Sri Lanka Matale 'mass grave could be a crime site'

Sri Lanka Matale 'mass grave could be a crime site'
14 Dec 2012

By Charles Haviland BBC News, Colombo

Human remains in what appears to be a mass grave unearthed last month in central Sri Lanka could be "the site of a crime", a forensic medical specialist has told the BBC.

The remains of nearly 60 people have been excavated in the town of Matale.

There are allegations that the bodies are those of Sinhalese guerrillas who fought a bloody left-wing insurgency more than 20 years ago.

But other theories hold that the people died in non-political contexts.

The skulls and partial skeletons were discovered late last month by workers building a facility at a hospital in Matale.

'Extreme violence'

Forensic medical specialist Ajith Jayasena told the BBC that 58 sets of remains have been found so far, some full and some partial. He said that more may still be discovered.

Dr Jayasena said the grave appeared to be the site of a "crime" as it was not a regular place of burial.

"We have to find out whether they are male or female, their age, whether they had any injuries, and the cause or circumstances of their deaths," he said.

"Finding multiple human remains there means we have suspicions."

Dr Jayasena said that no real conclusions could be drawn until a team of experts had finished its work. He said that some bones had been damaged during the initial discovery.

The Matale area was an epicentre of a late 1980s insurgency by leftist Sinhalese group, the JVP, in which the state matched the guerrillas' extreme violence.

The modern-day JVP suspects its former members may be buried at the site and has demanded an inquiry.

But Colombo police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody said that those buried were probably victims of a landslide in the 1940s.

"We can't pinpoint [the exact time]," he said.

"But we can say it's more than 60 years old. The doctors and neighbours say so. Old guys, 80 or 90-years-old, said there was a big landslide nearby. Five hundred people [either] died [or] were taken to hospital and badly treated. That was in 1946."

Hospital workers meanwhile have suggested that the grave could contain the bodies of smallpox victims.

If it is a grave of people who were killed during the JVP insurrection, this would unfortunately be nothing new in Sri Lanka.

There are believed to be dozens of similar sites from that era, a time in which 60,000 or more young people are said to have disappeared.

Large numbers may be buried in the same area in the north where thousands of civilians perished in shelling towards the end of the war against Tamil Tiger insurgents in 2009 - but where no open process of excavation has been permitted.

JVP Website - http://www.jvpsrilanka.com/en/
Sri Lanka Newspapers - http://www.dailymirror.lk/

What Singapore can learn from Europe By Tommy Koh
May19 by Repost on SgHardtruth

IT IS a sad reflection on human nature that when a region is faced with a crisis, it is often treated with disdain instead of sympathy. I recall that during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, some of our European and American friends were extremely unkind and predicted that Asia would suffer a lost decade.

We must not do the same to Europe which has been faced with a serious financial and economic crisis since 2008. I have, therefore, decided to swim against the tide of anti-Europe sentiments.

I wish to highlight the fact that not all the countries of Europe are in crisis. Last year, of the 27 European Union countries, only three had a negative growth rate. In the 2010-2011 Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum, six EU countries were ranked among the 10 most competitive countries.

I wish to make the case that Singapore has much to learn from the successful countries of Europe. I will focus on four European countries whose populations are below 10 million – namely, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

LESSON NO. 1

Inclusive growth

THE citizens of the world aspire to live in fair societies. One important aspect of fairness is the equitable distribution of income and wealth. This is the moral force behind the economic doctrine of inclusive growth. As a result of globalisation, technological change and domestic policies, many countries have become extremely unequal.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is a reflection of the American people’s sentiments against a growth model which over-rewards the top 1 per cent and under-rewards the remaining 99 per cent. The inequality in Singapore, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is even greater than that in America. Too great a gap between rich and poor undermines solidarity and social cohesion. It poses a threat to our harmony and our sense of nationhood.

Let us compare Singapore, on the one hand, and Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden on the other. Their per capita incomes in 2010 were as follows:

Singapore: S$59,813

Denmark: S$69,249(€42,500)

Finland: S$54,584 (€33,500)

Norway: S$105,096 (€64,500)

Sweden: S$60,613 (€37,200)

The Gini coefficient is used universally as a summary measure of income inequality. It is based upon the difference between the incomes of the top 20 per cent and the bottom 20 per cent. Zero represents total income equality and one represents total inequality. What are the Gini coefficients of the five countries? In 2010, they were as follows:

Singapore: 0.46

Denmark: 0.27

Finland: 0.25

Norway: 0.24

Sweden: 0.24

In order to get a better sense of the wages earned in the five countries by the bottom 20-30 per cent of the working population, I have chosen the cleaner and the bus driver. The average monthly wages of the cleaner and bus driver in the five countries are as follows:

Singapore
Cleaner S$800 Bus driver S$1,800
Denmark
Cleaner S$5,502 Bus driver S$6,193
Finland
Cleaner S$2,085 Bus driver S$3,910
Norway
Cleaner S$5,470 Bus driver S$6,260
Sweden
Cleaner S$3,667 Bus driver S$4,480

A few observations are in order.
First, Singapore’s per capita income is roughly similar to those of Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

Second, the four Nordic countries are much more equitable than Singapore. This is reflected in their Gini coefficients as well as in the average monthly wages earned by the cleaner and the bus driver.

Third, some Nordic countries have a minimum wage and some, such as Denmark, do not. The minimum wage is, therefore, a means but not the only means to ensure that workers earn a living wage.

Fourth, the argument that the only way to raise the wages of our low-wage workers is through productivity increase is not persuasive. I would like to know, for example, how the two women who clean my office can be more productive than they already are in order to deserve higher wages? I would like to know how the Singapore bus driver can be more productive so that his income will approximate those of his Nordic counterparts?

The truth is that we pay these workers such low wages not primarily because their productivity is inherently low, but largely because they are competing against an unlimited supply of cheap foreign workers. Because cheap workers are so plentiful, they tend to be employed unproductively. In the Nordic countries, unskilled workers are relatively scarce and thus deployed more productively, with higher skills, mechanisation, and better organisation.

What is the solution? The solution is for the State to reduce the supply of cheap foreign workers or introduce a minimum wage or to target specific industries, such as the hospitality industry, for wage enhancement.

LESSON NO. 2

Higher fertility

ONE of our challenges is our low fertility rate. For a country’s population to remain stable, it needs a total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.14. Singapore’s current TFR is 1.2. Our population experts tell us that our population will begin to shrink by 2025. They have, therefore, argued that, to make up the deficit, we need to import foreigners to add to our population.

Importing foreigners is the second best solution. The best solution is to raise our TFR. On this point, our policymakers seem to have run out of ideas. The various incentive schemes, such as baby bonus, do not seem to be productive. It is time to look at our four European countries for inspiration. Their 2010 TFRs were as follows:

Denmark: 1.87

Finland: 1.87

Norway: 1.95

Sweden: 1.98

The four Nordic countries have TFRs which are close to the replacement level. This achievement seems extraordinary. They do not have the benefit of maids. There are over 200,000 foreign domestic workers in Singapore. They also do not have grandparents who help with child-rearing. At the same time, they have very high participation of women in their workforces. In terms of availability of time and help for child-rearing, common sense would suggest that the TFR in Singapore should be higher than those in the Nordic countries. How do we explain this paradox?

Our population experts cannot explain this paradox. I will venture a hypothesis. I believe that the high TFR in the Nordic countries could be due to four factors: the availability of convenient, affordable and good childcare; good work-life balance; an excellent and relatively stress-free education system; and the relative absence of male chauvinism.

Let me say a few words on each of the four factors.

First, one of the missing links in Singapore is the inadequate supply of conveniently located, good quality and affordable childcare for infants and young children.

Second, the work-life balance in Singapore, especially for many young professionals such as lawyers, architects and teachers, is poor. Singaporeans work one of the longest hours in the developed world. They have little energy for life other than work and thus little time for meaningful family life.

The Government and our employers should reflect on whether the existing climate of encouraging or requiring our young professionals to work late into the night is necessary or desirable.

Third, sociologists like Paulin Straughan have pointed out that Singapore’s highly competitive and stressful education system is also a deterrent to working parents having more children. The Nordic countries, on the other hand, are famous for their high quality, egalitarian education which fulfils the children’s aspiration for a happy childhood. It is a paradox that Finland, with no streaming, no elite schools and no private tuition industry, is ranked as having the world’s best education system.

Fourth, it is significant that the developed countries with low TFRs include Japan, Korea, Italy and Spain, which have a high degree of male chauvinism. Is it possible that Singapore too has a high degree of male chauvinism? The women of Singapore are often blamed for not marrying and having children. Perhaps, the main problem is not our women but our men. Perhaps, what we also need is a mindset change on the part of our men towards the status and role of our women and the shared responsibilities of the husband and wife, and father and mother in domestic chores and child-rearing.

LESSON NO. 3

Embracing nature and sustainable development

SINGAPORE is probably Asia’s cleanest, greenest and most liveable city. Our air is healthy, our water is potable and our land is wholesome. In addition, we enjoy good public health and food safety. Visitors are astonished by the fact that, in spite of our high density, 47 per cent of our land is covered in greenery. In view of this, the reader will ask what can we learn from the four Nordic countries? I suggest three things.

First, people there love nature and their natural heritage. They seem to have an emotional, even a spiritual, relationship with nature. They love their forests, lakes and fjords. In contrast, most Singaporeans tend to have a more pragmatic relationship with nature. They apply a cost-benefit analysis to the destruction of a natural heritage. Pragmatism is one of our virtues. We should, however, be aware of the defects of our virtues. Not everything in life can be monetised.

Second, we can learn useful lessons from the way in which the Nordic countries have been able to reconcile economic competitiveness with a deep commitment to sustainable development. After the 1992 Earth Summit, each of them has established a national commission to mainstream sustainable development.

In the case of Finland, the Prime Minister chairs the National Commission on Sustainable Development. The result is that there is a national consensus in each of those countries to internalise the ethic of sustainable development into all aspects of life.

Third, at the micro-level, there are lessons in areas where Singapore has room for improvement – for example, in energy efficiency, the use of solar energy, the recycling of waste, the use of non-polluting buses, changing unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, etc.

LESSON NO. 4

Heritage, culture and the arts

IN THE past two decades, inspired by the 1989 Ong Teng Cheong report and Mr George Yeo’s leadership at the then Ministry of Information and the Arts, Singapore has undergone a paradigm shift in the areas of heritage, culture and the arts. The arts have blossomed. More and more Singaporeans are interested in knowing their history and preserving their heritage. The trend is, therefore, favourable. What can we learn from the Nordic countries?

First, we can learn the importance of giving all our children a good education in the arts. We have made good progress in recent years. The opening of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music and the School of The Arts were important milestones.

We can strengthen arts education in our schools. We should consider starting courses in art history and museum studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels. This will help in the training of teachers, curators, dealers, collectors and museum administrators, all in short supply.

Second, we can emulate the achievements of the Nordic countries in respect of museums. They have an impressive range of museums with strong collections. They have been able to harness the benefit of public-private partnership. Their museum collections extend beyond their nations to the cultures of the world.

For example, the David Collection in Copenhagen is one of the world’s best collections of Islamic Art. The Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki has a very ambitious programming agenda, covering Western as well as Asian and African art.

Third, because of their ancient Viking past and current strength in shipping and other maritime industries, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have outstanding museums of maritime history.

Given the importance of maritime trade to Singapore’s past and present, it is puzzling that we do not have a museum of maritime history. I hope one day the historic Clifford Pier, which now houses a restaurant, will be the home of a world-class museum of maritime history. When that time comes, we can look to the Nordic countries for inspiration.

By Tommy Koh, For The Straits Times, May 19, 2012
The writer is chairman, Centre for International Law and Rector, Tembusu College, National University of Singapore.

Bobby Ghosh - Why global Jihad is losing

I'm going to talk about the power of a word: jihad.

To the vast majority of practicing Muslims, jihad is an internal struggle for the faith.

It is a struggle within, a struggle against vice, sin, temptation, lust, greed. It is a struggle to try and live a life that is set by the moral codes written in the Koran. In that original idea, the concept of jihad is as important to Muslims as the idea of grace is to Christians. It's a very powerful word, jihad, if you look at it in that respect, and there's a certain almost mystical resonance to it. And that's the reason why, for hundreds of years, Muslims everywhere have named their children Jihad, their daughters as much as their sons, in the same way that, say, Christians name their daughters Grace, and Hindus, my people, name our daughters Bhakti, which means, in Sanskrit, spiritual worship.

But there have always been, in Islam, a small group, a minority, who believe that jihad is not only an internal struggle but also an external struggle against forces that would threaten the faith, or the faithul. And some of these people believe that in that struggle, it is sometimes okay to take up arms. And so the thousands of young Muslim men who flocked to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight against the Soviet occupation of a Muslim country, in their minds they were fighting a jihad, they were doing jihad, and they named themselves the Mujahideen, which is a word that comes from the same root as jihad. And we forget this now, but back then the Mujahideen were celebrated in this country, in America. We thought of them as holy warriors who were taking the good fight to the ungodly communists. America gave them weapons, gave them money, gave them support, encouragement.

But within that group, a tiny, smaller group, a minority within a minority within a minority, were coming up with a new and dangerous conception of jihad, and in time this group would come to be led by Osama bin Laden, and he refined the idea. His idea of jihad was a global war of terror, primarily targeted at the far enemy, at the crusaders from the West, against America. And the things he did in the pursuit of this jihad were so horrendous, so monstrous, and had such great impact, that his definition was the one that stuck, not just here in the West. We didn't know any better. We didn't pause to ask. We just assumed that if this insane man and his psychopathic followers were calling what they did jihad, then that's what jihad must mean. But it wasn't just us. Even in the Muslim world, his definition of jihad began to gain acceptance.

A year ago I was in Tunis, and I met the imam of a very small mosque, an old man. Fifteen years ago, he named his granddaughter Jihad, after the old meaning. He hoped that a name like that would inspire her to live a spiritual life. But he told me that after 9/11, he began to have second thoughts. He worried that if he called her by that name, especially outdoors, outside in public, he might be seen as endorsing bin Laden's idea of jihad. On Fridays in his mosque, he gave sermons trying to reclaim the meaning of the word, but his congregants, the people who came to his mosque, they had seen the videos. They had seen pictures of the planes going into the towers, the towers coming down. They had heard bin Laden say that that was jihad, and claimed victory for it. And so the old imam worried that his words were falling on deaf ears. No one was paying attention.

He was wrong. Some people were paying attention, but for the wrong reasons. The United States, at this point, was putting pressure on all its Arab allies, including Tunisia, to stamp out extremism in their societies, and this imam found himself suddenly in the crosshairs of the Tunisian intelligence service. They had never paid him any attention before -- old man, small mosque -- but now they began to pay visits, and sometimes they would drag him in for questions, and always the same question: "Why did you name your granddaughter Jihad? Why do you keep using the word jihad in your Friday sermons? Do you hate Americans? What is your connection to Osama bin Laden?"

So to the Tunisian intelligence agency, and organizations like it all over the Arab world, jihad equaled extremism, Bin Laden's definition had become institutionalized. That was the power of that word that he was able to do. And it filled this old imam, it filled him with great sadness. He told me that, of bin Laden's many crimes, this was, in his mind, one that didn't get enough attention, that he took this word, this beautiful idea. He didn't so much appropriate it as kidnapped it and debased it and corrupted it and turned it into something it was never meant to be, and then persuaded all of us that it always was a global jihad.

But the good news is that the global jihad is almost over, as bin Laden defined it. It was dying well before he did, and now it's on its last legs. Opinion polls from all over the Muslim world show that there is very little interest among Muslims in a global holy war against the West, against the far enemy. The supply of young men willing to fight and die for this cause is dwindling. The supply of money — just as important, more important perhaps — the supply of money to this activity is also dwindling. The wealthy fanatics who were previously sponsoring this kind of activity are now less generous.

What does that mean for us in the West? Does it mean we can break out the champagne, wash our hands of it, disengage, sleep easy at night? No. Disengagement is not an option, because if you let local jihad survive, it becomes international jihad. And so there's now a lot of different violent jihads all over the world. In Somalia, in Mali, in Nigeria, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, there are groups that claim to be the inheritors of the legacy of Osama bin Laden. They use his rhetoric. They even use the brand name he created for his jihad. So there is now an al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, there's an al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, there is an al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. There are other groups -- in Nigeria, Boko Haram, in Somalia, al Shabaab -- and they all pay homage to Osama bin Laden. But if you look closely, they're not fighting a global jihad. They're fighting battles over much narrower issues. Usually it has to do with ethnicity or race or sectarianism, or it's a power struggle. More often than not, it's a power struggle in one country, or even a small region within one country. Occasionally they will go across a border, from Iraq to Syria, from Mali to Algeria, from Somalia to Kenya, but they're not fighting a global jihad against some far enemy.

But that doesn't mean that we can relax. I was in Yemen recently, where -- it's the home of the last al Qaeda franchise that still aspires to attack America, attack the West. It's old school al Qaeda. You may remember these guys. They are the ones who tried to send the underwear bomber here, and they were using the Internet to try and instigate violence among American Muslims. But they have been distracted recently. Last year, they took control over a portion of southern Yemen, and ran it, Taliban-style. And then the Yemeni military got its act together, and ordinary people rose up against these guys and drove them out, and since then, most of their activities, most of their attacks have been directed at Yemenis.

So I think we've come to a point now where we can say that, just like all politics, all jihad is local. But that's still not reason for us to disengage, because we've seen that movie before, in Afghanistan. When those Mujahideen defeated the Soviet Union, we disengaged. And even before the fizz had gone out of our celebratory champagne, the Taliban had taken over in Kabul, and we said, "Local jihad, not our problem." And then the Taliban gave the keys of Kandahar to Osama bin Laden. He made it our problem. Local jihad, if you ignore it, becomes global jihad again.

The good news is that it doesn't have to be. We know how to fight it now. We have the tools. We have the knowhow, and we can take the lessons we've learned from the fight against global jihad, the victory against global jihad, and apply those to local jihad.

What are those lessons? We know who killed bin Laden: SEAL Team Six. Do we know, do we understand, who killed bin Ladenism? Who ended the global jihad? There lie the answers to the solution to local jihad.

Who killed bin Ladenism? Let's start with bin Laden himself. He probably thought 9/11 was his greatest achievement. In reality, it was the beginning of the end for him. He killed 3,000 innocent people, and that filled the Muslim world with horror and revulsion, and what that meant was that his idea of jihad could never become mainstream. He condemned himself to operating on the lunatic fringes of his own community. 9/11 didn't empower him; it doomed him.

Who killed bin Ladenism? Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed it. He was the especially sadistic head of al Qaeda in Iraq who sent hundreds of suicide bombers to attack not Americans but Iraqis. Muslims. Sunni as well as Shiites. Any claim that al Qaeda had to being protectors of Islam against the Western crusaders was drowned in the blood of Iraqi Muslims.

Who killed Osama bin Laden? The SEAL Team Six. Who killed bin Ladenism? Al Jazeera did, Al Jazeera and half a dozen other satellite news stations in Arabic, because they circumvented the old, state-owned television stations in a lot of these countries which were designed to keep information from people. Al Jazeera brought information to them, showed them what was being said and done in the name of their religion, exposed the hypocrisy of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, and allowed them, gave them the information that allowed them to come to their own conclusions.

Who killed bin Ladenism? The Arab Spring did, because it showed a way for young Muslims to bring about change in a manner that Osama bin Laden, with his limited imagination, could never have conceived.

Who defeated the global jihad? The American military did, the American soldiers did, with their allies, fighting in faraway battlefields. And perhaps, a time will come when they get the rightful credit for it.

So all these factors, and many more besides, we don't even fully understand some of them yet, these came together to defeat a monstrosity as big as bin Ladenism, the global jihad, you needed this group effort.

Now, not all of these things will work in local jihad. The American military is not going to march into Nigeria to take on Boko Haram, and it's unlikely that SEAL Team Six will rappel into the homes of al Shabaab's leaders and take them out.

But many of these other factors that were in play are now even stronger than before. Half the work is already done. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. The notion of violent jihad in which more Muslims are killed than any other kind of people is already thoroughly discredited. We don't have to go back to that. Satellite television and the Internet are informing and empowering young Muslims in exciting new ways. And the Arab Spring has produced governments, many of them Islamist governments, who know that, for their own self-preservation, they need to take on the extremists in their midsts. We don't need to persuade them, but we do need to help them, because they haven't really come to this place before.

The good news, again, is that a lot of the things they need we already have, and we are very good at giving: economic assistance, not just money, but expertise, technology, knowhow, private investment, fair terms of trade, medicine, education, technical support for training for their police forces to become more effective, for their anti-terror forces to become more efficient. We've got plenty of these things.

Some of the other things that they need we're not very good at giving. Maybe nobody is. Time, patience, subtlety, understanding -- these are harder to give. I live in New York now. Just this week, posters have gone up in subway stations in New York that describe jihad as savage.

But in all the many years that I have covered the Middle East, I have never been as optimistic as I am today that the gap between the Muslim world and the West is narrowing fast, and one of the many reasons for my optimism is that, because I know there are millions, hundreds of millions of people, Muslims like that old imam in Tunis, who are reclaiming this word and restoring to its original, beautiful purpose. Bin Laden is dead. Bin Ladenism has been defeated. His definition of jihad can now be expunged. To that jihad we can say, "Goodbye. Good riddance." To the real jihad we can say, "Welcome back. Good luck." Thank you. (Applause)

History of Flags

A Brief History of World Flags

People have used flags for over 4,000 years. Authentic flag design of ancient peoples includes a metal flag from Iran, ca. 3000 BC, and reconstructions of vexilloids shown on ancient Greek coins, Egyptian tomb carvings, etc.

Vexillogy: The first type of flag was called a vexilloid. Vexillology is the scientific study of flags. This word comes from a Latin word which means "guide". First flags or vexilloids were metal or wooden poles with carvings on top. About 2,000 years ago, pieces of fabric or material were added to some vexilloids for decoration. These looked more like the flags we know today.

A flag is a piece of colored fabric or material that is used as a symbol, or for sending a signal. Some flags are used only for decoration. Usually, flags are messages from a person or a group of people.

At war

People use flags to give others information, such as, who they are. Long ago, armies carried flags into battle because it was hard to know who the armies were. They were sometimes dressed up in uniforms and covered in armor or sometimes dressed even in civilian clothes and ready for battle! Flags were important because they helped soldiers tell their friends from their enemies in battle.

Countries Today

Today, every country in the world has a flag. As governments change, so do their flags. Every state in the United States has a flag, too. Flags are used to give information, signals or stand for special symbols or things. Many organizations or groups like the Girl Scouts or the United Nations have flags. Clubs and organizations have their own flags too. The five circles of the Olympic flag represent the coming together of people from five continents in friendly competition. Peace is the message of the olive branches cradling the world in the flag of the United Nations. Some people, like a king or queen, have their very own personal flag. Sometimes it flies over any building or place where they are staying.

Flags include symbols that are used to show ideas which would otherwise take many words. Flags are used for wars, as well as for the celebration of special events. On sad occasions, flags are flown at half-mast to honor the dead, and draped over the coffins of national heroes.

The colors found in flags have special meanings:

Red - danger, revolution, bloodshed of war, courage, power

White - peace, surrender, truce

Orange- courage, sacrifice

Green - safety, land, youth, hope

Yellow - caution, gold

Black - mourning, death

Flags come in many different sizes, shapes and colors. They can be used for important events, or to represent something special or give a special message. Sometimes an interesting decoration at the tip of the flag pole is added. This is called a finial.

One flag that almost everyone knows is the "White Flag of Surrender". Waiving a white flag is the international sign for surrender. Soldiers carrying or waving the "White Flag" are not fired upon. These "White Flags" are not made up in advance and are usually made out of any materials available at the time it is to be used.

Another well known flag is the "Jolly Roger", used by pirates to frighten people. These flags usually had a black background which stood for "no quarter" or "no mercy will be shown to those who resist."

Another well known flag is the "Red Flag" which means danger.

People who design flags have an important job. They must get their message and information on the flag without using many words or pictures. The pictures and colors on a flag symbolize something important. Flag designers used to make sketches with pencils and paints, now they use computers to help them design flags.

Many flags have the same basic patterns such as stripes, both horizontal and vertical, and stars. Many flags are divided into quarters and some are given a border. Colors on a flag are important.

Years ago, flags were made by hand by sewing pieces of fabric together or embroidered with yarn or painted. Today, flags are usually printed in long rolls of fabric which are run through a machine which prints a pattern over and over again on the fabric. Then the fabric is washed, dried and then cut into separate flags.

Singapore rejects calls to abolish death penalty

Singapore rejects calls to abolish death penalty
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/singapore-rejects-calls-abolish-death-penalty-195231018.html

Singapore on Wednesday rejected calls to abolish executions, saying the death penalty is still necessary to deter serious crimes despite legal reforms designed to lessen its use.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, who is also minister for home affairs, said abolishing hanging would send the wrong signal to potential criminals.

Singapore has unveiled legal amendments that will enable judges to impose life imprisonment on low-level drug couriers and people who commit murder with "no outright intention to kill".

Mandatory execution will be reserved for hardcore murderers and traffickers.

"The mandatory death penalty strengthens this deterrent message," Teo said during a debate in parliament on a bill amending the anti-drugs law to allow judges some discretion under exceptional circumstances.

If Singapore abolished capital punishment as some legislators have advocated, "we would be sending the wrong signal that the risks of drug trafficking into Singapore have now been lowered, that the society is now more accepting of drugs", Teo said.

"They (abolition advocates) have looked at this from the point of view of the drug trafficker who has been apprehended. We also have to look at abolition from the point of view of society and the victims of drugs."

International campaign groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also called on Singapore to abolish the death penalty.

Judges currently have no choice but to impose the death penalty on anyone convicted of murder or trafficking in illegal drugs above specific volumes.

Teo said care must be taken so the reforms will "not open the doors wide" to mitigating factors which would undermine the country's "strict penalty regime and its deterrent value".

Pointing to the death penalty's deterrent effect, he said kidnapping and firearms offences fell sharply after capital punishment was introduced for these crimes.

For drugs, "we know that the mandatory death penalty has a deterrent effect because drug traffickers deliberately try to keep the amounts they carry to below the capital punishment threshold", he said.

Officials have said there are currently about 35 inmates on death row in Singapore, although executions have been suspended since July 2011 as part of a review that led to the proposed new legislation.

From 2004 to 2010, a total of 26 Singaporeans and 12 foreigners were executed, according to government figures.

Food Safety

AFP News – Sun, Nov 11, 2012

Chinese officials accustomed to the tame questions of a compliant state press were caught out by a plucky 11-year-old reporter during the country's sensitive Communist Party congress.

Sun Luyuan, a Beijing sixth-grade student, on Friday shook up one of the tightly-controlled party meetings on the congress's sidelines with a question that put officials on the spot over China's miserable food-safety record.

Noting that a steady stream of scandals and health scares involving tainted or unsafe food products had particularly affected students, leaving many sickened in various incidents, Sun asked why China can't clean up its act.

"I love snacks, but I don't dare to eat snacks now because we see so many reports these days of problems with food products," Sun asked high-level officials during a congress delegate meeting, according to state-run China News Service.

During the meeting at Beijing's cavernous Great Hall of the People, Sun, who works for the Chinese Teenager News, continued by asking "why are these kinds of food products available for purchase?"

"As many primary and middle school students eat our lunches at school, what can you do to put us at ease over food safety?" she asked.

The Communist Party is presenting a tightly-scripted image of national unity for the week-long congress that opened on Thursday.

Held every five years, the congress will end next Wednesday with the unveiling of a new top leadership line-up widely expected to be headed by Vice President Xi Jinping, who will lead for the next ten years.

Ma Kai, a top official in China's cabinet who presided over Friday's meeting, passed the question to Education Minister Yuan Guiren, the China News Service said.

Yuan offered a stock official response pledging the government was addressing the situation and putting proper safety measures in place, a line repeated for years even as the scandals have persisted.

Increasingly anxious Chinese consumers are regularly hit with food scares ranging from cancer-causing toxins found in cooking oil to food items that are expired or contain dangerous chemicals and additives.

In 2008, China was rocked by one of its biggest-ever food safety scandals when the industrial chemical melamine was found to have been illegally added to dairy products to give the appearance of higher protein content.

At least six babies died and another 300,000 became ill after drinking the tainted products.

Y! Exclusive: Law Minister K Shanmugam on the ISA

Y! Exclusive: Law Minister K Shanmugam on the ISA

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/y--exclusive--law-minister-k-shanmugam-on-the-isa.html

In an exclusive interview with Yahoo! Singapore, Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam sits down and tackles head-on tough questions within (and just beyond) his portfolio. In this first part, the minister shares his personal take on the Internal Security Act.

olding two portfolios, Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam is a busy man indeed.

He hasn’t yet filled the cabinets in his office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tanglin — instead stacking his three-sided desk with books and papers.

The main source of colour in his office comes from a world map, upon which red tacks indicate Singapore’s embassies around the globe. The only personal touch comes from an electronic photo frame at a corner diagonally behind where he sits that show pictures of his wife and two children, both of whom are studying abroad.

Yet, based on an interview with Yahoo! Singapore last month, the 53-year-old former senior partner at Allen & Gledhill seems to enjoy his work at both ministries.

In the one-hour meeting, he spoke on a host of hot-button topics as well as on matters related to his previous portfolio, Home Affairs, which he held for a year before taking on the foreign affairs position from his predecessor George Yeo last year.

Should the ISA be abolished?

While still at the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), he was frequently asked about the Internal Security Act (ISA) — a law that enables the government to detain people without trial. The issue also recently grabbed headlines when the Catholic Archbishop of Singapore retracted a letter of support he sent to activist group Function 8, when it organised an event earlier this year calling for its abolition.

Asked for his views on more controversial detentions in Singapore's history, including Operation Coldstore in 1963 and Operation Spectrum in 1987, he felt it inappropriate to offer comment on specific incidents in the past because he was not privy to the specific security considerations applicable to them.

With clearer knowledge of the situation between 2008 and 2011, however, Shanmugam is certain of the overarching rationale for the Act in the current international security environment -- that ultimately it acts as a preventive measure where security threats are discovered on classified intelligence.

With the days of mass, high-profile detentions a thing of the past, though, whether the law should stay or not, he feels, all boils down to the evaluation of which of two risks Singapore is more prepared to take.

“(The ISA) gives the power to the government to detain people without going through the due process of the courts. Once you have such a structure, is there a possibility of abuse? Of course... so that’s the risk,” he acknowledged.

However, he pointed out, “Society has got to decide between that risk, or the risk that an incident might actually occur, and then you have to ask yourself, ‘What are the consequences of each of the two risks materialising? What is the impact on Singapore?’ and then people have to choose.”

Shanmugam explained that where Singapore lacks in natural resources, it makes up for in a clean ecosystem that is friendly to businesses.

“There is no particular reason to come to Singapore, but we have created an ecosystem (here) — a regulatory framework which is clean, with good human capital and talent, and a good judicial system, rule of law, excellent logistics, clean, non-corrupt system — all these are positive factors, and underlying it all, confidence,” he said.

“If you destroy that confidence in Singapore, you create a question mark on our economy. There are many ways in which that confidence can be affected — one way, I believe, would be if there is a major terrorist incident in Singapore,” he argued.

A further reason he gives in favour of the ISA’s existence is the nature of the circumstances by which intelligence is gained on a particular security threat or suspect. The Act, he says, allows the government to “move ahead of time” and detain people even before an offence has been committed, purely on the basis of sound intelligence, information that is often classified at security levels too high to bring up in court.

Guantanamo Bay example

“The Americans acknowledge it, others acknowledge it — you get a tip-off, or if you have a mole in the organisation and as a result you get a tip-off, you’re not going to release it in court,” he said, adding that even for all the championing that America does for its constitutional rights, it practices the same thing for its prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.

Of all the U.S.’ detainees there, Shanmugam pointed out that only one of them, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was actually brought to trial.

“Congress was very reluctant to have many detainees brought to trial in the U.S. because they didn’t want to take the security risk these detainees posed,” he said. “The U.S. has its principles of due process, constitutional rights, but they sidestep it by saying they don’t apply to people in Guantanamo because they are not Americans.”

Even in Khalid’s case, he added, the U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder said during Khalid’s trial that if for some reason the court decided to acquit him, America would detain him anyway.

“That was the reality, (and) often much of the discussion overlooks this reality,” he said.

From this, he explained that although both Singapore and the U.S. practice detention without trial, he noted that Singapore does it in the form of the ISA, and has over time applied two levels of safeguards to the ISA: an independent advisory board led by a Supreme Court judge, which reviews the detention, and Singapore’s president, who is empowered with the ability to grant the release of a detainee without the advice of the Cabinet.

The independence of the President

Shanmugam did, however, acknowledge that some Singaporeans may not recognise the president as being fully independent.

“I’m sure there are people who think that,” he said. “But you have independent elections for the president... he’s chosen by the mandate of Singaporeans — and you take the current president, you take the previous president, they’re both people who have outstanding achievements and record of public service; it would be I think a minority of people who will not acknowledge that and who will think they are going to not be independent.”

Noting also that one of Singapore’s first elected presidents, Ong Teng Cheong, was widely respected as independent, despite being part of the government for a long period, he said also that anyone who knows the country’s current president Tony Tan would know how independent he is as well.

"He's a very strong character," he added.

Ultimately, though, he said that for any law to change, be relaxed or eventually abolished, for that matter, Singapore's wider society will need to accept and support these amendments.

"Laws always need public support to be enforceable, particularly laws of this nature," he said. "So questions on what more needs to be done (with respect to the ISA, for instance) have to be considered as society and the security environment changes, and you've got to tweak it according to the changing needs."

It’s been a long time coming, but change is underway.

In what is expected to be a landmark legislation later this month, the Singapore government is expected to abolish the mandatory death penalty (MDP) for certain homicides and drug offences. This, nearly 40 years after the law was first introduced for murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking and firearms offences.

But as Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam told Yahoo! Singapore in an exclusive interview recently, the proposed changes were the result of the government’s continuous review of laws and not from activist campaigning.

“This is something we do continuously. We monitor to see firstly, is it necessary, because it’s a serious penalty. Secondly, is it effective? And, thirdly, are there tweaks or changes that need to be done to this system?” he said. “Any responsible government will do this — which is what we’re doing.”

The abolition of the MDP, which was first proposed in Parliament in July and will be expected to be passed when Parliament sits again on 12 November, comes with certain conditions.

For murder, lawyers must first prove that their clients had no intention to kill. For drug trafficking, the defence must be able to prove that those charged were only transporting, sending or delivering drugs, have helped the Central Narcotics Bureau substantively or are mentally disabled.

Most importantly though, judges will now have greater discretion in meting out the death penalty.

In the case of homicides, Shanmugam explained the purpose of the MDP in those scenarios was to reduce and deter them. In that light, he noted then that there were 16 recorded ones last year, translating to a rate of 0.3 for every 100,000 people.

“Given that, we can ask, do we really need the mandatory death penalty for all homicides? So we keep it for the most serious intentional murder, but for the other kinds of homicide we say look, we can give discretion to the judges,” the 53-year-old former top lawyer pointed out.

On drug cases

For drug cases, judges too will have the ability to hand down life imprisonments instead of the death penalty, especially for cases involving a reduced level of mental faculty.

While the new legislation will give more discretion to the courts, Shanmugam pointed out that it is made clear at immigrations, whether through land or air, that Singapore’s strict drug laws are still intact.

He explained that nearly all drug offences are committed by people who have made careful calculations to do so.

“In the first place, if there is mental incapacity, you’re not even guilty because that’s a defence,” he said.

“We’re not talking about people who didn’t know what they were doing; we’re not talking about insane people; we’re not talking about people with mental incapacity. We’re talking about people with lesser IQ, or a level of diminished responsibility — that’s the technical term.

“They hide the drugs, they smuggle the drugs because they know it is illegal. They know what they are doing is wrong, so let’s be clear about that… but if there is diminished responsibility, that should be taken into account,” he said.

When the landmark legislation is passed later this month, at stake will be the lives of 34 prisoners on death row, among them the likes of 24-year-old Malaysian Yong Vui Kong and Singaporean Pathip Selvan Sugumara, who was convicted of killing his girlfriend in 2009.

Drug kingpins

“If we catch them and have evidence, we will charge them in court, and that has been done. But often they stay outside Singapore, and the few who come in or who we catch sometimes, there isn’t enough evidence to charge them in court, because the drugs are not found on them and we have to rely on someone else giving evidence. If I know you are a drug kingpin but I have nothing on you, what do I do? That’s where we detain them for maximum periods. If there is a different, better approach, tell us.”

The 14.99g rule

“The Attorney-General has the leeway to decide to charge people who carry amounts that just exceed 15g with a token figure of “14.99g” instead — a move that decides whether or not a person will face the death sentence, or 20 years of prison instead.”

“We are now giving this additional discretion (of life sentence) to judges, but the prosecution will continue to have that discretion. In a fair number of cases AG will look at the particular facts and say, okay, look — this is just above 15 grammes, or if there are peculiar reasons why for this person, discretion ought to be exercised, AG exercises it. A lot of people don’t realise this, but in a significant number of cases this discretion has been exercised and a charge for 14.99 grammes has been brought in court. The AG only proceeds on cases where he feels the death penalty really is merited — on the facts.”