Ninety Day Pause on US Tariffs... Trump didn't just flinched. He ducked!

Trump stuns with 90-day tariff pause but hits China even harder with 125% rate

About "Signalgate"

Video: Signalgate. It's Worse Than You Think. || Peter Zeihan

The Atlantic magazine publishes US attack plan mistakenly shared in chat group

MAR 27, 2025

WASHINGTON – The Atlantic magazine on March 26 published what it said was the entire text of a chat group mistakenly shared with a journalist by top US national security officials laying out plans of an imminent attack on Yemen.

Singapore ranked 6th most resilient city in latest global inde

By Anna Maria Romero

MARCH 26, 2024

SINGAPORE: In Singapore news today, here’s one more thing that Singaporeans can be proud of: the Little Red Dot has climbed six spots to rank sixth on the Savills Resilient Cities Index. In 2021, Singapore was ranked twelfth the last time the index was published.

Nine ways Russia botched its invasion of Ukraine

By Liz Sly

April 8, 2022

The ineptitude displayed by the Russian military in its initial attempt to overrun Ukraine has astounded military professionals. The world’s second-most-powerful army has bungled almost every move since the first hours of the invasion. Now, seven weeks into a war that Russia as well as the West had expected would last only days, the Ukrainians have the momentum. They have forced the Russians to make a humiliating retreat from the north of the country and stalled or reversed Russian advances on most other fronts.

As Russia refocuses its energies on capturing Ukraine’s eastern region, the crucial question will be whether its military can redress the mistakes of the early assault. Here are nine of the most important mistakes identified by military experts.

“Heard of Abu Nuwas liquor?”: Siti Kasim shares her thoughts on the Timah controversy

By G Vinod

19 Oct 2021

WITH the Timah whiskey controversy riling up the right-wing movements in Malaysia, a lawyer-activist told the latter of how the Arab world itself has its own popular alcoholic beverage.

According to Siti Kasim, Haddad Distilleries of Jordan is selling their own alcoholic beverage called Abu Nuwas Arak.

“The name denotes Abu Nuwas, a weird drunk poet who lived during the time of the Abbasid Caliphate. He was born in Iran, in 756, but died in Iraq, in 814. He lived during the reign of Caliph Harun Al Rashid and was even mentioned in the popular Arabic tale, One Thousand and One Nights.

“The man was also said to be a hafiz (those who memorised the al-Quran),” she said in a Facebook post.

Recently, the award-winning local liquor brand Timah got embroiled in a controversy after several groups called it being disrespectful to the Malays and Muslims.

Majlis Perundingan Pertubuhan Islam Malaysia (MAPIM) president Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid said that using the name Timah for a whiskey brand was insulting Muslims, claiming Timah was short for Fatimah, who was Prophet Muhammad’s daughter.

He also argued that the image of the bearded man on the bottle resembled a Muslim man in a kopiah.

“More insolent is the liquor’s advertisement uses the image of a man in kopiah with a long beard as if showing the someone with Muslim image is promoting liquor,” Azmi was reported saying.

Surprisingly, even the Consumer Association of Penang (CAP) took offence to the whiskey brand, claiming it was insulting to Muslims.

“Apart from the alcohol content, CAP does not understand how the ministry could approve the name and image (of the product) which can cause anger,” its education officer NV Subbarow added.

However, the company shot back at its critics by saying that the man featured on the bottle was not a Muslim man but a British officer named Tristram Charles Sawyer Speedy, or more popularly known as Captain Speedy.

Arab man’s face on Abu Nuwas Arak

Speedy served in British Malaya from 1861 to 1874 as an administrator to restore order during the Larut wars in Perak. He was also credited of bringing the whiskey culture in the local tin mining sector back then.

“And the word Timah is a local word meaning tin. The name ‘Timah Whiskey’ harks back to the tin mining era during British Malaya. Any interpretation of our name unrelated to Malaysian mining is false,” it mentioned.

On MAPIM’s argument that attributing the word Timah to a whiskey was offensive, Siti Kasim pointed out that the Abu Nawas liquor has Arabic script on it, complete with an Arab man’s face attached to the bottle.

“If our religious fellows read all these, they will tear off in rage their beards, the hairs from their armpits, pubic areas, nostrils and if they can reach for it, their anal hairs,” she added in jest. – Oct 19, 2021.

The Deers of Nara and the true Masters of Nara (it's not the deers).

[Was surprised to see this news!]

Deer bites to tourists prompt Japan park to issue feeding tips

April 3, 2018
(Mainichi Japan)

NARA, Japan (Kyodo) -- Nara Park in western Japan began offering tips Tuesday on how to safely feed wild deer inhabiting the park amid a growing number of foreigners reporting getting injured by the animals.

The 660-hectare park encompassing the famous Todaiji Temple and Kasugataisha Shrine has been a major tourist attraction as visitors can give special crackers to over 1,000 deer on the premises.

But its popularity has led to a record 180 injury reports in fiscal 2017, with 138 of them involving foreigners, including a number of Chinese, according to the park.

Why are there so many crazy theories about negative blood types?

September 2, 2016

Dear Cecil:

My blood type is A negative. I've heard this can cause pregnancy issues, so I Googled "Rh-negative blood" and ran across a bunch of weirdo sites with "theories" about the origin of negative blood types and some online communities with seriously racist undertones. Where did all this crazy mythology surrounding blood types come from?

— Katrina

[There are conspiracy theories about everything. Here's a fun one.]

Four Corners report proves donation to Najib was from Saudi royals: Malaysia govt

A government spokesperson says the donation was a gift from the Saudi royal family to promote moderate Islam, and combat terrorism and extremism. 

By Melissa Goh, 

Malaysia Bureau Chief, Channel NewsAsia 

30 Mar 2016


KUALA LUMPUR: A report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) investigative programme Four Corners confirms that a donation to Prime Minister Najib Razak's personal accounts was a gift from the Saudi royal family, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said.

Multiple lawful authorities have concluded the same after "exhaustive investigations", it added.

The funds were meant for Mr Najib to use as he saw fit to promote moderate Islam, and combat terrorism and extremism, the PMO said in a statement on Wednesday (Mar 30). This includes the Global Movement of Moderates initiatives that was mooted by Mr Najib at the UN General Assembly in 2010.

Boneheaded aphorisms from Davos’ windy summit

TODAY

Lucy Kellaway

February 3, 2016


You can always go faster than you think you can. Those are not my words. They are the words of Ms Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise chief executive, who said them about two weeks ago at the Davos, where they were duly jotted down and published in a collection of quotes from world leaders during their week in the snow.

I admire the Whitman aphorism for its simple syntax and nice short words.

The only trouble with it is that it’s nonsense. Often in business you can’t go nearly as fast as you fondly think you can. When you try, you fall on your face — and Ms Whitman, of all people, should know that.

If her predecessor at HP hadn’t been quite so hasty in buying Autonomy, it would have saved itself a big mess.

The 35 other quotes are almost all as dismal; variously moronic (“The fourth industrial revolution should be a revolution of values”), silly (“Let’s put our optimism goggles on”) or empty (“We are not the prisoners of a predetermined future”).

When I first read the collection I thought it was a spoof. Then I thought the quotes were real, but selected maliciously to make the speakers look foolish. I now discover they were specifically picked by the World Economic Forum not as the stupidest things famous people said at Davos 2016, but as the smartest.

Behind the scenes: What led to separation in 1965

Edmund Lim

AUG 5, 2015,

Was Singapore expelled from the Malaysia federation or was the split based on mutual consent? A PhD student pieces together a behind-the-scenes version of events to suggest it was the latter.

On Aug 9, 1965, towards the end of a press conference after Singapore became independent, Mr Lee Kuan Yew said: "There is nothing to be worried about. Many things will go on just as usual. But be firm, be calm. We are going to have a multiracial nation in Singapore. We will set the example. This is not a Malay nation, this is not a Chinese nation, this is not an Indian nation. Everybody will have his place: equal; language, culture, religion."

Mr Lee's call for unity amid diversity in our multiracial society remains relevant half a century later. Fifty years on, as we near the jubilee year of Independence, it's timely to look back at events leading to the Aug 9 separation.

What were the events and the plans that led to that pivotal break?

What happened behind the scenes? Was Singapore "booted out" by Malaysia or was it a mutually agreed decision?

Calls for legal overhaul in employees’ favour

by Ben Abbott

09 Mar 2015

Singapore’s employment laws should be amended to ensure Singapore’s employees and employers see employment relationships as long-term ones, an MP has claimed.

Sembawang GRC MP Vikram Nair told Parliament Singapore’s current employment laws mean employers are happy to employ – because they know they can terminate employees easily.

He claims local employment laws need to move ‘slightly’ closer to Western employment law.

“In many other countries employment laws are much more rigid, providing more protection to employees, but also meaning employers are more cautious in employing,” Nair explained.

He gave the example of termination and redundancy payments being pegged by legislation at high levels, meaning employers saw an ‘opportunity cost’ in employing new staff.

“This means that companies are more careful about employing people.”

Court strikes out application to review prisons’ grooming policy

27 Feb 2015

TODAY reports: Mr Madan Mohan Singh, a former volunteer Sikh religious counsellor with the Singapore Prison Service (SPS), had taken issue with the prison’s hair grooming policy for Sikh inmates and said his right to propagate his faith had been violated, after the SPS did not renew his pass.

SINGAPORE: The High Court has struck out an application by a former volunteer Sikh religious counsellor with the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) who had taken issue with the prison’s hair grooming policy for Sikh inmates and said his right to propagate his faith had been violated, after the SPS did not renew his volunteer pass.

Justice Quentin Loh said the applicant, Mr Madan Mohan Singh, did not have reasonable cause and that his application to start judicial review proceedings on these issues was “frivolous, and vexatious and/or otherwise an abuse of the processes of Court”.

Mr Singh, who was represented by lawyer M Ravi, had filed an application in 2013 to quash the labelling of Sikh prisoners as “practising” or “non-practising”. He had also sought a declaration that the SPS had violated his right to propagate his religion - which is contingent on him obtaining leave for the quashing order.

Fear of Genetically Modified Organisms

[Two articles worrying about GMO.]

The trouble with the genetically modified future

MARK BUCHANAN

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Like many people, I have long wondered about the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMO). They have become so ubiquitous that they account for about 80 per cent of the corn grown in the United States.

["Like Many People" - Logical fallacy. Appeal to the Popular. Think for yourself man!]

Yet, we know almost nothing about what damage might ensue if the transplanted genes spread through global ecosystems.

How can so many smart people, including many scientists, be so sure that there is nothing to worry about?

[There are two possibilities. The first, as implied by your question, is that, they are not that smart after all. The second, which you are blind to, is that your question is stupid in the first place. It is like asking, "how can we be sure that the full moon does not cause crime? How can such smart people just ignore statistics on crime during full moon?"]

Judging from a new paper by several researchers from New York University, including The Black Swan author Nassim Taleb, they cannot and should not.

The researchers focus on the risk of extremely unlikely, but potentially devastating events. They argue that there is no easy way to decide whether such risks are worth taking — it all depends on the nature of the worst-case scenario.

Their approach helps explain why some technology, such as nuclear energy, should give no cause for alarm, while innovations such as GMOs merit extreme caution.

The researchers fully recognise that fear of bad outcomes can lead to paralysis. Any human action, including inaction, entails risk.

That said, the downside risks of some actions may be so hard to predict — and so potentially bad — that it is better to be safe than sorry.

The benefits, no matter how great, do not merit even a tiny chance of an irreversible, catastrophic outcome.

[Fear-mongering at its best!]

For most actions, there are identifiable limits on what can go wrong. Planning can reduce such risks to acceptable levels.

When introducing a new medicine, for example, we can monitor the unintended effects and react if too many people fall ill or die.

Mr Taleb and his colleagues argue that nuclear power is a similar case: Awful as the sudden meltdown of a large reactor might be, physics strongly suggests that it is exceedingly unlikely to have global and catastrophic consequences.

Not all risks are so easily defined. In some cases, as Mr Taleb explained in The Black Swan, experience and ordinary risk analysis are inadequate to understand the probability or scale of a devastating outcome.

GMOs are an excellent example. Despite all precautions, genes from modified organisms inevitably invade natural populations and, from there, have the potential to spread uncontrollably through the genetic ecosystem. There is no obvious mechanism to localise the damage.

Biologists still do not understand how genes interact within a single organism, let alone how genes might spread among organisms in complex ecosystems.

Only in the past 20 years have scientists realised how much bacteria rely on the so-called horizontal flow of genes — directly from one bacterium to another, without any reproduction taking place.

This seems to be one of the most effective ways that antibiotic resistance spreads among different species. Similar horizontal exchange might be hugely important for plants and animals. No one yet knows.

In other words, scientists are being irresponsibly short-sighted if they judge the safety of GMOs based on the scattered experience of the past couple of decades.

[Right. Because simple organisms like bacteria has "so-called horizontal flow of genes" so therefore complex organisms also have "so-called horizontal flow of genes". Complex organisms can also reproduce asexually, right?

I was going to point out that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but more dangerous than that is a little brain.]

It is akin to how, ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, analysts looked at 20 years of rising house prices and assumed they would always go up.

[Right. Because Financial Analysts ALWAYS practise scientific discipline in their analysis.]

The honest approach would be to admit that we understand almost nothing about the safety of GMOs, except that whatever happens is pretty likely to spread.

Science is at its best when it acknowledges uncertainty and focuses on defining how much can be known. In the case of GMOs, we know far too little for our own good.

BLOOMBERG

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark Buchanan, a physicist and Bloomberg View columnist, is the author of the book “Forecast: What Physics, Meteorology and the Natural Sciences Can Teach Us About Economics.”


[He is also a specialist in taking unrelated and incomparable examples and linking them irresponsibly to create fear-mongering.]

--------------

Millions of GMO insects could be released in Florida Keys

JANUARY 26, 2015


KEY WEST — Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in the Florida Keys if British researchers win approval to use the bugs against two extremely painful viral diseases.

Never before have insects with modified DNA come so close to being set loose in a residential US neighbourhood.

“This is essentially using a mosquito as a drug to cure disease,” said Mr Michael Doyle, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, which is waiting to hear if the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will allow the experiment.

Dengue and chikungunya are growing threats in the US, but some people are more frightened at the thought of being bitten by a genetically modified organism. More than 130,000 people signed a Change.org petition against the experiment.

Even potential boosters say those responsible must do more to show that benefits outweigh the risks of breeding modified insects that could bite people.

“I think the science is fine, they definitely can kill mosquitoes, but the GMO issue still sticks as something of a thorny issue for the general public,” said Dr Phil Lounibos, who studies mosquito control at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory.

Mosquito controllers say they’re running out of options. With climate change and globalisation spreading tropical diseases farther from the equator, storm winds, cargo ships and humans carry these viruses to places like Key West, the southern-most US city.

There are no vaccines or cures for dengue, known as “break-bone fever”, or chikungunya, so painful it causes contortions. US cases remain rare.

Insecticides are sprayed year-round in the Keys’ charming and crowded neighbourhoods. But Aedes aegypti, whose biting females spread these diseases, have evolved to resist four of the six insecticides used to kill them.

Enter Oxitec, a British biotech firm that patented a method of breeding Aedes aegypti with fragments of genes from the herpes simplex virus and E. coli bacteria as well as coral and cabbage. This synthetic DNA is commonly used in laboratory science and is thought to pose no significant risks to other animals, but it kills mosquito larvae.

Oxitec’s lab workers manually remove modified females, aiming to release only males, which don’t bite for blood like females do. The modified males then mate with wild females whose offspring die, reducing the population.

Oxitec has built a breeding lab in Marathon and hopes to release its mosquitoes in a Key West neighbourhood this spring.

FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman said no field tests will be allowed until the agency has “thoroughly reviewed all the necessary information”.

Company spokeswoman Chris Creese said the test will be similar in size to Oxitec’s 2012 experiment in the Cayman Islands, where 3.3 million modified mosquitoes were released over six months, suppressing 96 per cent of the targeted bugs. Oxitec says a later test in Brazil also was successful, and both countries now want larger-scale projects.

But critics accused Oxitec of failing to obtain informed consent in the Caymans, saying residents weren’t told they could be bitten by a few stray females overlooked in the lab.

Instead, Oxitec said only non-biting males would be released, and that even if humans were somehow bitten, no genetically modified DNA would enter their bloodstream.

Neither claim is entirely true, outside observers say.

“I’m on their side, in that consequences are highly unlikely. But to say that there’s no genetically modified DNA that might get into a human, that’s kind of a grey matter,” said Dr Lounibos.

[Unfortunately, Dr Lounibos is a Doctor who studies Mosquito Control at Florida. And he expresses doubt. Is he a molecular biologist? A geneticist? He is listed as having a PhD in Ecology and Behavior (of insects, presumably). 

So in the rare or rather highly unlikely instance that a female mosquito were released (accidentally), and bit a human, how would the DNA of this mosquito get into the bloodstream of the human? Mosquito saliva? Mosquitoes have been biting humans for tens of thousands of years, presumably their saliva enters our bloodstream. We itch. We don't become mosquitoes, or become Mosquito-Man. DNA in saliva is just protein (?) at most. It cannot affect your DNA, or turn you into a superhero. 

Maybe if it were radioactive. 

Same for when a dog bites you. You might get Genetically Modified Rabies.

WAIT! Wait! Wait! 

Worst case scenario: Mosquito bites you in the testicles (or thereabouts) and its genetically modified saliva somehow gets to your sperm, and.... SOMEHOW... enters your sperm (sorta the reverse of what usually happens with sperm), and MODIFIES your sperm (the mosquito saliva RAPES your sperm and "impregnates" it) with genetically modified DNA which in turn Genetically modifies your sperm. THEN you subsequently fuck a woman at the right time of the month, and the one or one of your genetically modified sperm (out of the millions that were not affected by the mosquito saliva) then fertilises her egg, nine months later, boom! Mosquito-baby is born!

The solution then is very simple. If you are a man and you were bitten by a mosquito near your genitals, and you suspect the mosquito may be a genetically modified female, you should masturbate (to ejaculation) and evict that genetically modified sperm. Of course you cannot be sure when the genetically modified saliva might genetically modify your sperm, so you should ejaculate several times. Over the next few days. Just to be safe.

And use a condom if you are going to fuck a woman.

And for god's sake DO NOT PRACTICE BESTIALISM. Your genetically modified sperm could impregnate a sheep and create Sheep-quito-man or something.]

Ms Creese says Oxitec has now released 70 million of its mosquitoes in several countries and received no reports of human impacts caused by bites or from the synthetic DNA, despite regulatory oversight that encourages people to report any problems. “We are confident of the safety of our mosquito, as there’s no mechanism for any adverse effect on human health. The proteins are non-toxic and non-allergenic,” she said.

Oxitec should still do more to show that the synthetic DNA causes no harm when transferred into humans by its mosquitoes, said Dr Guy Reeves, a molecular geneticist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute.

Key West resident Marilyn Smith wasn’t persuaded after Oxitec’s presentation at a public meeting. She says neither disease has had a major outbreak yet in Florida, so “why are we being used as the experiment, the guinea pigs, just to see what happens?” AP

[er... Yes? Duh!

No! No! No! This is NOT NIMBY-ism. This is not about "Not In My BackYard". This is "Not In My Blood Stream!" - NIMBS!

The mad scientists should just wait until there is an outbreak in Key West and sufficient residents who would object to their mad experiment has died before trying to roll out this "experiment".]

KL Minister proposes pre-emptive strike against saboteur Chinese Businesses. Because "Racism" is such an ugly word.

Police to summon KL minister over racist Facebook post

FEBRUARY 2, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR — Police will call Umno minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to give a statement over his Facebook post urging Malays to boycott Chinese businesses, Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said.

Mr Khalid tweeted at his handle @KBAB51 yesterday evening, asking all parties to “immediately exercise restraints in making (public) statements”.

“It hurts our racial harmony,” he added.

Mr Ismail, the agriculture and agro-based industries minister, came under fire yesterday for posting on his Facebook account that Malay consumers had a role to play in helping the government fight profiteers by using their collective power to lower the price of goods.

“Forgive me for sharing my views, but besides the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism, which uses the Price Control Act and the Anti-Profiteering Act to act against traders who raise their prices indiscriminately, the greatest power lies with the consumers.

“The majority of consumers are Malay, Chinese are a minority, if the Malays boycott their businesses, they will surely have no choice but to reduce their prices,” he had said in a post on the social networking site.

Unhappiness over Sengkang temple with columbarium: 7 other cases of residents opposing developments near their homes

Jan 05, 2015

By Jalelah Abu Baker

SINGAPORE - Future residents of Build-To-Order (BTO) project Fernvale Lea are up in arms over a planned Chinese temple with columbarium next to their flats. The columbarium, where funeral urns will be stored, will take up 15 per cent of the temple it will be housed at.

About 400 would-be residents of Fernvale Lea attended a closed-door dialogue with Dr Lam Pin Min, MP for Sengkang West, on Jan 4. There have even been requests to get refunds from the Housing Board.

There have been other cases of people not wanting certain types of amenities in their neighbourhood - or, as many know it, the not-in-my-backyard (Nimby) syndrome. Here are some past incidents:

Do people still think S’pore is part of China?

DAVID LEO

DECEMBER 15, 2014

Singaporeans were piqued when an American sports commentator at the recent Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Finals held here signed off with “goodbye from China”. Many felt it was no excuse for the newscaster. How could he not know where he was?

Given Singapore’s global status today, I thought such confusion would be a thing of the past. In the 1980s, I still received letters from American business associates addressing “Singapore, China”. It was amazing how the letters reached my office.

Then, my colleagues and I were more amused than annoyed. It was a time when if you registered at a hotel in the United States, the reception staff might just add “China” on your card. The blunder was not confined to Americans. I met a Swiss who asked if I meant Senegal, an Australian who confused us with Hong Kong and a New Zealand couple who said they had heard of Singapore Airlines, but not Singapore. “Is it in Malaysia?” they asked and that was years after we came into our own.

But I have learnt to be more understanding, particularly after having stayed six weeks in Wonju, South Korea, as writer-in-residence at the Toji Cultural Centre. It is not about being tolerant and forgiving, although clearly we should be since a person’s ignorance (for want of a better word) could be influenced by exposure, accessibility, opportunity, interest, subject significance and misinformation.

The unsustainability of organic farming

By Henry Miller and Richard Cornett

June 17, 4:03 AM


“Sustainable” has become one of the buzzwords of the 21st century. Increasing numbers of universities offer courses or even programmes in sustainability and many large companies boast substantial departments devoted to the subject. In April, many of the iconic multinational companies in the agriculture/food sector were represented at a three-day Sustainable Product Expo convened by Wal-Mart — the largest retailer in the United States — at its Arkansas headquarters.

But, as with many vague, feel-good concepts, sustainability contains more than a little sophistry. For example, sustainability in agriculture is often linked to organic farming, whose advocates tout it as a sustainable way to feed the planet’s rapidly expanding population.

But what does sustainable really mean and how does it relate to organic methods of food production?

Sultan of Johor seeks to reopen Pedra Branca case

May 30, 2014

By Yong Yen Nie Malaysia Correspondent In Kuala Lumpur


THE Sultan of Johor has ordered the state government to look into filing an appeal against the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) decision six years ago to award Pedra Branca to Singapore.

Pedra Branca - which Malaysia refers to as Pulau Batu Puteh - belonged to Johor and should remain a part of it, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail was quoted by the online portals of Malay-language dailies Utusan Malaysia and Sinar Harian as saying yesterday.

He said he was following the wishes of his father, the late Sultan Iskandar Ismail.

Sultan Ibrahim, who was speaking at the opening of the state legislative assembly session, noted that while foreign affairs came under the jurisdiction of the federal government, it was unwise for Johor not to be consulted on the matter.

"Don't the Johor people understand their neighbours better than those in Putrajaya? How would the federal government know of the state's needs or that of its people?" he said.

Pedra Branca, an island the size of a football field located some 40km east of Singapore and home to Horsburgh Lighthouse, was at the centre of a territorial dispute between Singapore and Malaysia that lasted almost three decades.

In 2003, the two countries signed a Special Agreement referring the dispute to the ICJ at The Hague, in the Netherlands.

For three weeks in 2007, legal teams from both sides argued their case before the court. In a ruling that it said was "final, binding and without appeal" in May 2008, the ICJ awarded Pedra Branca to Singapore and outcrops called Middle Rocks to Malaysia.

Of Sultan Ibrahim's order to appeal against the ruling, Dr Azmi Sharom of Universiti Malaya told The Straits Times that he does not have the authority.

"The ICJ has jurisdiction over disputes presented only by nations or governments. He may request it (an appeal), but it is the government that presents the case to the ICJ."

[Here's my suggestion. Enlarge it and put a football field on it. Every year, organise the Pedra Branca football match. Between SG and Johor, or even M'sia. Winner gets to administer the island for one year. Until the next Pedra Branca Cup. Winner of the previous year is responsible for maintaining the pitch for the next match. No audience. Just camera crews to broadcast the match to SG and MY. That will raise the stakes better than a Malaysia Cup.]

Skim-deep reading gives skin-deep grasp of world

Apr 27, 2014

By Denise Chong


It is hard not to constantly Ctrl F the world.

Even if we don't literally use this keyword-search function on the PC, some of us scan and skim, skip and zip through many online articles at the same time with our eyes flitting from one buzz word to another. I find myself increasingly doing the same wild twitchy-eyed thing with print material too - with the several books and magazines I am greedily reading all at once.

Cognitive neuroscientists view this sort of development with growing alarm, reported The Washington Post. They warn that humans seem to be developing digital brains with new circuits for skimming through the torrent of information online. This alternative way of reading is competing with traditional deep-reading circuitry developed over several millennia.

The worry is that we will start to lose the ability to do in-depth processing of more difficult material.

My worry is also that some of us do not give ourselves time for stories to percolate through our minds. I am worried that more of us will turn into narrow-minded, narrow-eyed Web surfers quick to overreact to whatever story we are skimming through.

Take the April Fool's joke played by NPR, a national syndicate associated with hundreds of public radio stations in the United States. It posted a story on its Facebook page with this provocative title, "Why Doesn't America Read Anymore?"

If you clicked on it, you were sent to a page that said: "Congratulations, genuine readers, and happy April Fools' Day! We sometimes get the sense that some people are commenting on NPR stories that they haven't actually read. If you are reading this, please like this post and do not comment on it. Then let's see what people have to say about this 'story'..."

The post got scathing comments from people about how much they read and how bad the "story" was. But they obviously hadn't clicked on it to find out that there wasn't a story. For example, one comment was, "I read every day, and all my friends and family members do too. Are we not America? Or are you just weakly grasping for stories?"

You can bet that he got walloped by fellow commenters in on the joke.

It looks like the super-fast way of reading is only getting more intense. There are all sorts of speed-reading software such as the one created by Boston-based developer Spritz. It identifies the optimal recognition point (ORP) of each word and turns that letter red. It flashes one word at a time in a narrow, rectangular viewing pane with each word's ORP fixed at the same spot on the screen. In this way, your eyes don't move as you see the words. You can process information instantaneously rather than spend time decoding each word.

The available Spritz speeds go from 250 words per minute up to about 1,000 words per minute. So you can finish reading the epic War And Peace in under 10 hours. Soul-searching not necessarily included. Missing a number of the book's key plot points might be included.

My eyes are getting twitchy as I am terrified by the tome no matter what reading style is used.

Has sprint-reading flattened some of our minds into ones that are a mile wide and an inch deep? Minds that are conditioned to constantly itch for the next buzzy topic to get outraged over, something to make one thump the table self-righteously?

On the Internet, some zero in on what they perceive to be a provocative headline or excerpt and immediately go nuclear with whatever they want to explode about that day, never mind what the article is actually about.

You know how we have acquaintances who always hijack conversations and turn them into what only they want to talk about (their knowledge of everything, their own eternal awesomeness...). It's that x 1,000 + radioactive viciousness in the comments sections.

Some people don't even bother reading the post and dive straight into the comment threads with their shouty Caps Lock key and angry emoticons at the ready. The flaming mess is enough to make some media websites shut down their comments section.

Earlier this month, the Chicago Sun-Times and the other titles in the Sun-Times Media group temporarily ceased to run comments with their articles until they could develop a system to "foster a productive discussion rather than an embarrassing mishmash of fringe ranting and ill-informed, shrill bomb-throwing".

The magazine Popular Science got rid of comments on its website last September, saying that although they have many thought-provoking commenters, "even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story, recent research suggests". The magazine said "commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded - you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the 'Off' switch".

While I am not sure if hitting the Esc button on comments is the answer, it is a pity that the wealth of information on the Internet doesn't necessarily broaden our horizons. We respond to the embarrassment of riches by Ctrl F-ing it and some of us end up with an ever narrower world view if all we search for is something to validate our own beliefs.

Skim-deep reading gives us only a skin-deep understanding of our world.

Here's what I came to realise about not reaching deeply enough for something new as I once described how Twitter worked to someone. The person said: "Isn't Twitter boh liao ("nothing better to do" in Hokkien)?"

It is boh liao if we are the boh liao type.

It isn't boh liao if we are not the boh liao type.

Our social media news feed is only as interesting as the people and organisations we follow. Our minds are only as narrow as we squeeze them. My eyes are only as twitchy as I make them.

So I might hit Ctrl P and make a cup of tea when I find myself becoming googly-eyed at the forest of tabs sticking up on my browser. Print out one good essay with a different point of view.

Take the time to read just that story with a hot beverage.

And take back control of the Ctrl F.

Food trends - Clear thinking on Organic and GMO

[Two Articles from Project Syndicate by Henry Miller on Organic Agriculture and GMO food. One is unsustainable (and actually bad for the environment), the other unsupported hysteria.]