With home prices dropping and residents being less interested in buying, Singapore’s condominium builders have a large debt burden that needs to be repaid within a year’s time. The most recent filings from the 80 builders that are listed on the Singapore stock exchange show that they have a combined debt of $23.5 Singapore dollars that will need to be repaid within the next year.
These looming debt obligations come in the midst of the highest vacancy rates for condominiums since 2006. This increase in vacancy combined with the reduced demand has led to the price of condos dropping and concerns that companies may have trouble refinancing their debt.
With the economy slowing from the 4.8 percent growth of the first quarter to 2.4 percent in the second quarter and the slowing growth of the population, many analysts are predicting that the drop in home prices has yet to reach its lowest point.
Kah Ling Chan of S&P Singapore said,
“We’re at that point in the cycle when every quarter you’re seeing selling prices come down a little bit and secondary market transactions aren’t very active. I suspect we haven’t seen the bottom yet.”
The trend is not looking much better for the developers of residential homes. Sales of homes both new and secondary have slowed and as the demand slows, more builders are having to rely on loans to complete their projects. Even with the slowing demand, the rate that new houses are being built remains high and this could have a further influence on the dropping prices.
Along with refinancing and expanding their debt, some builders are responding to the slowing growth and demand by expanding their operations to locations outside of Singapore. Many believe that this development indicates that it will be some time before the property market in Singapore starts to recover.
On October 6, the social media giant Facebook announced that its deal to purchase the mobile messaging application WhatsApp has been completed. This is seen as a significant deal with Facebook, already one of the largest forces in internet communication, acquiring a company that offers messaging services to millions of internet users.
The price of the deal was valued at approximately $19 billion US dollars back in February when the parties first came to an agreement, but the value has since then increased. The bulk of the deal is to be paid in Facebook stock and a recent increase in the share price has pushed the value of the payment close to $22 billion US dollars.
As part of the deal, WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum will remain at the head of the company along with taking a seat on the Facebook board of directors. The other cofounder of WhatsApp, Brian Acton, will also remain with the company. The two founders of the messaging app are expected to receive millions of shares from Facebook as compensation for staying with the acquired company.
In a statement to the AFP, Facebook said of the deal,
“We are looking forward to connecting even more people around the world, and continuing to create value for the people who use WhatsApp.”
The deal cleared its final hurdle the Friday before the announcement after being approved by regulators from the European Union. Some telecom companies did show opposition to the deal, claiming that it would reduce competition and vest an undue amount of power into the hands of one company.
Joaquin Almunia, the Competition Commissioner from the EU, stated,
“We have carefully reviewed this proposed acquisition and come to the conclusion that it would not hamper competition in this dynamic and growing market.”
A student by the name of Agatha Tan has recently posted a letter that she wrote to her school principal in regard to the content of a sex education class that is taught in her school. The complaints mostly stem from content that appears to support traditional gender stereotypes while also diminishing the identity and feelings of women and individuals that are not heterosexual.
An American Christian group that goes by the name Focus on the Family organizes the workshop. If you were an American or familiar with politics in the US, you would probably already understand the reputation and goals of this group. In the US, they are known for having a long history of political meddling and trying to get their agenda taught in schools. With their efforts beginning to falter in the US, it appears that they are trying their hand at influencing the minds of children and citizens here in Singapore and in other nations.
The course is called “It’s Uncomplicated” and the student that posted this letter finds the greatest concern in content that implies that males cannot always understand women when they give yes or no answers. Claiming that sometimes a yes is a no and vice versa. This is obviously a dangerous impression to create in the minds of young men. When any person tells you no, they generally mean no.
The student also went on to criticize content that reduces women to emotionally frail creatures that continually need the support of men and other sections of the workbook that push the idea that the lives and feelings of LGBT groups are invalid or simply confused.
The bottom line is that sex education in schools is supposed to be practical and that it should not work to diminish any group of students in any way. If the workshop is driven by ideology to the extent that Agatha Tan claims, she is right to question it and administrators should reconsider whether it has any place in the classroom.
Is Beijing targeting Indonesia? According to The Diplomat, the Natuna Islands may be the next claim of China in the South China Sea. But the difference this time is the fact that it belongs to Indonesia.
Beijing recently promulgated a map with certain boundaries that claims parts of the South China Sea, including the Natuna Islands as part of its territory. Unfortunately, Beijing faces negligible resistance to the ongoing annexation of the South China Sea.
Over the last two years, China has reinforced its territorial ambitions via intimidation, coercion, military force, naval patrols, localised blockades, oil rig placements, construction of facilities on numerous small islands and sub-surface shoals, as well as antagonistic and hostile actions directed to ASEAN claimants.
2013 map by SinoMaps Press. Dashes in pink denote Beijing’s claimed “nine-dashed line” (now comprising ten dashes). Superimposed black dashed lines indicate hypothetical ways of connecting the two southernmost dashes in Beijing’s self-proclaimed southern boundary. All three hypotheticals overlap with Indonesia’s claimed territory around the Natuna Islands.
Until recently, Indonesia seemed immune to China’s territorial ambition, with Indonesia’s government offering itself as an honest broker and neutral mediator for conflicts amongst its neighbours – China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan.
But China’s recent inclusion of the Natuna region in newly sanctioned maps and Chinese passports, Indonesia’s newly elected President, Joko Widodo, may have to answer China’s aggression as part of a foreign policy response and in order to protect Indonesia’s territorial integrity.
In March 2014, Indonesia acknowledged — for the first time — that China’s unilateral claims on most of the South China Sea include parts of Indonesia’s Riau province, to which Natuna and other islands belong. Despite Indonesia’s attempts to avoid the South China Sea conflicts, it finds itself the latest victim of China’s territorial ambitions.
The Natuna archipelago has been the subject of Indonesia-China conflicts. Until the 1970’s, most Natuna residents were ethnic Chinese. Deadly anti-Chinese riots plagued Indonesia from the 1960s through to the 1980s. A major eruption occurred in 1998, leading to a decline of the ethnic Chinese population on Natuna.
The decline was more than 80 percent, with many ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia believing that a rumoured secret meeting was held between Deng Xiaoping and Natuna islanders of Chinese origin. The assumption is they asked that Deng to back their bid for independence from Indonesia, or to incorporate the region as a Chinese territorial possession.Neither happened.
As part of a nationwide transmigration initiative, the Indonesian government started to relocate ethnically Malay Indonesians to Natuna in the 1980s, for the stated reasons of “importing skills and relieving population pressures on the overcrowded main island of Java”. This was perceived by local Indoesian Chinese as a way of diluting Chinese influence locally.
In 1996, Indonesia perceived that China had signalled territorial claims on the seas near Natuna. In response, it conducted a major naval exercise, deploying almost 20 000 personnel to the Natuna Sea.
Jakarta wished to demonstrate resistance to any perceived Chinese attempts at controlling their territories, which were being developed for natural gas production. The private entities involved in this infrastructure project were US energy companies.
At the time, the military efforts of Indonesais appeared to deter China’s ambitions. But after 18 years of military expansion, China is unlikely to be deterred by Indonesian efforts, nor perceive it as a credible deterrent.
In 1996, Indonesian military exercises in the Natuna area motivated a regional specialist at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Dewi Fortuna Anwar,to state “China respects strength. If they see you as being weak, they’ll eat you alive.”
The late Deng Xiaoping’s wait-it-out mantra regarding the East and South China Sea disputes was: “This generation is not wise enough to settle such a difficult issue. It would be an idea to count on the wisdom of following generations to settle it.”
This sentiment has been superseded by Xi Jinping, who has effectively dominated the South China Sea by virtue of China’s navy. Apparently, the dictum of Mao Zedong, who said that “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”, will hold true for any future developments.
It might be wise for the Singapore government to review its diplomatic positions and foreign policy. China is many thousands of kilometres away. But for the foreseeable future, we’ll continue to be a part of Southeast China. Any perception of Singapore as a Chinese enclave weakens our strategic position in Southeast China, economically and politically.
Planning on getting a resale HDB in the open market? In between trying to find that perfect unit in the perfect location, and also not being able to get a bank valuation on your intended purchase without first spending on a downpayment (What the heck right?!), it could seem quite daunting.
Here’s what you’ll need to do to buy a resale HDB:
1) Once the Holy Grail of resale flats has been found, you and the seller will have to negotiate on the resale price of the flat.
What will help you to figure out a pricing for the flat since you can’t get a bank to do it at this point, is the Resale Flat Prices e-Service. This will show you the resale transacted prices of HDB flats over the past 2 years.
2) To secure your Option to Purchase with the seller, you will have to pay an option fee of between $1 to $1000 (decided between buyer and seller) after which the seller cannot grant another OTP until your option expires.
3) The Option period is 21 calendar days including Saturday, Sunday and public holidays during which time you are now able to submit it to HDB for a valuation report. This needs to be done if you intend to use your CPF for payments, or take up a HDB or bank loan to finance the purchase. (This pretty much means all of us.)
4) At this point, if you intend to take up a bank loan, you need to start searching asap as your will not be able to exercise your OTP with HDB should you not have a loan in place by that time. You can check the latest home loan rates here.
5) Exercise your OTP and pay the seller a deposit.The deposit, including the Option Fee previously paid, must not exceed $5,000 in total. The amount of deposit is negotiated between the you and sellers and will usually be in the region of $1 – $4000.
6) Book your first HDB appointment. This is where the resale application is considered and HDB checks your eligibility and grants approvals etc. You can also apply for any grants from HDB at this point.
7) 4 – 6 weeks later you will be called in for your second appointment where completion will take place.
On Monday, a report from the World Bank revised projected economic forecasts for the developing nations of East Asia. Key factors in the revised forecast include China’s slowing economic expansion and the tightening of monetary policy in developed nations.
The World Bank growth forecast for China was originally set at 7.6% for this year and 7.5% for 2015 back in April. The latest report has the figures being cut to 7.4% for this year and 7.2% for next year. All of these figures represent a slowing of growth from China’s 7.7% for the year in 2013. The developing countries of East Asia are forecast to see 6.9% growth in 2015, which is down from the earlier projection of 7.1%.
The World Bank’s chief Asian economist, Suhdir Shetty, said that the slowing of economic growth in China is nothing so dramatic that it will have a major impact on the region’s economy as a whole, saying, “China’s slowdown is gradual. It is slower but it’s not the bottom falling out of China’s growth.”
Growth is also expected to slow in South East Asia’s five biggest economies of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. As a whole, these economies are expected to drop from the 5% growth that they saw in 2013 to 4.5% for this year. However, they are expected to rebound in 2015 for an expected growth of 5%.
Shetty of the World Bank stated that the ASEAN five should look forward to an increasing demand for their exports, but that these nations will also need to invest in infrastructure if they hope to sustain the growth into the future.
The greatest risk for these economies going forward will be the tightening of monetary policy in places like the United States, Europe and Japan. The tightening of monetary policy could lead to higher interest rates and reduced cash flow to developing nations that rely on these funds to service their deficits.
One of the major adopters of Bitcoin, Overstock.com, recently announced the creation of a partnership with Counterparty on a project code-named Medici. Taking its name from the 14th Century banking dynasty that dominated Florence, Medici is the front-end and portal to the decentralised stock exchange of the Counterparty platform.
Counterparty describes itself as a “…free and open platform that puts powerful financial tools in the hands of everyone with an Internet connection”. Operating of the Bitcoin network, Counterparty uses the security inherent in the Bitcoin protocol and the block chain underlying it to create a secured marketplace.
According to the Counterparty website, this allows them to extend the functionality of Bitcoin from being just a P2P payment channel to serving as a disintermediary platform, allowing individuals to engage in contracts and create tokens, using the security and public ledger nature of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Overstock and Counterparty intend to create a stock market on top of the Bitcoin block chain. Counterparty and Overstock jointly described the partnership as “…helping Bitcoin do for Wall Street what it has already begun to do for payments”.
This project is seemingly underway, with key engineering personnel from within Counterparty being allocated to work on Medici, while full-time work on the Counterparty protocol itself continues.
Counterparty is also scaling up, hiring new developers to expand its team, as well as developing projects designed to expand the infrastructure of the Bitcoin ecosystem, such as Medici itself.
Feral hogs cause a variety of nuisance problems all over the world and this problem is also true in Australia. However, a recent story about a wild pig has caught the bemused attention of individuals all over the world.
Last month, a wild pig known as Swino gained social media fame after he went on what could be described as a drunken rampage. After stealing and drinking 18 beers from campers, the pig went on to fight a cow and then he celebrated his drunken antics by taking a swim in a nearby river.
The story came to the attention of the media when campers reported waking up to find the pig raiding their beer supply. Later that evening, another group of campers saw him running from an angry cow, where he then escaped to take a swim in the river.
After his evening of drinking and trouble making, the pig had gone missing from the scene and he was not spotted again until just recently. Unfortunately for Swino and his fans, his reappearance was the discovery of his body.
A road crew discovered his body a month later on the side of a road approximately a kilometer from the site of his famous night of drinking. He was identified by distinctive markings so this looks to be the end of the world’s favorite partying pig.
The world has become all too familiar with protest movements that turn chaotic and sometimes even violent. Almost everybody has seen media images from around the world of protestors hurling rocks at security forces and vandalizing property. However, we find a starkly different picture when we see media reports from the “Occupy” protests that are currently going on in Hong Kong.
If you watch the coverage of the student protests in Hong Kong, you are very likely to see the civil discussion of their political views rather than the common picture of the angry protestor shouting and acting aggressively. Other scenes that have become common are those of students finishing their schoolwork or cleaning up the litter that has been left in the streets. Many people find this to be a refreshing change from the protests that we have become used to and it seems that other protests could learn from this disciplined form of civil disobedience.
Part of the answer to why these protests are much more civil than many others are, lies in the fact that the protest organizers set rules for what type of behavior will be acceptable as part of the movement. By educating their fellow protestors on how they should act, they have taken steps to avoid violence and disorder and this has helped their movement to gain wider support in the HK community.
Holding and maintaining an organized protest that doesn’t dissolve into chaos can be difficult. When people protest, they feel passionately about the cause that has brought them to the streets. These students have seen the importance of not allowing the disobedience to extend beyond forms that are necessary to make their point. If they can maintain these protests and keep them from taking a turn for the worse, these students could turn into a political force that can affect significant change.
The social media website Facebook has operated under a policy that requires users to identify under their legal names. While there wasn’t much in the way of active enforcement of this policy, users could be locked out from their accounts if they were flagged by other users for creating an account with a false name.
This policy recently came under scrutiny when members of the LGBT community were barred from their accounts for using names other than the ones that are on their birth certificates. The account suspensions were not actively executed by the social media website, but they occurred automatically when users started flagging their accounts for using false names.
Members of San Francisco’s drag community first brought the problem to public attention when many of them found that they had been locked out of their accounts for not using their legal names. The group then turned to other social media sites to express their disappointment with the policy, claiming that it is discriminatory and that it can also endanger individuals that are trying to avoid potential stalkers and victims of abuse.
This has led Facebook to consider changes to the policy with the company releasing a statement where they apologized and promised to fix they way that the policy is handled. The company has already held a meeting with the Transgender Law Center to discuss ways in which the policy can be changed and how to handle the potential for future problems.
In a statement following the meeting, a representative from the Transgender Law Center said,
“We had a very productive meeting with Facebook today in which they apologized for the way this situation has been handled and they committed to making changes to the way they enforce their ‘real names’ policy to ensure that folks who need to use chosen names that reflect their authentic selves online are able to do so.”
