Friday, April 10, 2009

Who should take the rap for Geylang Serai food poisoning?

Who should take the rap for Geylang Serai food poisoning?

Nobody dies from acute gastroenteritis, or diarrhoea in developed countries. The number one killer of children worldwide is a public health concern in many Third World countries where poor public hygiene facilitates the transmission of disease-causing pathogens via the faecal-oral route.

It is therefore unacceptable that the Geylang Serai food poisoning outbreak has claimed two victims so far with 11 still in hospital which makes a mockery out of our reputation as a squeaky clean country. (read article here)

The NEA said yesterday that it was not directly responsible for hygiene at temporary markets, but only at permanent ones owned by the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources.

In an official statement released to the media, it claimed that the care of each temporary market is the job of its management committee, although it does make spot checks on hygiene at individual hawker stalls.

A joint statement from the MOH and the National Environment Agency (NEA) confirmed that 12 people, including the first woman who died, had tested positive for the bacteria Vibrio parahaemolyticus.

Vibrio paramaemolyticus causes an explosive, watery diarrhoea which is usually self-limiting. According to the husband of the second victim, Madam Noraini Kasim, she was trailing blood as she made her way to the toilet. There may be more than one pathogen involved such as Shigella, Salmonella or Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli.

At the same time, 61 rats were found and cleared by pest controllers at the premises today. (read article here) It is most unbelievable to find so many rats inhabiting a public eating outlet in Singapore!

This tragedy is definitely preventable. It is not another simple ‘honest’ mistake where nobody is at fault. Serious lapses in monitoring public hygiene at the temporary market had obviously occurred and somebody must take the rap for it.

NEA was quick to shift the blame to the management committee of the temporary market, but surely it is the authority in charge of overseeing its state of hygiene even if it is not directly responsible.

I hope the ongoing investigations will shed more light on the following questions:

1. How often does NEA conduct spot checks on the market?

2. When is the last time it conducted such a check?

3. Did the check reveal any problems with hygiene?

4. Who are the NEA officers involved?

5. Why weren’t the rats detected then?

6. Is there negligence on the part of the foodstall holder, the management committee or NEA?

The rats don’t appear overnight and the bacteria needs time to incubate. What has the market’s management committee been doing? Is it fair for them to shoulder all the blame? Had NEA been more vigilant, it would have picked up the problem earlier and close the market till it improves on its standard of hygiene.

Two deaths has been lost. Many more fell ill and some were hospitalized. The victims should seriously consider taking legal action against the culpable parties. Or should they blame fate for eating the wrong food at the wrong place and time?

This is not just an ordinary public healthcare scare, it is a PR disaster for Singapore as well and to this day, nobody from the government has stepped forward to allay public concerns.

Where is the Minister of Environment and Water Resources? Is Mr Abdullah Tarmugi still away in Uzbekistan? And where is his Permanent Secretary Tan Yong Soon? Didn’t he boast about being able to leave his work entirely to his capable subordinates when he took a 5 week cooking trip to Paris last December?

Are these the kind of “top talents” Singaporeans have been coerced to pay top salaries for who are quick to claim credit for themselves when things are going well, but nowhere to be seen in the event of a mishap?

Blunders like this don’t happen without good reason and is almost always attributed to negligence. If this were to happen in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan or even China, the minister in charge will probably have to apologize to appease public anger.

Instead of asking serious questions about how the mass food poisoning came about, the state media has been busy trying to deflect attention away from NEA to give the erroneous impression that it is unavoidable and there is nothing they can do about it.

NEA’s official statement that “it is not directly responsible” is both disappointing and unacceptable. As the government agency in charge of hygiene in public places, it owes Singaporeans an explanation for its failure to prevent the worst food-poisoning outbreak which is unheard of even during the colonial days.

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MM Lee: This little red dot must be different, relevant

This little red dot must be different, relevant

But a mediocre Cabinet can affect Singapore’s image: MM

Friday • April 10, 2009

THE little red dot needs to get along with its far bigger neighbours in the region — but at the same time, it cannot afford to be like them.

This is because Singapore has “to differentiate ourselves from our neighbours in order to compete and survive”, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew yesterday.

Noting that Singapore cannot simply rely on the friendship of others, he said the Republic has to “continually reconstruct itself and keep its relevance to the world and to create political and economic space”.

Having been able to do so, it has been accepted as “a serious player in regional and international fora”.

“Had we disported ourselves like our better endowed neighbours, we would have failed. For Singapore, unlike others in our neighbourhood, is of no intrinsic interest to any developed country when they can invest in our larger neighbours endowed with more land, labour and natural resources,” said Mr Lee, who engaged an audience of some 550 diplomats, academics and students at the S Rajaratnam Lecture last night, at the Shangri-La hotel.

A copy of his speech was distributed in advance, and the lively hour-long dialogue saw the Minister Mentor fielding questions on — among other topics — China-US relations, how Singapore and Malaysia’s new leadership can work together, and whether the Republic should modify its foreign policy objectives for the future.

One imperative Mr Lee emphasised: Singapore needs political leaders who can hold their own on the international stage.

“Sound foreign policy requires a Prime Minister and a Foreign Minister who are able to discern future trends in the international political, security and economic environment and position ourselves bilaterally or multilaterally to grasp the opportunities ahead of the others,” he said.

Since independence in 1965, Singapore’s foreign policy has been settled “by the PM and his key ministers”.

No doubt, Foreign Ministry officers and diplomats can offer “insightful recommendations”. But “ultimately, it is the Prime Minister and other key ministers who decide on changes in policies. At face-to-face meetings over long hours, they can sense each other’s thinking and leanings before their officials are privy to them”, he said.

As such, “a mediocre PM and Cabinet will decline our standing with other countries”.

“We will lose opportunities like the lead we enjoy in Free Trade Agreements or Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements with the US, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, and our close relations with the oil states of the Gulf,” Mr Lee said.

Creating ‘economic space’

One example of foresight that he cited: How Singapore, seeing that China was rising, had gone out of its way to be helpful, such as with the Suzhou industrial park. The experience has given us “an entree into all the cities of China”. “They are sending their mayors, about 111 of them, to NTU (Nanyang Technological University), learning how to manage a city. So everybody in China at the city level knows of Singapore, and businesses from Singapore will find open doors.”

Moving ahead, Mr Lee said: “We got to create economic space for Singapore. I even went to Russia. We got some hotels, service apartments and we are selling 3-in-1 coffee mix in Russia and a few other things ... It does not create jobs here, that’s the trouble. Our GDP will grow, and we are creating jobs in China, India and Russia ... And I think that is the duty of the Government. You’ve got to anticipate the shape of things to come; when they come, you are there.”

Another concern: Singaporeans must never fool ourselves “that we are a part of the First World in South-east Asia, a Second and Third World group of countries”.

Rounding up his speech, the Minister Mentor said that as long as future generations keep in mind the Republic’s vulnerabilities, “and not delude themselves that we can behave as if our neighbours are Europeans or North Americans, and remain alert, cohesive and realistic, Singapore will survive and prosper”.

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The Medea strain

The Medea strain

Friday, 10 April 2009

The limits of female advancement in the PAP

In patriarchal Greece of yore, two fictional women stood out for having been depicted as particularly charismatic and influential: the crafty Lysistrata, who forced the men to stop their wars by organising a sex-strike by women, and the formidable Medea, who was instrumental in winning for her husband his throne but who destroyed him when he betrays her.

The playwright Aristophanes portrayed Lysistrata as an unusually headstrong but still very feminine character; indeed, Aristophanes revelled in reinforcing stereotypes of the ‘weaker’ sex current during his time and their political involvement is framed within this context. Order is restored when the women – Lysistrata included – are restored to their traditional, submissive role after the war ends. In contrast, the Medea immortalised by the tragedian Euripides is fierce and utterly implacable, one who has – at least according to later-day feminist interpretations of Euripides’ play – thrown off the yoke of her gender’s conventional dependency and deference.

But it is the example of Lysistrata which seems more applicable to Singapore, at least in the context of the political sphere. Professor Kenneth Paul Tan of the National University of Singapore has written an insightful piece about how images of women are constructed and legitimised in the public sphere, using these ideas to explain the “Catherine Lim affair” of 19941. Ms Lim, a renowned Singaporean writer, made waves in 1994 with two commentaries that triggered a particularly forceful response from the country’s leaders.

Professor Tan argued that Singaporean women might have had to “outwardly disavow” their femininity and exhibit manly attributes to be taken seriously and succeed in fields dominated by men, since women are still regarded as being “primarily responsible for reproducing the nation”. One field in particular is politics, where Ms Lim Hwee Hua – who, incidentally, was made Singapore’s first female minister some weeks after Professor Tan’s piece was published – is personified as the kind of female politician the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) recruits because they reaffirm the “desirability of manly attributes” without posing a threat to male dominance.

At the heart of this system stands the chief patriarch, PAP founding father Lee Kuan Yew, who is the personification of the “masculine” state with all its protective attributes. In contrast, the people are portrayed with a “feminine” tinge: they are “selfish, ignorant, deficient and dangerous”, essentially unable to take care of themselves. That narrative reflects Mr Lee’s strong influence on the PAP as well as his own convictions: in a revealing letter to the press, his daughter recounted that her parents’ marriage was anything but an “equal partnership”, with her mother being a high-earning lawyer who coped with the traditional roles of wife and mother while Mr Lee was very much the traditional family patriarch.

According to Professor Tan, Ms Catherine Lim only managed to survive the Singapore establishment’s 1994 onslaught against her by concealing her criticisms with an outward show of feminine deference in “excess”. This made it “ungentlemenly” for the PAP leaders to come down too hard on her.

养精蓄锐,出类拔萃

Professor Tan’s framework helps to explain why women seem to be lagging considerably in Singapore politics. It took more than four decades for Singapore to get its first full female minister, and even then only 18 out of 82 of the current batch of elected MPs are female; prior to this, Singapore had 22 MPs in total during the period 1959-1997. That is a peculiarity that can’t be explained by societal trends alone, since Singapore scores fairly well in closing the gaps in secondary education and the number of professionals as well as senior managers between the sexes according to the 2008 Global Gender Gap ranking by the World Economic Forum. Furthermore, the opposition parties appear to have a better representation of high-ranking women: the chairman of the Worker’s Party (WP) and two members of the Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) Central Executive Committee are women.

It is therefore likely that adverse selection by the PAP plays a significant part in explaining the lack of women holding public office. Even Ms Lim Hwee Hua, now the leading female politician in the country, seemed to have alluded to it – commenting on her elevation to a ministerial position, Ms Lim told the press that men were “wasting talent” if they did not give women opportunities. Full equality still seems some distance away: even as Singapore gains its first female minister, questions are already being asked about when women will be given substantive portfolios (Ms Lim is currently a minister without portfolio and deputy minister in two other ministries).

The problem with such a policy of adverse selection is that it is difficult to see the PAP inducting women who might be genuine contenders for party leadership. Such female recruits would probably be rejected as potential threats to male dominance, or at least for as long as Mr Lee remains in the party. Presumably that would mean that the leadership would favour Lysistrata-types, who accept the patriarchal hierarchy, over Medea-types who might have little qualms about upsetting it.

Unfortunately, that sets a regrettable example for the rest of society, as it would only reinforce patriarchal notions. It might discourage women from even considering whether to enter politics, as it implies that only those who fit a certain mould will get the chance to serve in public office. It may also diminish the PAP’s own prospects of renewing itself.

Ironically though, it might mean that female opposition figures have a better chance of breaching the PAP’s grip on power. As Professor Tan has argued, the “Catherine Lim” affair showed a potential approach for criticising the government: “in a gently ‘spousal’ way to make a strongly argued point without incurring the state’s full-blown violence”. That already seems to be happening, with WP chairman Sylvia Lim espousing a centrist line in contrast with the more strident efforts of SDP’s Chee Siok Chin. Ms Chee’s unabashed advocacy has landed her in prison on several occasions.

But a more practical reason is that female talent overlooked by the PAP might thereby be inclined to pitch in for the other side. Perhaps it is time for opposition parties to start looking for female candidates who have the Medea strain.

***

1 Kenneth Paul Tan, “Who’s Afraid of Catherine Lim? The State in Patriarchal Singapore”, Asian Studies Review, March 2009, Vol. 33, pp. 43-62

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Aware: Unknowns beat veterans

April 10, 2009
Unknowns beat veterans

Caught off-guard by big turnout, longtime members lose to fresh faces

By Wong Kim Hoh
Barely a week into her new term, and before making her first statement as president, Mrs Nazar quit suddenly this week. She confirmed that she had resigned, but declined to say any more when reached by The Straits Times. -- ST FILE PHOTO
SINGAPORE'S best-known women's group, the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware), has seen a dramatic changing of the guard - which some members are describing as nothing short of a leadership grab.

When Aware held its annual general meeting on March 28, everyone expected the usual: No more than 30 or 40 members would turn up at its Dover Crescent centre, and a prepared slate of candidates would be voted into office easily.

Instead, more than 100 people came, the majority of whom had joined Aware only in recent months.

And when the election of office bearers began, almost every position was challenged by new faces, who won by wide majorities.

In the end, nine out of 12 executive committee spots went to the newcomers.

One older member who won without a contest was Mrs Claire Nazar, a former corporate counsel nominated to be president by outgoing Aware chief Constance Singam.

But barely a week into her new term, and before making her first statement as president, Mrs Nazar quit suddenly this week.

She confirmed that she had resigned, but declined to say any more when reached by The Straits Times.

It is not known who will now become president.

Longtime members took two other positions: Chew I-Jin as assistant honorary treasurer and Caris Lim Chai Leng was elected a committee member.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_361931.html

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Singapore a multiracial meritocracy

Singapore a multiracial meritocracy

It's interesting that Singapore's Mentor Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said yesterday, "Singapore is a multiracial meritocracy."

He could have said instead,"Singapore is a multiracial democracy", for Singapore follows the British parliamentary system – the prime minister is the head of government, which is elected by the people.

But he used the word "meritocracy" instead. A trained lawyer and a speaker as good as MM Lee does not use words carelessly.

Noteworthy too is his remark about the relative unimportance of Singapore. He said:

Singapore cannot take its relevance for granted. Small countries perform no vital or irreplaceable functions in the international system. Singapore has to continually reconstruct itself and keep its relevance to the world and to create political and economic space. This is the economic imperative for Singapore.

What is remarkable is his drive --

"We have to be different from others in our neighbourhood and have a competitive edge", he said --

and his pragmatism:

"We must never delude ourselves that we are a part of the First World in Southeast Asia, a Second and Third World group of countries… Singapore’s destiny would be very different if we were sited in Europe or North America."

Would his People's Action Party (PAP) have enjoyed uninterrupted power for 40 years – ever since Singapore was granted self-government by Britain in 1959 – had the city state been part of Europe or North America?

The PRI dominated Mexico even longer – ever since the party was founded in 1929 till the 1990s. Franco dominated Spain from 1939 till his death in 1975. Salazar dominated Portugal from 1932 till he fell ill in 1968 – he died two years later.

The LDP has dominated Japan since the party was founded in 1955 – it lost the 1993 election only to return to power in a coalition a year later and won the next election in 1996.

The difference is Singapore, unlike Japan, has only two elected opposition members of parliament.

In his speech, MM Lee alluded to his own achievements as Singapore's first prime minister. He said:

Singapore has since 1965 plugged into the international economic grid. We welcomed multinational companies (MNCs) to invest and manufacture in Singapore when the conventional wisdom was that MNCs exploit Third World countries. As an open economy, we took full advantage of globalization.

And China learnt from Singapore, he said: "Since 1996, we have trained over 16,000 Chinese officials."

Stressing the importance of good leadership, he said:

"A mediocre PM and cabinet will decline our standing with other countries…"

Umm, excuse me. Our standing with other countries may decline if we have a mediocre PM and cabinet. But can a mediocre PM and cabinet decline our standing with other countries? They may decline an invitation to visit other countries or to hold talks with other countries. But can they decline our standing with other countries?

"Decline", in the sense of "refuse", can be a transitive as well as an intransitive verb. But "decline", in the sense of "diminish", is an intransitive verb.

That's what Encarta says.

But language is constantly changing and MM Lee, who will be 86 in September, keeps himself updated on everything.

He urges the same openness on Singapore to help the city state make economic progress:

Globalisation cannot be reversed because the technologies that made globalisation inevitable cannot be uninvented... Singapore has to embrace this reality and remain open to talent, capital, technology and immigrants to make up for our low birth rate (total fertility rate of 1.29) with around 35,000 babies each year.

MM Lee's speech on The Fundamentals Of Singapore's Foreign Policy: Then And Now is good reading as a short summary of Singapore's history and current thinking about the benefits of globalization -- and that while there will be competition between America and China, conflict is not inevitable.

One can only hope so.

For only once in recent history has a major power peacefully ceded supremacy to another. That was during the Second World War when Britain became the junior partner of the Anglo-American alliance. Churchill realized he did not have the strength and resources to match America and Russia.

Personally, I am very much in favour of what MM Lee calls the status quo. It is impossible to resist the soft power of America.

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Singapore hawker centres under fire after fatal food poisoning outbreak

Singapore hawker centres under fire after fatal food poisoning outbreak

Apr 10, 2009 at 16:43:48

by Ben Bland

If food is the lifeblood of Singapore, then the many hawker centres are its arteries, ensuring that the city-state's residents are served up with a steady stream of staples, 24 hours a day.

But the ubiquitous hawker centres are under fire after two people died and more than 150 fell ill last week in Singapore's worst food poisoning outbreak in recent years.

The victims fell ill after eating a popular local dish called Indian rojak, which comprises of pieces of deep fried sea-food, tofu and vegetables smothered in a spicy sauce, at one of Singapore's busiest hawker centres, Geylang Serai.

The food poisoning outbreak, which the health ministry believes came about after the rojak sauce was contaminated by tainted raw seafood, has sparked a backlash from politicians and consumers who are unhappy with hygiene standards in food courts and hawker centres across the island nation.

The health minister Khaw Boon Wan said that hygiene standards have slipped since the SARS crisis in 2003 and he wants to see a crackdown on dirty food stalls. His comments have been echoed on the letters pages of the local papers and on various blogs and online forums.

I live about ten minutes walk away from the Geylang Serai hawker centre and wet market, which is a focal point for Singapore's Malay community, and have often eaten there in the past.

The hawker centre was closed on Wednesday and Thursday for a rather belated "spring clean" (i.e. closing the stable door after the...) designed to reassure customers. But the clean-up operation only succeeded in unearthing further problems, such as a major rat infestation.

So it was no great surprise that business was extremely slow when I popped in to Geylang Serai at lunchtime today. Normally you need a pack of tissues and very strong elbows to have any chance of getting a table but, in most parts of the hawker centre today, at least half the seats were empty.

Anyone who frequents Singapore's hawker centres will know that hygiene has never been their strong point. You often see the chefs wiping their nose on their t-shirt with gay abandon and the hawker centre staff "washing" all the plates and cutlery in the same bucket of fetid water.

But a bit of grime doesn't necessarily lead to food poisoning and major outbreaks are rare in Singapore - over the past three years, there has been an average of four food poisoning incidents related to hawker centres per annum.

Nevertheless, after such a serious incident, it looks likely that the government will launch a major drive to improve standards of cleanliness across Singapore.

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Son of Singapore's late opposition icon enters politics

Son of Singapore's late opposition icon enters politics

A son of Singapore's late opposition icon J.B. Jeyaretnam said Friday he had joined his father's pro-democracy party and may run for parliament in the next general elections.

British-trained economist Kenneth Jeyaretnam, 50, told AFP he had been approached to join other parties but decided going with the Reform Party was the right thing to do.

"This is examining my conscience... I should go with the Reform Party because it was set up by my father," Jeyaretnam said.

"I want to honour what he stood for, everything that he said, but I will be my own man," he said.

Jeyaretnam's father, who died in September last year from a heart attack aged 82, suffered jail stints and libel suits in his lonely battle for greater political freedom in the wealthy city-state.

"My message to Singaporeans out there is don't be afraid," said Jeyaretnam.

"I want to show that competition is vital in politics as it is in business, so it's not to be feared but to be embraced," he said.

Jeyaretnam, who worked in the financial sector in London after earning a double first-class honours degree from the University of Cambridge and returned to Singapore last year, says he can offer alternative economic policies to those espoused by the ruling People's Action Party (PAP).

"I want to create an image of economic competency of the opposition, meaning that I can advocate policies for economic prosperity and I can advocate better economic policies than the present government," he said.

Jeyaretnam joined the Reform Party three weeks ago and said he was ready to go out and meet Singaporeans just like his father, a fiery orator who peddled anti-PAP books in the waning years of his political career.

"There is a lot of work to be done... I have a lot to do and go out to meet people," said Jeyaretnam.

"My father was always a firm believer that you have to go out and meet with the ordinary people," he said.

Asked if he was prepared to run for office, he replied: "Absolutely ready."

The late Jeyaretnam was a bitter foe of Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, whose son Lee Hsien Loong became prime minister in 2004 after Goh Chok Tong stepped down. The younger Lee led the PAP to victory in the 2006 general elections.

J.B. Jeyaretnam founded the Reform Party a few months before his sudden death and was hoping to run for office again despite his age.

He was one of the few Singaporeans who spoke out consistently against the PAP, espousing causes such as human rights and greater political freedoms in the city-state, and made history by breaking the PAP's total grip on parliament in 1981.

His younger son Philip, 45, also educated at Cambridge, is an author and senior lawyer who has served as president of the Law Society of Singapore.

The PAP, which has been in power since 1959, says its tough laws against dissent are necessary to ensure the stability which has helped Singapore progress economically to become among the wealthiest in Asia.

It controls all but two of the 84 seats in parliament.

General elections are not due until 2011 but there is speculation that the PAP will seek a mandate earlier, hoping Singaporeans would support its record of economic progress and stability instead of voting for untested opposition leaders during an economic recession.

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