Yet again, a refugee crisis in Southeast Asia has concerned the world. In Singapore, however, the Government’s usual rejection of an asylum policy has hardly been questioned- unusual for a nation with thriving and critical online discourse of issues. Theophilus Kwek argues that other options are possible- and questions the assumptions that make us shy away from them.
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BY HOE JIA WEN & BRENDAN DEAN ZHI MIN Dear Readers, We’re excited to get the Singapore Policy Journal (SPJ)
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BY JOCELYN LANG What, or who, really is the Smart Nation? In the era of the #SmartNation Singapore, discussions of “smartness” abound in the news space, but corresponding discussions of nationhood are few and far in between. …
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BY THEOPHILUS KWEK On Monday, 6th March, District Judge Low Wee Ping delayed sentencing domestic helper Kusrini Caslan Arja, an Indonesian citizen, for allegedly putting the life of her employers’ child at risk. The disabled boy had been left in Kusrini’s care, and in an effort to retrieve a suction cap that had fallen into his mouth, she had inadvertently worsened the injury. Having examined the facts, Low…
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BY GLENN K.H. ONG “Knowing where you are going,” declared Minister for Foreign Affairs S. Rajaratnam in the 1970s, “is
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Asset values may plateau, and we have to begin rethinking the investment value of HDB flats. BY MUI PONG GOH 80% of Singaporeans live in the HDB they own, so it’s unsurprising that there was public uncertainty when the Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong warned that HDB flats were technically worthless at the end of their leasehold. …
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We’ve been extraordinary in economic development. We can be as good at defeating xenophobia. BY ROYCE QUEK Rome wasn’t built in a day: and it also wasn’t built by the people and riches of its own lands. Instead, its armies conquered Greece, North Africa and Asia Minor through the manpower of not just Romans, but the many Roman allies: fellow Italian cities which had been subjugated by Rome and were forced to give soldiers to the Roman war machine. With this strategy of co-opting other cities into its growing dominion, Rome swept all before it. But the Italians weren’t happy …
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BY HOE JIA WEN Climate change has arrived.
It is no longer simply a threat for the hypothetical future generations, but a problem for our generation, and particularly, our children’s generation. For the first time, 2015 saw the global average temperature hit 1°C above than the pre-industrial era, moving perilously closer to the 1.5°C limit that countries committed to Paris only the year before. Singapore’s own annual mean temperature has risen by 1.7°C since 1972, from 26.6°C to 28.3°C in 2015 (NCCS). …
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Relooking Cultural Integration and Cosmopolitanism in Singapore BY Z.H. From the rash of online sentiments directed against foreigners during the
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BY POH YONG HAN For a young city-state, Singaporeans celebrate our “cosmopolitanism” and “global outlook” as ingredients for economic success.
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Privatizing SMRT in July has longer-term implications for efficiency and resilience of our public rail network
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BY TERENCE TAN Our children will have to deal with a more divided world. They’re going to grow up in
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BY THEOPHILUS KWEK “Until very recently Singapore’s past was a matter of supreme indifference for most Singaporeans simply because they
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BY KSHITIJ BANSAL Our education system has served us well thus far. Presentation skills, deal-making skills, teamwork skills and the
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BY ZACH ISAIAH CHIA It seems that globalisation has resulted the rise of nationalism and xenophobia. We see it in
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BY BENJAMIN ANG The ongoing legal dispute between Apple Inc and the FBI, over accessing data on the iPhone of
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BY GAURAV KEERTHI Introduction In commemoration of Total Defence Day, I thought I could try to ask four fundamental questions
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BY LEE CHIN WEE Fifteen years ago, the site which now houses the Gardens by the Bay was little more
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BY TAN TECK BOON As Singapore transforms itself into a Smart Nation, challenges will emerge. Instead of being decentred, the
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BY SAMUEL MYAT SAN “Regardless of race, language or religion…” This phrase in Singapore’s National Pledge has been a cornerstone
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BY CHARLES PHUA CHAO RONG & INDERJIT SINGH Post-GE2015, talk has primarily focused on the euphoric victory of the People’s
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BY NUR IRFANI BINTE SARIPI & NUR AZLIN MOHAMED YASIN Singapore has been shaken by news that two teenagers have
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BY AMARIS LEE With Singapore in its 50th year of independence, the island’s past has been the focal point of
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BY HYGIN PRASAD FERNANDEZ & NICHOLAS TAN Seeking the highest office in the land, then-governor Ronald Reagan launched his candidacy
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BY TAN TECK BOON The latest July 2015 United Nations World Population Prospects (UNWPP) paints a sober picture of Singapore’s
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