Germany aims to be nuclear-free model

Jun 1, 2011

Banking on renewable energy to show growth is possible without nuclear power
 

BERLIN: Germany wants to show countries which decide to abandon nuclear power - or not start using it - how it is possible to achieve growth, create jobs and prosperity while shifting the energy supply to renewable energies. But Chancellor Angela Merkel will find it a tall order to deliver on that.

Germany, Europe's economic engine, said on Monday it will close all of its nuclear power plants over the next 11 years, the latest aftershock from the March 11 Japanese quake and partial meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant that it set in motion.

The move is an about-turn for Dr Merkel, whose government until recently had supported nuclear power as a way to generate electricity without releasing additional greenhouse gases - and without increasing reliance on Russia.

Her party, the Christian Democratic Union, had earlier advocated the extension of the operating licences of the country's 17 nuclear power plants by an average of 12 years, saying that nuclear power is needed as an important 'bridging technology'.

But in the wake of the crisis in Japan, Dr Merkel announced the temporary closure of seven of the plants. Now, after another wave of demonstrations against nuclear power, she said those plants would remain closed, there would be no extensions and all remaining plants would be shut by 2022.

She also said Germany will set an example to other nations debating over nuclear power. One reason why that will be a tough nut to crack is it gets nearly a quarter of its electricity from nuclear power.

With an aggressive programme of subsidies, renewable energy's share has climbed to 17 per cent. Now the German government hopes to double that share to make up for the loss of nuclear power - but that will require advances in power storage and management because nuclear power runs constantly. while wind and solar power run intermittently.

The German government also said it would try to cut energy use by 10 per cent. The country's power industry is less than sanguine about the coming transformation of the energy landscape.

German energy conglomerate RWE's chief executive Juergen Grossmann said: 'In the short term, without nuclear energy, one cannot ensure a supply of energy that is gentle on the environment and provides security of supply at affordable prices, without jeopardising Germany as an industrial nation.'

Power companies warned last week that Germany could face blackouts during cold months without nuclear power as solar power diminishes during the winters and winds that spin turbines slacken.

If that proves to be the case, Germany would have to turn to its coal reserves, to Russia for additional natural gas supplies, or to France, which exports electricity from its nuclear power plants.

But European nations have been seeking to reduce their reliance on coal and Russian gas. And France already exports surplus electricity to Italy.

Dr Merkel said details on how Germany would fill gaps in supply would come later. She added it would stick to its targets for the slashing of carbon emissions, suggesting coal would not be the answer.

Switzerland, which gets 40 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power, also announced last week that it plans to shut down its reactors once they reach their expected life span of 50 years. The last plant would come off the grid in 2034.

WASHINGTON POST

[Big Hairy Audacious Goal? Or Political posturing? Seems like giving in to political blackmail.]

Meditation: Don't overdo it

Jun 1, 2011

By Andy Ho

IN TRADITIONAL Chinese medicine (TCM), qi is the life force. Gong is work, so qigong means working with qi to cultivate it so it flows freely, in which case good health is obtained. Conversely, when the flow of this enigmatic qi is blocked, there is ill health.

Qigong is meditation done sitting, standing or moving. To the untrained eye, the still type is more obviously meditative in nature. The meditation that practitioners of martial art taijiquan engage in is also imperceptible to outsiders.

Qigong is a self-directed meditation method with various specified body postures, breathing, relaxation and visualisation techniques. The meditation involves moving the qi around. This can be done because in TCM thought, qi, breath and mind are closely related.

So qigong involves putting your mind or mental awareness inside your belly and feeling it go around your insides. You do this in quietude to 'review' your insides. You do not merely visualise your insides. Instead, you must learn to actually feel them experientially, explained Dr Yang Jwing Ming in his book The Root Of Chinese Qigong: Secrets For Health, Longevity And Enlightenment.

An adept who has mastered this can then use his hands to direct his qi into a patient to enhance the latter's qi.

But novices who overindulge in prolonged meditation may be putting themselves in harm's way. In the medical literature, such novices have been known to literally go mad.

These psychotic episodes usually involve a novice who engages in qigong meditation for three to four hours at a stretch. After about a month of doing so, he begins to hear voices and see things. Then he becomes quite mad. Fortunately, he usually recovers with a few days of anti-psychotic medication.

This is no slur on qigong. Reports of people going mad after practising it first surfaced in China from 1950 to 1965. But such reports were largely inaccessible to Western psychiatry, as Dr David Palmer - who practises qigong himself - noted in his erudite Qigong Fever: Body, Science And Utopia In China.

Many qigong practices began in Taoist and Buddhist monasteries. In this way, they came to afford an acceptable kind of urban religiosity during the Mao period when religion was oppressed.

For political reasons, qigong was actually banned during the Cultural Revolution, which took place from 1966 to 1976. But in the era of market reforms, it was not only permitted but also promoted by the political authorities, for it served as cheap health care for the masses.

Post-Mao physicists and physicians eagerly furnished scientific proof of qigong's efficacy in healing all manner of ills. But Dr Palmer, a Chinese University of Hong Kong anthropologist, showed how that scientific 'proof' was of very poor quality.

So the effectiveness of qigong has not been established. What is known for sure though is that prolonged qigong meditation can trigger psychotic episodes. In the mid-1980s, when Western psychiatry became aware of this, it became labelled as 'qigong psychotic reaction'. Psychiatrists in China call it 'qigong deviation reaction'.

In such an episode, which includes hallucinations and trances, the patient may be hysterical, disoriented, talk too fast and adopt odd qigong postures. He may complain that 'qi is dashing to my head' or 'qi has stagnated' somewhere.

But unlike schizophrenia, these acute attacks are almost invariably short in duration. Afterwards, the patient may not be able to even recall the episode.

Adepts attribute the psychosis to neiqibuzhi (adverse qi flow); waidongbuyi (uncontrollable motion); zouhuo (overmeditation); or rumo (spirit possession). Thus the descriptive folk name for this psychosis, zouhuorumo or 'fire wild, demons enter'.

This explanation of the psychosis is based on a notion of mind as self-awareness that flows around in the body. By contrast, the biomedical model is mind as consciousness that emerges from a functioning brain, so psychosis arises from a dysfunctional brain. The two explanatory models are obviously incommensurable.

The idea of qi also appears in other cultures and a similar psychosis called the Kundalini syndrome has been similarly noted following prolonged meditation by yoga novices. In this case, one unusual symptom is intense sexual arousal.

Kundala means coiled, so kundalini points to a coiled-up serpent of prana - the qi equivalent - asleep at the base of the spine. Meditation awakens the snake, which uncoils to release prana up the spine and into the brain.

Kundalini psychiatric symptoms are not unlike those in a qigong psychotic reaction, with trances and visions, unusual breathing patterns, convulsions and impossible yoga postures.

Similar psychoses have been noted in many other forms of meditation when abused. A large review of studies of meditators published in the International Journal Of Psychotherapy in 2000 reported psychological side effects in two-thirds of long-term meditators and experienced teachers. Be warned: Don't overdo it.

andyho@sph.com.sg

Islands or rocks? Depends on who you ask

Jun 1, 2011

By

Robert Beckman

SOVEREIGNTY over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea is
contested by China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and
Taiwan in whole or in part. Diplomatic notes submitted to the United
Nations Secretary-General by the Philippines and China in April have set
the stage for an evolving dispute between some Asean claimant states
(Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam) and China relating to the legal
status of the features comprising the Spratly Islands.

The most important issue at stake is: Who has the right to explore
and exploit the natural resources in and below the waters surrounding
the islands? While the dispute is ultimately about rights to these
natural resources, it is being structured as a legal dispute on the
interpretation and application of Article 121 of the 1982 United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

Article 121 provides that an island - defined as 'a naturally formed
area of land above water at high tide' - can in principle generate the
same maritime zones as land territory. These include a 12 nautical mile
(nm) territorial sea; a 200 nm exclusive economic zone (EEZ); and a
continental shelf.

Some of the Spratly Islands features claimed and occupied by the
claimants do not meet the definition of an island. They are either below
water at high tide, or above water at high tide only because of
reclamation works or the presence of man-made structures. Such features
are not even entitled to a 12 nm territorial sea.

Paragraph 3 of Article 121 creates an exception for certain
categories of islands by providing that 'rocks which cannot sustain
human habitation or economic life of their own' shall have no EEZ or
continental shelf. Many of the features in the Spratly Islands may fall
within this category and are thus entitled to only a 12 nm territorial
sea.

The diplomatic notes submitted to the UN Secretary-General by the
Philippines on April 5 and China on April 14 are the latest in a series
of diplomatic notes relating to the Joint Submission of Malaysia and
Vietnam dated May 6, 2009. In their joint submission to the Commission
on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, Malaysia and Vietnam claimed an
extended continental shelf beyond the outer limit of their 200 nm EEZ
claims in the South China Sea.

On May 7, 2009, China responded by diplomatic note, maintaining that
it has indisputable sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and their
adjacent waters. China also asserted sovereign rights and jurisdiction
over the 'relevant' waters in the South China Sea, attaching the
infamous nine-dashed line map to its diplomatic note.

The Philippines responded on April 4 this year, stating that Unclos
provided no legal basis for any claim to sovereign rights and
jurisdiction over 'relevant' waters (and the seabed and subsoil thereof)
within the nine-dashed lines outside of the claims to waters that are
'adjacent' to islands as defined in Article 121.

Although the language in the note is ambiguous, it seems to suggest
that China has no legal basis for claiming sovereign rights and
jurisdiction over any resources in or under the waters within the
nine-dashed line outside of the waters adjacent to the islands.

On April 14 this year, responding to the note of the Philippines,
China reiterated its traditional position that it has indisputable
sovereignty over all of the Spratly Islands and their adjacent waters.
It also asserted its sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the relevant
waters as well as the seabed and subsoil thereof. However, it did not
mention the nine-dashed line map, and it stated - for the first time -
that the islands are entitled to a territorial sea, EEZ and continental
shelf. China appears to be clarifying its claims and justifying them
under Unclos.

In the evolving dispute about islands and rocks, the Asean claimants
are likely to maintain that they have sovereign rights and jurisdiction
over the natural resources in and under the waters in the Spratly
Islands. They based this claim on their 200 nm EEZ and extended
continental shelf claims measured from their land territory or
archipelagic baselines. They will not claim an EEZ from any of the
geographic features in the Spratly Islands, and will maintain that many
of the disputed features are not islands, and that those which are
islands are in fact, only rocks.

This strategy would give the Asean states undisputed sovereign rights
to explore and exploit the natural resources in and under most of the
waters in the Spratly Islands. The only areas where they will not have
sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the hydrocarbon resources will be
in the 12 nm territorial sea adjacent to islands, so long as the
dispute continues as to who has sovereignty over those islands.

To protect its interests, China will need to maintain that at least
some of the features are 'islands' which are entitled to an EEZ and
continental shelf of their own. Such a position will produce a
substantial overlap in the EEZ claimed by China from these islands and
the 200 nm EEZ and/or extended continental shelf claimed by the Asean
claimants from their land territory or archipelagic baselines.

One difficulty China will face is its own earlier position on islands
and rocks. In discussions at the UN on the right of Japan to claim an
EEZ and continental shelf from the island of Okinotorishima, China
argued that small, remote, uninhabited features should not be given an
EEZ or continental shelf of their own. The Asean claimants are likely to
maintain that this argument should also apply to the small geographic
features in the Spratly Islands as well.

The writer is Director of the Centre for International Law and an
Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, NUS, as well as an Adjunct
Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU.

Voters versus the welfare state

Jun 1, 2011

By

Michael Boskin

CANADA'S Prime Minister Stephen Harper, by winning an outright
majority of seats in Parliament for the first time since assuming office
in 2006, continues a remarkable series of national election victories,
backed by voters demanding at least a pause, and perhaps some reversal,
of the growth of the welfare state.


Mr Harper's victory follows the United States Republican Party's
resounding triumph in last year's mid-term election, a campaign largely
fought on the size and scope of government.


British Prime Minister David Cameron, who leads a centre-right
coalition government, likewise won on a platform to roll back the
excesses of the welfare state.


Next up is French President Nicolas Sarkozy's anticipated re-election
bid. France has higher taxes and social welfare benefits than Britain,
Canada or the US. Mr Sarkozy has thus far produced fewer reforms than Mr
Cameron or Mr Harper, let alone former US president Ronald Reagan or
Britain's prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.


Some might argue that economic problems faced by governments are so
severe that simply being in power invites being tossed out of office,
regardless of ideology.


But Mr Harper's re-election suggests otherwise. He lowered Canada's
sales and corporate taxes and, like Mr Cameron, desires more rapid
fiscal consolidation than US President Barack Obama.


The potential significance of these elections must be understood in
the context of the broader sweep of the historical evolution of these
countries' welfare states.


The following trends stand out:

• In all four countries, there has been a sizeable upward trend in government outlays as a share of gross domestic product (GDP);
  
• In
  each country, there has been a sizeable increase in public spending in
  the last few years, particularly in the US and Britain;
  
• France
  has the highest government spending as a share of GDP - well over 50
  per cent - and this has risen continually, decade after decade;
  
• The
  US now has the smallest share of government spending in GDP, although
  it has gained substantially on Canada because of the spending explosion
  since 2000 - former president George W. Bush's military expenditure and
  Mr Obama's social spending;
  
• The increase in Canada's public spending as a share of GDP since 2000 has been the smallest of the four countries;
  
• Canada
  and Britain have had periods of important reductions in the share of
  government spending. In Britain, the share fell four percentage points
  between 1980 and 1990, and fell further until 2000. In the years prior
  to the financial crisis, Canada's share fell from the mid-40s to about
  40 per cent;
  
• Likewise, the Reagan revolution in the US stopped the upward trend in non-defence spending.
  
  

What about economic performance, as measured by real GDP per capita?
The four countries rank exactly in inverse order of their government
spending shares, with the US highest, followed by Canada, Britain and
France.


The voters appear to be on to something important. Of course, there
are myriad other factors that affect economic performance besides the
size, composition and nature of welfare-state spending. Moreover,
governments provide services, from defence and law enforcement to a
humane safety net, that are essential to a successful economy and
society. But the size of the welfare state - and the erosion of
incentives to work, save and invest because of high taxes and bloated
transfer payments - is a major impediment to faster income growth.


This simple analysis should raise a red flag about how we think about
the trade-offs between dynamism and security, or growth and
redistribution. After all, real per capita income in the US is about 40
per cent higher than in France, 22 per cent higher than in Canada and 31
per cent higher than in Britain.


The relative histories have followed a similar trend. For example,
the US advantage over France has expanded from 25 per cent to 40 per
cent since 1980, a period in which the share of government spending in
GDP stabilised in the US (until recently), while it grew substantially
in France.


Likewise, French real per capita GDP exceeded the British level in
1980, but was overtaken in 2000, and by 2007 lagged Britain by about 10
per cent. These differences are the equivalent of an entire generation
of economic progress.


Those who want to control, reform and reduce government spending seem
to have the big picture right. It is a prerequisite for substantial
economic advance.


That is the broad lesson of history - from the Reagan and Thatcher
revolutions in the US and Britain, to Mr Harper's more recent experience
in Canada.


Only time will tell if the recent elections in Britain, the US and
Canada signal a retreat from the growth of the welfare state or just a
temporary respite. The stakes are immense.


The writer, professor of economics at Stanford University and a
senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, was chairman of the Council of
Economic Advisers under President George H. W. Bush.


PROJECT SYNDICATE

[Too neat. A clear case that the welfare state inhibits development. But with just a sample size of 4 countries, it seems a little staged. More evidence and independent corroboration required.]

Losing yourself in the pursuit of life

Jun 1, 2011
By David Brooks

OVER the past few weeks, America's colleges have sent another class of graduates off into the world. These graduates possess something of inestimable value. Nearly every sensible middle-aged person would give away all their money to be able to go back to age 22 and begin adulthood anew.

But, especially this year, one is conscious of the many ways in which this year's graduating class has been ill served by their elders. They enter a bad job market, the hangover from decades of excessive borrowing. They inherit a ruinous federal debt.

More important, their lives have been perversely structured. This year's graduates are members of the most supervised generation in American history. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented degree.

Yet upon graduation they will enter a world that is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured. Most of them will not quickly get married, buy a home and have kids, as previous generations did. Instead, they will confront amazingly diverse job markets, social landscapes and lifestyle niches. Most will spend a decade wandering from job to job and clique to clique, searching for a role.

No one would design a system of extreme supervision to prepare people for a decade of extreme openness. But this is exactly what has emerged in modern America. College students are raised in an environment that demands one set of navigational skills, and they are then cast out into a different environment requiring a different set of skills, which they have to figure out on their own.

Worst of all, they are sent off into this world with the whole baby-boomer theology ringing in their ears. If you sample some of the commencement addresses being broadcast on C-Span these days, you see that many graduates are told to: Follow your passion, chart your own course, march to the beat of your own drummer, follow your dreams and find yourself. This is the litany of expressive individualism, which is still the dominant note in American culture.

But, of course, this mantra misleads on nearly every front.

College graduates are often sent out into the world amid rapturous talk of limitless possibilities. But this talk is of no help to the central business of adulthood, finding serious things to tie yourself down to. The successful young adult is beginning to make sacred commitments - to a spouse, a community and calling - yet mostly hears about freedom and autonomy.

Today's graduates are also told to find their passion and then pursue their dreams. The implication is that they should find themselves first and then go off and live their quest. But, of course, very few people at age 22 or 24 can take an inward journey and come out having discovered a developed self.

Most successful young people don't look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life. A relative suffers from Alzheimer's and a young woman feels called to help cure that disease. A young man works under a miserable boss and must develop management skills so his department can function. Another young woman finds herself confronted by an opportunity she never thought of in a job category she never imagined. This wasn't in her plans, but this is where she can make her contribution.

Most people don't form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.

The graduates are also told to pursue happiness and joy. But, of course, when you read a biography of someone you admire, it's rarely the things that made them happy that compel your admiration. It's the things they did to court unhappiness - the things they did that were arduous and miserable, which sometimes cost them friends and aroused hatred. It's excellence, not happiness, that we admire most.

Finally, graduates are told to be independent-minded and to express their inner spirit. But, of course, doing your job well often means suppressing yourself. As Atul Gawande mentioned during his countercultural address last week at Harvard Medical School, being a good doctor often means being part of a team, following the rules of an institution, going down a regimented checklist.

Today's graduates enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the centre of a life. But, of course, as they age, they'll discover that the tasks of a life are at the centre. Fulfilment is a by-product of how people engage their tasks, and can't be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it's nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task.

The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It's to lose yourself.


NEW YORK TIMES

There's no masking IMF's stench of colonialism

May 31, 2011

Damage from insisting on a European chief will be long-lasting
 
By Jonathan Eyal

ALTHOUGH none will say so publicly, European governments are mightily pleased with their latest diplomatic triumph: At a summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised countries over the weekend, they virtually secured the election of Mrs Christine Lagarde, the current French finance minister, as the next leader of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), replacing Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is currently awaiting trial in the US for the alleged rape of a hotel maid.

Europeans are certain to make much of the fact that the new IMF boss will be the first woman to hold this pivotal job. But no amount of window-dressing can mask the stench of colonialism that wafts from this entire affair.

For by insisting on their supposedly ancient privilege to appoint one of their own at the helm of the IMF, the Europeans have proven that their promises to reform global financial institutions are just humbug. This is something which the world's emerging powers will do well to remember.

Few who meet Mrs Lagarde fail to be impressed by her personal qualities. She possesses a formidable intellect and personal charm. She had a stellar career, as an international lawyer and senior politician. And frivolity is most definitely not her style: A vegetarian and teetotaller, she will bring to the IMF a much-needed dose of professional sobriety.

But that's hardly a decisive argument in favour of her appointment. Although the leader of any international body must be of high moral integrity and competence, his or her nationality also matters.

Most international organisations rotate their leaders among countries or continents because this is the surest way of convincing nations that they have a genuine stake in these institutions. There is no question, for instance, that the United Nations' engagement in African peacekeeping operations would have been perceived differently if the UN had not been led by two successive African secretaries-general.

Yet that's not a logic ever applied to the IMF, which remains the exclusive preserve of Europeans. So an organisation that is actually owned by its 187 member-nations permanently discriminates against 93 per cent of humanity. Out of the IMF's 10 managing directors, no fewer than four - including the last one - have been French.

The hypocrisy surrounding this election is breathtaking. In its regular work, the IMF demands that countries reach economic decisions in a transparent, meritocratic manner. Yet when it comes to its own internal management, decisions are still taken by a small cabal.

According to the IMF's own statistics, the European Union's share of global output will shrink from 25 per cent at the beginning of this century to only 18 in 2015. But Europe still controls 32 per cent of the IMF's votes. Together with the US, it can command about half of all ballots.

Europeans used to claim for decades that the nationality of the IMF's boss makes no difference, since decisions to lend money are, supposedly taken on merit. That's why a French managing director had no problems in telling South Koreans or Indonesians to swallow his prescribed economic medicine in the 1990s, and why his German successor did the same in Latin America in the next decade. But now, when Europe is in the throes of a major financial crisis, 'it is important that the person leading the IMF should come from this continent', says German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Asians and Latin Americans are, evidently, different kinds of human beings.

Why are the Europeans fighting so hard to preserve their IMF monopoly? Pride is one explanation, but not the most important one. For the simple fact remains that Europeans are now desperate to squeeze anything they can from the existing world system, as long as it lasts.

The assumption is that the IMF exists to bankroll poor countries. In fact, an astonishing 79.5 per cent of the IMF's current loans are to Europe. In effect, the IMF is now a European bailout fund.

And matters are only likely to get worse, as Greece is again tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, and other European countries, such as Spain or Italy, may require fresh cash to stay afloat. A non-European IMF head would have applied traditional remedies, by refusing further credits unless painful reforms are implemented, and by demanding that countries that underperform should leave the euro zone in order to make their economies competitive again.

But a European IMF boss will do nothing of the kind: Mrs Lagarde is likely to continue with the policies of her predecessor, by offering further money in order to keep the current EU arrangements intact, despite evidence that these are not working. Greece, which met none of the economic conditions imposed on it, is guaranteed another loan next month.

Meanwhile, other regions of the world will suffer. The biggest task facing the IMF is not Europe but the Middle East, which, for the first time in decades, has the chance of breaking out of the cycle of poor governance and poverty. Mr Kemal Dervis, a Turkish economist and international civil servant, would have been perfect for this role. So would Mr Leszek Balcerowicz, who helped oversee Poland's transition to a free market economy from communism. But neither was regarded 'European' enough, while an Asian candidate was not even considered.

The US also played a role in this disgraceful affair. For, as part of the same deal that promised the IMF job to the Europeans in perpetuity, the Americans were given exclusive leadership of the World Bank. It clearly did not suit Washington to break such arrangements.

The damage will be long-lasting. For years, the West has argued that China should act as a 'responsible international stakeholder'. The appeal was always condescending, but is now exposed as also meaningless. There is little point in being 'responsible' if a country's stake in the international system remains unfair. Europe and the US should not, therefore, be surprised if the Chinese, Indians or Brazilians start elaborating their own informal financial arrangements outside international institutions which are clearly incapable of reform.

At the moment, however, it would be nice if all governments just ask Mrs Lagarde to promise that she will actually finish her five-year mandate.

For all the past three heads of the IMF resigned before completing their terms. Perhaps that's another European trait.

Jonathan.eyal@gmail.com

I have loved and lived

She may be pushing 70 but the effervescent author and political commentator - who recently grabbed attention with her blog posts on the General Election - has a zest for life that puts someone half her age to shame, Crispina Robert discovers

by Crispina Robert

May 29, 2011

Dr Catherine Lim saunters into the lovely wood-panelled Astor Bar at the St Regis eight minutes earlier than scheduled. She is immediately recognisable with her short cropped hair and dazzling smile. But more than her diminutive figure, our eyes fall on what she wears - an off-shoulder pearl-encrusted white blouse that not only shows off her tiny waist but, oddly, is both dramatic and appropriate for drinks at a six-star hotel.

I remark that it is a lovely top and she promptly launches into a story about how, in its previous life, it was the wedding gown of a former student. The original owner had outgrown it and Dr Lim, who clearly loathes trashing things of beauty, swooped in, cut off the bottom and made it into a blouse that is getting all the attention its new owner desires.

And in her slim-cut black slacks, heels and fire-engine red lipstick, at 69, Dr Lim still turns heads.

"Make sure you step on a scale every day,'' she says when I ask how she manages to look so trim and healthy.

Dr Catherine Lim Poh Imm, arguably Singapore's best-known author, is an intriguing study in contrasts as our nearly three-hour dinner demonstrates: She is at once a formidable intellectual (she talks animatedly about quantum physics, genetic engineering and paradigms of the mind), yet possesses a coquettish femininity that shows up in the way she admires a beautifully arranged dish or elegantly applies a fresh coat of lipstick in the middle of the conversation.

The eighth of 14 children to an accountant father and housewife mother, Dr Lim came to Singapore from Penang in her mid-20s to do her post-graduate degree in Applied Linguistics at the National University of Singapore. She began teaching English (in her family, the women are always either nurses or teachers she says) and by this time, she was married and had two children: Daughter, Jean, 45, now a doctor in Hong Kong, and Peter, 43, a journalist in the United States.

But that is probably where the ordinary story of a typical civil servant with 2.0 children living in a middle-income suburb ends. Feeling increasingly unhappy, Dr Lim decided to end her marriage. In the early '80s, it wasn't the done thing but she explains that she saw marriage as an "institution that was thumbing me down".

Looking back, she feels her ex-husband simply married the wrong woman. "Poor man, he should have married someone less problematic!" she says with a laugh. She also decided to leave the Civil Service (yet another "institution") and become a full-time writer, especially after her first novel Little Ironies in 1978 proved a hit.

Since then she has published 19 books, but her most famous piece came in 1994 when she wrote The PAP and the People: A Great Affective Divide, published by The Straits Times. This was followed by another article, One Government, Two Styles, which earned a searing rebuke from the Government, then headed by Mr Goh Chok Tong.

DON'T THROW BABY OUT WITH BATHWATER

In 2007, she took her work online and lately, her blog posts on the General Election have gained her renewed attention.

Politics is clearly a passion with Dr Lim and she launches into mini monologues about the recent election. She takes the trouble to explain that it's not about any vindication of her own views but that, within the space of a fortnight, the political landscape in Singapore had shifted permanently.

"I am not one to go for rallies but I could feel a palpable sense of change in the air," says Dr Lim, who adds that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's apology midway through the hustings cemented her suspicions about how this was a completely different election.

She says a confluence of factors - a young, sophisticated electorate that compares upwards (to mature democracies not struggling nations), the impact of the Internet and the strength of the Opposition - came together in one heady mix, leading to the loss of a Group Representation Constituency, the first in Singapore's electoral history.

Despite these shifts in the political landscape, she has some niggling worries about the long-term outcome.

"There are many sound things about the Singapore system - meritocracy, the emphasis on hard work and discipline - don't throw these away! I am very scared now on behalf of the administration, the expectations are so high, poor thing ... give them time for goodness' sake. Sometimes a problem can only be solved incrementally,'' she says seriously.

It surprises me that she takes no pleasure in saying see-I-told-you-so. In fact, she feels very strongly that, in a crisis-ridden world, a strong government is crucial.

"The Western model of liberal democracy is declining and developing nations are looking for an alternative system,'' she says, adding that Singapore is poised to develop a unique political system that marries strong governance with free market capitalism.

"I sincerely hope they don't throw the baby out with the bathwater,'' she says on the desire for change.


DON'T SERVE CHEAP WINE OR CURRY PUFFS

But her truest allegiance to her adopted land is how, despite many opportunities to make her life elsewhere, Dr Lim has stayed put.

"This is testament to the PAP Government and I will say it - I cannot imagine living anywhere else. This place works, it is clean, my phone can be fixed in half a day and I can take a cab home at 2am without worrying about my safety."

Indeed, her charmed life in a District 10 apartment where she lives alone is one filled with purpose. She is planning to write two more essays on the GE and is working on a book of 33 short stories. She cooks her own meals, heads to the gym twice a week and has a busy social life filled with lunches and dinners with girlfriends, family and yes, it is true, the many suitors who want her attention.

I ask her why she hasn't remarried and she shakes her head vigorously, "Oh no! That's not for me. I rather enjoy my freedom and independence. Besides, after a while I get a little bored, to be honest!"

While she is busy with life, Dr Lim is under no illusions that death might come suddenly or illness might rob her of her fierce independent spirit. She has given her children specific instructions on what to do. "No heroic measures to keep me alive and please, no wake or funeral - Catherine Lim is the mind!

"I don't want people coming to look at a dead piece of meat in a coffin. They can have a memorial but it must be happy and elegant. I told my daughter, don't serve cheap wine or curry puffs but champagne and catered food!" she says, chuckling uproariously.

And, ever the perfectionist writer (she makes endless rewrites to get prepositions right), she has penned her own obituary. Isn't it a little morbid? I ask her.

"Oh, not at all! There is no fear. My epitaph: I have loved and lived life richly and deeply and I embrace its closure with an equal joy," she says, repeating the line twice for effect. "Do you like it?'' she asks, not really waiting for an answer because she knows it is true, all 18 carefully chosen words.

[She is a better Singaporean than me. I trust the PAP because I am not as smart as them and I trust that they are doing the right thing and most of the time, they are. But certainly they are not perfect and perhaps they have gone off-track. Catherine Lim is a better Singaporean than me because while she is clearly appreciative of the PAP, she is not uncritical of them. And so because she can appreciate and be critical, she is a better Singaporean than me.]