Singapore Democrats

Alfred Liu
The Standard

Investors in Lehman Brothers-backed investment products and who bought them from DBS Bank (Hong Kong) are likely to be given refunds.

The distributor of the troubled structured products said the issuer, Constellation Investment, will redeem the notes early.

Koh Gui Qing
Reuters

Singapore eased monetary policy on Friday for the first time since 2003 after the Southeast Asian economy sunk into its first recession in six years and as the meltdown in financial markets threatened to further hit growth.

Geoffrey Robertson
The Guardian

Lawyer and activist, he was for many years the only political opposition to Singapore's rulers

Joshua "Ben" Jeyaretnam, who has died aged 82, was for many years Singapore's only political opposition, standing courageously for universal values of fairness and free speech against Lee Kuan Yew's "Asian values" of hierarchical order, public submissiveness and government by the fittest - that is himself, his son and his People's Action party (PAP). Jeyaretnam, as leader of the Workers' party, was regularly persecuted, briefly imprisoned and ultimately bankrupted by colonial libel and contempt laws, but he continued his struggle to make Singapore a more open society.

Terence Chong
Asia Times Online

Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, the first opposition party candidate to be elected a member of parliament in Singapore, died of heart failure on September 30, aged 82.

The passing of Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, Singapore's best-known opposition politician, may not have been psychologically seismic enough to prompt Singapore's middle classes to search their souls, but it did offer an insight into how Singaporean institutions simultaneously constructed and sanitized his life for national memory.

Singapore Democrats

Lawyer Mr Chia Ti Lik is presently on a week-long visit to London to meet with NGOs and the legal fraternity to discuss the upcoming trial that Tak Boleh Tahan activists are facing. The trial will commence on 23 Oct 08. More information will be posted shortly.

Among some of the organisations that Mr Chia is meeting are the UK's Law Society as well as Interrights.

Singapore Democrats

As the souped-up engines roared and the fancy cars burned rubber on our roads, one in four Singaporeans turned up to watch the racing spectacle, making it a sport with real mass appeal.

Saeed Azhar
Reuters

Singapore's central bank said on Tuesday investors holding credit-linked notes linked to Lehman Brothers had received no coupon payments toward the end of the grace period on Tuesday, which would trigger an event of default.

Singapore Democrats

He may be dead but J B Jeyaretnam's voice is still finding its way to current issues. Ten years ago, the late opposition leader was interviewed by The Ridge, the student newspaper published by the National University of Singapore (NUS). NUS officials wanted to censor the interview. Sounds familiar?

But the student-editors stood firm and after a month of wrangling, the university administration relented and the piece was published.

Ten years on, have things changed? Now it's the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) that is playing the game of censor-thy-publication, prohibiting reports of Dr Chee Soon Juan's visit to the school.