Article

2004-05-20 Southeast Asia

Singapore confirms U.S. proposal for joint maritime patrols

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Posted by Fred 2004-05-20 09:13|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 wrong link - here it is

I hope they work this out, wonder if corrupt Singaporean officials get a cut of the booty for allowing this to go on?

Posted by Frank G 2004-05-20 9:48:58 AM|| 2004-05-20 9:48:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Singapore has what are probably the least corrupt civil servant in the world. The regularly come in at number one in international comparisons.

Posted by Phil B 2004-05-20 10:03:36 AM|| 2004-05-20 10:03:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 It's the Malays and Indons, Muslims all, who are the pirates. Too bad so many of our naval vessels have little or no gun capacity. Much harder to lob Harpoons at a dhow.

Posted by Chuck Simmins 2004-05-20 10:38:18 AM|| [http://blog.simmins.org] 2004-05-20 10:38:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Phil B: Singapore has what are probably the least corrupt civil servant in the world.

Singapore's civil servants and politicians are among the highest-paid in the world. Singapore's Prime Minister earned a salary of $1.1m in 2002, compared to GWB's $400K. The salaries are still below that of private sector employees, but not too far off. The offset is that Singapore's civil service has no public sector union, no equivalent of the AFSCME - meaning that job security, while better than the private sector, isn't ironclad.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2004-05-20 10:44:17 AM|| 2004-05-20 10:44:17 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Singapore's civil service has no public sector union Not true! Go here for one civil service union. Otherwise what is your point?

Posted by Phil B 2004-05-20 11:33:09 AM|| 2004-05-20 11:33:09 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Increased coordination could be for the following:

1)The smarter and more ambitious have figured out there's money to be made in piracy and moved in.

2) There are reports that members of the Indonesian navy are freelancing. I've not heard reports of any Malaysian sailors doing so.

3) There are other groups in Asia besides Muslims that have an interest in disrupting traffic in the Straits and are capable of providing support to the pirates.

Sinagpore's officials are indeed among the least corrupt. Their defense forces are perhaps the best in the region. But there's only so much they can do against piracy. They're essentially surrounded by larger,less well-off but still armed neighbors, and they know it.

Posted by Pappy 2004-05-20 12:41:49 PM|| 2004-05-20 12:41:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Phil B: Singapore's civil service has no public sector union Not true! Go here for one civil service union. Otherwise what is your point?

I wasn't aware one actually existed - thanks for the clarification. But the AFSCME can't possibly be compared to a Singapore civil service union - when was the last time a Singapore private sector union, let alone a civil service union, staged a strike? The point here was to highlight the possibility that high civil service pay may correlate with lower levels of corruption.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2004-05-20 2:10:00 PM|| 2004-05-20 2:10:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 ZF, Unions in SG are politically aligned. Perhaps the critical thing that Lee KY did do defeat the communists was to subvert their control of the unions. Politically aligned labor unions are quite common. France has a similar system, where you have separate left and right aligned unions covering the same groups of workers. Because the same political party has been in power for 50 years in SG, unions not aligned with the ruling party have withered away, but there are still a few left.

Posted by Phil B 2004-05-20 8:11:03 PM|| 2004-05-20 8:11:03 PM|| Front Page Top

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