As in 2009, this time, too, President Barack Obama will be sworn in twice. In 2009, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr fumbled while administering the oath of office during the inauguration ceremony, so Obama had to take the oath again. January 20 – the day the president has to be sworn in, according to the US Constitution – was a Sunday this year, so there could be no public ceremony. Obama took the oath of office in a private ceremony at the White House. Justice Roberts made no mistake this time. The ceremony went off without a hitch. The public ceremony follows today when up to 800,000 people are expected to gather on the National Mall for the inaugural festivities. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 and Ronald Reagan in 1985 also had to be sworn in twice when their second terms commenced, a private oath-taking ceremony on a Sunday followed by a public inaugural the next day.
Lee Kuan Yew, Manmohan Singh, Amartya Sen, Sachin Tendulkar among world’s most influential people: Time
Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew is on the 2010 Time 100 List — not as a leader but as a thinker."There is no better strategic thinker in the world today," says former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Time entry on him. Wow!
Asians who make the Time list as leaders are Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatayama, United Arab Emirates President and ruler of Dubai Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Baidu founder Robin Li, Acer Group chairman JT Wang and Bo Xilai, boss of the city of Chongqing in China.
On the Time list of thinkers are the Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen and social worker Sanjit "Bunker" Roy, both from India.
Among other Indians on the list are cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, writer Chetan Bhagat, eye surgeon Perumalsamy Namperumalsamy and Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. Here's the full list with links to Time entries on these movers and shakers.
Obama claps as healthcare reform bill passed
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Originally uploaded by The White House
President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden applaud the passage of the healthcare reform bill. They were watching the proceedings from the Roosevelt Room, according to PressSec Robert Gibbs, who posted this on Twitter. The White House has also posted his eloquent message to the people — "This is what change looks like" — after the bill was passed by a majority of only seven votes.
World’s highest paid leaders and their economies
Joseph Nye mentions Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his book, The Powers to Lead. He writes:
Setting the right example is another crucial form of communication for leaders. Anticipating a sceptical public reaction when Singapore raised the salaries of government officials in 2007, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that he would forgo the raise for himself.
I read that on the day the Straits Times reported how the Prime Minister had praised the people for their resilience during the recession.
While the government protected jobs by helping employers pay their workers, those looking for work had accepted whatever they could find.
And that, he said, had kept unemployment low — only 2.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year.
Thailand's was even lower, at 1.8 per cent during the second quarter of last year, according to the International Labour Organization. (It did not give later figures for Thailand.) Workers who had lost their jobs in Thailand, Indonesia and much of Southeast Asia were starting their own little businesses in the informal sector, said the ILO's Global Employment Trends report.
But in Singapore the job supply increased.
More people were working by the end of last year than at any other time in the past decade, I noted last Friday when the Ministry of Manpower released its fourth quarter estimate.
So how has the Singapore government done compared with others if leaders are evaluated like workers — with performance indexed to pay?
Let's look at the world's 10 highest paid leaders and see how their economies have performed.
As you can see from the table, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is the only one who can say he has kept his economy from shrinking.
Why Singapore is not like Malaysia
The Singapore government can pat itself on the back for keeping Singapore free from the racial and religious tensions that flare up in Malaysia. But, while the government encourages religious harmony, could there be another reason why Singapore is unlike Malaysia? Look at the ethnic makeup of the two countries.
Singapore is overwhelmingly Chinese: 74.7% of the population is Chinese, 13.6% Malay, 8.9% Indian, while others make up 2.8%, according to Singapore in Figures 2009 by the Singapore Department of Statistics.
Malaysia is not so overwhelmingly Malay: 53% of the population is Malay, 26% Chinese, 8% Indian, while the indigenous people make up 12%, according to the Financial Times article, "Allah" spat marks ethnic Malays' insecurity, published last week.
Countries and regions where ethnic groups are more evenly split can be prone to racial tensions. Look at Lebanon, Nigeria, Sudan, Northern Ireland. The state of Assam in northeastern Indian provides a parallel to Malaysia. Assam also has ethnic-based political parties like Malaysia's Umno, born out of the indigenes' resentment against other ethnic groups.
Singapore might have simmered with similar tensions, too, if the ethnic groups had been more evenly balanced.
What makes me think so?
Because of the widespread resentment against foreigners in Singapore. Singaporeans naturally don't like having to compete with foreigners for jobs and housing. And they see foreigners everywhere. As this chart shows, Singaporeans make up just 64 per cent of the population in Singapore: 3.2 million of the 4.98 million population are Singapore citizens, 533,200 are permanent residents and the rest are foreigners, according to Statistics Singapore.
Singaporeans still enjoy a bigger majority in Singapore than Malays in Malaysia, but that has not prevented a growing resentment against foreigners.
