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  • The Online Citizen Appeals For Funds

    The Online Citizen Appeals For Funds

    Dear readers,

    Starting this week, expect less content to be posted on The Online Citizen, as the directors of The Opinion Collaborative Ltd focus our attention on securing funding for the website.

    Our funds are extremely low, as subscriptions have not been forthcoming and donations have dwindled. Whatever funds we have left now would be directed towards maintaining our web server, to keep the website online.

    The budget crunch has affected the editorial operations in TOC. The full-time editorial team is living on fumes and passion to keep the website operational. While we attempt to secure the budget required for the smooth continuation and maintenance of an efficient news outfit, you may see a reduction of postings in the coming weeks.

    Please bear with us with the slow down in content production. Meanwhile, you can help us by:

    1) Subscribing to TOC – by downloading the form, here, completing it and sending it to us; or

    2) Donating to TOC by cheque – made payable to “The Opinion Collaborative Ltd” and sent to The Online Citizen, 20 Maxwell Road #09-17, Maxwell House, Singapore 069113; or

    3) Donating to TOC by bank or ATM transfer – to DBS current account, bank code 7171, account number 04890-4435-7.

    Please note that, under the Media Development Authority’s regulations for TOC Ltd, all donations to TOC must be accompanied by your name and identification number. Donations without these details will be reserved for TOC Ltd’s future projects.

    Thank you.

    The TOC editorial team

     

    Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

  • SCDF And SPF Used Real Foreign Workers In Riot Simulation Exercise

    SCDF And SPF Used Real Foreign Workers In Riot Simulation Exercise

    Just when you thought the human rights transgression in Singapore cannot get worse, it surprises you with what else it can do.

    Apparently, the government wanted to test the Singapore Police Force and the Singapore Civil Defence Force on how they would respond if a riot occurs at the foreign worker dormitories.

    “What if some quarrels erupt, leading to fights or worse?,” National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan asked on his Facebook.

    “To test our response capability, the Police, the SCDF, the dorms operators and our grassroots organisations organised a simulation exercise recently.

    “It was a useful way to network up the various agencies, and spread preventive messages.

    “Prevention is always better than cure,” Mr Khaw said.

    Sounds like a disease?

    No, actually Mr Khaw is talking about actual human beings here – yes, the foreign workers who build the flats that his ministry manages.

    And to conduct the test, actual foreign workers were asked to “riot” so that the police and civil defence could then quell the riot.

    It is uncertain why Indian workers were used or why it seems that a drill needs to be conducted specifically with foreign workers.

    Mr Khaw also said that, “given the concentration of foreign workers in one locality”, “These are possible scenarios (that they can riot).”

    As if it is not bad enough that the foreign workers in these dormitories earn the lowest wages in Singapore – as low as $300 to $500 every month, they are made to take part in exercises that discriminates against them.

    On 8 December last year, a riot took place in Little India, after a private bus knocked down and killed a foreign worker from India. The government blamed the riot on the rioters having drunk alcohol.

    Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had said, “We should not generalise a group because of some individuals. I don’t think that is fair or justifiable because their (foreign workers) crime rates are, in fact, lower than Singaporeans in general.”

    Sure, and this is why we need to conduct an exercise on riot management at a foreign worker dormitory.

     

    Source: www.therealsingapore.com

  • 9 Types of Intelligences: Which Do You Possess?

    9 Types of Intelligences: Which Do You Possess?

    That is what school beat into us by putting certain types of intelligence on a pedestal and ignoring other types. If you are not good at math or language, you might still be gifted at other things but it was not called intelligence. Why?

    In 1983 Howard Gardener described 9 types of intelligence:

    • logical-Mathematical
    • linguistic
    • bodily
    • musical
    • naturalist
    • interpersonal
    • intra-personal
    • spacial
    • existential

    What other scientists thought were just soft-skills, such as interpersonal skills, Gardener realized were types of intelligence. It makes sense. Just as being a math whiz gives you the ability to understand the world, so does being “people smart” give you the same ability, just from a different perspective. Not knowing math you may not calculate the rate at which the universe is expanding, but you are likely to have the skills to find the right person who will.

    Even 20 years after Gardener’s book came out, there is still a debate whether talents other than math and language are indeed types of intelligence or just skills. What do you think?

    Read more on: , ,
    Source: www.fundersandfounders.com
  • AVA: 62 Farms to Make Way for Military Land

    AVA: 62 Farms to Make Way for Military Land

    62 farms in Lim Chu Kang have been asked to move and will be overtaken by military uses, said the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA).

    Mindef said that because it is giving up some of its current training grounds for the development of the new Tengah New Town, it needs to take over the land in Lim Chu Kang.

    The leases and tenancies of the farms expire between 2014 and 2021.

    The leases which expire between 2014 to early 2017 will be extended until June 2017. The farms with leases which expire after June 2017 are allowed to remain until their time is up.

    AVA will open up new sites for farming at Lim Chu Kang and Sungei Tengah but interested farmers would have to bid for them. The farmers affected by the demise of their leases will not be automatically relocated new farms.

    The new farming plots will shrink. AVA said that, “new sites will have a smaller land area” because of “limited land for farming”.

    AVA also said that it will help farmers “to raise their productivity and intensify the use of limited farmland through the adoption of technology and automation.”

    In August, a S$63 million Agriculture Productivity Fund was launched by AVA to “achieve higher productivity” and “use farmland more efficiently”.

    However, there is very strict criteria. Farmers would have to adhere to “minimum production levels”. It is unknown if farmers who are unable to do so, when faced with natural calamities for example, will face penalties. According to news reports, if they are not able to meet the production levels, they might lose their farms.

    Not only that, the 62 farms affected by the Lim Chu Kang takeover will actually not be able to use this fund, rendering the fund useless.

    It is unsure which farms the fund will then benefit.

    Farmers whom are affected by the move are unhappy by the move as the farms that they have spent a large part of their lives working on will disappear. And if they are unsuccessful in attaining new farmland, they would have to give up their business altogether. Not only that, the new farm plots are expected to be more expensive, which is likely to reduce the already slim profits for the farmers. As the Agriculture Productivity Fund is not accessible to these farmers, it is unclear what form of help the government will give to the farmers, if at all.

    It is not known when Tengah New Town will be built.

    Source: therealsingapore.com

  • High-Speed Rail Link Between Singapore and Malaysia to Miss 2020 Deadline

    High-Speed Rail Link Between Singapore and Malaysia to Miss 2020 Deadline

    SINGAPORE’S Ministry of Transport said on Wednesday it has not been informed by Malaysian authorities that the upcoming high-speed rail link project between the two countries will bust the 2020 deadline.

    Mr Syed Hamid Albar, chairman of Malaysia’s Land Public Transport Commission, said in an interview on Tuesday that the deadline will be missed even after using government land as much as possible to avoid property-acquisition disputes.

    The project may take six to seven years to complete once construction starts by 2016, Mr Syed Hamid told Bloomberg.

    This would effectively mean that the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur high-speed rail link may not be able to meet the 2020 deadline.

    Source: www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia