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Fellowship of the Shares
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AK_Francis
Supreme |
29-Dec-2008 01:00
Yells: "Happy go lucky, cheers." |
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Ha ha, when u see diff investment houses experts said differently, then u ought to be careful liao. Observed an abnormal phenomena lately. | |||||||||
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j3r0m3
Veteran |
28-Dec-2008 23:06
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Analyst reports tend to be tilted towards one direction. The brokerage is definitely involved, either directly or otherwise |
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iPunter
Supreme |
28-Dec-2008 22:39
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A pinch may not be saltish enough... |
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singaporegal
Supreme |
28-Dec-2008 19:33
Yells: "Female TA nut" |
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I would take analyst reports with a pinch of salt.
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jackjames
Elite |
27-Dec-2008 20:06
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The Edge this week is a must buy ! many good info.... can't wait year 2009 to come, it would be a good year to invest, invest, invest, and see the fruits in 3 years time. huat la! |
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baseerahmed
Master |
27-Dec-2008 09:54
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A History of God: The Moviea video that is based on Karen Armstrong’s "A History of God " ( just some casual sharing ...) |
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Luostock
Senior |
26-Dec-2008 22:35
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Pls note that i want to block it only those programmes that contain the irritating sms. For news and forums i would want to read the subtitles, be it in English or Mandarin. | |||||||||
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iPunter
Supreme |
26-Dec-2008 09:21
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Just a narrow strip of paper neatly taped on the TV screen looks better than a towel. |
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Luostock
Senior |
25-Dec-2008 23:41
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The sms messages appearing at the bottom of TV programme (except news) of channel 8 is very irritating. I used a towel and 2 clothes clips to block those irritating sms messages at the bottom of the tv screen. | |||||||||
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baseerahmed
Master |
25-Dec-2008 12:10
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Talk :Karen ArmstrongCharter for Compassion |
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baseerahmed
Master |
22-Dec-2008 10:01
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At least one German banker, however, thinks the doom-and-gloom forecasts are overblown. "Some compare the situation to that of 1929, others talk about the worst crisis in near memory," said Wolfgang Sprissler, head of the German bank HypoVereinsbank (HVB) in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung to appear Monday. "It bothers me that the institutes in their studies try to outdo each other with more pessimistic scenarios," he said, adding that what is needed are signs of "optimism." - AFP/vm |
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baseerahmed
Master |
22-Dec-2008 09:56
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International finance leaders see "very dark" year ahead Posted: 22 December 2008 0134 hrs LONDON : International finance leaders delivered a grim forecast for 2009 on Sunday, warning next year could be even worse than this one despite a slew of government stimulus plans. International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn predicted a "very dark" 2009 which could be worse than expected if states failed to take sufficient action to fight the crisis, facing economies big and small. "Our forecasts are already very dark, but they will be even darker if not enough fiscal stimulus is implemented," he told BBC radio in London, predicting recession for advanced economies and decreasing growth for emerging ones. "I can see that some measures have been announced, but I'm afraid it won't go far enough," he said. The IMF has called for global fiscal stimulus of about two percent of GDP, equivalent to roughly 1.2 trillion dollars. The governor of the Bank of Spain was even more pessimistic, warning the world faced a "total" financial meltdown unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. "The lack of confidence is total," Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said in an interview with Spain's El Pais newspaper. He noted that the inter-bank lending market was not functioning, spawning "vicious" cycles with economic activity among consumers, businesses, investors and banks essentially frozen. "There is almost total paralysis from which no-one is escaping," he added. Still, there was fresh movement to stop the meltdown, with a decision by US president-elect Barack Obama to boost by 500,000 jobs a three-million-job creation goal to kickstart the world's biggest and ailing economy. Vice president-elect Joseph Biden also confirmed the Obama team was working on a second economic stimulus package which could top a trillion dollars according to some media reports. "What we're doing is putting together what we think will be the economic package that will do two things. One, stem the haemorrhaging of the loss of jobs, and begin to create new jobs," Biden told ABC television's This Week programme. "At the same time, we provide continuing liquidity for the financial markets." Biden put no firm figure to the package that would follow the 700-billion-dollar Wall Street rescue deal inked by President George W. Bush in October -- and which has failed to reverse the plummetting US economy. "There's going to be real significant investment, whether it's 600 billion dollars or more, or 700 billion dollars. The clear notion is, it's a number no-one thought about a year ago," he said. Japan, too, took another step to jumpstart its moribund economy, drafting a record 88.55-trillion-yen (1.01-trillion-dollar) budget for fiscal year 2009 -- up 6.6 percent from the initial budget for this fiscal year. The increase reflects an emergency economic package that Prime Minister Taro Aso announced earlier this month in a fresh bid to stave off a prolonged recession in the world's second-largest economy. In Europe, the Irish government said it was injecting 5.5 billion euros (7.6 billion dollars) to recapitalise three major banks: Anglo Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks. The government's move follows revelations last week that Anglo Irish's chairman and former chief executive, Sean FitzPatrick, failed to disclose an 87-million-euro loan from the bank. He resigned on Thursday. The Luxembourg subsidiary of embattled Icelandic bank Kaupthing got a rescue offer from a group of Arab investors, the Luxembourg government has confirmed. "Besides the signature of the Belgian state, this agreement needs the acceptance of the creditor banks," the government said in a statement Saturday about the offer. Kaupthing Luxembourg was placed in suspension of payments in October following the near collapse of Iceland's once-booming financial sector under the weight of the worldwide credit crunch. Deposits in both Luxembourg and Belgium have been frozen ever since. At least one German banker, however, thinks the doom-and-gloom forecasts are overblown. "Some compare the situation to that of 1929, others talk about the worst crisis in near memory," said Wolfgang Sprissler, head of the German bank HypoVereinsbank (HVB) in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung to appear Monday. "It bothers me that the institutes in their studies try to outdo each other with more pessimistic scenarios," he said, adding that what is needed are signs of "optimism." - AFP/vm channelnewsasia |
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baseerahmed
Master |
22-Dec-2008 09:50
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Forecasts for 2009 Budget key to saving jobs, luring global firms DR CHUA HAK BIN, Citigroup's head of equity research 'Two themes will dominate the first half of next year - recession and Government. Singapore may be headed for the worst recession, in terms of both duration and depth, in its history. It may well last four to five quarters, longer than the 2001 tech crash and 1985 to 1986 recessions, which lasted for four quarters in terms of GDP (gross domestic product) year-on-year contractions. --------------------------------------------------------------- Short-term prospects bad, but help at hand ROBERT PRIOR-WANDESFORDE, senior Asian economist, HSBC 'What was originally a downturn stemming from the volatile pharmaceutical sector has now spread far and wide...and taking a heavy toll on Singapore's exports. But worse is that the more domestically-orientated parts of the economy are also succumbing and short-term prospects are not good. After an extraordinary period of strength, the labour market is likely to buckle as well. But there are reasons for optimism, such as the positive effects stemming from the huge Obama fiscal package. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- At rock-bottom now, upturn ahead MR WONG SUI JAU, general manager of online unit trust firm Fundsupermart 'I'm actually quite positive about 2009 because 2008 was so bad. We have more or less bottomed out in my opinion. Everything of an investible nature has already fallen to rock-bottom prices, markets have fallen to very cheap levels. You would need bad news of an unprecedented nature to faze investors. Yes, there will continue to be bad news for the first two quarters but people have underestimated the extent to which things deteriorated in the last quarter. I view 2009 as a year that will surprise a lot of people on the upside. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Layoffs may get worse in January MS TULIKA TRIPATHI, director of human resource firm Michael Page International '2009 is going to be as bad as it already is. We are already in an economic contraction, and December saw the highest number of job cuts in the last 26 years. Multinationals that drive a lot of Singapore's employment have cut back staff because they want to start off 2009 with better cash flow. January will be difficult. General level of layoffs are at an all-time high and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more in January and February, across more sectors. The downturn may seep into certain sectors that may not have felt its full impact yet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slow recovery with false starts NICHOLAS TAN, head of group wealth management, OCBC Bank 'Investment markets tend to move before the real economy does, as there's always a lead-lag effect. So will things bottom out next year? And if so, will it be in a U-shape or L-shape recovery? We may bottom out in the later part of 2009 or 2010, but even if we do, it is highly unlikely that we will see a recovery to old levels very early on. The key for investors next year will be patience. There will be a lot of false dawns. Things will look like they have turned the corner and then suddenly you get a piece of bad news. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Straits Times |
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baseerahmed
Master |
21-Dec-2008 22:31
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baseerahmed
Master |
07-Dec-2008 20:56
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Singapore remained a functioning port: After fall of Temasek in 14th century IN HIS letter on Monday, 'Sleepy fishing village? Singapore a sizeable port of regional significance in 14th century', Mr Gilles Massot, replying to Mr Tan Yip Meng ('Back to the future, a sleepy fishing village', Nov 25), invoked my name and expertise. Mr Massot referred to a short paper I prepared for the colloquium The Makers And Keepers Of Singapore History at the Asia Research Institute on Nov 10. As the letter to the Forum touches on the history of pre-Raffles Singapore and is of considerable interest to the public, I would like to clarify my position on a few points. The first concerns Stamford Raffles. Mr Massot accuses Raffles of spreading lies. While I fully concur that there are a number of problematic and historically challenging aspects relating to the Van Braam treaty of 1784, its impact on the Johor-Riau-Lingga Empire, and implicitly the legal status of Singapore island, I veer to the side of caution and surmise that Raffles simply did not know any better. For sure, he was insanely hostile to the Dutch cause, but he was also completely ignorant of Singapura's fate and history between the late 15th and early 18th century. This leads us to the issue of Singapura's protracted decline. Mr Massot is absolutely correct to highlight that there are non-English language sources of European provenance worth consulting. These lend support to the view that Singapura had a sizeable and functioning port well beyond the 'fall' of Temasek. Over the past decade, I have published a series of papers to advance precisely this point. The public should know that the Florentine merchant-traveller Giovanni da Empoli wrote his last will and testament while anchored in the 'port of Singapura'. That was in the year 1517. Several officers' logs of the early Dutch voyages to the East Indies mention the Singapore Strait, and describe in considerable detail their passage through the narrow channel that separates present-day Sentosa and HarbourFront. Vice-Admiral Pietersz van Enkhuysen mentions in his log the 'town' of Singapore in an entry dating from 1603. The most comprehensive and detailed testimony, however, derives from the Spanish-language materials of Jacques de Coutre. In several memorials addressed to the King of Spain, de Coutre recommends the construction of one fortification each on Singapore and Sentosa, and a third on what appears to be the north shore of Pulau Tekong Besar. De Coutre also makes reference to the town he calls Shabandaria, because this was the site of the shabandar or harbour master. This can be additionally corroborated on the basis of Portuguese cartography dating from the early 17th century. De Coutre's ship anchored in the port of Singapura in 1594 and he also told the King of Spain it was 'one of the best that serves all of the Indies'. All this hardly squares with the image of a sleepy seafront kampung. There are, of course, other sources as well, but it must be immediately added that European authors are not always clear what they are talking about. About a decade ago, I consulted some letters by Francis Xavier, the famed 16th-century Jesuit and missionary. He makes references to Singapura as well, but the Jesuit refers to the narrow strait between present-day HarbourFront and Sentosa, and not the town. Now, as was evidently the case with Xavier's vessel, ships often had to anchor off the waters near Fort Siloso or in the Old Harbour of Singapore (which was located to the south of Beach Road, now under reclaimed land) to await the change of the tides and winds. Surviving reports and testimonies tell us this waiting could take days, even a week or more. There are reports mentioning scores of vessels anchored off present-day Fort Siloso waiting to pass through the Old Strait. When the wind and tide was finally favourable, ships had to pass through the strait, whether it was broad daylight or the wee hours of the morning. That is why ships often relied on local pilots to guide them though dangerous waters that were littered with submerged rocks and reefs. Singapore's local population, we are told by many Dutch and Portuguese sources dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, and notably also by de Coutre, lived in and around the Old Strait, as well as in the town located at the mouth of the Singapore River. Few sources from this period describe the local population as 'pirates' - that label appears to date from a later period in the 18th and early 19th century. Now the local population were nothing short of clever business people, acting as pilots to guide ships though the Old Strait, or as flying vendors who pulled up in their boats alongside the passing ships to sell fresh fruit, fish, live chickens and fresh water. Some of the local residents, we are told, spoke Portuguese fluently, and after the dawn of the 17th century, also Dutch. In other words, in the 16th and early 17th century, Singapore was a pretty happening place. Dr John Miksic, whose name Mr Massot also invokes, has published extensively on his archaeological findings in Singapore. I refer to his excellent publications and add only this observation from my own research in archives in Portugal and the Netherlands: Something seems to have happened around Singapore in the first decade of the 17th century. Dr Miksic - perhaps relying on the testimony of the 18th-century Dutch cleric Fran�ois Valentyn - claims the Portuguese had 'destroyed' or burnt down Singapura sometime around the first decade of the 17th century. Indeed, there were Portuguese attacks on settlements up the Johor River, such as in 1587 when Paulo Lima de Pereira sacked Johor Lama, and again in 1604 or early 1605 when the Portuguese attacked the rebuilt city and other towns further upstream. Valentyn mentions a Portuguese attack in 1608. Singapura may have been burnt down by another party at another date, namely by the Acehnese in 1613, in the course of their second attack on the royal residence of Batu Sawar in 1615, or even as late as 1617 to 1618 when the Acehnese attacked positions in Pahang, Bintan and Lingga. The Spanish armada arriving from Manila anchored off Singapore in late 1615 and early 1616, raising alarm among the Johor nobles and particularly the sultan who pressed the proverbial 'panic button' with the Dutch by requesting their prompt military assistance. An attack on Singapura made sense in any case, because we know from the log of Admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge (1605 to 1608) that Singapura was the residence of the shahbandar, and this shahbandar also commanded over a sizeable 'fleet' of the Johor sultan. All this evidence hardly reflects the image of a sleepy seafront kampung. My own extensive research on the Singapore and Malacca straits has revealed that references to the town of Singapura or the Shahbandaria diminish after about 1620. This could be linked to the periodic Acehnese attacks (Johor was at peace with Portugal at the time) and the sultan who fled to Bintan, Lingga and finally died on one of the Tambelan Islands in the early 1620s. What is clear from all of the above is that Singapura was not in a forgotten backwater or a sleepy seafront kampung. It would be simply self-deluding to repeat the error and false conclusions of Raffles and assume that the sleepy kampung of Singapura had always been that way, at least since the fall of Temasek in the 15th century. In conclusion, I fully concur with Mr Massot that pre-Raffles Singapore history has been quantitatively and qualitatively enriched over the past 20 years, notably also as a result of the archaeological excavations of Dr Miksic in the 1980s. The research findings from archaeological diggings and archival research are all out there, published, in the libraries, sometimes on the Internet, and in any case freely accessible to the public. But the debate over the value, meaning and significance of these published findings for the modern Singapore citizen continues. This contribution is submitted as a private individual. Peter Borschberg http://www.straitstimes.com/ST+Forum/Online+Story/STIStory_310901.html |
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iPunter
Supreme |
07-Dec-2008 18:51
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Rally racing is also a superb activity... hehehe...
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jackjames
Elite |
07-Dec-2008 16:38
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ha ha.. my whole body ache now... guess what, I bought Nitendo Wii, I just cannot believe I just spent SGD 870++ for 1 stupid nitendo Wii systems, with additional left and right controller and car racing wheel, and 5 games.... oh you got to believe Wii sports are really cool, especially the boxing and tennis.... that's how you will get the whole body ache the next day.... now, I understood why Wii beats the sales of playstation 3 and xbox.. haha.. that's my expensive christmas gifts for myself.. ( in fact, i am computer games idiots..), i only play those simple games, like car racing.. no RGP games, no counterstrikes please. |
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stupidfool
Senior |
07-Dec-2008 11:24
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Come to think of it,the British is not much diff from the terrorist. Oni the Indians still know ahimsa...(new word for me) |
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baseerahmed
Master |
06-Dec-2008 23:51
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the people know that an eye for an eye will leave everyone blind the land of Mahatma Gandhi still knows of ahimsa (non-violence) but ..the politicians ... well....they are just doing their job ... |
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stupidfool
Senior |
06-Dec-2008 19:11
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Try asking the mumbai's victim to read this article..... They will tell u eye for an eye. |
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