Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category
Yew did it very well
Tom Plate heaps more praise on his master. Khaleej Times: Exceptional leaders are hard to find anywhere on the globe, including Asia. Until his recent retirement, this tough-as-nails guy—now 89 — had helped organise and run tiny Singapore almost like nobody has ever run anything. He certainly didn’t do things 100 per cent the American […]
Filed under: Commentary | Closed
Tags: china, human rights, lee kuan yew, lincoln medal, singapore, tom plate
Analysis of Singapore after Lee Kuan Yew, intended for an audience not already familiar with the topic. Foreign Affairs: Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s storied first prime minister, gave his countrymen two things that elude most developing nations: stability and prosperity. Now, a new generation of Singaporeans with little recollection of Lee’s crusade against poverty and […]
Filed under: Commentary, Quotes | 2 Comments
Tags: democracy, foreign affairs, general election, lee hsien loong, lee kuan yew, legacy, succession
Lee Kuan Yew in hot water over remarks on Islam again — this time for something he said in 2005. AFP via The Australian: SINGAPORE’s outspoken former leader Lee Kuan Yew has denied calling Islam a “venomous religion” after leaked US diplomatic cables set off a furore in the multiracial city-state. One of hundreds of […]
Filed under: Commentary, Newspaper, Quotes, Transcript | 3 Comments
Tags: islam, lee kuan yew, venomous religion, wikileaks
Another election winds down
It’s presidential election time, and Yawning Bread has an interesting observation: where is Lee Kuan Yew? Probably furious in the attic One person we did not hear from at all through this campaign was Lee Kuan Yew. Had he been muzzled? Or was he more furious with his own PAP and its preferred candidate than […]
Filed under: Commentary | 3 Comments
Tags: elections, lee kuan yew, pap, presidential election, singapore
Lee Kuan Yew once again tells people to stick with the PAP. ST: FORMER prime minister Lee Kuan Yew has warned of the dangers of Singapore moving towards a two-party system and electing weak and ineffective governments. The progress made by the country since independence is not cast in stone and would ‘spiral downwards’ with […]
Filed under: Commentary, Interview, Quotes | 5 Comments
Tags: alex au, cctv, first world, lee kuan yew, pap, two-party system
A professor at NUS does a survey that’s studiously ignored by the government media. AP via Winnipeg Free Press: Fewer Singaporeans consider the ruling People’s Action Party to be credible after the party’s worst election results since independence, a survey showed Friday. … Perhaps the biggest change since the election was the resignation of Lee […]
Filed under: Commentary, Newspaper | 2 Comments
Tags: authoritarian, credibility, general election, lee kuan yew, pap, retirement
Temasek Review suspects a conspiracy: It appears that a media blackout has been imposed on PAP supreme leader Lee Kuan Yew who was last heard in public announcing his stepping down from the Singapore cabinet last month. Since then, the state media had not carry any news about the octagenarian Lee who usually dispenses his […]
Filed under: Commentary | 3 Comments
Tags: lee kuan yew, media, temasek review
Novelist and columnist Catherine Lim on Lee Kuan Yew’s resignation. Catherine Lim: Indeed, the nations’ shock on 14 May, just a week after the election, at the resignation of MM from the cabinet (together with Mr Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister) could only be described as seismic in the Singapore political landscape. It reflected the […]
Filed under: Commentary | 5 Comments
Tags: demise, resignation
The Economist weighs in: SOMETIMES it seems that the founding father of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, has spent more time trying to tear himself away from running the island-state than he did ruling it in the first place. Now 87, he was Singapore’s first prime minister, serving for 31 years until 1990. At that point, […]
Filed under: Commentary | 7 Comments
Tags: economist, lee kuan yew, retirement
Lee Kuan Yew Watch 
Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew Has Neurological Disease
Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter reveals why he has trouble walking. Reuters via WSJ: Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first and longest-serving prime minister, is fighting a neurological disease that makes it difficult for him to walk, his daughter wrote in a newspaper column on Sunday. Lee Wei Ling, who is also director of Singapore’s National Neuroscience […]
Filed under: Commentary, Newspaper | 13 Comments
Tags: disease, lee kuan yew, lee wei ling, neuropathy, sensory peripheral neuropathy, walking