Lawrence Wong sworn in as new Prime Minister of Singapore

Yesterday, the 15th of May, Singapore made another notch in history. Lawrence Wong was sworn in as the new Prime Minister, replacing Lee Hsien Loong. He is the fourth prime minister of Singapore and the first one that was born post-independence. He entered politics in 2011 and was appointed to the board of directors of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. He later held the culture, national development, and education portfolios

I will say this Mr Wong…you have a tremendous responsibility ahead of you. As the Prime Minister, you will have to deal with running the whole of Singapore. This job is not for the faint-hearted. You need to do your best for the country. I wish you all the best

Happy National Day Singapore

Singapore is 58 years old today. Happy National Day Singapore!

KL-Singapore High Speed Rail terminated

First of all, a very Happy New Year to all my readers of this humble blog of mine. I try to update this blog daily with news and snippets that I come across and find interesting. For starters, it is a new year. 2021 has arrived and I hope that it will be a better year than the previous one that was absolutely horrible. And speaking of 2020, while on today’s subject of the HSR termination, I seem to remember Wawasan 2020, something tabled by the Malaysian PM in 1991. Wasn’t that what was desired by him? The vision called for the nation to achieve a self-sufficient industrialised nation by the year 2020. Oh well.

But here we are. It is 2021. The first thing I see when I read the news this morning was that the The Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) project has been terminated, after both countries failed to reach an agreement on changes proposed by Malaysia by the deadline of Dec 31. I guess that Covid-19 had a say in this, as it had with the world’s economy. But for Malaysia, what is aggravating the problem is the fact that Malaysia has few revenue sources to draw on. The project is not cheap as it goes into the hundreds of billions. But now, since Malaysia had allowed the HSR bilateral agreement to be terminated, it has to compensate Singapore for costs already incurred, in accordance with the agreement.

The HSR was slated to have seven stations, and would have cut travel time between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to 90 minutes. I was really looking forward to visiting my cousins in Kuala Lumpur when this was completed. Oh well. Back the old way of going up to KL by coach.

Happy National Day Singapore!

Today our nation celebrates the 55th National day. This year also happens to be the 200th anniversary of the founding of Singapore by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1819. Happy National Day everyone!

Malaysia and Singapore territorial spat off Tuas

These past few days, ships and vessels from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and Marine Department Malaysia have been repeatedly intruding into Singapore’s territorial waters, ever since October the 25th this year. Malaysia had extended the Johor Bahru port limits without informing Singapore, therefore violating sovereignty and international laws.

My take on this is this. Can we not find a peaceful solution to this matter without rattling swords? Singapore and Malaysia are like siblings…sharing many things like culture and the like. Can we both respect each other please. If you ask me, this is silly.

I want to know who is the bastard that designed this t-shirt

Some bastard in the Facebook group Singapore Indians and Expats had the bloody fucking cheek to design this t-shirt that shows the Singapore flag being torn and showing an Indian flag underneath it. Whoever you are you motherfucker, I dare you to wear this. Go on…just try to. Don’t you ever disgrace our Singapore flag this way you got that?

Happy 53rd National Day Singapore!

I would like to wish Singapore and my fellow Singaporeans a very happy 53rd National Day. Happy birthday Singapore!

Surge pricing for taxis in Singapore

The powers-that-be approved the surge pricing model for taxis yesterday, trying to copy what Grabtaxi and Uber have been doing all this while. But I have my reservations about that. I remember every Friday, taxis would pick and choose customers. As I read in a report in TodayOnline:

With surge pricing, taxi drivers could spend less time plying the roads for customers and more time ferrying passengers matched to them through a mobile application. In contrast, the situation may be less rosy for commuters who are unwilling or unable to pay higher fares, as they could face the possible scenario of being ignored on the streets during peak hours, transport analysts said on Friday

I knew something like this would occur. That is why I was very happy when Grab and Uber came on the market. It gave those conniving taxi drivers a run for their money. And now those taxi fellas want to implement surge pricing because their livelihoods were threatened by ride-hailing apps. Well done you bunch of idiots. Well done.

Malaysia challenge the ICJ over Pedra Branca with new evidence

In May 2008. I remember that the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Pedra Branca is under Singapore’s sovereignty. You can read about the Pedra Branca dispute here.

In case some people want to know what is Pedra Branca is, it is an outlying island and also the easternmost point of Singapore, an island which consists of a small outcrop of granite rocks with an area of about 8,560 square metres. Between 1850 and 1851, the British built Horsburgh Lighthouse on the island. The Straits Settlements administered the island with the lighthouse and Singapore then assumed responsibility in 1946 after the dissolution of the Straits Settlements. In 1953, the Acting State Secretary of Johor, responding to a query from the Colonial Secretary of Singapore about the status of the island, stated that “the Johore Government does not claim ownership of Pedra Branca”.

Apparently now, Malaysia is challenging the Pedra Branca judgment using three documents discovered in the United Kingdom’s national archive. Apparently, these documents became available after some files were de-classified. So looks like we will be back at the International Court of Justice to plead our case. Let us see how this goes

Singapore PRs wanting their cake and eat it too

One thing I really hate is the fact that that some PRs do not want to serve NS. So I will just leave this here, a screenshot I got from a local forum. Nice try buddy but it does not work the way you envisioned. Serve your NS. Don’t be a pussy!