Poverty is far from being erased in society

By Tim Mou Hui

Singapore Poverty (AFP file photo)

It is never a good time to talk about poverty.

With the economic contagion in Europe dominating headlines, it is no wonder that little attention is given to the millions across the world who fall below poverty lines.

Any global financial turmoil, however, will worsen the lot of the poor and those living precariously close to poverty, so it is worth remembering for a moment the plight of those struggling to survive in a world that is still undeniably affluent, despite its current economic woes.

Poverty is not some faceless entity; poverty is real. It is all around us, often, right in our backyards.

That is perhaps even more important for impressionable students like myself living Singapore, where poverty is not always acknowledged forthrightly by the government. Singapore's former representative to the United Nations, Kishore Mahbubani, once declared that "there are no homeless, destitute or starving people in Singapore. Poverty has been eradicated."

Yet poverty exists amidst the economic bustle of our small country. An elderly woman, back hunched over, trawls through dumpsters for cardboard to sell for a few measly dollars, barely enough to buy a simple meal or two.

A young mother who stays home to look after her children and ill husband is forced to put aside her dignity by living on the goodwill of relatives. A beggar who hides in inconspicuous corners outside malls to evade detection — begging is an offence here — depends on the charity of passing shoppers to get by each day.

Poverty may have been erased from official rhetoric, but it is far from being erased in society.

I am fortunate to have taken a course this past semester called "Development, Underdevelopment, and Poverty," offered by Assistant Professor of Political Science John A. Donaldson of the School of Social Sciences at the Singapore Management University (SMU).

Together with 35 other students, I learnt that development and poverty issues are far more complex and multi-faceted than we have been conditioned to believe. They go beyond the simple economic dimensions that policy-makers are comfortable dealing with.

That this course is offered in a university whose primary focus is on the world of business and finance provides a beautiful contrast; it reminds us of the struggles of the impoverished, even as we engage in our often individualistic pursuits of good jobs with ever-higher salaries.

But the best lesson I learnt is that global poverty is not a hopeless situation. My classmates from India, China, Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, and of course, Singapore, shared their experiences with projects in their home country and region that have lifted the lives of the poor and destitute. Many of us are involved in such projects ourselves, in some cases even leading them.

While these certainly have not and will not solve the global poverty challenge on their own, it is difficult to deny the real impact these projects have had on individual communities. Small projects can have big impact. The class was a cosmopolitan forum of ideas looking to understand a cosmopolitan issue through grassroots perspectives.

The most important outcome of this course is not in the substantive theories and content on development and poverty. It is not in the grades, something students in Singapore are all too obsessed with. It is in inspiring us to make a difference to the lives of those suffering from the anguish of poverty, a class of 36 at a time.

And we do not need to look far to help. Curing the world of poverty may be a daunting task, but improving the lives of just one individual or household in our community is a victory in itself. Let's not lose sight of the few, just because we cannot help the many. And what better time to start than during the proverbial Season of Giving -- Christmas.

It is always a good time to talk about poverty.

The writer is an undergraduate at the School of Social Sciences at Singapore Management University majoring in Political Science and Corporate Communication.

source from sg,news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/ [the rest of the address is too long]

Bodoh bertingkat tingkat

Selalu dengar lawak ini
Sekolah sekarang ni tinggi bertingkat tingkat tapi pelajar tak cerdik cerdik jugak

Hari ni baca kat sini

Kerajaan P Pinang dilaporkan akan meruntuhkan bangunan letak kereta baru berharga RM5 juta.

Ketua Menteri, Lim Guan Eng baru-baru ini mengumumkan bahawa tempat letak kenderaan yang tidak dapat digunakan kerana gagal memperoleh Sijil Layak Menduduki (CF) daripada Majlis Perbandaran Pulau Pinang (MPPP) kerana rekaannya yang lemah itu akan dirobohkan, direka bentuk dan dibina semula.

Menteri Pelancongan, Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen ketika mengulas perkara itu mahu Guan Eng selaku Pengerusi Perbadanan Pembangunan Pulau Pinang (PDC), iaitu agensi bertanggungjawab menguruskan projek dibiayai Kerajaan Pusat menerusi Kementerian Pelancongan bertanggungjawab dan memberi penjelasan.


*Kalau kerajaan BN buat, mereka akan cakap projek gagal. Kalau macam ni pulak, nak panggil apa ye? Bodoh bertingkat-tingkat macam tempat ni jugak.

Sweet revenge for internet love scam

Kuala Lumpur (The Star/ANN) - Revenge was sweet for a woman who was cheated of her love and 50,000 ringgit (US$16,000) by her Internet "boyfriend" five years ago.


She managed to lure him and baited him through a series of Internet chats before finally helping police set a trap which led to his eventual arrest.

Sources revealed that the now 32-year-old self-employed woman had fallen in love with the man in 2006.

He described himself as an Indian national residing in Australia.

"The man claimed to be rich and wanted to visit her in Malaysia, to give her a large amount of money.

"However, the suspect then alleged that the Australian Customs had seized his cash because he had not declared the large sum of money.

"He begged his Malaysian girlfriend to help him pay off the Customs officials," sources revealed.

The victim made four transactions to her "boyfriend" totalling 50,000 ringgit before he mysteriously vanished.

Fast forward to August this year and the victim was surfing an Internet chat site when she "met" a man who tried to serenade her with the same pick-up lines and "story".

But unknown to the suspect, he was chatting with his "ex-girlfriend".

"She managed to convince the suspect that she loved him and asked him to meet her in Malaysia.

"When the suspect agreed, she notified the police and lodged a police report on Saturday to set up the ambush the next day," sources revealed.

Upon arrival at the KLIA Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) on Sunday evening, the 39-year-old Indian national with Australian Permanent Residence (PR) was arrested.

City Commercial Crime Investigation Department chief Asst Comm Izany Abdul Ghany confirmed the arrest.

The man has been remanded.

Singapore Dilemma

In the face of a changed labour market, Singapore may have decided to keep the local university population from increasing beyond current levels.

The more cautious approach to higher education emerged from private talks that a senior education ministry official had with a U.S. diplomat several years ago, according to WikiLeaks.

No formal announcement has been made, but the remarks quickly set off a buff of excitement among Singaporeans, who worship higher education as a god of success.

The official was quoted as telling the diplomat that the government did not plan to encourage more students to go for university studies.

The campus enrolment rate would be maintained around 20 per cent to 25 per cent of total Singapore students. The reason, she added, was the labour market did not need everyone to get a degree.

While political leaders have denied other WikiLeaks allegations, no one has commented on this subject.

Not playing a numbers game

Recently, Education Minister Heng Swee Keat said, in future, university planning could not "be a numbers game alone" and that "it has to be a strategic approach, responding to the needs of the economy".

The revelation has raised public speculation, including one that it is cheaper and faster to bring in trained foreigners en masse than to produce them at home.

Given past records, this is unlikely to be the whole truth. The government has always given priority to developing Singaporeans to play an economic role.

But such talk persists. "The number of local students is being reduced because foreign professionals are available at lower salaries," said a former IT engineer who is now doing jobs on an ad hoc basis.

Adding to the unhappiness is the presence of foreign students, who make up roughly 20 per cent of students in local campuses.

This new move is seen in some quarters as a new quota of sorts.

Downsizing ambition

Some of the harsher critics call the limitation a downsizing of the national ambition, or at least of the individual dream.

To economists, however, there are wider fundamental reasons for it. The demise of the manufacturing era has significantly altered the job market.

Many of the newly-created jobs today are in services that do not require formal four-year university training. "A degree is nice to have, but we need something else," is a regular employer comment.

For example, the opening of the two resorts required some graduates to be retrained as casino dealers and roulette operators.

In the past decade, thousands of retrenched middle-aged professionals have become property or insurance agents. Others are driving taxis.

This has evidently made the government worried about producing more graduates that the market does not need, especially with the global economy turning dismal.

A different approach

If the WikiLeaks report is accurate, Singapore seems to be breaking ranks with countries whose universities keep churning out masses of students for jobs that often do not exist.

Reuters reported this week that China's colleges are pushing out graduates in numbers far exceeding demand.

"A decade-long expansion in university capacity has created distortions in the job market," the news agency said. "China needs to work on the imbalances."

Singapore's tale is different. This is a smaller entity where numbers are easier to manipulate.

The universities here produced some 12,000 graduates in 2007 — or 25 per cent of all students — below Japan's 50 per cent. But this is only half the story.

According to Unesco, a further 18,000 Singaporeans were studying in foreign universities that year — half of them in Australia. In one year, some 4,000 enlist in US universities.

Poor hardest hit

Social commentator Lucky Tan said any university cutback would work against lower-income Singaporeans who could not afford to study abroad.

The WikiLeaks story showed the government was unable to fulfil its pledge to develop every Singaporean to his full potential.

Some Singaporeans are, however, supportive of being cautious. "It is important to maintain a balanced, orderly labour market for the sake of social order," said one writer.

Society does not only need graduates, she said. Who is going to work as a mechanic? Or cook?

In an observation on Asia's chaotic past, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew spoke of the dangers of educating hordes of graduates and being unable to provide them jobs.

He noticed that many unemployed graduates often ended up roaming the streets, making violent revolution.

In a recent related comment, Lee remarked that Singaporeans were not getting smarter, only better educated.

Willingness to sacrifice

The ruling People's Action Party is not yet facing such a crucial test, and how sensitively it can handle public grouses — especially on jobs and education — will decide its future.

More than anyone, he knows his people's readiness to sacrifice for their children's education.

Many families are prepared to set a huge monthly budget to pay fees to private tutors to give their children the edge in exams to make it to university.

Just three months ago, a father angrily wrote how he had to sell off his prized house to finance his son to study medicine in Britain because he was rejected for a place in Singapore.

This was despite scoring 4 "A"s and a Special Paper in his A-Level examinations.

During a dinner gathering of several families at our house a hot subject surpassed all others among the wives: their children's education, what to study and which country to study in.

These are upper middle-class earners, who see their children's future depending on getting a good university degree — the higher the better.

I wonder how they will react to the government move to discourage them to enrol for one.

A former Reuters correspondent and newspaper editor, the writer is now a freelance columnist writing on general trends in Singapore. This post first appeared on his blog www.littlespeck.com on 17 September 2011.

best one china

Woman roasted puppy alive

By farism | SingaporeScene – Thu, Jun 16, 2011

How gruesome it is to torture an animal, much else roast it alive? While this horrifying act did not take place in Singapore, but in the Kengkou district of Guangzhou, China.

Content-aggregation website chinaSmackposted a news article showing a Chinese woman roasting a puppy alive.

The gruesome incident was said to have taken place near the entrance of Kengkou market. The woman is seen grabbing the puppy using a throng and grilling it over what looks like a portable stove. After a while, the dog's body appeared stiff and its skin slightly charred.

Understandably, users who posted their comments on the website were vilified by the action.

One user known as VIP posted a comment, "Are you still human? Think for a moment, how would you feel if you were roasted alive/barbecued alive?"

Another who wanted to be known as Love, said, "What's wrong with people these days? They don't even seem like people/human anymore."

This abuse comes hot on the heels of another animal cruelty concerns in Indonesia where live cattle exports were subjected to mistreatment.

On 31 May, it was reported that the Australian government suspended live cattle exports to Indonesian abattoirs after a television program showed videos of cattles being unnecessarily whipped and left to bleed to death after their throats were cut using blunt knives.

The videos were recorded by Lyn White, a former police officer and campaign director of the animal welfare group Animals Australia. It is understood that the said abattoirs are located in Jakarta, Bogor, Bandar Lampung and Medan.

It is understood that Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered an investigationof slaughterhouses in the country, saying, "We have to highly respect animal welfare."

Warning: The pictures below taken from the woman roasting the puppy might be disturbing, parental guidance required.

kiasu ones

Are Singaporeans the most ‘disgusting’ people?

By farism | SingaporeScene – Fri, Jun 17, 2011

Are Singaporeans the most "disgusting and "irritating" bunch of people around?

Well, users of one blog in Chinese seem to think so.

The blog 'Lion City Life', which is supposedly frequented by foreign nationals from China based in Singapore, had conducted a poll seeking feedback from respondents on the most "disgusting and "irritating" people.

Believed to be a poll starter, a person with the moniker of "sayangweiwei" had asked in Chinese, "Having been in Singapore, all must have met people from other countries. Which country's people are the most disgusting and irritating?"

Eight choices were provided, namely: Singaporean, Filipino, Malays, Malaysian, Japanese, Chinese (China), Korean and Indian.

According to socio-political website Temasek Review, the results as reflected on Thursday showed that Singaporeans were voted as the most "disgusting and irritating" people with 48.15 percent of the votes, followed by Filipinos and Malays who garnered 7.41 percent and 5.94 percent of the votes, respectively.

When Yahoo! Singapore tried to visit the site on Friday, the blog had been taken down.

This "poll" comes as a German TV variety show Galileo attracted attention here for tongue-in-cheek references to Singaporeans' way of life.

In an episode aired in early May this year, the show's host had said, "Singaporeans are not just crazy, they are tremendously crazy."

Don't they read newspapers?

Really !!!


Wonder how old this stupid woman is. Boleh baca ke tidak?

Woman RM1.1m poorer after falling for sob story on FB

SHAH ALAM: A woman who fell for a con artist's sob stories on Facebookended up being cheated of RM1.1mil.

The man who claimed to be a British citizen had told her he needed her account to bank in money from his contract with Petronas, which he claimed amounted to RM4.6mil.

However, he told the woman he needed her help to pay stamp duty charges and insurance fees before he could get his contract sanctioned.

The suspect claimed he could not afford the fees at the time.

“The victim paid RM1.1mil via several transactions to the man between March 29 and April 19,” said Federal Commercial Crimes director Comm Datuk Wira Syed Ismail Syed Azizan yesterday.

He added that following a police report lodged by the victim, six suspects were arrested in Kepong on Tuesday.

Police also recovered RM15,000 in cash, 18 ATM cards, seven cellphones and a laptop.

“Of the six, two were Nigerians, two were Bangladeshis while the others were locals,” he told reporters.

Comm Syed Ismail said the victim had been sympathetic when she read about the man's predicament.

“She caved in when she heard his sob stories,” he added.

Comm Syed Ismail urged people using popular social networking websites like Facebook to be very careful.

“These unscrupulous people prey on gullible girls through these websites,” he said. “Revealing your personal information on your Facebook wall' is not a good idea.”

The public, he said, had been warned several times not to respond to e-mail from seemingly rich people offering money for safekeeping, yet a lot of them still become victims.