Israel defies UN call for immediate ceasefire

Israel defies UN call for immediate ceasefire

UN decision ‘unworkable’, says Israeli PM; talks in Cairo stall over securing border with Egypt

An Israeli attack on the northern Gaza Strip. Israel staged more than 50 air strikes in Gaza yesterday, defying a non-binding UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. — PHOTO: REUTERS

GAZA: Israel pushed ahead with its two-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip yesterday, defying a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected the non-binding resolution calling for a ceasefire in the coastal enclave.

‘The firing of rockets this morning only goes to show that the UN decision is unworkable and will not be adhered to by the murderous Palestinian organisations,’ he said in a statement.

The UN Security Council resolution was approved on Thursday night by a 14-0 vote. The United States abstained even though it helped hammer out the resolution’s text along with Arab nations that have ties to Hamas and the Palestinians.

The resolution ’stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza’.

Hamas, which like Israel was not party to the vote, sent mixed signals about the resolution.

A Hamas spokesman said the group did not recognise the resolution as it had not been consulted. However, another spokesman said Hamas was ’studying’ the resolution.

The US, the key Israeli ally, had abstained from voting on the resolution, noting talks on a French-brokered truce under Egyptian mediation were still under way.

But talks in Cairo appeared yesterday to have run into trouble because of disagreements with Israel over how to secure the border to prevent Hamas from rearming, diplomats said. Israeli and European diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Egypt had objections to proposals for foreign forces deploying on the Egyptian side of its 15km border with the Gaza Strip.

‘There is a growing sense that the Egyptian-French plan is not going to work,’ said a senior European diplomat involved in the effort.

Israel staged more than 50 air strikes in Gaza yesterday, taking the death toll since the campaign began in Dec 27 to nearly 780, at least half of them civilians, Gaza health officials said. Thirteen Israelis have died. Hamas and its allies fired more than 15 rockets into southern Israel, fewer than the dozens launched in the early days of the war.

Israeli military commanders appeared keen to pursue what was termed a third stage of the operation. It would involve sending more ground troops deep into the heart of Gaza’s built-up areas to flush out more gunmen and to try to secure more gains, a move that would require calling in reservists.

Officials said ministers were meeting yesterday to arrive at a decision.

But across the predominantly Arab Middle East, anger against Israel remains high. Tens of thousands of people in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq yesterday staged protests condemning Israel’s offensive.

The resolution also came hours after militants in Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel, arousing concerns of a wider conflict, but the border has been quiet since.

REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Source : Straits Times - 10 Jan 2009

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Ban on party political films to be eased

Ban on party political films to be eased

Govt signals mindset change; most proposals on new media accepted

By Clarissa Oon, Senior Political Correspondent

SINGAPORE will soon allow party political films that are objective and do not distort facts, and an independent citizen panel will be set up to pass them.
Such films, which would be sanctioned under an amended Films Act, could include factual documentaries, recordings of actual events and biographies.

The Government announced this yesterday as part of its cautious acceptance of two-thirds of the recommendations made by a council it appointed to study the impact of new media.

The report of the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims) covered four areas: e-engagement, online political content, cyber-safety for the young and defamation laws relating to Web content hosts.

The subject of party political films was raised because the current wide-ranging ban on such films can be circumvented by uploading the films online.

In some areas, the Government’s response to the 13-member council represented a tentative opening up. On the topic of engaging netizens, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lee Boon Yang signalled a ‘mindset change’ in a Government that had previously kept cyber chatter at arm’s length.

The Government is now ‘fully into e-engagement’, he said, although for now it will limit its outreach to portals set up by its feedback unit Reach. It would also reply selectively to forum letters on local mainstream media websites.

On other areas, such as the political films, Dr Lee said the Government would stick with certain rules as a commitment to ‘rational’ debate or as ’symbolic statement of our society’s values’, even if such rules are difficult to enforce in the fast-changing world of the Internet.

What would get the green light as early as March, according to him, are films that are ‘not sensationalistic, not dramatised, (but) factual documentaries of events held in accordance with the law’.

The point of the distinction, the Minister explained in response to questions from the media, is to maintain ‘rational, objective’ political debate and ‘protect society’ from debate that is ‘given to emotional outbursts (and) based on distorted presentation of issues’.

The change is in line with Aims’ recommendation that the blanket ban on party political films in Section 33 of the Films Act be liberalised in stages. The section could eventually be repealed if ‘indeed there is responsible and accountable use of (the film) medium to advance public political discourse’, he added.

The advisory panel on party political films will be chaired by Mr Richard Magnus, a retired Senior District Judge, and will be made up of prominent, non-partisan citizens as suggested by Aims.

Films approved by the panel may be shown by political parties as part of their Internet election advertising.

Under new rules, they can also advertise using podcasts, vodcasts, blogs and other new media tools in election campaigns.

While some leeway has now been given on Section 33, Dr Lee said the Government will not decriminalise the making of party political films in general.

It also turned down Aims’ suggestion that it spell out clearly the reasons for a ban on a film considered to be ‘against the public interest’ under Section 35 of the Films Act.

That section of the Act empowers the minister to prohibit a film. It has been enacted only once, when a documentary on former political detainee Said Zahari was banned two years ago.

Dr Lee said Section 35 is needed to deal with ‘harmful videos’ like Fitna - a film produced by a Dutch film-maker that attacked Islam - indicating that race and religion are the issues here. He made clear that films that may be banned under Section 35 ‘will not be party political films’.

On the subject of protecting minors from violent and other harmful Net content, an annual fund and education taskforce will be set up as suggested by Aims.

The Government also promised to look into giving online content hosts some immunity in cases where their users are sued for defamatory comments.

When contacted, Aims chairman Cheong Yip Seng said he believed the recommendations accepted by the Government, such as on e-engagement and the partial liberalisation of Section 33, will ‘greatly expand the political space for Singaporeans’.

He felt the rejected proposals ‘do not add up to be a significant inhibition to the liberalisation of our political system’, and that the Government prefers to open up at a slower pace than Aims had thought it should.

Source : Straits Times - 10 Jan 2009

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2,000 vie for 200 jobs at Sentosa hotel fair

2,000 vie for 200 jobs at Sentosa hotel fair 

By Jalelah Abu Baker 

CLOSE to 2,000 people turned up at a new luxury hotel on Sentosa yesterday looking to land one of about 200 jobs on offer.
Due to open on March 8, Capella Singapore is aiming to fill both managerial and rank-and-file jobs with a two-day walk-in recruitment drive which ended yesterday.

Among the job-seekers were freelance workers, people looking for a career switch, and retrenched workers.

They included Mr Salim Sajimin, a 50-year-old technician who lost his job last year.

Two of his four children have just finished their O levels, one is studying in an Institute of Technical Education and another is looking for a job. ‘I have to look for a job, no choice,’ said Mr Salim, whose wife is a canteen vendor.

Among the job-seekers were those who have been waiting for a chance to break into the hotel sector.

Filipino Emie Andanar hopes to join the hotel as a guest relations officer. ‘I tried earlier but there was no vacancy in August or September at other hotels,’ she said.

The large number came as a surprise to the hotel management.

‘With the present situation, people are looking for jobs, so we anticipated many. But this is more than we expected,’ said Mr Michael Luible, Capella Singapore’s general manager.

Those who applied for jobs will have to wait three weeks before they know the results.

Shortlisted hopefuls will move on to the next round of interviews.

But it was not hard to feel that the odds were long. Looking at the turnout, Mr Jimmy Teo Choo Siong, 60, said: ‘I don’t think I will get a job, so many people. Old already, hard to get a job.’

 
Source : Straits Times - 10 Jan 2009

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Testing time for Commercial-Mortgage Backed Securities refinancing

Testing time for Commercial-Mortgage Backed Securities refinancing

By May Wong,

SINGAPORE: The global credit crunch and increasing competition for funding spell tough times ahead for Commercial-Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS) in Singapore.

Fitch Ratings says such securities will face difficulties when it comes to refinancing this year.

This is due in part to growing competition for funding from various real estate and casino developments in Singapore.

However, the recent strong cash flow performance of CMBS transactions is expected to help mitigate the refinancing risk.

Eleven Fitch-rated public Singapore CMBS worth about S$6 billion were outstanding at the end of last year.

The tightening credit supply also means that various refinancing alternatives - including bank lending, sponsor financing and CMBS - are likely to become more popular.

Fitch says Singapore’s commercial property market has had several years of rental and capital value growth.

- CNA/ir

Source : Business Times - 10 Jan 2009

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More looking to refinance home loans with lower interest rates

More looking to refinance home loans with lower interest rates

By Irene Chan,

SINGAPORE : More people are looking to refinance their home loans in the past few months with lower interest rates, but not without difficulties.

Key benchmark interest rates have been dropping since governments around the world embarked on their rate cutting campaign a few months ago to revive the slumping economy.

As a result, the Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (SIBOR) has more than halved in the past three to four months. From as high as 2 per cent in September, the 3-month SIBOR is now below 1 per cent, at around 0.97 per cent as of Friday.

Many housing loan packages here are pegged to the SIBOR.

Spokesperson for loan consulting firm Housing Loan SG, Dennis Ng, said the rate decrease over the past few months has prompted more homeowners to look at the refinancing of their mortgages.

He said: “If they were to refinance their housing loans right now, they can save easily more than S$10,000 in interest savings. So as a result of this, we are seeing a surge in demand for refinancing, probably more than 50 per cent increase in the last three to six months.”

Some banks, including HSBC, also said they have seen considerable growth in such enquiries in the last six months.

But while there is an increase in interest, spokesman for another mortgage consultancy firm My Housing Loan, Goh Eck Hong, said many of the enquiries do not materialise into transactions.

Mr Goh said: “For the refinancing cases, we get quite a number who are actually looking to get additional equity term loans, and that is quite hard in this credit climate.

“And the second thing is of course valuations as well; valuations have actually fallen for quite a number of properties. If they refinance now, they actually have to top up cash to do so, so the clients could not afford to actually do so.”

Mortgage specialists said interest rates will likely remain low in the period ahead, as major global economies are expected to continue to lower rates to stimulate lending and growth in the current recessionary environment. - 938LIVE/ms

Source : Business Times - 10 Jan 2009

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Jobless rate rises to 16-year high

Jobless rate rises to 16-year high

524,000 jobs lost in December - and 2.6m in the whole of last year, the most since 1945

(Washington)

THE US unemployment rate bolted to 7.2 per cent in December, the highest level in 16 years, as nervous employers slashed 524,000 jobs. The labour market is expected to remain weak as mass layoffs continue.

The Labor Department’s report, released yesterday, underscored the terrible toll the deepening recession is having on workers and companies, and highlights the hard task President-elect Barack Obama faces in resuscitating the flat-lined economy.

For all of 2008, the economy lost a net total of 2.6 million jobs. That was the most since 1945, when nearly 2.8 million jobs were lost. Although the number of jobs in the United States has more than tripled since then, losses of this magnitude are still being painfully felt.

With employers throttling back hiring, the nation’s jobless rate averaged 5.8 per cent last year. That was up sharply from 4.6 per cent in 2007 and was the highest since 2003.

Although economists were forecasting even more payroll reductions in December - around 550,000 - job losses in both October and November turned out to be deeper than previously estimated. Revised figures showed that the employers slashed 584,000 positions in November and another 423,000 in October.

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, rose from 6.8 per cent in November, to 7.2 per cent last month, the highest since January 1993. Economists were expecting the jobless rate to rise to 7 per cent.

‘This is a very dismal report. This paints a much worse picture in 2008 than we had thought. This doesn’t bode well for first-quarter unemployment. This is one of the most significant downward quarters for jobs in post-World War history,’ said Lindsey Piegza, market analyst at FTN Financial in New York.

Job losses were widespread in December. Construction companies slashed 101,000, factories axed a whopping 149,000 jobs and similarly dire numbers were seen elsewhere, far outstripping gains in education, health care and government.

‘The job situation is ugly and is going to get uglier. There’s no reason to expect hiring anytime in the next three to six months. We are not going to see any hiring until the government steps in and acts. Talk doesn’t work,’ said Richard Yamarone, chief economist at Argus Research in New York.

Workers with jobs saw modest wage gains. Average hourly earnings rose to US$18.36 in December, up 0.3 per cent from the previous month. Economists were expecting a 0.2 per cent increase.

The US recession, which just entered its second year, is already the longest in a quarter-century, and is likely to stretch well into this year. The fact that the country is battling a housing collapse, a lock-up in lending and the worst financial crisis since the 1930s makes the current downturn especially dangerous.

Mr Obama, who takes over on Jan 20, is promoting a massive stimulus package that could swell to US$850 billion, his advisers say.

‘I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible,’ he said on Thursday. — AP, Reuters

Source : Business Times - 10 Jan 2009

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Govt accepts some proposals for easing online curbs

Govt accepts some proposals for easing online curbs

But political and religious content still subject to higher responsibility

By CHUANG PECK MING

THE government has gone part of the way towards accepting a panel’s suggestions that it step up engagement with Singaporeans online and allow more room for election advertising on the Internet.

DR LEE
Govt will loosen restrictions on political films and liberalise Films Act gradually
Releasing its response yesterday to proposals suggested by the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims), the government said it would still insist on a ‘higher level of responsibility and accountability’ for political and religious content on the Net.

It has, therefore, rejected the panel’s call to dump the existing rule requiring the registration of websites of political parties and individuals ‘who provide any programme for the propagation, promotion or discussion of political or religious issues on the Internet’. ‘This is to maintain a higher level of responsibility of those behind such websites,’ Lee Boon Yang, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, told a news conference.

Registration has not discouraged the expression of ‘diverse and robust views’ online, Dr Lee said. ‘Political parties that have registered their websites continue to discuss national policies and issues freely and critically on their websites.’

But the government has agreed to extend the positive list for Internet election advertising. Candidates and political parties and agents can use podcasts, vodcasts, blogs and other new media tools for election advertising.

It also agreed to loosen restrictions on political films and take a phased approach to liberalising the Films Act. An independent advisory panel under retired judge Richard Magnus will be set up to advise the government on political films, as Aims proposed.

But the government will not take up the suggestion by Aims that the making of party political films be decriminalised. In any case, it will only allow films that are ‘factual and objective and do not dramatise and/or present a distorted picture’.

While accepting that there should be more e-engagement between the government and Singaporeans, the government prefers to stick to platforms ‘with an established online presence and acceptable’.

This means it will confine its e-engagement to the dedicated REACH portal, which it rolled out in October 2006. ‘It is not practical or feasible to respond to all blogs or forum postings,’ it said in its written response to Aims.

Dr Lee said the government also found it undesirable to let civil servants air their views on government policy in public because this would ‘compromise the performance of their duty by undermining discipline and trust within the Civil Service’.

In all, the government has accepted 17 of Aims’ 26 proposals. It has differing views on the other nine.

Source : Business Times - 10 Jan 2009

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Strong recovery seen for Singapore

Strong recovery seen for Singapore

By TEH SHI NING

WITH the global economy facing substantial downside risks this year, there seems to be no escaping further pain in the short term. But in the medium to longer term, there are opportunities to be had - and Singapore can look forward to a strong recovery.

That was the message panellists had yesterday for the 300 members of the business community who attended the 7th annual Business Outlook Forum, jointly organised by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry and The Business Times.

Manu Bhaskaran, CEO of Centennial Asia Advisors, said Singapore’s high exposure to the world economy is not the only reason things could get more sticky.

The economy was overheated prior to the crisis, meaning Singapore entered it with a high cost structure that will require substantial restructuring measures to correct.

For Singapore, a key risk is unemployment, said Kelvin Tay, executive director of product and services consulting at UBS Wealth Management.

According to UBS, 30,000 jobs here will be cut this year. This, Mr Tay said, is more severe than it would have been if the economy had not been overheated going into the crisis.

As for investment strategies, Roy Varghese, foundation adviser and director of the financial planning practice at ipac financial planning Singapore, said that in an environment where asset quality is uncertain and valuation difficult, diversifying a portfolio and holding it for the long term would be wisest.

On a brighter note, Mr Bhaskaran said that if Asian economies rebound in 2010 as he expects them to, Singapore companies would be in a unique position to leverage on China and India’s resurgence, with opportunities for the stronger ones to scale up regionally.

At the global level, Mr Tay said that averting deflation will be an important challenge this year. Both he and Mr Bhaskaran also expressed certainty that a decline in the US dollar is only a matter of time as fiscal stimulus grows.

The forum closed with a panel discussion chaired by Vikram Khanna, associate editor of The Business Times.

Source : Business Times - 10 Jan 2009

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Big mistake to axe older workers: minister

Big mistake to axe older workers: minister

By CHUANG PECK MING
IT is tempting for governments in this economic climate of massive job losses to push for early retirement to make the employment numbers look good. But that would be a big mistake, according to Lim Boon Heng, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office.
And he warned bosses yesterday not to chop older workers when they have to retrench to save costs, simply because these workers are old.

‘Employers should not use age as a factor should they need to reduce headcount to save on wage costs,’ Mr Lim said at the closing of a two-day conference called ‘Reinventing Retirement Asia’.

‘We need to send the message out to employers that we should be age blind in this matter,’ the former secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress told reporters after the conference, organised by AARP and the Council for Third Age.

When unemployment shot up in past economic downturns, one answer to the problem was to ask older workers to take an early retirement and give their jobs to younger ones, Mr Lim noted.

‘Today, we know that people do have to work longer because they need the money - and so age should not be used as a factor for trimming of wage costs,’ he said. ‘It should be based on productivity factors.’

 
 
According to him, European governments made the ‘policy error’ of encouraging early retirement in the 1980s. ‘Now (they) find it more difficult to raise the employment rate of seniors when it is apparent that people need to work longer,’ Mr Lim said.

Putting up laws to protect older workers from the discrimination of bosses will not solve the problem.

‘The solution is not in the magic bullet of legislation,’ he said. ‘It is understanding what actually works at the workplace and what makes a company retain one employee versus another. If we understand that, we probably have the right solution.’

Mr Lim is not sure if older workers were disproportionately affected in recent layoffs in Singapore. But he would not be surprised that a higher percentage of older workers were axed because many were still low skilled.

‘If the skills level is low and therefore productivity is low, then the company may be less competitive with respect to the product line which it is currently doing,’ he said. ‘And if it can’t sell because it is not competitive, then when it retrenches, the older ones will be affected.’

Older workers in this circumstance would lose their jobs not because of age discrimination, but because of their low skills.

Source : Business Times - 10 Jan 2009

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