water talks: if only it could

last SG · 2003-07-16T17:44:05+00:00

Ad from AWSJ, Malaysia. WATER: The Singapore-Malaysia Dispute - THE FACTS THE SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT HAS GONE ALL OVER THE WORLD AND TARNISHED THR NAME OF MA...

cheesepie SG

I tink malaysia is just too much….hu ask them to set the price such as tt if they tink its not right?they must not haf been able to plan properly…Those toot....

tripwire SG

each side can and should do what they feel is right.. at the point of time... including the potential consequence of their actions...

YET.....

the future is not predictable....

badawi's character is also not predictable...

though man's actions are confined by the environment they are in.. they still have many choices.. i see the singapore MITA booklet publication and malaysian ad blitz as such.

THERE is no prove.. that had another option been taken... a more favourable alternate outcome might occur... even if we believe or hope so... it is not definite.

hindsightning does not change anything.. nor will it lead to more predictable future...

the only judgement that is valid is... who is giving the entire facts without bias.. and let the reciever of the information.. make their own judgement....without coercion, manipulation or asymmetrical disinformation..

Atobe SG

The Malaysian political insiders(?) always have brilliant comments to make without accepting the facts as the world sees it.

There are always reasons and excuses from which they use to avoid the real issues, quite typical of them - which amounts to seeing a doctor to get a Medical Certificate (Leave) to avoid settling the problems.

Bad timing.
Badawi is a moderate. He has done much already to cool things between Malaysia and Singapore. He talks more sense than their current foreign minister. But humans can only go so far before face must be given. Hence the booklet came at a wrong time.

Now my only question is why did we publish the booklet at that time? What happen in Singapore (or Malaysia) 3 months ago that promted us to stroke the fires? It was in April, and that was before the SARS incidents. What happen?[/b]

When is there ever a right time, considering that they continuously make speeches putting us in a poor light on the Water Issues at all levels - from the kampung events to state sanctioned ceremonies, to speaking off-the-cuff to reporters at national events.

Not all in Malaysia is as wired up as we are in Singapore, and I doubt if the various national newspapers will sell similar advertisement space to the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, to allow us to advertise our side of the story to refute the many speeches and unofficial remarks at the grass root level in Malaysia.

Such purposeful misleading political activities at the grass root level can poison the "People-to-People" relationship between Malaysia and Singapore.

What other choice does Singapore have to bring the issues out clearly to the Malaysians, and even then how many of these books will be in the hands of the Malaysians - if these books are intended for them in the first place ?

Did our Singapore MITA specifically said that these books were intended for the Malaysian "market" ?

Is this another case of Malaysia interfering again in our domestic affair of publishing these books for our "own internal" consumption ?

tripwire SG

just respond to their allegations coolly, efficiently and cost-effectively... maintain our position firmly, strongly and factually...without going overboard... or emotional.

in the end.. they wont be able to do anything about it... neither can they change anything...

the more they scream... they louder they scream.. they more hysterical and nuisance they will become...

after afew years...unless they go to war to resolve the matter, (which would put them in a horrible light in global media ) they will look weak, stupid and incompetent not only to malaysians but to the whole world...

technically... i dont know wat the malaysian govt is trying to proof to the world... that they as a sovereign nation.. cant stand up to a country 1/500th its size??? they gotta be kidding right?? or their govt... are full of monkeys??

maybe we should advice the indonesians that the time is ripe for indonesia to grab east malaysia... since now.. malaysia is so full of incompetent and retarded leaders....

Forever84 SG

As far as i concerned its just a waste of money for the malaysian government. Think abt how much they have spent on the ads, if i were the newspaper i would be more than happy to recieve requests for full page ads lol Very Happy

Atobe SG

You must understand who owns those Malaysian Papers - another way of channeling money from the Government Treasury into a commercial unit, then zapped away into the some other account, and another slate of hand better than David Copperfield.

Gun SG

ken ken ken, here you go shoting off a version of affair that is fair removed from reality. Hasn't it occur to you that even with modern communication, mis-information is the name of the game in today's wired world, nevermind backward Malaysian kampongs or cyberclass patrajaya districts ?

Do go read up that 20-page booklet from Malaysia's NEAC and make an honest comparison with the content presented by Singapore's 80-plus page publishing. This episode of booklet-vs-booklet has become obvious to many reader that how any well-documentated events and minutes of meeting can easily be mis-represented to those un- or ill informed (Malaysians ? ). In fact, this epitomises the difference of handling style between Singapore's word-by-word presentation of official print and statements as compared to her larger "friendly and sensitive" neighbour method of cut-&paste editon of "I want fair-price" story. Somehow, Malaysia gov had missed the whole point of water talk, it is not about the price but the principle behind the water agreement. And KL's mockery attempt to sell 3 sens rate only expose of how "money no enuf" attitude an envious and insulate institution that the Malaysian gov has become in this affair.

A contract is a contract. Wanna break contract ? Go to court then, why make fuss placing adverts and printing 3sens pre-election party-propaganda on tax payer$'s $$$ (Do u seriously believe that 20page, softcovered booklet cost that amount ??? )
Now thanks 2 its own making, Malaysia is indeed...truely asia...

If this is the way that Malaysian gov gets its deal done thru unilaterally changes after each meeting, than I shaddered at the thought of how honest they can adhere to Singapore's independence itself in the future.

I overheard a French associate after his trip to KL last weekend as saying "while someone else is making money, Malaysia can only make noises..."
Rolling Eyes

CX SG

not to mention that the NEAC, who spearheaded the campaign, is headed my Mahathir himself... why is the NEAC involved in a this diplomatic issue?

do they seee this as severely affecting their vital economic interests? i hardly think so...

just another incoherent m'sian effort to stir crap and make noise. i wasn't impressed with their arguments before, i am not impressed with the same nonsense put in a flasy 20 page booklet now.

damn childish of them.

Gun SG

Originally posted by CX:
not to mention that the NEAC, who spearheaded the campaign, is headed my Mahathir himself... why is the NEAC involved in a this diplomatic issue?damn childish of them.

you should hv seen how their booklet online version is created..freaking inefficient and humongous man !

Why on EARTH do they wanna split it into multiple pdf files for EACH page with size of over 330kb !?
A total d/l size of mindboggling exceeding 7MB !!! just for that 20-pages of childish complains! Laughing Just the cover.pdf itself already weights a jumbo +1Mb. Might as well settle with MS word format...not much larger but still editable for the likings for UMNO readers and cronys

Even the image and content-rich MITA version of +80-page didn't exceed that amount.

No wonder their site is now clogged with delayted hits that \even NEAC server can't handle.Check out their site @ http://www.neac.gov.my

[ Neo ] SG

Gun's right.

Their server really cannot make it. This was all that I saw after trying to refresh the main page for the past 15 mins. :

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Error Diagnostic Information

Server busy or unable to fulfill request. The server is unable to fulfill your request due to extremely high traffic or an unexpected internal error. Please attempt your request again (if you are repeatedly unsuccessful you should notify the site administrator). (Location Code: 25)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quite disgracful.

CX SG

i think its a common rookie's mistake...

i have some experience in desktop publishing.

current industry standard is Adobe Pagemaker... some businesses and organizations are gradually upgrading to Adobe Indesign though last i checked, not that many of them use it yet...

either way, both are not your typical word processor Mr. Green

in MS-Word, u just let 'er rip and it automatically moves to a new page after u reach the end of one page... in these desktop publishing software, u don't.

with Adobe, u basically have to define the number of pages your publication will have at the beginning, or insert new pages as u go along... both are not very intuitive processes.

the likelihood of a rookie opening a new document for every page is rather HIGH... i've seen it happen myself... its quite tragic... this kid i worked with (not his fault lah... he was only temp-ing during hols...) actually had a 15 file document once... which shocked me cos each file could actually accommodate, if i'm not wrong, up to 9999 pages... or until your comp crashes from lack of ram, whichever comes first... Mr. Green

so if one pagemaker file = one page, the most automatic thing for a rookie would be to output one pdf file for one page... its the only way the work can flow smoothly...

also, with PDF, if u want a manageable, small file that displays reasonably well, u HAVE to apply some compression. the temptation is often to output the PDF in the highest resolution available... that makes for a ridiculously LARGE pdf file... which is stupid cos laser printers prints max 600dpi... 150dpi is usually relatively good print quality for a laser printer already...

and if no compression is applied to the output file, be it zip or jpeg (yes, PDF supports compression in these standards as well,) u'll end up with a file too big to be useful for mass-distribution...

for me, i usually experiment a bit with different settings if i have time to get the best results... its a bit tedious, but the output is well worth the effort. esp when u work with graphics, u never know how the compression screws them up! double checking is better than looking stupid when pple complain about the quality of your work...

so u put these 2 childish errors together, u'll end up with their shoddy work lor... very LARGE pdf files and one page per file...

either that, or it simply shows that the organization has a very twisted, convulated, inefficient way of doing work... like 20 pple asked to do one page each to save time Mr. Green

didn't even occur to them to join the files together joining them would've reduced the file slightly as it'll be getting rid of some redundant elements that defines each page as a separate file... yes, even if u made the first stupid mistake, it is technically possible to join separate pages into one PDF file with several pages... though it won't make much diff cos the output file will STILL be too large for effective mass distribution... unless everybody was using broadband...

now, doesn't this bring back memories of the times when Sg digitized the documents and posted them as PDF files? they actually said PDF files can be doctored as they are not scanned images of the original files... i laughed out loud at that cos it just shows that they don't even have the most rudimentary understanding of the technologies commonly used today...

thats why it doesn't surprise me that they made a mess out of this publication.

Forever84 SG

I am sorry
i had not idea they own the asian wall street journal

Atobe SG

I am sorry too.

"Asian Wall Street Journal" - a "Malaysian" Newspaper ?

It will be a sad day when it happens.

Forever84 SG

'The National Economic Action Council wasted about RM1 million (S$460,000) to buy advertising space, with half of that money going to the Asian Wall Street Journal alone,' it noted.

Ding SG

You buy water at 3sen, go thru value-added process then sell it at a so-so price. Nothing wrong if you can get a cheap source of water.

Dr M and that disgraceful malaysia foreign minister should not be harping at what S'pore does with the water. What ever S'pore do to the water is a tribute to her excellent organization and good minds(this maybe lacking in M). Whatever profits is her's to keep.

When doing business, you get a supplier to supply you raw material at an agreed price for the contractual period, then you sell the processed raw material to the end user at a price. This price will definately be much higher(basically everybody in e whole wide world knows that, no need for M to teach the world). Instead of learning from our government, they just wanna be a cry baby.

One can not learn and improve if the person can't even see their own deficiencies. Heard last time they wanna learn from the japanese... why look further then Singapore? Very Happy

No point eating sour grapes. If M government think they can do better than S government, then do it for the whole world to see. Action speaks louder that silly words Laughing

I am willing to bet my last penny that S will win M hands down Exclamation Now and forever...... just because M had so many blind, big ego politicians.

So glad LKY and his bunch of ministers were here in Singapore when Singapore split from Malaya. Cheers to that Surprised

Gun SG

KL had finally decided to go to court to settle the water dispute with Singapore. This time, instead of internal tribunals like the ICJ, they choose the Malaysian court. This is exactly what Singapore's FM had highlighted in parliament earlier this yr based on the Water Agreement. So why the delay of over 6 mths ? Is this typical of how KL gov prepared a favorable home-ground condition before proceeding to legal challenges ?
Note that KL is currently amending its own internal law in preparation to take control of all the Malaysian's states domestic water system.

New Straits Times (Oct 1, 2003)

At The Dewan Rakyat: RM2.5m for water ads well spent, says Toyad

Oct 1: THE RM2,513,404.72 spent by the Government via the National Economic Action Council on advertisements on the Malaysia-Singapore water issue has resulted in more people being aware of the disadvantaged position Malaysia is in.

It has also been successful in garnering support from Singaporeans and the international community alike, Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Dr Leo Michael Toyad said in a written answer to a question by Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar (BN-Batang Lupar).

He said the advertisement campaign from July 13 to 18 gave the people a true picture of Malaysia's situation against the baseless allegations from Singapore.

"Many parties are now aware and understand our position and our rights," he said.

He said the Government had on July 30 decided to refer the dispute to a tribunal, which would be in accordance with Malaysian laws, and not to the International Court of Justice.

He said this was specified under the 1961 and 1962 water agreements entered into by both countries.

He also said the Government had taken steps to stop the purchase of treated water from Singapore.

"The Johor Government is now building a water treatment plant in Semanggar and water pipelines to connect the plant to consumers, scheduled to be completed by the end of next year," he said.

He also said the proposed bridge project to replace the outdated Johor Causeway was to accommodate the rising number of vehicles.

"The bridge will ease traffic flow and also open the waterway in the Straits of Tebrau which has been blocked all this while." Dr Toyad said a portion of the Causeway would be demolished and the new bridge built in a curved design to allow small ships to pass.

Atobe SG

While the Federal Government is trying legislate laws to take over control of the managment of water resources from the various State Governments, it is surprising to note that several States are opposing this approach.

The State Government feel that Water Resource is the property of the various individual states, and fall within their purview to manage, maintain and dispose such assets of the respective States.

Events are still unfolding, and with Mahatir soon to step down by end-October 2003, it will be interesting if as a Senior Minister in the Federal Government, he still has the same influence or voice within UMNO - as LKY has within the PAP.

« Previous Page