After reading this thread, I would like to post some of my thoughts on this issue….

 

The Pedra Branca issue involves the territorial, sovereignty and strategic survival issues of Singapore. As much as I dun agree with PAP, I believe even if today, WP, SDA, SDP is in power, they would definitely also have exercise all means to protect SG’s interest in terms of Pedra Branca. Anyone that calls him or herself a SGrean must stand together as a united front to deal with the PB issue, bcos, the challenge faced today involves all SGreans and not any political party, or any policy this and that. So one must be clear this is a SG issue and not a PAP issue.

 

I have read in some other forums, ppls felt that we should back-down from this issue as MY can easily take up retributive actions against SG, or this PB issue is a classic example of Kiasu SGrean mentality.  I can only say, pls get your realities checked. Remember WW2? Neville chamberlain and many pacifists claim that by supporting Germany’s claim on Austria, Hilter will be contented and be willing to work with the western power. But it nv happened, Hilter went on to Sudetenland and eventually the whole of Europe. This example may not be perfect, but it illustrate the situation well. MY unilaterally increase their territorial wate from 3nm to 12nm without consulting neighouring ASEAN nations. By going to ICJ and winning it, we are sending a strong msg to MY not to push its luck and redefine its border into our backyard. If not, who knows when the 12nm may become 20nm the next day, and soon, all our offshore islands will be claimed by them. Lets not forget, SG depends heavily on maritime trade and activities like petrochemical industries. PB acts as a gate-keeper/sentry for the easten end of SG.

 

Let me give u a real-life example of how serious these ‘small’ problems can get. Not too long ago, PRC unilaterally planted naval markers in regions around an island of the spratley regions. PRC did this despite an agreement between ASEAN and PRC that indicates no party was allowed to build new structure unilaterally on these islands. The Estrada administration took a bold stand by sending F-5 to bomb those markers. PRC got the msg and no further buildings occurred. After a few yrs, during the Arroyo administration, PRC decided to test their luck and build some port facilities and watch towers on one of the island. Arroyo did not take up any action against them and merely raised some matters of concern to the PRC counterparts. This was a disastrous move as PRC are rapidly solidifying their infrastructures on the island. To rub salt on the wounds, PRC dangled millions of dollars of aid to the Philippines in exchange for their agreement to allow hydrographic exploration of the region. For that, I’m not sure whether they agreed, however if the pinoys agreed to it, their nightmare is abt to begin. Many may just think that those ocean surveys are just for innocent maritime studies. But most dun understand the implications of such activities in the military sense. It can be used for facilitating the planning of submarine usages during wartime, in which, PRC have many.  So one can see how not so innocent these small matters may seem.

 

 

I was wondering why the PLA air-dropped some paras despite the poor weather. I mean the paras' life can be endangered and cause themselves to be trapped instead as the strong winds can easily throw them into a scattered mass. The reconsolidation of man-power is also slower and less efficient.

Well spicycity, just as western media like CNN is biased against PRC, PRC's own state controlled media is also just as biased. When this Tibet saga started on 14/3, most western media reported both the peaceful gatherings of the Tibetians and also the violence and carnage the Tibetians caused. However, PRC's media placed total emphasis on the violence, eg. interviewing only Han casualties, footages of burnt stuff, there was no interviewing of Tibetians regarding their feelings and thoughts.

 

This remember of my trip to PRC, during then, the latest news was that saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by the Iraqi court. Guess what, I read some PRC newspaper that decried the sentence as injustice and claim Saddam is a true defender of Islam. They also put lots of pictures of collateral damage done by colaition on the civilians. But the funny thing is, they are totally ignoring the facts that he used chemical weapons against the Iranians which lead to many deaths and wounded.

What I am putting forward, is a matter of concern. I am neither pro-Tibet nor pro Beijing. As our local unis are getting more internationalised, these issues of the foreigners may clash with the interest of the locals. The sch is an institution to study and receive knowledge, and most unions are not allowed to discuss policies of the state or other related stuffs. According to the govt, foreigners are not welcomed to politicise, put forward their ideologies to influence SG, so isn't what these PRC doing, contradicts this statement? My fear is that if these matters get out of hand, e.g. 11 of them rope in more of their compatroits to chant and shout slogans, or worst, get in a fight against western students. Our effort to promote SG as an international education hub will go to waste. Ppl will see the local unis as dangerous first, rather than the PRCians as dangerous.

 

Just to illustrate my concern, take a look at the example in this link

 http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2008/04/14/News/Student.Gets.Threats.After.China.Protest-3322848.shtml

For that I am not sure....... But look at it this way, the campus security was having his meal in the canteen and has the full view of the entire event, he did not go and stop them. They were still having the rally, when I came out of the library 4 hrs later. Considering how fast the sch clamp down on students from criticisng the sch with regards to tution fees, no price for guessing whether they got a permit. Besides, all events are govern by the student union headed by lecturers as adviser. So the only way for them to hold such events without being shoo-ed away, is to get a permit......

I was wondering and seriously pondering, to what an extent are our local universities biased towards foreigners.

 

Yesterday, while walking along a sheltered connector towards the canteen, I encountered a huge jam of human flow in the front. It was later that I found out that a group of PRC students are holding a signature petition rally for the Beijing 2008. There was this China student parading abt waving a full sized PRC flag, while the other student was holding a large plank card with writings, of support Beijing 2008 and stop western media from demonising PRC. Some other of their compatroits are manning the signature books........

 

I was wondering, why did the university allow such events to be held? Last time, when the student union wanted to conduct similar signature gathering on banner, to protest against the increase in tution fees, the school step in immediately and stop the union from doing so. Emails were also sent to threaten the students of the consequences of participating. The sch used the execuse that such event may cause public nuisance, and may cause public disorder. So the PRC students waving the flag, blocking the walk way is not a nuisance? Besides, considering the sch have quite a number of western nation students, what if a scuffle broke out between them and the PRC students? Isn't such things a cause of concern? Lastly, if a student is to hold a "Pro-Tibet" rally, will the sch approve of this?........... 

Well.......SG spent close to a million dollars to invite a French consultant to name marina bay as "marina bay".

 

So who's more foolish?

And by claiming that this proj is a waste of money and is irrelevant, you are insulting those who study arts and especially history. In SG, they are the very ppls that ensure that your future generations won't think that SG history is just abt LKY and Raffles

Erm......lion....you sure the hornets can take off from these mini-cv? I think Harrier II maybe

Hi patrick, I am not from RP but from NTU MSE (mat. sci). I am currently doing an undergrad course in material science, so I guess my experiences may be relevant to you....

 

MSE is a new branch of study that marries both engineering, applied chemistry and physics into one field. The current materials available in the industries can no longer satisfy the increasing speciality needs of various industrial designs. Therefore, hybrid materials of metals, ceramics, polymers are created to satisfy this need. Material science also looks into the structure of materials at the nano-scale. How strength, hardness, toughness and other physical properties are heavily dependent on the arrangement of atoms at nano-scale. Instruments used to study these materials at atomic lvls are eg. XRD, SEM, TEM, STM, AFM...........

 

For ntu, I have many friends that took the poly route to uni. So I think the prospects are gd for u. Besides, the semi-con industry also need alot of MSE ppls, same with the new player on the block, life-science. For MSE, my exp is that the maths is less demanding as compared to other engineering courses. But great emphasis placed on theorectical understanding of how things work at atomic lvl. I'm not so sure for u how is it like, so u got to go and exp on ur own. Besides, MSE also opens the door to many research opportunities.....  

Well you got to understand PRC is very much similar to SG. The media is highly controlled by the CCP and foreign media has no access to Tibet to report on the first hand situation, while reporters are also denied the rights to travel to the place. The CCP is also eager to push the blame to Dalai and has issued the classic all time favorite explanation “This is an isolated minor situation that is le by individual that harbor desire to cause unrest in the society.” You got to understand what you read and hear from China is very much filtered by the CCP and the CCP has always manage to find ways to taichi the problems away. Just like our mediacorp and PAP have always push blames on SG’s problems to the opposition, globalization and CSJ. The CCP has taken pains to paint the image that they are the victims of an evil plot by Dalai, but they have been hiding many reality from the world. Just like the Americans dun like to talk about Abu Gharib.

 

A few days ago, I read from Lian he zao bao about an article regarding the Tibet issue. Just in case you think this article is written by some foreigners out to smear PRC’s reputation, the article is written by a PRC political analyst, a professor, that has extensive research on such issues. He said that the main problem of the Tibet issue is only partly caused by Dalai. No doubt PRC has made extensive upgrades of infrastructure to Tibet and built roads to Tibet, only a small popl of ppl esp. the higher echelon ppl get to enjoy these fruits of success. Like other parts of PRC, the social disparity is increasing and this is further worsen by the fact that the CCP is allowing large influx of ethnical Hans to enter Tibet, thus this causes a lot of racial unhappiness. The Hans are better off than the ethnical Tibetian in terms of economy and social status, thus this further creates unhappiness. Lastly, it is the PRC forced “sino-tisation” of Tibet that really make the problem reach the ante and cause all these riots.   

 

hmmm..... so this new customer in 2008 is it UAE or a new customer from middle east?

Well, I can only say that you got to know wad is really happening behinds the scenes to know what sort of foreign talents we are letting into SG.

 

I am currently studying in a local uni and I have a fair share of interactions with the PRC students and got to know some intimate, seldom known facts about them. Nope, I am not degenerating this into a PRC bashing thread, but I feel that it is time to really let SGreans know what is really happening in our local uni............

 

Firstly, my forummers have already pointed out that these FTs are not from their first line unis. I will elaborate more. I have talked to this PRC guy before and he says that he comes to SG bcos he wants to "escape from reality". I was surprised and I quized him abt why he said so. He said back in PRC, even second tier unis are very competitive and students have to study day and night just to barely survive there. So being just an average student, he knows he cannot fight for better hons with the rest, so he decided to SG scholarship. Bcos, the branding of being an overseases scholar is gd enough to land u in any respectable white collared job. He told me that back in China, he was a third yr student and he came to SG to STUDY THE SAME COURSE BUT STARTING FROM YR1 AGAIN!!!! No prize for guessing why he did so well when u just left NS and is struggling to cope with civie live, this guy is coming here to study something he has done b4, while enjoying free education, food, lodging from our tax money. So I asked him what was his GPA back in PRC and what was the entry test to come here as a scholar. He said most coming here are 2nd lower to 2nd upper and the entry test here is just seeing your transcript and doing some basic IQ test, we oral English test. Then I asked him, where did the 1st class go, he said those that could not afford, stayed on, while those that are rich, left for western countries. He told me also that the SG govt has also a recent scheme that allows scholars to do PHD in SG unis as a form of paying back the 6yr bonds.

 

 

Now you tell me seriously, after hereing these will you be super duper du lan anot, tell me............

Well, I think that whatever angle the missile flew out from the canister is relative to the picture. If you notice the height of the picture, if u shear it off a little more, the angle will be even lesser, if you don't crop it that much, the angle seems larger. Besides, if it was RAM missiles, it should have been widely reported on eg. SPIRI

Btw, which country country forces are these? In one of the pics they show this black colour rectangular stuff attached to the opening of the drum mag. Is this the so called special aid needed to overcome the high resistance of the spring in the drum mag?

 

http://www.gun-world.net/singapore/ultimax/conf.htm

 

bandolieer for 4 drum mags