Second Home Affairs Minister S Iswaran was there at the 2am press conference with Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Teo Chee Hean when latter said the Little India flare-up was the first case of street rioting in three or four decades. If it was too early in the morning to be fully conscious, Iswaran can count on two others flanking Teo to bear witness to what was said, namely Police Commissioner Ng Joo Hee and Deputy Police Commissioner T Raja Kumar.
One year on, Iswaran is claiming that there were 47 cases of rioting last year, all linked to alcohol consumption. Since the knee-jerk clamp down on alcoholic beverages started right after 8 December 2013, the number of riots must be higher in the preceding years, when alcohol was in abundant free flow. As in at least more than once in three or four decades.
But we have seen how the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Housing and Development Board (HDB) can disagree with minister Khaw Boon Wan on whether the tender for a place-of-worship site can be awarded to a company that is not affiliated to a religious organisation. Note also the significant qualification of timing when Khaw said, "for a quarter of a century we never had a for-profit company taking part in such temple tenders". Who knows, when the final flip-flop is effected on the U-turn to the Eternal Pure Life undertaking, something that happened earlier before the aforementioned quarter of a century will be quoted to justify the inevitable - a commercial columbarium built at Fernvale Link.
Most of us have terminated our subscription to the local papers because of the crap printed. But we need a score card to keep tab on how the politicians twist and squirm to camouflage their incompetence, and outright lies. Maybe we should write more to Huffington Post and the like.
One year on, Iswaran is claiming that there were 47 cases of rioting last year, all linked to alcohol consumption. Since the knee-jerk clamp down on alcoholic beverages started right after 8 December 2013, the number of riots must be higher in the preceding years, when alcohol was in abundant free flow. As in at least more than once in three or four decades.
But we have seen how the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Housing and Development Board (HDB) can disagree with minister Khaw Boon Wan on whether the tender for a place-of-worship site can be awarded to a company that is not affiliated to a religious organisation. Note also the significant qualification of timing when Khaw said, "for a quarter of a century we never had a for-profit company taking part in such temple tenders". Who knows, when the final flip-flop is effected on the U-turn to the Eternal Pure Life undertaking, something that happened earlier before the aforementioned quarter of a century will be quoted to justify the inevitable - a commercial columbarium built at Fernvale Link.
Most of us have terminated our subscription to the local papers because of the crap printed. But we need a score card to keep tab on how the politicians twist and squirm to camouflage their incompetence, and outright lies. Maybe we should write more to Huffington Post and the like.