Questions over the rights to air the English Premier League (EPL) as well as other sports channels will be raised when Parliament sits on Monday.   At least three MPs will ask the Acting Information, Communications and the Arts Minister about the recent successful bid by SingTel over the EPL rights.  Other questions tabled include concerns over the prices of HDB flats, the revenue generated from the Formula 1 night race, as well as the recent controversy over the Ms Singapore World pageant.

Source: CNA

Against the backdrop of such topics of ‘national concern’, Singapore’s key exports fell for the 17th consecutive month in September as demand from crucial markets including the US and European Union continued to decline.

Non-oil domestic exports fell 7.2 percent in September from a year earlier to 12.81 billion Singapore dollars, IE Singapore said in a statement.  The decline was sharper than the average 6.0 percent fall forecasted by analysts in a Dow Jones Newswires poll.  In all, total trade in September shrank 19.0 percent to 68.28 billion dollars from the same period a year ago. 

Let’s face it, despite the earlier evidence of recovery Singaporeans are not out of the woods yet.  Our parliamentarians are apparently unfazed, preferring instead to focus on sundry matters and other knick knacks.  

 

Comments

We help ourselves. Don’t expect others to help

Tom Wright painted a bleak picture of Singapore’s property sector going forward at The Wall Street Journal. His article ended with the following:
“I’m yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel [for Singapore],” says Mr. Tan, the high-end broker.
We would expect people to continue to dig the dirt and tell it to [...]



Our skin isn’t as thick as it should be

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a seminar on March 4 to discuss Singapore’s political blogosphere.  Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow and Research Assistant Tan Simin presented their paper on trends observed in the blogosphere.  As reported in the TOC, the researchers identified the following limitations:

The online-offline firewall, while somewhat alleviated by offline [...]



Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew – The answer to the African problem?

Recently, I followed a thread “Democracy and Economic Growth” which started in PoliticsForum.org.   Apparently, members there often question the role of democracy in a developing nation. “During the wave of democratization in Africa during the 90s, many people had renewed hope for the continent, immediately equating newly established democracies to economic growth. Are these democracies [...]



Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.
 
1. If you want [...]

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