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The different faces of Aids

2009-11-20T22:00:00Z

Lee Siew Hua wonders how the discrimination against Aids can be eradicated.

WE DON'T know it, but men and women with HIV live anonymously among us.

They look normal, perhaps are active in sports, raise children. They may be anyone: a colleague or friend - even the grandmother waiting for the lift, really. But they are walking walls of silence because Singapore society has not yet learned to live with them.

The stigma of HIV is explored poignantly in 10 photo essays created by patients, volunteers and caregivers. Hosted by the non-profit organisation Action for Aids, the photo exhibition will run till Nov 29 at VivoCity.

The silence of patients, very sadly, feeds public ignorance and fear. This fear invariably feeds more silence, with patients pulling an ever tighter shroud of secrecy around their lives for protection. Should they speak up then?

Medical social worker Ho Lai Peng from Tan Tock Seng Hospital says: “The price is too high for them to pay.”

Photo source: Chalen Tan

Until society or culture shifts to accommodate the marginalised sufferer, it is may be too painful to speak up. Even with cancer - a common illness - some patients are initially silent about their condition. Family members of cancer patients, fearing contamination, have been known to keep separate utensils for use at home.

Both cancer and HIV/Aids are chronic life-threatening conditions. While there is also deep anxiety about cancer, the fear factor is conquered partly because of the hefty resources and human sympathy focused on cancer here and globally.

In Singapore, only two people have openly declared their HIV status. The late Paddy Chew went public in 1998. Mr Andy Low broke his silence this year.

Ms Ho, who has worked with patients for 14 years, has seen many of her patients live long and fruitful lives. The pity is that these good lives are covered up. She adds: “The discrimination is very painful because they have to continually lie and cover up.”

Some feel guilty that they cannot be honest about their condition with a good employer, she says.

Some forms of discrimination are obvious. People with Aids may lose their jobs, and no specific legislation redresses this discrimination.

Subtle discrimination exists as well - even at home. A patient’s family may have accepted his or her condition. Then when an argument breaks out, a family member may lash out that the patient deserves his misery.

Volunteers from Action for Aids chime in with similar stories and views. Says Mr Dan Tam, who visits HIV patients in the Communicable Disease Centre: “They are like anyone else who is warded in hospital, just that they are relatively more lonely and isolated. I feel upset when someone tells me that people with Aids deserve the worst. HIV/Aids could happen to anyone.'

Photo source: Dan Tam

Photographer Tan Ngiap Heng, who helped seed the idea for the Aids photo show at VivoCity, says: “I hope that people who see the images will also see the humanity of the people living with HIV and be more accepting of these people.”

Apart from stigma, photos in the exhibition also highlight the vulnerability of HIV-positive mums and their young children. Other photos focus on the journeys some patients make to buy cheaper generic medicine in Thailand. And several pictures are infused with fun, hope and a sense of normalcy.

Meanwhile, the silence is still immense after years of public education and outreach. It will take all players - the state, civil society and patients themselves - to end the silence, the secrets and the unjustifiable stigma.

An open country like Singapore can surely focus new compassion and purpose on an illness that has been with us a long time.

Just talking about Aids is very powerful - for Singapore society as much as for people with Aids.

Photo source: Norman A.

Energy's the topic of the week

2009-11-20T12:10:00Z

Jessica Cheam is impressed by the enthusiasm at Singapore International Energy Week.

BARELY recovering from hosting the Apec 2009 summit last week, Singapore played host to a lesser-known but equally interesting conference this week — the Singapore International Energy Week.

The annual conference, in its second year, saw bigwigs from the energy industry such as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin descend on the city-state to exchange ideas and engage in debates on energy issues.

If I could sum up one theme that spoke for the entire week of events, it would be this: innovation.

Dr Yergin, chairman of the IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of a prize-winning book on the history of the oil industry aptly noted that while the 20th century was the century of oil, the 21st century will be the century of energy innovation.

"This intense push for innovation is drive by two powerful forces - the quest for clean energy and the need to provide energy for economic growth," he said.

"The reality is nowhere more vivid than in Asia, the centre of economic growth," he observed.

That spirit of change is truly in the air. While moderating a panel discussion on the second day of the Energy Week at a dialogue organised by the Energy Studies Institute (ESI) and Royal Dutch Shell, I found the speakers, and members of the audience, often going back to the theme of renewables.

Principal fellow at the ESI, Dr Michael Quah, gave a rousing presentation on how the world must transit to one that runs on renewable energy - there is no other option.

While it took billions of years for the earth to create finite, fossil energy, we are using it up at an extremely unsustainable rate.

But while we would all like to convert to renewable energy, it is still unavailable on a massive scale and this is likely to be fully achieved only in the medium to long term, perhaps in 50 years, he said.

In the meantime, countries must grasp low-hanging fruits such as energy efficiency to make their economies leaner, while pumping research and development money to bring clean energy to the masses, said the panel members.

There are also some "transition" fuels that we could use while on the journey towards renewables, such as natural gas and its different forms (which are less polluting than crude oil) which could be tapped on.

This is something energy firms like Shell are innovating in, says Shell executive vice president Tan Chong Meng, who spoke on how we need to move from simply talking about our energy challenges, to actually acting on solutions that exist today.

This is achieved by maximising oil recovery, broadening the energy mix and reducing the carbon intensity of fossil fuels through technologies such as carbon, capture and storage (CCS), he suggested.

As part of the Singapore International Energy Week, the Clean Energy Expo Asia opened on Wednesday, and Singapore's Energy Market Authority (EMA) announced an interesting test-bedding project to power one of Singapore's well-loved island, Pulau Ubin, completely with renewable energy.

The initiatives came fast and furious after this: EMA also launched a smart grid pilot project to be implemented at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Jalan Bahar Cleantech Park to make our grids more intelligent.

Singapore's solar energy research institute opened its doors and will invest $130 million into the industry in the next five years. Electric vehicles will arrive by next year so we can collect data and learn how to implement them on a wider scale.

So even as the week of activities have come to an end, the issues that were discussed and initiatives put in place will have an impact that will last well into the next year.

And it is an exciting period of time. It seems like the energy landscape is on the cusp of a green revolution, and Singapore has done well to position itself right in the middle of this rapidly-evolving sector.

As EMA's chief executive Lawrence Wong aptly puts it: If Singapore makes the right move, it will provide the platform for new products and services, spur energy innovations, and completely transform the shape of the energy industry in future.

Lines of succession

2009-11-19T06:25:00Z

Sherwin Loh asks why gizmo upgrades happen at such a breathless pace.

AS I sat at my desk this week opening up my review unit of the N97 Mini smartphone from Nokia, I could not help but feel sorry for the poor souls who, just a few months ago, had picked up the original N97.

The N97 is Nokia's flagship device, mixing a small computer with 32GB, 5MP camera with a 3.5 inch screen. It was launched in June for $1,028.

The Mini, as the name suggests, is a smaller device with a 3.2inch screen and 8GB capacity. The price, at $1,020, had not shrunk much when the gizmo launched this month.

Two phones, almost similar in specs, launched less than six months apart at about the same price. If you factor in telco subsidy, you can get either phone for about $500 on similar subscription plans right now.

Some might say that the extra memory in the original device makes it a better buy, but I'm looking at the N97 Mini as the more updated device, with extra time spent on improving it, and thus, the better product. Form wise, the metallic back cover of the new kid beats the plastic one of the big daddy any day.

But this blog is not just about phones, but more about companies releasing newer versions of their products at a faster rate, with cellphone companies the latest player in the catch-up game.

In the home movie industry, it is called "double dipping", where studios release a movie on DVD first, and a Special Edition with extra features and bonus disc a year later.

In the case of electronics, not too many consumers can afford to buy a second device for the additional features, but imagine spending a tidy sum on a new plasma TV, only to find out that five months later that the model you bought now has a thinner variant, with different colours and more bells and whistles too — and at about the same price.

I would be upset.

As a consumer, when I buy an expensive product, I hate knowing that there is a newer version just around the corner.

Some might argue that innovations give rise to these upgrades. So consumers get tinier gizmos yet with niftier tools.

I do not deny that soup-ups are great. There is the original iPhone, the much improved iPhone 3G and the current 3GS, all launched with significant upgrades about a year apart.

Take the new PlayStation 3 Slim. At 33 per cent smaller and 36 per cent lighter than its predecessor, it also comes with a 120GB hard drive against the 60GB of the original. And it’s priced the same as the original but with more to offer.

Unlike super fast handset roll-outs, the PS3 Slim – also trotted out in August this year – comes three years after the original made its debut in November 2006.

Of course, fans might take issue with the fact that after the roll-out of the $512 120GB version here last month, Sony announced this week the price of the 250GB version at $552. Again, I pity those who bought the 120GB version.

There is nothing wrong with gizmo makers trotting out newer models, but in a breathless span of a few months, or even week?

Surely, the respectable time distance should be a year, like cars, for which a new model is launched each year.

Such pacing – apart from discouraging over consumerism and clogging the earth with electronic junk – gives consumers the latitude of buying without feeling so cheated.

The least they can do is come out with the devices with new model numbers or names.

Alas, Nokia already has the N98 and N99 models lined up so it is stuck with calling the new N97 the Mini, but that is what happens when you launch and design things so close after the other.

Making much from magic

2009-11-18T11:01:00Z

Marc Checkley is enthralled by Magic For Maya's young performers.

I REMEMBER with great fondness my six years at the local community drama club in Auckland, New Zealand.

On Monday evenings we would spend two hours or so cavorting around learning characterisation (a broom stick attempting to free itself from a cupboard), improvisation techniques and how to project the voice ("diaphragm people!").

These weekly classes were to ready us for the end of term musical productions the club would stage three times a year. In my time I played numerous characters, from a glow-in-the-dark toadstool and an evil baron with a wry smile, to a juggling clown called Zibbidy.

All this experience ignited my passion for the performing arts, which continued through my teenage and tertiary years, eventually leading me to theatre, film and television/media work.

Apart from confidence, the shows I was a part of as a child imparted the fine art of communication — no matter how or what I was dressed-up in — something that has come in very handy in my career.

I got to re-live some of my experiences in child-theatre last weekend when I saw one of the final performances of Magic For Maya, produced by the Centre Stage School of the Arts, which conducts regular classes in acting, dance and singing from a black and white colonial building, off Portsdown Road.

Set in war-time Singapore, the play tells the tale of a young teen, Maya, and her friends as they wait out the night for word of their parents who are stationed at Alexandra Hospital. To ease their angst, Aunt Jenny — the only adult in the play — gets the kids to role-play, sing songs and perform magic as the ominous drone of air raid sirens and mortar explosions echo outside.

Over 60-minutes, we experience the children's emotional challenges as they discover more about themselves and how, even in the darkest of moments, they must find courage together and hope for a better tomorrow.

Writer/director, Sangeeta Nambiar said the story came about after she read about the Alexandra Hospital massacre on Valentine's Day 1942, where hundreds of British troops, medical staff and patients were slaughtered by the Japanese forces.

"I was amazed at how this event had stayed a statistic," said Nambiar. "The idea for the play emerged from there."

The energised cast, ranging from eight to 15-years, gave a thoroughly engaging performance that also included music by Jane Lau and Neeraj Shaabi, dance and even some sleight-of-hand trickery.

Their raw talent shone through and each member brought individuality to their part, which was refreshing to see and contributed to the intrigue and the message behind Nambiar's script.

Maya, played by 15-year-old Ida Esmaeili, gave a stand-out performance as the play's main protagonist and even at such a tender age, her talents are already apparent.

She was complemented by Sam Duffy, 13, who took on the imaginary character of the Great Count Spinney during one of the kids' games, with great gusto and swooping of limbs. Shaggy-haired Neil Shaabi, eight, was also a joy to watch as he confidently performed the famous Indian rope trick to the gasps and applause of the cast and the packed-out audience.

At one point, the game between Spinney and Maya role-playing the wise Lord Tigre (Tiger), goes too far. Spinney pretends to be wounded in a dramatic duel, scared she may have actually hurt him, Maya breaks out of character to check on her friend. But it was all a trick and Spinney claims victory, abruptly ending the game.

Aunt Jenny steps in, reminding Sam the game should be fun.

"But war is like that Aunt Jenny," he tries to reason.

"Yes, but we mustn't lose our minds or courage — no one can take away our spirit," Jenny cautions.

Suddenly the children are faced with the grim reality of war, death and the fear of the unknown.

"What have we done to them?" Maya pleads.

Heavy stuff and yet the cast of nine never missed a beat and had the audience — a mixture of parents, kids and the public — in the palm of their hands, right to final scene where Maya and Aunt Jenny remind us that with hope, and strength of character we're capable of great things.

During the rapturous curtain call, seeing the kids beaming with delight at their performance, it reminded me how important this exposure is for a child. The opportunity to take on a character, make it your own and work with both kids and adults to put on a show for the public is an empowering feeling that stays with you always.

The cast and crew of Magic For Maya. PHOTO: Centre Stage

Productions like Magic For Maya provide an outlet for youth to explore their abilities, where they can feel emotions and use them to power a story line, allowing them to communicate on multiple levels with their peers and their audience.

Through my work in schools here, teaching drama and media, I've seen that this form of expression is sometimes lacking as drama and dance co-curricular activities are often used as a vehicle to win awards in the Singapore Youth Festival. Their efforts are worthy, but once the competition is over that's it for another year.

Hopefully, more schools like Centre Stage will take up the baton and provide opportunities for Singapore youth to perform year round.

Child-theatre not only imparts the skills to communicate but also the confidence to be an individual, the sooner kids grasp this the better and like Maya they will come to realise, as Aunt Jenny said: "Magic is all in the mind. Magic is really what we make of it."

The Centre Stage players are next performing at Jubilee Hall from December 3-6 in their Christmas production; A Right Rubbish Christmas. Visit their website for show and course details.

Not flash enough for TV?

2009-11-17T13:41:00Z

Niki Bruce reviews the original source of a TV show and finds it very different.

CURRENTLY showing on Channel 5, the Flashforward TV series is based on the book by the same name, but with major plot differences, by Robert J Sawyer.

Although the basic premise – that something causes people around the world to pass out and dream about jumping forward in time – is the same in the book and the series, substantial details are not.

Most notably, the central characters in the book version are physicists based at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, in Switzerland. In the TV version, the central characters are much more exciting – FBI agents based in Los Angeles.

All of this, to my mind, actually takes away from Sawyer's very interesting storyline and also, quite horribly, destroys the whole premise that is the 'flash forward' phenomenon.

Basically in the book, the flash forward occurs because of an experiment with the Hadron Collider, it is the cause of the action that is the basis of the story. In the TV show the reason behind why the flash forward occurs is something to do with an experiment at Stanford University.

This is where the show's producers have given a token nod to Sawyer's book – the character at Stanford is called Dr. Lloyd Simcoe, much reduced from his central role in the original version. Obviously the TV guys didn't think a series with a balding, 40-something physicist working in Switzerland would be a ratings winner.

And this is also why the TV is nonsensical. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for fantasy and science fiction with crazy plots and unbelievable storylines, but they should make some sort of basic sense.

In Sawyer's book, there are great swathes of physics, paragraphs on mathematics and philosophy and also musings about guilt and personal choice – all of which give the reader something more meaty to think on.

Would you really want to know the future if you knew you were going to be dead? Or working in a dead-end job, married to the wrong person or not married to the person you now love?

Or, on the other hand, would you want to know the future if it could tell you what you should be studying now? Or could tell you how your children are going to turn out; or could let you know that you'll be happily married to the person you love?

Sawyer's version of Flashforward is more philosophical, it's more complex and detailed, and naturally enough, that's not good TV.

Admittedly the producers of the show say that it is 'loosely based' on Sawyer's book, but from what I've seen the two entities are on opposite sides of the entertainment universe.

I suppose what is most annoying is that the name is the same. And the publishers of the book, Gollancz, are pitching it as being linked to the TV series, which is doing quite well around the world.

This is rather disingenuous, as the TV show is really nothing like the book and it looks more like the publisher is simply trying to travel on the coattails of the show, which is in some way demeaning for the novel which deserves better.

If you enjoy juicy technical science fiction rather than TV-land pap, go for Sawyer's version. You won't be disappointed and you'll learn things about physics that you would never have imagined.

Flashforward by Robert J Sawyer is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

Cautionary tale from a rogue S-chip

2009-11-17T02:59:00Z

Goh Eng Yeow comments on the unfolding boardroom scandal at Sino-Environment.

It was with some concerns that I wrote the latest commentary "A cautionary tale for S-chip investors" asking why Sino-Environment was allowed to trade for a further six months when it seemed likely that the firm might not survive the problems that beset it.

The problems faced by Sino-Environment were similar to those that had befallen Fibrechem Technologies and China Sun Bio-chem earlier – and it is difficult to believe that its boss will behave any differently.

For those who have not followed the Sino-Environment saga, a swift recap: Its founder and chairman Sun Jiangrong defaulted on a $120 million loan extended to him by a hedge fund in February. This resulted in his 56 per cent stake in Sino-Environment being seized by the hedge fund and sold on the open market.

His personal financial difficulties plunged the company into turmoil because it was faced with potential early redemption of a $149 million bond.

Under such circumstances, one would have expected someone – anyone in a position of influence in the company – to try to safeguard the company’s precious financial resources and keep it out of harm’s way.

The alarm bells should have been set ringing when the company failed to come out with its first quarter results – due out by mid-May – and had to hire auditors PwC to review "significant cash transactions" between January and March – the period which coincided with Mr Sun’s loan default.

This would have been the first indication of somebody’s suspicions that money might have been moved out of the company – and that an independent party was being hired to track down the transactions.

Instead, our attention was diverted by the charade staged by the management threatening to walk out on the beleaguered company that month, and the independent directors having to beg them to stay to ensure that operations run smoothly.

But buried in a May 25 announcement asking the executive directors to withdraw their resignations was also a "request that the key management co-operate on certain matters in the meantime".

On hindsight, I will not be surprised if these certain matters refer to the suspicious cash transactions that had been made between January and March.

But it will take more than a Sherlock Holmes to decipher all the cryptic meanings in the announcements made by the firm.

It certainly speaks volume about the manner in which Sino-Environment implements the disclosure-based practices. Surely, disclosures should be made in a coherent and transparent manner to let investors make an informed decision – to trade, or in this case, not to trade at all.

We would all be still in the dark about the subsequent report of the PwC findings to the CAD and the boardroom tussle to get rid of Mr Sun, if the management had not sacked the Singapore unit’s financial controller, Mr Raynauld Liang - and caused all these developments to spill into the open.

It makes me wonder once again what can be done if these offshore firms, which are listed here, refuse to play by our rules.

Sino-Environment’s independent directors are clearly out of their depth dealing with a boss who decides to turn roguish.

But I wish that they could have been more forthcoming right from the start about the problems that are festering in the company and not let them suddenly explode in the public eye last week.

Tightening the regulations further or ensuring that the chief financial officer is based here isn’t going to help – if the precious cash resources are out of reach – and in the hands of management far away from Singapore.

The biggest headache now is the sort of redress an investor who bought the stock after May could get from the whole sorry saga when trading should have been stopped after disclosures of the "significant cash transactions" were made by way of the PwC review.

The Bloomberg machine shows that about 15 million Sino-Environment shares were traded daily between March – when Mr Sun’s loan default came to light – and September when trading was suspended.

That is an awfully large number of shares each day during those fateful six months to answer for.

US dollar carry trade

2009-11-16T08:15:00Z

Goh Eng Yeow on the boost the weakening greenback gives regional equities.

ASIAN markets are rallying as the greenback falls to fresh lows against regional currencies, giving the giant US dollar carry trade a fresh lease of life.

As I write, the US dollar has fallen to a record low against the Singdollar.

It is difficult to fathom why the greenback is so weak today, but it is the biggest reason for propelling regional stock indexes on a fresh upward trajectory.

This has sent the Hang Seng hurtling towards the 23,000 resistance level, while STI is up nearly 50 points at 2,777.

Some will say that the renewed weakness over the greenback is a reflection of falling US economic might.

One newspaper has described US President Barack Obama's nine-day trip to Asia as a visit to his creditors.

"Mr Obama can only grin and ask his hosts to bear with the weakening greenback. He does not have the means to rescue the US dollar on his own," it noted.

And for traders the world over, the most telling sign of US humility was the picture of the deep bow which Mr Obama made before the Japanese emperor in Tokyo.

It is also a sign of China's growing confidence that its president, Mr Hu Jintao, left Singapore after Mr Obama took off to Shanghai.

A far less assured leader would have cut short his Apec summit visit to Singapore and return back to Beijing early to make sure that nothing goes wrong with Mr Obama's first state-visit to his country.

This is why faith is being renewed among traders that they can safely "short" dollars and "long" emerging market equities, without having to fear that a sudden rebound of greenback will wipe them out.

In the short-term, a weakening green-back will give strength of the US dollar carry trade – and like the precedessor yen carry trade a decade ago – trigger a sharp rise in the value of all types of assets – stocks and shares, precious metals like gold, as well as crude oil.

But in the long-term, the trend of the weakening dollar is unhealthy, as it may prompt other major trading nations to try to devalue their currencies as well to try to stay competitive.

It reminds many of the Asian financial crisis a decade ago, when several nations indulged in what is known as "competitive devaluation" to protect their exports markets to keep up with the falling value of their neighbours’ currencies.

The end-result was near bankruptcy for them.

Does polygamy work?

2009-11-14T22:00:00Z

Hazlin Hassan meets members of a 'polygamy club' in Malaysia.

A SO-CALLED polygamy club launched in August has been stirring some excitement recently.

Last month I made my way to Rawang, a town some 50 kilometres from KL city, to meet up with the club founder and some of her followers and family members. It was one of the most unusual interviews I have ever done.

When I arrived, I was taken aback to be greeted by dozens of people. It turns out Madam Hatijah Aam, 55, had gathered most of her husband's 38 children to join us!

"To prove to you that we exist," she laughed.

She is married to Ashaari Muhammad, who has had five wives. One wife has died, and one has been divorced.

His huge clan comprises 38 children, 200 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. All of his children who are married, are in polygamous marriages. The club claims a membership of 300.

The close-knit Ashaari family are based in Rawang, where they run a huge empire of grocery stores, restaurants, publishing companies, clinics and other businesses. Mdm Hatijah says they also have businesses elsewhere in the world such as Australia, Syria and Germany, generating millions of ringgit, which funds their activities.

This is not the first time her family has made headlines. Mr Ashaari was previously known for having led a deviant religious sect that was banned in 1994, due to teachings deemed contrary to the Quran. It was believed to have thousands of followers, including civil servants. The government has said it suspects the polygamy club could be a front for the revival of the religious sect, which Hatijah has denied.

Before the cult was banned, followers wore long flowing robes and turbans for the men, and black robes and face-veils for the women.

But when I met them, Hatijah, Noraziah and their children, wore colourful though modest clothes and headscarves. Their faces were not covered. The children laughed and joked with each other during the interview, like any other family.

ST PHOTO BY: HAZLIN HASSAN

Hatijah sounded persuasive enough, saying polygamy could help solve social ills such as prostitution and adultery. But when I pressed her on how a polygamist might be fair and just to all his wives, and how he is able to provide for all of them equally, she was unable to give solid answers. I said that while Ashaari might be able to provide all of them with comfortable lives due to his profitable businesses, other ordinary men earning meagre salaries, might not. Her answer was just that "God will provide." But the club's brochures do highlight a verse from the Quran that says that if a man fears he is unable to be fair and just to his wives, then he must only marry one.

The clan then proceeded to surprise me at the end of the interview by singing two songs extolling the virtues of polygamy, written by Ashaari himself. After that, some of them departed for Indonesia, where they are setting up a chapter. Although I left not altogether convinced that polygamy was for every man (or woman), they did seem earnest enough. And they certainly welcomed me with much warmth and generosity.

Read Hazlin Hassan's report on More wives = less adultery and prostitution? in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.

Saying goodbye in peace

2009-11-13T22:00:00Z

Tan Hui Yee looks at funerals held at void decks.

THE business of void deck funerals is a peculiar one, at least for those new to Singapore.
Malaysian-born Singaporean Frankie Chiuh, 50, remembers what it was like, witnessing his first such funeral beneath his apartment block 17 years ago.
“I felt uneasy as it was just below our homes. In Malaysia, you usually hold funerals in parlours, or - if you live in a house - in your compound.”
But like any other Singaporean, he has grown used to the idea that the free space beneath apartment blocks here can accommodate a whole range of activities, funeral rites being just one of them.
Familiarity though, does not take away the friction that can occur when neighbours compete to use void decks, or insist that one party has no right to it.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong most recently related how a Chinese family was adamant about holding a funeral at a void deck when a Malay family had already booked the place for a wedding.
Funeral director Ang Ziqian, 28, has his own story to tell. One particular void deck funeral attracted a visit from the police every two hours, because a family living nearby kept complaining it was too noisy.
Each time, the police went away after ascertaining that that was not so.
Later, the puzzle was solved: A child from the family had fallen ill after accidentally kicking over an oil lamp placed on the floor during the previous void deck funeral. This made the family very wary of such events.
But this is an extreme case, says Mr Ang, who runs Ang Chin Moh Casket, one of Singapore’s oldest funeral planning companies.
“Most of time, if neighbour A holds a wake, neighbour B, C, and D will attend the wake.”
Besides, he says, funeral directors work according to a set of unwritten rules.
The first is simple - all religious services at the wake end by 11pm.
Next, if they are unsure if the void deck has been booked for some other activity, they will choose another venue if they see that furniture has been placed there in preparation for a wedding.
If two wakes are held at the same location, funeral directors will stagger the time each procession leaves, to reduce congestion.
The problem arises mostly on weekends, when town councils are closed and the deceased’s family has no way of checking if void decks have been booked for any event.
Currently, the family simply goes ahead with the funeral and only pays for the use of the void deck on the next working day. This practice, though, leaves a lot to chance and opens the door to disputes.
Mr Ang suggests that town councils put void deck bookings online, so that residents can do the check themselves even if the town council is closed. To help residents who are not web savvy, it can also make known the telephone number of the estates officer in charge of each batch of flats.
Yet technology can only help so much. People have to play their part.
How disputes are resolved, he says, still boils down to the attitude of each resident involved.

Read the Saturday Special report here.

SPH reiterates 'We didn't do it'

2009-11-13T01:47:00Z

Geoffrey Pereira says TR's reactions to blog may have generated traffic but were not coherent.

When Temasek Review (TR) published its article last week accusing SPH of trying to cripple its web server, I felt strongly that it should not be ignored as just another piece of the usual nonsense hurled at the company, often from the cover of anonymity.

I advocated that we respond to the serious allegations made in the article, 'SPH IP address caught “grabbing” content from Temasek Review server' .
(http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/11/02/sph-and-recent-ddos-attack-on-temasek-review/)

No one coerced me to write it. I hope that answers some comments made on and about my blog, published last week, on Nov 6:
http://blogs.straitstimes.com/2009/11/6/attack-on-temasek-review-site-not-sph

TR reacted profusely, to say the least. It has published no fewer than 7 articles on the topic, when I counted yesterday (Nov12) . All but one – a letter – were belligerent in tone and designed to ridicule me and my company.

Among the points these tried to make:
- TR never accused SPH of having a go at its server;
- I got the timing of the alleged attack wrong;
- my explanation, involving spoofing in Denial-of -Service (DOS) attacks, was wrong.

The articles also tried to shift focus away from a DOS attack to SPH’s alleged “grabbing” of TR content.

There were some humorous detours, such as in ‘25 SPH employees “caught” surfing Temasek Review in 3 days’, published on Nov 7.
(http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/11/07/25-sph-employees-caught-surfing-temasek-review-in-3-days/ )

This spoke about how journalists – from both SPH and Today – were visiting TR to “fish for news to write with most of them lacking the basic courtesy to even acknowledge their source of information”.

But the funniest was this: “Despite our sometimes fierce rhetoric against SPH journalists, we have really nothing against them personally. In fact, we are very sympathetic of the situation they are in: they are paid pittance and made to work long hours.”

It went on to add: “When our media company is finally incorporated next year, we will give our full-time journalists a better deal. SPH journalists are more than welcomed to join us.”

Wow.

Also interesting was the letter sent to SPH’s CEO, and published in TR on Nov 8.
( http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/11/08/temasek-review-writes-to-sph-ceo-alan-chan-to-seek-further-clarifications/ )

In it was a surprise statement, referring to TR's original article:

“Our correspondent who drafted the article was not familiar with IT matters. We apologize if our article has caused some misunderstanding and we have already clarified the matter in subsequent articles.

"We have never intended to implicate SPH with the DDOS attack on our server which had occurred a day earlier and we are sorry for any distress caused.”

Wow (again). They pelt me with rotten tomatoes and roast me, deny that they made accusations against SPH. At the same time, they say sorry to my CEO for hurling accusations.

Well, SPH does not reply to letters from unidentified parties (even if they have e-mail addresses), so TR – whose editor has no name, no face – should not hope for one from my CEO.

On Nov 10 yet another article from TR:
( http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/11/10/sph-journalist-geoffrey-pereira-got-boomzed-on-his-blog/comment-page-1/ )

This was a compilation of anonymous comments, mostly poking fun at my original blog, and which TR filed under “Top News”. It was back to pelting and roasting.

The summary of all this is, in a space of just under a week, TR has gone on overdrive to increase traffic to its site.

It has said so many things – including denying, then accepting, that it had accused SPH of trying to cripple its server – almost in the same breath. Wayang would be an apt term to describe it.

I will be unequivocal and reiterate what I said in my earlier blog: SPH made checks spanning a period that extended to before and after the alleged attack .

Our checks found that neither SPH as a company, nor any employee as an individual, launched a DOS attack on TR's web server. There was also no attempt to "grab" TR material in a way that could overload its server.

Vampires, fairies, finding the dead

2009-11-12T12:02:00Z

Niki Bruce reviews two books from supernatural thriller author Charlaine Harris.

THE edgy, punchy, sexy series that is True Blood on HBO may have finished its second season in Singapore, but if you're still after tales of vampires, werewolves and fairies you can get stuck into Charlaine Harris' collected short stories about Sookie Stackhouse with A Touch of Dead.

A Touch of Dead has five stories based on the world of Sookie Stackhouse, the human who can read minds, dates vampires and whose brother is a were-panther. The original Sookie stories are now being translated in to an award-winning series on HBO and stars Anna Paquin as Sookie.

As Harris says in her introduction to the collection, Sookie's world is a complex and complicated one and the author was concerned about attempting to condense it into the short story format. She even admits that some of her efforts were more successful than others but, also says that she enjoyed the exercise:

"It's been hard to fit the stories into Sookie's larger history without leaving seams. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes not. In this edition, I've tried to smooth out the edges of the story that was the most fun to write but wouldn't fit in its chronological hole no matter how I pounded (Dracula Night)."

Dracula Night sees the local vampire bar, Fangtasia, celebrating Prince Dracula's birthday – kind of like the vampire version of Christmas. The twist is that their hero may actually attend the event. Eric Northman, Sookie's sometime lover in the later books of the series but still an unknown enemy in the TV version, is particularly enamoured of the idea of a visit from Prince Dracula. Needless to say, Sookie manages to get an invite and happens to be in the right place at the right time once again.

What is interesting reading these stories is that the characters now take on the visual images of the actors who portray them on TV. Sometimes this works, Paquin is a good choice for Sookie; sometimes it doesn't. Still, it can be a little off-putting.

But the generally light-hearted stories in A Touch of Dead are a great antidote to the heavily detailed and often emotionally tortured stories of Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books. There's a bit of death in Fairy Dust – when fairy siblings who work at a strip joint (don't ask) go after a murderer – there's some magic in Lucky – when a local witch tries to do the right thing and ends up doing the opposite and some raunchy sex in Gift Wrap – which is just that, a gift wrapped in some sexy packaging.

If you love the Sookie Stackhouse series then it's worth getting your hands on A Touch of Dead to have the whole set and to while away the time until Harris produces the next novel in the series.

A busy author, Harris has also just released the latest book in her other supernatural series about Harper Connelly, Grave Secret.

Harper, like Sookie, is human but she's been touched by the supernatural; Harper can feel the dead. It doesn't matter how old they are, Harper can find sense their graves and, in doing so, find out how they died.

Needless to say, she's useful if you're a police officer but not if you're a murderer, so she's generally getting into trouble, one way or another.

Harper travels with her 'brother' Tolliver, who is also her lover. But before it gets too icky; they're not actually related to each other, being step-siblings from an unholy union of two drug addicts, they have looked after each other all their lives.

Grave Secrets sees the pair return to their hometown for the first time in years in an attempt to trace their missing older sister, Cameron. Picking up some work at the same time, Harper discovers that a very rich man may have had an illegitimate child – that may also have been murdered.

Tolliver's former drug addict, ex-prisoner father is also back on the scene and as family complications ensue, the pair get shot at, chased and learn the terrible truth about what may have happened to their sister.

Harris' skill at making her characters and their stories approachable and 'real' is what makes her supernatural-themed stories more substantial than the usual 'sexy vampire' pap that seems everywhere these days.

Sookie is a real person; she's insecure, funny, caring and looking for love. Harper is just as real; she's in love, damaged by her past and coming to terms with her future.

The fact that both women have special 'talents' doesn't make them any less real for the reader who likes to dream that there's a wider world of wonder out there.

Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online. A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris is also published by Gollancz and available from good book stores and online.

Food for thought

2009-11-11T09:56:00Z

Loh Keng Fatt comes up with an idea to end the lunch-time seating crush.

COMPANIES in Singapore should really stagger their lunch hours. The way it is now, you have to jostle the masses during peak-time lunch hours at HDB coffeeshops.

Chances are, all the seats will be taken, people will be milling around waiting for a space to open up, and you will feel frustrated, especially if you have driven to the place for a bite.

But if the coffeeshop is next to an HDB block with a void deck, I wonder why that space can’t be utilised to contain the overflowing crowd.

In Chai Chee, I have actually seen enterprising hawkers in a busy kopitiam put up tables and chairs in the void deck of an HDB block facing the eatery.

Five or six tables were provided and they made for a happy gathering point for the lunchtime crowd. The tables were quickly cleared after the human traffic thinned.

But, in recent months, I have not seen the tables there. Maybe someone complained to the town council that the void deck was being used for unauthorised purposes?

Perhaps the hawkers were warned not to repeat their space-invader action?

I know residents in the block probably did not like the din created by the chattering lunch-time crowd.

They may also have been concerned about the issue of hygiene, from floors splattered with food stains and sauce to how quickly the leftover food and plates and utensils were cleared.

These are valid concerns and no one wants his immediate environment to be tarnished.

But in space-jammed Singapore, there is also the need to maximise the usage of space and allow community needs to prevail over personal ones, if they make sense.

People needing to eat lunch surely qualifies as a necessity.

Eating in a coffeeshop is a popular option. So, what if hawkers could be allowed to "borrow" the void-deck for a fixed duration, say from noon to 2pm?

What if they hire cleaners or staff to ensure that the space used is kept spotless after each usage and that rubbish is removed as quickly as possible?

What if only a portion of the void deck was used, and that this space was far away from the lobby and lift areas?

What if the town council actually levied a charge on the hawkers and that money in return went towards reducing the monthly service and conservancy charges of residents?

These issues could well be food for thought the next time you are desperately hunting for a lunch-time seat lunch in a coffeeshop.

What do you think of this idea? Leave your comments below.

The buy high, sell low syndrome

2009-11-11T03:53:00Z

Goh Eng Yeow on the increasing market weariness as indexes flirt with 2009 highs.

WATCHING the stock market the past few days and I am reminded of a man heaving a heavy sack, as he climbs up a hill. Each foot-fall becomes heavier as he climbs higher, as he turns wearier with every step.

Global stock markets have been flirting with 2009 highs, ever-since Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average successfully breached the 10,000 level last Thursday.

But traders don't seem to be much cheered by the prospects of higher stock prices at all.

Instead, trading volumes around the world have been drying up, as buyers melt away as share prices climb higher.

What is supporting the global stock market rally is the increasingly shaky US dollar carry trade - with big-time punters borrowing heavily in US dollars to buy all sorts of assets from crude oil to emerging markets equities.

What they are betting is a further drop in the US dollar and a rise in the value of the assets they are buying. This will give them both forex gains and capital gains.

But as one economist points out, there is no chance of the US dollar falling to zero, even though the economic prospects of the US look awful. This explains why every drop in the greenback is viewed by traders with concern, as the prospect of a sudden rebound becomes more likely, wiping out those who are "shorting" the US dollar in a big way.

It seems strange to be placing a bet in the stock market when so much of the outcome hinges on the health of the ailing US dollar and almost nothing else matters – whether it is the underlying fundamentals of a blue-chip DBS Group Holdings share or the demand for crude oil going forward.

And just to give an example of the surreal situation which the market is finding itself trapped in, I got this note from a Hong Kong broker this morning.

It advised investors to buy HSBC Holdings up to a price of HK$91 on hopes that it would rise to HK$98. But if the stock should fall to HK$85, investors should take the loss in the chin and clear out of the stock altogether.

Strange, that such a trading recommendation should be made, considering that HSBC appears to be properly chastened by its US adventure and could not seem to be getting out of the troubled US mortgage market fast enough. On the flipside, it had even despatched its CEO to Hong Kong to show that it meant business in Asia.

Surely, if its share price falls sharply, isn't it more attractive to buy more of the stock?

But that is the ridiculous situation we are finding ourselves in the market today.

The buy high, sell low syndrome is back.

Jackie Chan's positive vibration

2009-11-10T06:34:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh meets the energetic martial arts star in Bangkok.

IN BANGKOK

IF YOU were ever left in any doubt from his movies that Jackie Chan is a bundle of energy, that doubt is removed the moment you encounter him in person.

Jackie Chan arrived at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) in Bangkok like a whirlwind on Monday evening.

Sitting at the top table he attacked a bowl of nuts, refused all other food and stuck to water. When it was suggested that the event start, he clapped his hands together and said "Yes, I like to work!"

At the podium he delivered short introductory remarks, and then clearly couldn't stand sitting in one place any longer. He leaped up and stood behind the table, only occasionally sitting for a few seconds after he had delivered a long answer to a question.

Most of the time he was prowling passionately behind the microphones, gesticulating excitedly, talking fast, sometimes groping for the right word, his spirit and humour filling the room and drawing an enthusiastic response from the delighted audience.

An impassioned Jackie Chan at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand during his talk. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

He was in Bangkok and at the FCCT, courtesy the International Peace Foundation's "Bridges" dialogues pogramme. Chan is widely known for his philanthropic work for a range of causes, from disaster relief to handicapped children to endangered wildlife. Among other things, his donations have helped build 24 schools in China.

And when he speaks of his causes, he does so with an unmistakable and infectious passion and commitment.

I remembered the public service announcements (PSAs) he had done some years ago for tiger conservation. His message was "When the buying stops, the killing will too." The message was aimed at the Chinese market which has largely been responsible for the decimation of wild tigers for their body parts, believed to have medicinal properties.

That's all "baloney" said Chan, when I asked him what thoughts he had on the subject.

And he launched into an impassioned diatribe, best related in his own inimitable style:

"After that I not only protect tigers, I protect rhinos, sharks, everything... through the tiger thing I learned so many things. So many nonsense going on, old traditional things, tiger bone helping people do this, bear gall helping people do that. All baloney.
"Really, it's all bad business people speaking nonsense, saying you take this you take that... New technology ten times better than the tiger bone. I always tell the Chinese people, don't trust the old things. It's not like the pig..." (he breaks into Cantonese and looks around for a helpful translation)
"You use the pig leg and you run faster. That's baloney. Because the Chinese still follow this old traditions. We have to speak out these kind of things... this nonsense."

Jackie Chan is an ambassador for United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef). The audience listened in silence to his tale of a six year old girl from a poor family who could barely see, but hadn't the courage to tell her parents, living in fear and enduring beatings for two years at home for not being able to perform at school and at her homework.

All she needed was a pair of corrective glasses, he said, outlining how he got celebrities together and donated funds and organized a drive to get the spectacles for thousands of visually challenged children. Jackie Chan himself donated US$ 2 million.

"I travel around the world, I see so many unfair things," he said, talking repeatedly of how he wants to be a superman and help all the people who need help.

"Peace, in this moment right now, is very important. We have a natural disaster every single day. We try to protect trees, we try to protect the sea, the fish, but people still do the underwater dynamite. Boom! Do you know how many fish die? Boom! One boom, I don't know how many... trillions. I want to be a superman, I want to suck all the weapons out, no weapons at all."

He sat at the end of that, with a heavy sigh: "Just sometimes I see these kinds of things, really really sad."

"When I was young I always asked why, why, why. So at the end I not ask why any more, I just do it," he continued.

"I know that everybody has a good heart, but sometimes you just don't have time to do something. Ok now you have ten dollars, you want to do something. I am willing to become a bridge, I have my foundation, come on, donate to me. I will do it. I am willing to do it."

Getting the right Formula

2009-11-10T06:01:00Z

Terrence Voon ponders the merits of fielding a Singapore F1 team.

DURING my visit to Abu Dhabi earlier this month for the season-ending Formula One race, I ran into a very special tour guide at the landmark Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

Bader Al Jabri can tell you how big the carpet is at the mosque, when it was made, and how many hours went into weaving together its intricate patterns.

He can also take a souped-up Ford Fiesta and send it barrelling across gravel, sand and dirt at speeds of up to 200km per hour.

Bader, still only 23, has been making headlines in the prestigious World Rally Championship (WRC), where he came in third for Team Abu Dhabi at the Fiesta Sporting Trophy International in Wales last month.

Bader is part of a growing breed of young Emiratis who are embracing motorsports - thanks to government funding from the oil-rich nation that already has locally-sponsored teams in speed events like Formula One Air Racing and F1 Powerboat.

The next step, is to put an Emirati car on the starting grid of an F1 race.

Closer to home, Malaysia has been abuzz over the last few weeks, following news that a Malaysian F1 team - led by AirAsia supremo Tony Fernandes - will be making their F1 bow next season.

The question begs to be asked: can Singapore do what the Emirates and our neighbours have done?

The signs look promising.

The Changi Motorsports Hub, due in 2011, is set to provide a round-the-clock training ground for budding Singapore race car drivers.

There is also plenty of existing talent - Melvin Choo, for instance, is set to compete in the prestigious Super GT in Japan next year.

With a Formula One race here that has already become iconic, it is perhaps time to look at a Singapore F1 team as a possibility - not just a pipe dream.

For sure, there are plenty of stumbling blocks, the biggest of which is the prohibitive cost of running an F1 outfit. Teams fork out hundreds of millions of dollars each year, a price that carmakers like Honda, BMW, and now Toyota, are unwilling to pay.

The Republic's previous motorsport team venture - the A1GP Team Singapore - met its demise two years ago due to infighting and financial woes.

But motorsports offers a unique vehicle for the Republic - few other sports can combine tourism exposure along with sporting prestige.

And with government funding already behind a motorsport revival here, there's no reason why we can't extend that to talent development and partner major corporations to put an F1 or WRC team on the start line.

If Bader can do it, so can a Singaporean.