Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Al Jazeera

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Al Jazeera

Read this article about the coverage of Al Jazeera on the homeless in Singapore and the rebuttal by the Minister for Community Development.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...: Al Jazeera has just responded to Dr Bala's criticism, and also submitted its response to Straits Times.

They actually invited MCYS to be interviewed in the documentary, not once but twice. Both times MCYS rejected the invitation.

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/04/al-jazeera-responds-to-vivian-balakrishnans-accusations/; April 29, 2010 12:14 PM
Anonymous said...: MCYS should show us figures and statistics on how people are living in poverty. There are no point is clarifying in this singular case.; April 29, 2010 12:37 PM
Anonymous said...: Al Jazeera exactly echoed my thoughts. The fact that the couple sold their flats and so on is not relevant to the issue.

I think the fact that the minister or ministry chose not to be interviewed on Al Jazeera when given the opportunity to is already a mistake.

Once again a PR blunder.; April 29, 2010 4:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Certain people comments on poor people are very arrogant.

Wait till you are middle age and you are fired and you have sick parents and family to take care. This misfortune could drive people to take their own life.

Please give some space to others and others will do the same to you one day.; April 29, 2010 4:55 PM
J said...: One question that comes up is whether MCYS/ Vivian Balakrishnan has contacted Al Jazeera in private between the time the show was aired and the Straits Times report. Apparently the answer is no.

If this kind of thing happens between two people, this seen as immaturity. In this situation, the MCYS/ Vivian Balakrishnan comes off as being incompetent.

Moreover, picking out single cases is in bad taste. It is very much like Mah Bow Tan picking out 3 cases of people who are "choosy" in their flats. Can you trust your MPs to help you? Do you want to vote these government leaders?; April 29, 2010 9:38 PM
Anonymous said...: TOC has also just published their response to Bala. In fact TOC already mentioned 4-5 months ago about some of them had sold 2-3 flats before, or that some of them are still co-owners of flats but unable to utilise for whatever family problems.

Article below sheds more light on the so-called $220K "profits" and the co-owning of existing hdb flat. It gives more accurate context.

Now let's see whether Dr Bala, MCYS and the MSM "have the courage and honesty to set the record straight".

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/04/tocs-response-part-two-a-tidy-sum/

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/04/tocs-response-to-remarks-by-mcys-minister-part-one/; April 30, 2010 5:13 PM
Anonymous said...: i feel very sad for this couple, seem like someone who really had the chance but had not made good decisions to keep his finance healthy, Instead of having the good luck of getting wise and helpful advice to slowly get out of their housing problem, and keeping a healthy mindset, maybe putting some hope on their teenager children, They got themselves into such a situation which will cause them to have more unhealthy mindset which is certainly bad for their future life development. I surely hope they will meet people who are geniune in helping them.; April 30, 2010 5:32 PM