Blowin' In The Wind

Democrats today = Labour before Tony Blair?

What is it about Obama that makes his supporters either violently vituperative like Maureen Dowd or daft like Nicholas Kristof ? Naders, he calls the Clintons today. What nonsense!

Naders? That must be the nadir of intelligence for a political commentator. How many states did Nader carry?

Aren't the Obama supporters dying to see Hillary give up the battle precisely because he hasn't been able to knock her out? Dowd, Kristof et al say there is no way she can catch up with him in the delegate count and by carrying on the fight she is dividing the Democrats when they should stand united against the Republicans.

But what's wrong if the race goes down to the wire and a winner emerges only at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August? Presidential candidates have been chosen before at party conventions.

But the Democratic candidate will then not even have three months to campaign against the Republican John McCain before the November 4 election, say those who want Hillary to concede the race.

But if they are so sure Obama can win the election -- which is indeed what Obama claims -- what does it matter if he has three months or six months to campaign against McCain, whom he is going to beat anyway? That's what he says, that's what the polls show. But are his supporters, deep down, not so sure?

Why is it that the Democrats now remind me of the British Labour Party after Jim Callaghan and before Tony Blair?

Obama and the other media darling

Barrack Obama is eloquent. Hillary Clinton is scrappy. John McCain can be refreshingly candid and ironic, says a New York Times article. As for those who say he is awfully old, well, look at his record: no one can question his courage and patriotism.

If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, it will be a straight fight between two media darlings, says Neal Gabler in the New York Times article, which suggests McCain is the most impish of the three candidates. While Obama is idolised for his idealism. McCain charms reporters with his seeming candour, self-deprecating humour, irony and cynicism. Gabler recalls:

In 1999, William Greider wrote in Rolling Stone that, “While McCain continues examining his flaws, the reporters on the bus are getting a bit edgy. Will somebody tell this guy to shut up before he self-destructs?”

Imagine, reporters protecting a candidate from himself!

Who blinked first?

Obama supporters, of course, want Hillary to drop dead so he can carry the fight to the old man. Hillary's hopeless struggle for the nomination is distracting Obama from concentrating on the real enemy, they say.

But why shouldn't she carry on the battle when she has as many supporters as Obama? The Democrats are evenly split, according to Rasmussen Reports, with 22 percent wanting Hillary to drop out, and an equal number opposed to Obama.

Obama claims he is more electable than Hillary. But he didn't seem so sure when he didn't want to face the voters again in Florida and Michigan. It was he who blinked, not Hillary.

By ducking the repoll, of course, he stays ahead in the delegate count. But if he is not so sure of winning the Democratic primaries, how can he be so sure of beating the Republicans?

Bye-bye Ford, hello Tata

Isn't it funny that an Indian company is saving British jobs and pensions just when Britain is making it harder for Indians to enter Britain?

The Press Association reports:

Thousands of UK motoring jobs and pensions have been safeguarded after ownership of Jaguar and Land Rover passed from Ford of America to Tata Motors of India.

Jaguar Land Rover has about 13,500 employees.

So desperate was Ford to dump the business it even agreed to contribute $600 million to the workers' pension plans just to get the deal done even though it meant selling at a loss. The $1.7 billion it nets from the $2.3 billion deal is roughly a third of the price it paid for the two luxury brands -- $2.5 billion for Jaguar in 1989 and $2.7 billion for Land Rover in 2000 -- says the Associated Press.

The Indian business daily Business Standard sniffs Tata Motors is paying a hefty price for cars that don't make a lot of money:

The premier automotive group which includes Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo and the Aston Martin—posted pre-tax results of a negative $1.9 billion in 2007 on revenues of approximately $33 billion.

But not every unionist is welcoming the saviour with open arms. Harrumphs Tony Woodley, Unite's joint general secretary: "We would have much preferred Ford to keep the companies in the family, so to speak, especially with Land Rover being so profitable".

Isn't that pathetic, yearning for someone who longer wants you? Only lovers are allowed that -- and the very thick-skinned.

As BusinessWeek says:

For some Brits the deal marks a surprising twist in a long road for two storied corporate names. Could Winston Churchill, or even the current Queen of England, have imagined a half-century ago that a pair of Britain's proudest industrial icons would one day be owned by an Indian company?

They shouldn't be surprised if they took a close look at the British economy.

India is the second biggest investor in the UK after the US.

The fact is not advertised in Britain. Dear old Blighty still keeps a stiff upper lip.

How China is reshaping the world

Western leaders concerned about democracy and human rights in China are barking up the wrong tree. Not even the Chinese intelligentsia is keen on democracy, says a fascinating article in Prospects magazine. Apparently, there is a new right, which brought in economic liberalisation, and a new left, which is keen on social welfare, but democracy is not high on the agenda of either. Power has become the ideal instead. The culture vultures crave soft power, the jingoes hard power, and both are getting their wishes. Chinese influence is growing in Africa and the United Nations, says the article:

In 1995 the US won 50.6 per cent of the votes in the UN general assembly; by 2006, the figure had fallen to just 23.6 per cent. On human rights, the results are even more dramatic: China's win-rate has rocketed from 43 per cent to 82 per cent, while the US's has tumbled from 57 per cent to 22 per cent.

China is already reshaping the world, says the article:

Scores of countries are copying Beijing's state-driven development using public money and foreign investment to build capital-intensive industries. A rash of copycat special economic zones have been set up all over the world—the World Bank estimates that over 3,000 projects are taking place in 120 countries. Globalisation was supposed to mean the worldwide triumph of the market economy, but China is showing that state capitalism is one of its biggest beneficiaries.

Especially interesting are the author Mark Leonard's conversations with Chinese intellectuals.

One informal adviser to President Hu Jintao favours gradual democracy, limited initially to communist party members. Even that would be a big step forward. As Leonard points out:

If the Communist party were a country, its 70 million members would make it bigger than Britain.

Pity the rich

Hath not the rich eyes? Hath not the rich hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as the poor are? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

With apologies to Shakespeare and The Merchant of Venice, I can only tweak Shylock's famous words in my -- solidarity I am in no position to show -- sympathy for the rich people in Singapore. They have been harder hit by inflation than the poor, say the government statisticians in the Department of Statistics. One might wonder how the rich can be affected more than the poor. But look at their expenses, say the statisticians: mounting fuel bills, more expensive holiday travel, rising house costs.

Yes, indeed, somebody has to think of the rich too. Especially in these days of globalisation when the rich and highly qualified can vote with their feet. They only have to book their flights to emigrate wherever they please. As for the poor, where will they go except as immigrant workers?

Just for the record, here's the report which appeared in the freesheet Today and the Department of Statistics' own press release.

Obama, Hillary, Johnson and King

Hillary Clinton offended Barack Obama and a great many others when she recalled President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. She said:

I would point to the fact that that Dr King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became a real in people's lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished." (This is the full quote from The Horse's Mouth blog in Talking Points Memo.)

Obama said:

Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson.

I wonder what he thinks of yesterday's New York Times article which says pretty much the same thing:

In the early 1960s, opinion polls found that a majority of Americans saw civil rights as the dominant issue facing the country. And President Lyndon B Johnson, in one of several memorable 1965 speeches on race, said, speaking before a joint session of Congress after the “Bloody Sunday” voting-rights march from Selma, Ala.: “Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

Yet it was President Johnson, too, who foresaw the end of what Glenda Gilmore, a Yale historian and author of “Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950,” described last week as a 20-year “national conversation on race” in the 1950s and 1960s. After signing the Civil Rights Act in July 1964, the president is said to have observed that he had just handed over the South to the Republicans for at least a generation. The Republicans seized the opportunity to peel off Democratic states.

Johnson was right about the South. He might not have been the greatest president: he did incalculable damage with the war on Vietnam, but he did dream of a Great Society and signed the civil rights legislation at considerable expense to his own party. Anyone who says acknowledging his role belittles King or offends blacks may be politically correct but is ignoring history.

King mentioned once in Obama's speech on race

Obama did not speak about Johnson and there was only one reference to Martin Luther King when he spoke about race in Philadelphia on March 18. He said nothing about the civil rights movement though he mentioned how people of that generation grew up amid segregation. He mentioned King only when he said he had "the great honour of speaking on Dr King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta".

Obama, I guess, has the temperament of a personal blogger who is most comfortable talking about himself.

But he was so eloquent. I was moved when I read the complete speech in the New York Times and saw the YouTube video again after reading Frank Rich's column on The Republican Resurrection. Rich and almost every other commentator has praised the speech to the skies, but no report, no comment, can compare with the experience of reading and watching Obama's speech personally. I especially loved this quote:

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

Truer words were never spoken.

What Singapore fund's Internet profile doesn't say

Temasek Holdings is not a sovereign wealth fund, said a Temasek spokesman as soon as Singapore and Abu Dhabi reached an agreement with the US on sovereign wealth funds. Temasek isn't mentioned in the agreement  reached after talks  attended by its bigger counterpart, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), and Singapore's Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Both GIC and Temasek Holdings are wholly owned by the Singapore government -- though Temasek does not say so in its corporate profile on the Internet. Check the fund's website. Its corporate profile merely says:

Temasek Holdings is an Asia investment house headquartered in Singapore.

With a multinational staff of more than 300 people, we manage a portfolio of over S$160 billion, or more than US$100 billion, focused primarily in Asia.

I found the fund was owned by the Singapore government only when I downloaded Temasek Holdings' Our People, Our Team PDF document. It's mentioned on page 12 of the 27-page document under the heading, Institutionalising Governance, which says:

Temasek is an investment company that owns and manages its assets on a commercial basis.

We are an exempt private company incorporated on 25 June 1974 to hold and manage investments previously held by our shareholder, the Minister for Finance (Incorporated).

Temasek Holdings' CEO, Ho Ching, who is the wife of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and board members can be appointed and dismissed only with the approval of the President of Singapore, says the document. But it adds:

Neither the President nor the Singapore Government is involved in directing our investment, divestment or other business decisions.

Temasek does not manage the reserves of the Singapore government, the document adds.

The Singapore finance ministry website, on the contrary, says:

The Singapore Government gives the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and Temasek Holdings (Temasek) the mandate of managing Government’s financial reserves so as to maximise its long-term value. GIC is an investment management company responsible for the global management of assets belonging to the Singapore Government. Temasek is an investment holding company which owns and manages a diversified portfolio of assets with the objective of delivering long-term returns to its shareholder, the Singapore Government. 

In fact, GIC and Temasek both have to report to Singapore's President SR Nathan and enjoy the same status.

What's a sovereign wealth fund?

However, the Temasek Holdings spokesman said:

Temasek Holdings is not a sovereign wealth fund. Temasek has to sell assets to raise cash for new investments and doesn't require the government to give approvals."

But whether or not it requires government approval has nothing to do whether it's a sovereign wealth fund, as explained in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia says:

A sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is a state-owned fund composed of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, property or other financial instruments.

Sovereign wealth funds are entities that manage state savings for the purposes of investment.

And that is the objective of Temasek Holdings --"delivering long-term returns to its shareholder, the Singapore Government", according to the Singapore finance ministry.

Temasek Holdings is ranked among the world's top 10 sovereign wealth funds both by Wikipedia and the Economist magazine.

Singapore biggest sovereign investor

A draft code for sovereign wealth funds may be ready for Singapore and other sovereign investors to consider when the International Monetary Fund holds its annual meeting in October, says the Wall Street Journal.

Singapore is willing to adopt such a code if Western countries commit to not blocking future acquisitions, said The Times.

Singapore was the biggest sovereign investor last year and the first two months of this year, according to market data provider Dealogic.

A Reuters report quoting Dealogic said:

Singapore... through Temasek Holdings and Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC), had invested about $42 billion between January 2007 and February 2008, accounting for 57 percent of the total sovereign fund investments globally in the period.

That was followed by United Arab Emirates' $10.7 billion and China's $8 billion.

But sovereign funds might be tightening the taps after seeing shares plummet in firms in which they have invested.

Singapore, for example, saw Citi shares drop 30 percent since it agreed to inject funds, along with Kuwait Investment Authority and other private investors on January 14. UBS  shares plunged some 50 percent after GIC agreed to buy a 9 percent stake in the Swiss bank on December 10.

A voluntary code for sovereign funds looks more likely now for two reasons:

• The International Monetary Fund’s executive board is expected to bless the staff’s effort to create a voluntary code of “best practices” to guide sovereign wealth funds, said the Wall Street Journal.
• And Abu Dhabi has pledged it won't use its money to further its political aims. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is the world's biggest sovereign fund, with an estimated $875 billion in assets.

The three-page letter sent to US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other Western finance officials last week marks Abu Dhabi's first official response to Western pressure for greater openness about the sovereign funds and how they operate.

The Journal said:

The letter is a departure from past practices in the hereditary monarchy, where even basic government statistics aren't always disclosed. And it goes much further than many other sovereign funds. Norway's fund has been applauded for its transparency, but Asian and Middle East vehicles have mostly resisted calls to open up.

In a separate report on the proposed code, the Journal said:

A handy guide against howlers

What The Straits Times needs is a language guide like Bill Walsh. Singapore's main newspaper is prone to the kind of howlers Walsh is paid to prevent.

Walsh is the Washington Post's copy desk chief for national news. He has to edit the news, correct mistakes, trim the fat and polish the copy. He enjoys playing the language cop. Going beyond the call of duty of making the Post shine, he blogs about language and has written books on grammar and style. Lapsing into a Comma contains useful tips which could help prevent boo-boos like these. All the examples are taken from the first three pages of yesterday's Straits Times.

• Armed with their resumes, their questions flew thick and fast at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Boston last month, where Singapore was making its debut. (From the front-page story: Singapore on radar of young scientists)
• Before Boston, Mr Lim was in Pennsylvania, where he scored another coup. (From the same story.)
• The country's scientific output increased by 72 percent from 2000 to last year, according to Wiley-Blackwell, a leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical journal. (From the same story.)
• The Education Ministry says there are more university places, relative to the size of the cohort, this year than any previous year. (From the page 2 blurb: No squeeze on university places.)
• Controversial International Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz was the most notable absence from the new Malaysian Cabinet unveiled yesterday by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, who sought to walk the line between reform and strengthening his position in Umno. (From the page three story: KL Cabinet pared down; some fresh faces.)
• He also roped in Umno warlords who lack popular support but will be able to help consolidate his position in the Cabinet. (From the same story.)

Even if you see no need to explain what's wrong with sentences like these, you may still enjoy reading Walsh. He covers a lot of ground. Lapsing into a Comma is a concise, practical, no-nonsense guide useful for bloggers and newspaper writers. But habits are hard to break. If I have broken any of his injunctions here, put it down to the old adage: You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Singapore media silent on Singapore funds

It's all right to read The Straits Times for Singapore ministers' speeches and local court reports. But for other news it's best to check other sources as well. A case in point: The Straits Times coverage of the Bear Stearns meltdown. One article in the Money pages speculates about how cash-rich Singapore financial institutions could benefit from the Wall Street crisis. It says:

Local institutions draw the bulk of their earnings from ultra-safe businesses such as home loans in Singapore, and their well-capitalised balance sheets and cash-rich deposits mean they could benefit from the new global financial order that will surely emerge from this upheaval.

Yes, little Singapore -- population four and a half million but one of the richest countries in the world with a per capita GDP of more than $35,000 -- has the money to capitalise on the crisis. Beleaguered Citigroup and UBS needed billions of dollars from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation to stay in business when they were nearly wiped out by bad debts late last year. That is how the Singapore sovereign wealth fund became a key shareholder of the two banking giants. But does it have the appetite for more such acquisitions?

The Straits Times runs a Reuters report headlined,"Sovereign wealth funds steer clear of Wall Street", which notes they did not bid for Bear Stearns.

But Reuters goes further than that in a report headlined, "Not many suitors left standing for US banks", which specifically mentions Citigroup and the sovereign wealth funds' woes:

International banks have shown little interest in US acquisitions and sovereign wealth funds have already been burned.

The US government may be increasingly involved in rescuing banks, but foreign governments are likely to be more reluctant to put more money in US financial institutions, after having already lost big on their investments so far.

Since late November, Citigroup has raised more than $15 billion of capital from sovereign wealth funds. But the company's shares have dropped more than a third since the beginning of the year...

Citigroup is facing big writedowns...

Writedowns are painful for banks, whose business model is to borrow most of their capital.

Singapore's other sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings, also has problems.

It has a stake in Merrill Lynch, one of the four remaining Wall Street investment banks after the collapse of Bear Stearns. Lehman Brothers was the one believed to be most at risk, but it posted better than expected first quarter results while doubts persist about Merrill Lynch. Bloomberg reports:

Merrill Lynch``is the riskiest'' of the largest remaining US investment banks, while Lehman Brothers Holdings has the strongest access to capital, according to Wachovia Corp analyst Douglas Sipkin.

Merill Lynch has $30.4 billion in subprime collateralised debt obligations and the ``worst'' liquidity ratio of 52 percent, Sipkin wrote. Lehman's liquidity ratio was the highest at 74 percent, he said.

Meredith Whitney, another major analyst, also expects Merrill Lynch, UBS and Citigroup to be worst hit by the financial crisis.

Temasek's problems don't end there. Bloomberg reports:

Merrill Lynch, UBS, Citigroup next, warns analyst

The Times of London reports:

Meredith Whitney, the Wall Street analyst who received death threats after writing a negative report about Citigroup, has predicted that financial stocks could plummet by as much as half in the wake of the Bear Stearns fire sale.

The analyst says Merrill Lynch, UBS and Citigroup will be the worst hit.

The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GICC) has $6.88 billion in Citigroup and $9.75 billion in UBS while the other Singapore sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings, has more than a $4 billion stake in Merrill Lynch.

Whitney is a major Wall Street analyst. Her pessimistic report about the future of Citibank led to about  $369 billion being wiped off the US stock market on November 1 last year.

The New York Times DealBook reports:

Matthew O’Conner of UBS drew a line between banks and brokerages on Monday, suggesting that banks, which are funded largely by government-insured customer deposits, could be relative “safe havens” in the current storm.

But Whitney saw big risks for a wide range of financial stocks. Here is the crux of her theory.

While financial firms are often valued as a multiple of their book value, Whitney argues that something called tangible book value is a better gauge.

Book value includes “goodwill,” an accounting concept that is used in acquisitions to make both sides of the ledger match up. Essentially, it fills the gap between a purchase price and the value of the assets acquired.

In recent years, many financial firms have experienced big increases in their book value, but their tangible book value has not risen nearly as much...

This disconnect could become more important if, as Whitney believes, many financial firms start writing off goodwill later this year.

Citi and the Bear

The losses suffered by Bear Stearns were nothing compared with the sea of red ink drowning Citigroup. So why can Citi be expected to pull through while the Bear went bust? Size and deep pockets.

Singapore, which has a stake in Citigroup, is playing it cool. The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced today Singapore banks and hedge funds have enough cash to weather the financial turmoil. The Singapore sovereign wealth fund, Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, recently decided to invest $6.88 billion for a 4 percent stake in Citigroup.

Citigroup, which has fallen 27 percent since reporting a record $9.8 billion loss for the fourth quarter last year, may have writedowns of $15 billion this quarter, reports Bloomberg today, quoting Merrill Lynch. That would add to the $22 billion that Citigroup already lost because of the US housing slump.

Bear Stearns' losses were negligible in comparison. It announced a net loss of $854 million for the fourth quarter of 2007 as it wrote off $1.9 billion tied to mortgage-backed securities and was forced to close two of its hedge funds, says The Times.

But there's no comparison between the two banks.

Bear Stearns had a market value of $4.1 billion last Friday, according to the New York Times.

Citigroup had $2.4 trillion in assets as of September 2007, according to Forbes Global 2007, says Wikipedia.

Citigroup has other wealthy backers besides Singapore. The bank has raised about $30 billion from Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Al Waleed.

But it would need a lot more money to be rescued, said Dubai's sovereign wealth fund manager early this month, sending Citi shares and financial markets into a tailspin. Citigroup is currently trading below book value, according to the New York Times.

Singapore is also shaking up Wall Street firms. Shares of Lehman Brothers Holdings plunged in premarket trading on Monday after a news report that Southeast Asia's largest bank instructed traders in an e-mail not to do business with the bank, reported the International Herald Tribune.

Singapore's DBS Group Holdings took back those instructions, but after the fall of Bear Stearns on Sunday, skittish investors sold off quickly and Lehman shares fell more than 27 percent, or $10.76, to $28.50, it added.

DBS is part of Singapore's other sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings, which has a stake in the rival Wall Street investment bank, Merrill Lynch.

Billions can be wiped out overnight in the jittery market. Think of the Bear. Sold for only $2 a share for about $236 million -- less than a tenth of its value last week -- to JPMorgan Chase.

There could be worse to come, says The Times in a report headlined "Bear Stearns: the banking twister heading your way".

Spare us, please, a rerun of October 29, 1929. That's the day Wall Street crashed, starting the Great Depression.

PS: Both Citigroup and Merill Lynch posted losses, reports Wall Street Journal. Citigroup was down 6 percent, Merrill Lynch 5.4 percent.

Naipaul interviewed

The Observer has an interview with Naipaul today. It begins with a delicious anecdote. When the head of the Swedish Academy called him at his home in England in October 2001 to tell him he had won the Nobel Prize, his wife picked up the phone and said he could not be disturbed: he was busy writing!

The interviewer, Robert McCrum, writes:

Everyone agrees that VS Naipaul is fully alive to his own importance. (A) volatile mixture of pride and insecurity illuminates everything about him. 'I am the kind of writer,' he once said, 'that people think other people are reading.'

In the interview:

Naipaul says that A House for Mr Biswas (1961) is 'of all my books, the one that is closest to me'. Its success marked the climax of his youthful career, and he believes that its two years' gestation were 'the most consuming, the most fulfilled, the happiest years of my life. They were my Eden.'

But though it was hailed as a masterpiece and sealed his reputation, which had started growing with his first novel, The Mystic Masseur (1957), there were some unfavourable reviews. Time magazine famously said:

Naipaul's House, though built of excellent exotic materials, sags badly; economy, style, and a less elastic blueprint would have done wonders.

I finished reading A House for Mr Biswas for the second time a few days ago. So I know why it may not be everybody's cup of tea. I myself have mixed feelings about Mr Biswas. I see myself in his ineffectuality. And then all that dialogue in Caribbean English can get a bit tiresome. Do people really speak like that? But it's also a story of progress, of ambition and triumph over adversity. The son of a sugarcane plantation worker, Mr Biswas gets an education, starts life as a sign painter, becomes a journalist, buys a car, becomes a homeowner, sees his children get educated abroad. The success is tempered by failure. He loses his job, the house is jerrybuilt. But that is what makes the story all the more realistic and touching. It's a great book about the immigrant experience. Not even in remote Trinidad do the Indians lose their Indiannness.

McCrum notes Naipaul isn't liked by his fellow Caribbean Nobel Prize winner, the poet Derek Walcott, who said: 'If Naipaul's attitude toward negroes, with its nasty little sneers... was turned on Jews, for example, how many people would praise him for his frankness?'

Naipaul is a deeply polarising figure, reminds McCrum. Even after winning the Nobel Prize, he is still competitive. McCrum writes:

Singapore and UN convention against torture

President Bush this month vetoed a bill that would have barred CIA agents from using harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding -- or simulated drowning -- on suspected terrorists. This made news around the world including Singapore. But did the Singapore media report that Singapore, unlike the USA, is yet to sign the Convention Against Torture?

I learnt this by chance while reading The Economist whose China correspondent was the only foreign journalist in Lhasa with official permission when riots broke out in the Tibetan capital two days ago. On the sidebar of the correspondent's report was a blogroll which said "Human Rights offers a series of articles on Tibet". The link led me to the Human Rights Watch's China page which linked to articles about migrant construction workers in Beijing. Foreign construction workers are often in the news in booming city states such as Dubai and Singapore. So I searched the Human Rights Watch website for articles on Dubai and Singapore. That's how I came across the Human Rights Watch World Report 2008 entry on Singapore, which summed up last year's events in Singapore. The last paragraph said:

Singapore has not ratified important international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention Against Torture.

I am not posting this information here as a criticism of Singapore or the Singapore media. I love Singapore. I appreciate its order and stability. That feeling's no doubt shared by the vast majority of the people; otherwise the ruling People's Action Party would not have 82 of the 84 elected members of parliament. Only two belong to the opposition.

I am posting this just to point out how anyone on the Internet can get information that is not easily available elsewhere. Singapore encourages people to freely surf the Internet: unlike other Asian countries, it has never restricted access to YouTube, Blogspot or any popular website. If Singapore is yet to sign some international convention, it must have legitimate reasons. The Singapore government tries to educate the people when it signs an international agreement. I recall the coverage given when Singapore ratified the Kyoto Protocol. People were told the implications of the treaty and how they could help reduce emission of greenhouse gases by cutting back on energy consumption.

As for the Convention Against Torture, 145 countries have become parties to the agreement by October 2007 including Indonesia, Thailand, Timor-Leste and the Philippines. Among those holding out are Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Iraq, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

Singapore opposition leader arrested

Singapore opposition leader Chee Soon Juan and several others were arrested today for holding a rally without a permit outside Parliament House to protest against the rising cost of living, report AFP and Reuters.

The protesters were bundled into police vans after plainclothes officers arrested them, the reports said. AFP said 10 people were arrested including Chee's sister while Reuters said:

The police could not immediately confirm how many people were arrested or what they were charged with.

I saw the AFP report on MSN News but it is also there on the Straits Times website though not yet on Channel NewsAsia. The International Herald Tribune has also picked up the report from the Associated Press.

AFP said:

Chee is the leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, one of a handful of opposition parties in the city-state, which has been ruled by the People's Action Party since 1959.

About 18 protesters, including children, had earlier gathered outside parliament where they symbolically laid groceries on a sidewalk.

They wore red T-shirts with the words "We cannot take it anymore" while others carried placards denouncing rising prices.

The 10 were arrested after ignoring police calls to disperse and lay down their placards, the witnesses said.

Singapore, scarred by racial riots in the 1960s, has strict laws against public assembly, which require a police permit for a gathering of five or more people.

Reuters  has a picture of the protesters in red T-shirts and holding placards. The actual words on the T-shirts are "Tak Boleh Tahah" (Malay for "we cannot take it anymore"). Reuters adds:

Meanwhile, online in China...

While the violence in Tibet is getting international coverage, this is what I saw when I visited two Chinese English-language websites: not a word on Tibet. China Daily was displaying on the top half of the page stories headlined China outclicks  the US ("China has surpassed the US in terms of Internet users") and NY governor resigns, call-girl famed (sic). Xinhua had stories about the communist party, European Union and Africa.

China accuses the Dalai Lama of masterminding Tibet protests, reports Reuters quoting Xinhua. But I didn't see that story on either site. The Dalai Lama has denied the charge, reports the BBC.

CNN reports: China continues to impose reporting restrictions in Tibet and the neighbouring province of Xinjiang. CNN sought permission to enter Tibet on Friday morning Beijing time. So far, this permission has not been granted. CNN reporting on Tibet was being blacked out Friday in mainland China.

Tibet and China

So foolish and ... wrong. Violence shouldn't be encouraged. People shouldn't be encouraged to die as they surely will if the protests in Tibet continue. After all, they are protesting against authorities who crushed their own people at Tienanman Square. But isn't it strange that while China has become the envy of the world for its economic success, some people want no part of it?

People led by Buddhist monks in Lhasa are setting fire to shops and cars and destroying anything of Chinese influence -- and Chinese troops have responded with teargas and live ammunition, killing an unknown number of people, reports the BBC quoting eyewitnesses.

The protests coincide with 49th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day, reminds Tibet.com, the website of the Tibetan Government in Exile -- the Dalai Lama and his supporters in Dharamsala, India. The Dalai Lama has appealed to Beijing to stop using "brute force", reports the BBC. While offering refuge to Tibetans, India has done everything to prevent trouble, arresting more than a hundred Tibetans on a peaceful march back to Tibet.

But what is Tibetan National Uprising Day? March10.org, a website bearing the date of the failed uprising, pieces together the story from newspaper reports about what happened in March 1959. The Guardian has a concise Q & A on Tibet and China which recalls " a bloody rebellion against the Chinese in 1959 left thousands dead and the Dalai Lama exiled to Dharamsala in India".

Students for a Free Tibet is another website to check for news about Tibet.

Maybe the protesters are a minority in their own country, maybe they are backward-looking, but it shows Tibet is yet to be fully assimilated into China. Not even the highest railway line in the world and other engineering marvels connecting Tibet with China and the influx of Chinese into the Himalayan fastness have been able to bridge the gulf between Beijing and Lhasa.

It is a reminder that China, for all its economic liberalisation, is a communist state. The Han Chinese influx into Tibet with Beijing's official encouragement reminds one of the large-scale population movements across the former Soviet Union. The BBC reports Tibet has 2.62 million people, according to the 2000 Chinese census, but doesn't give the ethnic breakdown. Wikipedia, on the other hand, says the population is 2.74 million of whom 92.1 percent are Tibetans and only 6.1 percent Han Chinese. It makes one wonder why then are the Tibetans protesting.

It's best to get along with China, as the West has learnt. Earlier today, the Associated Press reported how some viruses come pre-installed in electronic gadgets made in China, but apparently the only solution is for buyers to protect themselves by running anti-virus programs; help can be expected from no other quarters.

Tibet.com carries the statement issued by the Dalai Lama on March 10, the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day. Tibet.com reports:

Obama's remarkable mum

I support Hillary Clinton though every time I see or hear Barack Obama on a videoclip or television, I am deeply impressed. But if I were to vote for him, it would be for his mother, or what I read about her in the International Herald Tribune. What a remarkable woman. Obama seems far more conventional than his mother.

This is such a wonderful picture of them together. (Photo International Herald Tribune)

Of course, he couldn't have it easy being the child of such an idealistic woman. Living in different cultures, finding his own identity, there were issues he faced that might have never surfaced if he were born into a more conventional family. It's revealing he has not followed in his mother's footsteps, sparing his children the same experience.

I admire Obama, so I hope his supporters won't mind this. But I am surprised Hillary had to apologise for what her supporter Geraldine Ferraro said: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Isn't that true? Won't Obama make history if he becomes the first African American president? Won't he make history just by winning the Democratic nomination? Isn't part of his appeal his multiracial heritage?

There is no other leader in the news who can make the same claim. It is one of the things that makes him exceptional. It has galvanised the African Americans and attracted so many others that he is the frontrunner in the Democratic race. And when somebody points that out, apologies are called for? Strange.    

Even calling him "lucky" doesn't detract him from his powerful appeal for he is fortunate indeed to possess such charisma. It's a gift which can't be earned by hard work.

I just wish this skirmishing ended and Hillary and Obama became running mates for the November election.

The Economist's faulty Shakespeare

Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is compared to King Lear by The Economist magazine. Mahathir finds fault with another heir, it says. So far so good. But then it gets the plotline hopelessly mixed. The conclusion it draws is completely out of whack with the Shakespearean tragedy.   

The Economist says:

Dr Mahathir seems to have taken the results of the election on March 8th personally. The BN (Barisan Nasional) won comfortably. But it lost its two-thirds majority in parliament—needed if it wants to change the constitution (which it does, on average, once every 15 months)—and was defeated in five of the concurrent elections for the 13 state governments (before the election it controlled all but one). For the first time since Malaysia became independent some 50 years ago, the UMNO faces the prospect of losing power.

Dr Mahathir has no doubt about whom to blame. He said Abdullah Badawi, the prime minister, should accept “100% responsibility” and resign.

It adds:

Dr Mahathir must admit that his record in picking successors is, at best, patchy. Mr Badawi’s predecessor as anointee was Anwar Ibrahim, whom Dr Mahathir turned against in 1998, during the regional financial meltdown.

Many Malaysians remain suspicious of Mr Anwar. His trajectory from youthful Islamic firebrand to loyal Mahathir deputy to liberal leader of the reformist opposition has been too seamless. But his suffering in jail, and Dr Mahtahir’s victimisation of him, has made many give him the benefit of the doubt. And at least he has moved with the times.

UMNO itself, however, and Dr Mahathir, seem stuck in the past. They have not realised that the modern, multiracial, dynamic society they have helped spawn is ready for a more competitive politics. One of the most encouraging aspects of this election is the way both government and opposition have reacted to the result: graciously and with restraint.

Dr Mahathir may have chosen far better than he knows.

Now that's something nobody's going to say about King Lear. Anyone who has seen or read the play will agree the old man couldn't have chosen anyone worse than his two older daughters, Goneril and Regan, as his heirs.

The fact that Lear rues dividing his kingdom between the treacherous vixens, disinheriting his youngest daughter, Cordelia, is of course in line with Mahathir's current state of mind.

Now he says he made the wrong choice, picking Abdullah Badawi as his successor instead of Najib Tun Razak, the current No 2. So if Mahathir is King Lear, Najib is Cordelia? Mind-boggling, isn't it? The Economist wisely doesn't cast anyone in the role of Cordelia. 

Eliot Spitzer's MySpace callgirl

MySpace, sex service with a website, smurfing -- the Eliot Spitzer scandal is a high-tech morality tale.

"Kristen" -- the callgirl a one-hour session with on the night of February 13 in Washington's Mayflower Hotel led to the New York governor's downfall -- is actually Ashley Alexandra Dupre who has her own MySpace page. "I am all about my music, and my music is all about me," she says on her MySpace page where she lists Whitney Houston, Madonna, Mary G Blige, Amy Winehouse and Celine Dion among her friends. The New York Times has an interview with her.

Though Spitzer announced his resignation yesterday, he hasn't been charged with any crime though prosecutors have not ruled that out yet. Dupre, a New Yorker, went to Washington for the date with the governor as wanted by him. That's "transporting across state lines", a federal crime.

Spitzer was recorded fixing the appointment with the girl's agent on the phone. But the Emperors Club VIP also had a website to attract clients. Pictures of the girls were posted without showing their faces and they were rated on a scale of one to seven diamonds, much like hotels are rated with Michelin stars. The charges ranged from $1,000 to more $5,500 an hour. Credit card payments were accepted.

FBI chargesheet

These details were revealed in the FBI chargesheet against two men and two women charged with "arranging connections between wealthy male clients and more than 50 prostitutes" in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Miami, London and Paris among other places. The two men were also charged with conspiring to launder more than $1 million. The FBI chargesheet can be downloaded as a PDF file.

Singapore fund's global investments

The two airports of Rome -- Fiumcino and Roma Ciampino -- won't be the first in which the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) will have an interest. Its subsidiary, GIC Special Investments (GICSI), already has a stake in British Airport Authority (BAA), the world's largest airport operator with seven airports in the UK, including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead.

GICSI was part of the consortium which acquired BAA in May 2006. And it is GICSI that is spreading its wings to Rome.

GICSI is investing about 1 billion euros ( $1.53 billion) in fashion house Benetton's holding company, Sintonia SA, which has a 95.7 percent stake in Rome airport operator Aeroporti di Roma through a holding company called Gemina. Sintonia also controls Italian highway operator Atlantia and has a stake in Telco, the holding that controls Italy's largest telecom operator, Telecom Italia.

But the Singapore sovereign wealth fund won't have a say in the United Colors of Benetton. The Benetton Group clothing company is controlled by the Benetton family through the separate Edizione Holding.

And I thought the Benettons were just a fashion house! They are a conglomerate. And so is the Singapore fund manager.

GIC board of directors (1-7) Chairman: Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Deputy Chairman: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Deputy Chairman and Executive Director: Former deputy prime minister Tony Tan, Directors: Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Finance and Education Tharman Shanmugratnam, Minister for Transport and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim, Former minister for finance and GIC Real Estate Chairman Richard Hu. (Photos GIC)

GIC keeps popping up in the news for various deals. But it has three subsidiaries: GICSI; GIC Asset Management which invests in equities in 40 countries outside Singapore, manages bond investments and deals in foreign exchange; and GIC Real Estate, one of the world's top 10 real estate investment firms.

Other GICSI investments include:

• Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC)
  A wholesale bank set up by the Indian government to provide infrastructure financing. By August 2006, it has reached a market capitalisation of about $1.5 billion.
• China International Capital Corporation (CICC)
  The leading Chinese investment bank.
• Li Ning
  The largest Chinese sports apparel and footwear company.
• Associated British Ports Holdings (ABP)
  The largest port operator in the UK.

Singapore billion for Benettons

Singapore is taking a stake in the Benettons, but not in the fashion business. The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) is investing about 1 billion euros ($1.53 billion) in the Italian family's holding company, Sintonia SA. The fashion business is part of the family's other holding company, Edizione Holding.

Sintonia is focused on infrastructure, not hemlines, holding stakes in Italian highway operator Atlantia  and Italy's largest telecom operator Telecom Italia through holding company Telco. Sintonia also owns a 95.7 percent stake in Rome airport operator Aeroporti di Roma through a holding company called Gemina, reports CNN Money. So GIC gets a share of a telco too like the other Singapore sovereign fund, Temasek Holdings, which has SingTel -- which, in its turn, has stakes in foreign telecoms such as Optus in Australia, Bharti Group in India, Globe Telecom in the Philippines, Pacific Bangladesh Telecom and Telkomsel in Indonesia.

GIC is buying a 14.3 percent stake in Sintonia, reported Reuters quoting Sintonia. GIC will be given one or two board representatives, said the Italian daily, La Stampa.

GIC is the first of a small number of additional partners the Benettons are seeking as part of a global expansion of their operations, reports the Financial Times. The Benettons have already been joined by Goldman Sachs and Mediobanca, the Italian investment bank, it added.

The man who shrank the Big Apple pie

Whatever New Yorkers may think of him, Eliot Spitzer (photo New York Times) deserves the gratitude of at least one city: London.

London overtook New York as the world's money capital in 2006 just as he was ending his eight-year run as New York attorney general to become the governor of the state.

He cracked down on Wall Street, and the money gushed into London. As The Economist reported in September 2007:

His zeal won over many consumers in New York, but it did not go down well in international capital markets.

It added:

Much of the financial world's grumbling in recent years was directed at Eliot Spitzer, the former attorney-general (and now governor) of New York, who cracked down so zealously on the private sector that his name became synonymous with heavy-handed regulation. But some financiers suggest that the national regulators in Washington, DC, have been just as tough on the sector.

Spitzer exposed price fixing in computer chips, stock market analysts misleading the public, mutual fund brokers allowing favoured customers to trade after the market had closed for the day, payola, graft in the insurance industry, and other rackets. And he was elected governor by a landslide with 69 percent of the vote.

But meanwhile business was slipping away. As The Sunday Times of London in December 2006 reported:

The damage to New York began with 9/11. The ferocious increase in airport security that followed turned every flight into JFK and Newark into a nightmare of queues and searches. Businessmen from the big emerging markets – India, China and Russia – found they were regarded with suspicion... the number of business travellers to the US fell by 10 percent from 2004-5...

And then came the real blow to New York. The Enron and WorldCom corporate scandals rocked Wall Street’s bull-market complacency and, in panic, everybody overreacted. A swarm of new enforcement measures descended on the ruins of the companies. In 2002, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, known as Sox. This hugely tightened the rules of corporate governance and put barriers in the way of companies wanting to go public in New York. Foreign companies planning a New York listing were aghast...

India and the Booker

   

The Booker Prize (now the Man Booker) has been won by novels set in India six times in the 40-year history of the Commonwealth's biggest literature prize. That's excluding The Life of Pi, the 2002 winner by the Canadian writer Yann Martel, which I haven't read but which is also partly set in India. I discovered that going through the list of winners published by the Observer, which is asking readers to name their favourite Booker winner.

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, the 1981 Booker Prize winner, was declared the Booker of Bookers in 1993. The other India-based Booker winners are:

• The Siege of Krishnapur, by JG Farrell (1973)
• Heat and Dust, by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975)
• Staying On, by Paul Scott (1977)
• The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy (1997)
• The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai (2006)

The Irish writer Ann Enright's The Gathering was the winner last year. Also on the shortlist was the Indian Indra Sinha's Animal's People along with former Booker winner Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach, the Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Nicola Barker's Darkmans and Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip. (The winner is chosen from a shortlist of six.)

While Kiran Desai won in 2006, the only other Indian to make the shortlist since 2000 was Rohinton Mistry for Family Matters in 2002.

Kiran Desai's mother, Anita Desai, made the shortlist in 1999 for Fasting, Feasting. Apart from Roy, who won in 1997, the only other Indian shortlisted in the 1990s was Mistry, again, in 1996 for A Fine Balance.

India's early success and long dry spell

Indian writers and novels set in India seem to have done best in the Booker's early days. They won four times between 1973 and 1981 but never again until Arundhati Roy took the literary world by storm in 1997. Rushdie was shortlisted twice, for The Satanic Verses in 1988 and Shame in 1983 -- but Vikram Seth never. That is really surprising: he is one of the finest contemporary writers.

Personally, I think the Booker is overrated. I didn't enjoy reading Margaret Atwood's Blind Assassin, the 2000 winner. Some of the winners between the late 90s and the early noughties were a little too trendy for my taste. Reading the reviews was enough to put me off.

But there's no denying that nothing moves books like a Booker. Although this year's longlist -- the initial nominees -- won't be announced till July 29 and the winner revealed only on October 14. the Booker website is already busy. The judges' panel is headed by the former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Portillo and includes writer and broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kohli.

Here's the complete list of Booker Prize winners: