water water we love water

won the polls but still have to step down

Thai PM Thaksin says he'll step down

BANGKOK : Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced he would step down to reunite the country, following weeks of mass protests demanding his resignation and a controversial election which the opposition boycotted.

The former telecoms tycoon made the announcement in a 10-minute televised live statement just hours after meeting the nation's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej and after his political rivals rejected any compromise.

"I will not accept the post of prime minister when the parliament convenes," said Thaksin.

"My reason for not accepting the post of prime minister is because this year in an auspicious year for the king, whose 60th anniversary on the throne is just 60 days away," he said.

"I beg all Thais to sacrifice for the king. I apologise to my 16 million supporters that I cannot take the post of prime minister."

Thaksin said he would carry on as caretaker until a successor was chosen, and would remain a member of parliament and leader of the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party.

He hugged his daughters and wept on their shoulders after the statement.

Protests demanding Thaksin's resignation began in February after his family made 1.9 billion dollars tax free from selling their shares in Shin Corp., the telecoms firm he founded before entering politics.

Tens of thousands demonstrated against the sale, alleging corruption and abuse of power, in near-daily rallies in the capital Bangkok.

A key protest leader declared victory moments after the announcement.

"This is our victory. If we had not helped each other (in the protests), today would not have happened," Chamlong Srimuang said, although it was unclear whether the resignation would bring an end to the crisis.

Parliament cannot confirm a new prime minister until all 500 seats are filled pending by-elections in 39 districts where candidates were either disqualified or failed to get 20 percent of the vote, promising weeks of further uncertainty.

Chamlong's People's Alliance for Democracy had vowed to launch fresh protests if Thaksin did not quit, indicating the premier's gamble on early elections had failed.

"The election has proved his popularity has gone down. His legitimacy was greatly affected," said Panitan Wattanayagorn, a visiting professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University.

Thaksin called the election three years early to head off the street protests against his rule. However, the opposition boycott undermined the credibility of the polls and ensured a huge protest vote against the premier.

The more than 16 million votes he claimed fell a long way short of the 19 million people who gave him a landslide election win just one year earlier.

And an estimated 10 million people cast "no votes" or abstentions including a majority in Bangkok.

"The result of no-vote ballots, particularly in Bangkok, was a big surprise to him. It was too high and that could create a major crisis," Panitan said.

The leader of the Mahachon Party, which boycotted the polls, hailed Thaksin's decision.

"I am glad and I praise him for it. I wanted to hear this for a long time. Now everything will be solved," Sanan Kachornprasart told Thai television.

But the spokesman for the leading Democrat Party, Ong-art Klampaiboon, said more needed to be done to heal the political divide.

"It will help the current political deadlock on a certain level, but not entirely, because the situation has dragged on for some time," he told Thai television.

The protracted crisis has cast a cloud over one of the region's most dynamic economies. The government has already adjusted economic growth forecasts and the stock market has taken a hit.

Business leaders welcomed Thaksin's move.

"Now he can step down with dignity. It's the right decision for the economy that the uncertainty would be relieved somehow," said Kiatphong Noijaiboon, a vice chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries.

- Channel NewsAsia, 4 Apr 2006.

i'm a such party animal. *growl*

	Your travel type: Party Animal The Party Animal always wears sunglasses during his vacation. He likes a good hotel, with a swimming pool and room service. A couple of drinks at night, maybe see a show, maybe roll the dice, that's the way to spend the evening. Culture? A museum? The others can go while the Party Animal stays in bed. You'll find him by the side of the pool when you get back with a martini to get rid of the hangover.
	top destinations: Las Vegas Acapulco Ngorongoro	stay away from: Darien Gap Ciudad Perdida Cairo

get your own travel profile

Centaur Warchief

Centaur Warchief You scored 75 Support, 12 Sneak, 57 Cheap!

All hail the Warchief! You're an absolute monster-- everyone wants to be the guy you're covering, and nobody wants to have to stand in your way. You plow through problems like a fat man through Twinkies! You might hear that you're too good at what you do-- but others should learn to hate the game, not the player. You're only playing to your strengths!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 90% on Support You scored higher than 0% on Sneak You scored higher than 45% on Cheap

Link: The Which DoTA Hero Are You? Test written by Daem on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

ham sandwich

Spotted this silly comic at Dan's site. Haaaaaa.

M600i. Damn cool.

Staying connected has always required a certain measure of personal sacrifice: sore thumbs, neglected and not-happy-about-it dinner companions, the lines of a nice suit ruined by a Treo or Blackberry. Sony Ericsson's just-announced M600i may fix that (the last part, anyway).

Its elegant proportions and monochromatic tones (it's available in black and white) make it as much a departure from its chunky cousins as the first iPod was from the MP3s of its day. Nor has Sony skimped on function: The M600i comes loaded with gadgety goodness, including a QWERTY-style keyboard, a touch screen with handwriting recognition, and tri-band GSM/GPRS capabilities, which means you can use it everywhere but mainland China (they get their very own version, the commies). And, despite being only 15 millimeters thin and a mere four ounces light, the device sports a 2.6-inch, 262K-color screen that can handle 30-frames-per-second video.

On the downside, deals have yet to be signed with American mobile carriers, so you'll have to snag one directly from Sony Ericsson and supply your own SIM card. Sure, that means no rebate, but hey, your suit will thank you.

Available directly from Sony Ericsson this spring; MSRP has not been set, but expect to pay several hundred dollars.

— Chris Kaye

sounds familiar

In France, where are the jobs?

PARIS French unemployment, a scourge that has haunted successive governments, is on a downward trend, slipping to its lowest level in almost three years at the end of last year.

But as ministers welcomed the decline as a sign that recent labor-market measures were showing early results, economists pointed to a conundrum: Unemployment might be down, but there was little sign that jobs were being created.

"Where are the jobs?" asked Laure Maillard, an economist at Ixis CIB in Paris. "It's one thing to lower unemployment and quite another to create work - and by extension economic growth."

After peaking at 10.2 percent in May, France's jobless rate has been falling steadily every month, dropping to 9.5 percent in December.

In the second half of the year the number of registered job seekers declined by a monthly average of 24,800 people. But an average of just 300 jobs a month were created in the private sector in the third quarter, the latest for which figures were available, according to the French statistics office, Insee.

That suggests that the decline in the jobless toll is the result of a growing number of people coming off unemployment benefits as the government tightens access and, maybe more significant, of a decline in the working-age population as the first wave of baby boomers begins to retire, economists said.

Unemployment and job creation used to be two sides of the same coin, said Philippe Waechter, an economist at Natexis Asset Management in Paris. No longer. "The link between the two is in the process of weakening and that means unemployment statistics are less meaningful," Waechter said. "It is much relevant to look at job creation figures and participation rates."

On that count business surveys do not bode well. The latest quarterly survey of French executives, published on Monday, showed that companies did not plan to increase their payrolls in the coming quarter.

A number of government measures announced in recent months might have helped persuade some executives to step up hiring, giving hope in Paris that job creation climbed in the fourth quarter. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has established tax breaks for companies that recruit apprentices and subsidies for recruiting temporary staff in the nonprofit sector. He also created a new work contract for small companies that prolongs the probation period to two years from six months, effectively making it easier for employers to cut jobs.

According to Nicolas Sobczak, an economist at Goldman Sachs in Paris, the recent measures were unlikely to have made a big impact. But, he said, they could prove an important step in tearing down psychological barriers to reform in France.

"By showing people that reducing job protection in some areas does not lead to higher unemployment, they might make it easier to broaden the reforms to all companies later on," he said.

- International Herald Tribune, 1 Feb 2006.

teamwork

toys

8,000 toys for kids in tsunami-hit countries

AFTER opening up their wallets to help those affected by the tsunami over a year ago, members of the public have again shown that they care - this time by donating more than 8,000 soft toys.

The soft toys were collected in a Singapore Red Cross (SRC) event, Share Joy, Bring A Toy, in just five days - from Dec 26 to 30 last year - at the tsunami photo exhibition in Tampines.

These were sorted yesterday by SRC volunteers and will be dry-cleaned free by laundrette Crusade Services before they go to non-governmental groups and voluntary welfare organisations for distribution to children in tsunami-affected areas of Aceh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Accompanying the toys are notes of encouragement, penned by the children who donated them.

- Straits Times, 23 Jan 2006.

I think the people over in tsunami-affected areas need their shelter and food more than toys.

We live by faith, not by sight.

The Evidence of Faith

The fields were parched and brown from lack of rain, and the crops lay wilting from thirst. People were anxious and irritable as they searched the sky for any sign of relief. Days turned into arid weeks. No rain came.

The ministers of the local churches called for an hour of prayer on the town square the following Saturday. They requested that everyone bring an object of faith for inspiration.

At high noon on the appointed Saturday the towns-people turned out en masse, filling the square with anxious faces and hopeful hearts. The ministers were touched to see the variety of objects clutched in prayerful hands – holy books, crosses, rosaries.

When the hour ended, as if on magical command, a soft rain began to fall. Cheers swept the crowd as they held their treasured objects high in gratitude and praise. From the middle of the crowd one faith symbol seemed to overshadow all the others: A small nine-year-old child had brought an umbrella.

- Laverne W. Hall

a worshipper

some say this, some say that; nobody says this, everybody says that. HE SAYS THIS!

some say tok more
some say dun tok so much,

some say scold them
some say dun scold them,

some say explain the song
some say leave the preaching to preacher

some say sing new songs
some say dun sing new songs

some say sing rock
some say sing jazz
some say sing pop
some say sing blues

some say sing in C
some say sing in A,

some say too high
some say too low,

some say bright colours too distracting
some say somber colours too boring,

some say dress more formal
some say look casual,

some say play more
some say you play too much

some say play louder
some say play softer

some say keep it simple
some say its boring

some say this
some say that

nobody says i'll choose to worship God
everybody says be perfect and I'll worship God

nobody says i'll choose to worship God
everybody says i'll worship if you sing my favourite song

nobody says i'll choose to worship God
everybody says i'll worship if you sing it in my style

nobody says thank you
everybody says you should have done better

He says He has a plan, a special plan, a loving plan

He says i should please Him, not men

He says just worship me

and He's got the last say.

- princess_soaps

there's something about christmas

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

- Charles Dickens

pillows

Pillow talk

PILLOWS are essential for a good night's sleep. Top-tier hotels keep a wide range to suit the various preferences of guests.

The choices available on request extend beyond the regular foam, feather and polyester. They come in a variety of sizes too.

Here is a list of pillows offered by the Shangri-La Hotel and Swissotel Merchant Court:

Bolster pillow: long and cylindrical to conform to the shape of the body

Natural buckwheat hull pillow: made of cleaned and processed hulls, it helps relieve tense muscles and ease back and neck pain

Contour pillow: made of natural latex and contoured to fit the shape of the head

Snore reduction pillow: made of polyester fibres, it keeps the head and neck aligned to prevent snoring

Herbee pillow: filled with polyester and a mixture of herbs, including lavender, rose petals, oregano, rosemary, peppermint, sage, marigold and lemon verbena

Linear gravity pillow: filled with blended fibres, it reduces stress and muscle tension in the neck

Cherry stone thermal pillow: filled with cherry stones, this pillow helps to alleviate stiffness in shoulders, soreness in the back and general aches.

- Straits Times, 20 Dec 2005.

frosty the snowman

Fenfen and I had started making some bookmarks as christmas presents. Was quite impress with the bookmarks I came up with! I like it! :P

national hero

Requiem: Devan Nair speaks out, March 26, 1999

A serious threat of closure faces the Worker's Party led by Mr. J. B. Jeyaretnam because of failure to pay the forbidding damages awarded against the Party by a court in Singapore. One hopes against hope that this might be avoided at the last minute. It is a slim hope. The world has come to assume, rightly or wrongly, that the political tactics used by the PAP against opposition politicians have for some time come to include suing their pants off, forcing them into bankruptcy and losing their seats in parliament as a result. Now the same device is resorted to against opposition political parties themselves, as registered institutions. The onus of proof is on the government of Singapore, not on global public opinion.

Nothing that smacks of opposition seems safe in Singapore any longer. Singaporeans must sooner or later come to realise the harsh truth that nobody in Singapore is truly saved unless all are seen to be saved. The post of no return has long passed for Singaporeans, and one fears they will perforce learn this lesson the hard way. In the ultimate analysis, this is probably best. The more painful the price paid to learn basic human lessons, the more firmly might they become embedded in the national fibre. A free Singapore will arise and justify the sacrifices and efforts of undaunted Singaporeans, now including the courageous Chee Soon Juan, who had immolated themselves on the altar of freedom. Phoenix-like, their dreams will rise once again from their ashes. Were this process not true, the world would have come to an end long ago.

It is just as well that I release this Requiem now. If not timely yet, it will be soon enough. Here goes, for good or ill to myself.

Some months after I was kicked upstairs to the presidency of the republic of Singapore in October 1981, there was a by-election in the parliamentary constituency of Anson, which I had held prior to my ill-fated elevation. I had won that seat with a comfortable majority of some 80 percent of the votes cast. My opponent was the Worker's Party leader J.B. Jeyaretnam.

Today, looking back, I realise that it was not the PAP that had won that seat with such a thumping majority, but I myself who had won it almost entirely in my personal capacity as the unchallenged leader of the free trade union movement in Singapore (no longer free). True, I had persuaded the trade unions to cooperate with the government in its attempts to ensure that the economy of Singapore was kept on an even keel. They overwhelmingly voted their approval, because I had successfully convinced them that the organised greed and reckless disregard for the social good represented by British style trade unionism of the day would clearly not do for a small island state like Singapore with absolutely no natural resources of any kind to boast of apart from God's own fresh air. In doing so, my members knew that I had not surrendered an iota of the institutional independence of the NTUC (National Trade Union Congress). Indeed they knew that at every Delegates Conference of the NTUC they had unanimously endorsed a firmly worded resolution I had introduced from the platform reiterating what they most highly valued - the institutional independence of the labour movement.

These days, you won't find a single reference in any of the resolutions passed by the NTUC to the priceless oath of institutional independence a few colleagues and I had entrenched in our founding constitution. Let me make it clear. The PAP had no hand in the founding of the NTUC.

Be that as it may, a by-election had to be called in Anson. The PAP's candidate was a faceless civil service appointee of Lee Kuan Yew who had been seconded for service to the NTUC, while the Workers Party put up J.B Jeyaretnam. To the consternation of the PAP, Jeyaretnam won.

The day after the by-election verdict was declared, I had lunch with the Prime Minister (Lee Kuan Yew). I was amazed at how he fretted and fumed like a caged fury. As I saw it, Jeyaretnam constituted no threat at all to the PAP whether in parliament or outside it. For one thing, despite Jeya's courage, he displayed a woeful lack of economics. He clearly never knew at any point of time how Singapore clicked economically. And it was as plain as a pikestaff to me that in five years of free performance in parliament against the likes of Dr Goh Keng Swee, Mr Lim Kim San et al, he would stand exposed in public for his abysmal ignorance of economics.

In truth, if I had to cope with J.B Jeyaretnam as a hostile delegate at regular NTUC Delegates Conferences, I would have given him all the rope and more he wanted to hang himself with. And after free and open arguments over three days of conferencing, I would have beaten him hands down at the ballot box. I knew this, as did the workers. For they knew that in the colonial days, Jeyaretnam had never stood on a picket line. I had, not once but several times, not only stood on picket lines, but also bedded down for the night on the gravel with the workers whom I led.

I told all this to Kuan Yew. Nothing I said sank in. He fretted about a potential critical percentage drop in PAP votes across all the constituencies that could eventually bring the PAP government down, and he wouldn't stand for it. Only later did I realise that this was the moment that started his formidable brain box ticking away furiously at the fecund gerrymandering schemes he was to introduce later to ensure that all opposition parties would be put in a Gordion bind that would make it impossible for them to ever achieve control of parliament, unless an Alexander came along. Such a possibility appears impossible now, unless it takes the awesome shape of shattering geo-political circumstances already building up around Singapore.

Immediately, however, Kuan Yew's attention was concentrated on how he would deal with J.B Jeyaretnam in parliament. I was quite alarmed at some of the things he told me at that lunch. "Look," he said, "Jeyaretnam can't win the infighting. I'll tell you why. We are in charge. Every government Ministry and department is under our control. And in the infighting, he will go down for the count every time." And I will never forget his last words. "I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy."

Jeyaretnam was made of sterner stuff. To his eternal credit he never did crawl on bended knees, or ever begged for mercy. And it is to Lee Kuan Yew's eternal shame that Jeyaretnam will leave the political scene with his head held high, enjoying a martyrdom conferred on him by Lee. Lest I be misunderstood, let me state that Jeya more than deserves the crown of the martyr for his indomitable courage and dignity in the face of the vilest persecution.

Even greater human spirits than Jeyaretnam had refused to bend their knees to Lee Kuan Yew. It is my considered view that the greatest human being living in Singapore today is one who declined to surrender to the intimidation of prolonged incarceration and restrictions imposed on him without trial for a total period which exceeds that suffered by Nelson Mandela. And here was the mark of true greatness. He emerged from the experience like a god unembittered. His name is Chia Thye Poh. And it is Lee Kuan Yew who emerged from the episode as the knave and fool of his own mindless vindictiveness, while the real conqueror smiles benignly - unnoted, of course, by the local media. For only sound waves from the Istana Annexe are picked up and regurgitated by His Master's Voice.

There is no political justification for obliging the Workers Party to close down. And not a shred of moral justification. What lies behind the move is among the most brazen vindictiveness ever shown in the political life of Singapore. It merely adds one more nail in the coffin of the PAP's reputation when the true history of the party will be exposed to the world, as it surely will be one day in the coming decades of the third millennium. As mankind accelerates to the abyss, the shining memories of the past will certainly not include Lee Kuan Yew and the department store dummies he boasts today as his acolytes. He clearly does not possess the foresight to avoid such a fate.

I gladly salute J.B. Jeyaretnam and the Worker's Party at this highly deserved requiem, even if I never once had shared their platform.

I learn something new from Mr Wang today!