Blowin' In The Wind

Singapore's Delphic Oracle

Singapore's Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng was as enigmatic as the Delphic Oracle. The only difference was he was not prophesying the future but shedding light on the past.

An Islamic militant escaped from detention yesterday. Mas Selamat Kastari, we learnt from the newspapers today, was a leader of the dreaded Jemaah Islamiah, the Southeast Asian version of Al Qaeda, who escaped from Singapore after plots to attack Changi airport, the US embassy, and other targets were foiled seven years ago. Arrested in Indonesia two years ago, he was sent back to Singapore and kept under detention until he managed to escape yesterday.

"Massive manhunt", said The Straits Times headline over a facial shot of the goateed terrorist and a report by four reporters who had clearly burnt their shoe leather chatting up anybody living in the neighbourhood who was willing to speak -- but that apparently did not include the guardians of law and order the terrorist managed to slip past.

There was not a word about how he escaped. Only this:

Mas Selamat, 47, who took over as head of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror network  here in 1999, fled the Internal Security Department's Whitley Road detention centre at 4.05pm yesterday.

The minister finally explained today:

Mas Selamat was being taken to the toilet before a meeting at the Family Visit Room when he escaped. (I am quoting from the Channel NewsAsia website. And here's the Straits Times version.)

But how did he escape? Did he suddenly run away, overpower the guards?

Sshh, we mustn't speculate! That's what the minister said. He "apologised for the incident" in parliament and said:

"This should never have happened. I am sorry that it has. An independent investigation is underway and we should not speculate now as to what and how it happened. Security at the centre has been stepped up."

Meanwhile, the terrorist is still "at large".

The minister's explanation raised more questions than answers. He must have done so for security reasons, but he was thereby emulating the Delphic Oracle.

Technorati Tags: jemaah islamiah,terrorist

Hillary and Obama impress again

I support Hillary Clinton, but every time I see Barack Obama, I feel he too would make a great president. Anyone who didn't watch their debate in Cleveland today should visit the MSNBC  website and see it now. You will see them answering each question clearly, cogently,  without fumbling even once, which is remarkable, considering they had to face the cameras for more than 80 minutes. Save the transcript. Paraphrases cannot do justice to two such highly articulate people.

Who says Hillary is selfish, opportunistic? I saw a fighter who passionately cares for the people.

She was strongest when she spoke for universal health care. Mocking Obama's plan which would require parents to buy insurance for their children but not for themselves, she said that "it would be as though Franklin Roosevelt said let's make Social Security voluntary ... or if President Johnson said let's make Medicare voluntary."

She rightly pointed out Obama was not a US senator when he opposed the Iraq war in 2002. As she said:

Many people gave speeches against the war then, and the fair comparison is he didn't have responsibility, he didn't have to vote; by 2004 he was saying that he basically agreed with the way George Bush was conducting the war. And when he came to the Senate, he and I have voted exactly the same. We have voted for the money to fund the war until relatively recently. So the fair comparison was when we both had responsibility, when it wasn't just a speech but it was actually action, where is the difference?

But while Hillary was feisty, Obama was calm and magisterial. He didn't lose a single argument, nor did Hillary.

To his credit, Obama even had good words to say of Hillary and the Clinton administration. He said she would be a "worthy nominee" and praised Clinton's multilateral foreign policy. Too bad, the video on the website does not show he patted Hillary on the back at the end of the live telecast. That's how gracious he was. 

The only loser was Tim Russert! The NBC News Washington bureau chief made a fool of himself when he asked first Obama and then Hillary if they would pull out of Iraq if the Iraqi government wanted them to do so -- and re-invade Iraq if al Qaeda "resurges" (his words, not mine).

Hillary put him down: "You know, Tim, you ask a lot of hypotheticals."

She was right. He earlier asked them if they would opt out of Nafta in six months. As a veteran journalist, he should have known that was a silly question. Both said they would have to review it before making any decision.

What the debate showed was two great candidates -- and the inadequacy of the media. Russert was childish with his stupid questions to paint Hillary and Obama into a corner. But Hillary baiters like Maureen Dowd hardly show any better judgment.

Technorati Tags: hillary clinton,obama

Hillary and Obama at their best

The Hillary-Obama debate made riveting television yesterday. Words can't describe the atmosphere in the University of Texas, Austin, auditorium as the two contenders outlined their policies with passionate conviction to an entranced audience. We saw the power of words and the exultation of the listeners. If you missed the live telecast like me, you can still watch it here. I watched the entire 88-minute videocast without getting up from my computer, it was so good. You can see the transcript at the same time as you watch the video.

Anyone who says Hillary is uninspiring as a speaker should have seen her speak on health care. This woman cares. But Obama was something else. I have watched him on television deliver soul-stirring speeches like the one in Chicago on Super Tuesday when he said, "We are the change we have been waiting for." But he can mesmerise even when he is answering questions, like he did at the debate yesterday. Young, handsome, making his points forcefully, calmly, in a resonant voice and clear enunciation that would do a Shakespearean actor proud, he was commanding, presidential.

It's Hillary's misfortune -- and I say it as one of her admirers -- that she is running against such a charismatic figure as Obama. I have no doubt she would make an excellent president. But so would Obama -- if he is half as good as he looks and sounds. See I am still a Hillary supporter, saying Obama would be excellent if he is half as good as he seems! Actually, when I saw and heard him on television, I had no such doubts.

The finest words in the debate were spoken by Hillary in the closing minutes when she said:

You know, the hits I've taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country. And I resolved at a very young age that I'd been blessed, and that I was called by my faith and by my upbringing to do what I could to give others the same opportunities and blessings that I took for granted. That's what gets me up in the morning. That's what motivates me in this campaign.

The audience cheered.

But Obama was magnificent too. I wish whoever wins would choose the other as the running mate. They would make a dream team.

Confessions of a famous American newsman

Confessions of an American Media Man by Tom Plate

This is a book anyone interested in newspapers and magazines will enjoy. The American journalist Tom Plate, whose syndicated column appears in The Straits Times, looks back on his working life before he became a full-time teacher at the University of Calfornia, Los Angeles. And what a life he had -- Amherst, Princeton, Newsday, the New York magazine, the now defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner,Time, Los Angeles Times.

And, by the way, he was first offered a job by Ben Bradlee at the Washington Post after a summer job there as an intern while an Amherst undergraduate. He turned it down, saying  he wanted to go to graduate school after finishing college. "Graduate school ain't worth shit," scoffed Bradlee. Plate disagrees. Every journalist should have a master's at least, he says, preferably in public policy, international relations or economics. Though now teaching journalism himself, he doesn't much care for J-schools except for the very best -- Columbia, Annenberg.

Plate, who made his name as an editor, not a reporter, admits he was an earnest, young man who read the Newsweek before he read Playboy. No wonder, he admires Singapore, where Playboy is banned. He did write for Playboy later and says he liked its editors and Hugh Hefner.

This is a book with a rich cast of characters. Virtually every famous American journalist and publisher is present:

• Bradlee in the Washington Post newsroom "on the prowl like a cat looking for a fight"
• Bill Moyers and David Laventhol, who mentored Plate at Newsday
• the legendary editor Clay Felker, who lured him away to New York magazine 
• the writer Gail Sheehy who worked for Felker and was his girlfriend (they later married)
• the brilliant Tom Wolfe, who was then writing for New York magazine, was so polite he could never say No
• Rupert Murdoch who, Plate says, sussed him out but didn't give him a job after taking over New York magazine
• the late Sir David English of the Daily Mail, who, according to Plate, was the greatest newspaper editor (Plate worked briefly for him in London under a friendly arrangement with his then employer, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner)
• Strobe Talbott at Time magazine, who later joined the Clinton's administration
• the USA Today founder Al Neuharth
• the former Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler

The list goes on and on.

Plate, to his credit, writes intimately and entertainingly about public figures and the news business. He describes how he got an impromptu interview with then president Bill Clinton during an economic summit at Davos by getting Clinton to pose with an attractive Chinese newswoman from Hong Kong or Taiwan.

He recalls how one section of Time magazine used to close every Friday night with a resounding thud on the floor. Its top editor, who used to start drinking beer and move on to Scotch while going through the copy, would pass out once the job was done.

Plate recalls when the Time editors gave him a farewell party at the chic restaurant 21 in New York, even one of the speakers passed out while proposing a toast.

Plate was unhappy at Time and was asked to leave. It's the mark of a great journalist that he writes candidly about his humiliation. The hours were very long, he was regarded as an outsider, he says. But he also admits his editing deteriorated as a result of the long hours and though he was looking for another job, it was the top editors at Time, not he, who decided he should leave. But they gave him time to find an even better paid job as the editor of another magazine.

An American newsman who admires Singapore

The American journalist Tom Plate, whose column appears in The Straits Times, admires Singapore. In his book, Confessions of an American Media Man, he writes:

Sure, Singapore had its problems -- ethnic tension, excessive political uprightness, constant worries about unemployment. But they've done one heck of a job. The city state has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. The environment is so clean that it is a Western environmentalist's paradise. There is no littering...  The public education system consistently rates as one of the best in the world. The Singapore cabinet invariably fields a team whose collective IQ is at least equal to that of its neighbours' cabinets combined; its civil servants are paid well and its appointment process is, by and large merit-driven; and its much-maligned, if always pro-government, news media... serves all its ethnicities pretty well by not sensationalising frictions and counts one world-class daily newspaper, The Straits Times, among its holdings.   

That's the only mention of The Straits Times, which sometime ago published this section of the book where Plate also writes about his interview with Lee Kuan Yew. When asked what was Singapore's biggest problem after independence in the 1960s, he writes,

Remarkable Singapore

I wrote yesterday that the 1.8 billion Singapore dollars ($1.27 billion) in benefits that Singaporeans will be getting in a budget surplus sharing package is less than one-fifth the amount Singapore is investing in Citigroup. I was having a little fun, knowing the local newspapers would never publish such comparisons. They highlight the benefits instead. But I don't think what the government is doing for Singapore can be measured  in dollars and cents only. Let's not forget the intangibles -- the quality of life in Singapore.

People may have greater social security in the West. But we enjoy peace and stability, an excellent public transport network, a good education system and great amenities. Home ownership is as high as 93 percent and unemployment fell to as low as 1.6 percent in December, according to the Department of Statistics. These are remarkable figures.

Of course, there's a huge income gap: the per capita income from work for the top 10 percent of the employed households last year was 7,940 Singapore dollars -- more than twice as much for the next 10 percent (3,460 Singapore dollars) and more than 25 times times as much as for the poorest 10 percent (310 Singapore dollars).

Among Singapore's major trading partners, only Hong Kong has a wider income gap. Singapore's Gini coefficient -- a measure of income inequality -- was 0.46 last year, according to the government. The corresponding figures for

• Hong Kong 0.523 (survey year 2001)
• Malaysia 0.461 (2002)
• Thailand 0.420 (2002)
• Indonesia 0.363 (2005)
• China 0.469(2004)
• Philippines 0.445 (2003)
• India 0.368 (2004)
• Japan 0.381 (2002)
• South Korea 0.351 (2006)
• Australia 0.352 (1994 )
• New Zealand 0.362 (1997)
• UK 0.340 (2005)
• US 0.450 (2007)

But the government is trying to address this problem. One reason the income tax for top earners was not reduced from 20 percent could be a desire to narrow the gap.

Citigroup 5, Singaporeans 1

Citigroup 5, Singaporeans 1.

That would be the scoreline if this were a game of soccer.

Singaporeans will be getting 1.8 billion Singapore dollars ($1.27 billion)in education grants, Medisave top-ups, income tax rebates and other benefits under a budget surplus sharing package

Citigroup is getting more than five times as much from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), which has agreed to invest $6.9 billion for a 4 percent stake in the troubled banking giant.

Singapore has a budget surplus of 6.4 billion Singapore dollars. Not that the budget has anything to do with the Citigroup deal. GIC is a private company managing Singapore's foreign reserves. It has also decided to invest 11 billion Swiss francs ($10 billion) in UBS and become the Swiss bank's biggest shareholder with a 9 percent stake. UBS announced yesterday it had lost $18 billion in the US subprime mortgage crisis.

The Finance Ministry, which prepares the budget, has its own sovereign fund, Temasek Holdings. Temasek has decided to invest $4.4 billion and take a 9.9 percent stake in the ailing Wall Street firm, Merrill Lynch.

Technorati Tags: budget,citigroup

Price hike follows tax hike

Singapore is facing its steepest price rises in 27 years -- partly due to government policy. The cost of living has gone up partly because of the sales tax hike last year, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said today while presenting this year's budget.

But the main reason for inflation is high prices of food and oil due to rising global demand, he said, adding that "inflation is higher today than we have been used to for many years".

The consumer price index, which averaged 2 percent last year, hit 4.4 percent in December and is expected to hit 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent this year -- Singapore's highest inflation rate since 1981, according to Channel NewsAsia. Prices rose after the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was raised from 5 percent to 7 percent in July last year.

Shanmugratnam said in his budget speech:

The relatively high ‘headline’ consumer price index (CPI) numbers that we are now seeing, like in December, are partly due to the GST increase in July last year. The CPI inflation figure continues to show the impact of the GST change, because it is comparing prices this month with prices 12 months ago, that is, before the GST increase in July 2007. But if we compare prices today with prices say in September last year, there has been little further increase due to the GST change. The GST change has caused only a one-off increase in prices, and not continuing price increases.

He stressed:

Singaporeans have not been materially affected by the GST increase, because the government has provided the majority of citizens with substantial offsets, which more than make up for the increased spending on GST by most families. Lower-income families are in fact receiving offsets which are several times larger than their higher GST payments.

Rising property prices have also contributed to inflation, he added.

(The) rising values of homes... will contribute significantly to inflation this year. However, here too, most Singaporeans are not materially affected, as 95 percent of citizens own their own homes and do not pay rentals.

Early Beatles

I love the Beatles, especially their early songs. I thought Sergeant Pepper's was the greatest album when it was released (yes, I am that old) but now I prefer their earlier exuberance. For the same reason, I love the Beach Boys. This song, of course, is for my wife in Calcutta (Kolkata). I am missing her on this Valentine's Day.

Fats Domino: I Want to Walk You Home

What's a Valentine's Day without some love songs? I love Fats Domino. Here he is singing I Want to Walk You Home. It reminds me of  days long gone by when I met my wife for the first time at the university in Calcutta (Kolkata). We used to go to the National Library and enjoyed walking around the garden.