The Fairbank Report...(如意報告)
**NB: Signed articles represent the opinions of the respective
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of THE FAIRBANK REPORT/RUYI BAOGAO (如 意 報 告).
30 September 2010
25 September 2010
Singapore: Paradise Lost
Star, Malaysia
September 4, 2010
INSIGHT: BY SEAH CHIANG NEE
BURSTING at our seams. This is a frequent phrase used to describe Singapore these days, after its population crossed the five million mark.
Hardly a day passes without a citizen or two complaining about overcrowdedness or shortage of amenities or rising costs associated with the mass arrival of foreigners.
With immigration continuing to rise, the controversy could become the hottest issue in the general election that is expected to take place within the next 12 months.
What is annoying Singaporeans is, not their presence, but the large number of people who have arrived to work and live in their overstretched city.
The sentiment is, however, not one way.
Support is coming from a section of society which is greatly benefiting from cheap manpower and the larger customer base that the foreigners bring.
For them, the newly-released statistics are encouraging. A new census report released last week shows the population reaching 5.08 million, with foreigners making up 36.4%, or more than a third.
The number of foreign workers has risen some 75% from 750,000 in 2000 to 1.31 million currently.
Adding to the overcrowdedness is the 1.1 million tourists who set foot on this 711 sq km island every month.
The immigration policy has expanded the population by 25% in 10 years, one of the highest rates in the world, surpassing even the traditional migrant societies.
Canada’s population, for instance, is 19.8% foreign-born, New Zealand’s 23% and the US 16%.
In Japan, one legislator recently suggested raising the foreign content of its declining population to 10% within the next 10 years.
Singapore’s record, as far as its citizens are concerned, is less than welcomed. The new arrivals have strained its infrastructure, creating a shortage in public housing that was once Singapore’s showcase to the world.
As a result, thousands of graduates who plan to settle down are compelled to wait for years – or jostle with foreign PRs to pay a lot more for a resale flat. Roads and shopping plazas are jammed during weekends, and hospitals as well as buses and trains are packed.
“People have to queue for a restaurant table and queue again to pay the bill,” one shopper moaned.
Timmy lamented: “I remember Singapore was not like this a few years ago.
“Now our standard of living is dropping every day.”
Many are complaining of spiralling prices in the wake of growing demand. Another Singaporean, Daniel, said: “I find it unsettling just to note how fast our society is being taken over by foreigners.”
Last week, a foreign correspondent based here wrote that Singapore is showing symptoms of urban stress as more immigrants and guest workers jostle for space with the locals.
He named some of them – “flash floods along posh Orchard Road; packed subway trains; traffic gridlock in the morning and evening rush hours and intensifying competition for public flats.”
They have affected Singapore’s image as a squeaky-clean, smooth-flowing city that has earned it the reputation as one of the world’s most livable, he added.
Businesses and motorists recently complained about road closures or diversions for major public events.
Motorists were asked to give way to buses transporting athletes taking part in the Youth Olympics; shops in the city centre were affected.
To cope with increasing demand and shrinking supply, property developers have happily been reducing the average size of flats, making buyers pay more to get less.
A 1600 sq ft flat which was the average in the 80s is today regarded as a luxury. In fact, some under-300 sq ft apartment dwellings have made an appearance for S$500,000 (RM1.16mil) each – and sold like hot cakes.
Singapore architect Khoo Peng Beng, in a speech last week in Venice, said that urban planners who were bracing for a influx of people should look to Singapore as a “model compact city”.
The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) is evidently concerned about the rising public resentment.
“It is fighting its biggest political battle in modern history,” said a company consultant. On the outcome will decide the long-term future of the party, he said.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week announced a number of important measures to improve sentiments, including:
> Making it easier for first-time buyers by building a total 38,000 more government flats in 2010-11, as well as cutting down on owners having more than one such flat.
> Spending S$60bil (RM139bil) over the next 10 years to double Singapore’s mass rail network to relieve over-crowding.
> A top up of S$9000 (RM20,848) to S$10,500 (RM24,323) over 12 years in their study grant and retirement fund for those Singaporeans who complete their 12-year national service cycle.
It is apparently aimed at convincing Singaporeans that they come first before foreigners.
The move to increase the chances of first-time buyers to get a subsidised flat is well received by some young Singaporeans, but few believe Lee has changed the overall political landscape.
For the estimated 1.8 million foreign residents here, the uppermost question is whether it will lead to any deterioration of public sentiments towards them.
In recent years, there had been increasing conflicts between locals and foreigners but rarely any violence. Political leaders have repeatedly appealed to citizens to help the new arrivals integrate.
Prominent blogger Lucky Tan said that until the arrivals turned excessive, Singaporeans were the most open people in the world.
“Nowhere else in the world can you find such a high level of acceptance of foreigners,” he noted.
It was only when they crossed the 25% mark and structural unemployment emerged that Singaporeans began to react, he added.
o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com
September 4, 2010
INSIGHT: BY SEAH CHIANG NEE
BURSTING at our seams. This is a frequent phrase used to describe Singapore these days, after its population crossed the five million mark.
Hardly a day passes without a citizen or two complaining about overcrowdedness or shortage of amenities or rising costs associated with the mass arrival of foreigners.
With immigration continuing to rise, the controversy could become the hottest issue in the general election that is expected to take place within the next 12 months.
What is annoying Singaporeans is, not their presence, but the large number of people who have arrived to work and live in their overstretched city.
The sentiment is, however, not one way.
Support is coming from a section of society which is greatly benefiting from cheap manpower and the larger customer base that the foreigners bring.
For them, the newly-released statistics are encouraging. A new census report released last week shows the population reaching 5.08 million, with foreigners making up 36.4%, or more than a third.
The number of foreign workers has risen some 75% from 750,000 in 2000 to 1.31 million currently.
Adding to the overcrowdedness is the 1.1 million tourists who set foot on this 711 sq km island every month.
The immigration policy has expanded the population by 25% in 10 years, one of the highest rates in the world, surpassing even the traditional migrant societies.
Canada’s population, for instance, is 19.8% foreign-born, New Zealand’s 23% and the US 16%.
In Japan, one legislator recently suggested raising the foreign content of its declining population to 10% within the next 10 years.
Singapore’s record, as far as its citizens are concerned, is less than welcomed. The new arrivals have strained its infrastructure, creating a shortage in public housing that was once Singapore’s showcase to the world.
As a result, thousands of graduates who plan to settle down are compelled to wait for years – or jostle with foreign PRs to pay a lot more for a resale flat. Roads and shopping plazas are jammed during weekends, and hospitals as well as buses and trains are packed.
“People have to queue for a restaurant table and queue again to pay the bill,” one shopper moaned.
Timmy lamented: “I remember Singapore was not like this a few years ago.
“Now our standard of living is dropping every day.”
Many are complaining of spiralling prices in the wake of growing demand. Another Singaporean, Daniel, said: “I find it unsettling just to note how fast our society is being taken over by foreigners.”
Last week, a foreign correspondent based here wrote that Singapore is showing symptoms of urban stress as more immigrants and guest workers jostle for space with the locals.
He named some of them – “flash floods along posh Orchard Road; packed subway trains; traffic gridlock in the morning and evening rush hours and intensifying competition for public flats.”
They have affected Singapore’s image as a squeaky-clean, smooth-flowing city that has earned it the reputation as one of the world’s most livable, he added.
Businesses and motorists recently complained about road closures or diversions for major public events.
Motorists were asked to give way to buses transporting athletes taking part in the Youth Olympics; shops in the city centre were affected.
To cope with increasing demand and shrinking supply, property developers have happily been reducing the average size of flats, making buyers pay more to get less.
A 1600 sq ft flat which was the average in the 80s is today regarded as a luxury. In fact, some under-300 sq ft apartment dwellings have made an appearance for S$500,000 (RM1.16mil) each – and sold like hot cakes.
Singapore architect Khoo Peng Beng, in a speech last week in Venice, said that urban planners who were bracing for a influx of people should look to Singapore as a “model compact city”.
The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) is evidently concerned about the rising public resentment.
“It is fighting its biggest political battle in modern history,” said a company consultant. On the outcome will decide the long-term future of the party, he said.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week announced a number of important measures to improve sentiments, including:
> Making it easier for first-time buyers by building a total 38,000 more government flats in 2010-11, as well as cutting down on owners having more than one such flat.
> Spending S$60bil (RM139bil) over the next 10 years to double Singapore’s mass rail network to relieve over-crowding.
> A top up of S$9000 (RM20,848) to S$10,500 (RM24,323) over 12 years in their study grant and retirement fund for those Singaporeans who complete their 12-year national service cycle.
It is apparently aimed at convincing Singaporeans that they come first before foreigners.
The move to increase the chances of first-time buyers to get a subsidised flat is well received by some young Singaporeans, but few believe Lee has changed the overall political landscape.
For the estimated 1.8 million foreign residents here, the uppermost question is whether it will lead to any deterioration of public sentiments towards them.
In recent years, there had been increasing conflicts between locals and foreigners but rarely any violence. Political leaders have repeatedly appealed to citizens to help the new arrivals integrate.
Prominent blogger Lucky Tan said that until the arrivals turned excessive, Singaporeans were the most open people in the world.
“Nowhere else in the world can you find such a high level of acceptance of foreigners,” he noted.
It was only when they crossed the 25% mark and structural unemployment emerged that Singaporeans began to react, he added.
o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com
22 September 2010
The Largest Web of Corruption Since Watergate
photo: www.msnbc.comAccording to prosecutors, these gorgeous lads and lasses used the City of Bell's coffers as their own checking accounts. The amazing thing is that it took a reporter from the Los Angeles Times to bring them down...
Japs Must Return Chinese Fishboat Captain!!!
So the japs continue to hold the captain of the Chinese fishing boat, which they illegally seized two weeks ago.
What's the real purpose behind this long detainment? Stories abound that the japs want to use the captain's "vital fluids" to inseminate their women, basically to reinvigorate their dying "race" with superior Han Chinese blood.
This act of criminality, of course, flagrantly violates the Geneva Convention on Universal Human Rights.
Down with the japs!
What's the real purpose behind this long detainment? Stories abound that the japs want to use the captain's "vital fluids" to inseminate their women, basically to reinvigorate their dying "race" with superior Han Chinese blood.
This act of criminality, of course, flagrantly violates the Geneva Convention on Universal Human Rights.
Down with the japs!
21 September 2010
中秋節 Not Chuseok
Every child of three and up knows that Zhongqiu (literally, the middle of autumn) is a Chinese harvest festival, which has blessed the Sinitic world, including Vietnam and the Korean Peninsula, with great joy.
Yet, the Koreans claim it as a "Korean holiday." Calling it "chuseok," Arirang TV translates it as "Korean Thanksgiving." There's no such concept as thanksgiving in the Sinitic world or in the broader Asian world. Thanksgiving is a Western concept, and Thanksgiving Day is purely American.
It's Zhongqiu, and it's Chinese in origin with Korean and Vietnamese variations.
This year Zhongqiu falls on September 22. So happy 中秋節!
Yet, the Koreans claim it as a "Korean holiday." Calling it "chuseok," Arirang TV translates it as "Korean Thanksgiving." There's no such concept as thanksgiving in the Sinitic world or in the broader Asian world. Thanksgiving is a Western concept, and Thanksgiving Day is purely American.
It's Zhongqiu, and it's Chinese in origin with Korean and Vietnamese variations.
This year Zhongqiu falls on September 22. So happy 中秋節!
20 September 2010
An "Aww" Story from South Korea...
from: http://sify.com/news/armed-robber-in-korea-gives-himself-up-after-victim-reads-from-the-bible-news-international-kjuq4ceddjg.html
Armed robber in Korea gives himself up after victim reads from the Bible
2010-09-20 16:30:00
An armed robber in Korea gave himself up after his alleged victim, a Christian, convinced him of the error of his ways by reading from the Bible.
Ling Cho reportedly walked into the English language institute in south-eastern Ulsan Jungbu, South Korea, when the religious teacher was alone, threatening her with a knife and demanding money.
The teacher instead asked him why he was robbing her and listened as he explained how he fell into a life of crime, getting divorced last year and struggling with financial problems since, reports the Daily Telegraph.
The teacher then read to him from the Bible, and Cho apologised for trying to rob her, after which she gave him an MP3 player filled with gospel tunes, before he left.
But he returned 20 minutes later, in tears, and asked the teacher to report him to the police.
When she refused to turn him in, Cho called the authorities himself and demanded to be arrested.
He now faces a maximum five years in jail for attempted robbery. (ANI)
SEARCH
Armed robber in Korea gives himself up after victim reads from the Bible
2010-09-20 16:30:00
An armed robber in Korea gave himself up after his alleged victim, a Christian, convinced him of the error of his ways by reading from the Bible.
Ling Cho reportedly walked into the English language institute in south-eastern Ulsan Jungbu, South Korea, when the religious teacher was alone, threatening her with a knife and demanding money.
The teacher instead asked him why he was robbing her and listened as he explained how he fell into a life of crime, getting divorced last year and struggling with financial problems since, reports the Daily Telegraph.
The teacher then read to him from the Bible, and Cho apologised for trying to rob her, after which she gave him an MP3 player filled with gospel tunes, before he left.
But he returned 20 minutes later, in tears, and asked the teacher to report him to the police.
When she refused to turn him in, Cho called the authorities himself and demanded to be arrested.
He now faces a maximum five years in jail for attempted robbery. (ANI)
SEARCH
15 September 2010
Gaunt North Korean Dancers in Beijing
Photo courtesy of http://world.huanqiu.com/photo/2010-09/1065773_2.html
Note how abnormally gaunt they look, and these gals are the elites of Chaoxian (North Korean) society. One shudders to imagine the physical look of the less privileged folks in North Korea.
So this year's floods and the Chaoxian government's failed economic policies (including the poorly thought- out currency reform initiative) must have brought havoc of Biblical proportion on the wretched people of North Korea.
13 September 2010
The Fairbank Report is Five Years Young
On September 15, we mark our Fifth Anniversary as the world's most interesting, most eclectic and most incisive blog...What an interesting five-year period!!! Lots of ups and downs, mainly downs like the US economy.
just like a really bad korean drama
from: http://www.citifmonline.com/site/news/news/view/11332/1
Irish siblings plan to get married
Irish siblings are planning to defy the law and get married later by September 2010, despite being brother and sister.
The pair, who already have a child together, have been warned that it is illegal to marry a sibling but say they are determined to do so anyway and spend their lives together.
The couple, who have assumed the pseudonyms of James and Maura to protect their identities, claim they were unaware that they shared a father when they first met and fell in love.
They say their attraction was so strong that within just one week of meeting they felt that they had known each other for a lifetime and within two years their son, Mark, was born.
Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday, 'James' explained that despite setbacks they will be able to marry by the end of the month.
"We were aiming for Christmas but we have decided to do it sooner," he declared.
"Maura has got her wedding dress; we've ordered identical suits for myself and our son.
"It will be a very small wedding. We have two witnesses who we know very well and they know about our situation.
"I don't know whether our father will come or whether any of our parents will be there.
"Our son is getting excited about the wedding. He knows what is happening. As for Maura and me, it hasn't really sunk in yet that we're getting married."
When James' mother first learned who Maura's father was she was shocked and told her son the disturbing truth about their incestuous relationship.
James and Maura explained that it was only through DNA tests and constant questioning that they discovered the full details of how they came to be half-brother and sister.
They say that in the '80s James' mother dated a man named Tom for five weeks and never told him she was expecting his child.
She was in a new relationship by the time James was born and named this partner as James's father on the baby's birth certificate.
However, when his true father returned four years later and questioned if 'James' was his, a complex court case denied him access to the boy.
James stated, "The way I see it, if the system can know about things and hide the facts, then I can do the same. They turned a blind eye and so can we.
"People can criticize and say it is not right but they should say the same about what was done to me in the family law courts."
Irish siblings plan to get married
Irish siblings are planning to defy the law and get married later by September 2010, despite being brother and sister.
The pair, who already have a child together, have been warned that it is illegal to marry a sibling but say they are determined to do so anyway and spend their lives together.
The couple, who have assumed the pseudonyms of James and Maura to protect their identities, claim they were unaware that they shared a father when they first met and fell in love.
They say their attraction was so strong that within just one week of meeting they felt that they had known each other for a lifetime and within two years their son, Mark, was born.
Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday, 'James' explained that despite setbacks they will be able to marry by the end of the month.
"We were aiming for Christmas but we have decided to do it sooner," he declared.
"Maura has got her wedding dress; we've ordered identical suits for myself and our son.
"It will be a very small wedding. We have two witnesses who we know very well and they know about our situation.
"I don't know whether our father will come or whether any of our parents will be there.
"Our son is getting excited about the wedding. He knows what is happening. As for Maura and me, it hasn't really sunk in yet that we're getting married."
When James' mother first learned who Maura's father was she was shocked and told her son the disturbing truth about their incestuous relationship.
James and Maura explained that it was only through DNA tests and constant questioning that they discovered the full details of how they came to be half-brother and sister.
They say that in the '80s James' mother dated a man named Tom for five weeks and never told him she was expecting his child.
She was in a new relationship by the time James was born and named this partner as James's father on the baby's birth certificate.
However, when his true father returned four years later and questioned if 'James' was his, a complex court case denied him access to the boy.
James stated, "The way I see it, if the system can know about things and hide the facts, then I can do the same. They turned a blind eye and so can we.
"People can criticize and say it is not right but they should say the same about what was done to me in the family law courts."
12 September 2010
with all deliberate speed...
from Michelle Malkin
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/09/12/912-americas-monumental-shame/
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/09/12/912-americas-monumental-shame/
08 September 2010
07 September 2010
LAPD Thugs Killed Innocent Illegal Alien
Another example of piggish brutality. Community activists protested and rioted by setting trash bins on fire.
05 September 2010
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