E-connection

Dear 4EA, 4EB, 5N1 & 5N2,

Please submit your email addresses here. I would like to try E-learning using google doc, so I need your email addresses. If you already have a google account, I prefer you to submit your google (e.g gmail or hotmail) email addresses.

World Bank giving more to the poor

Funding for safety net schemes such as school feeding tripled to $18 billion

By Bhagyashree Garekar, US Correspondent


A girl drinking soup under a child advocate group's feeding plan in Manila. The World Bank is tripling its support for safety net programmes amid fears that the recession will result in more people going hungry. It is also providing more funds for infrastructure and agriculture projects. -- PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE


WASHINGTON: During the Asian financial crisis, there was a 22 per cent increase in anaemia among pregnant women in Thailand. In Indonesia, the average weight of children under three declined.
But 'the debate about numbers silenced a debate about people', noted World Bank president Robert Zoellick as he announced a new US$55 billion (S$82 billion) infrastructure initiative to help blunt the impact of the global recession.

'We need to ensure that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past,' he said at a press conference here on Thursday, ahead of the weekend spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Mr Zoellick sees it as the World Bank's business to protect the most vulnerable against the fallout of the global recession.
Statistics showing the rise in the number of malnourished pregnant women in Thailand and underweight children in Indonesia, among other developments - traceable to severe cuts in basic health, nutrition and education budgets - 'aren't temporary blips on the computer screens', he said. 'The results can be lifelong.'
And society often pays the price, he said, in the form of violence and social unrest.
Amid concern that the present economic crisis is pushing millions more into poverty, the World Bank announced this week that it was tripling - to US$12 billion (S$18 billion) over the next two years - its support for safety net programmes like school feeding, which provides poor children with school meals.
'Their cost, at less than 1 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product), is a small price to pay,' Mr Zoellick said.
With around a billion undernourished people in the world, the World Bank is also stepping up funds for agriculture projects and food security.
As Mr Zoellick recently remarked: 'In London, Washington and Paris, people talk of bonuses or no bonuses. In parts of Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the struggle is for food or no food.'
By ramping up infrastructure spending, the World Bank hopes to build a foundation for national growth and create jobs. In certain Latin American countries, every US$1 billion spent on rural road maintenance projects can create as many as 500,000 jobs. But during an economic crisis, infrastructure projects are typically the first to be cut.
During the Asian crisis, Indonesia's total public investment in infrastructure dropped from about 7 per cent of its GDP in 1995-97 to 2 per cent in 2000.
In the Latin American and Caribbean crises of the 1990s, some 50 per cent of government budget cuts came from reductions in public infrastructure spending.
However, China saw both job and productivity gains in keeping up its infrastructure investments during the crisis, said Mr Zoellick, calling it a wise move.
The former US trade chief also urged policymakers to make sure trade protectionism did not exacerbate the crisis. He noted that since the Group of 20 meeting in London earlier this month, nearly half of the countries represented there had implemented some form of protectionist measures.
'The danger of protectionism is increasing,' he said. 'As the recession deepens, leaders will be under pressure to protect home markets.
'You definitely want to do everything you can to avoid negative shocks. A retreat to protectionism would be the type of negative shock that would pull you back to a 1930s scenario.'
bhagya@sph.com.sg

Green Reflection

Earth Day is just over. I think this year I've put in greater effort in being more environmental. In fact, I put "Be more environmental" in my new year resolution 2009. I would like to take stock of what I did so far that is green in nature. I definitely did better than last year I think...
1. I created a recycling box to store all the recycle papers in the HOD room. I encourage the HODs to contribute recycle papers as well as use them. In fact, I put the recycled papers in the printer trays and inform HODs that whatever they're printing will be on recycled papers, unless they want fresh sheets of white paper, they will need to load in themselves. This idea was well-received. The school clerks also helped me collect recycle papers. They know I will always collect from them when the paper runs low. Eversince I take on the job to load recycled papers in the HOD room, it daunts on me the rate of our use of paper. We easily finished about one or two reams of paper a day (wonder what we print?).
2. I ususally don't print out circulars unless it's very necessary, so I'll read everything on the computer.
3. I bring my own water bottle to workshops or meetings so I don't use the styroaform cups. Anyway, I seldom drink coffee or tea, so I don't see the need of using the cups. As for styroaform plates, I do use them at times. Don't think I can bring along a plate everywhere I go.
4. I always bring my environmental bag around, so far I've put the bag to good use. Again, occassionally I still accept plastic bags (still trying to improve on this).
5. In school, I try to save electricity. I'll switch off the lights along the corridors in the day time. Sometimes, some itchy hands will switch them on again. I switch off fans and lights of classes when there is no one in class (I really hope the students can be more careful with this. I feel the pain when I see them wasting resources).
6. On Saturdays when I go back to school, if I'm alone, I don't switch on the air-cons but open the windows and doors and use the fan.

Well... that's about it. Definitely can do more. Still trying!

Disney made a documentary called Earth and it was launched on 22 April 2009 in America. Hope it comes to Singapore soon!

Susan Boyle

Watch this 'Britian Got Talent'. It's very moving. So many learning points for us.

1.Don't judge a book by its cover.
2. Dare to dream.
3. Have faith in oneself.

Using death to sell marriage

8 April, ST
Director Yasmin Ahmad's new commercial to get Singaporeans married is set at a funeral
By john lui





Malaysian director Yasmin Ahmad can always be relied on to get people talking.
Her first award-winning commercial for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports last year, Family, generated a lot of buzz for its depiction of the devotion of a single father to his strong-willed teenage daughter.

Her second commercial for the ministry is likely, in the words of Mr Richard Tan, its director of communications and international relations, to 'raise some eyebrows'.

The advertisement, which debuted on television on Sunday, is set at a funeral, depicts an interracial marriage and talks about bodily functions.

In it, a wife pays tribute to her dead husband and talks about his less than endearing habits - snoring and farting in bed.

It is part of a $1.25 million campaign to encourage Singaporeans to get married. The campaign was spurred in part by a 2006 survey which showed that many respondents were waiting for a suitable partner to show up.

'People want to get married, but they want to wait for Ms or Mr Right,' said Mr Tan.

'We want people to know that you can build a beautiful relationship - an imperfectly beautiful relationship.'

Yasmin said the characters in the commercial, titled Funeral, are based on her own life and those of people she knows.

The 51-year-old film-maker said: 'When I was young, I used to sleep on my father's chest and he would snore like a buffalo. And everybody who has been married will have the same stories about their spouse.'

Annoying traits are the very things that partners will treasure about each other in the long term, says Yasmin, who scripted, cast and directed the work. She is married with a teenage daughter.

The unconventional three-minute advertisement breaks social taboos. Funerals, for example, are considered by the Chinese to be unlucky occasions. Then there is the delicate subject of breaking wind.

But the commercial has already caught people's imaginations, judging from the speed at which the link to the YouTube version is making the rounds on Facebook and the reactions of viewers.

Auditor Nancy Chew, 33, said she found the new commercial to be even better than Family and gave it high marks for its subtlety.

'I came upon it channel-surfing. That I stayed to watch it says a lot. I cried after watching it,' said Ms Chew, who is single but dating. She was also surprised by how light the touch was, considering it was a government-sponsored ad.

Yasmin was first approached by MCYS on the recommendation of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who had seen her series of family and racial harmony commercials for Malaysian oil company Petronas.

The Family commercial won the recent MediaCorp Viewers' Choice 2008 award in the local category. It has also garnered thousands of views on YouTube.

For now, there are no plans for a third commercial. Yasmin is set on making her first Singapore film.

She is known for taking on the troubling and beautiful aspects of life in multiracial, multi-religious Malaysia in award-winning feature films such as Muallaf (2008), about the friendship between a Malay Muslim girl and a Chinese Catholic boy, and Sepet (2005), which tells an interracial love story between a Malay girl and a Chinese boy.

Her movies have caused controversy across the Causeway and some people have accused her of hurting the reputation of Malays.

But her films have also earned her a devoted following on both sides of the Causeway. The fact that Singapore has released her movies which have run into censorship issues in her home country has not escaped the film-maker's attention.

She said: 'Singapore has been very kind to me.'

So she is keen to make a film here about the lives of Bangladeshi migrant workers and Malay pub waitresses set in, and around, a karaoke lounge in Little India.

She said she is fascinated by the idea of social status in Singapore and how little it has to do with happiness.

'I've made friends with some of these workers and they are so hopeful and optimistic and I've met middle- and upper-class Singaporeans who are so pessimistic,' she said.

She is now looking for financial backers for the project. She said: 'The budget is going to be around $300,000. Very cheap lah!'

johnlui@sph.com.sg

To get Singaporeans to have more babies, the government first must get the singles to get married. The MCYS has commissioned Yasmin Ahmad to direct the advertisements to get people to know that it is possible to work for a beautiful relation with an imperfect partner. I really like Yasmin Ahmad's advertisements, mostly very heartwarming or poignant. The following are some of my favourites.

S'pore's meritocratic edge

MM Lee spoke during the lecture yesterday about how Singapore had to compete and survive in an ever-changing world. -- ST PHOTO: LAU FOOK KONG

April 10, 2009
S. RAJARATNAM LECTURE

Cohesive, multiracial and alert to vulnerabilities are crucial traits, says MM
By Zakir Hussain, Political Correspondent

MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has urged Singaporeans not to delude themselves that they are a part of the First World in South-east Asia.

Singapore is situated in a region with 'special features' which makes it particularly vulnerable, so to keep its competitive edge and be relevant to the world, it must stay a cohesive, multiracial, multireligious nation based on meritocracy, he said.

'Our region has its own special features. Singapore's destiny would be very different if we were sited in Europe or North America.

'We cannot transplant our island elsewhere. Therefore, a recurrent issue for Singapore is how to differentiate ourselves from our neighbours in order to compete and survive, and also get along with them,' he said.

Mr Lee made these points in a prepared lecture to 500 Foreign Service officers, diplomats, and guests at the annual S. Rajaratnam Lecture, an event organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Academy and named after Singapore's first foreign minister.

Highlighting the fundamentals of Singapore's foreign policy, he said that as a small country, Singapore 'must seek a maximum number of friends, while maintaining the freedom to be itself as a sovereign and independent nation'.

To survive, it must stay relevant to the world, find its competitive edge, and rise above geographical and resource constraints.

'Had we disported ourselves like our better-endowed neighbours, we would have failed,' he said.
While time and working together in Asean had worn down many of the 'sharper edges' in Singapore's relations with its immediate neighbours, certain fundamental vulnerabilities remain, and successor generations of Singaporeans must not forget these, he said.

He elaborated on the 'complexities' of Singapore's relations with its neighbours, in particular those caused by differences between their political and social systems.

The Last Lecture

Just finished reading this book 'The Last Lecture' by Randy Pausch. See the side bar for the book cover. It's quite an easy read and I finished the book in two and a half hours' time. Very touching and inspiring. Mrs Koh lent it to me. Try to get hold of the book and read. It will change your perspective about how you should live your life.

"On September 18, 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch stepped in front of an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University to deliver a last lecture called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” With slides of his CT scans beaming out to the audience, Randy told his audience about the cancer that is devouring his pancreas and that will claim his life in a matter of months. On the stage that day, Randy was youthful, energetic, handsome, often cheerfully, darkly funny. He seemed invincible. But this was a brief moment, as he himself acknowledged.

Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, as has the book he wrote based on the same principles, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities. Sadly, Randy lost his battle to pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008, but his legacy will continue to inspire us all, for generations to come."

Extracted from the website www.thelastlecture.com

Fighting erupts again at Thai-Cambodian flashpoint

They accuse each other of provoking gunbattle at border near temple

4 April 2009, ST








Thai soldiers standing guard in the disputed border area with Cambodia near the Preah Vihear temple. As many as four soldiers were killed in a gunbattle yesterday. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

HNOM PENH: Cambodian and Thai troops fought heavy gunbattles on their disputed border yesterday, leaving as many as four soldiers dead just days before a key regional summit.
Soldiers traded rocket, machine gun and mortar fire near an 11th century Khmer temple following a brief exchange of shots earlier in the day, officials from both sides said.

There were reports of two Cambodians killed, but Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said the deaths had not been confirmed.

Two Thai soldiers were killed and six wounded in the fighting, the deputy commander of Thailand's Second Army, Lieutenant-General Thawatchai Samutsakorn, told Thai television.
The fighting is the latest flare-up near the cliff-top Preah Vihear temple, which is on the Cambodian side of an ill-defined border that has been a source of conflict for decades. Two clashes last year sparked brief concerns of war.
The latest exchange came just days before Asean leaders are to meet in Thailand from April 10 to 12. Yesterday, however, Cambodian Premier Hun Sen stressed at a Cabinet meeting that he would attend the Asean 10+3 meetings.

A tense stand-off at the border last year had dogged an Asean meet in Singapore last August, putting regional solidarity to the test. In the end, neither the United Nations nor Asean played a direct role in negotiations to defuse the danger.

Both sides blamed each other for starting yesterday's gunbattle. The first exchange of shots took place at about 7am, with heavy gunfire breaking out at 2pm.
Cambodia's military said its soldiers fired on 60 Thai soldiers after they entered Cambodian territory.

Preah Vihear, or Khao Phra Viharn as it is known in Thailand, sits on an escarpment that forms the natural border between the two countries and has been a source of tension for generations. The International Court of Justice awarded it to Cambodia in 1962, but the ruling did not determine the ownership of 4.6 sq km of scrub next to the ruins, leaving considerable scope for disagreement.

A joint border committee set up to demarcate the jungle-clad border area after last year's clashes, which killed one Thai and three Cambodian soldiers, will meet again on Sunday for three days of talks.

Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) expressed concern and called for the two sides to resolve their differences through negotiations. 'We urge both parties to exercise utmost restraint in the broader interests of the region,' an MFA spokesman said.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS

What was the reason for the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia?
What role did the International Court of Justice play in the conflict?

Study the picture above. What does the picture tell you about ASEAN? Explain your answer.