From NCMP to key party leader: Looking back at the political career of Workers’ Party’s Leon Perera
SINGAPORE: The resignation of Workers’ Party (WP) member Leon Perera as Member of Parliament (MP) on Wednesday (Jul 19) marked an abrupt end to a political career that started in 2015. Mr Perera, 53, has also resigned from the party, owing to his extramarital affair with party member Nicole Seah.Continue Reading
11 people taken to hospital after traffic accident along KPE
SINGAPORE: Eleven people were taken to hospital after a traffic accident along the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE) on Wednesday (Jul 19) morning. The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said it was alerted to a road traffic accident along the KPE towards the Tampines Expressway (TPE) before Buangkok Flyover at about 7.50am. Continue Reading
In full: Nicole Seah’s letter announcing her resignation from Workers’ Party, and Pritam Singh’s reply
SINGAPORE: Workers’ Party (WP) member Nicole Seah on Tuesday (Jul 18) informed Secretary-General Pritam Singh of her decision to resign from the party due to an affair with fellow party member Leon Perera.
She said she is sorry for bringing disrepute to the party’s standing.
Read Ms Seah’s letter to Mr Singh, in full:
Dear Pritam,
I offer my resignation as a member of The Workers’ Party with immediate effect, owing to my personal misconduct with another member of the Party. I am grateful to the Party for the numerous opportunities and responsibilities given to me over the last few years, which I have carried out with fullest diligence. I am deeply sorry for bringing disrepute to the Party’s standing and the hard work of its members and volunteers.
My actions were selfish and reckless. In pursuing impropriety, I have caused grave disappointment to the voters of East Coast GRC, and a significant base of members and volunteers who have sacrificed their personal time and resources to support the extensive groundwork we have done over the last few years. I am deeply saddened with regret to leave my running mates Kenneth Foo and Abdul Shariff, alongside a group of dedicated members and volunteers who now face the herculean task of winning back the trust of the constituents, vote by vote.
I am also mindful that my public standing means I should have been a better role model towards younger Singaporeans and youth members of the Party. I am very sorry that I am unable to carry on the good work of engaging the youth. I am confident that the Youth Wing exco will continue to flourish with enthusiasm and pride in the events and initiatives they will create throughout the course of their term.
Finally, I apologise to my loved ones for any embarrassment this might have caused, in particular my husband and my mother. Throughout this episode, I would like to humbly request that the privacy of my family be respected, as we seek to move ahead.
This is Mr Singh’s letter to Ms Seah, in full:
Dear Nicole,
I acknowledge your letter of resignation from The Workers’ Party (WP) dated 18 Jul 2023.
You acknowledged therein that you fell short of the standards expected of the party.
Your resignation was deliberated by the Central Executive Committee the same evening. It was accepted as the requirement to be frank and honest in our dealings with the party and the people of Singapore is exacting and non-negotiable.
You made significant contributions to the WP. Your consistent commitment to the party’s outreach efforts in East Coast GRC after the 2020 General Elections was but one example of your dedication and willingness to work hard for the party’s cause. Your leadership of the WP Youth Wing was also greatly appreciated by the party.
I thank you for your valued service.
I was comforted to learn from you that you started the process of healing with your family last year. You have my full support in this regard, and I wish you all the very best in all your future endeavours.
In full: Nicole Seah’s resignation letter and the reply from Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh
SINGAPORE: Workers’ Party (WP) member Nicole Seah on Tuesday (Jul 18) informed Secretary-General Pritam Singh of her decision to resign from the party due to an affair with fellow party member Leon Perera.
She said she is sorry for bringing disrepute to the party’s standing.
Read Ms Seah’s letter to Mr Singh, in full:
Dear Pritam,
I offer my resignation as a member of The Workers’ Party with immediate effect, owing to my personal misconduct with another member of the Party. I am grateful to the Party for the numerous opportunities and responsibilities given to me over the last few years, which I have carried out with fullest diligence. I am deeply sorry for bringing disrepute to the Party’s standing and the hard work of its members and volunteers.
My actions were selfish and reckless. In pursuing impropriety, I have caused grave disappointment to the voters of East Coast GRC, and a significant base of members and volunteers who have sacrificed their personal time and resources to support the extensive groundwork we have done over the last few years. I am deeply saddened with regret to leave my running mates Kenneth Foo and Abdul Shariff, alongside a group of dedicated members and volunteers who now face the herculean task of winning back the trust of the constituents, vote by vote.
I am also mindful that my public standing means I should have been a better role model towards younger Singaporeans and youth members of the Party. I am very sorry that I am unable to carry on the good work of engaging the youth. I am confident that the Youth Wing exco will continue to flourish with enthusiasm and pride in the events and initiatives they will create throughout the course of their term.
Finally, I apologise to my loved ones for any embarrassment this might have caused, in particular my husband and my mother. Throughout this episode, I would like to humbly request that the privacy of my family be respected, as we seek to move ahead.
This is Mr Singh’s letter to Ms Seah, in full:
Dear Nicole,
I acknowledge your letter of resignation from The Workers’ Party (WP) dated 18 Jul 2023.
You acknowledged therein that you fell short of the standards expected of the party.
Your resignation was deliberated by the Central Executive Committee the same evening. It was accepted as the requirement to be frank and honest in our dealings with the party and the people of Singapore is exacting and non-negotiable.
You made significant contributions to the WP. Your consistent commitment to the party’s outreach efforts in East Coast GRC after the 2020 General Elections was but one example of your dedication and willingness to work hard for the party’s cause. Your leadership of the WP Youth Wing was also greatly appreciated by the party.
I thank you for your valued service.
I was comforted to learn from you that you started the process of healing with your family last year. You have my full support in this regard, and I wish you all the very best in all your future endeavours.
Mother, son die in leap from burning home
PUBLISHED : 19 Jul 2023 at 13:05
A mother and her young son were killed and two other family members injured as they jumped in desperation from their burning five-storey home in Bangkok’s Yannawa district in the early hours of Wednesday.
The blaze at a housing estate on Soi Sathupradit 45 in Chong Nonsi area of Yannawa was first reported about 2am, said Pol Lt Col Krit Phetsimalai, investigation chief at Bang Phongphang.
When fire trucks and crews and rescuers rushed to the scene arrived the flames were raging through the five-storey townhome. The building housed a billboard advertising company on the ground floor with upper floors serving as a residential area.
Firefighters brought the fire under control about 30 minutes later.
One woman was dead at the scene. Three other injured members of the family were rushed to a nearby hospital where one of them was later pronounced dead.
Police said six people lived in the building – Thotsaphon (whose surname was not given), 44, his wife, their 15-year-old son, their 10-year-old son, Mr Thotsaphon’s elder brother and his wife.
All were asleep when the fire began on the second floor and spread quickly to upper floors. Mr Thotsaphon’s brother and his wife lived on the third floor. They awoke, ran from their room and shouted warnings for everyone to flee.
Mr Thotsaphon, his wife and children lived on the fourth floor. They headed down the stairs before he and his eldest son jumped from a second-floor window to the ground. His wife and the younger son jumped from the fourth floor as the fire was already spreading to the third floor as they tried to flee.
The mother was killed by the fall. Their 10-year-old son was grievously injured but still alive. Rescuers gave him CPR before sending him to Lerdsin Hospital. The boy died shortly after.
Forensic police were examining the scene to determine the cause of the fire.
How Hun Manet will differ from his father
At a mass rally on July 1, 2023, with campaigning underway for Cambodia’s upcoming general election, Prime Minister Hun Sen symbolically handed over the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) flag to his eldest son – Hun Manet – who is expected to soon succeed him as premier.
While Norodom Sihanouk is remembered as Cambodia’s “King Father”, Hun Sen will presumably want to go down as something akin to the “Prime Minister Father.”
As Hun Sen’s myth-making goes, he was the person who finally brought peace and stability to Cambodia, ending the country’s three-decade civil war in the 1990s. And he brought a measure of prosperity to Cambodia – a famine state when he took over.
Cambodia’s GDP per capita rose from US$247 in 1993 to $1,625 in 2021. He has also defended Cambodian sovereignty.
The degree to which Hun Sen, who has been in power since 1985, is solely responsible for these developments is debatable. But Cambodia has irrevocably changed for the better during his tenure.
The problem for the 45-year-old Hun Manet is that he will not be able to lay claim to any of those narratives. He will take over a country that is already peaceful and economically stable.
His is not a rags-to-riches story. He is a privileged princeling who was expensively educated in the West and then parachuted into the military and the ruling party. Some members of the CPP think he was forced upon the party as its next prime ministerial candidate.
Hun Sen’s merit comes from his hard graft and sacrifices — a “pagoda boy” who rose to the top. It is less evident what sacrifices Hun Manet has made for the country.
Nor can the future prime minister claim a “man of the soil” persona, which perhaps explains why he is running to be a lawmaker in Phnom Penh, not in the CPP’s rural heartland.
Attempts have been made to create a popular image for Hun Manet such as through hagiographic Khmer-language biographies. “Hun Manet: The First Son of Prime Minister On The Way to Succeed His Father”, written by Chhay Sophal, the Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Information, was published in 2022.
Hun Manet said he would give away 10,000 copies of the book for free. “Influential Eldest Son” was another piece of flummery published in 2022.
As these titles suggest, Hun Manet, once prime minister, will have to live off his father’s image. His core legitimating factor will be that he was his father’s trusted successor.
That will make it difficult for Hun Sen to have a quiet profile after resigning. He is expected to maintain considerable power behind the scenes, especially as he will remain CPP president. But his lingering presence will stymie Hun Manet’s myth-making.
Yet, we can already see a narrative forming around Hun Manet that isn’t dynastic. He burnishes his image as a brotherly figure to the masses, not the fatherly role that Hun Sen has played. His speeches are less lecturing and paternal.
He has the most Facebook followers of any ruling party official other than his father, a way for him to communicate directly with the masses, bypassing the party’s spokesmen and the Ministry of Information.
Hun Manet has been president of CPP Youth since 2020. A large part of his “meritorious” persona stems from his presidency of party-aligned charities – especially the Samdech Techo Voluntary Youth Doctor Association – which played a key role in Cambodia’s successful vaccination campaign during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since 2019, he has assumed some of the everyday responsibilities of his father such as opening new schools, hospitals and pagodas. These events make him appear a benevolent benefactor of Cambodia’s tax-funded welfare system.
There have been attempts to laud his military prowess, although it is debatable how important he was in dampening Cambodia–Thailand tensions in 2008, for instance.
Hun Manet will have to create credibility for himself on the world stage. As a military chief, he has traveled widely. He has met Chinese President Xi Jinping at least twice in Beijing. Hun Sen has never appeared comfortable away from home. Hun Manet – who speaks English – should be a more natural presence on the world stage.
He was entrusted with the task of wooing Cambodia’s notoriously anti-CPP diaspora in the United States, France and Australia. It waits to be seen whether a Hun Manet administration engages in the rapprochement with the West that Phnom Penh claims it has been attempting for years.
He was recently a guest of honor at an American Chamber of Commerce Gala Charity Dinner in Phnom Penh – an event his father would never attend nowadays.
Hun Manet will try to claim legitimacy from competency. His administration will work to perfect and fine-tune policies it inherits from the older generation – the “founding fathers” of the CPP and the Kingdom of Cambodia. The sons of other party grandees will also rise up through the ranks alongside Hun Manet as part of a “generational succession.”
He will not engage in maverick policies and will have to conduct a style of consensus decision-making in cabinet because the bureaucracy and civil service will not trust his instincts.
Whereas Hun Sen intervenes in the most minute government policy, Hun Manet will not be able to dictate from on high. The bureaucracy will have to become more self-sufficient. Ministers and secretaries of state will have to be more competent technocrats, not simply loyalists and enforcers of Hun Sen’s whims.
David Hutt is Research Fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies.
This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license.
From opposition star to GE2020 comeback: The ups and downs of Nicole Seahâs political career
Despite facing a PAP team led by Mr Goh, the NSP team garnered 43.36 per cent of the votes with a thin slate of candidates, among whom Ms Seah and former MP Cheo Chai Chen were the more recognisable names.
The better-than-expected result was attributed to Ms Seah’s popularity online and offline. It was also partly a reflection of the general swing against the ruling party, 2011 being the watershed election in which the PAP lost a GRC for the first time.
Later that year, Ms Seah supported opposition politician Tan Jee Say in his presidential bid.
HIATUS FROM POLITICS
Two years after being propelled into the limelight, Ms Seah shared about the pressure she had been under and how it had affected her.
In a Facebook post, she said that 2013 had been the “worst year” of her life thus far. Besides relationship troubles, and a gruelling schedule, she had to deal with her grandmother’s cancer diagnosis.
Ms Seah said that she was “arm-twisted” into making bad decisions during the Presidential Election, and “felt like a fraud being invited to speak at conferences everywhere”. She also wrote of people sending her rape and death threats, and “burning out from all ends”.
She described having a panic attack, contracting dengue fever and spoke about how her health suffered. But she ended her post on a positive note, writing: “Lastly, whenever you’re down and out, remember that the biggest blessing from here on is this – The only way now is to go up.”
That year, she also dealt with reports that suggested she was dating a married man, when the man in question was in fact divorced. The media outlets later issued an apology to Ms Seah.
After this crisis, she moved to Thailand for a job in the advertising industry.
In August 2014, she quit the NSP, calling it an “extremely difficult” decision to make.
Thai court suspends Pita as lawmaker as parliament votes on PM
BANGKOK: Thailand’s Constitutional Court ordered a temporary suspension of prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat from parliament on Wednesday (Jul 19) after accepting a case against him alleging he was unqualified to run in a May 14 election. Pita, who was due to contest a parliamentary vote on the premiership on Wednesday,Continue Reading
Turkey once again turning its face toward the West
Turkey is starting to address its mistakes. First, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to a turnaround in monetary policy under new Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek and new central bank governor Hafize Gaye Erkan.
Now, Turkey appears to be engaging in geopolitical maneuvering.
Despite seemingly “warm” relations with Russia, Ankara first handed over the Azov commanders to Ukraine and then agreed to Sweden’s admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Moscow was not enthusiastic about this step, to say the least.
Also read: Calling Erdogan’s bluff on NATO
Viktor Bondarev, head of Russia’s Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, said Turkey is turning from a neutral country into an unfriendly one. The rhetoric against the former “partner” in the Russian media has also become more aggressive.
What influenced the Erdogan team’s decision?
First, Ankara needed to demonstrate solidarity with its NATO partners ahead of the North Atlantic Council meeting in Vilnius on July 11.
Second, Turkey might have sent a signal emphasizing the importance of the agreements taking into account Moscow’s refusal to extend the agreement that allows Ukraine to export grain and other food products safely across the Black Sea.
Unfortunately, Russia did not seem to pick up on this signal and declared the agreements terminated.
It is fair to say that this decision was expected. As early as June, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian president, had indicated that the chances of extending the grain deal were virtually non-existent.
Peskov outlined the conditions set by the Russian side, which included the integration of the Russian Agricultural Bank into the SWIFT system. While the European Union had expressed willingness to consider this step, ultimately no action was taken.
What now?
Russia stands to face a significant loss of access to in additional revenues. Furthermore, the strained relations with Turkey could deteriorate further, resulting in the loss of yet another ally and disrupting the existing supply chain.
As far as the world economy is concerned, Chicago wheat futures rose by 3.5% after the disruption of the grain deal. However, catastrophic consequences are not expected, as Russian grain exports will not be affected, thereby avoiding any significant deficit.
Moreover, the market has already factored in the decline in crop yields and exports from Ukraine. In turn, the primary concerns revolve around the potential impact of El Niño on farms and the US Federal Reserve’s rhetoric.
In relation to the latter, if the hawkish monetary policy persists, the likelihood of a recession will rise, consequently impacting not only the S&P 500 but also the prices of commodities such as oil and wheat.
SEMICON events transcend the chip wars
SEMI, the international association representing the semiconductor equipment and materials industry and other parts of the electronics manufacturing and design chain, recently held two annual regional exhibitions and conferences: SEMICON China in Shanghai and SEMICON West in San Francisco.
Judging from the large number of exhibitors and wide range of technologies presented at the events, it is obvious that the global semiconductor industry is endeavoring to maintain cohesion despite the interference and interventions of tech war-agitating politicians.
SEMICON China 2023 was held at the Shanghai New International Expo Center from June 29 to July 1, attracting a record 1,100 exhibitors from China, Japan, Korea, Europe and the US.
Related forums discussed integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing technology and supply chain issues, automotive IC design, power and compound semiconductors, carbon neutrality and sustainability, and workforce development.
It was the largest of the regional SEMI exhibitions, which in the words of its sponsor was “a key enabler of collaboration and innovation across the entire electronics supply chain including chip design, manufacturing, assembly and test, equipment and materials.”
The exhibition was preceded by the China Semiconductor Technology International Conference (CSTIC), organized by SEMI and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) together with the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
It was held on June 26 and 27 in Shanghai and virtually from June 29 to July 26 at SEMI Cloud.
The conference featured symposiums covering manufacturing processes, systems integration, materials, equipment, device and circuit design, and emerging semiconductor technologies.
Topics such as artificial intelligence, 6G, neuromorphic computing, advanced memory, 3D integration and Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) were also addressed.
Sponsors included Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC), Naura and Anji from China; Tokyo Electron and Fujifilm from Japan; ASM, Edwards and Zeiss from Europe; Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA from the US; and ACM Research, which was founded in California but now conducts most of its product development, manufacturing and service activities through its subsidiary in Shanghai.
ACM Research owns an extensive patent portfolio in deposition and photoresist processing, single wafer and batch wet cleaning, electroplating, stress-free polishing, wafer manufacturing and packaging. It remains active in North America and also has operations in Europe, South Korea and elsewhere in Asia.
ACM Research’s example shows how difficult actual decoupling might be and how much semiconductor-related technology is already available in China.
AMEC makes etch and deposition equipment. It has gained traction both in China and overseas, notably with Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest chip producer. AMEC recently won a legal battle in a Shanghai court against Lam Research, which had accused it of infringing on its etch-related patents.
The diversified Naura Technology Group makes etch, deposition, oxidation/diffusion, cleaning, annealing and other types of semiconductor production equipment.
Preliminary figures from AMEC and Naura indicate that their profits more than doubled year-on-year in the six months to June on sales growth of nearly 30% for AMEC and more than 60% for Naura.
This performance is attributed to US sanctions, which have led Chinese semiconductor makers to turn to domestic equipment makers.
Anji Microelectronics manufactures chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) slurries, post-CMP and post-etch cleaning solutions, photoresist strippers and other wet chemicals and additives used in the semiconductor manufacturing process.
SEMICON West 2023, North America’s most prominent microelectronics exhibition and conference, was held from July 11 to 13 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
Its overarching themes were supply chain disruptions, climate change and sustainability, and talent shortages – issues key to the long-term growth of the semiconductor industry.
Government investment in chip manufacturing, smart manufacturing with data and AI, heterogeneous design and integration using advanced packaging technology, smart mobility, smart medtech and other topics were also addressed.
Advanced packaging received particular attention from Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec), Applied Materials and others.
Cerebras Systems of Sunnyvale, California, won the 2023 SEMI Award for North America for process and technology integration for developing the world’s largest integrated circuit chip for complex artificial intelligence (AI) computation applications training with very large AI databases.
As reported in the daily SEMICON digest on July 12, Cerebras, “implemented wafer-scale integration with advanced packaging and system design for AI and other deep-learning applications as standalone units and in clusters for large-scale data centers.”
The Design Automation Conference (DAC) 2023, which ran from July 9 to 13, was held across the street from SEMICON West. DAC exhibitors and participants covered electronic design automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, embedded systems and software, automotive applications, RISC-V, and intellectual property and data security issues. Both events were crowded, with attendance reaching pre-Covid levels.
SEMI also released its mid-year semiconductor equipment forecast at SEMICON West, predicting an 18.6% decline in total sales of wafer fab, assembly & packaging, and test equipment to US$87.4 billion in calendar 2023, followed by a 14.4% rebound to an even $100 billion in 2024.
Forecasting a big round number would seem to indicate a fair amount of uncertainty, but SEMI is not alone in this regard.
SEMI did not publish a forecast for 2025, but its president and CEO, Ajit Manocha, said “Projections for robust long-term growth driven by high-performance computing and ubiquitous connectivity remain intact.”
Manocha, formerly CEO at GlobalFoundries, added that “Despite current headwinds, the semiconductor equipment market is set to see a strong rebound in 2024 after an adjustment in 2023 following a historic multi-year run.”
Sales of wafer fab equipment – including wafer processing, clean room and other facilities and mask/reticle equipment – are forecast to drop 18.8% to $76.4 billion in 2023 and then rebound by 14.8% in 2024, accounting for a fairly steady 87-88% of the total.
Sales of assembly & packaging equipment are expected to be more volatile and sales of test equipment less so, but they have a relatively small impact on the overall trend in capital spending.
The cycle is being driven by memory chips. Equipment sales to makers of NAND flash memory are forecast to drop by 51% to $84 billion this year and then rebound by 59% to $13.3 billion in 2024.
DRAM equipment sales, meanwhile, are forecast to drop by 28% to $8.8 billion this year and rebound by 31% to $11.6 billion in 2024.
Logic IC and foundry related demand is much more stable. It is forecast to decline by 6% to $50.1 billion this year and then rise by 3% to $51.6 billion in 2024.
China, Taiwan and South Korea remain the three largest markets for semiconductor equipment. SEMI expects Taiwan to take the lead this year and China to regain it in 2024.
The Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) has cut its sales forecast for fiscal 2023 (ends March 2024) from -5% to -23%.
The downturn has turned out to be more severe than the SEAJ had originally anticipated and reality has set in as fantasies about the metaverse and a quick rebound in PC and smartphone sales have faded.
Tokyo Electron, Japan’s leading semiconductor production equipment maker, had been touting a concept called MAGIC (metaverse, autonomous vehicles, green energy, IoT & information, and communications).
Now, CEO Toshiki Kawai, who is also chairman of the SEAJ, says the recovery of memory demand has been slower than initially expected.
Meanwhile, Samsung’s DRAM production is at a two-year low and, according to reports from South Korea, is likely to remain subdued for the rest of this year, with capacity expansion pushed out until there are clear signs of recovery in demand.
The SEAJ now expects semiconductor capital spending to come roaring back stronger than ever in fiscal 2024 and 2025, with rises in sales of Japanese equipment of 30% next year and 10% the year after catapulting the industry to new record highs.
It its view, the metaverse has been replaced by ChatGPT, electric vehicle and renewable energy demand remains strong, and a smart phone replacement cycle appears to have begun.
A forecast must be made, but that doesn’t mean it will turn out to be correct. A year ago, the SEAJ forecast 3.7% sales growth for fiscal 2023.
And it remains to be seen how sanctions on China and China’s retaliatory restrictions on exports of the niche chip-making metals gallium and germanium might drag down sales over the coming year.
Follow this writer on Twitter: @ScottFo83517667