Singapore Democratic Party founder Chiam See Tong and his wife Lina have taken issue with an account of their 2011 meetings with current SDP chief Chee Soon Juan, with Mrs Chiam saying yesterday that it “needs clarification”.

In an e-mail to The Straits Times, Mrs Chiam said she wanted to set things straight as the account in the SDP’s 2015 newsletter, The New Democrat, was being circulated during the opposition party’s walkabout in Bukit Batok.

“Hence our objection as there was an understanding that the details of the meetings should be kept confidential if the whole thing fizzled out. We kept (our) side of the bargain,” she said, responding to queries about an article by political scientist Derek da Cunha on news site six-six.com yesterday.

Dr da Cunha had given a different take on the talks from SDP, saying he had communicated with the Chiams, who “do not wish to be used to further one man’s political ambitions”. Mr Chiam was a one-time mentor to Dr Chee before he was ousted from SDP in the 1990s. He went on to set up the Singapore People’s Party.

SDP supporter Wong Wee Nam had written in the party’s newsletter about the 2011 meetings, in which he said Dr Chee had tried to bring Mr Chiam back to the party.

Dr da Cunha said this was a distorted version of the talks. Quoting Mrs Chiam, he said SDP had proposed to have Mr Chiam return as honorary chairman, essentially as a figurehead.

“Given the condition that the proposal had to be accepted within one week, among other terms, it was a non-starter,” Dr da Cunha wrote, citing Mrs Chiam. He added that this approach of “making proposals which are really empty gestures… has been a consistent approach of the SDP under Dr Chee’s leadership”.

He also said the Chiams and Dr Chee had not reconciled.

Asked about this, Mrs Chiam said yesterday Dr da Cunha’s article had “all the facts pertaining to the (meeting)”. She urged people to read the upcoming second volume of Mr Chiam’s biography “to get a balanced perspective of the whole SDP saga… before making any conclusions”.

This article was first published on May 6, 2016.
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SEMENTARA isu keselamatan negara ditangani oleh agensi relevan, warga Singapura boleh memainkan peranan secara peribadi bagi memastikan bahawa perpaduan masyarakat tidak berpecah-belah.

Menteri Perhubungan dan Penerangan, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, berkata demikian sebagai mengulas penahanan lapan warga Bangladesh Selasa lepas kepada media selepas sesi perbincangan bersama golongan belia pada malam hari yang sama.

“Di Singapura, sebagai masyarakat Melayu/Islam, kita harus pelihara perpaduan sosial yang ada di sini.

“Kita lihat bagaimana kita boleh berganding bahu dengan masyarakat lain bagi menentukan bahawa apa pun yang telah berlaku tidak akan memecah-belahkan negara kita.

“Ini salah satu perkara yang penting dan harus terus ditekankan,” ujar Dr Yaacob yang juga Menteri Bertanggungjawab bagi Ehwal Masyarakat Islam.

Lapan warga Bangladesh yang ditahan di bawah Akta Keselamatan Dalam Negeri (ISA) itu telah merancang melakukan serangan pengganasan di negara mereka.

Mereka berusia antara 26 dengan 34 tahun dan merupakan sebahagian daripada kumpulan yang dinamakan Negara Islam Bangladesh (ISB).

Dr Yaacob menambah bahawa masyarakat Melayu/Islam perlu “terus memperkuat tali silaturahim dalam masyarakat dan memelihara perpaduan sosial yang kita telah capai buat bertahun-tahun lamanya”.

Dalam pada itu, Ketua Pengajian Dasar, Sekolah Pengajian Antarabangsa S. Rajaratnam (RSIS), Universiti Teknologi Nanyang (NTU), Profesor Madya Dr Kumar Ramakrishna, menekankan bahawa masyarakat Singapura tidak harus memulau pekerja asing.

“Sebahagian besar daripada mereka yang datang ke sini semata-mata mahu mendapat kerja dan menyara hidup mereka,” jelas Dr Kumar.

Beliau berkata penahanan lapan pekerja Bangladesh itu menunjukkan kerjasama antara Singapura dan pihak berkuasa Bangladesh perlu dipertingkat, lebih-lebih lagi ini kali kedua penahanan dibuat.

“Pendidikan mengenai cara mengesan sebarang kelakuan radikal boleh juga dianjurkan bagi pekerja asing agar mereka dapat berfungsi sebagai ‘mata’ dan ‘telinga’ tambahan’,” saran Dr Kumar.

Pengasas kumpulan penjagaan susulan antara agensi, Aftercare Group (ACG), Encik Abdul Halim Kader, yang juga Presiden Taman Bacaan, akur dengan pandangan bahawa masyarakat Singapura, tidak kira bangsa, tidak harus meminggirkan pekerja asing.

“Kita harus mendekati mereka terutama semasa waktu lapang mereka; jangan biarkan mereka terasing.

“Saya telah merancang dengan beberapa pihak tertentu bagi memperkenalkan sukan sepak takraw dan bola tampar kepada pekerja asing terutama warga Bangladesh pada minggu-minggu akan datang,” ujar Encik Abdul Halim yang juga Presiden Persekutuan Sepak Takraw Singapura (Perses).

This article was first published on May 6, 2016.
Go to beritaharian.sg for more stories.

A new repository, called MyInfo, will consolidate the personal data of Singapore residents and provide it on request to auto-fill government e-service forms.

“Citizens often ask why they need to give different government agencies the same data about themselves repeatedly for separate transactions,” Mr Peter Ong, the head of the Civil Service, said at the Digital Government Exchange 2016 yesterday, when MyInfo was launched.

The Government needs to remove the “inconvenience and friction” in making e-transactions, he said.

Through MyInfo, it is hoped that filling online government forms will be less tedious .

The joint initiative by the Infocomm Development Authority and the Ministry of Finance has aspirations to eventually include commercial transactions, too, such as those for banking.

So banks could, one day, stop requiring physical documents such as income tax statements for loan or credit card applications.

Online applicants can give consent for such data to be pulled electronically from MyInfo.

The Straits Times understands that talks are being held with financial institutions towards this goal.

MyInfo now pulls residents’ data – such as name, NRIC number and registered address – from six public agencies. These include the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore and the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

The data in the consolidated repository can be used for a handful of e-services provided by eight agencies now. They include the application for or renewal of work permits for domestic helpers, and new public housing and Baby Bonus scheme applications.

More services to be added next month include requests to convert a person’s foreign driving licence to a local one, and to check the total number of demerit points one has accumulated.

The target is to have all 200 government e-citizen services linked to MyInfo by 2018.

Citizens have to register at MyInfo (www.myinfo.gov.sg) using their SingPass accounts, and consent to having their data shared before they can use the repository.

MyInfo’s launch follows a three-month pilot from January involving 32,000 users.

Asked to comment on MyInfo, Mr Liam Maxwell, chief technology officer for the British government, said: “The biggest benefit is you only need to give the government your information once.”

He was among top government officials from around the world at the biennial event which discussed e-government policies. The event was formerly known as the eGovernment Global Exchange.

On privacy concerns, Mr Maxwell said: “There is no forcing anybody. It is consent based.”

This article was first published on May 6, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Singapore’s media regulator has ordered news website The Middle Ground to take down its article on how Bukit Batok residents would vote in the by-election tomorrow (May 7)

The Media Development Authority (MDA) told the website this morning that the publication of the article ‘BB BE: 50 voters in Bukit Batok’ was a “breach of the Parliamentary Elections Act”, said a note on The Middle Ground‘s homepage.

It said MDA gave The Middle Ground a deadline of 3.30pm today to remove it, but the website said it would have it down by 2.30pm.

The website said in its note: “The notice came to us this morning, saying that the report was in breach of Section 78C (1) of the Act.

“To save you the trouble of going over the legal gobbledegook, this section basically says we’re not allowed to publish any electoral surveys once the writ of election is issued and until voting closes tomorrow (May 7).”

The site, whose consulting editor is Bertha Henson, a former veteran journalist of The Straits Times, said its article was “not meant to be an electoral survey”.

“The G thinks it is. Maybe it is, maybe it’s not – if you ask us, we’re not 100 per cent sure, which is why we’re leaving it up until about an hour before the MDA deadline,” it said.

The Middle Ground pointed out that the article (photo below) was produced under its “50 Faces” long-running series which feature the views of ordinary people.

“For this particular story, we asked Bukit Batok voters over the past week about how they will vote. Not many gave answers. In fact, most went on to talk about the sort of Member of Parliament they would like to see elected,” it explained.

It has decided to take the post down “because if we don’t, we could be fined up to $1,500 and even thrown behind bars”.

But it promises its readers that once Polling Day is over, the story should be back on the website.

chenj@sph.com.sg

Bukit Batok by-election rally May 3

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

AsiaOne, YouTube screengrabs

Under a new agreement to strengthen partnership between the two countries, Singaporeans will soon enjoy a “tailored multi-year visa arrangement” to facilitate travel to Australia.

Currently, a Singaporean who wants to visit Australia have to apply for an Elctronic Travel Authority from the Australian government. This “visa” is normally good for multiple entries within a 12-month period.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement today (May 6) that Singapore and Australia have concluded a landmark agreement that builds on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement the two nations signed last year. The planned visa arrangement was in the latest agreement.

Under the new agreement, Singapore and Australia will also recognise more degrees from universities in both countries. These include law, medical and allied health qualifications.

Up to 500 young people on each side can participate in a “Work and Holiday Maker Programme” that promotes cultural exchange by allowing them to undertake short-term work while holidaying in the other country.

sinsh@sph.com.sg