Singapore PM Lee says new Chinese language centre set to make S’pore a knowledge hub

Singapore PM Lee says new Chinese language centre set to make S’pore a knowledge hub

By May Wong,

SINGAPORE: Singapore aims to position itself as an international centre of excellence for the teaching of Chinese. And to do this, the republic is setting up a centre to enhance teacher training and research in the language.

Whether in business or in school, English is the most commonly used language in Singapore.

Speaking at the 85th anniversary dinner of a local Chinese daily newspaper on Saturday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore must make strenuous efforts to preserve the mother tongues and its cultural heritage.

He added that Singaporeans must also remain bilingual and bi-cultural or risk becoming disadvantaged economically with the rise of China and lose part of its identity.

So Mr Lee said one way is to improve the teaching of Chinese here.

He said: “Chinese teachers have a difficult task of inspiring their students to understand, appreciate and learn the language. We should provide them with a range of training opportunities to help them achieve the task. Many modern teaching aids and materials have been developed in western countries for Math, Science and English, but few have been developed to teach Chinese language. We can do more to help our Chinese teachers.”

And that’s where the new centre on Chinese Language will come in. In addition, it’ll be a test-bed for innovative ideas on teaching of Chinese language and the use of new technology and software in this area. All these will establish Singapore as a knowledge hub.

Mr Lee noted that China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have shown interest in studying Singapore’s model of development. He added that being an Asian society, Singapore has solutions closer to their circumstances.

“Also because there is a cultural similarity and Chinese as a common language, so they find it easy to engage us and get a sense of what is happening. It is a great advantage to us that they find us and our experience interesting and useful,” said PM Lee.

That’s why Mr Lee said it’s essential to keep the Chinese language and culture alive in Singapore. - CNA/vm

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 06 Sept 2008

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Singapore New Chinese language centre plans to train 1,000 teachers from mid-2009

Singapore New Chinese language centre plans to train 1,000 teachers from mid-2009

By Valarie Tan,

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Centre for Chinese Language (SCCL) will start operating from mid-2009. It plans to help at least 1,000 existing Chinese teachers in the country design better language lessons in its first year.

55 per cent of this year’s Primary 1 cohort came from English-speaking homes according to a survey by the Ministry of Education.

This is a big jump from a mere 20 per cent a decade ago.

Experts said this is the result of a successful bilingual education system.

So the focus of the country’s first Chinese language centre will be to create teaching methods to help English-speaking students learn Chinese.

Dr Chin Chee Kuen, executive director, Singapore Chinese Language Centre, said: “After they enter school, the teacher must be able to enhance their speaking and listening skills before they start to teach them reading and writing.”

Heng Meng Tee, head of department, Chinese language, Raffles Girls’ Primary School, said: “In terms of research, teachers actually need a lot of resources and help in terms of professional development. So with such a centre, we will be getting better support for teachers to come together to work on some research and do a better job in the professional development.”

And this could be done with the help of information technology.

Dr Chin added: “If we can have some sort of a learning portal whereby the student can have dialogues with the machine, the system can analyse what are their problems and how these problems can be solved based on the in-time training. So the pupil will be able to know his performance and how he can learn outside school hours.”

Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State, Education & National Development, and advisor to the Board of Directors SCCL, said: “The centre will look into the use of new technology or software in the teaching of Chinese. There’s a lot of interest world wide on the teaching of Chinese especially to non-Chinese native speaking families and children so this is one area that we hope to be a regional hub.”

These courses will be funded by the Education Ministry as part of further professional development for teachers. This will be in addition to the pre-service training and certification programmes teachers currently undergo.

Also on the cards are training programmes for pre-school teachers and overseas Chinese teachers.

The centre will be located at the former Ghim Moh Primary School for the first three years.

While most of the recruitment details are in the drawing board stages, the centre plans to tap on the expertise of current teachers’ trainers and in the future, invite overseas visiting professors and Masters degree students to join in.

Recruitment is expected to start later this year. - CNA/vm

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 06 Sept 2008

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The day Singapore MM Lee censored himself

The day Singapore MM Lee censored himself

By TODAY

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew

SINGAPORE: Few, if any, would dispute that the most dramatic of the 43 annual National Day Rally speeches was the one in 1971. It was the first one telecast live. Even more extraordinarily, it went on air without prior notice.

The previous five rallies were closed-door sessions. Then, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew wanted to talk candidly to political, business and grassroot leaders without having to pull his punches. Many of the things he needed to tell his people were highly-sensitive matters in those troubled times.

Our neighbours, particularly Malaysia — from which Singapore was expelled in 1965 — could have been upset with varying degrees of justification.

Mr Lee did not want to exercise self-censorship at National Day Rallies.

Because of the presence of some content that was potentially offensive or explosive, Singapore media could not report what was said until days later, when edited versions of transcripts were issued for publication.

Why, then, the apparently sudden decision by Mr Lee to go live at the National Day Rally on Aug 15, 1971? Even his closest Cabinet colleagues did not know of the totally unexpected departure from established practice.

How the producer lived to tell the tale

Mr Ananda Perera, 69, a retired senior executive of the then-Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, tells an enthralling inside story about that night:

After I read Peter Lim’s deja vu recall of ‘the night it first went live …’ (Weekend TODAY, Aug 23-24), I felt I should share my experience.

I was the producer of the live telecast of that historic National Day Rally speech. The usual ‘drill’ for such occasions was as follows:

PM is met on arrival at the car porch of the National Theatre (now demolished, at the foot of Fort Canning Hill). The producer follows PM to the make-up room for any last-minute instructions.

On that historic evening, I was asked by PM Lee Kuan Yew what was on local channels from 7.30 pm onwards. I told him. Then he asked me an unexpected question: What is on RTM channels? (RTM was Radio and Television Malaysia.)

Fortunately, having worked with him on many such productions, I was prepared. I told him what was on RTM 1 and 2. Then he reached into his pocket and took out a cutting of the TV programme listings for the day to counter-check!

This is how prepared you must be when you deal with Mr Lee Kuan Yew. He asked me whether we can go live. I said yes.

He instructed me to make multi-lingual announcements on both radio and TV by fading all programmes on air to blank. He also told me to ensure that we make Malay, Tamil, Mandarin and English announcements to ensure that the audience at the National Theatre was kept informed.

We did so.

I immediately rushed to the OB (outside broadcast) van in the car park to call my director, the late Mrs Wong-Lee Siok Tin. This is what I told her: “Please don’t ask any questions. PM has instructed that we fade all radio and TV programmes on air (and make) the announcement that we are going to live telecast/broadcast PM’s National Day Rally speech at the National Theatre.”

There was a gasp at the other end of the line. I told Mrs Wong to just go ahead as I had a number of things to do, given that we hardly had 10 minutes to airtime!

Just 10 minutes into the live broadcast, Cabinet Secretary, Wong Chooi Sen tapped on our OB van door to ask me: “Hey, Ananda, Dr Goh Keng Swee (then the Defence Minister) wants to know whether you are absolutely certain that PM instructed you to broadcast live!”

Though I died a thousand deaths at that moment, I shouted a firm YES and told him not to disturb me.

After the broadcast I rushed back to meet PM at the make-up room. He asked me whether the broadcast went live without technical hitches. I said it went flawlessly. He said ‘good’ and I lived to tell the tale!

Why did he have the sensation of dying a thousand deaths?

“We had only four cameras set up; that’s really not enough,” Mr Perera recalls. “And we had no script!” The veteran TV executive explains one of live telecasts’ trade secrets. With a script, the TV producer seated at his console will know what the speaker is about to say and whether there will be a comment on or acknowledgement of someone’s presence in the audience.

The producer can then decide whether and when to pan one or more of the cameras to bring the person on screen.

Without a script, the producer has to rely on flair, experience and instinctive judgment to direct the camera crew and decide what to show on screen at any and every moment of the telecast.

“Supposing I have on screen a close-up of a Cabinet minister or some other VVIP and the PM says at that exact moment something disparaging or highly critical …!” Mr Perera does not finish that sentence. With the shock and awe in his voice, there is no need to.

Why PM Lee did it in 1971

Weekend Xtra asked Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew why he decided to go live with the 1971 National Day Rally speech.

“I had been thinking of reaching beyond the grassroots leaders when candidly discussing the problems of the time,” Mr Lee says. “Since I could leave out the ultra-sensitive parts to avoid annoying our neighbours, I decided to go live.”

Why was the live telecast put out in such an urgent fashion that even Dr Goh reportedly did not know in advance?

“I decided it late, but had been mulling it over for some time.”

Were you still weighing the pros and cons as you were being driven to the National Theatre?

“It was not a life-and-death decision because all it meant was deleting a few subjects from my notes.”

Mr Lee has packed so much into those succinct answers.

The problems of the time were many and seemingly intractable. Just six years earlier, as Mr Lee says in volume two of his memoirs From Third World To First, “we were given no choice but to leave” Malaysia.

“The years after 1965 were hectic and filled with anxiety, as we struggled to find our feet,” he says in the book. “We were relieved when we found in 1971 that we had created enough jobs to avoid heavy unemployment even though the British withdrew their forces from Singapore.”

But Mr Lee and his Cabinet colleagues were not yet “confident that we could make it on our own”.

During the 1969 Malaysian election campaign, the governing “Alliance leaders made wild and groundless allegations that Singapore leaders had interfered in their politics”, according to Mr Lee in his book.

Deadly race riots broke out in Kuala Lumpur on May 13, three days after the 1969 polls. A bit of the racial violence spilt over to Singapore, necessitating fast and firm counter-measures by government.

“The Utusan Melayu (a Malay-language newspaper based in Malaysia and which also circulated in Singapore then) became even more pro-Malay and openly hostile towards the Singapore government, belittling our efforts to help Singapore Malays,” Mr Lee says in the book.

According to Mr Lee in the book, there was only one Malaysian government leader who was not prejudiced against Singapore. He was Deputy Prime Minister Tun Dr Ismail, who visited Singapore in April 1971 and “we had a good talk”.

That held out hopes if not expectations of an improvement in cross-Causeway relations.

But it was early days yet when NDR came around four months later. Relations between the two countries were still tense and tender. A wrong word or phrase from either side could inflame passions of the negative kind.

Hence, Dr Goh must have been horrified when he heard from his seat at the National Theatre that the PM’s speech was going on air live. For Mr Lee was and is not known as one who minces his words.

Mr Lee now reveals that he exercised self-censorship, excising from his notes — there was no prepared text — things that he needed to tell Singaporeans yet would be ultra-sensitive should our neighbours get to hear of them.

It was a momentous decision! Singapore’s first Prime Minister censored himself, or edited himself, and launched one of the high points of the Singaporean political year: The annual National Day Rally live telecast.

So what did then PM Lee say in 1971?

Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s off-the-cuff speech to his audience of about 3,500 people started with a brief explanation of his decision to go on air live: “We cannot go on doing the things we are doing unless not only you but a lot of other people outside know the raison d’etre, the background, the reasons, the problems…”

Then he touched on the progress Singapore had made and thought aloud about leadership transition. He elaborated on the need for long-term planning; Singapore’s security and sovereignty; US President Richard Nixon’s forthcoming ceremonial visit to China and the lesson from it — expect the unexpected; the Vietnam war; the Commonwealth Five comprising Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore.

“Being a small country in a strategic position … we should try and avoid being sacrificed as pawns,” Mr Lee said.

He outlined Singapore’s economic need to “go on from physical servicing to brain servicing”; the inevitability of letting in foreign workers; and “supposing the worst happens — sometimes I get glimpses of what may go wrong”.

So the government prepared for worst-case scenarios. “And that’s what we are trying to do and never mind what the newspapers tell you,” Mr Lee said. “If they know as much as we do, they should be running Singapore, isn’t it? Particularly those who (have) just come up from the university.”

Mr Lee ended his speech by saying “we will see this place safe and secure … make use of the time, be it five years, be it six, be it 10″.

Does that strike you as a less-than-confident Lee Kuan Yew 37 years ago? Well, that was 1971 and those were uncertain times. Minister Mentor Lee is now much more confident about Singapore’s future.

Peter H L Lim is a writer and media consultant.

- TODAY/so

Source : Today - 06 Sept 2008

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Mortgage rates still at rock bottom

Mortgage rates still at rock bottom

By Francis Chan

HOMEBUYERS and sellers, hit by the recent market malaise, have at least one comforting constant in a market plagued by uncertainty - low interest rates.
Despite various economic woes - inflation, volatile oil prices, slowing economic growth - Singapore’s banks are continuing to offer rock-bottom mortgages.

The latest to reaffirm Singapore’s low interest rate home loans environment was Malayan Banking (Maybank), which yesterday launched a new three-year variable home loan that offers a low interest rate of 1.68 per cent a year for the first year.

Still, after that, the rates increase to 2.48 per cent for the second year and 2.88 per cent in the third.

Maybank’s new package followed two other home loan launches by Standard Chartered Bank (Stanchart) and HSBC.

Both offer competitive interest rates, albeit through slightly more creative housing loans that are pegged to the Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (Sibor).

Stanchart’s MortgageOne Sibor is priced at 0.9 per cent a year above the three-month Sibor for the first three years.

It comes with a unique offset feature that allows customers to use the interest earned on their deposits to reduce the interest payable on their home loans.

HSBC’s latest Sibor-pegged home loan comes with a progressive interest rate reduction feature - the first of its kind here.

On top of the prevailing three-month Sibor rate, customers pay an additional interest of 0.75 per cent in the first year. The rates fall to Sibor plus 0.65 per cent in the second and, from the third year onwards, Sibor plus 0.55 per cent.

With interest rates so low, many home owners naturally consider refinancing their home loans with packages that are pegged to a faltering Sibor.

DBS Bank head of deposits and secured lending Koh Kar Siong said Sibor-pegged loans offer customers more transparency and also allow them to enjoy lower interest rates in the current market environment.

Mr Gregory Chan, OCBC Bank’s head of secured lending, agreed. He said OCBC customers preferred home loans pegged to market rates because these are ‘more transparent and bear greater significance for consumers during uncertain times’.

Source : Straits Times - 06 Sept 2008

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Why Singapore ERP rates must go up now

Why Singapore ERP rates must go up now 

TRANSPORT Minister Raymond Lim addressed questions about the Government’s decision to raise Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges and build more gantries during a session at the Singapore Press Club yesterday. Here are some excerpts:
Q: Why not improve the public transport system first, and then increase the ERP rates?

A: (Because) in the meantime, congestion will mount at an enormous cost.

So what have we done? In preparation for the system-wide changes (in ERP charges) this year, we took steps to increase the capacity (of public transport). In August last year, we started to roll out premium bus services. And that’s taken off quite well.

We also tightened up service standards and we tightened up bus frequencies.

So, 8,000 passenger-car trips are expected to be displaced because of the changes (to ERP rates). In anticipation of that, we ramped up capacity, adding 18,000 trips for trains and about 6,000 trips for buses (from January to June).

We’re conscious that we have to make sure that there is a viable alternative.
Q: Why make fundamental changes to public transport at this time?

A: In recent months, high fuel prices have helped to persuade some motorists to try public transport. This has driven bus and rail ridership to historic highs. But this is only the ‘push’ factor. We need to create ‘pull’ factors to improve the image and experience of travelling on our buses and trains.

I think Singaporeans have a better regard for our public transport than in other countries. But we can do more. If the commuting experience on public transport improves, commuters…will choose to stick with it, even if fuel prices fall later. We have a unique window of opportunity now to sustain a decisive shift towards public transport.
YEO GHIM LAY

 
Source : Straits Times - 06 Sept 2008

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Fear and panic grip Asian markets

Fear and panic grip Asian markets 

Rising jobless claims in US trigger worries and a third day of bloodletting 

By Goh Eng Yeow 

FEAR, confusion and a touch of panic gripped investors yesterday to send already shaky Asian stock markets crashing for the third straight day.
What spooked market sentiment this time was a rise in American jobless claims, which heightened worries over economic growth in Asia’s most important export market.

Those concerns fed into the already bubbling witch’s brew of commodity price falls, volatile currency markets and fears of more financial market chaos. Even falling oil prices are adding to the sense of dread.

‘It is an ugly bear market where few strategies are working. When oil was rising, it was bad for Asian markets. Now oil is falling, apparently that is a bad thing too for Asian markets,’ said Merrill Lynch strategist Mark Matthews.

The horror week has been particularly painful here, with the Straits Times Index losing 184.73 points in the past three days.

Yesterday’s plunge of 51.84 points, or 1.97 per cent, was driven by big falls in property and banks and left the market at 2,574.21. That means investors are back to where they were in October 2006.

China was the worst hit with the Shanghai Composite Index diving 3.29 per cent, with oil giants like PetroChina and Bank of China leading the losers.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sank below 20,000 for the first time in 16 months, dropping 2.24 per cent. Banking giant HSBC Holdings tumbled 3.4 per cent, while billionaire Li Ka Shing’s flagship Cheung Kong Holdings lost 5.74 per cent.

Japan’s Nikkei-225 Index lost 2.75 per cent while falling commodities pushed Australia’s index down 2.06 per cent.

The bloodletting was also partly a realisation among investors that China would not be able to pick up the slack.

Its almost insatiable demand for raw materials from iron ore to grains showed a perceptible weakening recently while the Baltic Dry Index - a key index tracking the costs of shipping commodities - has been falling for three weeks.

This is in stark contrast from last year when freight rates were on the upswing, driven by China’s booming economy.

There were also widespread fears that some Asian banks might be affected more seriously by the US sub-prime crisis than was previously assumed.

The New York Times reported that China’s central bank was looking to shore up its capital base because of its US$1 trillion (S$1.4 trillion) exposure to US treasury bonds and debts issued by troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Yet while stock markets are at their lowest levels in over two years, few investors are willing to chance their arm even though many shares were screaming buys a few months ago.

Even keeping hard cash or solid assets like gold is giving hard-hit investors scant comfort from the gathering economic storm clouds.

Gold yesterday tumbled below US$800 an ounce, down 22.6 per cent from a record high of US$1032 in March.

High-yield currencies like the Australian dollar have also taken a beating, tumbling 11.4 per cent against the Singdollar in the past two months.

Source : Straits Times - 06 Sept 2008

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Charts show Asian markets oversold

Charts show Asian markets oversold

STI falls 2% to hit its lowest since Oct 2006; Merrill says markets are oversold, will be 20% higher in a year
By R SIVANITHY

ALREADY left tottering on Thursday after a region-wide selloff, Asian markets had the rug yanked from under their feet yesterday following a blowout a day earlier on Wall Street where the major indices lost an average of 2 per cent.
The US sub-prime-related economic slowdown that is now spreading across the globe, rising joblessness and a worsening earnings outlook were said to have been responsible for the US market’s selloff, this despite oil prices showing signs of retreat.

‘The warning signs were there mid-week when Wall Street did not react to a large drop in oil,’ said a dealer here. ‘Instead, it struggled to hold on to minor gains so people should have known that trouble was brewing.’

Oil dropped US$8 a barrel on Tuesday to US$107, prompting a large run-up in regional stocks in the hope that Wall Street would react that day. Instead, it surrendered a large early rise to close weaker that day.

Since then, the US market has displayed persistent instability and a preference for focusing on bad news instead of the good. Higher labour productivity reported on Thursday, for instance, was brushed off in favour of a focus on the US Federal Reserve’s Beige Book report on the economy, which cited weak housing, difficult credit and slowing consumer spending.

 
 
Here, the Straits Times Index plunged to a 22-month low on Thursday, and a 51.84-point or 2 per cent loss yesterday took it to 2,574.21, the lowest since it ended at 2,559 on Oct 4, 2006. It fell four of five days, losing 6 per cent in the process.

Elsewhere in the region, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost 456 points or 2.2 per cent to close at an 18-month low of 19,933.28, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 345 points or 2.8 per cent at a six-month low of 12,212.23.

Merrill Lynch in its Asia-Pacific Investment Strategy yesterday said its technical indicators show Asian markets are oversold and so predicts markets will be 20 per cent higher in 12 months.

‘The MSCI Asia-Pacific ex-Japan Index fell to two standard deviations below its 200-day moving average in mid-July and is 1.5 standard deviations below currently. On average since 1994 when Asian markets have become this oversold, they have risen 22 per cent over the next 12 months,’ said Merrill. ‘A falling oil price also benefits Asia as its economies are much more energy-intensive than the US.’

 
Source : Business Times - 06 Sept 2008

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Singapore Temasek’s on track with genco sales

Singapore Temasek’s on track with genco sales

By RONNIE LIM
THE first was sold to the Chinese, and the second has just gone to a Japanese/French group. Temasek Holdings’ divestment of the three biggest generating companies (gencos) here, aimed at injecting greater competition in the power market, is well on track.
Temasek announced yesterday that Senoko Power, Singapore’s largest power station with 3,300 megawatts, has been sold for about $4 billion to the Lion Power consortium that includes French power and water utility giant GDF Suez and comprises four Japanese companies, led by Marubeni Corp.

The ‘enterprise value’ of about $4 billion comprises a cash consideration of $3.65 billion plus $323 million of net debt of Senoko Power as at March 31, 2008, which Lion will assume, it added.

The five-member Lion Power consortium comprises Marubeni, GDF Suez (with reportedly a 30 per cent stake), Kansai Electric Power Company, Kyushu Electric and Japan Bank for International Cooperation.

The price which Senoko fetched is slightly lower than the $4.235 billion paid in March by China Huaneng Group for the 2,670 MW Tuas Power - the newest, but smallest of the three gencos. On a straight per megawatt basis, the latest Senoko sale works out to be about 30 per cent cheaper than Tuas’s.

Still, with two gencos sold in just 11 months Temasek is well within its target of mid-2009 to complete the entire divestment exercise. Only PowerSeraya, the second largest power station here with 3,100 MW capacity, remains.

 
 
Gwendel Tung, Temasek’s director of investment, said that ‘Lion Power’s proposal was the most attractive in terms of price and commercial terms among a field of highly reputable investors’. She added: ‘With the accelerated timeline and expeditious completion of this transaction, we are well-positioned to conclude our genco divestment plan on schedule.’

Chihiro Shikama, Marubeni Corp’s executive officer, said: ‘This sizeable investment is a significant vote of confidence in the Singapore economy and energy sector.’

Lion strongly supports Senoko Power’s environmental leadership and has committed significant additional investment to construct new, more-efficient gas-fired units, he added.

Senoko Power supplies about 30 per cent of total electricity needs here. For the year ended March 2008, the company reported revenue of $2.495 billion and Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) of $245 million.

Source : Business Times - 06 Sept 2008

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