News Stories

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Libros

Could some tell me why anyone would want any part of a frozen block of ice & snow? The best you can hope for is the bragging rights but even then, at best you've got: "Hurr hurr, I own part of the north pole."

As the article states, there's two reasons.

1) Opens up trade routes since the ice has been melting a bit.

2) Due to the ice melting, it's far easier to get to the resources within said ice. Governments want those resources.

[Sugetsu]

I find it amusing how us humans just go around the planet arbitralily declaring pieces of land as "private property" while locking out our fellow people out of it. The concept of nations seems so stupid...

[SaintessHeart]

It’s a ‘who dares wins situation’: ex-Singapore riot police officer

Whenever Roy Steven Danker was on standby as a riot police man in Singapore back in the 1960s, he would sleep in his boots waiting for the emergency bell to ring.

Doing so was a small discomfort for him because when riots were raging – and they frequently did at that time – riot squad officers sometimes had to go 72 hours without getting a wink.

Danker, now 68 years old, more than 40 years on from his time serving as a senior police officer in the then-named Riot Squad's Red Scorpions (Alpha Troops), still remembers spending full days running from place to place, armed with a wicket shield, a revolver, a baton and either a rifle or a gas grenade launcher, as he cordoned and rounded up rioters with nylon string.

"In those days, one person would arrest three to four people, and we had to use tear gas, while wearing respirator masks. That would send them haywire," he told Yahoo Singapore in a phone interview from Batam, Indonesia, where he now lives.

He said he faced "anywhere between 30 and 50" episodes of rioting and unrest in the roughly eight years he served (between 1964 and 1971) with the riot squad. Having lost around 10 of his good friends in the line of duty and himself having had numerous close brushes with death, the incidents then have burnt themselves into his memory.

Of these, he dealt with slightly fewer than 10 larger-scale riots, including the 1964 and 1969 racial riots, as well as what he calls the "Chinese school riots" around the middle of that decade.

He recalls one particular day when students took to Singapore's old District Court building at Empress Place, near Pickering Street, and he was among the first responders to the riot that started there.

"We were told that these are schoolchildren, do not use force on them," he said, adding that they were told to leave their sidearms and rifles inside the command vehicle that accompanied them. "There were a lot of girls, who took ground fresh chili and threw it at our faces… we were blinded, and then the boys took over, whacking us with sticks and poles. Thank God we had our helmets on," he added.

That day, he says he personally sustained injuries to his knees, back, spine and shoulders, while others were warded in hospital. He was fortunate enough to escape without any broken bones, but many of his colleagues, upon release, went right back to the streets and into the thick of the action.

"We didn't like staying in hospital or being out of action for long, really," he said. "Even if the doctor offered us one or two days' MC, we'd just take the medicine and go!"

When not dealing with an actual riot, Danker said the riot squad officers also did coastal patrolling and traffic policing.

"We did practically everything in those days," he said. "We were really the backbone of the Singapore police force."

Asked for his views on Sunday's riot in Little India, where about 400 South Asian workers mobbed a bus that ran over and killed an Indian national, Danker said he was shocked that so many police and emergency vehicles were damaged and burnt.

"I don't know what the procedure is now but our jobs were to protect lives and public property… we would have guarded the vehicles at all costs," he said. "Back then, we had lorry guards whose job it was to protect our command vehicles — when there was a threat (to the vehicles), they would sound a signal that would recall all of us to form up around the vehicles with our shields. We wouldn't have let that (the damage of police and emergency vehicles) happen."

That said, he hopes Singapore's current special operations command forces will learn from this and improve their approach should their services be required again in the future.

"It's a 'who dares wins' situation," he said. "If they ran forward with their shields and tear gas, they would have easily been able to throw them (the rioters) haywire, and prevent things from spiralling so far out of control."

Apparently those procedures are considered military in Singapore rather than police. Either that, or the police commanders are chickenshits to send backup so late, thinking that the 8-10 policemen on the scene can handle 400+ rioters.

Then again, our commanders may not have given us the order to charge in because they are afraid that our mothers would complain why their son is "sent to do something so dangerous" (my mum won't; in fact, she was asking why I wasn't called up to assist the police for that riot).

[ganbaru]

Pope Francis named Time's Person of the Year
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9BA0JF20131211

The Pope beat out former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and gay rights activist Edith Windsor for the award. Other finalists included Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas.

They could had made a worse choice.

[GDB]

and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas.

What is this, I don't even...

[Libros]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Pope Francis named Time's Person of the Year
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9BA0JF20131211

They could had made a worse choice.

Assad was on that list? WTF?

[Anh_Minh]

It's "person of the year", not all around nice guy. And Assad did make the papers talk about him a lot.

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by Libros

Assad was on that list? WTF?

Eh, Time of the year were previously setup as a "person who influence history" regardless of good or evil.

Stalin (twice), Hitler, Chiang Kai-Shiek all won the award.

It was not until 1978 when they elected Ayatollah Khomeini there was a enough backlash they stopped using controversial figures.

Note: In theory, Osama Bin laden should had won the 2001 one, butr Rudolph Giuliani did instead.

[GDB]

This is true. It's "for better or worse... has influenced the world the most."

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by GDB

This is true. It's "for better or worse... has influenced the world the most."

Didn't they have given it to Putin one year and specified than it was mostly for the worse ?

[Libros]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

It's "person of the year", not all around nice guy. And Assad did make the papers talk about him a lot.

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

Eh, Time of the year were previously setup as a "person who influence history" regardless of good or evil.

Stalin (twice), Hitler, Chiang Kai-Shiek all won the award.

It was not until 1978 when they elected Ayatollah Khomeini there was a enough backlash they stopped using controversial figures.

Note: In theory, Osama Bin laden should had won the 2001 one, butr Rudolph Giuliani did instead.

Originally Posted by GDB

This is true. It's "for better or worse... has influenced the world the most."

I see that explains it. I assumed person of the year was an award given to show, I don't know..that they did lots of good or something. My mistake it seems.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

We are in the 21st Century... And "territorial claims" of no-man's-land still exist? Or rather "no-man's-ice". What comes next? Will China and India fight over the "territorial rights" of the Indian Ocean?

Welcome to world politics - territorial disputes are still extremely common throughout the world. Canada's claim is just one among many others it has placed over the region in the last few years. These don't usually come into public attention because they're not sexy enough. Claiming the North Pole is probably an overreach and I doubt that anyone else will recognize it though.

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Pope Francis named Time's Person of the Year
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9BA0JF20131211

They could had made a worse choice.

The Time Person of the Year award will probably never be as asinine as the 2006 recipient again. Ted Cruz would have been a contender though. I doubt that all that many non-Americans even care to know who he was or what he accomplished. Pope Francis is actually a pretty decent choice; and not just in comparison.

[ganbaru]

How Far We Haven’t Come: All of the Terrible Ways the Media Treated Women in 2013 in One Video
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/05/...-in-one-video/

Read more: Sexism in Media: Video Highlights Worst Moments in 2013 | TIME.com http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/05/...#ixzz2nBmFMBT8

And for those than can read French: Quelque chose de pourri chez les Nétanyahou
http://www.courrierinternational.com...les-netanyahou

[ArchmageXin]

This is why this planet need a unified Space plan. We need all figure out a way to get a sustainable off world habit going, before we start a nuclear Armageddon over some small corner of Earth.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

This is why this planet need a unified Space plan. We need all figure out a way to get a sustainable off world habit going, before we start a nuclear Armageddon over some small corner of Earth.

what makes you think we won't start nuclear Armageddon over said off world habitat?

[GDB]

But at least then there will be humans off the world so we don't go extinct.

[kyp275]

I dunno why you assumed there wouldn't also be one taking place offworld

[GDB]

I figured if they're fighting over territory, there would be supply constraints, and thus harder to get multiple nuclear warheads there.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by GDB

I figured if they're fighting over territory, there would be supply constraints, and thus harder to get multiple nuclear warheads there.

don't need nuke, railguns are the answer.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

I find it amusing how us humans just go around the planet arbitralily declaring pieces of land as "private property" while locking out our fellow people out of it. The concept of nations seems so stupid...

Humans are hardly the only territorial species. And the ones you most want to "lock out" of your territory are the ones competing over the same resources - your fellow of the same species.

If you think about it, nations are a sign of how accepting we are. It's a pooling of resources among complete strangers, including some you never have and never will meet. In the animal kingdom, OTOH, it's mostly close relatives.

Originally Posted by GDB

I figured if they're fighting over territory, there would be supply constraints, and thus harder to get multiple nuclear warheads there.

If we have the tech to send people there, we have the tech to destroy them all.