Calculated move to sabotage WP candidate: Low Thia Khiang
By Elizabeth Soh | Yahoo! Newsroom – 23 May 2012
Worker’s Party Secretary-General Low Thia Khiang has condemned the leak of the party’s extraordinary meeting minutes as a “weak attempt at the discrediting the WP”.
Speaking at Tuesday night’s rally at Hougang Central, Low sought to set the record straight on Hougang candidate Png Eng Huat – whose intentions surrounding the non-constituency Member of Parliament scheme were called into question when the minutes were leaked.
The minutes showed that Png had indeed been in the running to become an NCMP despite his earlier claims to the media that he had not been involved in the internal party ballot post the May elections last year.
“Personal preference had to be set aside,” said Low, explaining that he had entered Png’s name into the ballot box despite knowing that he had not wanted to become an NCMP. “Whether a candidate personally wanted to be an NCMP or not, the decision is not his. This is how I believe a collective leadership should function in a political party.”
Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean had earlier questioned WP’s decision not to field Png for the NCMP post last May and if he was indeed the best man for Hougang. He also raised “ issues of honesty and being upfront” when Png admitted he had not physically “taken his name out of the ballot” as previously claimed. Png later clarified that while he voiced his stand against the NCMP scheme to Low and other party members, he "went through the motions" as part of a standard selection procedure.
Condemning the release of the leaked minutes online as a “calculated move” made to sabotage Png and his campaign in Hougang, Low invited members of the public to view the minutes, saying that it ”shows that the WP functions in a fair and transparent manner where decisions are made collectively.”
He then appealed to voters not to be distracted by the speculation and endorsed Png again to cheers from the crowd, calling him “a man of integrity”.
Tuesday’s WP rally saw a turnout of an estimated 15,000 people despite heavy rain which poured down on the open field midway through the rally. Spirits were clearly not dampened as hundreds of WP’s signature blue umbrellas were opened. Those without shelter headed to nearby HDB blocks to continue listening.
All key members of the Party had their say during the three-hour rally, with the first half of the speakers focusing on key national issues like housing, education and transport.
Things got heated when WP’s Gerald Giam took to the stage to shoot down PAP MP Denise Phua’s argument that there were enough independent voices within the PAP for the party to keep itself in check.
He pointed out that while PAP’s MPs may have made “grand speeches” against the building of the two casinos during debate in Parliament, they were still made to toe the party’s line when it came to the final decision making process. He added that opposition MPs, on the other hand, had the power to turn their dissent into action by voting in line with their principles.
“PAP will do everything in its power to block (opposition) … they fear the day they cannot ram through Parliament,” said NCMP Giam.
Aljunied MP Pritam Singh also spoke in the same vein, levying accusations against the PAP of “punishing Hougang for voting opposition... since 1991.”
He said that 26 community sites, including street soccer courts, in well-located areas in his ward of Eunos were made off limits for WP’s use, which “severely curbed” their efforts to organize community activities.
“WP cannot use these 26 sites but PAP can,” said Singh, whose suggestion to DPM Teo to “look into his heart of hearts” to reflect on his treatment of Hougang’s residents was met with loud boos from a worked-up crowd.
The loudest cheers of the night were saved for WP Chairman Sylvia Lim, affectionately referred to as “Ah Lian” by the crowds.
She spoke of WP’s struggle to improve the quality of its residents’ living despite being pushed to the back of the queue for most upgrading programmes. According to Lim, 33 covered link ways paid for using S$1.5 million of the Town Council’s own funds were built for its residents, and a path cutting through state land made to make the residents’ route more convenient was still being paid for out of the Council’s own pockets.
Png was the last to address the rally, and focused on his promises for Hougang residents, including plans to designate two housing clusters for upgrading and another 15 blocks for home improvement.
He also said that 34 blocks, which have been suffering from roof leakage, will be re-roofed and re-decorated.
The entire WP line-up, drenched by the downpour, then stood up and bowed before Low addressed the crowd.
“Worker’s Party is here for you, rain or shine,” he said
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Egypt vote: The novelty of democracy in the village
Egypt vote: The novelty of democracy in the villageBy Jon Leyne
BBC News, Manawet, Egypt, 23 May 2012
Some things in Egypt have not changed since the time of the pharaohs.
In the countryside, donkey-powered waterwheels still pump the waters of the Nile to irrigate the lush fields that line the river, before the greenery ends abruptly in the Sahara desert.
In politics, no leader has been chosen in a free and fair election in the 5,000 years of the country's recorded history. Until now, that is.
This week, Egyptians begin the process of electing a successor to Hosni Mubarak. The process is not perfect, but it is the nearest thing to democracy that this country has ever seen.
Out in those fields and villages, that impression of stability is an illusion. This country is in the throes of dramatic change, the politicians who are vying to become president are struggling to keep up.
In the old days, someone always used to tell you how to vote - the ruling party, the head of the family, the local imam. Now Egyptians are thinking and speaking freely. Every vote has to be fought for. Nothing can be taken for granted.
Most likely, it is in the villages and countryside outside Cairo where this election will be decided. This is where the majority of Egyptians still live.
Strong man
In the parliamentary elections, rural voters surprised many people last year by voting strongly for the hardline Islamists known as Salafists. But the main Salafist candidate for president, Hazem Saleh Abu-Ismael, was disqualified by the electoral commission.
The Salafist movement is divided on which other candidate to support, and anyway, Egyptians are increasingly thinking for themselves.
Farmer Muhammad Abdul Shakour strolled with me through his land on the edge of the village of Manawet, south of Cairo.
He told me how he was suffering from rising crime and higher prices since the revolution last year. He believed Egypt needed a strong man to take control.
It is a feeling shared by many voters, even long-term supporters of the Islamist opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, many of whom are tempted to vote for one of the candidates with links to the former regime.
Inside the house, Muhammad's wife, Amal, is baking bread in a crude oven, fuelled by corn husks.
She says she is making up her own mind who to vote for, not obeying instructions - though tellingly, she turns to her husband before naming her favoured choice.
"I want the problems facing the people to be solved, so that people can manage their life well," she says.
In a nearby livestock market, you hear the same complaints about lack of security and higher prices. By all accounts, life has got a lot harder since the revolution last year.
Yet at the same time, the farmers and butchers and traders gathered here are excited about having the chance to vote. Lively arguments about politics intersperse the discussions about stock prices.
"This election is a very good thing that we are not used to," a cheery-looking butcher, Abdo Khalil, says.
"In the past, it was all about unanimous agreement and referendums. If they said Mubarak, it was Mubarak, if they said Gamal, it was Gamal. This era is over, it is excellent."
Islam or economics?
As to who the best candidate is, everyone has a different opinion.
I asked Abdo Khalil whether he would vote on the basis of Islam, or economics. Who would be the best Muslim, or the most efficient manager for the country?
It was 50-50, he replied. Half of his decision would be based on Islam, half on the policies and character of the candidate.
Some of the last opinion polls before the vote showed more than a third of Egyptians undecided. Even those who have made up their minds have been changing their views regularly. Several polls showed at least four candidates neck-and-neck.
No wonder no-one knows who is going to win.
Democracy may have brought its problems, but it has also brought a delightful unpredictability to politics, the novelty, for Egypt and the Arab world, of a real election.
This poster suggests people are no longer prepared to be told who to vote for
BBC News, Manawet, Egypt, 23 May 2012
Some things in Egypt have not changed since the time of the pharaohs.
In the countryside, donkey-powered waterwheels still pump the waters of the Nile to irrigate the lush fields that line the river, before the greenery ends abruptly in the Sahara desert.
In politics, no leader has been chosen in a free and fair election in the 5,000 years of the country's recorded history. Until now, that is.
This week, Egyptians begin the process of electing a successor to Hosni Mubarak. The process is not perfect, but it is the nearest thing to democracy that this country has ever seen.
Out in those fields and villages, that impression of stability is an illusion. This country is in the throes of dramatic change, the politicians who are vying to become president are struggling to keep up.
In the old days, someone always used to tell you how to vote - the ruling party, the head of the family, the local imam. Now Egyptians are thinking and speaking freely. Every vote has to be fought for. Nothing can be taken for granted.
Most likely, it is in the villages and countryside outside Cairo where this election will be decided. This is where the majority of Egyptians still live.
Strong man
In the parliamentary elections, rural voters surprised many people last year by voting strongly for the hardline Islamists known as Salafists. But the main Salafist candidate for president, Hazem Saleh Abu-Ismael, was disqualified by the electoral commission.
The Salafist movement is divided on which other candidate to support, and anyway, Egyptians are increasingly thinking for themselves.
Farmer Muhammad Abdul Shakour strolled with me through his land on the edge of the village of Manawet, south of Cairo.
He told me how he was suffering from rising crime and higher prices since the revolution last year. He believed Egypt needed a strong man to take control.
It is a feeling shared by many voters, even long-term supporters of the Islamist opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, many of whom are tempted to vote for one of the candidates with links to the former regime.
Inside the house, Muhammad's wife, Amal, is baking bread in a crude oven, fuelled by corn husks.
She says she is making up her own mind who to vote for, not obeying instructions - though tellingly, she turns to her husband before naming her favoured choice.
"I want the problems facing the people to be solved, so that people can manage their life well," she says.
In a nearby livestock market, you hear the same complaints about lack of security and higher prices. By all accounts, life has got a lot harder since the revolution last year.
Yet at the same time, the farmers and butchers and traders gathered here are excited about having the chance to vote. Lively arguments about politics intersperse the discussions about stock prices.
"This election is a very good thing that we are not used to," a cheery-looking butcher, Abdo Khalil, says.
"In the past, it was all about unanimous agreement and referendums. If they said Mubarak, it was Mubarak, if they said Gamal, it was Gamal. This era is over, it is excellent."
Islam or economics?
As to who the best candidate is, everyone has a different opinion.
I asked Abdo Khalil whether he would vote on the basis of Islam, or economics. Who would be the best Muslim, or the most efficient manager for the country?
It was 50-50, he replied. Half of his decision would be based on Islam, half on the policies and character of the candidate.
Some of the last opinion polls before the vote showed more than a third of Egyptians undecided. Even those who have made up their minds have been changing their views regularly. Several polls showed at least four candidates neck-and-neck.
No wonder no-one knows who is going to win.
Democracy may have brought its problems, but it has also brought a delightful unpredictability to politics, the novelty, for Egypt and the Arab world, of a real election.
This poster suggests people are no longer prepared to be told who to vote for
Life in Timbuktu under Islamist rule
Life in Timbuktu under Islamist rule
By Robin Banerji
BBC World Service, 23 May 2012
An Islamist militant group has taken control of the fabled city of Timbuktu in northern Mali. Although the city was once a centre of Islamic learning, the group has objected to some local practises.
So what is their agenda? And will they respect the city's unique literary heritage?
Since seizing the city in March, Ansar Dine has targeted Timbuktu's precious Muslim heritage.
The shrine of a 15th Century sufi saint Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar has been attacked, according to Lazare Eloundou Assomo of Unesco.
"The entrance gate of the mausoleum was completely destroyed and burnt," Mr Assomo told the BBC World Service. "The curtain that protected the shrine was destroyed."
'Prisoners'
Timbuktu is known as the city of the 333 saints, says Alida Jay Boye, author of Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu.
The fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam objects to the veneration of saints' tombs, maintaining that it amounts to saint worship.
"Salafis do not want there to be any intermediary between the believer and God. It looks like Ansar Dine is going after shrines just like other groups have done in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia," she says.
Neil Whitehead, a former hotelier in Timbuktu, has fled to Morocco because of the recent unrest.
He says that conditions are deteriorating in the city.
"The Salafis are turning on the locals, raiding their homes and taking anything of value, together with any food. All shops are shut and, in the words of our friends, 'everything is broken'," he said.
"They have introduced a form of Sharia and the locals feel like prisoners in their houses."
His account is confirmed by Mari Touri, a Timbuktu resident.
"There is no food in the shops, no stocks of supplies, because everything in Timbuktu comes from Bamako in the south and it cannot get through at the moment."
Another resident, Youba Ag Moha, said that the situation in the city was "calm" but that government offices were closed and there was a problem with the electricity supply.
There are also concerns for the city's wealth of manuscripts.
Schools reopened
Stephanie Diakite, an expert on the city's literature, says she is worried about Timbuktu's public and private libraries, and is calling for the heritage and the scholars who work on it to be protected.
Minor damage has been done to the Ahmed Baba Library, which houses some 40,000 manuscripts, a fraction of the historical manuscripts in the city.
Ansar Dine militiamen are guarding the building, which is currently closed to the public.
"Ansar Dine says that is here to protect the city," says Mr Touri.
Ansar Dine has allowed schools to reopen in Timbuktu and another northern city, Gao, but only on condition that boys and girls sit separately.
'Wrong mosques'
Ansar Dine is led by Iyad Ag Ghaly, a Tuareg from an aristocratic family.
He is no simple ideological Islamist.
He has been a player in Malian Tuareg politics since at least the 1990s, when he led a Tuareg rebellion against the governments of Mali and neighbouring Niger.
Following the end of the rebellion, he was pardoned and was involved in negotiating the release of the many Western hostages held in the Sahara.
Mr Ghaly's career has oscillated between opposition and cooperation with the Malian government.
In 2006 he was involved in another abortive rebellion. But in 2007 he helped negotiate a settlement between the rebels and the Malian state.
Eventually in 2008, he was sent to Saudi Arabia as Mali's consul in Jeddah but he was recalled soon afterwards.
Jeremy Keenan, an academic expert on the politics and peoples of the Sahara, suggests that Mr Ghaly had become involved in Salafi circles while in Saudi Arabia.
"He was spending a lot of time in the wrong mosques," Mr Keenan said.
Mr Ghaly returned to Mali and seems to have taken advantage of the 2011 uprising to resume his old role as a leader of Tuareg opposition
Mr Keenan estimates the current strength of Ansar Dine to be between 100 and 200 fighters, some of whom are under 18.
It is a far smaller group than the force of at least 3,000 men under the control of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, the MNLA, a secular group fighting for Tuareg independence in northern Mali's desert regions.
The two groups together seized control of the north, after the army was distracted when it staged a coup. But relations between the secular MNLA and Ansar Dine are poor.
In April, the MNLA declared independence for Azawad, its name for the three northern provinces of Mali where most ethnic Tuaregs live.
Ansar Dine has rejected independence, however, claiming that it is fighting "a holy war" in favour of Islamic rule.
For its part, the MNLA claims that it has the situation in hand and will turn its attention to Ansar Dine in due time.
Yet so far it seems to have made no moves to do so.
According to Timbuktu resident Youba Ag Moha, the MNLA controls the airport, while Ansar Dine controls the military base opposite the grand mosque and "commands" the centre of the city.
Mr Keenan suggests that Ansar Dine's continuing freedom of movement may be because it enjoys the protection and support of Algeria, Mali's northern neighbour.
But why would secular Algeria wish to support Islamists on its southern flank?
The answer, suggests Mr Keenan, is that these groups allow Algeria to project power in what it sees as its sphere of influence while simultaneously justifying the existence of Algeria's security apparatus.
Whatever the truth of the matter, in the meantime, Ansar Dine's black flag is flying over Timbuktu.
Treasures of Timbuktu
Timbuktu was a centre of Islamic learning from the 13th to the 17th Centuries
Over 500,000 manuscripts survive in public libraries and private collections
Books on religion, law, literature and science
Letters between rulers, advisers and merchants on subjects as varied as taxation, commerce, marriage, divorce, adoption, and prostitution
Who, What, Why: Why do we know Timbuktu?
Rebels in Mali have taken the historic city of Timbuktu, a place that has become shorthand in English for anywhere far away. How did this metaphor come about?
"Omg! Just found out Timbuktu is a real place!"
The news that the city of Timbuktu has been seized by ethnic Tuaregs has had some tweeters scratching their heads, unaware up to now that it even existed.
While some people will be familiar with the Tuareg people, almost everyone will recognise the place name Timbuktu, even if they think it's mythical.
Once spelt as Timbuctoo, the city in northern Mali has come to represent a place far away, at the end of the world.
As the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, "the most distant place imaginable".
Its first documented use in this sense is dated to 1863, when the English writer Lady Duff-Gordon drew a contrast with the familiarity of Cairo.
In one of her Letters from Egypt, while in the Egyptian capital, she wrote:
It is growing dreadfully Cockney here. I must go to Timbuctoo.
Writers as diverse as DH Lawrence, Agatha Christie and Mr Men creator Roger Hargreaves further strengthened this association by references in their books
In one of his final works, Nettles, in 1930, Lawrence wrote:
And the world it didn't give a hoot
If his blood was British or Timbuctoot.
Phrases that develop this idea include "from here to Timbuktu" when describing a very long journey, or "from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo" (a city in Michigan, US).
So why Timbuktu?
It was founded by Tuareg nomads in the 12th Century and within 200 years had become an immensely wealthy city, at the centre of important trading routes for salt and gold.
Through writers such as Leo Africanus, tales reached Europe of its immense riches, which stoked an acute curiosity on the part of European explorers.
This mystery was enhanced by its inaccessibility and many European expeditions perished, leaving it tantalisingly out of reach for centuries.
Before it was discovered by Europeans in 1830, all documented mentions of Timbuktu are about the efforts to get there, says OED revision editor Richard Shapiro.
"In 1820, people were talking about it taking 60 days from Tripoli and there were only six days without water.
"It was this legendary wealthy city, and the British hoped they could get from Africa the kind of riches Spain had got from South America."
In 1829, Alfred Tennyson described it as "mysterious" and "unfathomable" in his poem entitled Timbuctoo, and compared it to El Dorado and Atlantis.
It was not until 1830, long after the city had fallen into decline, that the first European went there and back again, Frenchman Rene Caillie.
The Europeans came very late to Timbuktu," says Marie Rodet, lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
"For centuries, they tried to reach the place because it was a mythological place of trade and Islamic scholars.
"It had been described in Arab manuscripts in the Middle Ages so they knew about the history but they never reached it because the population never allowed them."
Locals regarded it as the holy city of 333 saints, she says, and Christians were the enemy, so Caillie went disguised as a Muslim. A Scot, Alexander Gordon Laing, beat him to it by four years but is thought to have been murdered before he could leave.
Even today, when the world has become a much smaller place, it remains relatively remote.
"You can get anywhere but Timbuktu is still very difficult to get to," says Richard Trillo, author of Rough Guide to West Africa. There is still no tarmac road to take travellers there.
The first time he went, he hitch-hiked from Hampshire in England in 1977, aged 21.
"We wanted to go to a place no-one else had been. Like many others, we had thought it a mythical place and when we realised it wasn't, it seemed like a good place for two guys to go on a gap year."
The journey was tough and took nearly six weeks, ending with a four-day boat trip on the River Niger and a truck ride supplied by a local police chief.
"Sub-Saharan Africa was so very different from the Arabic-speaking north. It felt like we had crossed an ocean, like we had skirted the edge of this huge continent. Timbuktu felt extraordinarily remote."
Trillo explains the endurance of the myth by the fact the city disappeared off the map when it fell into decline in the 17th and 18th Centuries, after the Moors deserted it and trade went elsewhere.
"For 200 years it was a city living on the sand but completely disconnected from the rest of the world and that was why it has such a mythology.
"Imagine New York suddenly under water for 200 years, and people still talking about it.
"That's when this explorer race started and everyone wanted to be the first to get to Timbuktu."
Reporting by Tom Geoghegan
By Robin Banerji
BBC World Service, 23 May 2012
An Islamist militant group has taken control of the fabled city of Timbuktu in northern Mali. Although the city was once a centre of Islamic learning, the group has objected to some local practises.
So what is their agenda? And will they respect the city's unique literary heritage?
Since seizing the city in March, Ansar Dine has targeted Timbuktu's precious Muslim heritage.
The shrine of a 15th Century sufi saint Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar has been attacked, according to Lazare Eloundou Assomo of Unesco.
"The entrance gate of the mausoleum was completely destroyed and burnt," Mr Assomo told the BBC World Service. "The curtain that protected the shrine was destroyed."
'Prisoners'
Timbuktu is known as the city of the 333 saints, says Alida Jay Boye, author of Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu.
The fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam objects to the veneration of saints' tombs, maintaining that it amounts to saint worship.
"Salafis do not want there to be any intermediary between the believer and God. It looks like Ansar Dine is going after shrines just like other groups have done in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia," she says.
Neil Whitehead, a former hotelier in Timbuktu, has fled to Morocco because of the recent unrest.
He says that conditions are deteriorating in the city.
"The Salafis are turning on the locals, raiding their homes and taking anything of value, together with any food. All shops are shut and, in the words of our friends, 'everything is broken'," he said.
"They have introduced a form of Sharia and the locals feel like prisoners in their houses."
His account is confirmed by Mari Touri, a Timbuktu resident.
"There is no food in the shops, no stocks of supplies, because everything in Timbuktu comes from Bamako in the south and it cannot get through at the moment."
Another resident, Youba Ag Moha, said that the situation in the city was "calm" but that government offices were closed and there was a problem with the electricity supply.
There are also concerns for the city's wealth of manuscripts.
Schools reopened
Stephanie Diakite, an expert on the city's literature, says she is worried about Timbuktu's public and private libraries, and is calling for the heritage and the scholars who work on it to be protected.
Minor damage has been done to the Ahmed Baba Library, which houses some 40,000 manuscripts, a fraction of the historical manuscripts in the city.
Ansar Dine militiamen are guarding the building, which is currently closed to the public.
"Ansar Dine says that is here to protect the city," says Mr Touri.
Ansar Dine has allowed schools to reopen in Timbuktu and another northern city, Gao, but only on condition that boys and girls sit separately.
'Wrong mosques'
Ansar Dine is led by Iyad Ag Ghaly, a Tuareg from an aristocratic family.
He is no simple ideological Islamist.
He has been a player in Malian Tuareg politics since at least the 1990s, when he led a Tuareg rebellion against the governments of Mali and neighbouring Niger.
Following the end of the rebellion, he was pardoned and was involved in negotiating the release of the many Western hostages held in the Sahara.
Mr Ghaly's career has oscillated between opposition and cooperation with the Malian government.
In 2006 he was involved in another abortive rebellion. But in 2007 he helped negotiate a settlement between the rebels and the Malian state.
Eventually in 2008, he was sent to Saudi Arabia as Mali's consul in Jeddah but he was recalled soon afterwards.
Jeremy Keenan, an academic expert on the politics and peoples of the Sahara, suggests that Mr Ghaly had become involved in Salafi circles while in Saudi Arabia.
"He was spending a lot of time in the wrong mosques," Mr Keenan said.
Mr Ghaly returned to Mali and seems to have taken advantage of the 2011 uprising to resume his old role as a leader of Tuareg opposition
Mr Keenan estimates the current strength of Ansar Dine to be between 100 and 200 fighters, some of whom are under 18.
It is a far smaller group than the force of at least 3,000 men under the control of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, the MNLA, a secular group fighting for Tuareg independence in northern Mali's desert regions.
The two groups together seized control of the north, after the army was distracted when it staged a coup. But relations between the secular MNLA and Ansar Dine are poor.
In April, the MNLA declared independence for Azawad, its name for the three northern provinces of Mali where most ethnic Tuaregs live.
Ansar Dine has rejected independence, however, claiming that it is fighting "a holy war" in favour of Islamic rule.
For its part, the MNLA claims that it has the situation in hand and will turn its attention to Ansar Dine in due time.
Yet so far it seems to have made no moves to do so.
According to Timbuktu resident Youba Ag Moha, the MNLA controls the airport, while Ansar Dine controls the military base opposite the grand mosque and "commands" the centre of the city.
Mr Keenan suggests that Ansar Dine's continuing freedom of movement may be because it enjoys the protection and support of Algeria, Mali's northern neighbour.
But why would secular Algeria wish to support Islamists on its southern flank?
The answer, suggests Mr Keenan, is that these groups allow Algeria to project power in what it sees as its sphere of influence while simultaneously justifying the existence of Algeria's security apparatus.
Whatever the truth of the matter, in the meantime, Ansar Dine's black flag is flying over Timbuktu.
Treasures of Timbuktu
Timbuktu was a centre of Islamic learning from the 13th to the 17th Centuries
Over 500,000 manuscripts survive in public libraries and private collections
Books on religion, law, literature and science
Letters between rulers, advisers and merchants on subjects as varied as taxation, commerce, marriage, divorce, adoption, and prostitution
Who, What, Why: Why do we know Timbuktu?
Rebels in Mali have taken the historic city of Timbuktu, a place that has become shorthand in English for anywhere far away. How did this metaphor come about?
"Omg! Just found out Timbuktu is a real place!"
The news that the city of Timbuktu has been seized by ethnic Tuaregs has had some tweeters scratching their heads, unaware up to now that it even existed.
While some people will be familiar with the Tuareg people, almost everyone will recognise the place name Timbuktu, even if they think it's mythical.
Once spelt as Timbuctoo, the city in northern Mali has come to represent a place far away, at the end of the world.
As the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, "the most distant place imaginable".
Its first documented use in this sense is dated to 1863, when the English writer Lady Duff-Gordon drew a contrast with the familiarity of Cairo.
In one of her Letters from Egypt, while in the Egyptian capital, she wrote:
It is growing dreadfully Cockney here. I must go to Timbuctoo.
Writers as diverse as DH Lawrence, Agatha Christie and Mr Men creator Roger Hargreaves further strengthened this association by references in their books
In one of his final works, Nettles, in 1930, Lawrence wrote:
And the world it didn't give a hoot
If his blood was British or Timbuctoot.
Phrases that develop this idea include "from here to Timbuktu" when describing a very long journey, or "from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo" (a city in Michigan, US).
So why Timbuktu?
It was founded by Tuareg nomads in the 12th Century and within 200 years had become an immensely wealthy city, at the centre of important trading routes for salt and gold.
Through writers such as Leo Africanus, tales reached Europe of its immense riches, which stoked an acute curiosity on the part of European explorers.
This mystery was enhanced by its inaccessibility and many European expeditions perished, leaving it tantalisingly out of reach for centuries.
Before it was discovered by Europeans in 1830, all documented mentions of Timbuktu are about the efforts to get there, says OED revision editor Richard Shapiro.
"In 1820, people were talking about it taking 60 days from Tripoli and there were only six days without water.
"It was this legendary wealthy city, and the British hoped they could get from Africa the kind of riches Spain had got from South America."
In 1829, Alfred Tennyson described it as "mysterious" and "unfathomable" in his poem entitled Timbuctoo, and compared it to El Dorado and Atlantis.
It was not until 1830, long after the city had fallen into decline, that the first European went there and back again, Frenchman Rene Caillie.
The Europeans came very late to Timbuktu," says Marie Rodet, lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
"For centuries, they tried to reach the place because it was a mythological place of trade and Islamic scholars.
"It had been described in Arab manuscripts in the Middle Ages so they knew about the history but they never reached it because the population never allowed them."
Locals regarded it as the holy city of 333 saints, she says, and Christians were the enemy, so Caillie went disguised as a Muslim. A Scot, Alexander Gordon Laing, beat him to it by four years but is thought to have been murdered before he could leave.
Even today, when the world has become a much smaller place, it remains relatively remote.
"You can get anywhere but Timbuktu is still very difficult to get to," says Richard Trillo, author of Rough Guide to West Africa. There is still no tarmac road to take travellers there.
The first time he went, he hitch-hiked from Hampshire in England in 1977, aged 21.
"We wanted to go to a place no-one else had been. Like many others, we had thought it a mythical place and when we realised it wasn't, it seemed like a good place for two guys to go on a gap year."
The journey was tough and took nearly six weeks, ending with a four-day boat trip on the River Niger and a truck ride supplied by a local police chief.
"Sub-Saharan Africa was so very different from the Arabic-speaking north. It felt like we had crossed an ocean, like we had skirted the edge of this huge continent. Timbuktu felt extraordinarily remote."
Trillo explains the endurance of the myth by the fact the city disappeared off the map when it fell into decline in the 17th and 18th Centuries, after the Moors deserted it and trade went elsewhere.
"For 200 years it was a city living on the sand but completely disconnected from the rest of the world and that was why it has such a mythology.
"Imagine New York suddenly under water for 200 years, and people still talking about it.
"That's when this explorer race started and everyone wanted to be the first to get to Timbuktu."
Reporting by Tom Geoghegan
Al-Qaeda around the world
5 May 2011 BBC
Al-Qaeda around the world
Al-Qaeda, the organisation once led by Osama Bin Laden, may have underground cells in dozens of countries, but its main areas of activity, and those of some of its affiliates, are detailed below
Afghanistan and Pakistan
Al-Qaeda was originally set up in Peshawar in 1988, and the tribal areas of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border are the most well known of al-Qaeda strongholds.
The area is also believed to contain training areas, although the CIA states that US drone attacks have taken a significant toll on al-Qaeda and the Taliban here.
Al-Qaeda's co-operation with the Taliban meant that Osama Bin Laden was given sanctuary in Afghanistan prior to the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Having left Afghanistan in 2001, as a result of the US invasion, Bin Laden was ultimately found and killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the most senior al-Qaeda leaders, was last seen in Afghanistan in October 2001, and before Bin Laden's death was thought to be hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.
Allies of al-Qaeda in Pakistan include Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Lashkar-e-Taiba, who may have helped hide senior al-Qaeda figures. Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed helped Bin Laden set up al-Qaeda in 1988.
The Haqqani network and other Pakistani Taliban groups are also allies of al-Qaeda, as is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Like al-Qaeda it found sanctuary in Pakistan's border areas after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Arabian Peninsula
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula covers Saudi Arabia and Yemen and came about in 2009 when militant groups from the two countries joined forces.
The group's main aims are the overthrow the governments of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and the removal of Western influence in the Gulf.
They have been linked to an attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight to the US in 2009.
Earlier attacks in the region include bombing a residential compound in Riyadh in 2003, which killed 34 people, and the attack against the destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbour in 2000, which killed 17 US service personnel.
East Africa
Al-Qaeda has long had a presence in East Africa, the scene of the attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The attacks of August 1998 were carried out by fighters from Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros and Saudi Arabia. Some of these underwent training in Somalia, where they fled afterwards.
The insurgent group al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaeda and works with foreign jihadists, controls much of southern and central Somalia. In some areas, it has carried out horrific punishments, such as the stoning to death of a young woman, who claimed she had been raped, for adultery. In 2009 US forces killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a top al-Qaeda operative accused of links to the 1998 embassy bombings, in a raid in Somalia.
In 2010, suicide bombers killed at least 74 people in Uganda in revenge for that country sending troops to help Somalia's UN-backed government battle al-Shabab.
Asia-Pacific
In this region, two groups thought to have links to al-Qaeda are based in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Jemaah Islamiah, based in Indonesia, is believed to have been responsible for the attacks on nightclubs in Bali in 2002, which killed over 200 people.
Other targets of the group, whose history goes back to the 1980s, have included Christians in eastern Indonesia and the tourist industry.
The Abu Sayyaf group, based in the southern Philippines, is said by the United Sates to have links with the al-Qaeda network. Involved in multiple kidnaps for ransom, its main aim is for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao and the Sulu islands.
Europe
Al Qaeda's presence in Europe is not as structured as elsewhere. Counter-terrorism officials describe militants here as inspired by al-Qaeda, but not always directed by them.
Alleged bomb plots have been foiled as recently as April 2011, with German police arresting three suspected al-Qaeda members whom they believed posed an imminent threat.
Other threats were uncovered in Europe in September 2010, when Western intelligence sources said they had disrupted a plot to seize and kill hostages in the UK, France and Germany.
In 2007 Belgian officials said they had foiled a plot to free a Tunisian al-Qaeda member jailed in Belgium. Fourteen alleged militants were arrested.
Responsibility for the Madrid train bombings of March 2004, which killed nearly 200 people, was claimed by groups with links to al-Qaeda. The 7 July 2005 attacks on London, which killed 52 people, are also believed to have had al-Qaeda links.
The al-Qaeda cell blamed for 9/11 was based in Hamburg. A mosque frequented by the 9/11 plotters was eventually closed in 2010, because it was allegedly still hosting extremists.
Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq was formed in 2004, the year after the US invasion, when the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden. It is also known as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
Al-Qaeda here has been responsible for many attacks, but the group's capacity diminished from 2006-7, when Sunni Arab leaders turned on them, and the US military launched its troop surge.
But al-Qaeda in Iraq remains operationally active.
Al-Zarqawi himself was killed in June 2006. He was succeeded by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, whose death was reported in 2010.
North Africa
In this region al-Qaeda has perhaps been most active in Algeria, but it has spread right across the Sahara Desert to Mali and Niger, where it has taken hostage several Europeans, some of whom have been killed. Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania have all battled Islamists or al-Qaeda inspired groups.
In 2006 an Algerian group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat, or GSPC), aligned itself with Osama Bin Laden.
The following year it changed its name to the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The leader of the group is Abou Mossab Abdelwadoud.
The group's target list includes Western interests, soldiers, foreign oil workers, UN staff and US diplomats.
A Moroccan group was responsible for the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people.
Al-Qaeda around the world
Al-Qaeda, the organisation once led by Osama Bin Laden, may have underground cells in dozens of countries, but its main areas of activity, and those of some of its affiliates, are detailed below
Afghanistan and Pakistan
Al-Qaeda was originally set up in Peshawar in 1988, and the tribal areas of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border are the most well known of al-Qaeda strongholds.
The area is also believed to contain training areas, although the CIA states that US drone attacks have taken a significant toll on al-Qaeda and the Taliban here.
Al-Qaeda's co-operation with the Taliban meant that Osama Bin Laden was given sanctuary in Afghanistan prior to the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Having left Afghanistan in 2001, as a result of the US invasion, Bin Laden was ultimately found and killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the most senior al-Qaeda leaders, was last seen in Afghanistan in October 2001, and before Bin Laden's death was thought to be hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.
Allies of al-Qaeda in Pakistan include Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Lashkar-e-Taiba, who may have helped hide senior al-Qaeda figures. Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed helped Bin Laden set up al-Qaeda in 1988.
The Haqqani network and other Pakistani Taliban groups are also allies of al-Qaeda, as is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Like al-Qaeda it found sanctuary in Pakistan's border areas after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Arabian Peninsula
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula covers Saudi Arabia and Yemen and came about in 2009 when militant groups from the two countries joined forces.
The group's main aims are the overthrow the governments of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and the removal of Western influence in the Gulf.
They have been linked to an attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight to the US in 2009.
Earlier attacks in the region include bombing a residential compound in Riyadh in 2003, which killed 34 people, and the attack against the destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbour in 2000, which killed 17 US service personnel.
East Africa
Al-Qaeda has long had a presence in East Africa, the scene of the attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The attacks of August 1998 were carried out by fighters from Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros and Saudi Arabia. Some of these underwent training in Somalia, where they fled afterwards.
The insurgent group al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaeda and works with foreign jihadists, controls much of southern and central Somalia. In some areas, it has carried out horrific punishments, such as the stoning to death of a young woman, who claimed she had been raped, for adultery. In 2009 US forces killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a top al-Qaeda operative accused of links to the 1998 embassy bombings, in a raid in Somalia.
In 2010, suicide bombers killed at least 74 people in Uganda in revenge for that country sending troops to help Somalia's UN-backed government battle al-Shabab.
Asia-Pacific
In this region, two groups thought to have links to al-Qaeda are based in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Jemaah Islamiah, based in Indonesia, is believed to have been responsible for the attacks on nightclubs in Bali in 2002, which killed over 200 people.
Other targets of the group, whose history goes back to the 1980s, have included Christians in eastern Indonesia and the tourist industry.
The Abu Sayyaf group, based in the southern Philippines, is said by the United Sates to have links with the al-Qaeda network. Involved in multiple kidnaps for ransom, its main aim is for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao and the Sulu islands.
Europe
Al Qaeda's presence in Europe is not as structured as elsewhere. Counter-terrorism officials describe militants here as inspired by al-Qaeda, but not always directed by them.
Alleged bomb plots have been foiled as recently as April 2011, with German police arresting three suspected al-Qaeda members whom they believed posed an imminent threat.
Other threats were uncovered in Europe in September 2010, when Western intelligence sources said they had disrupted a plot to seize and kill hostages in the UK, France and Germany.
In 2007 Belgian officials said they had foiled a plot to free a Tunisian al-Qaeda member jailed in Belgium. Fourteen alleged militants were arrested.
Responsibility for the Madrid train bombings of March 2004, which killed nearly 200 people, was claimed by groups with links to al-Qaeda. The 7 July 2005 attacks on London, which killed 52 people, are also believed to have had al-Qaeda links.
The al-Qaeda cell blamed for 9/11 was based in Hamburg. A mosque frequented by the 9/11 plotters was eventually closed in 2010, because it was allegedly still hosting extremists.
Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq was formed in 2004, the year after the US invasion, when the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden. It is also known as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
Al-Qaeda here has been responsible for many attacks, but the group's capacity diminished from 2006-7, when Sunni Arab leaders turned on them, and the US military launched its troop surge.
But al-Qaeda in Iraq remains operationally active.
Al-Zarqawi himself was killed in June 2006. He was succeeded by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, whose death was reported in 2010.
North Africa
In this region al-Qaeda has perhaps been most active in Algeria, but it has spread right across the Sahara Desert to Mali and Niger, where it has taken hostage several Europeans, some of whom have been killed. Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania have all battled Islamists or al-Qaeda inspired groups.
In 2006 an Algerian group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat, or GSPC), aligned itself with Osama Bin Laden.
The following year it changed its name to the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The leader of the group is Abou Mossab Abdelwadoud.
The group's target list includes Western interests, soldiers, foreign oil workers, UN staff and US diplomats.
A Moroccan group was responsible for the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people.
Human bombs: Are they a realistic threat?By Gordon Corera
Human bombs: Are they a realistic threat?By Gordon Corera
Security correspondent, BBC News, 23 May 2012
The underwear bomb that surfaced in Yemen this month has reignited concern that al-Qaeda's bomb-makers are finding innovative ways to hide explosive devices - even placing them within the body. How worried should we be?
A body cavity device would be just the latest chapter in the deadly cat and mouse game played between al-Qaeda and Western security officials when it comes to aviation. The terror group has consistently sought out new means of evading airport security regimes.
After the use of box cutters and hijackings on 9/11, cockpit security was enhanced.
But only a few months later, a shoe bomb nearly brought down a plane - and the introduction of security checks on footwear. By 2006 al-Qaeda had moved on to developing bombs made out of fluids, in turn leading to restrictions on liquids in hand luggage. In 2009, an underwear bomb worn by a young Nigerian nearly brought down a flight to Detroit.
A few months before that incident, a young man had offered to surrender to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who runs Saudi Arabia's counter-terror operations. He insisted that he wanted to do so in person. When he met the prince at his villa in Jeddah, a phone call triggered a hidden bomb.
The bomber's body was flung in all directions and part of his arm was embedded into the ceiling but remarkably, the prince was not seriously hurt. The exact nature of the device has been the source of some dispute, with some claiming it was internally placed in the rectum, others that it was an underwear bomb.
The bomber, Abdullah al-Asiri, was carrying a device believed to have been built by his brother Ibraham al-Asiri, al-Qaeda's master bomb-maker in Yemen and arguably the most dangerous and most wanted al-Qaeda associate individual globally. He is credited with a number of innovative devices ranging from the underwear bombs to the devices hidden in printer cartridges bound for the US on cargo flights (which were only discovered thanks to an intelligence tip-off).
On Monday, the group showed how deadly its devices could be when a suicide bomber killed close to 100 soldiers in Sanaa.
A detailed 2011 report by Dr Robert J Bunker, of Claremont Graduate University, argues that the trend is moving bombs closer to the body - and the logical extreme is to place bombs inside the body.
Drug smugglers frequently hide packages in body cavities such as the lower digestive tract. And in World War II, the forerunner of the CIA hid escape kits within the rectum.
"If you go back in the military history literature, the placing of explosive booby traps such as fragmentation grenades under, and even inside of, the corpses of soldiers is a very common phenomenon," Bunker says. "This was especially evident in the Pacific Theatre in World War II and in the Vietnam War."
One step beyond inserting a bomb in a body cavity is to undergo a medical procedure and open someone up, place the bomb inside their body and sew them up again. This has been attempted with animals. In 2010, al-Qaeda in Iraq reportedly surgically implanted bombs into dogs in order to send the canines on planes to the US on which they would explode. In this case, the animals died before the plan could be carried out.
Surgically inserting a bomb requires considerably medical skill, and al-Qaeda bomb-maker al-Asiri has reportedly been working with doctors to see if it can be done.
"The surgeon would open the abdominal cavity and literally implant the explosive device in amongst the internal organs," Dr Mark Melrose told ABC News. Other reports suggest devices could be placed in the breasts of female bombers much like an implant.
However, one Gulf-based security expert says he has seen no evidence to support reports of doctors working on surgically-implanted bombs.
So could such bombs be developed? The underwear bombs seized in 2009 and 2012 have no metal components and so can pass through metal detectors. After the underwear plot of 2009, there was pressure to introduce more body scanners at airports. Despite the objections of travellers who felt the images invaded their privacy, these machines have been introduced at some airports in the US and Europe. But in some parts of the world - notably the Middle East - they are barely used at all.
While scanners may be able to pick up the type of concealed underwear bomb used in 2009, they may not pick up a device within the body. How else might such a bomb be detected?
A medical X-ray machine might do it (just as it can pick up drugs hidden within the body), but concerns would be raised about exposing travellers to this level of radiation.
Testing for explosive residue is another option, but careful bomb-makers leave precious little contamination.
More emphasis may need to be placed in future on looking for suspicious behaviour at airports and forms of "soft" interrogation by security personnel - a tactic Israel has used.
But while al-Qaeda may want to use this type of bomb, one security source tells me it may not be so easy to carry out in practice. Would a bomber with a device sewn into their body be fit to travel, and without exhibiting signs of recent surgery?
Bomb-makers would also face the problem, experts say, of working out how much of the explosion the body itself would absorb. This may have been what saved Prince Nayef - it's possible that most of the blast was absorbed by his attacker's body, or the impact travelled into the floor. This may make the body bomb less useful as a tool for assassination. But in a plane, all that may be needed is an explosion just strong enough to punch a hole in a pressurised cabin.
But the main challenge in such bombs, experts say, is detonation. If a timer is sewn into the body with the device, then what could the bomber do if the flight is delayed?
The 2009 underwear bomb was thought to have used a chemical detonator delivered by syringe, but this failed to work and instead just burned the bomber.
The 2012 version is thought to have this element upgraded, but the details have not been made public. And if a bomb is placed internally, rather than worn, it would be even harder to ensure a syringe hits the right point.
Detonation through a phone call (as used in Jeddah against Prince Nayef) is an option, but only if you can guarantee phone coverage in flight, which is not always the case.
The body bomb may so far be an unproven concept but al-Qaeda - and particularly its affiliate in Yemen - has shown itself to be unrelenting in its desire to strike the US, and especially planes.
It has also shown itself remorselessly innovative in the search for new ways to achieve its deadly goals.
Security correspondent, BBC News, 23 May 2012
The underwear bomb that surfaced in Yemen this month has reignited concern that al-Qaeda's bomb-makers are finding innovative ways to hide explosive devices - even placing them within the body. How worried should we be?
A body cavity device would be just the latest chapter in the deadly cat and mouse game played between al-Qaeda and Western security officials when it comes to aviation. The terror group has consistently sought out new means of evading airport security regimes.
After the use of box cutters and hijackings on 9/11, cockpit security was enhanced.
But only a few months later, a shoe bomb nearly brought down a plane - and the introduction of security checks on footwear. By 2006 al-Qaeda had moved on to developing bombs made out of fluids, in turn leading to restrictions on liquids in hand luggage. In 2009, an underwear bomb worn by a young Nigerian nearly brought down a flight to Detroit.
A few months before that incident, a young man had offered to surrender to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who runs Saudi Arabia's counter-terror operations. He insisted that he wanted to do so in person. When he met the prince at his villa in Jeddah, a phone call triggered a hidden bomb.
The bomber's body was flung in all directions and part of his arm was embedded into the ceiling but remarkably, the prince was not seriously hurt. The exact nature of the device has been the source of some dispute, with some claiming it was internally placed in the rectum, others that it was an underwear bomb.
The bomber, Abdullah al-Asiri, was carrying a device believed to have been built by his brother Ibraham al-Asiri, al-Qaeda's master bomb-maker in Yemen and arguably the most dangerous and most wanted al-Qaeda associate individual globally. He is credited with a number of innovative devices ranging from the underwear bombs to the devices hidden in printer cartridges bound for the US on cargo flights (which were only discovered thanks to an intelligence tip-off).
On Monday, the group showed how deadly its devices could be when a suicide bomber killed close to 100 soldiers in Sanaa.
A detailed 2011 report by Dr Robert J Bunker, of Claremont Graduate University, argues that the trend is moving bombs closer to the body - and the logical extreme is to place bombs inside the body.
Drug smugglers frequently hide packages in body cavities such as the lower digestive tract. And in World War II, the forerunner of the CIA hid escape kits within the rectum.
"If you go back in the military history literature, the placing of explosive booby traps such as fragmentation grenades under, and even inside of, the corpses of soldiers is a very common phenomenon," Bunker says. "This was especially evident in the Pacific Theatre in World War II and in the Vietnam War."
One step beyond inserting a bomb in a body cavity is to undergo a medical procedure and open someone up, place the bomb inside their body and sew them up again. This has been attempted with animals. In 2010, al-Qaeda in Iraq reportedly surgically implanted bombs into dogs in order to send the canines on planes to the US on which they would explode. In this case, the animals died before the plan could be carried out.
Surgically inserting a bomb requires considerably medical skill, and al-Qaeda bomb-maker al-Asiri has reportedly been working with doctors to see if it can be done.
"The surgeon would open the abdominal cavity and literally implant the explosive device in amongst the internal organs," Dr Mark Melrose told ABC News. Other reports suggest devices could be placed in the breasts of female bombers much like an implant.
However, one Gulf-based security expert says he has seen no evidence to support reports of doctors working on surgically-implanted bombs.
So could such bombs be developed? The underwear bombs seized in 2009 and 2012 have no metal components and so can pass through metal detectors. After the underwear plot of 2009, there was pressure to introduce more body scanners at airports. Despite the objections of travellers who felt the images invaded their privacy, these machines have been introduced at some airports in the US and Europe. But in some parts of the world - notably the Middle East - they are barely used at all.
While scanners may be able to pick up the type of concealed underwear bomb used in 2009, they may not pick up a device within the body. How else might such a bomb be detected?
A medical X-ray machine might do it (just as it can pick up drugs hidden within the body), but concerns would be raised about exposing travellers to this level of radiation.
Testing for explosive residue is another option, but careful bomb-makers leave precious little contamination.
More emphasis may need to be placed in future on looking for suspicious behaviour at airports and forms of "soft" interrogation by security personnel - a tactic Israel has used.
But while al-Qaeda may want to use this type of bomb, one security source tells me it may not be so easy to carry out in practice. Would a bomber with a device sewn into their body be fit to travel, and without exhibiting signs of recent surgery?
Bomb-makers would also face the problem, experts say, of working out how much of the explosion the body itself would absorb. This may have been what saved Prince Nayef - it's possible that most of the blast was absorbed by his attacker's body, or the impact travelled into the floor. This may make the body bomb less useful as a tool for assassination. But in a plane, all that may be needed is an explosion just strong enough to punch a hole in a pressurised cabin.
But the main challenge in such bombs, experts say, is detonation. If a timer is sewn into the body with the device, then what could the bomber do if the flight is delayed?
The 2009 underwear bomb was thought to have used a chemical detonator delivered by syringe, but this failed to work and instead just burned the bomber.
The 2012 version is thought to have this element upgraded, but the details have not been made public. And if a bomb is placed internally, rather than worn, it would be even harder to ensure a syringe hits the right point.
Detonation through a phone call (as used in Jeddah against Prince Nayef) is an option, but only if you can guarantee phone coverage in flight, which is not always the case.
The body bomb may so far be an unproven concept but al-Qaeda - and particularly its affiliate in Yemen - has shown itself to be unrelenting in its desire to strike the US, and especially planes.
It has also shown itself remorselessly innovative in the search for new ways to achieve its deadly goals.
.Sri Lanka's Sarath Fonseka urges co-operation over war
22 May 2012
BBC News
Sri Lanka's Sarath Fonseka urges co-operation over war
Sri Lanka must co-operate with any international investigation into alleged war crimes, ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka has told the BBC, a day after his release from jail.
He said some Sri Lankan leaders were "hiding their faces" over the conduct of the war, as if they were guilty.
But Mr Fonseka, who led the army to its 2009 victory over Tamil rebels, denied thousands of civilians had been killed.
There have have been repeated calls for an international probe into the war.
Sri Lanka's army put an end to 26 years of brutal civil war when they defeated the separatist Tamil Tigers in May 2009.
Subsequently Mr Fonseka fell out with President Mahinda Rajapaksa over who should get credit for that victory.
He was jailed for corruption in 2010 after challenging him for the presidency.
Nevertheless the final phase of that war has been a source of considerable controversy, with both sides accused of war crimes.
Human rights groups estimate that up to 40,000 civilians were killed in the final months of the war. The government recently released its own estimate, concluding that about 9,000 people perished during that period
In March the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution urging Sri Lanka to do more to address alleged abuses during the final phase of war with Tamil rebels.
'Not scared'
In a BBC interview, his first on a one-to-one basis since being freed on Monday, Mr Fonseka said that the attitude of some Sri Lankan leaders gave the world the impression that they were guilty of something.
He added that he is "ready to answer for any allegations about the war crimes in relation to the military operations".
But he agreed that the focus on human rights violations and reconciliation urged by the UN was important.
Mr Fonseka also said that he - and not the country's political leaders - was in charge of the military at the end of the war and that he would "not be scared" to answer questions about that period.
"I've said from the very beginning, to safeguard the name of the military, those who sacrificed their lives, those who conducted that operation - I'll come out at any time, I'm not scared to come before anybody," he said.
He said that he believed civilians were given weapons and put on the front line by rebels and as a result the army would not have been able to tell them apart.
But he rejected accusations that thousands of civilians had been killed in the closing phase of the army's offensive.
"The large figures of 30,000, 40,000, [who are said to have] died - it was not practicable. The way we conducted the war, the type of weapons systems we used, the manuals we made, we were always concerned about the security of the civilians," Mr Fonseka said.
'Corrupt politics'
The former four-star general's dramatic fall from grace came after the close of the war when he challenged President Rajapaksa for the presidency.
After he lost the presidential election he was arrested and imprisoned on a variety of charges, all of which he denied. He has been described by the US as a political prisoner.
He served more than two years in prison until the president signed a pardon over the weekend.
Mr Fonseka said he wanted to be involved in politics to change what he called Sri Lanka's "corrupt political culture" - even if he didn't get to serve as president or be re-elected to parliament.
"I have a political agenda: to change the corrupt political culture in this country. As far as I can do that, I don't mind not becoming president or not being an MP," he said.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says it is not clear whether the country's varied opposition groups will want to adopt him again as their standard-bearer. It is also unclear what political role the terms of his release might allow.
Sri Lanka marked the three-year anniversary of the end of the 26-year civil war at the weekend, and held a large military parade in the capital, Colombo.
The war began in the 1980s, with Tamils pressing for self-rule against a backdrop of an increasingly assertive Sinhalese nationalism.
The violence killed up to 100,000 people over several decades, with accusations that both sides in the conflict committed war crimes against civilians.
BBC News
Sri Lanka's Sarath Fonseka urges co-operation over war
Sri Lanka must co-operate with any international investigation into alleged war crimes, ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka has told the BBC, a day after his release from jail.
He said some Sri Lankan leaders were "hiding their faces" over the conduct of the war, as if they were guilty.
But Mr Fonseka, who led the army to its 2009 victory over Tamil rebels, denied thousands of civilians had been killed.
There have have been repeated calls for an international probe into the war.
Sri Lanka's army put an end to 26 years of brutal civil war when they defeated the separatist Tamil Tigers in May 2009.
Subsequently Mr Fonseka fell out with President Mahinda Rajapaksa over who should get credit for that victory.
He was jailed for corruption in 2010 after challenging him for the presidency.
Nevertheless the final phase of that war has been a source of considerable controversy, with both sides accused of war crimes.
Human rights groups estimate that up to 40,000 civilians were killed in the final months of the war. The government recently released its own estimate, concluding that about 9,000 people perished during that period
In March the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution urging Sri Lanka to do more to address alleged abuses during the final phase of war with Tamil rebels.
'Not scared'
In a BBC interview, his first on a one-to-one basis since being freed on Monday, Mr Fonseka said that the attitude of some Sri Lankan leaders gave the world the impression that they were guilty of something.
He added that he is "ready to answer for any allegations about the war crimes in relation to the military operations".
But he agreed that the focus on human rights violations and reconciliation urged by the UN was important.
Mr Fonseka also said that he - and not the country's political leaders - was in charge of the military at the end of the war and that he would "not be scared" to answer questions about that period.
"I've said from the very beginning, to safeguard the name of the military, those who sacrificed their lives, those who conducted that operation - I'll come out at any time, I'm not scared to come before anybody," he said.
He said that he believed civilians were given weapons and put on the front line by rebels and as a result the army would not have been able to tell them apart.
But he rejected accusations that thousands of civilians had been killed in the closing phase of the army's offensive.
"The large figures of 30,000, 40,000, [who are said to have] died - it was not practicable. The way we conducted the war, the type of weapons systems we used, the manuals we made, we were always concerned about the security of the civilians," Mr Fonseka said.
'Corrupt politics'
The former four-star general's dramatic fall from grace came after the close of the war when he challenged President Rajapaksa for the presidency.
After he lost the presidential election he was arrested and imprisoned on a variety of charges, all of which he denied. He has been described by the US as a political prisoner.
He served more than two years in prison until the president signed a pardon over the weekend.
Mr Fonseka said he wanted to be involved in politics to change what he called Sri Lanka's "corrupt political culture" - even if he didn't get to serve as president or be re-elected to parliament.
"I have a political agenda: to change the corrupt political culture in this country. As far as I can do that, I don't mind not becoming president or not being an MP," he said.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says it is not clear whether the country's varied opposition groups will want to adopt him again as their standard-bearer. It is also unclear what political role the terms of his release might allow.
Sri Lanka marked the three-year anniversary of the end of the 26-year civil war at the weekend, and held a large military parade in the capital, Colombo.
The war began in the 1980s, with Tamils pressing for self-rule against a backdrop of an increasingly assertive Sinhalese nationalism.
The violence killed up to 100,000 people over several decades, with accusations that both sides in the conflict committed war crimes against civilians.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Youth unemployment rising, report warns
Youth unemployment rising, report warns
22 May 2011
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18155938
Almost 13% of young people worldwide are out of work, and their situation is unlikely to improve for four years, a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) says.
Many skilled young people are being forced into part-time and unskilled work, the report says.
It warns that more than six million others are so disillusioned that they have given up looking for work.
The ILO wants governments to make job creation a priority.
It wants more training schemes, and also tax breaks for employers.
Since 2007, the number of young people without jobs has risen by four million, the Global Employment Trends for Youth report says.
Almost 13% of people aged between 15 and 24 - or almost 75 million - have no work.
In the European Union, one in five young people are looking for work, the report claims.
Some 27.9% of youths were unemployed in North Africa last year following the Arab Spring uprisings - a rise of five percentage points on 2010.
In the Middle East, the figure stood at 26.5% in the report's regional breakdown.
"Even in East Asia, perhaps the most economically dynamic region, the unemployment rate was 2.8 times higher for young people than for adults," the report said.
Detached from society
But, the ILO report reveals, the true picture of youth unemployment is even more pessimistic.
Many young people are extending their time in higher education because they cannot find jobs.
Others are taking part-time unskilled work because they cannot find work in the fields they trained for.
The ILO says that more than six million young people worldwide have given up looking for work and are becomingly increasingly detached from society.
By not using their skills they are losing them, the report says, and if there is no improvement in the jobs market soon, they may be not only unemployed, but unemployable.
The ILO suggests offering tax breaks and other incentives to businesses hiring young people and offering more entrepreneurship programmes to help kick-start careers.
"The youth unemployment crisis can be beaten but only if job creation for young people becomes a key priority in policymaking and private sector investment picks up significantly," said Jose Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, executive director of the ILO's employment sector.
Monday, May 21, 2012
What does 'being one of us' truly mean to Singaporeans?
What does “being one of us” truly mean to Singaporeans?
Researchers at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) asked that question in a study involving 1,001 Singapore-born citizens and a further 1,000 foreign-born naturalised citizens.
In the course of their survey, each respondent was read a list of 30 “Singaporean” values, characteristics and attitudes, and asked to decide whether or not each factor was important to them in defining a Singaporean.
Views of the two groups diverged the widest when it came to whether or not the sons of new citizens have gone through National Service.
The study showed that 69 per cent of local-born citizens interviewed said it was a key factor that determines “Singaporean-ness”, while only 43 per cent of foreign-born citizens surveyed agreed.
Looking at naturalised citizens who have held pink identity cards for less than 10 years, the percentage drops further to 41 per cent, the largest diversion in agreement between local and foreign-born citizens.
Other factors where local and foreign-born citizens disagreed include getting on well with one’s colleagues, being gainfully employed and being able to speak conversational English.
Both local and foreign-born citizens agreed on factors such as racial and religious harmony, as well as maintaining good relationships with one’s neighbours.
Who are less receptive?
The study, led by immigration research fellow Leong Chan-Hoong, also found that citizens in his study who were less receptive and inclusive are better-educated, and live in bigger and more expensive housing.
Further analysis also revealed that citizen participants from lower-income households tended to “expect more commitment” from immigrants. Those who also required more “Singaporean” factors on new citizens also showed stronger family ties, the study showed.
In a paper compiling his findings, Leong said the current Singapore integration programme for all new citizens (called the “Citizenship Journey”) can be refined by incorporating field trips to military bases, where participants could observe regimental training exercises, so that new citizens can better understand the value of National Service to Singaporeans.
Leong’s team of researchers also called for more transparent data on immigration, so that Singaporeans can come to greater understanding and appreciation of their presence.
More details on the number of foreigners in various industries, more specific information on the types of jobs they do, as well as the exact criteria for obtaining PR status, will facilitate a better social climate, the researchers argued.
They also said that more can be done to facilitate the learning of English among foreigners who are here to stay, and that businesses could consider ways to improve relations between their local and foreign employees.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ns-key-in-foreign-integration--study.html
Sunday, May 13, 2012
A Critical Framework for Media Education
A Critical Framework for Media Education
This section of Rick Shepherd's article: "Elementary Media Education: The Perfect Curriculum" describes a critical framework for media education that teachers can use with students.
To begin with, teachers need a critical framework. The field of media is broad and amorphous, extending not just from traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, television and film, but also now encompassing many areas of popular culture such as fashion, toys and dolls, the nature of celebrity, etc. Anyone attempting to make sense of this area needs a clear conceptual framework that will allow for discussion of a variety of complex and interrelated factors. For elementary teachers, this need is perhaps even greater than for their secondary colleagues because of the more fluid, integrated nature of the elementary class - things tend to just "come up" as the result of student interest or enthusiasm: someone comes in wearing a Bart Simpson T-shirt, or the whole class is swept away by World Series enthusiasm. A teacher has to be ready to seize (in Barry Duncan's words) "the teachable moment," and a framework that will lead to rational, critical discourse about any text is a must. This is also necessitated by the elementary teacher's need to integrate more, as the same critical concepts have to be applied to a wide variety of different materials as they appear in the curriculum.
A number of such frameworks have been developed in various parts of the world in the last few years, as media education has moved forward globally. Most of them express the same things in different ways: it appears that having a framework is what is important, not necessarily having a specific framework. In North York, we adopted and modified (with permission) this Media Literacy Curriculum Model based on the critical framework developed by Eddie Dick of the Scottish Film Council.
The central concept of the model is the idea that all communication, all discourse, is a construct of reality. Every description or representation of the world, fictional or otherwise, is an attempt to describe or define reality, and is in some way a construction - a selection and ordering of details to communicate aspects of the creator's view of reality. There are no neutral, value-free descriptions of reality - in print, in word, in visual form. An understanding of this concept is the starting point for a critical relationship to the media.
This concept leads to three broad areas within which we can raise questions that will help students to "deconstruct" the media: text, audience and production.
A text is any media product we wish to examine, whether it is a television program, a book, a poster, a popular song, the latest fashion, etc. We can discuss with students what the type of text is - cartoon, rock video, fairy tale, police drama, etc. - and how it differs from other types of text. We can identify its denotative meaning and discuss such features as narrative structure, how meanings are communicated, values implicit in the text, and connections with other texts.
Anyone who receives a media text, whether it is a book read alone or a film viewed in a theatre, is a member of an audience. It is important for children to be able to identify the audience(s) of a text. Texts are frequently designed to produce audiences, which are then sold to advertisers.
Modern communication theory teaches that audiences "negotiate" meaning. That is to say, each individual reader of a text will draw from its range of possible meanings a particular reading that reflects that individual's gender, race or cultural background, skill in reading, age, etc. Thus the "meaning" of a text is not something determined by critics, teachers or even authors, but is determined in a dynamic and changeable relationship between the reader and the text. The role of the teacher is to assist students in developing skills which will allow them to negotiate active readings - readings which recognize the range of possible meanings in a text, the values and biases implicit in those meanings, and which involve conscious choices rather than the unconscious acceptance of "preferred" readings. Children who can choose meaning are empowered.
Production refers to everything that goes into the making of a media text - the technology, the ownership and economics, the institutions involved, the legal issues, the use of common codes and practices, the roles in the production process. Students are often fascinated by the details and "tricks" of production. It is important that the teacher keep in focus the relationship between the various aspects of production, and the other two broad areas of text and audience. What is the relationship between story content and commercial priorities? How are values related to ownership and control? How does technology determine what we will see? How does the cost of technology determine who can make media productions? Often, understanding in these areas is best developed through the students' involvement in their own production work.
Whenever a media product is discussed, some aspects of construction, text, audience and production should be dealt with. Teachers will quickly find that a discussion moves quite naturally among these broad areas, since all are interrelated and affect each other. It is also important to recognize that an effective media program will involve students in both analysis and production of media products.
Teachers find this model easy to remember, easy to apply. It is simple enough to hold in one's head (text, audience, production: T.A.P.), yet sophisticated enough to facilitate detailed analysis and to show the interrelationships of complex elements. It is flexible enough to deal with any media text, print or otherwise. In fact, some teachers and support staff are using it as a general model for literacy and critical thinking.
So we have a rationale for media literacy: we can show that it is an integrator, and we have a conceptual framework. How can we put this into the hands of teachers? This is new material for them, involving new concepts, skills and strategies. Teachers need help getting started. North York's elementary media literacy pilot project (on the right sidebar) offers an example of how this may be achieved.
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Source: Adapted with permission from English Quarterly, vol. 25, nos. 2-3. Canadian Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts. Toronto, Ontario, 1992.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Singa-poor (???)
Why more Singaporeans are asset-rich but cash-strapped.
http://www.propertyguru.com.sg/property-management-news/2012/5/33024/are-we-singa-poor-?cmp=topc&src=fp
A common gripe amongst many Singaporeans is that they have to spend their savings to pay off home loans and by the time they retire, they find themselves struggling financially as their savings have dried up.
The situation is even more desperate as over 80 percent of Singaporeans live in HDB flats and even though many aren’t high-income earners, they need to pay very high mortgages.
“If an average-income earner buys a new four-room flat, for instance, he may have to pay upwards of S$300,000, while a five-room flat can cost upwards of half a million dollars.
By the time he finishes paying his mortgage, he will be close to retirement age and won't have much left in his CPF (Central Provident Fund),” said 62-year-old retiree David Lim.
Elderly Are Suffering
He added that many retirees and midde-aged Singaporeans find it harder to get jobs and as for younger flat buyers, they will be retired or at least middle-aged by the time they fully pay off their mortgages. Hence, they “will be asset-rich but cash-poor, unless government policies change,” added Lim.
Agreeing with this, property consultant Getty Goh told The PropertyGuru that “it is foreseeable that there could be some issues for Singaporeans who wish to retire in future,” given the high HDB prices. He was quick to add that the government is rolling out several schemes in aid of “those looking to monetise their HDB flats”. These schemes include the Silver Housing Bonus Scheme and the Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS), which may be used to supplement retirement funds.
However, Goh is aware that owners’ reluctance to sell their flats could be an impediment to the schemes. Many Singaporeans consider their flats “a home and a lot of sentimental value is attached to it,” which is the main reason why the LBS received a low take-up rate.
Schemes Not Working?
Lim is doubtful if such schemes will address the problem effectively, saying “in theory, this sounds good. But in practice, it's different”.
“If a five-room flat owner downgrades to a four-room flat, the actual profit is only about S$100,000, given the high prices of HDB flats these days. Average- to low-income earners are likely to have to contribute this amount, as well as the government bonus, to their retirement accounts / CPF minimum sum, which cannot be touched until they reach 55.
During the waiting time, they are cash-poor.” Even if the owner gets access to his retirement funds, he will still remain cash-poor, “because the money will be tied up for the next 10 years while the government places it into an annuity till they are 65, whereby they will receive monthly handouts from it, which do not amount to much,” noted Lim.
As such, he feels an owner will still be asset-rich but cash-poor, whether he takes advantage of the Silver Housing Bonus or not. Goh believes another reason why the elderly are not keen to downgrade is that they “feel that it is not financially worthwhile to downgrade presently”.
“Even though they are able to fetch a premium for their flats currently, they in turn would have to pay a high price for their replacement flats.
Unless there is a cheaper and more attractive housing alternative, response for the Silver Housing Scheme will likely be as lukewarm as the LBS.” Lim said that “those who are not yet middle- or retirement-aged will also remain asset-rich but cash-poor, unless one is living in a HDB flat left to him by his parents and happens to be a high-income earner, for example”What more can be done? When queried on how this issue could be solved, Goh highlighted the government’s efforts to provide studio apartments for the elderly since 1997, but suggested that the government could do more by “increasing the supply of studio flats for sale and educating the elderly on the financial benefits of downgrading”.
Citing HDB’s annual report, Goh noted that total bookings for studio apartments between 2010 and 2011 reached 1,413, far below the 169,866 economically inactive Singaporeans above 65 years of age, based on Census 2010. “If we use that as an indication of the magnitude of potential retirees, at a steady rate, the number of new studio flats would have to significantly increase to meet the potential demand,” noted Goh. “At the end of the day, if the elderly are reluctant to cash-out and insist on holding on to their units, the issue of being asset-rich and cash-poor would still remain unresolved.”
http://www.propertyguru.com.sg/property-management-news/2012/5/33024/are-we-singa-poor-?cmp=topc&src=fp
A common gripe amongst many Singaporeans is that they have to spend their savings to pay off home loans and by the time they retire, they find themselves struggling financially as their savings have dried up.
The situation is even more desperate as over 80 percent of Singaporeans live in HDB flats and even though many aren’t high-income earners, they need to pay very high mortgages.
“If an average-income earner buys a new four-room flat, for instance, he may have to pay upwards of S$300,000, while a five-room flat can cost upwards of half a million dollars.
By the time he finishes paying his mortgage, he will be close to retirement age and won't have much left in his CPF (Central Provident Fund),” said 62-year-old retiree David Lim.
Elderly Are Suffering
He added that many retirees and midde-aged Singaporeans find it harder to get jobs and as for younger flat buyers, they will be retired or at least middle-aged by the time they fully pay off their mortgages. Hence, they “will be asset-rich but cash-poor, unless government policies change,” added Lim.
Agreeing with this, property consultant Getty Goh told The PropertyGuru that “it is foreseeable that there could be some issues for Singaporeans who wish to retire in future,” given the high HDB prices. He was quick to add that the government is rolling out several schemes in aid of “those looking to monetise their HDB flats”. These schemes include the Silver Housing Bonus Scheme and the Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS), which may be used to supplement retirement funds.
However, Goh is aware that owners’ reluctance to sell their flats could be an impediment to the schemes. Many Singaporeans consider their flats “a home and a lot of sentimental value is attached to it,” which is the main reason why the LBS received a low take-up rate.
Schemes Not Working?
Lim is doubtful if such schemes will address the problem effectively, saying “in theory, this sounds good. But in practice, it's different”.
“If a five-room flat owner downgrades to a four-room flat, the actual profit is only about S$100,000, given the high prices of HDB flats these days. Average- to low-income earners are likely to have to contribute this amount, as well as the government bonus, to their retirement accounts / CPF minimum sum, which cannot be touched until they reach 55.
During the waiting time, they are cash-poor.” Even if the owner gets access to his retirement funds, he will still remain cash-poor, “because the money will be tied up for the next 10 years while the government places it into an annuity till they are 65, whereby they will receive monthly handouts from it, which do not amount to much,” noted Lim.
As such, he feels an owner will still be asset-rich but cash-poor, whether he takes advantage of the Silver Housing Bonus or not. Goh believes another reason why the elderly are not keen to downgrade is that they “feel that it is not financially worthwhile to downgrade presently”.
“Even though they are able to fetch a premium for their flats currently, they in turn would have to pay a high price for their replacement flats.
Unless there is a cheaper and more attractive housing alternative, response for the Silver Housing Scheme will likely be as lukewarm as the LBS.” Lim said that “those who are not yet middle- or retirement-aged will also remain asset-rich but cash-poor, unless one is living in a HDB flat left to him by his parents and happens to be a high-income earner, for example”What more can be done? When queried on how this issue could be solved, Goh highlighted the government’s efforts to provide studio apartments for the elderly since 1997, but suggested that the government could do more by “increasing the supply of studio flats for sale and educating the elderly on the financial benefits of downgrading”.
Citing HDB’s annual report, Goh noted that total bookings for studio apartments between 2010 and 2011 reached 1,413, far below the 169,866 economically inactive Singaporeans above 65 years of age, based on Census 2010. “If we use that as an indication of the magnitude of potential retirees, at a steady rate, the number of new studio flats would have to significantly increase to meet the potential demand,” noted Goh. “At the end of the day, if the elderly are reluctant to cash-out and insist on holding on to their units, the issue of being asset-rich and cash-poor would still remain unresolved.”
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Fertility, Ageing, Productivity and Immigration 2012
S’pore could be ‘extremely aged’ by 2050: IPS study
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/s’pore-could-be-‘extremely-aged’-by-2050--ips-study.html
If Singapore’s total fertility rate continues at its current pace and if no new citizens or permanent residents (PRs) are added, the country’s population will become “extremely aged” by 2050, says a new report from the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).
This alarming projection was revealed on Thursday morning by researchers from IPS at a roundtable on Singapore’s current population trends.
Based on the two assumptions, come 2050, elderly Singaporeans aged 65 and above could constitute one in every three citizens and PRs, said IPS senior demographer and research fellow Yap Mui Teng, who led the study.
“The median age of (Singapore’s resident) population will also rise from 39 two years ago, to 49 in 2030, and 55 in 2050,” she added.
In addition, she said, if Singapore’s fertility rate remains at its current low of 1.24, the number of younger Singaporeans and PRs (aged between 15 and 64) for every older resident (aged 65 and above) will plunge.
From about 7.7 younger residents supporting every elderly resident in 2010, the study projected an eventual decline to fewer than two younger Singaporeans and PRs supporting every elderly resident in 2050.
Participants at the roundtable discussion, however, questioned some of the assumptions in the study.
Special adviser to the IPS Tommy Koh pointed out that the dependency ratio is based on the assumption that after the age of 65, people go from being contributing members of society to liabilities, but contended that this should be revisited as people may be living longer, but want to continue to work.
Prof Koh, who is also Singapore's ambassador-at-large, added that many elderly people also have enough savings and don’t depend financially on their children.
Yeoh Lam Keong, adjunct senior fellow at IPS and former chief economist at the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, questioned the economic benefits of having the country’s workforce grow strongly.
Referring to the period focused on in the IPS study, Yeoh compared two separate scenarios where the number of non-residents accepted into Singapore came up to one in every five people, and one in every three respectively, gleaning that the resulting hike of 1.2 million people in Singapore between the first and second scenarios translated only to a 0.6 per cent GDP growth.
He pointed out that high-income countries such as France, Finland and the United States, which maintain almost-replacement levels of fertility rates, have seen a labour force growth of between 0 and 1 per cent since the 1970s with no issues.
In contrast, Singapore's labour force has been growing at a rate of between 3 and 4 per cent annually, similar to the rate of a developing country, he added.
In IPS’ study, in another scenario, if no new citizens were added each year and the fertility rate rose to 1.85, Singapore’s total population would help slow down the ageing of the work force, although not as effectively as it would if new citizens and non-residents were brought in.
But IPS researchers also noted — as has observed by some quarters — that a lack of integration of these foreigners into the city-state’s homegrown society will pose a key challenge to Singapore in coming years.
These findings shared by the IPS come hot on the heels of a paper by the National Population and Talent Division released last week, which projected equally dismal growth trends for Singapore’s population and resident labour force given its current fertility rate and increasing life expectancy. The NPTD study projected that some 900,000 baby boomers will retire from the nation’s workforce over the next 30 years, contributing a great deal to this ageing trend.
..
Is it really impossible to raise Singapore’s fertility rate?
No, said prominent sociologist Paulin Straughan.
Speaking at Thursday’s Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) roundtable on population trends, Straughan suggested that Singaporeans will have more babies if they change their attitude towards their career.
The former Nominated Member of Parliament said that young people between the ages of 25 and 29 are reluctant to date or get married because they are too caught up trying to scale the corporate ladder.
“(Meritocracy) is what pushes our young Singaporeans into overdrive in paid work,” she said, before adding: “Because we are a capitalist economy, work achievements have transformed the way we deal with ourselves until it has become, for many, the only mark of success.”
There is also a lack of clear key performance indicators, or KPI, for local workers, which results in many of them spending more time in the office, in the hope that this will translate into better appraisals from their supervisors.
“Our workforce has logged the longest hours’ work, yet our productivity figures are among the lowest in the world. We have a situation where we are living in the office and yet doing very little — something is wrong,” she said.
To change that, Straughan said a revamp of the remuneration system in Singapore is needed. At the roundtable, she suggested that the base salary for workers could be increased, while performance-related bonuses are reduced. She also urged companies to adopt “flexible work arrangements”.
These measures, said Straughan, will help to improve work-life balance, and take the pressure off Singaporeans who feel the only way to advance in their careers is to work long hours.
With more time on their hands, Singaporeans can then “prepare” themselves for parenthood and boost ground-up citizen population growth.
Recruitment and human resource (HR) professionals contacted by Yahoo! Singapore were in favour of Straughan’s suggestions, calling them a move in the right direction.
Associate director of HR at recruitment consultancy Robert Walters Singapore Joanne Choo said the measures will help to create a better positive work environment, which impacts the quality of one’s life in turn.
“With better work-life balance, many professionals will definitely be more motivated to consider starting a family,” she said. She noted, however, that having children is ultimately a personal decision, and a change of mindset may take some time.
Choo added that for such measures to work, all parties — namely the government, businesses and employees — will have to “buy in” to them.
“One institution is linked to another and they don’t work solo, so you can’t expect the fertility rate to pick up simply from implementing one measure alone,” she said.
Choo also suggested further measures to make the work environment more conducive for family expansion, and these included granting paternity leave, and welcoming new mothers back into the workforce.
Another expert, associate director at recruitment company Robert Half Singapore Stella Tang also saw merit in Straughan’s proposals, saying these changes will help to encourage people who have family responsibilities to stay in the workforce for a longer time, or to re-enter it after taking time off to start a family.
“As Singapore employers battle to retain their best talent, they need to look at more flexible work arrangements as a means of holding on to quality staff,” she explained.
Abolish PSLE and streaming for a better education system?
At the IPS discussion, Straughan also proposed radical changes to Singapore’s education system.
For example, she suggested scrapping the primary school leaving examination (PSLE), as well as streaming, and replace it with a 12-year primary and secondary school system (six years each) that focus on imparting learning techniques.
“Get rid of PSLE, get rid of streaming. Let the child go into school at Primary 1 and enjoy learning all the way through to the entrance exams into university,” she said. “I think that will be a major transformation for parenting in Singapore.”
The other changes Straughan called for include doing away with tuition and for a review to be done to ease the pressure on school teachers.
Commenting on these measures, Arthur Foo, a young father of two, said he would be supportive of such changes if they allow children to experience more holistic development instead of simply focusing on academic intelligence.
“I think our children are acculturated to be exam-smart but not as street-smart as those in countries where academic achievement is not the only route to success,” he said, noting, however, that a suitable alternative to Singapore’s practice of selection by meritocracy must be found before the changes can be made.
Paulin Straughan’s suggestions at a glance:
Reducing the performance bonus aspect of remuneration, while increasing base salaries instead
Encouraging mainstream application of flexi-work arrangements
Evolving clearer, more objective indicators of good performance, instead of vague performance markers that force workers to go into “overdrive” in a bid to attain them
Establishing a better work-life balance
Reducing reliance on face-time, the amount of time one spends in the office.
Scrapping streaming and PSLE for primary school students and implement a 12-year primary and secondary school system (with six years for each) that allow students to focus on learning, instead of passing examinations.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/expert-suggests-radical-measures-to-raise-fertility-rate.html
Immigration will help solve Singapore’s population problem: paper
An inflow of between 20,000 and 25,000 new citizens will be needed to keep the population of Singaporeans stable, according to a report by the government’s population arm.
The National Population and Talent Division (NPTD), a group under the Prime Minister’s Office, said in a paper that immigration and raising Singapore’s total fertility rate will delay and slow down the speed at which the population of citizens declines based on a series of scenarios it simulated and charted covering a period up to 2060.
Its projections in the paper, titled “Citizen Population Scenarios”, hinged on variations between Singapore’s fertility rate (between the current level of 1.2 and the replacement level of 2.1) and the number of new citizenships granted in each year (zero, 15,000, 20,000 and 25,000).
The report highlighted that in the coming 18 years, some 900,000 Baby Boomers — adults born in the post-World War II period — will be retiring from the workforce, causing an “unprecedented age shift” in Singapore’s citizenry and exerting adverse consequences on its citizen workforce.
“An inflow of 25,000 new citizens per year would keep the size of our working-age citizen population relatively stable,” NPTD said in the paper.
Even if Singaporeans were producing enough babies for replacement, the number of working-age citizens would still fall by about 300,000, it said.
With an annual immigration of 20,000 new citizens, the decline would be lower at 200,000, whereas the number of such citizens would remain approximately the same if the inflow were at 25,000 new citizens.
NPTD also pointed out that citizen deaths are projected to outstrip Singaporean births by 2025, leading to a significant decline in our citizen population, due to the current low fertility rates.
The report showed that maintaining the existing fertility rate alone would result in a citizen population decline of almost 750,000 citizens by 2060.
NPTD also warned that “our citizen population will age, and age rapidly” as the median age of the citizen population would rise from 39 years last year to 47 years in 2030.
“Raising total fertility rates alone will not fully mitigate the effects of a declining and ageing citizen population, particularly in the next two decades,” concluded the report, adding that immigration will not only help to mitigate the rate at which Singapore’s citizen population declines and ages, it will also help to revitalise it.
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