Bian-lian Huang in love

So cute.  No, she's not japanese.  She's Chinese -- in fact, a "Hong Kongoose."

musical interlude: 愛 人 (Airen ... Lover)

AmeriKKKa Then & Now

AmeriKKKa 2011 (New York City's Chinatown)

AmeriKKKa 1972 (My Lai Village, Vietnam)

Another NYPD Scandal Caught on Video

Thank God for the ubiquity of videos.  Otherwise, this guy would be sent to the gallows on trumped-up charges.  And the courts are pretty useless.  Without videos, the courts always side with the racist, thuggish police out of "professional courtesy."  So much for judicial independence in the United States of AmeriKKKa.

You Don't Say: NYPD Officers Guilty of "Misconduct"

Kenneth Moreno's Wife To Rape Accuser: "She Can Go To Hell"

Julia Moreno, wife of former NYPD officer Kenneth Moreno, who was acquitted on charges of raping a woman in her East Village apartment on Thursday, told reporters that her husband's accuser "should go to jail for this." Telling the Post that the victim "had two days to make up this story with her lawyer friends before she went to the hospital," and added "She can go to hell." In addition to believing that the woman lied throughout the ordeal, Moreno reasoned why the woman would undergo the ordeals of a high-profile trial that included extensive viewing of photographs of her cervix in open court: "Money."
Kenneth Moreno and his partner, Franklin Mata, were acquitted of rape and burglary charges but convicted on charges of misconduct and await sentencing as the focus will now turn to their accuser's $57 million civil trial, at which the burden of proof will be considerably lower.
The Post also spoke to several legal experts to explain why, given the totality of the evidence presented at trial, the jury arrived at its verdict. One reason given is the "CSI Effect," as jurors believe that sure-fire DNA evidence is the only factor that matters: "CSI has made things difficult, there's no law saying that 'beyond a reasonable doubt' means we show you DNA. It means 'evidence that points to a moral certainty that is beyond dispute.'"

Another factor influencing the jury is a perception that "50 percent of rape claims are fabricated," when the actual rate is closer to 3-5 percent, "on par with false theft claims." Compounding all of this is that, according to a source at the DA's office, "traditionally, our harsher jurors tend to be women—they think'I would have never been so drunk that I needed to call for help." Five of the jurors in this case were women. The rapist of a 61-year-old woman in a nursing home was sentenced to 7 years in prison this week. But she was just "an elderly lady lying in bed." Speaking about Moreno's case, a trial lawyer says "The subtext is, 'She deserved it.' That is what is so appalling."

Source:  Gothamist.com

Hey NYPD Pussies, We Dare You to Take on Someone Bigger!

Heroic: Six Fat NYPD Cops Beat Up One 60-Year Old Asian Man

Another Victim of AmeriKKKa

 Photo source:   Angry Asian Man

This Fairbank Report/Ruyi Baogao has, sadly, covered many stories of Asians being murdered, beaten and raped by mainstream Amerikkkan society.  Invariably, when the victims ask the Amerikkkan police to intervene, they either get laughed at or, worse yet, raped by these putative lawmen.

I am really seriously thinking about moving to Asia.

Here's another story about an Asian being attacked by the Amerikkkans and their thuggish police.

Michelle's New Hair-do? :-)

Photo source:  AP

Yet Another K-POP Suicide

　Chae Dong-ha, 30, former member of the Korean pop trio SG Wannabe, was found dead in his home Friday morning, his agency said.



　Chae had hanged himself in his house in Eunpyeong-gu. Chae’s manager said Chae could not be reached the night before, and he was found dead the following morning when the manager arrived at his house. Police believe Chae committed suicide on the night of May 26.



　Chae’s agency said he had been suffering from depression since the death of his former manager’s, who committed suicide in 2009 in a motel in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang province.



　Chae had expressed his affection for his former manager in an album he released that same year. On the album Chae wrote, “He was everything to me -- my consoler, my friend, my brother. When I met him, I had the whole world in me.”



　Chae debuted in 2002 with his first solo album but failed to gain popularity. In 2004, he formed a ballad trio, SG Wannabe, with Kim Yong-jun and Kim Jin-ho. The group became popular in South Korea and Japan. In 2008, however, Chae left SG Wannabe and moved to a different agency. In 2009 he released his second solo album.



　Chae had been planning a concert next month in celebration of his birthday on June 23.



　Just four days before Chae’s death, an MBC sports announcer committed suicide. Celebrities including actor and singer Park Yong-ha, actress Choi Jin-sil and actress Jeong Da-bin have committed suicide in recent years.



　By Yun Suh-young (syun@heraldm.com)

Source:  Korea Herald

Lee Kuan Yew's Political Obituary

A superbly written and well-reflected piece by Catherine Lim.

One of the greatest surprises of GE 2011 was the people’s unequivocal rejection of the PAP style of government. But none could have imagined that the biggest casualty would be Lee Kuan Yew, one of the founders of the PAP, Singapore’s first prime minister and subsequently, de facto Chief despite holding only an advisory role as Minister Mentor.




Indeed, the nations’ shock on 14 May, just a week after the election, at the resignation of MM from the cabinet (together with Mr Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister) could only be described as seismic in the Singapore political landscape. It reflected the uniquely powerful position of the father of modern Singapore, presumably the only political leader in the world whose name was synonymous with the party he founded, whose name, in turn, was synonymous with the country it rules. The equation Lee Kuan Yew = PAP = Singapore had scrolled across the collective consciousness of the society for nearly half a century.



He was once compared to the immense banyan tree in whose shade only puny little saplings could grow. He was once the mighty Colossus in whose shadow little people cowered.



Was. Had scrolled. Once. Cowered.



It gives one a feeling of surreality to write about Lee Kuan Yew’s influence in the past tense. But that is exactly how it is going to be from now onwards, judging from the various public statements made by the prime minister, MM himself, Mr Goh and other PAP leaders, following the announcement of the resignation. Almost in one voice, they spoke about the need for the party to move on, to respond to the needs and aspirations of the people, so painfully made clear to them in GE 2011. The courteous, deferential tone called for by the occasion masked the urgency of the message: the prime minister must be free to act on his own without any interference from the overpowering MM who is also his father.



Perhaps the announcement of MM’s exit should not have been so unexpected, as it had been preceded by a clear harbinger. For midway through the campaigning, when the PAP had already sensed an impending loss of the Aljunied GRC whom earlier MM had offended with his ‘live and repent’ threat, PM had hurriedly called a press interview in which he gently, but firmly, dissociated himself from MM, and assured the people that he was the one in charge. The necessary follow-up action for this public repudiation had obviously been part of the promised post-election ‘soul-searching’, which must have concluded that indeed MM must go.



Despite MM’s assertion, in the joint statement with Mr Goh, that the resignation was voluntary, in order ‘to give PM and his team the room to break from the past,’ doubts about his willingness will be around for a while. For right through the election campaigning he was in upbeat mood, declaring his fitness at age 87, his readiness to serve the people for another 5 years, and roundly scolding the younger generation for forgetting where they came from. Moreover, he had, amidst the gloom of the PAP campaign, confidently stated that the loss of the one Aljunied GRC would be no big deal, and contended, a day after the election, that his blunt, controversial remarks about the Malay-Muslim community, had not really affected the votes. In short, he was expecting to stay on, his accustomed ways of dealing with people, unchanged.



And then came the shock announcement of his resignation from the cabinet, and an uncharacteristic affirmation of the need for change.



That Lee Kuan Yew was prepared to do a drastic about-turn, so at odds with a lifetime’s habit of acting on his convictions, must have been due to one of two causes—either he had been driven into a corner and simply had no choice, or he had a genuine commitment to the well-being of the society, that was above self-interest. In either case, the decision to go into the obscurity of virtual retirement after decades of high political visibility both at home and abroad, must have been most wrenching.



The extent of the personal sacrifice can be gauged by the single fact that politics was his one overriding, exclusive passion upon which he had brought to bear all his special resources of intellect, temperament and personality. He had made himself the ultimate conviction politician with an unrelentingly logical and rationalistic approach to dealing with problems, dismissing all that stood in its way, especially sentiment and emotion. He had developed a purely quantitative paradigm where the only things that mattered were those that were measurable, calculable, easily reduced to digits and hardware, whether they had to do with getting Singaporeans to have fewer or more babies, getting people to keep the streets litter-free, getting children in school to learn the mother tongue. It prescribed a mode of governance that relied heavily on the use of the stick.



The supreme irony of Lee Kuan Yew’s political demise was that the paradigm which had resulted in his most spectacular achievements as a leader taking his tiny resource-scarce country into the ranks of the world’s most successful economies, was the very one that caused his downfall. The related irony of course was that a man of admirable sharpness of mind, keenness of foresight and strength of purpose had failed to understand, until it was too late, the irrelevance of this paradigm to a new generation of better-educated, more exposed and sophisticated Singaporeans.



There is no simple explanation for such a paradoxical disconnect between a man’s massive intellectual powers on the one hand and his poor understanding of reality, on the other (complacency perhaps? political blindsight? political sclerosis?) A detailed analysis of the irony, substantiated with examples over more than four decades of Lee Kuan Yew’s leadership of Singapore will be instructive for understanding this unique personage.



Even a cursory review of the history of Singapore will show that it was Lee’s actions, driven by the passion of his convictions, that had saved the nation, at various stages in its struggle for survival in a volatile, unpredictable, often unfriendly world. With his characteristic strongman’s ruthlessness, he cleaned up the mess caused by Communists, communalists, unruly trade unionists, defiant students and secret society gangsters plaguing the young Singapore. Within a generation, he had created an environment where Singaporeans could live safely, earn a living, live in government-subsidised flats with modern sanitation. Ever conscious of Singapore’s vulnerability, he was ever on the alert to smack down its enemies and, even more importantly, to seize opportunities to raise its standard of living.



A special achievement showing Lee Kuan Yew’s foresight, boldness and determination in his espousal of the economic imperative deserves more detailed treatment. In the 60s, he foresaw the dominant role of the English language for international trade, business, scientific technology and research, and made an all-out effort to promote the language in the schools, as well as make it the language of public administration. This meant in effect distancing Singapore from the other newly independent nations such as India, Malaysia and some African nations which, in their nationalistic fervour, were kicking out the English language together with the British flag.



Even when Singapore joined Malaysia and Malay became the official language, Lee Kuan Yew quietly continued the promotion of English, so that after separation in 1965, it re-emerged, as strong as ever. The result was the creation of an English-speaking environment that was very conducive to international business, attracting huge corporations such as Shell and Esso. Through the decades that followed, the economic success of his policies was replicated, to put Singapore on a rising trajectory of stunning development.



Singapore’s remarkable development under Lee Kuan Yew, using the hard indicators of home ownership, level of education, degree of technological advancement, extent of foreign investments, etc, has seen few parallels, making it a poster child for economic progress in the developing world. Consistently ranked among the top three in international surveys on best-performing airports, sea-ports, world’s most livable cities, best infrastructure, etc, Singapore receives the most enthusiastic accolades from foreign visitors instantly impressed by the cleanliness, orderliness and gleaming appearance of the city state.



How could such a brilliant paradigm, a model of classic realpolitik, be the cause of the GE 2011 political demise of Lee Kuan Yew? The answer: mainly because it had no place for human values. It was a model of governance where, if there had ever been a conflict of Head vs Heart, IQ vs EQ, Hardware vs Heartware, it had been resolved long ago in the defeat of presumably worthless human emotions.



Once I was giving a talk to a group of British businessmen, on my favourite subject of civic liberties – or lack of them – in Singapore. During question and answer time, one of the businessmen raised his hand and said politely, ‘I have a question or rather, a suggestion. Could we please have your Lee Kuan Yew, and we’ll give you our Tony Blair, with Cherie Blair thrown in?’ Amidst laughter, I said, ‘Our Mr Lee won’t like your noisy, messy, rambunctious democracy,’ and he replied, ‘No matter,’ and went on to pay MM the ultimate compliment. He said, ‘You know, if there were but five Lee Kuan Yews scattered throughout Africa, the continent wouldn’t be in such a direful state today!’



This light-hearted little anecdote is meant to provide a probable reason, though in a rather circuitous manner, for MM’s ironic downfall: the material prosperity that he had given Singapore, which many world leaders could never match, was no longer enough compensation to Singaporeans for the soullessness that was beginning to show in the society . For the fear that his strongman approach had instilled in them for so long, denying them the fundamental democratic liberties of open debate, public criticism and an independent media, that are taken for granted in practising democracies, had made them mere cogs in the machinery of a vast capitalist enterprise.



There are enough examples, going back to the early years of Lee Kuan Yew’s rule, of draconian measures of control, that had created this fear and its inevitable product, resentment. The most egregious instances include the higher accouchement hospital fees for a woman having a third child in defiance of the ‘stop at two’ population control measures, and the sterilisation policy, which had a particularly vile moral odour , for it required the woman wanting to get her child into the school of her choice, to produce a sterilisation certificate.



Years later when the demographic trend reversed, and more births were necessary to form the necessary future pool of expertise for the country’s industrial needs, the PAP government started a matchmaking unit , called The Social Development Unit, to enable single Singaporeans to meet, fall in love, get married and produce children. It singled out graduate women for favoured treatment, because Lee Kuan Yew believed that only highly educated mothers produced the quality offspring he wanted for the society, alienating many with the noxious eugenics.



By the 70s and into the 80s, Singaporeans were already waking up to the hard truth of the high human cost, in terms of the need for self-respect, identity and dignity, that they were paying for the material prosperity, and worrying about the creation of a society in complete and fearful subjugation to the powerful PAP government. Over the years, it became increasingly clear that the leaders, flushed with success and confidence, and following Lee Kuan Yew’s example, were developing an arrogant, highhanded, peremptory style that had zero tolerance for political dissidents, publicly castigating them or, worse, incarcerating them for years, bankrupting them through defamation suits or forcing them to flee into exile. Lee Kuan Yew had consistently maintained that the fact that the PAP was regularly and convincingly returned to power at each election over forty years meant that the people acknowledged the government was doing the right thing.



By the time of GE 2011, it would appear that the PAP leaders had reached the peak of hubris, making decisions with little regard for the people’s needs and sensitivities—increasing ministerial salaries, bringing in world-class casinos to attract tourists, engaging in blatant gerrymandering prior to elections. Then there were the policies that had created special hardships for the struggling wage earner, such as the increasing cost of living, the unaffordability of housing, the competition for jobs with a large number of foreign workers who, moreover, caused overcrowding in public transport.



The decision that had created most resentment was the one which enabled the PAP ministers to pay themselves incredibly high salaries, Lee Kuan Yew’s argument being that this was the only way to get quality people into government. (Resentful Singaporeans invariably point out that the Prime Minister of tiny Singapore gets about five times the salary of the most powerful man in the world, the President of the United States) Priding themselves on their intelligence, competence and efficiency, the PAP leadership nevertheless made huge losses on investments with public money, and glossed over the scandalous prison escape of a top terrorist, made possible by an unbelievably lax security system. In the eyes of the people, they had lost the moral authority to govern.



That the people’s anger broke out only in GE 2011 and not earlier was due to a confluence of forces, interacting with and reinforcing each other, to provide the most unexpected momentum and impact. These included the rise of a younger, more articulate electorate, the power of the Internet and the social media, which allowed free discussion on usually censored topics, and perhaps, most significantly, the emergence of a newly strengthened opposition who were able to present candidates matching the best in the PAP team. Or it was a simple case of the people waking up one morning and saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ The PAP were caught off guard.



While they were prepared to make conciliatory gestures and promises to stem the rising hostility during the election campaign, Lee Kuan Yew stood firm on his convictions till the very end, clearly preferring to resign rather than to say ‘Sorry’. That word had never been in his vocabulary. When he had to apologise to the Malay-Muslim community for disparaging remarks made months earlier, clearly because of some pressure from his PAP colleagues alarmed by the community’s rising anger, he could only manage a terse ‘I stand corrected.’



He is likely to carry this stance to his grave, believing till the end in his own misfortune of having an ungrateful people incapable of understanding him and appreciating all that he had done for them. Outwardly chastened but inwardly disillusioned, he must be particularly disappointed with his own PAP colleagues, for their failure to share his passionate belief that his was the right and proven way to achieve the well-being of the society. It is not so much megalomania as the sheer inflexibility that convictions sometimes harden into, something that will probably continue to give him a completely different interpretation of the devastation of GE 2011.



This kind of intransigence, for all its reprehensibility, can, rather oddly, have a commendable side. Years ago, on an official visit to Australia and taken on a sightseeing tour, he suddenly fell into a mood of somber introspection, turned to his Australian host and said, ‘Your country will be around in 100 years, but I’m not sure of mine.’ The same absolutism that had produced the unshakeable sense of his infallibility, had also produced an unqualified purity, selflessness and strength of his dedication to the well-being of Singapore, well beyond his earthly life, investing it with the touching anxiety of a caring parent.



When he made the famous pronouncement that even when lying inside his coffin , he would rise to meet any threat to Singapore’s security, he meant every word of it. In political limbo now, will he ever feel that need? I can think of three possible events, when he will experience that Coffin Moment, each posing a threat to what seems to be his greatest concerns for Singapore: 1) when the strong ties between the government and the unions that he had assiduously helped to build for nearly fifty years, are in danger of being broken 2) when the nation’s vast reserves, protected by a law he had carefully devised to allow only the president of Singapore to unlock, are about to be foolishly squandered 3) when the PAP leadership is in danger of being dominated by those same young Singaporeans whom he had regularly chastised for being selfish, thoughtless and heedless and for whom he had specially written his last book on hard truths about Singapore’s future. In the event of a threat to any of these concerns, his old passion is likely to be fired up once more to make him come out of the coffin to do battle.



Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy is so mixed that even his greatest detractor must acknowledge his very substantial achievements for Singapore, and even his greatest admirer must admit that along the way, alas, he lost touch with the ground. He puts one in mind of the great hero of epic tragedy, who is caught in a maelstrom of forces beyond his control, that destroy him in the end by working, ironically, upon a single tragic flaw in his character. Alone and lost, unbowed and defiant, he still cuts an impressive figure, still able to tell the world, ‘I am me.’

The Underbelly of South Korean Culture...

South Korean man kills Vietnamese wife
Last updated: 5/24/2011 15:20


A Vietnamese woman was stabbed to death by her Korean husband in eastern South Korea early Tuesday, just 19 days after she gave birth to a baby, Vietnam News Agency reported.

The murder of the 23-year-old woman, whose family name is Hoang, occurred in their home in Cheongdo County in North Gyeongsang Province, Kim Teok-hwan, Cheongdo’s police officer told VNA.

Following tips from the neighbors of the couple, local police arrived at the crime scene and arrested the 37-year-old husband, whose family name is Im.

The husband confessed to police that he stabbed his wife during an argument.

He said Hoang had repeatedly demanded a divorce and planned to run away with the baby on Monday night, which led to their fight.

Hoang arrived in South Korea in April 2010 and gave birth to the baby 19 days ago.

The Vietnamese Embassy in South Korea is verifying the victim’s identity.

Local police have carried out an autopsy on the woman under the witness of the embassy’s officers.

Last July, Jang Do Hyo, a mentally ill South Korean man killed his 20-year-old Vietnamese wife, Thach Thi Hoang Ngoc, just eight days after she arrived in the country. He was later sentenced to 12 years in jail.

Following the case, South Korea pledged to make Korean men looking to marry foreign women undergo a cultural education program and announced tougher rules for matchmakers arranging foreign marriages.

More than a third of South Korean fishermen and farmers who married in 2009 chose immigrant brides, some because they were unable to find local women prepared to lead a rural lifestyle, according to an AFP report.

When Beauties Fight Back...

From www.chinasmack.com:

Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

A netizen on the night of the 14th (May 2011) posted online describing how the incident unfolded: “In the afternoon around 6:00, chengguan (Chinese law enforcement officers, notoriously corrupt) gave a beating to an old man selling bayberries. The old man was about 70-years-old, carrying a pole on his shoulders selling bayberries. The chengguan broke the old man’s scale, then crushed the bayberries under their feet, then pulled the old man down onto the ground and beat him. The young people who passed by could not bear it and surrounded them, shouting at the chengguan to apologize. When the chengguan arrogantly said they’d compensate 100 kuai, everyone became furious.” Photo is of the scene of the incident.

Musical interlude: pitbull's "give me everything"

Who says the Fairbank Report ain't epic?!

The Singapore Election: An Epilogue

 An excellent epilogue on the May 7 General Election in Singapore...

Source:  World Socialist Web Site (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/sing-m14.shtml)

 

Singapore election reflects anti-government groundswell

By our correspondent
14 May 2011

In the general election on May 7, the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled Singapore for half a century, suffered its heaviest-ever blow. Opposition parties won a combined 39.9 percent of the popular vote despite intimidation by the government and hostile coverage in the local media. The PAP’s vote of 60.1 percent was down from 66.6 percent in 2006 and 75.3 percent in 2001.

The opposition vote was not transformed into parliamentary seats, however. Under Singapore’s anti-democratic electoral laws, seats are not allocated proportionately in multi-seat constituencies. Instead, the winner takes all. Nevertheless, the Workers Party won a three-seat constituency for the first time and three other seats, boosting opposition numbers to 6 in the 87-seat parliament. Two cabinet ministers were unseated, including the foreign minister, George Yeo.

The opposition vote reflected a broader anti-government groundswell. Tens of thousands of Singaporeans flocked to opposition rallies in the week before the election to express their anger over the PAP’s pro-business policies. The main issues confronting working people and small shop owners are the increasing rents for HDB-flats (government-subsidised high-rise apartments), which have doubled in the past decade, rising food prices and overcrowded public transport. Small increases in wages and salaries have not compensated for inflation.

Workers Party rally at Serangoon Stadium

Since 1970, the island’s population has more than doubled from some 2 million people to over 5 million in 2011. The government has set a goal of expanding the population still further to 6.5 million to be competitive with cities like London, Hong Kong and New York. For Singaporeans, the result is falling living standards due to higher costs, congested shopping malls and crowded public transport. The population density has increased from 3,500 to 7,500 people per square kilometre since 1970.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s government is focused on encouraging multinational companies and financial institutions to open headquarters and businesses in the city-state. Local middle-sized businesses are being overwhelmed by the competition and neglected by the government. To drive down wages, the PAP has allowed foreign companies to employ cheap labour from China and Bangladesh on rates of $S5 ($US4) an hour and even less in construction and service industries.

The PAP has not expanded basic services such as the national health service to match the growing population. It is not uncommon for people to sit in the waiting room of a local medical practitioner for three hours before being treated. To get an appointment with a medical specialist, the waiting time can easily be two to three months. A seriously sick person can even die waiting to see a specialist. Of course, if you can afford private care, you will receive premium treatment at premium prices.

Singapore’s Gini coefficient—a measure of income inequality (0=complete equality, 100=highest inequality)—is 42.5, the second highest in the UN’s rankings of 36 economically advanced countries. It has the highest density of millionaires of any country due to its role as a major regional financial centre. Many hedge funds and banks have shifted their headquarters to Singapore to take advantage of its low taxes and fees.

The PAP has remained in power for nearly 50 years through a mixture of shameless pork barrelling and police-state measures. For years the ruling party has used government funds to give preferred treatment to the constituencies where it gained the most votes at elections. HDB flats were renovated, public swimming pools and sports centres set up. By contrast, constituencies with strong support for the opposition parties were neglected.

During this year’s election campaign, the prime minister’s father, PAP founder and former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, blatantly warned voters against supporting the opposition in the closely contested constituency of Aljunied. “If Aljunied decides to go that way, well Aljunied has five years to live and repent [before the next election],” he told the Straits Times. “We accept the verdict of the people, but they must also accept the consequences of their actions. You must expect the PAP to look after PAP constituencies first.”

The PAP was founded in 1954 as an anti-colonial party by a group of young professionals who had studied in Britain. It was hoisted into political prominence with the assistance of the Stalinist Communist Party of Malaya, which had gained considerable influence in the trade unions in Singapore following World War II. By subordinating the working class to the capitalist PAP, the Communist Party played the essential role containing the mass post-war, anti-colonial movement.

Having exploited the Stalinists to help stabilise bourgeois rule, the PAP turned on its former allies. As Lee Kuan Yew described the process in his memoirs, he “flushed” the PAP of the Communist Party members in the early 1960s and consolidated his rule through a series of autocratic measures. After its split from Malaysia in 1965, Singapore was left without the natural resources of the Malay Peninsula and a much-reduced workforce. The Lee government turned to open-market measures to attract foreign investment and transform the island-state into a regional financial hub.

Singapore’s dependence on international trade and financial markets has left it highly vulnerable to the ongoing global economic crisis. Singapore rapidly plunged into recession in 2008-09, with many container terminals in the harbour standing idle, reduced airline traffic and a sharp fall in the number of tourist visitors.

While the PAP government has imposed the brunt of the crisis onto working people, the opposition parties, including the Workers Party, offer no alternative. Rather they represent less-competitive layers of local business, which, in conditions of economic downturn, are struggling to survive. Alongside calls for government assistance for local businesses, the opposition promoted populist measures to tax the rich and also stirred up resentment against foreign workers, blaming them for the social crisis caused by capitalism.

Nonetheless, the election result does in a distorted fashion represent a shift in Singaporean politics as working people seek to find a way to express their opposition to the government and its pro-business policies. And if this one-party island-state is feeling the winds of change, it is a harbinger of broader upheavals throughout the region.

Hope for Vui Kong?

According to Jonathan Fairbank, the results of this weekend's GE in Singapore, in which the oppositional Workers' Party won a group representation constituency (GRC) for the first time, may slightly increase hope for condemned drug smuggler Vui Kong of Malaysia.


Mr Fairbank, a supporter of the death penalty as applied in the United States, opposes the indiscriminate use of the death penalty in Singapore and elsewhere in Asia.

Cathy Nguyen -- So Cal Perfect

Vietnamese-American from SoCal.

new take on the 2006 "classic"

Guang Liang's (Michael Wong) classic is given a new life...

Lee Kuan Yew Shellacked

Yes, the People's Action Party of Singapore will retain power in this general election as it has since 1959.  But the highly oppressed opposition forces are scoring major gains in terms of the number of ballots cast for them.

In our book, Old Man Lee Kuan Yew has been pimp-slapped.

Jason Chen: Not Just Another (Great) Youtube Singer

Asian-Americans are so epic!

没有共产党就没有新中国 -- Happy May Day