The writer is a veteran columnist on world affairs for the International Herald Tribune.

Trick or threat

I'm just throwing this out in the open here. The way the world's going on right now is like a combination of the periods prior to both WW1 and WW2.

In summary:
1) Nose-diving economy
2) Increased armament activity worldwide
3) Big sports event occuring in Germany (ok so this last one doesn't prove anything)

Not really in summary:
Countries have armed themselves excessively since forever, especially after the last World War. This includes putting in place mandatory military service, developing of new weapons technology, the trading of weapons technology and others. But a lot of these effort are going nowhere.

Weaponries get obsolete and are replaced with more sophisticated ones, soldiers get old and are replaced by younger ones, and for what?

Governments spend perhaps trillions of dollars in the last few decades building up their defence only for the "investment" to just be written off year after year. It is a big waste of money. At some point, some of them would want to see some returns of their investment.

In a down-spiralling global economy, the US is leading the race for acquiring raw commodity such as oil, forcibly or not, knowing that the value of the dollar is closely pegged to the quantity of oil being circulated worldwide in order to continue forcing the value of their currency to be maintained at a high level.

Such is the arrogance of the Americans, they always have to take something that is existing, change the rules, change the name, Americanize the whole thing and make themselves world champions. They absolutely have to win at all cost.

Right now, from the east to the west, there is a tit for tat military aggression between Israel, Palestine and Lebanon with some countries like USA, Russia, Iran and Syria watching on the side just waiting to jump in, India is blaming Pakistan for allowing troublemakers to operate from within to attack it, Iran wants to be a nuclear-power and are not backing down from their nuclear ambition, anarchy in Iraq and Afghanistan, northeast Asian countries are getting nervous about North Korea's recent nuclear tests, Australia wants to be a world police, there is a growing anti-American leftist movement in Latin America led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro, long-standing civil wars in Ivory Coast, Somalia, Sudan in Africa and so on and so forth.

One thing all these problems have in common is USA.

It seems that the only thing USA is good at is being nosey about other countries' business. To them, if it affects them, it is their problem. It doesn't matter if each country is sovereign in its own rights.

It's not suprprising if World War 3 should start soon since many countries just cannot wait to show off who's got the biggest muscles for the right to exist. This could also provide a stop gap measure to ease the unemployment status in each country, just like the period between WW1 and WW2 had been.

People get employed to build more weaponries and military gear for the armies and men get themselves killed just because some power-crazy heads of states decide as such.

The world map

Should it occur, there would be two sides, as I've mentioned in an earlier entry, with both sides claiming the other is evil. It'd be complete madness.

Team USA roster
USA
Canada
Mexico
European Union
Israel
India
Japan
South Korea
Australia
The Philippines

Team New Order
Venezuela
Ecuador
Bolivia
Cuba
Lebanon
Palestine
Iran
Russia
China
North Korea

It's very real and very scary. More countries would be dragged in on both sides and the reality of a nuclear war cannot be too far away. Each side has its own nuclear arsenal.

All the innocent people of the world can do is stand back, some will get caught in the crossfire, and wait for the first party to unleash nuclear technology.

Hopefully, it doesn't happen. Hopefully, what I had just written is only a fragment of my imagination.

Deadly times

Lebanon pleaded for mercy but got none. Instead, it endured its eighth day of terror since two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by the anti-Zionist Hizbollah forces.

At least 72 civilians were killed and scores wounded in a series of deadly Israeli raids across Lebanon.

Russia has sharply criticized Israel over its onslaught against Lebanon, now in its ninth day. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Israel's actions have gone "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation" and repeating calls for an immediate cease-fire.

Who knows, maybe Iran is next for being strong Hizbollah supporters. The Iranian nuclear plan offers a huge threat to Israel if realized. It doesn't seem that they're backing down just yet.

"This war is going to end with a sour taste in our mouths," wrote Yaron London in the best selling Yedioth Ahronoth daily. "We had best begin to accustom ourselves to that flavor."

Java hit by tsunami

Despite efforts to establish an early warning system in the wake of the 2004 Asian tsunami, there was still no reported local warning of the tsunami that struck the Indonesian island of Java on Monday. The death toll has risen to at least 339.

The tsunami was triggered by a 7.7 magnitude undersea earthquake that struck off Pangandaran causing a 2m-high wave.

In addition to the dead, about 450 people have been injured and around 52,700 people have been displaced.

Violent crimes up in early 2006: Malaysia

Malaysian Deputy Internal Security Minister Fu Ah Kiow said that the number of violent crimes — especially robbery, bag snatching and rape — had increased in the first five months of this year.

The authorities, according to him, were hard-pressed to find out the reason for the increase, but attributed the incidents of bag snatches to drug addicts and immigrants.

In my opinion, that is only one source of the problem. The other is "poor economy" or the result of it. Most opt for the easy way out, which is to commit crime knowing they have a good chance of escaping despite Mr Fu's claims that Malaysia has had a high rate of success in solving violent crimes.

However, one way of self-improvement is to accept there is a problem in the first place and in this matter, the Malaysian government has only one way to go - up.

The Bush agenda

The US President George Bush cemented his softly-softly approach to his old friend Vladimir Putin yesterday, admitting he would not be tackling him on the state of Russian democracy or Chechnya at the G8 summit.

That is a great idea seeing that the US has now got a bigger problem right in their own home. Al Qaeda released a video that reflects a significant change in how it operates which is to recruit ordinary American Muslims who might be offended, as many ordinary Americans are, by America's mistakes and moral failings in carrying out the war on terrorism.

It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration's response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

The same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints particularly that of the Geneva Convention.

At hearings last week, the administration made it clear that it merely wanted Congress to legalize President George W. Bush's illegal actions - to amend the law to negate the court's ruling.

Undoing the Geneva Conventions would further endanger the life of every member of the U.S. military who might ever be taken captive in the future. And if the prisoners scooped up in Afghanistan and sent to Guantánamo had been properly processed first many would never have been kept in custody, a continuing reproach to the country that is holding them. Others would actually have been able to be tried under a fair system that would give the world a less perverse vision of U.S. justice.

Retaliation is a result of provocation. They must accept that. They're guilty of provocation and no matter how much they always try to point their fingers at others, the truth is finally out.

It was embarassing when Bush loyalists argued that the United States could not follow the Geneva Conventions because Common Article Three, which has governed the treatment of wartime prisoners for more than half a century, was too vague. Which part of "civilized peoples," "judicial guarantees" or "humiliating and degrading treatment" do they find confusing?

The administration's intent to use the war on terror to buttress presidential power was never clearer than in the case of its wiretapping program. Republicans in Congress were all but begging for a chance to change the process in any way the president requested. Instead, of course, the administration did what it wanted without asking anyone. They simply ignore the issue.

Bush's constant efforts to assert his power to act without consent or consultation has warped the war on terror. The unity and sense of national purpose that followed September 11 is gone. The president had no need to go it alone - everyone wanted to go with him. But the obsession with presidential prerogatives created fights where no fights needed to occur and made huge messes out of programs that could have functioned more efficiently within the rules.

The horror of September 11 became an excuse to take up this cause behind the shield of Americans' deep insecurity. The results have been devastating. Civil liberties have been trampled. The nation's image as a champion of human rights has been gravely harmed. Prisoners have been abused, tortured and even killed at the prisons we know about. American agents "disappear" people, some entirely innocent, and send them off to torture chambers in distant lands.

86,000 R&D jobs to be created in S'pore by 2015

Singapore is aiming to create 86000 jobs in R&D by 2015.

In the greater scheme of things, this is of course a great ambition but it wasn't mentioned how many jobs will be lost along the way and how many of these 86000 would actually go to Singaporeans.

Some of these jobs would just be like replacing jobs lost in the R&D and other sectors from now till then and that much number of jobs is just about right to keep up with the growing population. Let's just hope most of it would actually go to us.

It also signals Singapore's intention to be yet another hubba hubba hub. R&D hub this time. It's yet another great shift in focus that we need to stay competitive. It's an announcement to the world that we should be considered as an ideal location for such an industry. Plug and play nation we are.

On the whole, I applaud this move.

Malaysia declassifies crooked bridge papers

After almost a decade of fruitless negotiations, Malaysia has finally declassified the crooked-bridge-to-nowhere documents which includes correspondence between Malaysia and Singapore's past and present leaders, in a bid to counter their ex-PM's harsh criticisms.

Those are very expensive papers. I hear Gerbang Perdana, the contractor who built the now-redundant foundation for the bridge is holding out for more compensation.

Recipe for disaster

A number of harsh critics of Hugo Chávez are claiming that, in the course of a planned upcoming tour of Russia at the end of this month, the Venezuelan President may decide to also visit North Korea suggesting the purpose of the trip is to initiate ‘oil-for-missile’ talks with American arch-nemesis Kim Jong Il.

Should this occur for certain, coupled with whatever's happening in the Middle East, it could add fuel to the fire leading to a war on a much larger scale than what we're seeing today. Big trouble a-brewin' already.

Two sides. A few countries on each side. Most capable of unleashing nuclear technology. Both claiming the other is evil like what's going on in South Asia presently. Recipe for disaster.

God help us.

It's not all about money

So, money isn't everything after all — even when it comes down to determining how committed one is to a job.

Just one in four employees said money was an important factor in driving job satisfaction, compared to 56 per cent who chose having a good working environment as their key motivator.

Who are they kidding?

The Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI) survey, which involved 127 companies that employ between 50 and 800 people, found that monetary rewards may have played a significant role in attracting people to a company, but in driving employee loyalty and commitment, cash plays a small role.

Instead, topping the list of motivators are: A good working environment and bosses who involve staff in decision-making.

Right... . Even if they pay peanuts? I don't think so. They didn't ask me.

I believe this is just another one of those superficial "findings" consistently sent out to the media that's meant as a propaganda in order to create a small ripple to boost the economy in the larger scheme of things over a short period.

I don't believe everything they say. I figure my own things out, thanks.

Acts of war raise risk to Mideast region

It is not yet war between Israel and Lebanon, but these are acts of war.

So now everyone in the Middle East is involved. Guess all Israel, under their new coalition leadership, needed was an excuse and it came when one of their soldiers, hardly a key appointment holder, was kidnapped by Palestinian trouble-makers a couple of weeks ago.

They're all over the region now and probably looking for a fight to prove their might and confirm without a doubt that they belong where they are right now.

These don't look like the military

So many sparks in the world today, it feels like WW3 is coming.

The wrong people are being punished
Everyone's being punished collectively

M'sia's covert power struggle

The gripping drama that is the spat between Malaysia's former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his successor, Mr Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has seen a respite for the past week. That's because both men were on holiday.

... It's hard to picture Dr Mahathir ever losing a battle. After all, he's won so many. But this time, it could well be that the seasoned politician has grossly miscalculated the situation. He is, ironically, the victim of his own success, for it was Dr Mahathir who concentrated all the levers of power in the hands of the executive.

Taliban use beheadings and beatings to keep Afghanistan's schools closed

The letter pinned overnight to the wall of the mosque in Kandahar was succinct.

"Girls going to school need to be careful for their safety. If we put acid on their faces or they are murdered then the blame will be on their parents."

Today the local school stands empty, victim of what amounts to a Taliban war on knowledge. The liberal wind of change that swept the country in 2001 is being reversed.

By the conservative estimate of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, 100,000 students have been terrorised out of schools in the past year. The number is certainly far higher and many teachers have been murdered, some beheaded.

Israel launches strikes after rebuffing ceasefire

Israel launched rapid-fire air strikes against Palestinian targets across the Gaza Strip on Sunday after rebuffing a proposed ceasefire by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Israel is threatening to expand its offensive unless militants release Corporal Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier abducted in a cross-border raid on June 25, and halt rocket fire on Israeli cities.

At least three militants were injured in an early morning air strike near the Karni commercial crossing between Gaza and Israel, Palestinian medics and police said.

Seven Palestinians, including a 6-year-old girl and a policeman, on Saturday, Palestinian witnesses said.

I don't know if we'd ever see peace in the middle east in this lifetime... .

Poetic justice

The Somali gunmen who shot dead two people watching a World Cup match have been arrested and will face Islamic justice, Sheik Aweys an Islamist leader has said.

Somalian extremists shoot two for watching World Cup

SOMALI Islamist militia shot dead two people who wanted to watch the World Cup semi-final, in the latest sign of a hardline religious edge to the newly-powerful movement, witnesses said yesterday.

Four others were wounded in the fracas outside a cinema.

The Islamists, who kicked US-backed warlords out of Mogadishu then took control of a large swathe of southern Somalia last month, initially sought to project a moderate image but have been increasingly showing a more radical side.

And they still believe they're right. Paradise awaits? For causing mindless grief all around, I don't think so.

Our own law commission?

OVER the past year, there have been calls for law reform in several areas of law.

There have been suggestions that the Films Act needs to be updated to be in synch with our developing society and its norms. Arguments have also been put forward that various aspects of our criminal law be reviewed so as to give better rights to a defendant, especially one arrested by mistake or through entrapment.

For example, lawyer Thomas Koshy argued in Today recently on the need to provide a wrongfully accused person the right to recover his legal costs from the state.

These aspects of law reform could have a profound impact on the legal rights, liabilities and duties of many, if approved by Parliament.

Yet, these calls have been met with silence from the two bodies that bear the important burden of law reform.

The primary entity for law reform in Singapore is the Law Reform and Revision Division (LRRD) of the Attorney-General's Chambers, whose two-fold mission is "to review and reform the law to meet the needs of Singapore and its people in the 21st century" and to revise legislation "to consolidate, modernise and simplify them".

The secondary entity is the Law Reform Committee (LRC) of the Singapore Academy of Law, which makes recommendations to the Government on the need for legislation in any area of law; reviews any legislation before Parliament; and publishes selected reports available online.

Not many laymen seem to know of these two bodies. They seem to be...

America in the eyes of the world: Unpopular and discredited

America's self-defined campaign against terrorism has not always received full endorsement or support by the rest of the world.

So much so that Americans at one point asked "Why do they hate us?" as much as the world today questions "Why does the US continue with flawed policies?"

According to a YouGov/Gulf News survey carried out in June, respondents had no doubt that the policies of the current US administration had made the world a worse place to live in.

A whopping 70 per cent believed so, regardless of their nationality. Only a handful (7 per cent) expressed the exact opposite opinion. This overall dismay was seen across the different age and income groups, gender and religious conviction.

Even respondents who had expressed their liking of Americans and their belief in the US as being the only superpower harboured the same sentiments.

No licence to massage

In a three-day, island-wide operation that began last Friday and lasted until Sunday, scores of plain-clothes police officers conducted surprise checks on 129 massage parlours in the heartlands, of which 37 were caught operating without a valid licence.

In total, 77 foreign workers — from China, Malaysia and Thailand — were arrested for offences under either the Immigration Act or the Employment of Foreign Workers Act.

Operators of the other 92 parlours were also advised by the police to remove curtains and partitions that obstructed their shops from the view of the public.

They were also all issued reminders to register their businesses with the Police Licensing Division before the Aug 26 deadline.

If only one good thing could come out of this, it is that those jobs can now be filled up by Singaporeans like they should have been in the first place.

But it's not as easy as it seems? Do Singaporeans want to fill up those jobs anyway? And will there be enough job openings now that many of the massage parlours are closing down in response to this new ruling?

Bush: fighting fit and shocked to be 60

On Thursday, President George Bush will undergo what will come to be the defining experience of boomers in the next few years: he turns 60.

We're all shocked.

Smoked out as ban kicks in

When the extension of the smoking ban kicked in last Saturday, some football fans gave up their seats rather than forsake their puffs.

Under the extension of the smoking ban which kicked in on Saturday, smoking is prohibited in indoor eateries. Hawker centres without outdoor areas can convert 10 per cent of their indoor seating capacity into smoking corners. For those with outdoor seating areas, up to 20 per cent of the outdoor area can be designated for smokers.

This could be seen as yet another one-size-fits-all solution by the government but it is a necessity. It is a move necessary to promote health for the public in general.

It only makes sense as there are probably more non-smokers than smokers in the country and it is only fair that they do not be forced to suffer the minority's second hand smoke.

In the short run, of course eating establishments will suffer a dip in earnings, probably from the loss of income of smokers who'd rather not hang around while smoking with friends.

But in the long run, as the ban kicks in, people would find this a norm and adjust accordingly. Everything will get back to normal.

Afterall, how long can smokers hang on to their silent sit out protest? Even smokers need to eat.

New massage rules — here's the rubdown

THE stricter rules announced a week ago may have reined in some shady massage parlours, but they have also claimed some unintended victims.

Tinted doors and windows are not allowed and curtains and cubicles have to be removed, forcing honest customers and legit masseurs to conduct their services in full view of the public.

This definitely hurts business. Which customer would want to be gawked at while being massaged?

In the short run, as usual, massage parlours would have to reduce prices, hoping to earn their keep by volume which in the long run would make them less motivated to continue. They will one by one die a slow death.

All this is because of a few bad apples in the industry. The Singapore government has once again responded with a one-size-fits-all solution which once agains highlights its "guilty until proven innocent" approach.